Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
National Security and Defence
Issue 20 - Evidence
OTTAWA, Monday, June 16, 2003
The Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, to which was referred Bill C-31, to amend the Pension Act and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superannuation Act; and Bill C-44, to compensate military members injured during service, met this day at 10:15 a.m. to give consideration to the bills; and to examine and report on the need for a national security policy for Canada
Senator Colin Kenny (Chairman) in the Chair.
[English]
The Chairman: This is the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence. This committee has been investigating maritime security and coastal defence. It has set aside most of the morning to consider Bill C-31 and Bill C-44.
My name is Colin Kenny. I am a senator from Ontario and I chair the committee.
Senator Forrestall is here. He has served the constituency of Dartmouth for 37 years, first in the House of Commons then in the Senate. Throughout his parliamentary career he has followed defence matters and served on defence-related committees. He was a member of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Canada's Defence Policy from 1993 to 1994 and serves today as the Conservative Senate defence critic.
We have Senator Atkins, from Ontario, who came to the Senate in 1986 with a strong background in communications and experience as an adviser to Brian Mulroney and William Davis, the former Premier of Ontario. He is a member of the Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs and the Standing Senate Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration and also serves as chair of the Senate Conservative caucus.
Senator Day from New Brunswick is a lawyer and businessman. He was appointed to the Senate in 2001. He is deputy chair of both the Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs and the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance. He also sits on the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications and the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry. He serves on the Canadian NATO Parliamentary Association as one of its councillors.
Senator Banks is from Alberta. He is one of our most accomplished entertainers and an international standard- bearer for Canadian culture. He was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1991; awarded the Alberta Order of Excellence in 1993; and appointed to the Senate in 2000. Senator Banks is chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources. The committee has just completed studying amendments to the Environmental Assessment Act. He is vice-chair of the Prime Minister's caucus task force on urban issues and chair of the Alberta Liberal caucus.
Senator Cordy from Nova Scotia, who is an accomplished educator with a record of community involvement, has now joined us. She served on the board of Phoenix House. She came to the Senate in 2000. In addition to serving on our committee, Senator Cordy is a member of the Standing Senate Committee on Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament and the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology. That committee has released a landmark report on health care and is now studying the work of first responders. She also serves as vice- chair of the Canadian NATO Parliamentary Association.
Our committee is the first permanent Senate committee mandated to examine issues related to Canadian defence and security. Over the past 18 months we have completed a number of reports, beginning with "Canadian Security and Military Preparedness." This study, tabled in February 2002, considered the major security issues affecting Canada and has served as a basis for the committee's subsequent investigations.
The Senate then asked our committee to examine the need for a national security policy. To date, we have released three reports on Canadian security and defence. First, the "Defence of North America: A Canadian responsibility," tabled in September 2002; second, "An Update on Canada's Military Crisis: A View from the Bottom Up," published in November 2002; and third, "The Myth of Security at Canada's Airports," published in January 2003.
The committee has been evaluating Canada's contribution to North American maritime security and defence. However, during its first session this morning the committee will turn its attention to Bill C-31. To help the committee consider this proposed legislation the following three witnesses have been called: Mr. Bryson Guptill, Lieutenant- Colonel Brian Sutherland and Inspector McColl.
Welcome to the committee. We understand you all have short statements to make.
Mr. Bryson Guptill, Director, Program Policy Directorate, Veterans Affairs Canada: It is an honour to appear today before such an august group. I am pleased to appear to answer any questions on Bill C-31, to amend the Pension Act and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superannuation Act. This bill demonstrates the government's commitment to providing protection, resources and support to Canadian troops engaged in the campaign against terrorism and other situations involving elevated risk.
I am also pleased to be accompanied by LCol. Brian Sutherland from the Department of National Defence and Inspector Earla-Kim McColl of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Honourable senators, Canada has a proud military history and that proud military tradition will continue. There is no doubt that Canada is renowned for its peacekeeping service and for the contributions made by our men and women who put their lives in danger to ensure a better life for others, both at home and abroad.
As you have heard before, there are two major components to this bill. I would like to start off by talking about the new service type that this bill provides for, a special duty operation, or SDO. We are living in a changing world and that change resounded around the globe on September 11, 2001. On that day, all our feelings of security and safety were jeopardized. This bill recognizes our new world and the changing military operations that have evolved to deal with it.
The special duty operation is being created to cover a number of situations. Primarily, it will cover operations that are not geographically defined. In the war against terrorism, for instance, the battle is being fought on many fronts and not just in one geographical area. We all know that there are a number of specific assignments involved in any operation that are not described geographically, and for which the location cannot be divulged. There is another important element of the special duty operation designation, the fact that it can be used to designate operations in Canada, unlike the Special Duty Area, which must, by definition, fall outside Canadian boundaries.
SDOs will normally be outside of Canada; however, some domestic operations could be declared SDOs if it is felt that those involved are being exposed to elevated risks. Those operations, for example, could include search and rescue or disaster relief. Essentially, the SDO designation would provide the Minister of National Defence and the Solicitor General with flexibility in situations that are not area specific. As you know, this new service type will complement the existing Special Duty Area or SDA service type. The ability to declare Special Duty Areas is important and would remain in place to designate geographic areas outside of Canada in which members are exposed to elevated risk. However, the designation process has been streamlined.
Honourable senators, in short, this bill would streamline the approval process for designating Special Duty Areas, the end result being that members and their families would know, prior to their actual deployment, that they have been given round-the-clock disability pension coverage. I can only imagine how much comfort that would bring to both those who are leaving and those who are waiting for them at home.
We cannot underestimate the importance of this peace of mind, especially in light of today's instant communications, which bring us images from the world's hot spots as they happen. Some of those images must cause great anxiety for those who are watching from home. The assurance of coverage for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week will bring an element of comfort to those families. This bill proposes a reasonable and necessary change to how these areas and operations are designated.
In essence, if passed, this bill would grant the power to declare Special Duty Areas to the Minister of National Defence or the Solicitor General in consultation with the Minister of Veterans Affairs. This process would replace the existing designation process.
When we think of Special Duty Area or special duty operation coverage, there may be a tendency to think mainly of Canadian Forces members. However, when the RCMP serves with the Canadian Forces in Special Duty Areas or special duty operations designated by the Minister of National Defence, RCMP members will be covered if they are exposed to conditions of elevated risk comparable to Canadian Forces members. In those instances, the deployed RCMP members will have access to the same comprehensive disability pension coverage as their Canadian Forces counterparts.
In the case of RCMP-only operations, the Solicitor General would declare the special duty operation or Special Duty Area to designate an operation or an area outside of Canada, and then the Commissioner of the RCMP would issue the operational order deploying members to such operations.
I would like to raise another important point dealing with both special duty operations and Special Duty Areas. The coverage proposed here would include training prior to deployment, travel to and from the designated area or operation of elevated risk and authorized leave of absence from the area or from the operation.
This bill reinforces Canada's longstanding reputation as a leader in providing the men and women who serve our nation with one of the most comprehensive packages of veterans' benefits in the world. This bill not only broadens coverage, but also provides a new flexibility that recognizes the realities of service in the 21st century. This bill demonstrates Canada's commitment to those who protect our values and serve all Canadians.
I will be pleased to take your questions; but before I do, I would like to turn it over to LCol. Sutherland, who will make some comments on behalf of the Department of National Defence.
Lieutenant-Colonel Brian Sutherland, Canadian Forces Liaison Officer to Veterans Affairs Canada, Department of National Defence: Honourable senators, I too am very pleased to appear before this committee. As Mr. Guptill has already emphasized, this bill demonstrates the government's commitment to providing protection, resources and support to Canadian Forces members engaged on special duty service in an effective and timely manner.
[Translation]
To our great satisfaction, the members of Parliament decided to pass this bill without delay and submit it to the Senate for final debate.
[English]
From both my own experience and contact over the years with a large number of military personnel, I can state there is a well-founded, if vague, belief that no matter what happens to a Canadian Forces member, we will be taken care of. Most of us have had a good idea that this ranges from the application of immediate first aid to proper treatment by medical personnel and, if necessary, evacuation to a facility such as a hospital. At the same time, when given an assignment, the mission becomes our primary focus. That is not to say we are blinkered to other realities, but the task at hand inevitably takes up our full attention.
In my opinion, that is the way it should be; and the complexity of modern military operations is demanding enough without worrying about how our service members will be treated should they incur a long-term disability. As Mr. Guptill has already described, the assurance of 24 hours a day, 7 days a week coverage will bring an element of security to our members and comfort to their families.
The maintenance of morale has always been a priority in the conduct of military operations and Bill C-31 supports this objective very well indeed.
This bill also formally recognizes that Canadian Forces personnel face conditions of elevated risk on operations, associated training and even leave, in situations similar to what might be called traditional peacekeeping missions.
Members who are disabled while on a special duty service, whether in Canada or abroad, will now be entitled to a pension comparable to one awarded in the past for service in a Special Duty Area. This change eliminates a dichotomy that was perceived by many to be unfair.
[Translation]
It would be my pleasure to answer your questions.
[English]
Inspector Earla-Kim McColl, Officer in Charge, Operational Policy Section, National Contract Policing, Royal Canadian Mounted Police: I am the officer in charge of operational policy and community contract and Aboriginal policing services for the RCMP.
[Translation]
First I would like to thank you for the opportunity to comment on the proposed amendments to the Pension Act and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superannuation Act. Although this bill affects both the RCMP and our partners in the Canadian Forces, I would like to take this time to underscore the importance of this bill to the RCMP.
[English]
These legislative amendments tell our members that the Government of Canada acknowledges the risks that they willingly face. They tell us that the people of Canada support the difficult and sometimes dangerous work that the members of the RCMP do. They give us tangible evidence that our members' pledge to place themselves in harm's way, not only on a daily basis but also in the face of extraordinary events, is appreciated and valued.
[Translation]
I am aware of the exchanges and discussions on this bill that have taken place between the RCMP and the committee. We feel this is a very important initiative that will provide the necessary protection and a great deal of peace of mind to our members.
[English]
As we watched the tragic events of September 11 and the efforts of our brave colleagues in the United States, we were profoundly affected by the surreal situation to which they responded. They ran in to help as others were fleeing for their lives. The magnitude and complexity of their task, as well as the extraordinary dangers that our counterparts in the U.S. encountered in their own backyard, forced us to confront the reality that significant danger is not a distant possibility. It could meet us on our doorstep.
On the international scene, the risks and dangers of Special Duty Areas are to some extent already known. Peacekeeping missions are carefully planned, and logistics and support are in place well ahead of time. Canada has successfully completed more than 25 peacekeeping and peace support operations worldwide since 1989, deploying over 1,200 officers from different Canadian police agencies.
