The Department of National Defence has launched
public consultations for the development of a new defence policy for Canada.
Canadian Defence Matters is attempting to come up with some answers to
the ten questions contained in the “Defence Policy Review Public Consultation Document 2016".
Question nine asks “What additional measures could DND undertake, along with partner
departments, to improve defence procurement?”
According to the Public Consultation Document “An effective defence procurement process and
a strong and vibrant Canadian defence industrial base are important to Canada’s
security and economy – not only for reasons of economic prosperity – but also
to ensure a range of capabilities available to provide Canada with an
operational and technological edge. It is imperative that the CAF have the
tools they need to carry out their day-to-day duties at home and abroad.”
It would not be unreasonable to point out that the
DND has faced challenges in delivering both large and complex defence
procurement project as well as smaller ones. To be fair, as the department
points out, the DND has let over 40,000 contracts a year for both services and
goods since 2009, with an upward trend to 60,000 in the last two fiscal years.
What is needed, according to Douglas Bland in his
introduction to Allan Williams’ Reinventing Canadian Defence Procurement: A
View from the Inside, is “a
predictable defence-management system that joins strategic analysis to
statements of defence requirements to efficient procurement, which in concert
produce appropriate military capabilities. The system in its entirety” he says “ought
to sustain the Canadian Forces by flowing force development and the resultant
future force into the engaged present force”.
Currently defence procurement as practiced in Canada
does none of those things. The truth is that the current Canadian
defence-procurement ‘system’ is, in Alan Williams’ words, “a bureaucratic muddle,” characterized by
a lack of accountability at all levels.
What is not needed is adding more layers of ‘accountability’
to the system, it will not help. Departmental reviews and new studies will not
make things better; in fact these are exactly the kind of things that have
given us our current convoluted and drawn out process, one overburdened by non-defence
considerations, overly bureaucratic, and rife with political interference
What is needed is a single point of responsibility
for defence procurement.
It is long past time that a single agency, one with
cabinet level representation, be responsible for the 53 percent of federal
government acquisition dollars that are devoted to defence outputs. In the past
three years alone 52 percent ($10.3 billion) of all government contracts in
excess of $100 million were for defence materiel and 56 percent of the total
asset base of the federal government is held by the Department of National
Defence.
The additional measures
the DND could undertake, along with partner departments, to improve defence
procurement would be to create a stand-alone
defence procurement agency, under the direction of the minister of
National Defence, which would be exclusively responsible for all military procurement contracts.
Defence
Policy Review
Defence
Policy Review Public Consultation Document 2016
Reinventing
Canadian Defence Procurement Foreword by Dr. Douglas Bland
Reinventing
Canadian Defence Procurement: A View from the Inside
