The Defence Procurement Outlook for Canada’s 43rd Parliament
While defence received little attention during the 2019 federal election, an interesting point of consensus between the two most popular political parties was the need for further reform to the way Canada conducts military procurement.1
The re-elected Liberals proposed to create Defence Procurement Canada. The Conservatives, now the Official Opposition, pledged to use the House of Commons Standing Committee on Defence to de-politicize procurement projects, while reforming a cabinet committee on defence procurement and creating a Privy Council Office secretariat to support it. The two approaches shared the idea of creating one organization to act as a single point of accountability, although the modalities of achieving this differed considerably.
The clear message, though, from Canada’s two major parties is that they want a different, presumably better, outcome from Canada’s defence procurement system. For a party in opposition, a call for action is predictable, although that does not mean it lacks merit. For a Liberal Party coming off four years of majority government to call for such a significant change in the form of a new entity for defence procurement is unexpected, including, it appears, to many Liberals themselves and the public service. The Liberal pledge is especially surprising given that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government spent the past two years extolling its record on defence procurement to stakeholders, and procurement officials have been unanimous in promoting their record of achievement when given the opportunity.
These campaign pledges highlight two problems with Canada’s procurement system. First is a growing disconnect between procurement practitioners in government and everyone else paying attention about how well our procurement system functions. People working on procurement, while acknowledging some challenges, generally believe that the system works far better than those outside it perceive, and there is a widespread sentiment that the years since the launch of Strong, Secure, Engaged have been particularly productive. The views of those not working in the area, and for most in industry, are far more negative, ranging from the rejoinder that procurement is broken, to simply too bureaucratic, too cumbersome and too slow. A second and related problem seems to be that those working on procurement from the inside continually establish expectations that are not met. The procurement performance is judged more often than not based on whether delivery lived up to publicized plans. If the reality of delivery is slower than promised, those outside the system see problems...[read on]
https://www.cgai.ca/the_defence_procurement_outlook_for_canadas_43rd_parliament
