Don Newman

January 7, 2022

The team that oversaw the purchase of the vaccines, face masks and other essential material to fight the COVID-19 pandemic is being reunited to oversee some of the largest military procurement projects in Canada’s history.

Defence Minister Anita Anand took up her new duties in the cabinet shuffle after last fall’s election. She has on her plate the non-defence but highly political job of cleaning up the department’s sexual harassment and sexual abuse scandal. Female military personnel have launched complaints of improper behaviour against male officers in the senior ranks – all the way to two different Chiefs of Defence Staff.

The allegations have attracted widespread news coverage and public interest and are likely to do so for some time yet. But they have nothing to do with the real job of the armed forces. Defending Canadians and sharing the burden of doing that in alliances with other like-minded countries.

Before moving to Defence Anand was the minister of Public Services and Procurement Canada, with the responsibility for leading the massive job of acquiring the vaccines and all the other things needed for the battle against COVID.  Her deputy minister – the top public servant in the department was a veteran Ottawa hand, Bill Matthews. Now beginning on January 11th, Matthews will be her deputy at Defence.

Sex always sells politically and just about every other way. but the really important issue before the Defence department and the government generally are two contracts to replace aging equipment for both the Navy and the Air Force that was acquired in the 1980s.

The government has announced that the decision to replace the aging CF-18 fighters that the Government bought  back when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s father Pierre was PM, has come down to two planes: the F-35 stealth fighter built by built by Lockheed Martin in the United States, and a Swedish fighter, the JAS 39 Gripen which is built by Saab.

The F-35 was originally picked by the Canadian government. But when the Conservatives were in power the cost over runs on the prototypes became so expensive that then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper cancelled that deal and said Canada would look for other options. In the 2015 election campaign Trudeau said a Liberal government would look elsewhere for a replacement for the CF-18s. But a new contest to buy a replacement fighter was held, and along with the Saab,  the F-35 is the other finalist and in many minds the favorite to end up anyway as the replacement for the CF-18.

At the time the contract with Lockheed Martin was cancelled much was made of replacing that selection with a cheaper aircraft. The argument went that the money saved could then be spent on other defence priorities that would otherwise be neglected.

That same argument is now again being used against another even bigger defence contract that has been directed to Irving Shipyards and – wait for it== Lockheed Martin.  The contract is for 15 warships to be built for the Canadians Navy to replace aging destroyers that are already out of service and the fleet of frigates that were also committed to when Pierre Trudeau was prime minister.

The plan is to replace the destroyers and the frigates with one type of ship. The ship would be known as a Canadian Surface Combatant – bigger than a frigate and small than a destroyer.

For a variety of reasons that always plague military procurements, although not a single ship has been built, the cost for the entire 15 ship program has skyrocketed. Back in 2008 when the plan to replace two different classes of ships with single type of vessel was first adopted, the total cost was estimated at $26 billion. How things have changed. The most recent estimate by the Parliamentary Budget Officer is that the 15 ships would cost a total of $77.3 billion. A further one-year delay would drive the cost up to $79.7 billion and a two year delay to $82.1 billion.

Those types of forecasts are prompting calls for a review of the program. There are reports that the Defence Department is looking at the costing and the viability its plans. One option being talked about would be to build only three or maybe four of the Surface Combatants, and then acquire smaller, other types of vessels to play more specific roles.

Supporters of that kind of plan say that is the way the navy has always operated. Moreover, the money saved could be used – wait for it – on other defence priorities that would otherwise be neglected.

In pre-COVID times that argument had been turned away by the department. Now with the country’s finances ravished by the pandemic, the idea my get a better hearing. In fact, with the country’s books in the shape they are in, any money saved may not be spent on other defence priorities but instead on other departments’ priorities or on debt reduction.

Those are questions for the long term. In the short term the team that bought the vaccine is going to have to decide how much and where they will spend money on planes and boats.

Contributing Writer and Columnist Don Newman, an Officer of the Order of Canada and Lifetime Member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery, is Executive Vice President of Rubicon Strategy, based in Ottawa.