These missions have exposed police officers to many risks as they have assisted local police agencies and unstable communities to establish law and order, helped refugees and displaced persons, combed through mass graves while investigating war crimes, negotiated agreements between hostile groups or assisted in humanitarian activities.
Incidents on the domestic front, however, are sometimes even less predictable than these often-volatile international scenarios. When police are called in to investigate a potential threat in an urban or rural setting, respond to a major disaster or contain a threat to public order, the risks may be unknown, and the negative effects of service in that area on our members may not become evident until much later.
The Oka crisis in the late 1980s was one such domestic challenge for police. Knowing that the provisions of this proposed legislation will cover this kind of event as a special duty operation is a significant decision that will provide our members with the coverage they need and deserve. I am confident that this proposed legislation would provide them and their families with a sense of comfort that the required support will be there.
We are aware that the existing Special Duty Area initiative utilized for area-specific deployments is limited to international locales clearly defined by latitude and longitude. This new special duty operation initiative for cases that are less area specific addresses elevated risks both internationally and domestically and is not limited to geographic areas.
This new designation is necessary because an area of elevated risk is becoming more difficult to define geographically in this new era. Terrorism knows no borders. We have learned from other world tragedies that we must become more proactive, and we welcome this initiative as a step in the right direction in the fight against terrorism as well as the other initiatives that meet the criteria of elevated risk.
The uncertainties of being involved in an international mission and not knowing until well into the mission whether the Special Duty Area designation would be made has, over the years, caused understandable discomfort for both the members on the mission as well as their families. The introduction of the special duty operation is a welcome addition where members are deployed in areas of elevated risk.
Now deployed personnel will know in advance of the mission what their coverage will be. This provides comfort to both the deployed member and his or her family.
The message is clear. Our work of protecting the public is important, and the appropriate compensation for members is too.
We know that the Government of Canada supports our members, both at home and abroad.
[Translation]
On behalf of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police I would like to thank Veterans Affairs Canada and the Canadian Forces for their relentless work to see this initiative through. We are counting on continued cooperation with our colleagues in our common efforts to ensure security in Canada.
[English]
I wish to thank the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence for the opportunity to speak to these issues.
Senator Banks: Out of curiosity, Inspector McColl, and since you are in the contract department, when an RCMP member is sent to Bosnia, is that under a contract?
Inspector McColl: It currently falls under international peacekeeping. We have a section designated for that as well.
Senator Banks: That falls under your bailiwick?
Inspector McColl: I am representing the RCMP today because occasionally, these things occur in contract policing situations. Gustafson Lake, for example, may fall under this type of initiative. I bring representation from operations today.
Senator Banks: Thank you.
Mr. Guptill, nobody would quarrel with the thrust of this. However, I have the bill before me and I have a couple of questions about it.
Inspector McColl mentioned the first issue when she was speaking: Members would know in advance that they were going somewhere that has been designated. However, the bill does not say that. It says that the minister "may" make such a designation. It does not say that the minister "shall," and it does not say that there is a trigger by which it is so designated.
The bill does not, in my view — and if I am wrong, I hope that you will point that out — correct the situation in which a member, either of the Canadian Forces or of the RCMP, could be sent into a situation of elevated danger at a time when that area has not yet been designated as a special operations situation. Thus, they would not be in the circumstance that Inspector McColl mentioned, of deployed personnel knowing in advance of the mission. That is not always necessarily so, is it?
Mr. Guptill: It would not always necessarily be so. The positive part of this bill is that the government will now have the ability to do this in advance. The Minister of National Defence, in consultation with the Minister of Veterans Affairs, and the Solicitor General, also in consultation with the Minister of Veterans Affairs, will be able to designate these Special Duty Areas or operations in advance, so that people who are deploying to those operations know that they will get that kind of coverage.
Let us look at Afghanistan as an example. People have been deployed to Afghanistan for many months. Yet the designation of the Special Duty Area covering Afghanistan was just recently finalized.
Senator Banks: Why is that?
Mr. Guptill: The current process is fairly lengthy. It involves approval of the Governor in Council and a number of other steps.
The people are covered retroactively. In every instance, we can go back to the date of deployment to ensure there is coverage. The problem is that situation of uncertainty, and this bill is directed at changing that.
Senator Banks: My question is, does it? As you have said, intentions are wonderful, but there are some people in this room who have had some experience with processes that require consultation between ministers in order for things to happen. One thing is a condition precedent to another happening and somebody is out of town and so on. We have some familiarity with that.
I am not sure this can be made any better, although I am sure it would, as you say, streamline it, because a couple of ministers could do this as opposed to the Governor in Council. I hope that members are sufficiently comfortable with that and that the intent, which is clearly set out, is followed.
However, a question arises because the bill says "may" and not "shall." When the word "may " is used rather than "shall," then what we are hopeful will happen might not necessarily happen.
I have one other question. I need to be directed to the place in the bill in which an action of special duty and elevated danger to members of the Canadian Forces or the RCMP in Canada might be designated a Special Operations Area. My concern stems from the fact that the proposed subsection 91.2 (1) of the bill states:
The Minister of National Defence, after consulting the Minister, may by order designate an area as a special duty area if
(a) the area is outside Canada;
I cannot find any words in the bill that state otherwise. If somebody were engaged in a shooting match in Canada or if Canada were invaded, that would constitute heightened risk for members of all the Canadian services. Where in the bill does it state that a designation could be made for an action that creates a condition of elevated risk inside Canada? I cannot find it.
Mr. Guptill: The proposed legislation contemplates that operations inside Canada could be declared special duty operations.
Senator Banks: Tell me where it does that.
Mr. Guptill: I would ask one of my colleagues to look for that. The proposed legislation does not contemplate declaring Special Duty Areas in Canada. They would still be designated only in international situations. A geographic area would only be defined as it applies internationally. However, an operation could be designated internationally or inside Canada. The special duty operation — the new designation that we are talking about in this bill — could apply to operations inside Canada or internationally. The geographic part — the Special Duty Area — would only apply internationally.
Senator Banks: There is no conflict between those two things, I gather. Is that what you are saying?
Mr. Guptill: That is right. The Special Duty Area would only apply internationally to geographically defined areas that have actual boundaries. Whereas in Canada, it is the nature of the elevated risk situation that would likely be designated. The coverage is the same. In Canada, a high-risk situation would be designated a special duty operation.
Senator Banks: Inspector, I am thinking of Mr. Strongquill, for whom there was no designation.
Inspector McColl: No.
Senator Banks: There was no Special Duty Area designation and no special duty operation designation. He and his partner stopped a truck on the highway and he was killed. What happens in such a circumstance in respect of the compensation to which his heirs are due? Does this bill affect that compensation?
Inspector McColl: I do not believe that in such a situation it would be affected. That member was unfortunately killed on duty, and special provisions for death or disability while on duty are already in effect.
Senator Banks: They are in a place other than in this bill before us?
Inspector McColl: That is correct.
The Chairman: If I may, Inspector, could you outline the existing provisions? If that is not possible today, could you obtain that information for the committee?
Inspector McColl: I will ensure that the committee is provided with that information.
The Chairman: In addition, we would be curious to know about the kind of compensation available for members of the force who lose a limb.
Senator Banks: I am hopeful that we will have more discussion on this and that consideration will be given to further "greasing the rails" in respect of the designation of either an operation or an area. I do not know how that could be done more effectively. This relies on everyone's good intentions. As you pointed out on Afghanistan, there is no doubt of what everyone's intentions were, still are and ought to be. No one would argue with those intentions. However, the mechanics still present a problem for me. I suppose that it is impossible to state in a bill that the minister "shall" unless you are able to describe all of the circumstances in which a minister would do that; and that would be impossible. I am hopeful that something more certain could be developed and that the ministers involved would act with alacrity on these designations.
The Chairman: Senator Banks, perhaps we could ask Mr. Guptill to refer to the clause about which you asked and walk us through it.
Senator Banks: The reference is to proposed new sections 91.3, 91.4 and, to a lesser degree, 32.14 for further definition.
Mr. Guptill: Proposed new section 91.3, for example, states:
The Minister of National Defence, after consulting the Minister, may by order designate as a special duty operation any operation, or any component of an operation, if
(b) members of the Canadian Forces have been deployed, or will be deployed, as part of that operation; and
(c) the Minister of National Defence is of the opinion that that deployment has exposed or may expose those members to conditions of elevated risk.
The test that would apply is whether the situation constitutes elevated risk. If the situation were considered an elevated risk, and if it were occurring inside Canada or outside Canada, the Minister of National Defence could declare that situation a special duty operation.
An element of judgment is required to deem a situation to be of elevated risk. My colleague at the Department of National Defence may want to further describe some of the work that DND is doing to determine whether situations would be considered elevated risk.
There is flexibility in the proposed legislation. Certainly the intent would be, as Senator Banks has pointed out, to cover anyone in situations of elevated risk so that they would receive the most extensive coverage.
Senator Banks: I am worried about the fact that any time the word "may" is used, the words "may not," although not written, could certainly be implied.
The Chairman: If I may, as a follow-up to that point, the question at the end of the day is: Why is it important that a person be in a designated area when something bad happens to him or her? If something bad were to happen to someone while working for the RCMP or for the Department of National Defence, why would that individual not be taken care of? Why would it matter whether the person was in an area of designated risk or not?
Mr. Guptill: That is a good question. I would draw the senators' attention to two current sections of the Pension Act, sections 21(1) and 21(2). To come back to the question that was addressed to my colleague in the RCMP, there is a current provision in the Pension Act for coverage of members should they be in situations of elevated risk.
Section 21(2) requires that a person who is disabled as a result of an injury be able to show that the disability resulted from actions associated with the military or with an RCMP operation. The test under section 21(1), which is relevant to this discussion, provides coverage on a more or less automatic basis, such that the person does not have to show that the action was related specifically to a military operation on that day.
The Chairman: You are telling us that the onus is being shifted from the individual to the institution.
Mr. Guptill: That is right. Section 21(1) is more comprehensive, in that the test for the individual is not as onerous as it would be under section 21(2).
If I could complete my thought on this: In the event of someone being killed in service, such as an officer being shot, as in the instance Senator Banks was referring to, there is no question in that situation that the person was serving as an RCMP officer at that time. For that reason, they would get coverage under the existing Pension Act and as it relates back to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superannuation Act. We are trying here to make this more comprehensive and cover people in a situation where there may be some question as to whether or not their service is related to a military activity or an RCMP activity. In that sense, they get the benefit of what we call the "insurance principle" coverage, which is section 21(1) of the Pension Act.
