15 juin 2020 | Local, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

Auditors target Defence Department for poor oversight of military-spending plan

Saskatoon / 650 CKOM

The Canadian Press

June 14, 2020 10:28 am

OTTAWA — The Department of National Defence has been called out for assigning less than three people to monitor the rollout of the Liberal government's plan to spend hundreds of billions of dollars in new military equipment, troops and training.

The criticism is contained in an internal Defence Department audit and follows previous concerns that delays and other problems are slowing implementation of the plan, which was unveiled in 2017 and promised to spend $553 billion in the military over 20 years.

The plan known as Strong, Secure, Engaged (SSE) is seen as critical for replacing much of the military's aging equipment and adding new capabilities such as armed drones and defences in cyber and space that are needed for 21st-century warfare.

Yet the Defence Department earlier this year revealed that more than 100 of the roughly 300 capital projects associated with the plan were facing delays, with the delivery dates for some urgently needed equipment pushed several years into the future.

The audit report dated last November but only recently published online underscores the importance of monitoring and oversight to ensure the plan is properly implemented over the next two decades.

Auditors instead found "limited dedicated resources to co-ordinate and monitor implementation" of the plan, according to the report, with fewer than three full-time staff members specifically tasked with the job.

By comparison, there were 32 staff members assigned to oversee a cost-cutting exercise launched by the previous Conservative government in 2013 that aimed to eliminate $1.2 billion in annual waste within the department. That effort met with limited success.

"The capacity of the SSE implementation team is limited and as such, certain monitoring functions and independent validation of information are not being performed," according to the audit report.

The auditors also flagged concerns that the lack of monitoring meant senior defence officials were not receiving clear and accurate information about the state of the plan, raising fears about bad decisions being made.

Defence Department spokeswoman Jessica Lamirande said some of the issues identified by the auditors have been addressed while work on others is underway, though she did not say how many staff are now responsible for monitoring the plan.

"We welcome reviews of this nature, which help us find where adjustments and improvements can be made to ensure the continued efficient progress and oversight of the policy," Lamirande said in an email.

"All of these audit recommendations are being addressed, with several already completed and the others well underway. In fact, some recommendations validated work that was already in progress."

Defence analyst David Perry of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute expressed surprise at the auditors' findings given senior officials had emphasized the importance of properly implementing the plan when it was released three years ago.

That emphasis included monitoring progress, which Perry described as fundamental for identifying problems and areas that need attention — such as delayed procurement projects — to ensure the military gets what it has been promised and needs.

The need to properly implement the plan and eliminate delays is even more important now, he added, given fears the federal government could start cutting defence spending as it seeks to find ways to pay for its COVID-19 emergency programs.

"You've got a government whose wholesale attention is focused on the response to COVID," Perry said.

"Any kind of delay in a program and the department basically not seizing the moment that it's got opens up potential vulnerability given the huge degree of economic and fiscal uncertainty that the department and government are facing right now."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 14, 2020.

Lee Berthiaume, The Canadian Press

https://www.ckom.com/2020/06/14/auditors-target-defence-department-for-poor-oversight-of-military-spending-plan/

