Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
National Security and Defence

Issue 8 - Evidence - Afternoon sitting

The Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence met this day at 1:33 p.m. to conduct an introductory survey of the major security and defence issues facing Canada with a view to preparing a detailed work plan for future comprehensive studies.

Senator Colin Kenny (Chairman) in the Chair.

[English]

The Chairman: It is my pleasure to welcome you to the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, whether you are here in the room, watching on television or following on the Internet. This afternoon we continue our study on major security and defence issues. My name is Colin Kenny. I am a senator from Ontario and I chair the committee. On my right is Senator Forrestall from Nova Scotia, the deputy chair of the committee. On my far right is Senator LaPierre, from Ontario, Senator Banks, from Alberta and Senator Day, from New Brunswick. On my far left are Senators Meighen and Atkins, who are from Ontario.

This is the first permanent Senate committee with the mandate to examine subjects of security and defence. We are conducting a survey of major issues facing Canada and we will be reporting back to the Senate in February. Today, we shall hear from the chiefs of the three environments, maritime, land and air, who will tell us how operations work today and where their operations will be over the next five years.

This morning we heard from the Chief of Maritime Staff and the Chief of Land Staff. We begin this afternoon with the Chief of Air Staff and then we will hear from the Chief of the Defence Staff about his views on the mission of Canadian Forces and his plans and priorities for the department.

Two weeks ago, our committee conducted a fact-finding visit to the West, where we visited military bases in Esquimalt and Winnipeg to see our forces where they work, train and live. Today, we will hear from headquarters about their views.

Before introducing our first witness, I want to say how proud we are of the men and women of the Air Force. On behalf of the committee members who are present here, I would like to thank you for the work you and your people are doing.

Our first witness is Lieutenant-General Lloyd Campbell, Commander of Air Command and Chief of the Air Staff. A native of northwestern Ontario, General Campbell began his aviation career at 437 Squadron in Trenton, flying Yukons. He has had a distinguished career with postings in Canada and abroad. In 1992, he assumed command of 4 Wing and the Canadian Forces base in Baden, Germany, and was the last officer to command these units before their disbandment in July 1993. He was promoted to his current post in July 2000.

General Campbell is accompanied by Major-General Richard Bastien, Assistant Chief of the Air Staff, and Chief Warrant Officer Daniel Gilbert. Welcome, gentlemen.

Please proceed, General Campbell.

Lieutenant-General Lloyd Campbell, Commander of Air Command and Chief of the Air Staff, Department of National Defence: Mr. Chairman, it is a pleasure for us to be able to participate and to join you in these very important discussions. You have already introduced the team so I will dispense with that.

Thank you very much as well for your very kind remarks about what Canada's Air Force is doing out there along with the army and navy in support of the nation. As commander of the command and as the former commander of the air division, which you had an opportunity to visit, I absolutely share the pride and the belief that the young men and women and not so young men and women that serve this nation of ours in uniform are doing a superb job. They deserve our collective support. I am very pleased that is the kind of thing we are seeing here as well.

You received a number of briefings last spring on the Armed Forces and on the Royal Canadian Air Force. You also had an opportunity to read a prepared text that we sent earlier. I do not intend to repeat that this morning. I would like to paraphrase that and leave a bit more time for your questions, which will be the substance of what we want to get into.

In the spring, when Colonel Hines from my staff appeared before the committee, he gave you an overview of our strategic planning initiatives, where we were going, what we were doing, some of the issues affecting the Air Force, financial, personnel, and so on. Although a lot happened since then - September 11 above all - it is worthwhile to note from my own perspective that, largely speaking, the priorities and perspectives that he offered you in his presentation earlier this spring remain valid and that the priorities, particularly looking after our folks, modernizing our kit and balancing resources with activities, are still things that prevail today. In fact, they probably prevail even more than they did then.

In the case of the air force, let me talk briefly about the future. Here, I talk about the long-term future. One of the things we have not had in this country is a well-defined strategic plan of where it is that we are going in the long run. We developed one for the Canadian Forces, which I am sure you have heard referred to as Strategy 2020, and I know there was some discussion about where it fits into the hierarchy of documentation vis-à-vis the White Paper and so on. It is critical from an air force perspective to develop a similar kind of document that will plot where the air force will be going over the longer run.

Why is that important? First, as you and I know, in the normal run of things equipment acquired today can last for decades; therefore, we need to try to make the best judgments we can about what we will acquire. The things that are acquired on my watch will be the things that some Chief of the Air Staff in 20 or 30 years will be using. Although we do not pretend we can prognosticate about what the future may look like, we nevertheless have to do our best to figure out what those capabilities are and have a plan. The aerospace capabilities framework is designed to try to do that.

The second element is that it is important for our own men and women, and those of the other services, to understand what kind of air force we are trying to be so we can harmonize plans, harmonize activities and ideas, and that there is no misjudgment inside the Canadian Forces or outside as to exactly what it is we are trying to deliver. Sometimes the difference between our plans and the expectations, both inside and outside the forces, can lead to some difficulties. Developing these strategic plans are methods by which we will, one would hope, be able to bring about some clarity.

Rather than concentrating on that area, though, I would like to talk about what we are doing in the present, the capabilities that the air force brings to the table, and what we are doing to try to modernize and make sure they are relevant to the future.

I will talk about September 11 and what that has meant for the air force in terms of operations, as a starting point. In essence, the air force has been dealing with two slightly different wars on terrorism. The first one, Noble Eagle, is a NORAD initiative that started with the first scrambles of F-15s and F-16s in the United States in response to the September 11 attacks. As you well know from your visit to Winnipeg, the result has been a much higher alert state for our NORAD resources, increased resources on Canada's part and a spread of resources across the country. These planes operate under NORAD command, under General Lucas in Winnipeg, in the case of Canada.

In fact, although parenthetically we tend to think of the privations of people deployed overseas, it is also important in this context to understand that we have a large number of air force people who are actually deployed away from home base doing the NORAD mission or operating in our air defence control facility at North Bay, on extended hours.

The second initiative, Operation Apollo, is one that has been more publicized. Of course, the air force component includes the six Sea King helicopters onboard the frigates and the CC150 Polaris Airbus deployed to Rhein-Main, Germany. We have forces in the case of the CP140 Aurora and the Hercules planes that are waiting to be deployed, as well as other domestic tasks.

I will now give an overall review of the air force capabilities, it activities and modernization plans. I will start with the F-18 in this regard. The F-18 has often been in the news in the past decade, and this is understandable because the F-18 actually represents a capability that this government and the previous government chose to employ when they found it necessary to send Canadians into actual combat. It has been used twice in the past decade to go to war, or in the case of Kosovo to go to the air campaign.

I know, as this committee discussed with Dr. Calder last week, the difference between wars and campaigns are pretty much transparent to the guy or girl who is sitting in the cockpit flying the mission. What you call it does not much matter. The facts are that our folks, both in the Gulf and in the Kosovo campaign, acquitted themselves well.

In the Kosovo campaign, the addition of precision-guided munitions capability, the F-18, did bring an extra capability to the fore. In fact, Canadian pilots led many of the missions there. Before the Kosovo campaign, our F-18s in Italy were also providing a closed-air support capability to the Armed Forces in the initial days of the stabilization forces in Bosnia. Although those forces were not used in combat, I know from discussions with my army colleagues, and particularly the former chief of defence staff, that it was comforting to people on the ground to know there was a Canadian capability that could be called upon to assist our troops.

On the home front, the F-18s normally participate in the air defence and sovereignty mission. I will not go into that. I discussed it already. I will talk about the airplane itself though. Despite comments that you have read and heard in the press, there is no doubt in my mind that the F-18 is a capable aircraft. Having said that, there are many things we need to do to make sure it stays that way. Those are things that are presently underway or have been done.

First, the addition of the precision-guided munitions capability was fundamental to allowing this capability to participate in the kinds of modern warfare that seem to have become the norm. The second major element is the F-18 modernization project itself, a $1-billion investment that will bring these 80 F-18s up to the same capability as those used by the United States Marine Corps and by the United States Navy. They call for things like new mission computers, new software, new radar, secure and jam-resistant radios and so on, as well as some additional projects that will buy new targeting pods for the aircraft, new all-weather capable munitions, air-to-air and air-to-ground and so on. At the end of the day, this will provide the F-18 with a much enhanced all-weather attack capability, as well as improved survivability.

In terms of the fleet itself, it has been also discussed that we will be doing some reductions of the F-18 fleet from the current 122 nominally in the fleet to a number of 80 modernized airplanes. There are two things to note here. First, not all the F-18s we have come from the same production batch. In essence, they came from what several aircraft manufacturers call "lots." The airplanes we will modernize are essentially the last 80 off the production line. They are the low-time airplanes and are the ones that have a future capability left. The 42 that we will not be modernizing, 40 of those are from the initial two lots that could be modernized certainly but at an added expense and would be much more difficult compared to our current plan. The other two came from follow-on lots and will not be modernized. These are two-seat trainers that are out of hours. In essence, we are modernizing the airplanes that we believe can be modernized.

The second element is that an 80-aircraft fleet in the air force perspective, looking at the white paper and looking at the things the government has asked us to do and which we think government may ask us to do in future, will allow us to do the task and give us some flexibility to meet changes in the future. As the Commander of the Air Force, I fought hard for 80 airplanes. I am comfortable with our situation in that regard.

I will now turn to the transport side of things, which is much in the news and much in demand. I mentioned the one Airbus we have deployed overseas right now. It is busy moving mainly naval supplies from Europe down to the Middle East, which is not only to support Canadian operations but also to support coalition operations in general. We have already moved over 410,000 pounds of kit and we will continue to stay busy. Three Hercules aircraft, as I mentioned, are on standby, and of course the transport fleet was also involved immediately after September 11 moving cots, blankets and a variety of things around the country.

The backbone of the air mobility fleet is the Hercules, which is an excellent tactical transport and tactical air-to-air refuelling aircraft. We recently put new avionics into the Hercules. There are two main models. We have a number of older E models, as well as a more modern H model Hercules. The older E models, although still capable, are certainly getting on in age. One of the things we will have to come to grips with over this decade is what we are going to do about either replacing them or retiring them.

I mentioned the Polaris, which is the militarized version of the Airbus A310. We have five of those to provide strategic lift. The airplane is doing a super job. As you probably read in newspaper articles to date, we are looking at modifying two of those aircraft to an air-to-air refuelling capability. Having personally refuelled off our Boeing 707 when in operation and used that to deploy my squadron, I can tell you that that capability, an airplane that can carry freight, as it can in the combi version, can deliver fuel and carry maintenance troops at the same time, provides an outstanding capability for deployment. I am delighted with the choice of the modification of two of these aircraft, which, I assume, will be approved by the Treasury Board shortly.

Unfortunately, neither the Hercules nor the Polaris is what you would call a true strategic airlifter for moving stuff long distances and certainly not into unprepared areas, in the case of the Airbus. For that reason, we have a project that is designed to present options to the government to acquire a new strategic airlift capability, which would give us the ability to deploy our land forces and their equipment abroad and also to respond to disasters, humanitarian issues and so on, both domestically, where we deal with strategic distances from one coast to another, and also internationally. As part of that project, and this comes back to the Herc and E-model question, we are also looking at what acquiring that kind of capability within the next four or five years would mean to overall requirements for Hercules. Our initial impression - we have not completed the study - is that it would allow us to get rid of some of the older model Hercs, and operate with the new ones in a combination of the Airbus and the new aircraft. However, that study is still being finalized.

Looking at the maritime side of things, I mentioned that some of our surveillance is done by F-18s in the NORAD dimension. When it comes to coastal environment, coasts and ocean areas, the Aurora does its bit. In addition to its military tasks, such as the anti-submarine type things that many people have tended to focus on, the airplane has been involved over the last decade in things such as violations of the Fisheries Act, the Shipping Act, attempts to enter into Canada illegally, traffic of drugs by sea and so on. The most notable example of that in Canadian eyes was the work the Auroras did in conjunction with the navy and with Citizenship and Immigration Canada off the West Coast a couple of years ago with the Chinese migrants Another lesser known but equally important example is the work that Canadians are doing every year against illegal driftnet fishing in the Northern Pacific area. Our Auroras on the West Coast do that with very good results. They have been able to identify and gain evidence that has resulted in the apprehension and prosecution of ships involved in this illegal driftnet fishing, which is quite a scourge.

The Aurora itself is undergoing a major upgrade program over the next number of years to provide it with new avionics and new sensor systems. Those will not only bring the Aurora up to today's standards but will bring it up to tomorrow's standards as well. Some of the kit that will go into the Aurora, much of which has been developed here in Canada, is world-class. There is no doubt in my mind that when the program comes to fruition in three or four years, the Aurora will provide this nation with a maritime surveillance airplane and, even more important, a long-range strategic reconnaissance platform that we will be able to use for a number of years to come.

We are also providing the Aurora with a modern simulation system. This is critical because it will allow us to transfer much of the training, which is currently being done not so well in the aircraft, to the simulator and therefore allow more of the hours we are using on an annual basis to be used for operations. That is similar to what airlines do. They do no training in the aircraft itself.