Senator Banks: The magic word that you used was "operation." That onus is shifted, so that if the members of whichever service are either in the operation or in the area, they are deemed to have been at elevated risk and therefore any injury they suffer qualifies.
Are you saying that if, as we all wish, Mr. Strongquill's circumstances had come out differently and he had been injured, that he would automatically — is that a word that would apply — regardless of any designation or otherwise and without anybody having to make a decision, qualify for the benefits that would have been granted if he had been serving in Bosnia?
Mr. Guptill: That is right, essentially, although I would not go so far as to say "automatically," because the person has to apply for the coverage. Once they have applied for the coverage, all they would have to show under section 21(2) of the Pension Act is that the injury, or the disability resulting from the injury, resulted from service in the forces. That test is even more relaxed under section 21(1) of the Pension Act, which states that the disability was incurred "during or attributed to." The "incurred during" part of the legislation under section 21(1) is even more open, in the sense that if people are diagnosed with an ailment or an illness that results eventually in a disability, even if there is no clear evidence that that illness resulted from their service in a military operation, they are given the benefits of the doubt in this insurance principle. For example, if they are diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and the diagnosis can be attributed to their service at the time, then they would receive a disability pension for multiple sclerosis as a result of their section 21(1) service. That is what we are talking about in the case of this proposed legislation. Now we would be broadening this section 21(1) coverage to include special duty operations, which can be designated by the minister without having to go through the same approval process that we require now.
Senator Banks: There is still a difference. Following up on the chairman's question, if I were a new recruit in the infantry and on my first week of training in Alberta a jeep turned over on me and I was injured, I am not captured here, because that was not either a designated operation or a designated area, so I have fallen under a different category than is being contemplated in this bill?
Mr. Guptill: That is correct. In that instance, you would be covered should you apply for a disability pension because it is clear that the accident was attributed to your service. If you were injured as a result of a car accident in downtown Edmonton, then that would be a different situation.
Senator Day: Following through with the example given by Senator Banks, if the recruit in Gagetown were injured on duty, we understand that that is a section 21(2) type coverage; if that member were in a section 21(1) type operation and was downtown on leave the day he was injured, he is still covered; is that correct? On or off duty, it does not matter any longer if you are in a special designated area?
Mr. Guptill: I am not sure that I would agree with that particular example. Let us take an example of someone in an operation outside Canada, say in Kosovo, who was injured while on the way back to barracks. Under section 21(1), there would be no question about the coverage. They would be covered by virtue of the fact that they are deployed to Kosovo.
Senator Day: In a special designated area?
Mr. Guptill: That is right.
Senator Day: Assuming the same disability, in one place or the other, is there any difference in the benefits under one section coverage or another?
Mr. Guptill: Absolutely not. It is the same.
Senator Forrestall: I am pleased to see these changes. I want to suggest to you that these changes have been 20 years in the development and implementation and still do not go far enough. They are still too confusing and too open to interpretation. It seems to me it is time we began to look at it in the sense of the individual versus the institution. I would make it even simpler. What is the chore ahead, not where, and why not make it universal and have done with it?
Can I have an assurance that the proposed benefits for the RCMP are the same as the benefits for the Canadian military?
The Chairman: Perhaps the witness should identify himself.
Mr. Brent Merkley, Pension and Benefits Policy Analyst, National Compensation Policy Centre, Royal Canadian Mounted Police: My name is Brent Merkley. I am with the RCMP National Compensation Centre. I have been with the RCMP for the last 30 years.
The question you referred to, Senator Forrestall, is one that we are presently researching. We are looking at long- term care and the Veterans Independence Program. They are the two key benefits that we do not have that mirror the Armed Forces or DND benefits. Aside from that — and we are in the process of reviewing those — the benefits are identical under the Pension Act.
The Chairman: What are the programs you are still researching?
Mr. Merkley: The Veterans Independence Program, commonly referred to as the VIP, and the long-term care.
Senator Forrestall: Through to palliative care.
Mr. Merkley: It could include palliative care.
Senator Forrestall: That is good. Is dismemberment the same? Your arm is more beautiful but no more valuable than his?
Mr. Merkley: Dismemberment is another issue, sir.
Senator Forrestall: I used the term "benefit."
Mr. Merkley: Under the Pension Act, yes, they are identical.
The Chairman: Qualify that, because "under the Pension Act" does not explain it all, does it?
Mr. Merkley: That is correct.
The Chairman: Tell the committee what the difference is.
Senator Forrestall: Do not be reticent with us, because nothing irritates a layperson asking a question of a professional more than the professional deciding to answer the question specifically and not to bother involving the facts.
Mr. Merkley: The RCMP was brought into what I understand is the next bill coming forward. I believe it is Bill C- 44, the dismemberment bill, as I will refer to it. It is somewhat unique. It is a little different from the RCMP, in that there was an officers' provision back in 1972 that provided an additional benefit based on rank. That is separate and apart from what we are looking at. We are looking at determining whether our accidental death and dismemberment policy that came into being in 1990 would be comparable to that, but there are no rank-based factors in the RCMP similar to what that provision allowed. As I understand it, Bill C-44 will rectify that.
Senator Forrestall: Is there a condition under which it would kick in? For example, if you were in a designated area of elevated risk?
Mr. Merkley: I am not sure if it has to be linked to duties.
LCol. Sutherland: As far as I know, when you are talking about the —
Senator Forrestall: I am talking about equal treatment of the RCMP and the Canadian Forces — same treatment, without prejudice, without all this nonsense.
LCol. Sutherland: As I understand it, Bill C-44 will take care of the period from 1972 to about March of this year when we amended our insurance plan, because you cannot institute insurance coverage for incidents retroactively. Consequently, that is a large-scale, one-time payment for dismemberment. It is policy based, and the policy has changed over the years and will undoubtedly change again as the demands of service life change.
Mr. Guptill: Honourable senators, I will try to add some clarity to a rather technical discussion. We are trying here to deal with the changes we are proposing to the Pension Act, and there are various subsidiary questions that come out of that.
Dealing with Senator Forrestall's question on coverage of RCMP members and Canadian Forces members as it relates to the Pension Act, let me assure the senators that the pension coverage is exactly the same for both groups.
There is then some subsidiary coverage that relates to health care benefits that we at Veterans Affairs provide to pensioners who are suffering a disability. The health care benefits that relate to Special Duty Areas and special duty operations that are covered by this proposed legislation give coverage to Canadian Forces members. For example, if they are suffering a disability, they are eligible for certain home care services under the Department of Veterans Affairs' Veterans Independence Program, and those home care services result in certain health benefits being available to Canadian Forces members. Those home care services are not available at this point to RCMP members, but the RCMP is studying whether or not there should be total comparability. I should add that this is not part of this proposed legislation; this is something the RCMP is looking at separately.
Similarly, in response to Senator Forrestall's question about dismemberment, legislation is being contemplated to deal with that issue, and I believe senators had some questions about the dismemberment issue in the past. That will be the subject of discussion with the next group coming forward to speak to you, on Bill C-44. They will be able to deal with the questions specifically related to dismemberment.
The Chairman: Inspector, we would like the request for background information to include this issue as well, please.
Inspector McColl: Yes.
Senator Forrestall: You fellows do an excellent job. I am sure of that. I now have a better understanding. If you go back 20 or 30 years ago in Hansard, you will find my concerns about these questions expressed in a number of different ways. When you invite a person who has a special relationship to the process of governance of Canada, i.e., a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or a member of the Canadian Armed Forces, something changes. The contract is different. It is not just paper. It is something else. There is trust. It is all of those things put together. We have not had that, and we still do not have it, in spite of the best efforts of people who understand these very complex questions much better than we do.
When you ask a pilot to prepare for work in an area where there is obvious danger, in a war zone, he trains much harder. He flies a bit lower. He uses live ammunition. He subjects himself to what we saw happen such a short time ago. The plane, although we do not know the causes as yet, was too low for safe ejection. We placed that man in harm's way. He trusted us, and we have not let him down yet, and I do not want to let him down. That is my point.
It seems to me that as long as you play around with geography, you will never answer that question of trust. We say, for example, "the United Nations or some similar institution." What similar institution in the world is there? Why be specific? Why can we not be absolutely correct, generally speaking, if we are satisfied that we are asking people to put themselves in harm's way? That way, we do not overlook anyone.
The questions that we are still dealing with concern extended care and these two very basic issues that have been around for a long time. I wish you well with them and look forward to seeing the results of that, but I am not terribly happy that we are not at that point with this proposed legislation. Just as we ask a pilot to put himself in harm's way in training, we ask the RCMP constable, we ask the man with the rifle, to put himself in harm's way in training.
Whatever you can do will be greatly appreciated. This is welcome, and we thank the ministers for their care. We pray that they will be able to work together.
I do not have any concerns about the ministers, but I have enormous concerns about the top-level professional staff, who will be so absolutely right that the layperson at the top will be constantly confused. Reduce that confusion and move as quickly as you can to a universal definition and you will have my gratitude.
The Chairman: The information we are looking for falls along the following lines: We are interested in whether the coverage and protection flows from the Chief of Defence Staff down to a private, and from the Commissioner of the RCMP down to a special constable, and whether the protections provided are consistent. We are interested in situations where the protection would be in place automatically. What are the steps that one must go through before the protections pertain? We are interested in understanding the gaps in protection for people in either the RCM Police or in the Canadian Forces.
Senator Forrestall has made the point that the qualifications we see here, relating to areas or circumstances being designated, are difficult for the committee to comprehend. I think it is fair to say the committee is of the view that when people are working and are in harm's way, they should get the same coverage. If damage happens, it does not really matter much whether it happened in one part of the world or another, or on one type of duty or another; someone is damaged. We are concerned about whether they are protected and covered.
If you could, please provide the committee with outlines of how that coverage operates. We want to see underlining and highlighting and asterisks where the coverage does not exist, where the problems are and where work needs to be done to correct the situation. It is not the custom of the committee to have witnesses ask questions of senators, but is that clear? Do you have any questions about what we are looking for?
Mr. Guptill: That is clear.
Senator Cordy: Thank you for appearing and for giving us your opinions on Bill C-31. I want to ensure I leave with the right impressions this morning. I understand from your comments that you feel that this bill means that the government and the people of Canada recognize the risks that our military and our RCMP members undergo, particularly when they are put in dangerous situations not always outside of Canada. Sometimes the risks occur in Canada, but lately they are particularly occurring outside of Canada.