Sur le même sujet

  • Port of Montreal busier than ever, creating opportunities for smugglers

    12 mars 2019 | Local, Sécurité

    Port of Montreal busier than ever, creating opportunities for smugglers

    Christopher Reynolds, The Canadian Press On a crisp day in early March, Tony Boemi looks out on the stacked shipping containers that stretch into the horizon of the 26 kilometre-long Port of Montreal. "We've been going up tremendously," the port authority vice-president says. Traffic at Canada's second-largest port rose nine per cent in 2018 to the equivalent of more than 1.6 million 20-foot containers for the fifth straight year of record volumes, prompting concerns the docks will be overloaded by 2022. Vancouver and Halifax, the largest and third-largest ports, respectively, also saw record container traffic last year. "I'd be lying if I said we weren't struggling with managing the sudden surge," Boemi says. Driving the boom is Canadian demand for clothing, appliances and other consumer products made in Asia, as well as a new free trade agreement with Europe. However, the surge in traffic comes with a downside: The additional containers present an opportunity for criminals to capitalize on limited law enforcement resources and hide more contraband among the legitimate goods. Bud Garrick, an investigator with Presidia Security Consulting and former deputy director-general of the RCMP's criminal intelligence service, said imported drugs and exported stolen cars constitute the biggest smuggling problem, with authorities nabbing only a small fraction of the spoils. "Marine ports are an attractive environment for individuals with ill means and mind to smuggle things into Canada," he said. "The amount of cargo -- shipping containers -- that moves in and out of ports is phenomenal...It's a magnitude problem." The criminal allure of ports is simple. Airports are under too much scrutiny, and air freight is costly. Overland smuggling does occur, but on a smaller scale. "Trying to intercept smuggled cargo at a port is expensive and disruptive, and you'll never have enough resources to catch most things through random screening," Peter Hall, an associate professor of urban studies at Simon Fraser University, said in an email. "Mostly 1/8the CBSA 3/8 focus on screening for terrorist and bio-hazards." A 2015 federal auditor general's report found that the Canada Border Services Agency "did not fully have the necessary authorities, information, practices and controls to implement its enforcement priorities and prevent the export of goods that contravene Canada's export laws." Just like legitimate trade, black market port activity works both ways. Incoming ships bring drugs such as cocaine and heroin, while outbound ships contain a growing number of stolen vehicles. "The most prolific is actually in Alberta," said Henry Tso, vice-president of investigative services at the Insurance Bureau of Canada. "A lot of the cars are being shipped from Alberta to various ports in Canada, mainly Vancouver." More than 25,000 vehicles were stolen in Alberta in 2018, part of a 50 per cent increase over the past five years that stems in part from overseas demand for high-end pickup trucks and SUVs. The thefts, which recent cases have linked to criminal organizations in West Africa, northern Europe, the Middle East and China, rely on human as well as technological flaws. "Certain docks, there are some you know are run by organized crime. Even in Quebec, like the Montreal ports, one terminal is clean, the other one is not clean," said Tso. "The major issue is corruption," said Anthony Nicaso, who has authored more than two-dozen books on organized crime. "There is no political will to fight organized crime," he said, "probably because money does not stink, so who cares -- money is money." Back at the Montreal port, Boemi estimates the CBSA thoroughly inspects about three per cent of containers that roll through the port. The CBSA declined to give statistics, but noted that screening devices such as gamma-ray detectors -- which sense radioactive material -- scan each container. "The CBSA requires marine carriers to electronically transmit marine cargo data to the Agency 24 hours prior to the loading of cargo at a foreign port. This requirement allows the CBSA to effectively identify threats to Canada's health, safety and security and take actions prior to cargo and conveyances leaving foreign ports," the CBSA said in an email. A Canadian Senate report from 2006 found that 15 per cent of stevedores and more than two-thirds of checkers who worked at the Montreal port had criminal records, along with more than half of the workers at an outside company contracted to pick up waste and maintain ships at the docks. In an effort to boost security, the Port of Montreal now requires that truckers with Transport Canada security clearance have their fingerprints scanned upon entry. The port and CBSA have signed on for a trial run of blockchain technology that aims to better secure and streamline freight shipping. Jean-Pierre Fortin, president of the Customs and Immigration Union representing some 10,500 CBSA employees, is not satisfied. "With stolen cars, with drugs, with guns, we need to increase our capacity to monitor this properly," he said. https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/port-of-montreal-busier-than-ever-creating-opportunities-for-smugglers-1.4330014