Another key contributor on the maritime operations side, as I suspect you discussed with Admiral Buck this morning, is the Sea King. Although some would take issue with me on this, I would vouch that the Sea King detachments are doing an absolutely splendid job out there in supporting this nation. They are professional, talented and dedicated men and women, with a capital D on the dedicated part. As the commander of the air division, I flew fairly frequently and visited frequently with the Sea King folks. They even let me fly the airplane on occasion, and I was very impressed with all of it. I mentioned the six airplanes we have deployed. It is no secret that the aircraft is ageing and needs replacement, but it is well-designed, well-built and has been frequently upgraded. As Commander of the Air Command and Chief of the Air Staff, it is my perspective that it is safe and effective. Some of that is the result of the engines, the main gearboxes and the other things that have been done. I believe somebody in this committee mentioned that the only original part left is the nameplate on the side of these airplanes.

With regard to enhancements, I have asked the Commander of the Air Division to have a look at the period between now and when we acquire the new maritime helicopter to see if there are other enhancements we would like to do for operational reasons and to handle the transition from older technology to the new technology the new maritime helicopter will represent. It will be no small leap in technology for the crews themselves to make. If there are ways we can ease that by providing to them some more modern systems, particularly if some of those systems are employable within the maritime helicopter itself, we need to do that, if it makes economic sense to make that happen. General Lucas is looking at that for me as well.

On the army side, support is provided by the CH-146 Griffon, a new very capable airplane. The only modification we are looking at is the introduction of a system that will provide it with a surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting capability, which will complement the Coyote and allow the CH-146 to contribute much more to the land battle. We also use the CH-146 at our fighter bases to provide search and rescue for fighter crews; and secondary search and rescue for the regions, in areas like Bagotville, for example, is important.

Finally, while talking about a kit, let me finish with the search and rescue area. Search and rescue crews respond to calls around this nation 24 hours a day, seven days a week - 8,000 calls last year. There was a great deal of skill and bravery shown by the people involved. A testament of that is seeing how many medals of bravery and stars of courage are presented to search and rescue crews. They are an impressive and admirable group of people. It is an exciting time in the star world with the arrival of our first two CH-149 Cormorants at Comox, an outstanding aircraft that, no doubt, will tremendously enhance our capability there.

Let me finish my opening remarks by talking about people. While these modernization initiatives I have just outlined are certainly significant - in fact, I often say good kit is a quality-of-life factor all of itself - without the folks to operate and command it, we will be left dead in the water. Putting our emphasis on people is about making our capabilities full.

In the case of the air force, much has been made over the last while about our shortage of pilots. Of course, in an air force that relies on manned aircraft currently and will for a number of years to come, pilots are an important part of the team. It is important for this committee and others to note that the situation of pilot shortfalls is not unique to Canada. Certainly, my counterpart in the United States Air Force and my counterparts in the Royal Air Force, the Australian Air Force, and the German Air Force are facing this issue. It is largely being caused by demographics and retirements within the pilot community. We cannot do much about the demographic side. We can do things about making this organization an attractive place to be.

While the pilot situation is the most visible one, it is not the only area where we are having difficulties with maintaining and retaining people. I often say we attract good people to this organization, we give them outstanding training and we provide them with leadership opportunities, so it should not surprise us when, after 10 years or so in the service, industry sees them as a great resource. They are. They are first-class individuals. I may be bothered that they leave, but it does not bother me that they are attractive to industry or when they must leave for family situations or other conditions. I am bothered, though, if they leave because they do not think this organization is a good place to live, to work and to be part of.

In those areas, we can deal with some matters. Some will say the current economic downturn is a solution to the problem and that we can rest on our hands, but that is absolutely not true. I am an optimist and I think most Canadians are. I think our economy will turn around. Even if it does not, the demographics of the situation will make this problem continue in any event. We need to deal with our retention issues into the future.

The key to addressing retention is threefold. The first key, as I previously mentioned, is a good kit and an interesting place to work, an interesting operational environment. There is no doubt in my mind that the Armed Forces offer both of those things.

The second key is a reasonable quality of life. Work has been done over the last two to three years to deal with some of our most egregious issues, and conditions have improved there. Operational tempo is still an issue and will remain one. We are doing some things to address that. In Bosnia, for example, we have introduced, at the recommendation of the field, a new flexible tour length policy. In a stable theatre like that, people may be deployed for periods of three to four weeks or up to six months or even more than six months.

As a side element, that policy will make it much easier for reservists to participate and contribute to those kinds of operations than in the past. Air force reserves, for example, have found it very difficult to get a six-month layoff in the past. It may not be so difficult today. Three weeks or a month is easier to accommodate, so the flexible tour length is an important trial.

The final key is fair compensation. We particularly need to take into account market forces. We simply cannot ignore them. Folks are loyal, there is no question, especially in wartime. In a peacetime environment, it is not reasonable to expect the majority of people to remain in the service if the differences in compensation being offered by private industry are too great compared to what is being offered in the service. It is important that market forces are brought into account. We have been working very hard with the Assistant Deputy Minister of Human Resources (Military) to try develop plans not only to address compensation but terms of service, to introduce flexibility and to enhance loyalty. We cannot buy people's loyalty obviously, but we can make this a fair and honest and good place for people to work. I am quite confident that we can actually get there.

Let me close by paraphrasing some comments I made when I appeared before SCONDVA earlier in the spring. I noted, somewhat tongue in cheek, that the past decade was not without its challenges given the downsizing, the resource reductions and all of the other things that went on during that period of time. Having said that, we collectively - and certainly within the air force - have preserved the important key combat capabilities that we need. If we can carry on with the modernization programs and the personnel initiatives that I have outlined for you here today, I do believe that, in three or four years, we can produce an air force that will do this nation very proud. It will not be a large air force but one that is very capable indeed.

Going back to the opening comment, yes, I am proud to be Commander of the Air Command. I share this perspective with my two colleagues here and with all the other folks who wear the blue uniform in this country. We have a great bunch of people out there. They need the tools to do the job. I am delighted that you and your colleagues are part of trying to make sure that is exactly what we will have.

Senator Banks: I reiterate the chairman's comments of pride in your men and women. They always do us proud. The material with which I was provided seems to have been recycled because it has reference to your objective to develop and implement plans to reduce air force infrastructure. You were looking forward in that comment to April 2001. Has that happened? I am surprised to learn that, at this point, we are looking at further reducing the air force.

LGen. Campbell: The 10 per cent infrastructure reduction talked about here should not be translated as base closures. We are talking about consolidating many facilities. You will have seen these facilities in your visits. I am not sure if you visited Cold Lake?

Senator Banks: I have been there many times.

LGen. Campbell: Over the past three to four years, that base has been changed significantly with the destruction and elimination of facilities that were built in the early 1950s and which were no longer usable. Those facilities continue to cost money as wing commanders and base commanders make payments in lieu of taxes. More important are the maintenance and heating costs. The 10 per cent reduction here will largely be accomplished through the consolidation of facilities on stations. It is an efficiency effort.

Senator Banks: It will have no direct impact on operational capability?

LGen. Campbell: No, unless it allows for improvement.

Senator Banks: My next question is a little bit out of the blue. You talked about the reserve question. The air force reserve used to be more popular than the reserves in the other two services. I do not know if that is still true.

Would you be in favour of a law that protected reserve members in their employment, as I understand is case in the United States? That is to say, if a reservist is called up to fly or to train for six months, their job would be protected by law.

LGen. Campbell: I would have to rely on the advice that I get from my reservists, more than on my own personal opinion. The air force reservists tell me that this a two-edged sword. You have probably heard this before. The positive element of such a law is the ability for people to participate in training activities and the protection of their employment if they are called up. The downside that has been expressed by many professional and upwardly mobile reservists is that such a law would serve as a detriment to their own civilian careers.

There is a general ambivalence within the reserve community. There are ways to address the concern. It depends on the kind and frequency of the operation in question. For example, if we are talking about legislation to cover a national emergency, no one would likely have a concern. If we are talking about granting a day-to-day ability to call people up in peacetime, there would be a greater implication.

Many of you here are very familiar with the Canadian Forces Liaison Council and the great work they are doing working with industry and companies to use moral suasion, if you will, or their own personal interest to support this. That is important. Finding ways in the service that we can more usefully train and use people without taking them away for six months at a time, going back to my comment about flexible tour lengths, is also important.

Senator Banks: You said very early in your remarks that you were hamstrung, in effect, by a lack of a strategic plan that was clear and concise. In whose lap do we place that?

LGen. Campbell: I would not use the word "hamstrung," and the fault is actually very much on us. We are the only ones that can develop such a plan. The lack of such a plan prevents, to some extent, clarity of purpose and understanding, both inside the air force and outside the air force, of where it is we are going.

As to why that plan does not exist now, I think you can largely attribute that to the successive number of reductions during the 1990s. It was very difficult to develop a cohesive idea of where we were going in 15 or 20 years. People were trying, and I was amongst them, to deal with where are we going in three, four or five years. We are now at a stage where I believe we can develop that kind of coherent view.

The work this committee will do, the work being done by SCONDVA, and any other pronouncements out of government will also help us to develop that vision. This is not rocket science.

Senator Banks: Some of it is.

LGen. Campbell: Trying to understand what the world will look like in 20 years is obviously difficult. That is why we need to maintain capabilities that have some flexibility. Actually, trying to postulate where we are today and where we ought to try to get to as a goal is important, recognizing that that plan is updated year after year as you head out there.

Senator Banks: Do you think we can likely look forward to one?

LGen. Campbell: You can. The staff has it well in hand. My expectation is that by the turn of the year I will have my first real draft version of what that would look like.

Senator Banks: You have had a great deal to do directly with the fighter capability of the air force, and you have said that you argued strongly in favour of 80 CF-18s. By that, I gather you meant of keeping as many as 80 CF-18s. We had 122, and you described why the choice has been made with respect to not refurbishing the 42 we are talking about. They are older and more costly. However, as you pointed out, too, a previous government and this one both decided at some point that we needed to have 122 CF-18s to do our job. What happened that we now only need 80?

LGen. Campbell: The requirements for the F-18s were developed in the mid-to-late 1970s.

Senator Banks: So was NATO.

LGen. Campbell: Yes. They came into service in the early 1980s. At that time, we had two wings in operation in Europe, Baden and Larr. Those wings, as was noted in my introduction, no longer exist. A significant portion of our F-18 fleet was stationed once upon a time in Europe, with the reminder back here. If we look at the requirements that are called for in the White Paper and what we need for training, attrition, test and evaluation, and so on, 80 aircraft is the number that we have concluded is a good number. It just happens to pair up also with the number of the most modern airplanes that we have in the fleet.

Senator Banks: Are you are talking about the 1993 or 1994 white paper?

LGen. Campbell: 1994.

Senator Banks: Does it still apply in respect of the air force?

LGen. Campbell: Going back to Dr. Calder's discussions with you on the white paper, and I was involved not in its crafting but on the program side of it, he talked about the difference between program and policy. The policy element of the white paper is as valid today as ever. In fact, it has been largely immutable in Canadian history: defending Canada, defending North America, participating in international operations, et cetera. That is fairly straightforward. What does change is the environment in which you are doing that and the program and the resources that you have with which to do it.

The policy element of what we are trying to support is absolutely true and valid today. Over the years, we have been adjusting the program as each year has gone by.

Do I think the air force needs a new policy basis upon which to develop these strategic plans for the future? I am not sure if it is critical. Affirmation of whatever the policy might be is obviously critical to that.

Senator Banks: We are talking about the means, not the principle.

LGen. Campbell: Yes.

Senator Banks: You talked about refuelling. Can we now refuel any airplanes in flight?

LGen. Campbell: We can. Five of our C-130 Hercules airplanes are air-refuelling capable.

Senator Banks: Do they do it now, today?

LGen. Campbell: They do. In fact, we deployed airplanes to Europe during the operations around Kosovo when we had to, using KC-130s. The problem with that is that the Hercules does not fly very fast or very high and does not have a very great offload of fuel capability. It is difficult in the peacetime North Atlantic particularly to refuel using that kind of resource. It makes you much more dependent on weather and air traffic control, flexibility and so on.

Senator Banks: If you were in a war zone, you would need to leave the war zone in order to refuel; otherwise, someone could shoot you down with a pistol.

LGen. Campbell: It is true that any air-refuelling resources like airborne warning and communications aircraft and so on are aircraft that are actually used back of where the threat is. None of them, United States air refuellers, et cetera, is intended to be in the war zone.

Senator Banks: You mentioned 10 years as being the length of time people hang in with the air force. With respect to pilots specifically, is that about how long they stay with you, including the time that you train them?

LGen. Campbell: Ten years was not meant to refer to a specific period. There are some natural breaks in things. We have a seven-year compulsory service after wings requirement.

Senator Banks: How long does wings take?

LGen. Campbell: That depends on the program. Generally speaking, you can look at an individual coming in and going through university, either a civilian university or Royal Military College, so a four-year program. Pilot training, start to finish these days, probably takes a couple of years. The seven-year period is after that.

Senator Banks: We are talking about keeping people for 13 years if we have gone to the expense and trouble of training them to be a pilot. That is not a bad investment.

LGen. Campbell: That is not bad, but it costs a lot of money to train a pilot. Our hope would be that we could entice more people to stay longer because it improves the return on our investment with them. Some things we can do relatively easy, and I think we will do those. There are some natural push factors that cause people to leave that have to do with our terms of service. Those are things we are looking to change, to make it more attractive for people to stay. If you can entice an individual to stay until they have 14 or 15 years of service, with a pension coming at 20 years, odds are they will make the choice to stay. It is important that we do what we can.