You feel that this bill goes a long way toward helping members of the military to meet their needs for better pensions, and superannuation for RCMP members; that this bill will go a long way toward helping people receive better coverage. Is that the impression that I should be taking with me?
Inspector McColl: Yes.
LCol. Sutherland: Yes.
Senator Atkins: Thank you for being here this morning, witnesses.
Is it not true that members of the RCMP must volunteer for Special Duty Areas, or can they be assigned?
Inspector McColl: That would depend on what level we are at. For the first people to respond to a call for service, it is their duty and responsibility to attend. Once it evolves into something along the lines of Gustafson Lake or Oka, we may have a better understanding of that operation. Members of emergency response teams and tactical troops do volunteer for those particular duties. That is in Canada. Overseas service is definitely volunteer service.
Senator Atkins: Do the members receive an order? I think you said in your opening remarks it is under contract?
Inspector McColl: Contract policing is how we refer to our contractual obligations to the provinces. International policing is a different directorate within the RCMP, but these types of circumstances, when they occur in Canada, affect the people who are involved in contract policing. They are the first line of response to a complaint. If we get a call about anthrax, the general-duty, uniformed police officer will be the first on the scene.
Senator Atkins: Are there any civilians in the RCMP who may be assigned these duties and are they covered?
Mr. Merkley: The RCMP includes 2,200 civilian members. They are hired for their basic skills — laboratory specialists and telecommunications operators, for example. They do not have to fulfil the requirements of police status such as arresting privileges. They are covered in a similar manner to the regular uniformed members under the Pension Act; they have the same benefit coverage.
Senator Atkins: Would that be so under Bill C-31, if they were in harm's way?
Mr. Merkley: If the civilian members volunteer, yes, they would have the same coverage.
Senator Atkins: LCol. Sutherland, are you satisfied that in the process of dealing with military personnel, the medical records are sufficient? Are they top quality? Is there ever any debate or discussion or problems relating to medical records?
LCol. Sutherland: Senator Atkins, there is always debate within the Canadian Forces about almost everything. Medical records are the product of individuals' input. Of course, that ranges across the forces and it depends on the situation. There is a standard to which they want to perform their duties. That is met most times but there will always be exceptions to that. When someone is filling out a medical chit on a rocking boat somewhere in the North Atlantic, the handwriting may not be so clear. Twenty years later, someone may be trying to decipher what that person has written. There will always be cases like that. For the most part, the members are professionals and they do their duty in a professional manner.
Senator Atkins: When you are younger, you do not feel you have any medical problems.
LCol. Sutherland: That is a problem that we recognize in the Armed Forces. Many of the members are injured when they are going through their training. They may twist an ankle but just "suck it up," take some aspirin and move on. Twenty years later, when that person has arthritis in the same joint and claims to have been hurt while on a course, there may not be a record. We are trying to change that, but it is very much the way we do business. Hindsight does not help in a case like that.
I must admit, from what I have seen, Veterans Affairs has a good approach to that. They take statements from witnesses in cases where people say they were hurt but the medical chit cannot be found. Their process seems to be, when in doubt, defer to the individual.
Senator Atkins: Are members of the reserve covered in exactly the same way as permanent forces personnel and RCMP?
LCol. Sutherland: Yes, sir. When reserves are employed in a Special Duty Area or on a special duty operation, their coverage will be exactly the same.
The Chairman: However, not when they are carrying out summer training or working on Tuesday nights?
LCol. Sutherland: No, sir. That speaks to what Mr. Guptill was talking about before; the Pension Act has coverage for people who suffer a disability due to their service.
If they bang themselves up on a Tuesday night, they are covered under the Pension Act the same as anyone who has an accident on a regular forces base. If they are on duty and the accident is service related, the Pension Act covers them.
The Chairman: That is something that I think we will come back to.
Following up on Senator Atkins' question about the ability to search records, it is my impression that they are not in terrific shape. The testimony we received on the bill we will be dealing with was there were about a dozen people who might have lost a limb. We are now up to 114 and 81 additional deceased, which is a lot different from "about a dozen."
How difficult is it to get an individual's file? How long does it take?
LCol. Sutherland: I cannot answer that. I have never had to request a file.
Mr. Guptill: The question of records has always been an interesting one for debate. I have been dealing recently with records related to First Nations veterans, and we have been able to find the service record of a First Nations veteran in every instance, even going back to the 1940s. Therefore, the documentation on what happened to these individuals and what benefits they received is exceptionally good, frequently to the surprise of the individuals, who may have forgotten in the intervening years whether they received a particular demobilization benefit.
Using hearing loss as an example, there has been concern over the years about the high proportion of people serving in the military who have suffered from a hearing loss disability. You now have to have an audiogram when you enter the service and again when you leave in order to determine whether there has been a loss of hearing. That provides very good documentation.
Clearly, there are people who served in the 1940s who did not have an audiogram. However, on first application, 90 per cent of those who apply for a disability pension for hearing loss receive a favourable ruling. That is a very high proportion and Canada's record in that area is comparable to that of any other jurisdiction.
As my colleague said, there will always be questions about whether the records are perfect, but in the examples I have given you, the records were exceptionally good for proving disability related to service and the awarding of a pension as a result.
The Chairman: I know that once this hearing is broadcast we will be hearing from many people who have views on this issue.
Senator Banks: Mr. Merkley, in responding to Senator Cordy's question you said the benefits for civilian members of the force were similar. Do you mean "similar" or "identical"?
Mr. Merkley: Identical.
Senator Banks: I wanted to make that clear for the record. They are the same.
LCol. Sutherland, you responded to Senator Day's question about a member of the forces in Afghanistan who goes downtown in Kabul or is on leave and goes to Paris. You said there were circumstances in which the member would not be covered. However, the bill, as I read it in clause 3, is amending the act to say that it includes authorized leave of absence with pay during that service, wherever that leave is taken.
I take that to mean that if I were on duty in an area that has been designated by the minister as special and I go away for a holiday while still assigned to that situation, I am covered. Is that correct? I am speaking of authorized leave with pay.
Mr. Guptill: Let me clarify that because I may have left an incorrect impression.
If you are serving in Kosovo or in Bosnia and you are travelling to or from Bosnia, under this proposed legislation you would be covered. If you are on leave of absence from Bosnia to go to some other location, you are covered 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If you suffer a disability while you are away, you are covered.
The reason the special duty operation designation applies in Canada, but not Special Duty Areas, is that in Canada, if you are engaged in an activity at Gagetown and are injured and suffer a disability as a result, you are covered under the Pension Act. If you go home at night to Oromocto and slip on the ice and hurt your back, you are not covered. That is the difference between sections 21(1) and 21(2) of the Pension Act.
The Chairman: If recruits from Edmonton or from Oromocto were training to go to Kosovo, would they be covered?
Mr. Guptill: That is right. That is what is added by this particular provision.
The Chairman: There being no further questions, I would like to thank the witnesses for appearing before us. Your testimony has been helpful. We look forward to hearing back from you shortly. In particular, we hope you will underline the anomalies and the areas that require further work. If we hear back from you in the next month or six weeks, that would be ample time for us.
Colleagues, do you wish to have further discussion of this bill or shall we move to clause-by-clause consideration?
Senator Atkins: I move that we proceed to clause-by-clause consideration.
The Chairman: We are now on clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-31, to amend the Pension Act and the RCMP Superannuation Act.
Is it agreed that the title shall stand postponed?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chairman: Shall clauses 1 to 7 carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chairman: Is it agreed that the title shall carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chairman: Is it agreed that the bill shall carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chairman: Is it agreed that the bill be reported to the Senate at its next sitting?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chairman: Thank you very much. Senator Forrestall has kindly agreed to report it this evening.
The committee will now proceed to Bill C-44. We have just finished reporting Bill C-31, to amend the Pension Act and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superannuation Act, and we are now moving on to another piece of proposed legislation.
Today we will hear testimony on Bill C-44, to compensate military members injured during service. It will provide retroactive benefits for dismemberment for members of the Canadian Forces.
Our committee takes a special interest in this proposed legislation because it is a direct response to our April 2003 report by the Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs, entitled, "Fixing the Canadian Forces' Method of Dealing with Death and Dismemberment."
This issue on death or dismemberment provisions was brought to the attention of the subcommittee by the case of Maj. (ret'd) Bruce Henwood, who lost both legs while serving in Bosnia. Maj. Henwood gave moving testimony that as a junior officer he did not qualify for a payment of up to $250,000, but those with the rank of colonel or higher would. Representatives of the public and private sectors testified that a provision for this type of insurance, for a lump sum payment, was standard within the insurance industry and available for a small sum.
Shortly before senior officials from the Department of National Defence were scheduled to appear, the minister announced changes to the military insurance plan so that now all members of the Canadian Forces, regardless of rank, are eligible for coverage.
As a committee we welcomed this change in policy, but we also pressed forward on the issue of retroactivity so that justice and equity will aid those members of the Canadian Forces who were dismembered in the past.
Today, we will deal with the proposed legislation designed to provide these retroactive benefits.
The witnesses today include LCol. Dan Dunlop of the Quality of Life directorate; Alex Weatherston, Counsel, Legislative and Regulatory Services, Department of Justice, assigned to DND; Nathalie Hébert, Legislative Project Manager, Legislative and Regulatory Services; and Patrick James, Special Adviser, Legal and International Affairs, from the office of the Minister of National Defence.
You are all most welcome. We have been looking forward to this piece of proposed legislation with great anticipation.
Lieutenant-Colonel Dan Dunlop, Quality of Life, Department of National Defence: It is an honour and privilege to appear before you today on this most important piece of proposed legislation. Bill C-44 will permit lump sum payments to be made to serving and former members of the Canadian Forces who have suffered an injury attributable to service that resulted in dismemberment, that is, loss of a hand, foot or thumb and index finger on the same hand, or the loss of sight, hearing or speech.
The proposed legislation will remove a disparity in insurance coverage between Canadian Forces members who have been entitled to lump sum benefits for injuries and those who have not.
Since October 1, 1972, the General Officers Insurance Plan has provided to colonels and generals lump sum payments of up to $250,000 for dismemberment or loss of sight, hearing or speech. The plan is modelled on the compensation package that is provided to all executive-level federal employees.
As you are well aware, the subcommittee released a report recommending that all CF members be entitled to the same coverage for accidental death and dismemberment, and that payments be made to members for accidental death and dismemberment while on duty in the past.
While the General Officers Insurance Plan, as an appropriate part of executive compensation, provides lump sum benefits for accidental death and dismemberment whether or not the injury is service related, coverage for all CF members for service-related injuries should be the same.
