I’d like to think that a young whippersnapper could cut their teeth on a deep dive into national procurement (mil and non-mil) and see if we really get any value for the money spent. Like everything else just because we’ve always done it this way doesn’t mean we’re doing it the best or right way.
The problem is 'value for money' doesn't actually have a standard meaning, and no country reports their budgets the same. The Auditor General tried a few times and basically gave up. Maybe if you had full budget info from multiple countries, plus full contract details, plus a detailed understanding of the context of the industry in each country you could do something, but there are reams of studies which are effectively educated guesses.
- If it was entirely up to DND, it would be the best capability, with a working sustainment plan, that we could get money for, regardless of cost.
- If it was up to Dept of FIN, it would be the bare minimum to get the job done, with production done where ever was cheapest (and screw your concerns about wartime production or security; give money to car makers).
- ISED (as a department) doesn't really care what we get, as long as KICs are supported (Key Industrial Capabilities).
- ITBS wants to fix our budget years out before we even define capabilities, add on large 'oversight' requirements that add on delays, then say we don't know what we're doing when things are delayed
- PSPC wants 'fair, transparent and open' procurements, but doesn't care about the actual timelines, delays or impact on costs
- INAC is supposed to care, but can't be arsed to participate in any stakeholder meetings
Fortunately in all that mess there are a lot of really dedicated PS in the various departments that actually get why it's critical, genuinely want to deliver ships that do the job we need them to, and try to keep things moving through the system, but at a GoC level any procurement over $40M is basically a ball of competing priorities, and gets further amplified over $100M with additional policy requirements. There are some pretty senior people from some of the other core departments working on it full time that get it, but they do get torn between their departmental priorities and the projects
But it's also a pretty uphill fight from the start when the companies can bypass all the project staff, DGs, ADMs etc and complain directly to the MPs, who instead of telling them to smarten up, turn around and dump on the collective staff.
Honestly unless you get PM that takes the reins, smashes the departments together under a single head, and stands up to the various presidents and CEOs to tell them to stop backdooring things or causing PR churn if they want Government business, don't see anything changing at the strategic level.
Do we pay more than other countries? Maybe? It's hard to say. But if you are buying widgets, they will cost what they cost regardless of where the ship is built, so that should be relatively fixed. There is a known learning curve for starting basically a new industry, so the slow pace at first is a feature, not a bug. But if you are going to pay thousands of people a day to do work, pretty hard to argue with the basic economics of 40ish percent of their wage going right back into government coffers via taxes, and the rest being spent in Canada.
There are always areas to do things better, but if anyone thinks the GoC wouldn't just collectively f&ck up any 'efficiencies' with building something overseas via insane contract requirements, ship performance specs and design changes, while giving a pitifully understaffed project not enough resources to do some kind of international build, I don't really know what to say.
Really nothing stopping us from changing the basic contract framework in Canada to commercial standard terms as a starting point if we want to find 'efficiencies' but build in Canada, but that's a Cabinet level decision that they will likely never back down from, as there as a lot of sacred cow programs built into that.