Senator Banks: Putting aside anomalies for the moment, not all that many airlines are recruiting a whole lot of new pilots these days. You did come up with a bonus payment a little while back. As a general rule, how far behind Air Canada is the air force in terms of annual remuneration of pilots?

LGen. Campbell: With the increase in pay over the last two to three years, we are not in bad shape in that regard. Indeed, people always have a tendency to compare themselves not to someone in the median but, for example, to a 747 pilot who has 30 years with a company and is making about $300,000 a year. We must be careful about how we do these comparisons. The reality is that an air force pilot makes more in his early years of service than an equivalent pilot in the civilian sector. However, under the current scales of pay, after about the 8- to 10-year mark, the lines start to cross and that equation continues to change. We must find ways to address that. We must also do a better job in the service of explaining to our young men and women total compensation packages. There is a poor understanding of all of these things. Some airlines, for example, do not have a pension plan. A pilot that does not have a pension plan should be putting $30,000 after tax into some kind of program. There is a job for all of us to do, but we have done a lot in the last two to three years to make the compensation level the playing field here. We have to address some of the other terms-of-service issues. Our staff is working hard on that. I think we will be able to do that.

Senator Banks: We asked this of the senior service and of the army this morning. How short are we in terms of complement in the air force? That is, you have a mandated number of slots to fill. How many slots are empty?

Major-General Richard Bastien, Deputy Commander of Air Command, Assistant Chief of the Air Staff, Department of National Defence: I could not give you a specific number overall, as it changes regularly. In specific areas, for example, pilots and parts of the engineering side, we are under the specific numbers that we are looking for. In terms of recruitment, we are doing quite well. We are getting the people that we need. It is a matter of turning them into experienced people.

We are slightly under; however, I do not have a specific number to offer you.

Senator Banks: Is it dozens or hundreds or thousands?

MGen. Bastien: It is in the hundreds, below a thousand.

LGen. Campbell: On the pilot side, the last number I had was about 230 short, in comparison to a planned strength of about 1,500. Overall, in all of the technical trades and others, the number is about 700. It is less than 1,000 altogether.

Senator Banks: You are happy that the recruitment is starting to catch up?

LGen. Campbell: Recruitment has not been a significant issue from an air force perspective. We have lots of folks lining up to come into the organization, not only as pilots but also as technicians, and so on. Our problem is, first, ability to throughput them in the training program. Second, as General Bastien pointed out, once folks show up on the hangar floor as a technician, they are obviously inexperienced. There is only one way to get that experience, and that is through being there and working, and so on. In the attrition of the middle to the end of the 1990s, we have lost experience. That is something very much felt by those who are out in the field trying to operate fleets of airplanes.

Senator Meighen: We asked this question as well to the other branches. It revolves around the difficulties experienced by former members, former air force personnel, let us say pilots, in rejoining or reservists moving into the regular force. The consensus in the other services seems to be that it is bureaucratic. Indeed, we have heard stories of pilots of the now defunct Canada 3000 airline who used to be in the air force seeking to rejoin and they are meeting all kinds of bureaucratic and other difficulties. Can you comment on that and either affirm or deny?

LGen. Campbell: Anecdotally, I would share some of the same perspectives. We have been very interested in this issue for precisely the reason that a number of people that were formerly air force pilots, and other folks, have left. Obviously, it is in our interest to attract them back. We have recruited 14 or 15 pilots over the past two to three months back into the service. We will continue to do so. There is no question that there are some bureaucratic issues here with regard to security clearances that seem to disappear the minute you take off the uniform, and things like that, that need to be addressed. I asked my own staff to work with the human resources folks to see what we can do about those. Much of the effort that has been involved in a lot of the reserve force restructuring and reserve force employment things have all been designed to try to overcome some of these bottlenecks. I would not deny for a moment that it is an issue that must be addressed.

Senator Forrestall: I am tempted to funnel all of that through a bit. What age limit would you place upon re-recruitment of pilots?

LGen. Campbell: I would not place any particular age on it. Currently, we work to a CRA of 55, with a possibility now of some extensions beyond that. It comes down to a question of fitness of body and mind to do the job. We have aircrew today who are in their 50s and are performing admirably. I would hope I kind of fit that category myself.

Senator Forrestall: There is no doubt that you will experience an influx once an arbitrary decision has been made about the melding of the seniority lists between Canadian and Air Canada. That will discourage a lot of people. You may see a bunch of them showing up at your door fairly shortly.

I want to come back to the maritime helicopter replacement. I do not want to go all the way back to your responses to Major Bouchard, nor will I, except to say I did raise it. I did not get much of an answer, but I never raised it any further. You will understand why.

What is the case now? Is it not true that under specification No. 4 the only qualifying basic vehicle is the Cormorant?

LGen. Campbell: Let me talk to the first issue first, since you raised some of these comments.

Senator Forrestall: I will ask you, then.

LGen. Campbell: You are happy to do that.

Senator Forrestall: Are we now looking at specification No. 5 for the specific purpose of bringing other competitors back into the competition?

LGen. Campbell: No. First, the distribution of the draft basic vehicle specifications here, which are a translation of the statement of operational requirement into something that companies can work towards, was never intended to solicit compliance or non-compliance. It was intended to enter into a dialogue with industry in this way: "Here is what our words are. Here is what we are thinking. How does that fit with what you are doing?" This is something going back to my days as Director General of Strategic Planning and Director General of Force Development. Certainly, Canadian industry and the Canadian government generally have been advocating a much greater openness, transparency and dialogue when it comes to equipment requirements.

Up until now, the work has been to say: "Here is our translation of the statement of operational requirements. How would you meet them?" In some cases, that has resulted in some fruitful input. For instance, where we have described something as requiring an infrared jammer, companies have come back and said that they understand what we are trying to do, protect the aircraft, but there are other ways to do this and as such they describe to us how they would make that happen.

In discussions with the project manager for the DMHB, his perspective is quite clear: There is no compliance issue because we have not asked for compliance. We have asked for dialogue and companies have done that. The Cormorant has not had many inputs to that. One would then assume that they can believe they can largely meet the basic vehicle specification as it was laid out in version 4.

Senator Forrestall: Are you telling me that it is not necessary for a competitor to be compliant?

LGen. Campbell: It will be necessary absolutely for a successful bidder to be compliant with the basic vehicle specifications when they are published, which actually will happen shortly.

Senator Forrestall: It cannot be short enough. I am lost. We had a vehicle that was compliant at No. 4. Indeed, we have one and a half at the third revision. If we are doing this to allow Sikorsky to get onside, why not be transparent and open? Why are we changing it now? There must be a reason. Why are we changing it if the Cormorant meets everything? Do any of the others meet compliance with the fourth specification? Will others meet the fifth specification?

LGen. Campbell: The answer is that we do not know because they were not asked, in responding to the draft basic vehicle specification, to indicate compliance or not. They were asked to enter into dialogue about whether the wording was appropriate. From an air force perspective, there are probably three things that are important: One is whether the aircraft will meet the statement of operational requirements that we developed, which is key. The second relates to when it will be delivered, because that is also important for us.

Senator Forrestall: That question was coming up, incidentally.

LGen. Campbell: The third one relates to how it will be supported throughout its life. We need to make sure we are getting the best deal for Canadians that we can but also that at the end of the day we have an airplane that meets the statement of operational requirements. In all of the effort that the program management organization has done, I am assured that we will certainly meet the SOR and that the aircraft that is delivered will meet those requirements that we have stated as an air force and a navy.

The question of "on time" is another issue altogether.

The issue of support through the lifecycle of the airplane is one that is being dealt with and I am assured will be there.

Senator Forrestall: Who ordered revision No. 5? Where did that order come from?

LGen. Campbell: I cannot tell you, except to say that since number 4 was put out in a draft perspective with a request for companies to comment it was clearly the intention of the program office to take those comments, modify their BVRS and then issue a version that is one on which companies will be assessed for compliance. As I understand, there may well be companies that are not able to meet the requirements as stated.

Senator Forrestall: How much time will they have after the issuance of this No. 5?

LGen. Campbell: The answer to that question is not ready at hand, but I am sure the information could be made available. Again, that is arm's length from us at the program management team.

Senator Forrestall: Have you asked for the extension of the life of the Sea King beyond 2005? It is my understanding that someone has asked industrial marine IMP to take a look at what they might possibly suggest as useful work to safely extend the life of the Sea King up to and, as has been suggested, well beyond 2010 in any event and possibly to 2015, at which time it will be so modern it will be able to see into the next century. That is how long we seem to want to keep this particular piece of equipment. Is there a parameter there?

LGen. Campbell: The current life expectancy of the Sea King is 2005. That is based on previous planning figures. We know that at least some of the aircraft, regardless of how optimistic we are on delivery schedules, will have to continue to operate beyond that. As you note, IMP has been discussing with the engineering staff what efforts might be done in that way. I will not go into the details, but we have an airworthiness process within the air force under which we examine all fleets. Every fleet has, by law, a structure around which we need to deal with their airworthiness and safety. This is by obligation. That effort is underway as well, and I expect that before the end of the year the staff will come forward with their recommendations on what we will do.

We are actually looking at a five-year block to 2010 currently. That is just a normal block that we would deal with as we look at any airplane. Why five years? It is a good time.

Senator Forrestall: What magical thing will keep these planes flying beyond 2007 or 2008?

LGen. Campbell: Not magic for sure. However, there is the investment we have put into the airplane in terms of the main gearboxes and the engines, which are the fundament lifeblood of the safe operation of the airplane, the new computer system that has been installed, and efforts that will go into areas like the sonar, radios and so on. Each of our aircraft fleets goes through a thorough and methodical process by which at the end of the day I, on behalf of the Chief of the Defence Staff, have to say that that airplane fleet is capable of operating. That will be done through the engineering staff and through the diligence and professionalism of the crews and maintenance people who maintain the airplane. I am confident that we will be able to do that.

Senator Forrestall: A few years ago an important element of the crew of these aircraft, the wives, nearly rebelled. The statement put to the base commander at Shearwater was this: "I did not agree to my husband joining the navy. I did not mind him flying off land. I do not like him flying off ships." If you do not know, I do not want to tell you what they are saying today. They, too, place all of their faith not in their husband's ability but in the master corporal's capacity to keep the thing flying safely. They do a fantastic job. There is no doubt about that. You are not going to have helicopters that far into the future, general, and I think in your heart of hearts you probably know that. I do not know what you are going to do about it. You have my fullest support if you can find something to be done to speed up this process. I want to leave that thought with you.

Right now, honestly, when do you think will you get your first delivery of the new MH, and when do you think your last delivery will take place?

LGen. Campbell: To be plain with you on this, it depends on who wins the two competitions. The winners of the two competitions, the basic vehicle and the avionics component, may prove to be compatible matches, which would allow the airplane to be delivered rapidly. However, they may prove to be less compatible, in which case that process of integration may take longer. Anybody who would tell you today what that is would be, I think, speculating. The aim is still 2005. Obviously, my successor in this business will be counting on having a clear understanding within the next year or so of what those dates are.

What is critical is to manage the transition. It is not just managing the transition of the airplanes from here to whenever the new airplanes arrive, but those Sea King crews and maintenance people involved in it are also the people who will operate the new maritime helicopters. We will have to draw on their capability with the Sea King as we do the transition of those individuals to the new airplane. Knowing when we are going to get it will be a critical part of the program.

Senator Forrestall: Are we wasting time not having crews over there? When do you get the rest of the aircraft?

LGen. Campbell: We are perhaps switching projects here now. If we are talking about the maritime helicopter, there is no "over there."

Senator Forrestall: With respect to the Cormorant?

LGen. Campbell: On the Cormorant side, it is a similar situation. At the same time we make the transition to the Cormorant, we have an obligation to maintain search and rescue for the nation. We cannot take crews that are currently trained on and who operate the Labrador aircraft out of here and send them overseas to train today. We have to do that in a balanced way, taking some out and training them as we introduce the new aircraft.

Senator Forrestall: Are you doing that?

LGen. Campbell: We are, and we still anticipate meeting our initial operational capability next year with the aircraft.

Senator Day: General Campbell, can you confirm for me something I read recently, that the Snowbirds will have the Tudor replaced? Is that wishful thinking or is that an actual announcement?

LGen. Campbell: It is not an announcement for certain. We have been given the task by the department, with, obviously, the understanding of the minister, to look at a project to replace the Tudor. As you know, the Tudor has gone out of service now as a trainer aircraft in Moose Jaw. We need to determine what we will do with the Snowbirds who operate that airplane. We currently have plans to operate the Snowbirds with the Tudor until 2006; however, in the meantime, we have to figure out what are the options, what are the costs involved and how do we bring those forward to present them to the department and, ultimately, to the government.

Senator Day: It is still at the investigation stage.

LGen. Campbell: It is in the option development stage, which is looking at all the different opportunities that present themselves.

Senator Day: Could you give us a sense of the size of the reserve element within the air force?

LGen. Campbell: The reserve element is just over 2,100. Just over 700 are full-time, and about 1,400 are part-time reservists. The majority of our full-time folks tend to be ex-regular, but not totally. We have quite a few others in administrative-type positions.

Senator Day: Out of a total complement of how many uniformed personnel in the air force?

LGen. Campbell: The air force regular force complement is just over 13,000.

Senator Day: There are 2,100 reservists.

