Defence plan could affect security, unions say

The Liberal government’s new defence plan potentially compromises national security by relying too much on private contractors to maintain the country’s new warships, public service unions have warned Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The unions are concerned companies will hold too much control over the proprietary rights to equipment on board the ships, limiting what Defence Department workers and Canadian military personnel can do to maintain the vessels and their systems.

The Liberal government has already encountered that problem. In April it quietly cancelled a tender for a maintenance support contract for the upgraded Halifax-class warships because of concerns over intellectual property rights for the on-board equipment.

The June 23 letter to Trudeau from the Public Service Alliance of Canada and the Union of National Defence Employees comes as the Liberals prepare to award a $5.2-billion maintenance contract. That deal would see a Canadian subsidiary of a French defence firm Thales become responsible for the maintenance on the navy’s new Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships as well as its new supply vessels.

But the unions are telling Trudeau that the deal, and future ones like it, could prove to be a disaster, similar to the problem-plagued Phoenix federal pay system.

“As we have learned with expensive public contracts like Phoenix, mismanaged contacts can have significant adverse effects both on the department as well as the broader public service,” Robyn Benson, president of PSAC and John MacLennan, head of UNDE, wrote to Trudeau.