REPORT OF FACT-FINDING VISIT: 21-24 JANUARY 2002 HALIFAX AND BASE GAGETOWN

The Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence

21-24 January 2002

Monday 21 January

Captain (N) Greg Burke, Acting Commanding Officer, Maritime Forces Atlantic, briefed the Committee on the Challenges facing the command:

Financial budgets 26% less than 5 years ago;
Reduced equipment and fewer personnel had led to tension about the tempo of operations and the quality of life;
Force protection at home and abroad;
Adaptability – the fleet had to move between Blue Sea and littoral operations;
Maintenance of fleet impacted by shortage of some technicians – at the moment the shortage of technicians was more critical than the shortage of money;
At present he was staffing two of three ships; the rotation planned for January will therefore impact on quality of life.
It was normal for a sailor to be at sea 100 days a year, but the coastal patrol boat crews were at sea 120-150 days.

Captain (N) Christian Preece briefed the Committee on personnel and quality of life issues:

The number of harassment complaints have dropped because of better training and more familiarity; and quality of life issues have generally been better handled;
Formal clothing for female personnel well fitting, but operational clothing still needs work;
3 women have applied to serve on the submarines and will be assigned to the same one after their training, but lack of privacy and the occupational categories required still leads to a problem in recruiting women into the submarine service;
The military housing in Halifax was substandard – the PMQ’s were built in the 1950`s to the standards of the 1940s. About 70% own their own homes in Halifax. There was not much demand for the smaller military apartments because of local market conditions, but there was still the need to make larger (3-4 bedroom) apartments available.

Quality of Life Issues raised by ordinary service personnel:

The PMQ’s were not worth the rent charged which was more than the PIT on a house;
The pay was generally O.K., but there were complaints about the pay and pension rights of retired staff on call out;
There were complaints about the length of time it took to get needed equipment, and the mattresses on the frigates and submarines were compared unfavourable to those in jail cells – thin and hard.

Captain (N) Richard Payne, Commanding Officer Fleet Maintenance Facility, Cape Scott briefed the Committee about the importance of the facility:

With 900 civilians and 200 military personnel, the maintenance facility was responsible for servicing the submarines and carried out running repairs to specialized equipment on frigates and destroyers;
Civilian employees unhappy with pay because civilian employees on the West coast were paid 20% more;
An effort had been made to keep military occupations so that Navy personnel could have shore jobs.
With the cutbacks of the 1990`s the training program had been eliminated. The work force was aging and an apprentice program had to be launched.

Tuesday 22 January

Colonel Joe Hincke, Commanding Officer of 12 Wing Shearwater briefed the Committee on his command. He faced two major issues:

The tempo of operations, especially overseas deployments, was placing tremendous pressure on the time available for personal training and family. In support of Appolo, or the war against terrorism, his wing had deployed 120 personnel abroad for 6 months to crew and maintain helairdets, a tempo that could only be sustained by reducing shore, training and family time. 24 of the 37 available pilots were deployed outside the country. When they returned they would require family time and time to refresh their knowledge of tactics they had not used on deployment. Some pilots and maintenance personnel would be forced to “jetty hop,” move immediately to another assignment, when they returned. To a certain degree, however, a very high level of deployment was to be expected in his wing because after serving with it pilots would spend 4 years with a non-deploying unit.
Deferred recruiting would lead to a severe shortage of specialized personnel until new recruits could be trained and had acquired experience.

Colonel Hincke was emphatic about the safety of the Sea King helicopter and about the ability of his technicians to keep it flying safely. Following cancellation of the EH 101 contract morale was low and there were shortages of spare parts for the Sea King as an effort had been made to run down inventory in anticipation of getting a new platform. Since then morale and confidence of pilots and maintenance crew in the airworthiness of the Sea King had improved.

Tuesday afternoon the Committee heard briefings from the union representing Customs officers and from the Regional Director of the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency.