Accordingly, as an initial measure to remove this disparity, Treasury Board approved insurance coverage, effective February 13, 2003, under which all CF members not covered by the general officers plan have the same coverage for service-related injuries that result in dismemberment or loss of sight, hearing or speech.
As the new insurance plan could not deal with injuries before February 13, 2003, new proposed legislation has been tabled. Bill C-44 would provide lump sum payments of up to $250,000 to a member who suffered a service-related injury that resulted in dismemberment or the loss of sight, hearing or speech, if the member survived for a period of at least 30 days after the injury.
Features of the bill are as follows: The proposed legislation would apply to the period from October 1, 1972, the start of the general officers plan, to February 12, 2003, for the loss of a hand, foot or eye. The loss of hearing and speech would be covered from April 1, 1986 to February 12, 2003, and the loss of thumb and index finger of the same hand from November 1, 1988 to February 12, 2003.
Benefits would be payable to regular and reserve force members. If an eligible recipient were deceased, the payment would be made to his or her estate. Benefits would not be subject to federal tax or reduce any benefit payable under the Pension Act.
Details on the amounts of the benefits payable during the different periods of coverage for specific losses are set out in the schedule to the bill. The Department of National Defence would administer the proposed legislation and provide the necessary funding, estimated at $26.3 million.
Government records indicate that there are potentially 114 living claimants and 81 deceased claimants.
In conclusion, proceeding with the proposed legislation will ensure that any former or serving CF member who has suffered dismemberment or loss of sight, hearing or speech resulting from a service-related injury will receive a lump sum payment comparable to that which would have been paid to a colonel or general.
The Chairman: Thank you very much.
Senator Day: The first thing that I would like to say on behalf of myself and our committee is to ask you, Mr. James, to take back to Mr. McCallum, the Minister of National Defence, our thanks for acting on our report. We very much appreciate the quick work that he did once he recognized the injustice that existed.
Perhaps, LCol. Dunlop, you could help me here. The bill refers to three different classes of reservists: Class A, B and C. Can you tell me what each of those classes comprises?
LCol. Dunlop: I do not profess expertise in the area, but I have a good understanding.
Class A service applies to reservists when they are going through their weekly training, their summer training, et cetera. It is part-time service of a few hours a week or a couple of weeks in the summer, that sort of thing.
Class B service is considered full-time service, of which there are two categories, what we call "short-term class B" and "long-term class B." Short-term class B would be 180 days or less, and long term would be greater than 180 days.
Basically, a class B member would be doing service of a full-time nature, quite often in support of the reserves, but also in support of the regular force.
Class C is full-time employment. It is a reservist who is filling a position that would normally be filled by a regular force member, usually in an operational theatre. For example, someone in Bosnia would be class C and treated the same as regular force members.
In terms of pay, members of the reserve force class C receive the same pay as regular force, but reservists who are in class A or B receive 85 per cent of regular force pay. It is one of the differentiations.
Senator Day: If reservists were called up for full-time service to go on deployment, but that deployment was for less than 180 days, would they remain class B reservists or be considered class C because they are in harm's way?
LCol. Dunlop: If we were talking about a theatre of operation in Europe, for example, the person would be a reserve class C and would receive the full benefits, regardless of the length of the tour.
Senator Day: Irrespective of whether it was 180 days or not?
LCol. Dunlop: That is correct.
The Chairman: Based on what, colonel? When you say that person moves to become a class C, is that because he is in a designated area?
LCol. Dunlop: I believe it is because the position is in a designated area.
Senator Banks: Could you find out where it says that in the bill so that we can be certain of the answer to the question?
LCol. Dunlop: It does not say that in the bill, sir.
Senator Day: Do you mean in Bill C-44?
Senator Banks: Yes.
Senator Day: It does not describe any of them.
Senator Banks: Where is the trigger that spells out the circumstances, that is to say, members of the reserve are regarded as class C reservists as soon as they move into either a designated area or a designated operation? I believe that is what you said?
LCol. Dunlop: I believe that would be reflected in departmental orders and regulations but I could not quote you chapter and verse on that.
Senator Banks: Would you undertake to find them and send them to the clerk of the committee so we are absolutely certain of that?
The Chairman: Is that difficult to find in a hurry?
LCol. Dunlop: I would not think so, senator.
Mr. Alex Weatherston, Counsel, Legislative and Regulatory Services, Department of Justice: I believe the answer to that question is in the Queen's Regulations and Orders that are cited in the bill. If you look at article 9.07 you will find "service with other reserve units," whereas class C is for "service with the regular force," and that is when they are going overseas. It comes out of Queen's Regulations and Orders. We can get those.
LCol. Dunlop: I have them here.
Senator Banks: I know that a bill cannot take every eventuality into account, but it is theoretically possible that a group of reservists who are not specifically assigned to a regular unit might be sent to serve in either a designated operation in Canada, or a designated area outside Canada.
If an individual is moved from a reserve unit or a militia unit into functioning in a permanent forces unit, then I understand that. However, there are circumstances in which — and I think there is one coming up — entire companies of reservists or militias are being assigned to those areas. I want to ensure they are covered as well. I am sure they are, but I want to have it on the record.
LCol. Dunlop: If we were talking about service in Europe or in a deployed operation situation, whether it was a reserve or a regular unit, the members would be considered under class C. It is an operational theatre.
The Chairman: Were you going to find the regulation for us, colonel?
LCol. Dunlop: Do you want it now, sir?
The Chairman: Yes, it would expedite matters.
While the colonel is looking do we have questions for other members of the panel?
Senator Day: I should continue to deal with the colonel on this. Maybe Ms. Hébert could help me with a question while we are looking up the issue in the Queen's orders.
When we made this recommendation, we understood that the impact would potentially be 10 to 20 individuals. We now find there are 114 living and 81 estates of deceased members that could be impacted. Is there any explanation for the significant difference?
LCol. Dunlop: There might have been some confusion. I think a number in the range of 12 would probably refer to claims that had been paid under the General Officers Insurance Plan over the life of the plan. Until recently, neither the department nor Veterans Affairs were in any position to comment in a meaningful way on the numbers. Veterans Affairs has now done a detailed screen of their records, which has provided us with this breakdown between living and deceased members.
Senator Day: I am impressed that you were able to do that with the records as quickly as you have.
The questions I asked about the various classes — and I understand we will have something distributed shortly — were not with respect to the current situation or Bill C-44. That is what I would like to do now. I would like to find out if there is a difference in relation to the reservists.
Bill C-44, as I understand and read it, is dealing with different starting dates, depending on when the general officers plan started, from 1972 and other dates more current, all stopping on February 12, 2003. Then, from February 13, 2003 forward, Treasury Board has approved coverage; is that correct?
LCol. Dunlop: That is correct.
Senator Day: That is not in here. Can you explain to us, first, the type of coverage from February 13 forward?
LCol. Dunlop: When the department developed the new policy effective February 13, we basically mirrored the provisions of the General Officers Insurance Plan. The features in what is now called the Canadian Forces accidental dismemberment policy are virtually identical to those you see in this proposed legislation in terms of the range of coverage and the dollar amounts being paid for regular and reserve force members.
Senator Day: There really is no change. Your answer on the different classes of reservists applies both for Bill C-44 and for the current situation?
LCol. Dunlop: Absolutely.
Senator Day: The other comment I have is to thank the minister for his consideration with respect to estates being able to claim what the deceased member of the Armed Forces would have been able to claim as a lump sum payment for dismemberment, as well as the non-taxable aspect that appears in Bill C-44. We had mentioned neither of those in our report, but both are welcomed.
Senator Forrestall: Do I understand that to mean that any payment to the deceased member's estate is not subject to tax, nor is it included in the income of the estate, which may be subject to tax overall?
LCol. Dunlop: That is correct.
Senator Forrestall: It is excluded?
LCol. Dunlop: It is excluded.
Senator Forrestall: It is still dealt with under the terms of a will, even though the forces member may leave such instruments to his estate?
LCol. Dunlop: That is our understanding.
Senator Forrestall: My other questions had to do with the issues that Senator Day has raised. In advising my colleagues, I had it down pretty well, except I had it reversed.
Senator Atkins: Will it be difficult to track down the beneficiaries of an estate?
Mr. Weatherston: We will certainly have service records, which will tell us about the last spouse designation.
That is of some concern to DND; but they will be advertising for these people to come forward and show proof that they represent the estates, and I think DND will expend effort to find those people.
Senator Atkins: It will be complicated if the spouse is deceased.
Mr. Weatherston: That is correct, but the estate will still be there to follow through. There are amounts of money involved here, so we think people will come forward.
The Chairman: When we had the minister and deputy here, we asked whether you will take advantage of the Legion, and whether you had other vehicles or publications to make sure that people who might be beneficiaries under this proposed legislation know that it is available. Could you elaborate on that for us?
LCol. Dunlop: We certainly plan to avail ourselves of any normal publications. Veterans Affairs, for example, has a number of publications and a number of good ideas on how best to contact these people. We will work with the Legion as well. We are looking at public service announcements, possibly in newspapers, to give coverage to this proposed legislation.
The Chairman: Could you please provide the clerk of this committee with a summary of the communications program that is taking place — how it covers the different regions of the country and how it deals with different languages? We would be very interested in the follow-up on that to ensure that we do not miss anyone inadvertently.
Senator Atkins: To carry on with this theme, this could be complicated by the will of the deceased veteran if the spouse is no longer with us. There could be a very interesting legal challenge before you could provide the benefits to the heirs.
Mr. Weatherston: Some of these veterans may have died intestate, in which case the provincial laws of intestacy will then apply.
LCol. Dunlop: We certainly discussed the various options — should the payment die with the member or go to the estate and so on? We came to the conclusion that there would be complications, but the moral high ground was best served by making this available to the spouses because we thought that is what the member would have wanted. It is second best, but it is at least honouring the member's wishes.
The Chairman: I think I speak for the committee in saying you have made the right decision. The burden that the family takes on when this happens is immense, and we are very pleased to see this as a feature of the bill.
Perhaps we could return now to the question; I think we all have the documentation in front of us.
Mr. Weatherston: I put a line through the first part of that page because those are articles that do not relate to this issue. At the very bottom of article 9.06 is the class A reserve service, and on the second page we have the class B and class C. In the definition here in the Queen's Regulations and Orders, class A is anything that is not class B and class C. That is a bit of a circular definition, but that is what the articles purport to do.
At the very top of the page is subparagraph 2, which deals with class A. As LCol. Dunlop indicated, class A is someone who attends local parades and exercises that are performed at a local headquarters. I was a class A reserve as a justice department lawyer, so I am allowed to do both — some military service as a reservist and a justice department job.
