A new defence procurement agency?

Phuong T.V. Ngo and Quin Gilbert-Walters, the authors of the article say that “Earlier this year, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sent mandate letters to the four ministers responsible for the creation of Defence Procurement Canada:

• Minister of Public Services and Procurement, Anita Anand;
• Minister of National Defence, Harjit Sajjan;
• Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, Bernadette Jordan; and
• Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, Navdeep Bains.

The Minister of Public Service and Procurement was instructed to lead the project. Her mandate letter instructed her to ensure that Canada’s biggest procurements were delivered on time and with greater transparency. Specifically, Minister Anand was told “This priority is to be developed concurrently with ongoing procurement projects and existing timelines.”“

This is, I hope, a step in the right direction. I have visited this issue before, in fact, I started discussing it over four years ago. I think this is a smart move. A separate agency that deals with only major, politically sensitive projects might help.

Let me be clear, a single procurement department that buys common user goods and services for the whole of government is a great idea: economies of scale, best use of human resources … there are all sorts of reasons why it makes sense. But big HUGE projects, like the new jet fighter and that National Shipbuilding Strategy, are so expensive that they invite demand intense political oversight. The fighter jet replacement project office is not some quiet, bureaucratic backwater where professional procurement specialists sort through bids for paper and pencils and laptop computers and utility vans, and report, annually, to the minister. The PMO, the prime minister himself is looking over every shoulder, asking questions and pushing or pulling in one direction or another. It isn’t always blatantly partisan. When there are tens, even hundreds of billions of taxpayers’ dollars at stake the elected leaders have both a right and duty to oversee the process.

Perhaps there is no need for a new minister, perhaps a new associate deputy minister, overseeing a large subdivision of the existing procurement department will be enough. What is clear, to me, is that the big projects team needs to be separate from the military and DND. A whole new department, with its own minister, would be necessary if, and it’s a HUGE IF, Canada ever returns to the notion of ministerial responsibility … but that will never happen under Justin Trudeau; hell’s bells, we don’t even have prime ministerial responsibility.

In any event, kudos to Team Trudeau for trying to bring some order to a process that is under severe stress.