  • Senator critiques defence procurement process

    13 février 2019 | Local, Aérospatial

    Senator critiques defence procurement process

    by Chris Thatcher An Ontario Senator says defence procurement needs better oversight and an improved process if it is to avoid the problems affecting the government's efforts to replace the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) CF-188 fighter jet fleet. “The fiasco of fighter jet replacement is the best example of a procurement system that is cumbersome, bureaucratic and beset by political interference,” Senator Nicole Eaton wrote in an article originally published in The Hill Times. “Unless ministers start to devote close attention to the management of major projects, or until the process is overhauled, Canadians can continue to expect poor outcomes and wasted taxpayer dollars.” Eaton is a member of the Senate National Finance Committee, which launched a study last fall into the processes and financial aspects of defence procurement. It held its first hearing on Oct. 30 and expects to conclude later this year. In her article, the senator critiqued the process by which Conservative and Liberal governments have struggled to replace the aging CF-188 Hornets, noting that while both Canada and Australia are members of the U.S.-led Joint Strike Fighter program to develop the F-35, Australia received its first two operational F-35s in December while Canada, as part of an interim measure, is poised to take delivery of the first of 25 “well-used” Australian F-18s. “As we take possession of Australia's scrap, Canada is in the early stages of a minimum five-year-long process to pick a replacement for the F-18, which will be more than 50 years old before it is retired in the 2030s,” she wrote. The current government bears blame for creating some of the problems with the fighter file, she wrote, but “military procurement has bedeviled successive governments, Liberal and Conservative alike.” She attributed part of the problem to political interference for both partisan advantage and regional turf protection, but said the main reason for “paralysis in military procurement in Canada is it is too cumbersome and bureaucratic. Process is paramount and results are secondary. “There are layers of committees, depending on the size of the project, with membership from Public Services and Procurement Canada, National Defence, and Innovation, Science and Economic Development,” she wrote. “The consensus-based decision-making process on which these committees operate is supposed to avoid a big mistake — no doubt an appealing quality for a risk-averse bureaucracy, but the downside is the system is not conducive to fast action. Simply put, the buck stops nowhere.” Eaton suggested that bureaucratic morass has resulted in an inability to spend allotted project budgets, an indication the government could struggle to fulfil the commitments laid out in its 2017 defence policy, Strong, Secure, Engaged (SSE). “In the last fiscal year, the policy projected capital spending of $6.1 billion, yet only $3.7 billion was spent. This year, $6.55 billion is called for under SSE, but total appropriations to date amount to $4 billion,” she noted. “Given this poor track record, the idea that military spending can be cranked up by 70 per cent over 10 years, as envisioned in Strong, Secure, Engaged, looks increasingly fanciful. At the Finance committee's first hearing on the procurement system, Patrick Finn, assistant deputy minister, Materiel at the Department of National Defence, and André Fillion, assistant deputy minister for defence and marine procurement at Public Services and Procurement Canada, faced a barrage of questions on ongoing participation in the F-35 program, the authorities and mandates of interdepartmental committees involved in military procurement, and about the challenge of balancing military requirements with equipment costs and opportunities for Canadian industry. “Buying a fighter plane isn't like buying a compact car, and the role of the government is very important. We had to adapt our method of supply to the context of fighter jets,” Fillion told the senators. He said a draft RFP released in late October “was the result of many months of consultation on all five potential options (to replace the CF-188s). “There has been a lot of back and forth over the last several months to make sure that what we are asking meets the requirements of the Air Force and ensures that we do not inadvertently limit the competition. I feel very confident that what we've put together is fair, open and transparent to all the potential suppliers.” Finn said the government had met with and learned lessons from allies who had conducted similar fighter replacement programs. He also dismissed some of the concerns about acquiring used Australian aircraft to fill a gap while the government proceeds with the replacement project. “In our opinion, Canada has the best expertise related to this type of aircraft. Some companies in Montreal do maintenance for the United States and other countries because they have the necessary knowledge,” he said. “This aircraft will really increase our fleet, and it is not the number of aircraft that counts; it is rather the hours of use in the future. We are looking for an aircraft that will remain in service for another 14 years. What is needed is enough hours on the structural side. We will be able to use these aircraft until the entire fleet is no longer in service.” https://www.skiesmag.com/news/senator-critiques-defence-procurement-process

  • Canada plans to buy four new Airbus tankers, requests proposal

    11 août 2022 | Local, Aérospatial

    Canada plans to buy four new Airbus tankers, requests proposal

    Airbus was designated as the only supplier qualified to provide the tankers to the Royal Canadian Air Force. As a result, a formal request for its proposal for the planes was issued to the firm on May 13, 2022.

Toutes les nouvelles