The Union representatives argued that the Customs Agency needed:

More customs officers. Understaffing forced customs officers to work alone in isolated circumstances. Some border crossings were staffed with just one officer who was at risk because there was no nearby police back up.
The right people. The union opposed the heavy use of poorly trained students and term employees on the primary inspection line. Permanent staff needed to take and pass an 8-14 week course, while students were given only two weeks of training;
The right training. While the permanent customs officers received 8-14 weeks at the beginning of their careers, there was little training thereafter. Thus the Auditor General had found that 60% lacked adequate training in immigration legislation. They had received little additional training when the officers at 30 posts had been given the power to make arrests and detain people at the border for certain offences – suspicion of kidnapping, drunk driving, in possession of a stolen car, etc.
The necessary equipment. The union representatives argued that at least some customs officers should be allowed to wear side arms, particularly those working alone and without back-up. US customs officers and State troopers wore side arms, as did the RCMP on the Canadian side. Only Canadian customs officers were unarmed.

According to the Union:

60% of the containers passing through Halifax are in transit to the United States and are not checked by Canada customs;
On an average day customs would look at about 12 non-targeted containers. Containers are targeted on the basis of intelligence, but not all of those targeted can be checked;
Union favours joint inspections with the US customs because it would be-more efficient not to check same container twice.

Customs and Revenue Agency

Their current pre-occupation is to implement the 30-point Action Plan for a “smart border.” Representatives of the Agency will meet with their US counterparts to work out the details of the plan. The Agency, however, had no flexibility in its budget to make changes in the balance between term and permanent employees.

In Atlantic region balance between term and permanent employees 40/60 to 50/50 depending on the time of year.
Longest serving term employees –about 3-4 years. There is a training capacity limit at the school in Rigauld, Quebec.
The 10 day training period made necessary by the new powers of arrest takes place in the regions, not Rigauld.
IBETS Integrated Border Enforcement Teams include representatives from Canadian customs and immigration, RCMP and US border patrol.

Wednesday 23 January

Chief Superintendent Ian Atkins, Criminal Operations Officer, RCMP H Division outlined the various elements of the Port of Halifax, noting that the container terminals 1, 3, and 9 are the most prone to crime. He noted:

The most common types of crime are the trade in narcotics, stolen vehicles, tobacco and alcohol, theft from containers and illegal immigration (ship jumpers-39 in the current year).
His detachment is also responsible for covering a great number of small ports. His detachment is assisted by a civilian volunteer ‘coast watch’ which reports suspicious landings and movements along the coast. He estimated that about one half of the illegal drugs were landed on the coast and in small ports and harbours from small craft.
The Police have done a survey of the backgrounds of dockyard workers. The results showed that a very high percentage of longshoremen had criminal records.
In the Port of Halifax 187 of 500(39%) longshoremen whose records were checked were found to have criminal records. In Charlottetown 28 of 51 (54%) had criminal records.
A 12 person integrated team monitored/probed organized crime in the Port of Halifax. There were links between organized crime in the Port of Halifax and organized crime in Quebec and Ontario.

Chief David McKinnon, Chief of Police, Halifax Regional Police Force briefed the Committee on the contribution his force made to port security:

After the disbandment of the Port Police, the Port Authority contracted for a dedicated force consisting of a Staff Sergeant, an intelligence officer and 8 policemen. Intelligence collection was critical because it helped decide which of 250,000 containers to subject to inspection
In his opinion, port security was understaffed and poorly equipped. There was a need for more police, more customs officers and more and more modern equipment to inspect containers.

John Fagan, Director of Intelligence and Contraband, Atlantic Region, Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, briefed the Committee about the work of Customs:

At Halifax, customs was already giving a complete inspection to 3% of containers and subjecting more to a “back end” inspection. This met the proposed national objective, and was a higher rate than in other Canadian ports and almost twice the US rate of inspection.
Security weaknesses included inadequate security on the gates and no system of identity passes to control movement on the docks. There was growing cooperation with the Halifax police and the RCMP, particularly in the sharing of intelligence.
Priorities were to improve targeting and to acquire a site at which containers could be quickly unloaded and their contents stored during a full inspection. A greater emphasis on intelligence might recover more of the stolen cars being shipped abroad through the port. Advance information about the crew and 138,000 passengers on cruise boats would improve immigration control.
In his opinion the policing status quo is a great improvement over the port police – police are united in their efforts and work closely with Customs.
The Hells Angels are the dominant organized crime organization on port property in Halifax. The problems on the wharves can begin in the office when it is infiltrated by the gang.

