19 novembre 2019 | Local, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité
By Lee Harding
The Liberal government announced its new cabinet on Nov. 20—the very same day the Canadian Global Affairs Institute hosted its annual event on the topic of military procurement. Given that an overhaul in that area is sorely needed, Canada can learn a lot from Australia, Ian Mack wrote in a recent report for the institute.
Mack is uniquely qualified to make that assessment, having worked with both governments in their process of awarding contracts for military sea vessels. While he believes both countries had an acceptable result, his report, titled “Another Way to Buy Frigates,” suggests the Canadian approach adds work, balloons costs, and delays success.
The re-elected Trudeau government should take note. The Liberals proposed significant changes to Canada's defence procurement system during the election campaign, but it will be a tall order to change this process.
The land down under is isolated in a less secure part of the globe, without a nearby superpower like the United States to watch its back. So if Australia is far more diligent about defence than Canada, it might be due to necessity. The last time Canada had a proper and comprehensive white paper on defence was 1994. Australia has had three in the 21st century.
Australia's effectiveness goes from the top down, something Canada knows nothing of. As Mack explains, “Canada, uniquely among its allies, has multiple government departments and central agencies significantly involved in the minutiae of its major military procurement projects.” These include Defence; Treasury Board; Finance; Public Services and Procurement; Justice; Innovation, Science and Economic Development—and even more.
Meanwhile in Australia, the minister of defence is responsible for all aspects of navy shipbuilding. This includes setting operational and technical requirements, securing funds, developing a plan to benefit domestic industries, and satisfying the legal aspects of procurement.
Each country had a project management office of roughly the same size, but Canada's was, frankly, less competent. Australia's office had many knowledgeable contractors working alongside the Department of Defence, whereas Canada's team had many from the public service and armed forces with “little or no applicable experience or knowledge,” according to Mack.
“In Canada, significant effort was expended on regular reporting to layers of senior governance,” he says in the report. But it was paperwork and process for its own sake, and impractical in its effect. “Despite the onerous reporting demands, only a few key decisions were rendered and rarely in a timely manner. The opposite was the case in Australia.”
In seemingly every aspect of development, Canada made things rigid, complicated, and fragmented, while Australia made them flexible, cohesive, and collaborative. Canada made stand-alone contracts for each sequence of the process. Australia worked with contractors to establish “end-to-end accountability.” Canada's initial request for proposal included hundreds of technical requirements that bidders had to prove. Australia had few mandatory requirements, but worked alongside bidders to explore their respective proposed solutions.
In Canada, the intellectual property, liabilities, and insurance requirements were debated at length and only decided hours before the request for proposal was made. Hundreds of criteria got a numerical score, and the sum of all scores won the bid. Canada was “preoccupied” about a public appearance of fairness and avoiding lawsuits. (Nevertheless, the controversy over former Vice-Admiral Mark Norman and complaints from Irving Shipbuilding over the bid for a navy supply vessel shows it failed at this.)
Shipbuilders bidding in Australia were confident of a fair system without any of those things. The department did not announce its evaluation criteria, nor was the evaluation report the only factor. Instead, the department stated its objectives and worked collaboratively with three potential bidders in their respective approaches. In Mack's words, this left “the competition to be more about assessing apples, oranges, and bananas” than about tallying up numerical scores.
Mack says he could not make the Canadian system work like Australia's because the procurement, request for proposals, and resulting contracts were done outside of the Department of National Defence. At the time, he was “simply unaware of the intricacies of the Australian approach” because he hadn't yet been exposed to it. Regardless, he had already surmised that Canadian bureaucrats “did not want changes to their tried and true ways of doing business” and clung to “adherence to prescriptive and traditional methodologies.”
6 avril 2022 | Local, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité
Canada's military readiness is suffering from a lack of investment and the federal government must ensure that desperately needed new money actually gets spent, experts in defence and procurement say.