LGen. Campbell: Our goal on the reserve side is to grow to 3,000. Our situation is quite different than that of either the army or the navy. Our construct in how we employ reserves is different. In the air force, they are totally integrated in regular force units, the exception to that being our two flying squadrons, which are reserve-heavy, not total reserve. We have two reserve-heavy flying units flying the Griffon as part of one wing. For the most part, they are integrated.

Senator Day: How many reserve units or wings do you have in Canada?

LGen. Campbell: We have two reserve squadrons: 400 Squadron, which is in Borden and largely attracts people from the Toronto area, and 438 Squadron in Montreal, which attracts folks in the Montreal area. Across the country, associated with every one of our wings and, in some cases, smaller areas, we have air reserve augmentation flights that are a means of managing the reservists in the local area who respond to the wing commanders out there.

Senator Banks: You said 2,100 reservists, a third of whom are full-time reservists. I presume by that you mean officers and administrative people who run the reserve; is that right?

LGen. Campbell: They also contribute to filling positions within headquarters. For example, when you were in Winnipeg just recently, you would not have been able to tell the difference - neither could I, for the most part, as a commander - but many of those people around there are reservists.

Senator Banks: They are full-time reservists?

LGen. Campbell: Full-time within the context of the reserves. If you are an annuitant, you cannot operate throughout the year. There are some constraints around that. I say full-time to differentiate from weekend or part-time employees.

Senator Banks: Full-time reservists from somebody outside seems almost oxymoronic. If you have 700 people running it, and then if you have a bunch more than 1,400, I presume it would not place an additional strain on the administration, so that everything could fall to the bottom line in terms of useful active part-time reservists.

LGen. Campbell: We do not have much of an overhead managing our reserve because they are totally integrated into regular force units. For example, at Winnipeg, there is just one headquarters.

Senator Day: The NORAD model is a good model, especially in security issues. There is a great deal of cooperation between Canada and the United States in the North American context. There is going to be much more. The NORAD model is a good one for us to look at. From an operational point of view, if I were a pilot flying a NORAD mission out of the West, at Cold Lake, for example, and I was called upon to intercept a hijacked aircraft or unidentified aircraft, from whom do I get the instructions to engage this aircraft or to shoot down this aircraft, if that is deemed necessary?

LGen. Campbell: Perhaps I can separate the example into two possible scenarios. In a wartime situation, although that is unlikely, there is one seamless North American airspace. All of the air defence sectors - the Canadian NORAD region, the Alaskan NORAD region, the continental United States region - are totally integrated. Cross-border operations would be authorized as part of the escalating alert process. From a pilot's perspective, you would not need to worry about the border. You would simply operate. Being handed off from one sector to the next would happen naturally. Cross-border operations are well constructed.

If we are talking about a September 11 type of operation, there are some greater sensitivities, as you can well imagine, in the deliberate shooting down of a civilian airliner and hence a greater emphasis on national control of the situation. There you would not find cross-border operations happening, except under very unlikely circumstances. Plans are to use the NORAD command structure and identical communications but with a greater emphasis on NORAD talking to the national command authorities. For us, read the Prime Minister and others.

Senator Day: It would be the NORAD commander in Canada, General Lucas, who would be contacting someone here in Ottawa to get engagement instructions?

LGen. Campbell: No. I do not want to get too deep into this because I do not think it is appropriate. It would be through the NORAD command-and-control structure. General Lucas reports to the Commander in Chief at NORAD and will continue to do that.

Senator Day: I understand that.

LGen. Campbell: The Commander in Chief at NORAD has direct instructions on his chain of command when it comes to operations that happen in Canada or in the United States vis-à-vis these kinds of operations.

The Chairman: Frankly, general, some of us are skeptical about the capacity to communicate quickly. We visualize a situation where an aircraft takes off and there is perhaps 10 or 15 minutes in which to react. We do not understand how you can communicate with any authority in that period of time.

LGen. Campbell: The situation is complex, yes. There is no doubt about it. We do exercise and will exercise, continuing into the future, the actual communication linkages to ensure that we do connect to our national command authorities. We actually do practise talking to the real individuals or at least their executive assistants who are right at their sides.

In the circumstances that you postulate, I suspect you are right. I also suspect that we probably would not be able to react in that event so quickly in any case.

The Chairman: We have gone from four aircraft on alert to a dozen? I am talking about F-18s. Is that correct?

LGen. Campbell: That is correct.

The Chairman: There are six in the West and six in the East?

LGen. Campbell: I will not get into their locations.

The Chairman: We know where Bagotville is and we know where Cold Lake is.

Senator Day: We know where Chatham used to be.

The Chairman: That is right. The situation may well be, given the way NORAD functions, that American aircraft may be closer at hand. Is that not possible?

LGen. Campbell: It is possible. That is true. I can tell you again that I am not comfortable carrying this too much further under the circumstances today, but under the rules of engagement, national command prerogatives are fairly clear. Certainly the Americans are very sensitive about these issues, as are we. The reality is that the kind of attack that you have just postulated would be very difficult to defend against.

Senator Day: I want to change the direction of questioning to the use of the Polaris for airlift purposes. You indicate that we need new aircraft in this regard but you do not name the aircraft so presumably you have not identified that aircraft in your option planning yet. You do say it would be desirable to have a new aircraft for deployment purposes so that you need not rely on chartering the Antonovs. What is wrong with chartering for that kind of activity?

LGen. Campbell: In a search circumstance, I suspect we would always want to preserve the capability of chartering resources, sealift as well as airlift. There are two elements here. First, the Antonov is becoming an older and less reliable, and therefore less available, platform. Second, generally speaking, when we need to contract those kinds of resources is the same time when others also need to contract the resources. Hence, we are in competition for them.

In the end, it is up to the Government of Canada and Canada in general to decide what they expect the Canadian Forces capacity to be. If the expectation is to deploy relatively rapidly, whether in response to a humanitarian issue or a natural disaster, such as in Turkey several years ago, or in response to a need to move the army or other forces abroad, then we must maintain some kind of capability ourselves. Indeed, we do not have that.

Other kinds of platforms exist. The C-17 is an example. The A-400M might be a player eventually, although it is still a paper aircraft several years away.

Senator Day: That is from an aircraft point of view. I anticipated you would probably say that when you need the aircraft there might not be one available. Do you have any principle against a full-time leasing arrangement, as opposed to capital expenditure and outright ownership?

LGen. Campbell: Absolutely not. The option analysis is looking not only at the two aeroplanes I mentioned but also at rental options, such as the Antonov option, and all of these other aircraft. We will examine whether we need to buy them or whether we could lease them and under what rules. We might be able to cost-share.

Without going into details, I have had some very interesting discussions with our American air force counterparts and also with some industry folks here in Canada with regard to arrangements that might, at the end of the day, reduce cost to the taxpayer.

Senator Day: That would fit within this capital cost acquisition, which you have anguished over, it would appear. Much of the equipment and aircraft are in need of modification. The Aurora and the Hercules are aging. The number of F-18s is being reduced to achieve this capital cost upgrade. It is under so much capital pressure that capability and equipment infrastructure are also constantly reducing.

At the end of your written presentation, you sum up the whole story. You say that if you are given the opportunity to pursue modernization initiatives, you will continue to be combat-capable and to meet the expectations of Canadians.

All of these things that you outlined are dependent on being given the opportunity to pursue your plans, in effect. Is that what you are telling us?

LGen. Campbell: I guess the good news from an air force perspective is that the key element of the F-18 project has been already approved by government. The project for the Aurora modernization is also in implementation. The other main elements of the program are also incorporated.

The one element that is not beyond the notional stage of being fed into the capital program is this whole dimension of airlift. Certainly there has been work with the central staffs, by the central staffs, really, to see how this would fit within a program. It is a bit too early to plot that and to say, yes, the dollars will be available. We really have not concluded what a reasonable option might be. As you pointed out, the solution may well be not a capital-intensive one but one that we can spread out over some period of time.

Senator Day: General, I would like you to comment briefly on a feeling I have that an awful lot of what you do is driven too much - I say "too much" because I think it interferes with your planning - by monies available. We heard Mr. Calder a week or so ago talk about this wonderful long-term planning and dealing with the various options and all the various things that you could do. Yet, we remember in the early 1990s, and I appreciate you were not in the position you are in now, individuals who had a commitment to the armed forces and wanted to be pilots being bought out of their commitment because you said you did not need any pilots. That is less than 10 years ago. I understand that there are pilot classification individuals right now who have been graduated from RMC, have a commitment and a desire to be pilots in the armed forces, but who are off doing graduate work because you cannot train them to be pilots right now; you cannot work them into the program. Yet you are saying you need another 120 pilots. Is this all being driven by dollars, and is that the reason we see these anomalies in the system, notwithstanding all your planning?

LGen. Campbell: We could get into about an hour's worth of answers with those very good questions. Let me address the resource issue first.

Clearly, resources within the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Forces have been very tight. I said to SCONDVA when I spoke to them that while I felt strongly that we had managed to preserve and in fact even enhance the capability and the quality of many of the forces that we have we should not confuse that with depth or sustainability, because those are quite different things. You cannot take the kinds of resource reductions that we faced within the 1990s and not have something change.

I was part of the central staff when we were going through those difficulties. We took the hand we were dealt and actually preserved a useful military capability that we can build on and enhance.

In the situation today, though, in the last two to three years with the government's addition of more funding, some stability in the programs, and, one hopes, even a continued augmentation of resources, my sense is that we now have the stability required so we can actually do that planning about where we need to go in the future.

Resources are tight. It is like your own personal bank account. If you know what it is going to be and you can be consistent and you can understand it, and if it is not going to change from month to month or year to year, you can get on and plan your life. The problem is caused when you do not have that kind of certainty. That was life back in the 1990s.

To the issue of pilot training, this is not a question of resources. I will go back to this question about transition. We transitioned from the Tutor fleet to our new NATO flying training program with the Harvard-2 and the Hawk simultaneously. We did not have the luxury of standing up one and shutting down the other. We had to do them together. When you do that, particularly as you introduce new aircraft into the system, you run into some bottlenecks and unexpected setbacks. As a result of that, we ended up a bit behind the power curve on training. That is why some of these people coming out of RMC and elsewhere are waiting.

I am very concerned about that. If we do not look after those folks well, we will turn them into unmotivated people very quickly, and they will be the ones quickest to leave whenever it is that their commitment to serve disappears. We are managing those people on an individual-by-individual basis, to try to ensure what we are doing with them is productive and, we hope, offsetting some future liability for training or education that they will not have to do once we can feed them into the mill.

We made a deliberate choice about six to eight months ago to stop some people from the training program in Moose Jaw because they were not getting the continuity of training they needed. As you know, that is the worst possible thing you can do. An individual gets one chance at this pilot training bit. If you blow it, through your fault or the fault of the system, it is very difficult to get back in. We took those people out and set them aside so we could give the training to individuals there, and then we are going to feed the new people back into the system so we can really pay attention to them. They all understand that. We have taken a very personal view of making sure that the young peoples themselves understand why we are doing what we are doing. It is, at the end of the day, for their best interest.

[Translation]

Senator LaPierre: If you allow, I would ask Mr. Bastien to provide me with some written figures concerning francophones, for instance, about their participation and the role of French.

[English]

Also, I am interested in visible minorities, in this absurd language we use, and how they you fit into the air force.

[Translation]

I would also like to ask Mr. Gilbert what in fact makes-

[English]

...the Air Force: a good place in which to live and in which to grow? Does he often have this picture on the posters?

LGen. Campbell: Not in the want ads.

Senator LaPierre: I am very concerned, sir, about security in the North. I was concerned when we were out in British Columbia. If I remember correctly, the Aurora only goes into the North twice. After all, this is an immense stretch of land and borders on our third ocean. How do you view the North's strategic importance to our security?

LGen. Campbell: The key feature of that question is the immenseness of this territory. The reality is that we could put every one of not only our Aurora aircraft but everything else we own full-time against the North and not be able to cover it in the context of a sovereignty or security basis. We rely on the queuing or the identification of a requirement or a threat so that we can concentrate resources. That is not unique to the Arctic. It is also true in other areas as well. For example, on the West Coast, we do not fly a tremendous number of security patrols on a daily basis either, but when the migrant situation arose we were able to concentrate forces from both coasts to provide a tremendous capability to complement the navy and others to do that and to use the queuing that we were getting from naval and other assets to know where to operate the airplanes. Airplanes are tremendous resources but they are also fleeting and non-permanent. To fly them over wide expanses of ocean is a poor choice of tactic.

Senator LaPierre: You concentrate on the queuing and, once you know about that, then you can deploy the assistance that is necessary both in rescue and in security?

LGen. Campbell: That is correct. We do some sovereignty-type activities in the North, out of Yellowknife, with the Twin Otter squadrons that are based there. We do fly, as you noted, a number of patrols with Auroras. We deploy F-18s in our forward-operating locations there. If we have either intelligence or other sources that would suggest that there is a need to concentrate resources, then we do so. That is an important element, too. We tend to think about activities of airplanes in terms of yearly flying rates and decry the lessening of hours. It is important to understand how much you can concentrate at a particular time and how much resource, ultimately, you can build. In the case of the migrant operation, we threw more resources at that, bought more flying hours and provided a greater number of flights to carry on that action.

Senator LaPierre: Would you say that we are in a peacetime environment since September 11? I used the phrase that you used.