For classes B and C, substantive provisions are set out now to position people. Starting with 9.07, we have a paragraph 1, which has three subparagraphs. Paragraph 1(a) is the typical class B reservist who is helping out in support of the cadet programs of Canada. Typically, he would be helping out in the summer, on the weekends or on a Wednesday evening. He would be doing some class B reserve service; but he would have to be in a temporary position and in the instructional or administrative staff of a school or other training establishment, for example, the Trenton school for the air cadets that is held every summer.
Article 9.07, subparagraph 1(b), refers to a reservist who proceeds on such training attachment or such training course as prescribed by the Chief of Defence Staff. Again, someone who is training as a reservist could be on class B. Finally, article 9.07 1(c) refers to a reservist who is on duties of a temporary nature approved by the Chief of Defence Staff when not practical to employ members of the regular force on those duties.
Just to follow up on what LCol. Dunlop said, people going to Bosnia or other major operations fall under article 9.08, paragraph 1. They are serving in a regular force position or they are supernumerary to a regular force position.
There may be an amendment to article 9.08 at some point that may address some of the concerns you had about reservists going overseas as formed groups or formed units. That is not clear in article 9.08 as it stands now.
The Chairman: What is the definition of "supernumerary"?
Mr. Weatherston: The PPCLI went over to Bosnia during the time I was in the regular force as assistant judge advocate general at Winnipeg. That was a regular force unit. Say it had 800 people; on top of that 800 would be some reservists in supernumerary positions. They would go with the regular force unit. If your regular force unit had vacancies, they would be held against those vacant establishment positions. It could happen both ways — vacancies in the unit or people added on top of the establishment. They would be going with the regular force unit and that is how they have been going since. Article 9.08 is a Governor-in-Council regulation. I cannot speak to the exact amendments, except to say the chief has announced they are studying that.
The Chairman: Senator Banks, has this clarified the issue?
Senator Banks: With one exception. If I am performing on a temporary basis the functions that are set out in paragraphs (a), (b) or (c), but I am not on full-time service, then I am not captured by article 9.07. I am not in the class B because a prerequisite is I am on full-time service and performing those functions temporarily. Those two things have to occur at the same time. People could be temporarily performing the functions set out in those paragraphs, but if they have not been designated by some other means somewhere else as being on full-time service, they are not captured by this section. Am I right?
Mr. Weatherston: Both articles 9.07 and 9.08 concern full-time service. Whether you are B or C, you are on full-time service, and that has an impact on other things. For instance, here at Department of National Defence headquarters, there are class B reservists performing staff positions where there are certainly not regular force people around, and it is of a short-term nature. As a matter of policy, if you are going overseas, you are class C now, either supernumerary or regular forces; you are never class B.
Senator Banks: Perhaps this is an inconsequential question, but am I correct in saying that if I were performing these functions on a temporary basis and I had not been designated as being on full-time service, then I am not captured by this section?
Mr. Weatherston: By definition, if you are in class B or C, you are full time.
The only part timers are people in class A. Those are the people going out on the weekends leading parades.
Senator Banks: No such person would do any of the functions set out in articles 90.7 1(a) (b) or (c)?
Mr. Weatherston: They would not do that on part-time service. They would be full time.
Senator Day: You have made it clear for me. I am glad you had the document with you. It was very helpful.
The Chairman: I have a question. Would it be fair to say that this piece of proposed legislation before us provides for ranks of lieutenant-colonel down to private exactly the same coverage as for a full colonel through a general in a retrospective way?
LCol. Dunlop: Yes, you would be correct in that characterization.
The Chairman: Is my understanding correct that the coverage for generals and colonels included injuries sustained when not on duty?
LCol. Dunlop: You are correct, sir.
The Chairman: Therefore, individuals of a lower rank who were injured while not on duty would also be eligible to claim under this proposed legislation?
LCol. Dunlop: No, senator. Under this proposed legislation, only injury attributable to military service is covered by the benefit.
The Chairman: I did not understand your response to the previous question when you said that they were identical.
LCol. Dunlop: I apologize if I misspoke. I meant specifically in the context of attributable to military service.
The Chairman: Could you explain why this difference exists?
LCol. Dunlop: Under the General Officers Insurance Plan, as you have correctly identified, there is a range of insurance benefits that are in effect 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It does not matter whether the general is at home or at work. The same coverage would apply.
In developing the package from February 13 forward and this retrospective package, there was discussion as to whether all members of the Canadian Forces should have exact parity with the general officers or parity with a subset of benefits. The subset would be that which is service related. The decision taken was that because of the unique nature of military service, all ranks should receive the same benefits because we are likely to be put in harm's way.
We felt that 24-7 coverage was in the nature of executive compensation. If I am home on the weekend, I am not in harm's way. I am the same as any other member of the public service in that regard. We did not think that military members should be treated differently.
We still believe there is merit to executive compensation. It is there to recognize the additional burden of leadership, and we feel it is fair in that regard.
Senator Atkins: If a member of the military were assigned to the UN, which was the case with Maj. Henwood, he would be compensated by the UN. Does this bill affect that at all?
LCol. Dunlop: Without reference to any specific example, I can tell you categorically that there is no provision in this proposed legislation to reduce a payment made under it because of any other payment that would have been received from the UN. They are two separate and distinct benefits, if you will. There would be no offset or reduction.
Senator Atkins: That is good news.
The Chairman: Are there any other questions from members of the committee?
Senator Banks: In C-44, paragraph 4(1)(f) excludes from coverage, as I read it, a person who has been determined by the minister to be entitled to a lump sum payment in respect to the injury under an insurance plan provided by the Government of Canada. Who would be such a person?
LCol. Dunlop: That would specifically refer to a member covered by the General Officers Insurance Plan who received a payment under that plan.
Mr. Weatherston: This would be the colonels and generals.
Senator Cordy: Under that section on "Compensation," there is a difference in compensation for those who have been in the service for less than 180 days. What was the rationale for that?
LCol. Dunlop: The rationale throughout the development of this proposed legislation was to maintain parity with the officers' insurance plans.
There are two plans. The regular plan came into force October 1, 1972, and has evolved since that time. The reserve force plan came into effect in 1994.
If you were to examine the benefits payable today under those two plans, you would see that a member of the reserve force class A or class B of less than 180 days would receive a maximum benefit of $100,000, whereas under the regular force class B or class C the maximum benefit would be $250,000. There is a difference in the maximum benefit payable under the General Officers Insurance Plan. The same payment is mirrored in the plan.
The Chairman: In fairness, that was in the report that the subcommittee issued. The full committee endorsed the idea that the general officers' plan be mirrored in the proposed legislation. That is the case?
LCol. Dunlop: That is exactly what we have done.
The Chairman: We have it word for word.
Senator Forrestall: Paragraph 4(1)(d) reads, "the person survived for a period of at least 30 days after the injury." Could you tell us what that means, for the record?
LCol. Dunlop: Yes, senator.
Again, I will preface my answer by saying that we were mirroring the General Officers Insurance Plan. That plan covers both accidental death and dismemberment. The general officers' plan will pay, for example, a maximum of $250,000 for death or dismemberment, but not both. In other words, if a person suffered a dismemberment and then died two days later, that person would not receive two cheques for $250,000.
We said that we had better ensure when developing the bill that we were very clear that we are paying for dismemberment. The matter of death benefits is an issue that the department will be examining in the next 18 to 24 months. Clearly, at this stage, we are focusing on dismemberment benefits, as we should be.
The Chairman: Colleagues, are there other questions you would like to ask this panel? Seeing none, on behalf of the committee I would like to thank you very much for appearing today. It has been short notice for all of us, but we were delighted it was short notice.
We were afraid that we would not receive this proposed legislation before Parliament rose. We are very pleased to have received it.
I would ask that you carry Senator Day's comments to the minister, please. We were delighted that he found a way to get it through the other place and give us the opportunity to deal with it here. With luck, we will get it through the Senate shortly.
I thank you all very much for appearing before us and for assisting us in the study of this bill. You are excused.
Colleagues, we are at that point where we would look at clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-44, to compensate military members injured during service.
Is it agreed by the committee to move to clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-44?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chairman: Is it agreed that the title stand postponed?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chairman: Is it agreed that clauses 2 through 23 shall carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chairman: Is it agreed that the schedule shall carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chairman: Shall clause 1, which contains the short title, carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chairman: Shall the title carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chairman: Shall the bill carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chairman: Are observations considered necessary at this time?
Senator Day: I do not think so.
The Chairman: Senator Forrestall, are you comfortable with that?
Senator Forrestall: Yes.
The Chairman: Is it agreed that the bill shall be reported to the Senate at its next sitting?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chairman: Once again, I would like to thank Senator Forrestall for presenting that report.
The Chairman: To those of you following the work of the committee at home, we will now return to the study of Canadian coastal defence and maritime security. We can be followed on our Web site by going to www.sen-sec.ca. We post witness testimony as well as confirmed hearing schedules. Otherwise, you may contact the clerk of the committee at 1-800-267-7362 for further information or assistance in contacting members of the committee.
The committee is currently giving priority to an ongoing evaluation of Canada's ability to defend her territorial waters and to help police the continental coastline. Our next witness is Capt. Larry Hickey, who joined the Canadian Forces in 1974. Thirteen years later, Capt. Hickey relinquished command of the submarine HMCS Onondaga and transferred to the primary reserves to begin university studies. Upon graduation, Capt. Hickey won the Governor General's Silver Medal for Achievement, after which he worked for the RCMP and then rejoined the regular force in 1992. Since then, he has commanded the submarine HMCS Okanagan and the frigate HMCS Toronto. Capt. Hickey was promoted to his current rank in 2001 and was made Assistant Chief of Staff, Plans and Operations at Maritime Forces Atlantic headquarters. He is also the commander of Trinity, the East Coast naval operations centre, and is a doctoral student. Capt. Hickey joins us today to provide the committee with an understanding of Trinity. Welcome, Capt. Hickey.
Captain (N) Larry Hickey, Assistant Chief of Staff, Plans and Operations (for Maritime Forces Atlantic) Department of National Defence: I appreciate the opportunity to appear today to discuss Maritime Forces Atlantic operations.
Notwithstanding the increase in security awareness among the Canadian population, in general, little has changed over the past 18 months, regarding domestic naval operations as they pertain to national security and defence tasks. The navy continues to perform the sovereignty protection role as it has done for decades. The major tasks associated with this include the development of as complete an understanding as possible of the maritime activities taking place inside our area of interest through intelligence; surveillance and reconnaissance; and support of the efforts of other government departments that have enforcement mandates by providing ships and aircraft for patrols and a government presence and deterrent in our coastal zones through naval exercises and operations.