29 octobre 2021 | Local, Naval
Stay Tuned! IDEaS will soon be launching Calls for Proposals for Innovation Networks and Sandbox Pre-announcement of a call for the creation of Innovation Networks To facilitate the free-flow of ideas, the Innovation for Defence Excellence and Security (IDEaS) program will support the creation of Innovation Networks which will work in areas of interest to Canadian defence and security. A new call for the creation of Innovation Networks will be issued in the coming weeks. This call will invite research proposals from multi-disciplinary teams in the field of 5G Networks. Teams must be led by an investigator from a Canadian university, and can be composed of investigators from Canadian universities and educational institutions, not-for-profit organizations, for-profit organizations, provincial/territorial/municipal governments, and international universities and education institutions. Teams will be encouraged to develop and submit interdisciplinary research proposals addressing one or several areas identified in the call Science & Technology (S&T) Challenge Statement. Full details of the research areas of interest, available funding, eligibility, and how to apply will be made available when the call is announced. Please visit our website for more information about IDEaS. Corrosion Detection in Ships Sandbox call set to re-launch The Corrosion Detection in Ships Sandbox (CDIS), previously postponed due to COVID-19 restrictions, is set to re-launch its Call for Applications in November 2021, with the sandbox occurring in April/May 2022. Applications for this Sandbox will be open to all innovators, including those that did not previously apply. The pandemic situation will continue to be monitored and plans adjusted as necessary to conduct the Sandbox in a safe manner. If you've received this communication directly from DND.IDEaS-IDEeS.MDN@forces.gc.ca, you will automatically be kept informed of further announcements regarding this call. The IDEaS Team IDEeS va bientôt lancer de nouveaux appels de propositions pour les Réseaux d'innovation et les Environnements protégés – Restez à l'écoute! Préavis d'un appel de propositions pour la création de Réseaux d'innovation Afin de favoriser la libre circulation d'idées, le programme Innovation pour la défense, l'excellence et la sécurité (IDEeS) appuiera la création de réseaux d'innovation dans les secteurs d'intérêt du Canada en matière de défense et de sécurité. Un nouvel appel de propositions pour la création de réseaux d'innovation sera lancé au cours des prochaines semaines. Cet appel sera lancé afin d'obtenir des propositions de recherche de la part d'équipes multidisciplinaires dans le domaine des Réseaux d'innovation 5G. Les équipes devront être dirigées par un chercheur d'une université canadienne, et peuvent être composées de chercheurs provenant des universités et établissements d'enseignement canadiens, d'organismes à but lucratif ou non lucratif, d'organismes provinciaux/territoriaux ou municipaux, et des universités et établissements d'enseignement internationaux. Les équipes seront invitées à élaborer et à soumettre des propositions de recherche interdisciplinaire sur un ou plusieurs sujets identifiés au moment de l'appel de propositions, dans le Défi scientifique et technologique. De plus amples renseignements sur les domaines de recherche d'intérêt, le financement disponible, l'admissibilité et comment s'inscrire seront offerts une fois que l'appel de propositions sera lancé. Veuillez consulter notre site Web pour obtenir plus de détails sur le programme IDEeS. Nouvel appel de candidatures pour l'Environnement protégé pour la détection de la corrosion dans les navires L'environnement protégé pour la détection de la corrosion dans les navires (CDIS), précédemment reporté en raison des restrictions liées à la COVID-19, ira de l'avant avec un nouvel appel de candidatures en novembre 2021, l'environnement protégé ayant lieu en avril/mai 2022. Les candidatures pour l'environnement protégé seront ouvertes à tous les innovateurs, y compris ceux qui n'avaient pas appliqué auparavant. La situation pandémique continuera d'être surveillée et les plans ajustés si nécessaire pour mener l'environnement protégé de manière sûre. Si vous avez reçu ce message de DND.IDEaS-IDEeS.MDN@forces.gc.ca, vous êtes abonné aux annonces concernant cet appel de propositions. L'équipe IDEeS
5 septembre 2018 | Local, Terrestre
Le 4 septembre 2018 – Ottawa – Défense nationale/Forces armées canadiennes Du 10 au 21 septembre 2018, des scientifiques canadiens de la défense et des membres des Forces armées canadiennes effectueront une série d'expériences de recherche en technologie dans la ville de Montréal aux côtés de pays partenaires, soit l'Australie, les États-Unis, la Nouvelle-Zélande et le Royaume-Uni. Les activités de recherche comprendront la mise à l'essai et l'évaluation de nouvelles technologies dans divers environnements et paysages urbains. L'expérience en environnement urbain contesté (EUC 18) se déroulera dans les environs du Manège militaire Côte-des-Neiges, autour de belvédère Kondiaronk, le long de la rue de la Montagne et près du Silo no 5 dans le secteur du Vieux-Port. La plupart des activités se dérouleront au cours de la journée, et quelques périodes d'essai auront lieu pendant la nuit. Tout le personnel militaire participant à l'expérience EUC 18 ne sera pas armé. Cette expérience est réalisée dans le but d'appuyer l'avancement de la recherche sur la meilleure façon de mener des opérations militaires dans des environnements urbains. Des mesures sont prises afin de minimiser les inconvénients pour les personnes se trouvant dans le secteur. Le public est toutefois avisé que certaines zones peuvent être inaccessibles pendant la durée de l'expérience EUC 18. Les questions concernant les sujets locaux, comme les perturbations de la circulation, les fermetures de routes, etc., doivent être adressées à la ville de Montréal. Les questions du public concernant l'expérience peuvent être adressées à l'organisation responsable des sciences et de la technologie du ministère de la Défense nationale, Recherche et développement pour la défense Canada, par courriel à CUE18_EUC18@forces.gc.ca. Les questions des médias peuvent être adressées au Bureau de relations avec les médias du ministère de la Défense nationale par courriel à mlo-blm@forces.gc.ca.