Lieutenant-Colonel Amanda Whalen, the head of a unit tasked with addressing innovation gaps within RCAF, says a long process of approvals is holding back the rollout of new tech for the air force.Lars Hagberg/The Canadian Press
Bureaucratic processes are slowing down the rollout of new technology products for the country’s air force, says the director of a unit responsible for addressing innovation gaps within the force.
The director, Lieutenant-Colonel Amanda Whalen, heads the Royal Canadian Air Force Digital Hub, which was founded in 2023. She said in an interview that her team can build new digital applications – such as for search and rescue, mission logistics and cargo – in just three to six weeks, but is spending six to twelve months navigating policies and processes that are not keeping pace with modern technology.
“The limitation needs to be how fast my team can build products for the air force, not how fast we can navigate processes and policy and fill out paperwork,” Lt.-Col. Whalen told attendees of a digital technology conference organized by the Canadian Global Affairs Institute Tuesday morning.
She said the challenges do not stem from the air force itself but the long process of approvals that must be obtained through various government departments and agencies.
“Every single one of those days that we’re spending navigating the bureaucratic process and waiting for someone to review something is a day that our allies and enemies are getting ahead of us,” she said.
Slow approval and procurement processes were top of mind at the conference, where numerous speakers sounded off on Canada’s slow defence procurement system and whether the government’s lagging digital technology adoption is driven by policy or culture.
While Prime Minister Mark Carney’s new defence spending will help the air force pay for new tools and fill staff shortages, Lt.-Col. Whalen said, more money alone is not enough to make the department more efficient and innovative.
The Prime Minister has pledged to raise Canada’s defence spend to 5 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product by 2035. This will require spending an additional $50-billion to $90-billion a year, depending on how much the economy grows.
In a statement, the Royal Canadian Air Force said it is aware of the challenges raised by Lt.-Col. Whalen, and is undertaking a period of significant modernization to streamline and deliver digital capabilities. This involves working with allies and partners in other government departments, the RCAF said.
The RCAF Digital Hub, founded in 2023 to address innovation gaps within the forces, works with private-sector partners to roll out a range of cloud-based applications and replace long-outdated methods.
For example, the hub’s Dispatch tool, which helps the air force track and organize its missions, replaced a system that involved handing air crew a stack of 100 pieces of paper on their way out the door. Meanwhile, its cargo-loading tool replaced a physical whiteboard and marker system, Lt.-Col. Whalen said.
But in order to build these tools, she said her team must obtain a series of approvals from the Department of Defence and other government agencies.
Lt.-Col. Whalen said that last year, it took her team 252 days to build a cloud-based tool, of which just 60 days were spent on development and the remaining 192 days filling out paperwork, navigating processes and waiting for reviews, although “very few of those reviews amounted to any sort of change,” she said.
To build a new cloud-based product, she said, a business requirement must go through Shared Services Canada – an agency that provides IT services across federal departments – which, in her team’s experience, takes about 50 days, she told conference attendees. After that, the team must request a number of cloud accounts for development, testing, staging and production.
The team must also receive an Authority to Operate under the federal cybersecurity compliance framework, set by the Communications Security Establishment. It’s a process which her team has seen add a minimum of three months to the process, Lt.-Col. Whalen said.
However, she said the hub is working with other organizations within the Department of Defence to build in a system that could speed up the procedure: obtaining a “continuous authorization to operate,” which would allow it to bypass delays and improve security.
This system, which will streamline all the hub’s projects, will also help other digital teams speed up development. She said the team has rolled out a minimum viable product that will automate the approvals process, potentially shaving months off timelines across the department, she said.
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In a statement, Shared Services Canada said it has taken steps to modernize its processes, including a dedicated portal for government agencies to submit hosting requests, and is supporting the Department of Defence in its modernization objectives.
Mr. Carney has also promised to execute on several recommendations made by the House of Commons committee on national defence in a 2024 report, which identified several key challenges facing the procurement system. These include bureaucracy, risk aversion, personnel shortages, a lack of transparency, delays and cost overruns.
And in June, the federal government launched a red-tape review to reduce regulatory burdens across its departments and agencies, with the goal of scrapping outdated and complicated rules, as well as ones that overlap with provincial regulations.
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