LGen. Campbell: That is a difficult question. Has the world changed fundamentally since September 11 in terms of our security here? I think many observers would say, no, that these threats existed before September 11. Are they manifestly more apparent to Canadians today and North Americans in general? Clearly, they are. What was postulated as being a possibility we practised in the NORAD environment, for example, hijacked airplanes scenarios, and so on. In the past, we all believed that was possible. We have now seen that not only is it possible but also it is reality. In that case, the world has changed.

In the context that we continue to support operations in Bosnia, we continue to support operations here within Canada and we continue to have to train on a daily basis to regenerate ourselves, and so on. Things have not changed significantly.

Senator Atkins: We have talked about permanent force and reserve force. This morning, Admiral Buck said that he could not put his ships to sea if it were not for civilians. What number of civilians do you have attached to the air force?

LGen. Campbell: The civilian complement of the air force is just over 2,000 people, but that is a false measure of how many people are involved in maintaining the capability.

Let me give you a quick comparison. The navy relies on a fleet prepare unit, in Halifax and Esquimalt, which is populated by a civilian cadre of DND employees. For years, the air force has - and even more so today - operated generally with industry providing that third-line support.

Our equivalent of the admiral's civilian force are the Bombardiers, the AlliedSignal, the Bristols and all of these other organizations, IMP, for example, that actually do the third-line maintenance for us.

Senator Atkins: How many women pilots do you have?

LGen. Campbell: The number is not large. I would be guessing, but I would say it is less than 50. We have no fighter pilots right now, although one is entering training in the near future. The program has been open to women for a long time. We have attracted a wide variety. We have a lot of navigators as well who are female. All of them with whom I talk find it extremely interesting. They say that they feel very comfortable in the environment. We lose them large already for the same reasons as we lose other people, namely, to go off and do other things.

Senator Atkins: Is there any form of affirmative action in the forces that encourages women?

LGen. Campbell: No, not in an air force-specific sense. The best affirmative action we can do is to make the environment accommodating to women, and I think we do that. During the days of the Maclean's articles on problems that women faced in the armed forces, when I was commanding the air division, I made a specific point of talking to women of all ranks when I travelled out in the field to find out if any of this was part of their experience. Was this part of the air force that I did not see? I received input that, no, they feel very comfortable in the environment. Certainly 10 or 15 years ago there were barriers that had to be broken. It was largely a male-dominated organization. I do not think that is so today.

Senator Atkins: I try to understand why it takes so many years to produce a helicopter. I wonder whether part of it is because the assembly or part of the contract must be made in Canada. Why does it take so long?

LGen. Campbell: It is more complex, obviously, than going down to the corner Chevy lot and picking one out. That is part of it.

These are very significant investments. We are talking over $3,000 million, which is a lot of money to invest. Therefore, it is important that we invest this prudently. Part of it is also a question of the particular circumstance of where airplanes are in their development. There are not a large number of helicopters that are on the market and ready to buy. Some of them are coming about now, for example, the Sikorsky product, the NH90, and others. As an operator and as a pilot, I always find things never happen fast enough for my desires, either. It is a complex process.

Going back to my comments about the folks who are involved in running the program, I know them all. They are or were operators just like we are. They are trying to do the best they can to deliver a product as quickly as they can as well.

Senator Atkins: To someone who is just an observer, Boeing is producing a 767 in a year and a half, or less.

LGen. Campbell: One should go back and look at how long the development process was involved in almost any project. For example, the joint strike fighter that the United States has recently been talking about, the JSF, had its genesis at least six or seven years ago. It just finished its initial selection phase now. Even in the United States, they will not be talking about bringing that aircraft into service until the 2010 or 2012 time frame. These projects are not short term.

It goes to my opening point about strategic planning: It is critical that we have as good an understanding as we can of what we think we will need out there in 10, 15 or 20 years, because what we think about buying today that is about when we will be getting it.

Senator Atkins: The reason I ask is this: Do we always have to reinvent the wheel?

LGen. Campbell: I do not think we are. In the case of the F-18, we bought it essentially off the shelf. In the case of whatever strategic airlifter we buy, if we get it, it will be off the shelf. That could be a quick acquisition, depending on what we choose to do, if we choose to do anything.

The MHP is a little different, although whatever we buy will be off the shelf, as the situation is less clear in terms of available manufacturers. Our new trainer airplanes, the Harvard and the Hawk, were both off-the-shelf acquisitions. We have gone away from the proposition that if it does not have a Canadian flavour or stamp to it, we do not want it. Almost everything we have is the same as what everyone else is flying.

Senator Atkins: It just gets down to helicopters.

LGen. Campbell: Fixed-wing pilots will say that helicopters are just difficult things, but there you go.

The Chairman: General Campbell, your testimony today has been very instructive and helpful to us in understanding the problems that you face. They are complex and difficult. You are dealing with a shortage of resources, and we appreciate that. I want to reiterate the pride that this committee feels in the work of the men and women of the air force. We wish you would communicate that to them.

LGen. Campbell: Mr. Chairman and honourable senators, you can be absolutely certain that we will use a chunk of our part of the maple leaf and other communications to express those words to the men and women out there. They do deserve them.

The Chairman: Honourable senators, our final witness is General Raymond Henault, Chief of the Defence Staff. A native of Winnipeg, he completed his pilot training at CFB Borden, Ontario, and CFB Gimli, Manitoba. We see from his biography that he has accumulated 4,500 hours of flying time in a variety of aircraft. He has had a distinguished career with postings in Canada and abroad.

At National Defence Headquarters, he has served as Chief of Staff J3, as Acting Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff, as Assistant Chief of the Air Staff and as Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff. General Henault was promoted to his present rank and appointed Chief of the Defence Staff on August 28 of this year. He is accompanied by Chief Petty Officer First Class R.M. Lupien, Canadian Forces Chief Warrant Officer.

General, before you start, I want you to know that we have told the commanders of each of the environments how proud we are of the men and women in the Canadian Forces. I want to repeat that to you. It is something that everyone on the committee feels. We feel it is a message that is not delivered often enough.

General Raymond R. Henault, Chief of the Defence Staff, Department of National Defence: Mr. Chairman, I feel that same pride. I appreciate it coming from a committee of this stature.

[Translation]

It is a pleasure for me to be with you again this afternoon, the Chief of the Defence Staff, with Chief Petty Officer First Class, Richard Lupien, to talk to you about the Canadian Forces. Knowing that I am your final witness, I am going to try and shorten my presentation to allow more time for discussion among ourselves. I will try to answer all your questions.

[English]

I have some prepared notes here, which you received beforehand, so I will try to go quickly through them. I will also give you an update of where we are with Operation Apollo, which is our current commitment to the counterterrorism campaign, and then open the floor to questions. I will be happy to answer any question that you have. If you have any questions for Chief Petty Officer Lupien, please ask those as well.

I know that you have been interviewing all of the environmental chiefs today and have had an opportunity to get their views and feedback throughout the day. I understand that that has gone well and I appreciate that.

I would like to give you a perspective on my plans and priorities. In the first instance, I will give you the latest recap on Operation Apollo, which is our deployment to the Arabian Sea and the region that is under scrutiny in the context of the campaign against terrorism.

I think that most here are well aware of our naval task group deployment. It is in the region now and is operating in full concert with the coalition and the coalition allies. It is in the Arabian Sea and is undergoing a number of different task changes. It is integrating very effectively into the battle groups in the region. It is currently doing screening operations for the U.S. and ARG, which is the amphibious ready group that transports marines and other land elements in the region.

The HMCS Vancouver, the ship that left from the West Coast, is currently in Hong Kong en route to the area of operations in Southwest Asia with its parent carrier battle group. There is another frigate about to deploy soon, that being the HMCS Toronto. It will be leaving Halifax on December 5. I will be going to Halifax with the minister to bid farewell to that crew. It will join NATO'S Standing Naval Force Atlantic, STANAVFORLANT, to backfill the ship we withdrew from STANAVFORLANT when we first started this operation in order to get a vessel quickly into the Arabian Sea. We will provide support to Standing Naval Force Atlantic as it does a number of duties in support of the coalition and the campaign against terrorism in the Mediterranean over the next month and a half or so.

Another operation to which you may hear reference in the media is Operation Active Endeavour, which is NATO's contribution to the campaign against terrorism, using either the Standing Naval Force Atlantic or the Standing Naval Force Mediterranean.

We also currently have an Airbus in the region. It has been operating primarily from Rhein-Main Airbase in Frankfurt, Germany. It has been doing a number of missions into the region, carrying materiel and people throughout the area of operations. It has not gone into Afghanistan, but has gone into many of the outlying countries. That aircraft has done a tremendous amount of work so far. It has carried almost 500,000 pounds of cargo and people in the short time it has been there. We hope it will be augmented very soon by a detachment of three C-130 Hercules aircraft and, ultimately, by two Aurora CP-140 maritime patrol aircraft.

We also have our light infantry battalion, the Immediate Reaction Force Land, currently on seven days' notice to move with an advance party on 48-hour notice. You may know that that battalion had been previously committed for stability operations in airfield security and so on and also perhaps, as a spin-off to that, support to humanitarian operations. However, the mission changed with the fluidity of the situation in the region and, for that reason, we have now reduced the readiness to move back to seven days. We will deploy it when it is required by the coalition, as it is not at this time.

Finally, our National Command Element headquarters in Tampa remains on active service with the coalition headquarters in Tampa. It has liaison and logistics staffs in Qatar, Bahrain and other parts of the region to help support ongoing activities.

[Translation]

That will give you an idea of what we are doing right now. I would remind you that there are some 3,300 members of the Canadian Forces currently deployed, not only on Operation Apollo, but also in other Canadian Forces operations continuing in Bosnia and elsewhere.

At present, we have 14 missions to which we provide support for NATO, the UN or the coalition we belong to.

[English]

The events of September 11 have obviously give us a tremendous amount of focus and a very complex new dimension that we must work on that has a very significant international flavour.

[Translation]

We have seen with our own eyes the threat of terrorism and we have understood that we have to deal with the threat as necessary, but that that will take time. From what we already see, with the extent of the operations in which we are involved, we think that patience will be required to complete the task with the coalition. This is a new dimension for which we must be prepared, but we know that there are still plenty of things for us to bear in mind to cope with the future.

[English]

We still have a number of other people issues that we must deal with as we go downstream. We must not forget those as we continue to cooperate with our coalition allies. We still need to invest in new resources and in people. We still need to invest in new equipment and to undertake all initiatives that are essential not only to our ability to respond to current operations but also to position the Canadian Forces to respond to operations in the longer term.

Much of that is very much guided not only by the white paper defence policy of 1994 but also by our Canadian Forces Strategy 2020, which I think has been alluded to and which I know you have discussed with other committee witnesses in the past. It really is at the core of what we are trying to do to posture the Canadian Forces for the long term and to maintain what we know is essentially a requirement for a multipurpose, combat capable, globally deployable Canadian Forces not only today but into the future.

Another very important part of that capability is one that provides us with interoperability with our allies, be they NATO, UN, coalition or others. That is a very important part of our strategy and our long-term capability requirement.

I am focusing a great deal of energy on a number of things, not the least of which is the campaign against terrorism; however, I am also very focused on those needs that I have just discussed. People requirements remain key to our future, in my view, as I stressed before. That has been said by many others before me, I am sure, and I can assure you that it is not overstated. It really is the key to what we must do.

We recognized that we were having some significant problems with people issues, especially in terms of recruiting and retention. The maintenance of our core requirements into the future required us to take a hard look at recruiting and retention and to put in place some important initiatives. That is why we have launched the recruiting campaign that I hope you have seen, either in television ads or videos that are shown in movie theatres and before movies on television. We have acquired Internet access and newspaper ads, all in an attempt to tell young and adventurous Canadians between the ages of 17 and 24 - although we are not limited to that but that age group being are primary target - that are looking for an exciting career, one that offers some adventure as well as the challenge of being either an officer and a non-commissioned member in the regular force or reserve in the Canadian Forces, about the Canadian Forces.

That campaign is working reasonably well. To date, we have achieved about 85 per cent of our target for this fiscal year, that target being 7,000 regular force members. We have actually surpassed our target for the reserve force. We are up to about 4,000 recruits so far in the reserve, with a target of 3,000. We have recruited an overall total of reserve and regular force of 10,000 for this year.

I hasten to add that there is still a bit of work for us to do. Even though those numbers appear very successful, as they are, there are some areas in which we still have some shortfalls and we must do better. Those areas are primarily in the specialist requirements like doctors, engineers, some very specific technical trades and others. In some of those trades, we have achieved only about 30 per cent of our target. There is a bit of an imbalance and we are working hard to ensure that we put in place the initiatives and incentives that will help us to redress that shortfall. Some of those include recruiting sign-up bonuses and other attractive options that will help us to draw people to the forces, or at least to encourage them to have a much closer look at the forces.

In addition to that, we have a retention issue to deal with, which is another important part of what we do. Over the past few years, under the previous CDS and continued by me, we have undertaken many people programs that we think will encourage people to stay in the Canadian Forces.

[Translation]

We have proposed several quality-of-life initiatives concerning medical support, compensation, remuneration, education and professional development. We think that will help curtail what we have seen as an uncontrollable exodus of staff.