That said, there are two elements that have evolved in the recent past. First, the navy has focused greater attention on the protection of our own forces at home and abroad. Domestically, this has meant the establishment of controlled access zones in naval home ports.
The second change is the increased flow of information from other government departments to our operational headquarters in the Atlantic and to our Joint Ocean Surveillance Information Centre, known as Trinity. This assists our surveillance planning and allows us to better understand the activities at sea and their geographic dispositions, or what the navy refers to as the "recognized maritime picture." The navy provides this collated and evaluated plot of collective maritime awareness to other government departments through Web-based architecture.
The impetus for greater cooperation and information sharing between federal departments came about as a result of a 1990 Treasury Board study led by Senator Osbaldeston. The aim of this study was to identify opportunities for enhancing the efficiency and improving the delivery of federal marine-fleet programs. Ultimately, the Osbaldeston report led to the consolidation of the Canadian Coast Guard and Department of Fisheries and Oceans fleets. The study found that cooperation among federal departments was poor, and as a remedy, recommended the establishment of a strategic-level committee to determine if the three departments with maritime fleets could operate and interact more effectively. Accordingly, the Interdepartmental Program Coordination and Review Committee, or IPCRC, was convened in 1991.
Although Ottawa based, the Interdepartmental Program Coordination and Review Committee was important from a regional perspective because with it came a structure of subcommittees and working groups. These covered operations, surveillance, hydrographics, communications and vessel design and utilization. Operations subcommittees were formed on the East and West Coasts and set in motion real progress towards interdepartmental cooperation. The Atlantic operations subcommittee met regularly and saw the development of an unclassified, wide-area information- sharing network known as the Canadian Maritime Network, or CANMARNET for short, and an "Interdepartmental Concept of Maritime Operations" document was developed and accepted for use among major departments with maritime security and enforcement mandates.
It seemed as though we were on the way to cracking the code for real interdepartmental coordination and effective employment of our maritime resources.
That was not to be the case. The 1990s saw the stagnation of interdepartmental relationships, and both CANMARNET and the "Interdepartmental Concept of Maritime Operations" fell into disuse. Budgetary constraints were the major culprit. There was little funding available to address interdepartmental issues. Occasional spikes of activity that necessitated multi-departmental responses, such as the turbot crisis in 1995 and the Swiss Air disaster in 1998, buoyed relations with other government departments, but in general terms, many of the benefits set in motion by the Osbaldeston study simply stopped dead in their tracks. The Interdepartmental Program Coordination and Review Committee was disbanded in September 2001.
That was the same month as the attack against the World Trade Center in New York City. The tragic events of September 11, 2001 reinvigorated departmental relationships within the Atlantic region. Some of these are formal, many are informal, and they exist at the strategic, operational and tactical levels. In addition, the approach taken is not just reactive, which tends to be what makes the news, but proactive as well in the form of various day-to-day initiatives, a structure of working groups and multi-agency exercises.
With the loss of the umbrella of the Interdepartmental Program Coordination and Review Committee, its Atlantic operations subcommittee reinvented itself as the Eastern Canada interdepartmental marine operations committee and established its own terms of reference for future cooperation. An overhaul of the concept of operations is well underway. Another regional group, the Nova Scotia federal council security committee, with the Department of Citizenship and Immigration as its chair, has championed a series of exercises over the past 18 months that have brought a variety of federal departments together to work through dynamic security scenarios. These exercises have demonstrated the need for an efficient means of interdepartmental communications and that has led to a revitalization of CANMARNET and a statement of requirement for secure means to share sensitive information.
I am not attempting to paint a completely rosy picture here. None of the committees to which I have referred have executive authority; rather, issues for action are agreed upon and taken away and dealt with within each individual department. While there remain cultural differences among departments, one could say that interdepartmental cooperation is on the mend.
The legal and administrative jurisdictions of the federal departments vary widely within the region, adding another level of complexity. For example, a single security enforcement issue within the Atlantic region could involve consultation with only one regional director for the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, but up to four regional directors for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and three regional directors for the Coast Guard, simply due to how each department is administered. Equally, jurisdiction varies among and within departments, depending upon the federal statute in question and whether or not the activity in question occurs in the exclusive economic zone, the contiguous zone or territorial waters.
At the end of the day, we are making headway. Proactive engagement by the navy in cultivating regional relationships has produced a better overall surveillance and domain awareness than we have had in years. Our day-to- day liaison with other federal intelligence sections remains robust, and the means to coordinate operational responses is getting better through scenario-driven, multi-agency exercises and the development of a formal multi-agency threat assessment process.
Military officers continue to be sought after for facilitation roles during multi-agency events, and I attribute this to the training our officers receive in campaign and theatre operations planning, as well as the knowledge that we are the agency of last resort and the complementary attitude that, as such, we cannot fail.
I would be pleased to answer any questions.
Senator Banks: You have outlined a concern that has been ours for a long time in everything having to do with national security and that is the question of who is in charge here, who will respond, the problems of interdepartmental, interagency communication and whether or not everybody is on the same page.
Our visits to other countries have shown that, by odious comparison, we are in better shape simply because we have fewer agencies and less of a Gordian knot to untangle.
I am glad to hear you say that things are getting better and you are making headway, but those of us who do not have to deal with it on a day-to-day basis are increasingly frustrated by the fact that the exercises have demonstrated again the need for an efficient means of interdepartmental communication. That is not new. I sense from you a degree of frustration with the fact that it is not getting better, even though you are making it better. I wanted you to know that we who do not have to deal with it share that frustration, because we look at it from the outside and say, "Why can this not be simpler and clearer?"
You were sort of waxing nostalgic about the Interdepartmental Program Coordination and Review Committee, because it had a certain amount of influence, which the present organization does not. Do I follow you correctly there?
Capt. Hickey: Not necessarily. I was referring in my opening remarks to the fact that there was a certain amount of inertia as a result of the formation of the Interdepartmental Program Coordination and Review Committee, but that was a strategic-level or a national-level committee and a lot of the activities that I plan on talking about here are regional in nature. There is a difference. The national level tends to deal with the policy end of interoperability, whereas in the regional end or the operational level we tend to deal with making the operations work.
Was I waxing nostalgic? I suppose I was a little. It was unfortunate that the Interdepartmental Program Coordination and Review Committee was disbanded in 2001. However, it was interesting that right after the disbandment of that committee, the Interdepartmental Maritime Security Working Group was established. That is the son of IPCRC in many ways. There were extra departments added to that, but a lot of the inertia that IPCRC had in the early 1990s was lost and we are only regaining that now as a result of the events of September 11, 2001.
Senator Banks: You said the magic word, which is "interoperability" and the Canadian navy is, as I understand it, marvellously and immediately interoperable with the United States navy, which makes eminent sense.
Internally, the United States and we have these other interoperability problems as between the respective agencies. That leads to the conclusion or the assumption that there are some bottlenecks or roadblocks standing in the way. If you were the king and had no restrictions on your capacity, short of spending preposterous amounts of money, what would you do? Help us out. What would you do to fix that, to make those connections, to remove those bottlenecks and obstructions? What needs to happen?
Capt. Hickey: Let me go back a little. The navy seeks interoperability among its NATO allies. There is a level of equipment and training involved with that, and there is another level of interoperability with the United States, as you mentioned. That is really our mandate as a defence force. The interoperability issues associated with other government departments tend to be based in two areas. One is equipment not being able to pass data on easily.
Senator Banks: That is exactly what I mean. A Canadian frigate, one of which you used to command, can join an American task force, or vice versa, and immediately be plugged into everything and there is no communications problem at all, but the Canadian navy cannot do the same thing with the Canadian Coast Guard.
Capt. Hickey: Right.
Senator Banks: That is just really stupid.
Capt. Hickey: That is a function of investing in the hardware and the systems needed to pass that information.
Senator Banks: Could the problem be solved simply by spending more money, or is there resistance in the services/ agencies to doing that?
Capt. Hickey: That is a good question. It is a question you would have to take up with the other departments that would be spending a lot of the money. The question would revolve around what standard for passing the information we would adopt. There would be issues associated with release of information, because not all information is releasable to everyone else. There would be issues as to whether or not the other government departments would be willing to adopt the necessary higher standard of infrastructure and equipment.
Senator Banks: We arrived at those accommodations with Holland, and we have arrived at them with the United States. Is it just money that is in the way of our arriving at an accommodation among ourselves? I am asking you the same question because it is so difficult for many of us to understand.
Capt. Hickey: It is difficult to answer, because in the context of Holland, the United States and Canada, we are talking about working towards interoperability in a defence context, where we know that if we go to sea with our allies, we have to be able to communicate with them.
Senator Banks: Regardless of the threat.
Capt. Hickey: Yes. The mandates of other government departments tend to be considerably narrower than our defence mandate, or as we see our mandate as being. Consequently, other government departments will drop their capability plans and their budgets in order to execute the programs they are responsible for within their rather narrow mandates. Again, I would say that you would have to talk to the other government departments to determine why they are choosing to make the budgetary decisions they are.
Senator Banks: Is it generally the case, then, that everybody else needs to be brought up to snuff, up to the level of naval communications and intelligence and interoperability?
Capt. Hickey: I do not think that is necessary. For other government departments, in particular the seagoing ones we are talking about, you could get by with a lesser standard. The navy standard is a little higher because of the need for security.
Senator Banks: I do not mean they need to be at the same standard in every respect, but if we were to send a Fisheries and Oceans vessel, a Coast Guard vessel and a naval vessel to look after the same situation — maybe three different aspects of it — at sea, they cannot now operate as a group and talk to each other from one command centre, as I understand it. Is it simply the case that the communications equipment on the civilian fleets needs to be compatible with, not necessarily equal to, that of the naval fleet?
Capt. Hickey: I am not advocating that they be brought up to a naval standard. I am advocating that a standard be decided upon. The navy could use a less capable system, and perhaps the other government departments need to bring their systems up. We can communicate via radio and voice, but I am talking about automatic electronic data flow.
Senator Banks: Which would be useful in an emergent situation.
Capt. Hickey: Yes.
Senator Banks: Do you think we are going in that direction now? Is there light at the end of this tunnel?
Capt. Hickey: I think there is. I am sure the committee is aware of a study called MIMDEX, and I do not know what the acronym stands for. It is a study initiated by the IMSWG, the Interdepartmental Marine Security Working Group, to work out how information and data can be best shared among government departments. I am not sure if there is a seagoing component to that or not, but certainly there was funding made available. I believe the report is actually in.
