4 hours ago
Swift News
The Liberal government has unveiled its long-awaited, long-promised agency to co-ordinate and speed up the purchase and delivery of equipment to the Canadian military.
The new Defence Investment Agency (DIA) was announced by Prime Minister Mark Carney's office in a statement Thursday morning.
The new organization will be expected to consolidate procurement processes by removing duplicative approvals and red tape. It is also intended to provide the defence industry with greater clarity and certainty on the government's plans.
With a centralized process of review, Carney said projects will proceed faster.
"In a dangerous and divided world, Canada's new government is ensuring the Canadian Armed Forces get the equipment they need, when they need it," the prime minister said in a written statement.
"The new agency will bolster our defence industrial capacity, create new careers and ensure that in this new era, Canada's leadership is not defined by the strength of our values, but also by the value of our strength."
Significantly, the new agency will have a mandate to work "more closely with partners such as the United Kingdom, Australia and France, who already have dedicated procurement bodies, making joint defence purchases and partnerships easier and more efficient."
At the moment, Canada buys most of its military equipment from the United States.
During the last federal election, Carney promised to diversify where the country goes shopping for defence hardware and early last summer signed a joint defence partnership with the European Union — an agreement that opened the door for Canada's participation in the $1.27-trillion ReArm Europe plan.
In an interview Radio-Canada ahead of the announcement, the secretary of state in charge of defence procurement, Stephen Fuhr, said the U.S. is stepping back from the traditional role it has played in the post-war world.
"Depending on who you ask, the numbers are between 70 and 75 per cent of what we spend, or we had been spending, was going south of the border, and we don't want to do that anymore," Fuhr said. "We want to spend it primarily as much of it as we can here in Canada, without affecting our timelines too much."
Not all defence contracting will go through the agency; only projects over $100 million. Agreements that are already signed and in delivery mode will still be be handled by procurement services.
The new agency is moving staff from the purchasing branch of National Defence, Public Services and Procurement Canada.