[English]

We have really turned the tide on what was a very significant departure of people from the Canadian Forces. The retention rate is about average now. The departure rate for the Canadian Forces was somewhere in the neighbourhood of 7 per cent to 8 per cent more than two years ago, and this was going to cause us some significant problems in the outer years because we could not recover our trained effective strength in any short time with that kind of a continuing unexpected attrition from the Canadian Forces.

We see now a reversal of that. The average attrition rate is somewhere in the neighbourhood of 3.5 per cent to 4 per cent. We are seeing attritions reduced somewhere in the neighbourhood of 4 per cent or 5 per cent, which means that we have achieved a more stable attrition, much more manageable in terms of recruiting and retention. That should make a difference.

We do not know what has caused a change in the attrition rates. We do not know whether it was the events of September 11 that created a certain desire to be part of a Canadian Forces operation or whether it is the retention initiatives or the recruiting initiatives. I think that they all combine. I think that is the actual response to that one.

Our focus remains on people. We are concentrating not only on the regular force but also on the reserve. We count on the reserves, quite frankly. They are an important part of our makeup. They are an essential part of the fabric of the Canadian Forces, and they provide us with the depth and capacity to sustain operations in the longer term. For that reason, we have to take the initiatives and the undertakings that are required to ensure that people are not only attracted to join but also to stay in the reserves of the Canadian Forces.

I know you have spoken at length with the environmental chiefs on their reserve programs. I hope that they have given you the answers you require.

We have a revitalization effort specifically in the land force reserve, for all the reasons you are well aware. We want to increase the number of reserve soldiers that are out there and to strengthen our overall capability to support land force operations not only at home but also abroad.

I can get into issues of that nature if you wish afterwards, Mr. Chairman, but I am fairly confident that what we have in place, if carried through, and our intention is to carry it through, will provide what we need in the longer term.

There is also a significant requirement for us to keep a close eye on modernization requirements. Again, I know the environmental chiefs have discussed this, but I would reinforce that.

[Translation]

Human resources are crucial, but they need tools to perform the tasks required, both at home and abroad. One of my great priorities is therefore to make sure that the members of the Canadian Armed Forces have the new technologies, the benefits of which are many, and the equipment necessary to perform the jobs required of them by the Canadian government.

[English]

Again, the operations that are currently underway have shown the importance of modernization, interoperability and the ability to project forces outside the country. Many of the things that we have undertaken in the past several years in an interoperability sense to be able to fit seamlessly into a coalition - NATO or other - have paid off. We can see that we can make a meaningful contribution to operations on the world stage in support of peace and stability and other things. We will continue to do that.

Our current naval forces on Operation Apollo are totally integrated into the carrier battle groups. They have the same communications capabilities. They operate as an independent task group providing force protection for the American carrier battle groups or amphibious groups that I have talked about previously. They do that with the full confidence of the commanders. I continue to get feedback from commanders out there about the faith and confidence that they have in Canadian Forces, whether they are army, navy, or air force.

Maintaining that interoperability comes at a price. We all know that. It means that we must invest in the future. That has been an important part of what we have been focusing on, to ensure we have the equipment, technologies and, again, that interoperability - the ability to operate seamlessly alongside allies well into the future. That is critical to our long-term capability.

You have been made aware of some of the other things that we are doing through your discussions with other witnesses. I would focus on a few of the higher technology things that we are trying to do in the future. Those include the Canadian military satellite communications project, which will allow us to communicate much more effectively and in a secure and encrypted fashion with all of our deployed operations. We now know how far we can deploy. We have seen ourselves deployed to the other side of the world, to East Timor. We are now operating in the vicinity of Pakistan and the Arabian Sea, Afghanistan and so on. We are a long way from home. Global communications is critical to us to maintain situational awareness from our point; it is also critical to be able to support those operations outside the country and to provide them with essential re-supply, advice, direction, and inputs from the national level, which you cannot do without those types of communications capabilities.

We are also doing a number of things to improve our aircraft ships and land force equipment, either in communication capabilities or in other ways. We are looking at what we need to do internally at headquarters as well as to our joint operations capability, that is, the ability to operate with all three elements of the Canadian Forces to accomplish a mission in a way that is efficient and rapidly deployable. It has been proven that we need to be able to deploy quickly and be able to respond to some uncertain and unpredictable circumstances worldwide.

We are also looking even further downstream, in the context of projects such as the joint strike fighter, in which we have been involved to a modest degree. That international program, which is looking ultimately to provide an affordable, stealthy, multi-role fighter aircraft for a number of participating nations, will be one of the largest aerospace projects ever undertaken in history.

We would like to be involved in that, ultimately making our own decisions. The Government of Canada would make the decisions regarding next steps for our fighter requirements.

We have already received a number of benefits from that program. We made an initial investment of about $16 million in the first phase of the project. We are now looking at the second phase of that project and what that would mean to us. We are emphatic about getting on-board that long-term requirement.

It is important to us because the technologies that will come out of it will not only benefit the Canadian Forces but also Canadian industry. As well, it would keep us on a very solid footing in the longer term.

Therefore, high-tech is very important to us. It also provides us with an ability to ensure that we have quality over quantity where it is important. That has been the hallmark of the Canadian Forces in what it has done, especially outside the country in the recent past.

There are other requirements that are key. Those include deployability requirements. Getting our equipment to where it needs to go is a significant challenge with the current distances that we must consider. If we were called to operate in Afghanistan or to locate in some country on the northern, northwestern or northeastern fringes of Afghanistan, the distances are quite significant. In fact, one of the closest seaports is located in Poland, which is 4,470 kilometres away by rail, a significant distance, equal to the distance from Whitehorse, Yukon, to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Another close port for us is in the Ukraine, a distance of 3,000 kilometres, or roughly the distance from Yellowknife to Montreal. Therefore, without the ability to airlift everything into that region, and we know we cannot do that completely, there is a significant challenge in what we have to do.

That internal capability is one that we will probably still need to augment even when it is resident in the Canadian Forces. It is key to be able to do the rapid deployments that the government calls us to do in the longer term.

I have mentioned the context of joint operations and joint capability. I would underscore this. In my former capacity as deputy chief of the defence staff, I was certainly involved intimately in the establishment of the joint operations group in Kingston. That is the organization that pulls together the command and control, the communications and the support requirements that are necessary for rapid deployment, whether of large forces as we are seeing now or things like the disaster assistance response team. We have unique capabilities for nuclear, biological and chemical response. It is very important to have the ability to deploy quickly and to establish ourselves in theatre.

The joint operations group did a tremendous job even before they actually achieved full operational capability in helping us to establish ourselves in Ethiopia and Eritrea, when we deployed there. They did the theatre activation for that operation. They were intimately involved in the repositioning of some our recognizance forces from Bosnia to the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia for a period of about 30 or 40 days.

They have been involved in helping us to establish operations or command and control capabilities in Tampa as we ramped up for Operation Apollo. They will ultimately help us to establish our national command element or footholds in the region when we deploy forward.

So it is an important part of what we do, and that is being augmented by things like the experimentation centre and some of the space capability that we are trying to introduce into the Canadian Forces in the longer term.

We face a number of new challenges. We have been helped in redressing or remedying some of those by the investments that the government has made over the last few years - roughly $3 billion - that I know you heard about previously. There are still challenges out there, and September 11 created some new ones that perhaps were there before but have become more evident now. We will be looking for additional support to deal with those additional challenges, either in resources or in funding or in other ways.

[Translation]

In conclusion, the Canadian Forces are among the best in the world. I appreciate your comments very much. Our allied representatives, at all levels in the chain of command, have made the same favorable comments to us when we are on duty. We are fulfilling our mandate to the best of our ability and we are much in demand.

[English]

We are much in demand out there. Once we get there, it is difficult to extract ourselves, because Canadian Forces officers and non-commissioned members, regular forces and reservists really do shine when they perform operations, as well as they do at home. My objective and my job, as I see them, is to build on the existing foundation and the established capabilities and to maintain a relevant Canadian force well into the future. With that, I thank you for your attention and I look forward to your questions.

Senator Meighen: There is very little of what you said with which I do not agree. The environmental chiefs gave us an excellent picture earlier today of the situation. All Canadians can be justifiably, as the chairman and you said, proud of the excellence of our armed forces.

I cannot help, though, to conclude that we still face significant challenges. In a perverse kind of way, perhaps September 11 has helped. It has helped the Canadian public to focus a bit more on the need for and the importance of our armed forces and the excellence with which they are doing their job. It has possibly led to the creation of this committee. Indeed, it has put the whole question of national security to the forefront.

A cynic might say that, notwithstanding all that, our forces are still under-trained, under-equipped, understaffed and overworked. If we look at under-training, for example, we could all be very pleased with the success of the recruiting drive. However, do we have the capacity to train these 7,000 new members of our armed forces? We have heard about the limited numbers of patrols in the air force because of lack of purchase of such things as fuel, et cetera. There are constraints that still exist.

General Henault, you talked about the need for sealift, airlift and probably for air-to-air refuelling. Those requirements are not yet funded, to the best of my knowledge. We still have retention problems, although I am glad to hear it is being turned around. In particular, we have a problem hiring and keeping specialists, where we run up against such intense competition from the private sector.

Of course, with 14 missions and our penchant for saying, if you pardon the saying, "ready-eye-ready" to every international obligation that comes along, no - our forces are overworked, in my opinion, which poses difficulties for families, as you well know.

I am hopeful that the government will continue its change of heart and that, in the next budget, coming this month, they will provide additional funds. If some additional funds are provided, what are your priorities for them? Where would you use them first - for training or for something else?

Gen. Henault: I will speak to our capacity to train. You are quite right, the training system is not geared to accept, in its normal form, the increased numbers that we are trying to put through the system so that we are able to recover our trained effective strength over the next three years. For that reason, the ADM for human resources, military - General Couture - and our environmental chiefs of staff, who appeared before you today, have all agreed to share the burden of additional training and to put additional training mechanisms in place to allow us to take a surge of training through the next three-year period. That will allow for the extra capacity that we have to put through the system. We have to do that if we are to recover our trained effective strength.

I mentioned the fact that our trained effective strength was down because of attrition over time and other factors that have come to limit our capability to maintain the numbers. That curve was on a downward swing that would have been difficult to recover had we not taken some of those actions over the last year or so, in particular, the actions of the recruiting and retention programs that I talked about.

We have all committed to taking whatever actions are necessary to do what you just talked about. You are right, it comes with a little bit of pain on the part of the environmental chiefs and human resources, military, because they have to add additional resources. Nevertheless, we are doing what we have to do to recover it, so I agree with you.

With that recovery program, it will mean that our baseline number of 60,000 Canadian Forces regular force members will likely surge a little bit, and we will likely find ourselves creeping up to 62,000 or 63,000. We do not know the exact numbers. It will fluctuate, as we progress through this two- or three-year period of recovery.

We are confident with the analyses that have been scientifically done about our ability to recover over, that three-year period, with the commitment I talked about, by the period 2004, 2005, 2006, we will re-attain that trained effective strength that is critical for us to mitigate the effects of operational tempo, to reduce the impacts on family to ensure their quality of life is maintained at a reasonable degree, et cetera. For those reasons, I appreciate your comments, senator, because they are critical to how we do business.

I would also comment on the ready-eye-ready. That is a good term, one that I have heard many times from Vice-Admiral Buck. We do often step up to the plate. Canadians are highly desired in coalition operations and in NATO circles.

We have deliberately been trying to reduce the amount of international support that we have provided over the last few years, especially after the period from the latter part of 1999 and the early part of 2000. You will remember the effects of the Kosovo air campaign, the follow-on peace support mission in Kosovo, as the air campaign came to a close, the effects of the Kosovo refugee crisis and our willingness to take on more in Canada, the follow-on East Timor requirements, and the effects of the year 2000 rollover. There were a significant number of things happening at the time.

We had reached a peak of operational activity at that time. We were up to about 4,400 Canadian Forces members deployed outside of Canada, and we could not sustain that. We reduced from 21 missions down to 12 or 13 missions, which is where we were when September 11 struck. It was fortunate that we had done that, because it gave us some surge capacity knowing that people required that break from that continuous involvement. We are sensitive to that, senator, and I appreciate your comments. For those reasons, we do say no, where we can.

In the case of the campaign against terrorism, there was no question of our willingness to support, given the global effect that the attacks on New York and Washington and ultimately Pittsburgh also had.

Operational tempo continues to be a significant part of our focus and my focus. We have a number of studies underway as well to try to mitigate the effects of the operational tempo and to ensure that we stay in line with the quality of life initiatives that we have put in place. We must ensure that we do not burn people out as we go through these long-term issues.

Senator, could you repeat the last part of you question again, please?

Senator Meighen: If Santa Claus comes early for you on December 11, and provides more funding, where would you direct those funds within the Armed Forces requirements?

Gen. Henault: I would direct them to three different capability requirements. The first area would be people. That is where we need to put our effort and that is where additional funding would be focused.

Senator Meighen: Does that mean quality of life, recruitment or training?

Gen. Henault: It means all of the above. It means providing more training, capacity and the capability to recruit and retain. It means whatever it takes to build up our capability and to ensure that we recover to that 60,000 number I spoke about. That includes everything that comes with issues and support for people.

The second priority must be the enhancement of our readiness, that is, everything that allows us to deploy forces or to prepare for and sustain forces outside Canada, things like national procurement, maintenance funding, training and the equipment requirements that must be done.