Halifax Port Authority

Representatives of the Halifax Port Authority outlined port security measures:

There was a port-wide contingency plan under which the Halifax authorities, the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Coast Guard would coordinate their response to a whole series of emergency situations. These plans were regularly up-dated and exercises carried out.
The Port Authority had plans to introduce a port-wide system of photo identity cards and to upgrade both the fencing and camera surveillance of the port. The Halifax Employers Association already screens new employees and the Halifax police will be called upon to assist in a security check, but existing workforce will have to be “grand fathered in.” Stevedoring companies hire from a list of basic workers with the skills required, and only resort to union hiring halls for additional workers.
They had no personal knowledge of the activities of organized crime on port property – they were just a landlord, but they nevertheless agreed that more security would enhance the business of the port and they would re-visit the concept of “in bond” shipments and pre-clearing shipments to the US.

Thursday 24 January

Brigadier General Mitchell and Colonel Barry MacLeod, Commander 3 Area Support Group briefed the Committee:

There were about 4,000 personnel at Base Gagetown, some 3100 of them military. This community grew by about 2,000 during the summer with the influx of students and instructors.

They faced a number of challenges:

There was a shortage of single rooms even in the winter and 200 had to live two-three to a room. In the summer, staff and students had to live in tents.
The base infrastructure was rusting out and some buildings were actually dangerous.
Medical services were lacking for the families of service personnel, particularly those facing problems with a spouse suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or children with special needs. The medical services situation for francophones on base was so bad that some refused the posting or did not move their families to the Base. Responsibility for medical treatment of families should rest with federal government because of growing disparities between provinces vis-à-vis medical care and availability of social services.
The base training areas needed about $100 million of renovations for which there was no money.
Since their training establishment was cut, they must augment their permanent staff with staff taken from the operational units across Canada. This robs these units of critical staff and denies training staff family time and time to pursue their own professional training.
The Army lacks the personnel to both sustain the high tempo of operations and modernize itself.
Cooperation with the Veterans Affairs liaison office on the Base was termed “fabulous,” but there was little that could be done for Reservists returning from deployment – once they left the Forces they became the responsibility of the provincial health care authorities.

Thursday afternoon the Committee was briefed by Colonel Mike Ward, Commander of the Combat Training Centre, and by the Commandants of the separate infantry artillery and armoured schools. Their briefing was particularly candid and clearly expressed – in their collective opinion they faced a situation that was untenable and unsustainable:

The equipment of the schools and the training of the instructors had to be constantly upgraded. The schools were short at least 300 permanent instructors, a shortage which had to be made up by augmenting from operational units. The demand for courses was constantly increasing. While permanent staff had been reduced by 25%, the number of students taking courses at the schools had increased from 1429-2342, while training days had increased from 50,000-100,000. Dealing with this increase in demand has forced the training schools to increase their augmentation from operational units of the Regular and Reserve forces from 350-2,000. The situation promises to get worse before it gets better because the newly recruited officers will require immediate training, and once the other ranks recruited finish their basic training, they will need occupational and specialized training at the schools.

The dilemma of the Army was expressed clearly: “We have too much Army for the budget we’ve been given, but not enough Army for what is expected of it”

The final briefing of the fact-finding trip took place at the 403 Wolf Squadron which trains pilots to fly the CH 146 Griffon helicopter used to support the Army. The Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Black, outlined a list of “challenges” well-known to the Committee, including personnel shortages which forced him to rely on the Reserves for staff, a shortage of technicians which forced aircraft technicians to do the work of computer technicians, etc. Notwithstanding the problems, the hope was to modify the Griffon to give it some of the reconnaissance and fire support capabilities the Army needed.