Turnover at top of DND; marathon election hammer military purchasing plans
OTTAWA — A sampling of the former Conservative government's planned military purchases shows two-thirds of the projects are behind schedule.
And a defence expert says Justin Trudeau's Liberals face an tougher job than previously expected because 2015 was a lost year for decision-making at National Defence.
A report, to be released Tuesday by the Global Affairs Institute, says part of the problem was the revolving door in the defence minister's office — and among the senior bureaucracy.
"It just wrote off a serious chunk of time," said Dave Perry, who wrote the study.
He says the extraordinarily long election campaign also meant plans to buy urgently needed aircraft, ships and armoured vehicles were left in holding patterns.
The 73-page study, obtained in advance by The Canadian Press, shows 63 per cent of 59 projects listed in the Conservative government's often-hyped defence acquisition guide have slipped from their anticipated timelines. Thirty-four per cent are on schedule and three per cent are early.
Navy supply ships, fixed-wing search and rescue planes and armoured patrol vehicles are among the significant delays. The acquisition guide was supposed to bring predictability to the procurement process by listing hundreds of defence items — big and small — that the government planned to buy in the coming decade.
The delays will inevitably lead to higher costs for the delayed projects and unspent budget allocations.
Perry says the sampling was fair because it looked at projects on the immediate horizon.
The Conservatives made the bottleneck worse by holding back decisions on some key projects in order to have political window-dressing for the run-up to last summer's election call, Perry added.
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