The third priority would be modernization. People would be first. Modernization and readiness would go hand in hand. We will have to make some careful trade-offs in those two areas. That is how my efforts will be targeted with additional funding, if the government provides that to us.

Senator Meighen: In addition to training, reservists have a difficulty in becoming members of the regular force if they so desire. Everyone seems to be agreed that it is "a bureaucratic problem." This is more a plea to you than a question. We understand that General Couture is working on this matter, and I hope that he will have your support in trying to clear this up as quickly as possible.

It seems to me that if you have a reservist and you have invested time, money and effort in the training of that individual, it is a shame that that person, if they so desire, cannot convert to the regulars for bureaucratic reasons.

Gen. Henault: I appreciate that point. There have been some specific instances where people have had some bureaucratic difficulties in transitioning from the regular force to the reserve and also in joining the reserve or even joining the regular force.

We have taken a fairly aggressive approach to that, senator. Through the CF recruiting group, we are trying to do some streamlining of the recruiting processes, and streamlining particularly in the case of reserves so that we are able to get them into uniform as quickly as possible and not lose their interest. Part of the problem we were facing is that they would come into the recruiting centre, the reserve recruiting centre or the regular force centre, would get an initial screening, and then in some cases would not hear from the Canadian Forces for an extended period of time and hence their interest would drop off.

Senator Meighen: It might appear that their file goes into never-never land somewhere and starts from zero again.

Gen. Henault: That is unacceptable, and I have made that point to the human resources people on more than one occasion.

We now have a new commander of the CF recruiting group, Colonel Tremblay. He has been aggressive at addressing these recruiting issues and has brought forward a number of initiatives that HR-Mil is trying to introduce into the process of recruiting and training and initial training, particularly, that will streamline that process significantly. The new system will reduce the bureaucratic part of the process by several weeks. We will have to take some risks, in some cases, in doing things that we must do in terms of completing all of the assessments or the background checks. There are some ways that things can be accelerated. Where it is possible, reasonable and achievable, we will do that. You will see a turnaround, ultimately.

Senator Meighen: As you know, this committee is called Security and Defence. It is thought, at least in these quarters, that security and defence are interwoven. I want to get your comments briefly on how you see your role in a security and defence context. Perhaps you could explain to Canadians how it works. The three environmental chiefs we saw today report to you. You report to the Prime Minister; am I correct?

Gen. Henault: I report to the Prime Minister through the Minister of National Defence.

Senator Meighen: Do you have any interoperability with the security people?

Gen. Henault: Yes, I do.

Senator Meighen: Can you briefly outlive how that works?

Gen. Henault: I am a member of the interdepartmental committee on security and intelligence.

Senator Meighen: Is that a committee of the Privy Council?

Gen. Henault: That is a committee of the Privy Council Office and meets annually, or more often than that, usually biannually, and lately has met on more than one occasion.

Senator Meighen: Annually or biannually is not a top priority, is it?

Gen. Henault: No, but I have met several members of that committee several times since the events of September 11. I have only been in the seat for four or five months now, and have met with them probably half a dozen times.

Senator Meighen: Who chairs that committee?

Gen. Henault: The Clerk of the Privy Council Office has chaired most of the meetings that I have attended. Dick Fadden is also a key player. The interdepartmental committee on security and defence is a cabinet committee that is chaired by the Prime Minister. I have not been to a meeting at the prime ministerial level, but the other levels have been involved in their entirety.

Senator Meighen: Does the Chief of the Defence Staff meet with the Prime Minister on a regular basis?

Gen. Henault: I speak to him regularly. I have been over to brief him on regulations face-to-face. I speak to him by phone regularly to brief him on operations and to make recommendations to him on our involvement. Especially in the campaign against terrorism, we have had several conversations.

Senator Meighen: That would be chiefly after September 11?

Gen. Henault: Yes, but also before.

Senator Meighen: Was it on a reduced tempo before?

Gen. Henault: It was a reduced tempo, yes.

Senator Day: The Prime Minister chairs the interdepartmental committee for security and defence; is that correct?

Gen. Henault: The interdepartmental committee is at the prime ministerial level, but is normally overseen or chaired by the Clerk of the Privy Council Office or security and defence coordinator, who is Dick Fadden.

Senator Day: Then your final comment about the committee the Prime Minister chairs, what is that called?

Gen. Henault: On an annual basis, we do the planning and priorities for the interdepartmental intelligence requirements for government. That is the annual committee that the Prime Minister chairs. Only the deputy minister and the Chief of Defence Staff attend those; there are no substitutes for that.

The Chairman: General, on that subject, is there a need for a national security policy in Canada?

Gen. Henault: Mr. Chairman, there are indications of that kind of work already being done with the committee co-chaired by our minister and by the Minister of Foreign Affairs. We have seen a number of things that have worked fairly well with that committee in the aftermath of September 11. Many things that have occurred since then and many initiatives, in terms of biological chemical requirements, defence requirements, all of the interdepartmental initiatives that have been undertaken to counter the terrorism acts that we have witnessed, have been framed under what would be something akin to a national security policy mechanism.

The current system seems to work reasonably well in terms of an ad hoc system. That is really what we have seen. Even that committee is an ad hoc committee, as we are have determined.

It is difficult for me to tell whether that committee will be extended. I know it is probably destined to end in December, but it may take another form. The committee seems to have worked reasonably well in addressing this kind of an issue.

A national security framework, policy or mechanism that would allow us to look at not only interdepartmental requirements within our own government circumstances, but also to address some of the Canadian-U.S. issues that have surfaced as a result of September 11 would certainly be beneficial. Government will ultimately decide whether it needs that type of policy or framework, but it certainly stands to benefit if it is formed.

The Chairman: One of the core principles of Strategy 2020 is global deployment. Right now, the Canadian Forces do not have a strategic lift capability. We have unfunded capital equipment plans for strategic airlift, for sealift and for refuelling. In the event you do not get funding for these, or an increase in funds, will you bump other programs in order to develop these capabilities?

Gen. Henault: You make an important point, and that is that for global deployment capability we must have some of this capability. It has to be a capability either provided by equipment that we own or equipment that we can lease or guarantee for ourselves, whether it is other military or contractors, for instance, Skylink, which provides us a fair amount of that capability.

The strategic lift is pretty much fundamental and central to our ability in the longer term to be able to continue doing what we are doing now, so you are quite correct that they are requirements that are legitimate, for which we have already developed plans and funding lines, and at least projects are underway to try to address these requirements. For that reason, if additional funding is not forthcoming from government, we will have to make some decisions on how we invest in that capability in the longer term. Perhaps we will have to make trade-offs in other areas, and that will be the result of no additional funding in the next budget.

The Chairman: If I understand you correctly, are you saying that these are core activities that you must find a way to deal with and you will cut some place else if you must?

Gen. Henault: That is right, or we will find innovative ways of doing them, either contracting them out or getting some capability provided to us on a guaranteed access requirement. There are many ways in which you can skin the cat, so we will look at all those ways before we make a final decision.

The Chairman: You mentioned earlier in your remarks that in Operation Apollo our forces are totally integrated with the Americans. We have heard that the helicopters do not have HAVE QUICK radios; therefore, the communications are not insecure. Is that correct?

Gen. Henault: They do not have HAVE QUICK radios, you are correct, but the communications are secure on the helicopters. They are using a radio called the KY58, which is a secure capability that does allow them to communicate with the other naval members of the coalition in a secure fashion. The HAVE QUICK radios are radios that, again, have been identified as a requirement for the Sea King, as they are for other aircraft, including the CF-18. There was an attempted fitment of those radios in the not-too-distant past. The system did not work for a number of technical reasons and so they are now looking on another fix for that. That has not limited their ability to operate inside the coalition at the moment.

The reality is that many of our coalition allies do not have HAVE QUICK radios as well, and often the only ally that has it is our American ally. What we found during the Kosovo air campaign was that the majority of the fighters operating in the air campaign were not capable, in fact, virtually all of the coalition members except for perhaps one or two at the very most, of using or did not have the fitted HAVE QUICK yet and so the coalition lead, which was the Americans in this case, reduced that requirement by one level.

We were still using secure communications though in the Kosovo air campaign, and the same sort of radio capability that I talked about for the Sea Kings, which is an encrypted communications capability but it does not have the radio hopping and frequency hopping that HAVE QUICK radios do. We are still able to operate, but ultimately we need to fit these to satisfy the requirements of the long-term because eventually these will be the only radios that are being used by worldwide forces.

The Chairman: How long can Canada's navy sustain its mission with Operation Apollo?

Gen. Henault: It depends on how you structure the force. In the current deployment that we have, six naval vessels when we deployed, the next one, on December 5, we will have deployed more than our main contingency force commitment for the white paper. Ultimately, our intent is to restructure that commitment, as we transition in and out of operations in the Arabian Gulf, down to a sustainable level, which will be three or four of our vessels on a continuous basis in the task group. Three is sustainable almost indefinitely, but four would be a bit of a surge.

The Chairman: What do you mean by the long term?

Gen. Henault: We are working our plans based on a 24-month commitment. That will be a rolling 24-month plan that we put in place. Again, we have no idea how long this deployment will go, and for that reason we are identifying what is sustainable in the long term, not necessarily what is sustainable on a surge basis, which is what we have now.

Senator Atkins: After September 11, you talk about the working commitment of putting together the force for the Arabian theatre. How did it come about that we would provide the navy ships that we provided, vis-à-vis the F-18s, which had a tremendous record in two previous encounters?

Gen. Henault: That is a good question. When the coalition was formed and when we started the planning activity that comes with a coalition of this nature, we were asked by government to identify what we could provide in terms of force packages, so we put forward a number of force packages, not all of which were taken up. In the case of F-18s, we did have an F-18 package offered to our American allies. There was a possibility that it would deploy sometime in the recent past, but the basing requirements were not such that we could do that. There were other elements of our force that were also offered to the coalition.

The ultimate contributions that we made have been based on the offer we initially made to the American coalition lead, and what they determined was the requirement to complement the coalition as it was being put together. It was done very much on the request of the coalition leaders under General Franks, who is the Commander-in-Chief of Central Command in Tampa, and who has been charged by the president to be the Commander-in-Chief of the lead sync for this operation.

A number of other capabilities that can be drawn upon are still out there, as the operation unfolds. In fact, something I have mentioned before and would reiterate is that the contribution we currently see to the campaign will very likely adjust and transform itself as time goes on. As operations in Afghanistan perhaps take a different form and as requirements in the Arabian Sea change, we may see a different requirement in terms of naval escort, as we are doing with our task group. We might find a much higher emphasis on transport of materiel into and out of Afghanistan with humanitarian assistance operations. Perhaps other operations will come to the forefront as time goes on, rebuilding operations, helping to reconstruct Afghanistan as time goes on.

All of those packages are still out there, and we take each one into consideration as we are asked to provide it to the coalition, again, as the campaign unfolds. We are currently in the process of adjusting our commitment, even now with maritime patrol aircraft and other considerations that are being given to the C-130 detachment that has been offered. The IRFL, which we talked about earlier, was offered based on a request from the coalition to provide forces for stability operations to secure locations that would not only provide a footprint and a stronghold on the ground for coalition operations, but also provide a mechanism to provide for the flow of humanitarian aid and so on. The mission's requirements changed, the agreements politically and diplomatically changed, and strategically on the ground they changed as well, so it was decided that that was no longer the requirement. That was the same for other elements of the coalition, and other countries are doing exactly the same thing as this operation unfolds.

Senator Atkins: You provided to the central command packages that gave them their options to say to you that this is what we would like to have? Are you saying that the Americans really made the decision?

Gen. Henault: Yes. That is what coalition operations are all about. Government-to-government, you put your confidence in the coalition and in the leadership of that coalition, and then you offer to them what can be offered and sustained, which is another important element. We hope we can provide to them those usable and contributory requirements and assets that they require; so far, that is exactly what we have done.

Senator Atkins: In terms of relations with the Americans, the minister deals with the government. The Minister of Defence deals with a certain element. Do you deal with General Franks? Do you know what is happening in the operation?

Gen. Henault: Yes, I do.

Senator Atkins: I do not want to know what it is. I am just curious to know whether you are in the loop.

Gen. Henault: I am significantly inside the circle, I can tell you that. I get a daily briefing in operations as they are unfolding in Afghanistan and also as they are unfolding in terms of the coalition overall. I am given a daily briefing by our Deputy Chief of Defence Staff staff, and I speak on a continuous basis with our contingent commander in Tampa, who is a commodore and part of the planning staff of General Franks and attends his briefings on a daily basis. We get a written report daily from Tampa. We are contacted by phone on a regular basis when urgent issues must be dealt with. I do not deal directly with General Franks because he has enough to do as it is; I already have a commodore who deals with him face-to-face on a daily basis. I also deal directly with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Myers, on a regular basis, and talk to him about operations in the region as well as, primarily, the British Chief of Defence, the French Chief of Defence and the German Chief of Defence. I have had contacts with a number of the key coalition partners as well.

Senator Atkins: With respect to that combat-ready force sitting in Edmonton, what process would move them to the theatre?

Gen. Henault: As for the period when they were to be called forward, when General Franks called for a stabilization force, things unfolded quickly, as you will remember, over the Thanksgiving weekend when we were looking at a land campaign. You will have to remember that the land campaign is not being done by American, British or Canadian troops. It is being done by Northern Alliance troops and Pashtun troops in the south.

