NDDN Committee Report

LIST OF RECOMMENDATIONS

RECOMMENDATION 1:

The government provide a comprehensive update of Canada’s defence policy at least every four years and report to Parliament in order to clearly identify Canadian defence priorities and the capabilities and equipment the Canadian Forces need to meet their commitments.

RECOMMENDATION 2:

The government inform Parliament when any significant changes are made in the planned expenditures or methods of payment for all major military equipment acquisition and related support projects which have received effective project approval from Treasury Board.

RECOMMENDATION 3:

The Canadian Navy undertake an immediate review of its submariner training program to ensure that it can sustain a cadre of qualified submariners and provide the required amount of at-sea experience on an operational submarine. The Chief of the Maritime Staff should provide a report on this review to the Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs.

RECOMMENDATION 4:

The training time at sea on an operational submarine provided for initial and refresher submariner training should be maintained at the currently planned level and increased if the review of the navy’s submariner training program deems it necessary.

RECOMMENDATION 5:

The Navy review the firefighting training provided to all naval personnel on submarines and ensure that the simulated fire situations used for training submariners are as realistic as possible to illustrate the conditions that could be encountered during a fire aboard a submarine.

RECOMMENDATION 6:

All major crown projects valued at more than $100 million proposed by the Department of National Defence be reported to the Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs for possible examination, as previously recommended in this committee’s June 2000 procurement study.

RECOMMENDATION 7:

Parliament examine ways to increase the resources and the time available to the Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs to carry out the examination of major crown projects proposed by the Department of National Defence.

RECOMMENDATION 8:

The recommendations of recent reports and updates of the Office of the Auditor General concerning the procurement process of the Department of National Defence be reviewed for potential implementation as quickly as possible and reported to this committee.

RECOMMENDATION 9:

All major equipment acquisition projects undertaken by the Department of National Defence be the subject of rigorous and detailed risk analysis, in keeping with the recommendations of the Office of the Auditor General, with a report to this committee.

RECOMMENDATION 10:

Information on the status of major military equipment acquisition projects be added as an integral part of the Part III — Plans and Priorities of the Estimates documents for the Department of National Defence, instead of just an internet link. Furthermore, the Department, in consultation with the Treasury Board, should review the possibility of adding more information on the rationale for these acquisitions in these documents.

RECOMMENDATION 11:

The Office of the Auditor General consider undertaking a review of all major updates and refits of the Victoria class submarines which may be undertaken over the course of their operational service.

RECOMMENDATION 12:

The Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs is disappointed and angered by the inertia and systematic obstruction of the Department of National Defence in producing the bilingual documents required for the Committee to function smoothly. This has frustrated the Committee in doing its work. On a number of occasions they have proposed tabling English-only versions of documents requested by the Committee. The reasons given for the delay in providing bilingual documents centred on prohibitive costs and inadequate time for translating technically complex material. Whereas this has led to a marked slowdown in the Committee’s work, and whereas documents as important as the contract, the list of deficiencies in the submarines and the list of corrective measures took four months to be tabled and certain other requested documents have still not been tabled, it is recommended that the Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs file a letter of complaint to the Minister of National Defence and report our concern about easy availability of translated documents to the Commissioner of Official Languages.