Changes at the top Joe Bland recalled that he was in Cairo with DND ’ s Kingston-based National Defence College ( at which he was spending a year ) when he learned from a newspaper clipping that Dick Johnson had resigned as President of DCL to head up the Canadian Institute of Steel Construction . In a 2007 interview , he explained :
( Mr . Johnson ), to me , was DCL — I wondered who the hell they were going to put in his place . The key senior people were from industry , and I think they wanted to appoint somebody who wasn ’ t on loan . To my astonishment , my wife said at Christmas break that Mr . Johnson had asked if I would drop in to see him . I sat across the desk from him and just about fell through the floor when he said he was putting my name forward . That produced just a tremendous career , from my point of view .
Long-time DCL staffer George Moennich summarized Joe Bland ’ s approach as similar to Dick Johnson ’ s : temperate , reasonable and practical .
Do it right , don ’ t settle for second best — that ’ s always your aim , to let people working for you know ahead of time that that ’ s what you expect , so they can build that into their price , and then demand to the extent you can what you required and what you ’ re paying for . You cannot do that with people who don ’ t know the business .
That part is important . You have to have the empathy — you have to be able to put yourself in the contractor ’ s position , but you can ’ t lose track of the overall picture . In principle it ’ s simple enough , but in practice it can become thorny .
That philosophy , begun under Dick Johnson , continued to flourish under Joe Bland .
The unification effect The 1964 Defence White Paper led to increased pressure for an integrated construction agency for the CF . In 1965 , the Minister of National Defence approved the Regional Construction Engineering Office concept . During the next year , five such offices were created in Halifax , Montreal , Toronto , Winnipeg and Vancouver , with an additional office formed within Europe ’ s 1 Air Division .
Also in 1965 , DCL ’ s name became bilingual , and responsibility for the company was transferred from the Minister of Industry ( which by then had assumed many of the functions of the Department of Defence Production ) to the Minister of National Defence . A Memorandum of Understanding ( MOU ) set out the two parties ’ roles , creating a lasting joint venture between them . During the negotiation process , DND insisted on transferring responsibility for administration and inspection of base maintenance contracts from DND to DCL — in return , DCL insisted on having the final word in interpreting the contracts .
The MOU helped to clarify both DCL ’ s authority and its responsibility , stating “ DCL will be fully responsible for the administration of all contracts placed by DCL on behalf of DND .” Administration in this case referred to the servicing of the total contract , from receipt of the contract request to the final payment to the contractor and the release of the security deposit .
From the perspective of Joe Bland , the changes had a positive result :
The transfer of DCL … to the Minister of National Defence along with the unification of the Canadian Forces did not affect the vitality of the operation . In fact , these changes probably resulted in further clarification of the respective roles of DCL and its client , DND . The ‘ joint venture ’ concept and approach certainly helped to further increase cooperation .
BREAKING NEW GROUND DEFENCE CONSTRUCTION CANADA
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