As that operation was unfolding, it was fully expected that it would take a significant period of time to achieve success. Ultimately, the combination, perhaps, of the bombing support and military advice support and things of that nature allowed for that campaign to unfold quickly. Therefore, as the Northern Alliance force moved forward and southward in Afghanistan, gaining ground and consolidating their position in Northern Afghanistan, it was felt that a stabilization force would be required in the northern part of the country to secure airfields, provide stepping-off points for other operations and provide that humanitarian assistance we talked about, and so on. That changed over a period of only a few days, probably no more than a week, when, again, things were not quite as secure as they appeared, where the requirement for humanitarian assistance was not as acute as it appeared because it was getting through and is still getting through on a fairly regular basis, and satisfying most of the demands at this point in time. We were concerned about winter setting in and things of that nature. We were concerned about the people of Afghanistan, in particular.

Things changed and they unfolded differently. As the combat operations come to a close, we see different parts of Afghanistan have now been secured by the forces, the Alliance forces and the Pashtun forces to the south. There may ultimately be a requirement for consolidating our efforts in particular parts of Afghanistan and key airfields, providing for stabilization in the region, or providing, perhaps, for a UN force. Again, the Bonn discussions will determine the reality of that, whether the UN will be able to mount a stabilization force in the region.

At that point, as the coalition lead determines requirements in different parts of the region, he will then call on nations to again commit forces for that type of operation. That is what we are awaiting at the moment, and that is why we still have that force on seven days' notice to move within 48 days for the key company. It can move quickly.

Senator Atkins: You have no doubt that eventually they will be going over?

Gen. Henault: My expectation is that they will be required, ultimately.

Senator Atkins: Under whose command?

Gen. Henault: They will likely be under U.S. or British command. That is most likely who we would partner up with. Most of the formations we will see in the region will be brigade-sized organizations, for which those two agencies, in particular, have the command, control and co-ordinating support mechanisms that are required. We will be a part of whatever coalition they decide is the needed coalition, but it could be a combination of a number of countries, those two being the primary ones, probably, perhaps the French or even the Germans.

Senator Atkins: Do you think in your recruiting that you are paying new recruits a level of compensation that attracts people to sign up for the Armed Forces, especially the army?

Gen. Henault: I think we are, senator. Quite frankly, we have done a number of things over the years to try to improve the basic pay requirements that we offer. When we went through the pay and compensations reviews over the last couple of years and through the quality of life programs, the SCONDA initiatives, we looked at that aspect of it seriously. That was lower ranks of the non-commissioned members, the ordinary seaman level and the lieutenant and junior lieutenant levels, knowing that those were the areas where some of the more dire financial hardships were. Many initiatives were taken to increase the pay rates at those levels in excess of what other rates would have been from a percentage point of view, and also to allow for a certain amount of streamlining at those rank levels, especially non-commissioned members, to take stock of experience and qualifications, in civilian industry, if you like, to allow for a certain amount of quick movement through the rank and into a higher pay grade.

As you are undoubtedly aware, we have sign-up bonuses for those technicians who already have secondary school or have achieved certificate level in certain trades, those who have been in the service previously and who come back in having qualified in certain trades, which allows them to go through the basic or initial training phase quickly and achieve the rank of corporal quickly after becoming qualified. That has added to the credibility of our system in caring for people first and giving them some opportunities, not only career-wise but also financially in the longer term, to quickly achieve a more stable financial platform.

I would ask the chief to give you his view of it. He came to Ottawa after having served in Saint Jean, in charge of all the recruits as the leading chief warrant officer there. He was also in the naval staff, so has seen this first-hand, Perhaps he can give you a sense, at least from a non-commissioned member's point of view.

Chief Petty Officer First Class R.M. Lupien, Canadian Forces Chief Warrant Officer, Department of National Defence: Certainly, from my perspective, when I speak to people across the Canadian Forces, there is no longer the same complaint about pay or compensation that we had a few years ago. The recent pay increases certainly went a long way to do that. Pay increases, as the general said, were quite significant for people who are just getting into training at effective strength. That took care a lot of the issues we had there previously. Obviously, no one will say no to more money; however, we no loner have the problems we had before.

Senator Atkins: I know that the RCMP has a waiting list for recruits. Do you think that recruits that are going into the military should be compensated at the same level as a recruit in the RCMP?

CPO 1 Lupien: Certainly, as the general said, we have an incentive program for people coming in with some qualification. It is quite significant. Not only can someone new coming in get a bonus, if you want to call it that, but that person will also qualify for whatever occupation he or she will be doing a lot faster to the rank of corporal, which is significant in terms of compensation.

Senator Atkins: They can request a certain line of training when they sign up for the military?

CPO 1 Lupien: Yes, but it is also based on the abilities these people have. Obviously, if someone is already a technician, then it will be in that field.

Gen. Henault: We do the aptitude testing as well, senator, for those who have not pre-qualified.

Senator Atkins: Has there been any thought given to reactivating some of the old regiments for reserves?

Gen. Henault: We have a significant reserve out there. Regiments are reactivated all the time. Some squadron members retire and are reactivated again. As we go through reforming and restructuring, if you like, of the land force reserve, there is always that possibility. I am not aware of any initiative to do that at the moment. I am sure General Jeffery spoke about his army transformation and his restructuring to satisfy the long-term and future requirements of the land force. That is always a possibility, but I am not aware of that initiative at the moment, senator. It is not out of the question.

Senator Atkins: I just wondered whether that would be a way of attracting reserve personnel, like the Black Watch, for instance.

Gen. Henault: That is quite possible. There are 137 reserve units, so there is quite a wide array of regimental affiliations to choose from. I know you were at a dinner with the Black Watch and it was very interesting, so I understand the comment on the Black Watch. That regiment was stood down some years ago. Will it resurface? I could not answer that at the moment.

Senator Day: General, I have the army's reply to the 2020 vision. I suspect they reflect the Strategy 2020 overall departmental planning exercise. One five-year target was to establish a more regular program of information sessions for parliamentarians, media, business and the broader defence constituency. Today's meeting can help in achieving that objective.

Have you considered holding briefings for parliamentarians in the same way that media briefings are held when there has been a deployment? We speak to many members of the public and to members of the media. The more informed we are, the better we can help get your message out.

Gen. Henault: I fully agree with that. We have a parliamentary outreach program managed by our Director General for Public Affairs. That program allows a fairly broad exposure to the Canadian Forces for a number of parliamentarians. I suspect it has not reached you yet.

The Chairman: We have not been invited to that, general. When deployments take place, we read about it in the media. I think Senator Day is suggesting that, if we can, we should find a way to get briefed at the same time as the media.

Gen. Henault: I will take that under advisement. We have done that for the House Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs. We have done that previously in the air campaign, for example. I was doing daily briefings for the media and also briefing SCONDVA twice a week. I did on occasion brief a number of senatorial level committees as well.

In this case, we have not done that yet because the amount of activity that we have generated goes in very small bursts. It takes time for ships to get to where they are going, for example, and it is difficult to give you a clear picture of what is going on.

Senator Day: In defence of your department, we are a fairly new standing committee within the Senate. Perhaps we can be added to your list.

Gen. Henault: It is in our interests to keep you up to speed. We can set that agenda with the chairperson through our parliamentary affairs people and ensure that you get a briefing, particularly through our operations people. Then you can understand clearly what we are trying to achieve. I am very encouraged by that desire on your part to learn more about what we are doing.

Senator Meighen: Do you have any knowledge, general, whether other jurisdictions, such as the U.S., require a particular level of security clearance from committee members? Are they authorized to hear certain things that people without security clearance cannot hear?

I fully appreciate that is a double-edged sword. The argument against us, for example, having security clearance is that we may hear interesting things but we cannot reveal them to anyone. All we can do is put them into the mill in coming to decisions without giving any detail.

Do you have a view or any knowledge about what happens in other jurisdictions?

Gen. Henault: I do not know what happens in other jurisdictions. I would be speculating. I would perhaps hasten to add that it is an issue that you must deal with on a continuous basis when qualified to a certain level of security. The information is protected and, in most cases, has a source requirement for protection that you must observe. There are occasions when one must carefully balance what one knows and what one can say. It is not for any reasons of not wanting to pass the message but rather for national security and because of agreements that we have with our allies to protect information and, in particular, certain sources of information.

Perhaps the committee could get some specific elements of information, but in general terms, you will benefit mostly from the information that can be passed on in the non-classified realm. We try to tell the Canadian public what we are undertaking in operations on behalf of the government in the most obvious way that we can. I do not think you would miss much of the information that is required.

It may be a difficult task to go through the whole security clearance route. I think you will find that we are not keeping much from you in that respect. It is information that is not necessarily need-to-know information.

Senator Meighen: In our deliberations, as we try to come up with the best answers, it does not really matter whether a ship-to-shore missile can go 10 kilometres or 16 kilometres.

Gen. Henault: From the global point of view, we owe it to you to give you information on our objectives and our capabilities.

Senator Day: Can you give me your impressions and your vision about security intelligence sharing? How is it done now, since September 11? You have probably seen a major increase in that activity, but I am thinking about various Canadian institutions and our relationships with other North American institutions, not just military but the entire group of agencies that are involved with security issues. How is that organized now and how could it best be handled in a coordinated fashion?

Gen. Henault: The intelligence mechanisms in Ottawa are significant. We have economic intelligence; we have intelligence through CSIS, through the RCMP and other police agencies, through ourselves, through civil agencies. All of that is coordinated at the national level by the Privy Council Office through the security and intelligence division. Dick Fadden has the primary mandate of coordinating all the security and intelligence requirements for the Government of Canada. That includes provincial and federal coordinations as well.

I can safely say that the amount of intelligence sharing in the city has increased dramatically since September 11. We were already sharing information. We have some very significant information-sharing mechanisms, including computers, secure networks, the mechanism called AUSCANUKUS, which is commonly termed "Five Eyes." That is a series of agreements between ourselves, the Australians, the U.K., U.S. and New Zealand to share information. We have significant information-sharing mechanisms between ourselves and our allies to the South.

All of that was brought out under a definitive microscope as we went into the counterterrorism operation wherein, even though we had good information-sharing rules and agreements between ourselves and the U.S., those were enhanced as we got into the post-September 11 activity levels here in the city and also internationally.

In fact, we took up a number of the burden-sharing requirements that were often taken up by others to provide for a little bit of relief to coalition members, particularly the U.S., to allow it to concentrate on certain areas of the world while we took responsibility for other areas that we were not necessarily always responsible for. We saw an opening of the floodgates in terms of intelligence sharing in the aftermath of September 11.

Those mechanisms are very sound, in my view. In terms of the departmental intelligence mechanism, we have a very broad-based information-sharing and intelligence-sharing network that we have participated in. It is a global one. It is very significantly plugged into NATO, to the U.S. and to all of the Commonwealth countries to ensure that we get the best possible information, not only in terms of collecting and receiving the information that has been passed to us but also analyzing that information.

We are somewhat renowned for our analytical capability. It is one of the strengths of our intelligence community here.

Senator Day: When you say "we," are you talking armed forces or a broader group than that?

Gen. Henault: I would say it is broad based in Ottawa. The Canadian Forces has a specific analytical capability that is based on a lot of investment in technology and an investment in the long term. It is all part of that Strategy 2020 that you talked about earlier in which we recognized the importance of intelligence in our ability to analyze intelligence in the long term. We have done a lot to improve our networks, our capability, our imagery-transmission capabilities, and so on. A lot of that was brought to the forefront to us by the Kosovo air campaign and the need to have global communications, a global ability to transmit imagery and orders and so on, and the requirement to analyze and balance off the intelligence inputs of a number of different agencies.

We have done a lot in that respect, and we are improving it all the time and will get better.

Senator Day: "We" being the Canadian Forces?

Gen. Henault: Yes.

Senator Day: What I am trying to get to is a national security issue and CSIS and the RCMP. Do they do their own analysis, and how do they get the information? They would like to have more than just what they gather themselves.

Gen. Henault: They share theirs with us, and we share our information with them. It is a very tight network of information and intelligence sharing.

Senator Day: Would it work better, in your view, if there were one operation run by Canadian Forces, if you will, that had the operational capability for all the different intelligence sources, bringing it in, and various agencies could share in that?

Gen. Henault: I am not entirely sure that that would be the case. I think having it coordinated by PCO under a security and intelligence umbrella, which is interdepartmental and broad based, is the right way to do it, and that is the way it is being done now. We have specific niche areas that we can concentrate on, but from a Government of Canada point of view, I think it is more important for it to be concentrated at the PCO level, quite frankly, and that is where it is now.

The Chairman: General, if we are going to maintain our current missions and tempo, is there any substitute for increased resources in terms of funds and people?

Gen. Henault: We can do what we have to do now with what we are being provided, but in terms of posturing ourselves for the future and doing the modernization that I have talked about and the force structuring that has to be done to bring us again fully into the 21st century, we will have to make some significant trade-offs, either in people, capital or operations and maintenance if we do not have additional funding.

The Chairman: On behalf of the committee, I thank you. For us, it has been an interesting day hearing from each of your environmental chiefs. Your presentation today has been most instructive to us. If there is a message that we would like you to take back, again it is one of pride in the men and women who are serving. We want to thank you and them for all that you do for us.

Gen. Henault: Thank you for your interest in our operations and for having us here today.

The committee adjourned.