Senator Forrestall: I have some questions flowing from Senator Banks' questions.
First, might I ask you a little about your current activities and your graduate research work in marine geography? Could you tell us a little about it? I am interested. I ask the question because I want to emphasize the high degree of importance that I, and I am sure all members of the committee, place on the pursuit of enriched learning programs.
Capt. Hickey: I have been working for the past four years on a Ph.D. in marine geography. The thesis topic is, "What is the role of the Canadian navy in maritime enforcement," which is really right up the alley of this committee.
Senator Forrestall: Otherwise I would not have asked you the question.
It has been suggested that one of the barriers to a revamping of the Canadian Coast Guard and their enlistment in terms of the security levels that we are trying to address — coastal security, port security, security on rivers and Great Lakes — has to do with culture. Today, is the fact that people belong to a union, or otherwise practise the time- honoured privilege of banding together to make their views known, a barrier to close working cooperation between a civilian group and the military?
In other words, we could hive off the aspect that includes aids to navigation and ice-breaking. We could revamp the Canadian Coast Guard and re-equip it, as suggested, with traditional cutter-size vessels of about 1,200 tons, or something of that nature. The Coast Guard could operate then within their own sphere of responsibility but under the overall command and control of Atlantic forces. Is that possible?
Capt. Hickey: The first part of your question was whether the union is a hindrance. In principle, it should not be. Certainly police forces across Canada are involved in dangerous security work and they are unionized.
Unions play into this where, over a period of time, an organization has developed a culture; it may be a unionized or a non-unionized culture. The organization has taken on a particular role or a series of roles and does not see its way to changing those roles.
Senator Forrestall: Does the naval community plan to start looking at smaller coastal vessels for shallow-harbour policing or security activity on the river or on the Great Lakes, for example? Your thinking remains concentrated on "blue-bomber" activity?
Capt. Hickey: I am an operator from the East Coast, not a policy person. I do not work on the maritime staff. The director of maritime strategy may be having a debate or discussion about where the navy wants to go in 20 years with various classes of vessels, but I have not been made aware of that.
My comment would be that for what the navy is being asked to do on the East Coast, the resources are adequate. The minor war vessels play a significant role in taking up the slack when the frigates and destroyers have been deployed overseas. We are able to get by with the resources we have and the level of funding we have been given.
Senator Forrestall: You get by, and I suppose it is adequate.
Capt. Hickey: That is the term I would use, sir, "adequate."
Senator Forrestall: That may not be the best resolution of this type of problem, though.
Part of our responsibility and obligation is to provide, particularly for our neighbours to the south but also to countries all over the world, a safe environment from which we can export. We insist that materials coming into our own jurisdiction be equally as safe. To that end, as nations, we take up the questions of maritime security and port security more and more often. We must move somewhat in that general direction.
How suited, in your judgment or experience, is the current naval shipping complement, the fleet, to inshore, shallow- water coastal security patrols and interdiction, et cetera?
Capt. Hickey: As I said a moment ago, the system is very much adequate. I would not want to place too much emphasis on the idea of patrolling. Our security mandate requires us to conduct surveillance as well. A lot of our awareness of what is going on out there comes from our surveillance activities. A whole suite of tools is used in conducting that surveillance.
In addition to surveillance, we also put ships, submarines and aircraft to sea to conduct exercises and operations; that provides us with a presence in our area of responsibility, and in our area of interest, too.
Given the levels of activity that we are seeing — on the East Coast at any rate — I would say again that we are making do with the force mix that we have.
Senator Forrestall: Is it fair to say you respond to information as opposed to developing it? I am trying to think back to incidents of smuggling of drugs and whatnot in small vessels, yachts or sloops. These were not vessels that normally would come to the navy's attention. Is that true? How do we handle these?
Capt. Hickey: It might be useful if I were to spend a couple of minutes talking about the nature of the relationships on the East Coast regarding intelligence, our proactive activities and how those can turn into reactive operations, which is really what you are driving at.
As I mentioned in my opening remarks, there are three levels of interaction. First is the strategic or national level, which occurs here in Ottawa. That looks across Canada and at both coasts. The next level down is the one where I am heavily involved, the operational or regional level of activity. The level underneath that is what I would call the tactical level, or very much the localized level.
Within all three levels, activities take place on a proactive basis. We are thinking about problems in advance. We are setting up structures to deal with them. There are also, at those three levels, reactive types of operations that occur.
What proactive things are occurring at all three levels? Our intelligence community is very robust at all three levels. We get intelligence feeds from our allies at the strategic level and at the operational level.
The combined surveillance and intelligence leads to a better understanding of what likely will be happening if something is brewing. About a year ago, we had an incident with a container vessel coming into Halifax with a suspicious container aboard. Three or four different agencies knew about the container but each agency reacted differently. As a result, we realized there was a need to formalize a process to react to intelligence. The RCMP took that lead. Chief Superintendent Ian Atkins developed a system called TAG, or Threat Assessment Group, which involves personnel from the Department of National Defence, CSIS, RCMP and Customs.
When intelligence indicates that there is something we should be reacting to, the Threat Assessment Group is activated. Representatives from those four departments meet in a pre-designated location, discuss the intelligence and what sort of response, if any, needs to be undertaken. In some cases, there will be no response. In other cases, a response is needed. That is when we move from intelligence into an operational response. From there, we work out what needs to be done.
That is going from a proactive intelligence system to a reactive operation response. Many other things occur on a daily basis. There is the working group structure to which I alluded earlier, the Eastern Canada interdepartmental marine operations committee, which meets three times a year. There are a variety of operational type issues associated with that. We discuss information-sharing arrangements, opportunities for exercises, et cetera.
The main product of that, aside from the face-to-face interaction and knowing who to talk to, the right phone numbers, the right e-mail addresses and who you need to get hold of right away, is the development of a document that I will call a standard operating procedure to aid departments in dealing with situations. That will be called the "Interdepartmental Concept of Maritime Operations."
Over the past 18 months, the Nova Scotia federal council security committee has championed a series of exercises. The first was a two-day seminar where 18 federal departments got together and talked about what they do, who they are and what capabilities and assets they have.
The follow-on from that was a tabletop type exercise for two days in Camp Aldershot in Nova Scotia, where three scenarios were developed. One scenario with which I had intimate involvement concerned a cruise ship where there was an outbreak of disease on board and a couple of explosions that damaged the ship, et cetera. Those types of scenarios were chosen because solving them would require government departments to talk to one another.
A couple of other exercises have been undertaken since then and I sent you some background briefs that contain a little more information on them.
Senator Forrestall: I appreciate that very much, captain. However, we heard over the weekend that the navy has to come home because the crews are tired and they need a year off. Who will look after coastal patrol and surveillance and provide response capability?
Capt. Hickey: The crews are tired. Operations in the Arabian Gulf have been demanding. We work very hard to schedule the ships so that they are not redeployed sooner than our guidelines provide for. Having said that, we have also maintained continuously since September 11 the ability to respond with a major warship if a contingency arose.
Senator Forrestall: You say "a major warship."
Capt. Hickey: At a minimum, a major warship has been designated to go if the balloon goes up in a domestic situation. That is not to say that there would not be other ships available to assist. We have minor war vessels that could assist in some role.
Senator Atkins: What about submarines?
Capt. Hickey: The submarines are not operational now, but they have been at sea. In fact, in the last two weeks we have had a couple of submarines at sea advancing their training.
Senator Forrestall: Thank you for that. I still believe that we must either beef up the navy or do something with the Coast Guard for search and rescue and coastal security. Either that or what our American friends are telling us is not to be taken too seriously. If it is to be taken seriously, and I believe it should be, then we have to either beef up the navy and give it a specific role or take what is already there and increase its capacity.
Capt. Hickey: I would have to refer you to the Chief of Maritime Staff or the minister on that. I play the best hand I can with the cards I am dealt.
The Chairman: Captain, how quickly can that vessel get underway?
Capt. Hickey: The standard is eight hours. It can possibly get underway in 30 minutes, but we say eight hours because it may be that the crew is not immediately accessible.
The Chairman: Would it depend on the time of day?
Capt. Hickey: Yes. Eight hours is the maximum.
Senator Cordy: You mentioned that interdepartmental relationships had stagnated. Is that strictly as a result of budgetary restraints or are there other circumstances?
Capt. Hickey: As I said in my opening remarks, budgetary constraint is the major culprit. It is an education process in many cases. Sometimes, not all departments see the benefits of working together and it is not until we have a major incident, such as the Swiss Air tragedy or North American air space being closed and 42 aircraft suddenly landing in Halifax, that departments realize that we ought to be looking at this in greater detail. In fact, that is why we started the exercise process 18 months ago. It was a function of the Nova Scotia federal council security committee recognizing, in the wake of September 11 when we had all these aircraft arrive in the Atlantic provinces, that there were different lead agencies at different airports, despite the fact that it was the same problem.
Why was Transport Canada taking the lead at one series of airports and the RCMP at another? I am a naval officer, but I attend these meetings and so I know the background. We started these exercises to determine what we would do in various scenarios. It is an excellent educational process and people now understand that there is a need to share information much more.
I should also differentiate between sharing intelligence and sharing information. I mentioned earlier that at all three levels — strategic, operational and tactical — intelligence is shared, and there is a fairly good flow of information. It is in the other realm of information sharing, perhaps information in a particular database, or information that may not seem particularly relevant to another department, that difficulties can arise. The organizational culture of departments is different and sometimes they do not understand that there are uses other than what they see for information.
Senator Cordy: How do we overcome that? You are not the first witness to tell us that there is not necessarily a great flow of information between departments. One witness suggested that seconding people between departments would allow them to better recognize why information sharing is so important.
Capt. Hickey: That sounds like a good suggestion.
Senator Cordy: Have you any other suggestions? We have heard repeatedly about departmental reticence in sharing information.
Capt. Hickey: Departments are sometimes hindered by legislation or statutes. Departments often do not have an information-sharing policy within their own organizations, so the default position is not to share because you cannot get into trouble that way. An education process is required, and having liaison people in departments would go a long way toward that.
I cannot help but wonder whether individual federal statutes ought to be amended to permit better flow of information. That is my personal opinion, rather than as a naval officer.
Senator Cordy: You gave us some examples of when government departments worked very well together. You talked about the Swiss Air incident, in which the response was interdepartmental and intergovernmental, and where the federal government, the provinces and the municipalities worked closely together to ensure the right things were being done.
Capt. Hickey: There were non-governmental organizations involved as well.
Senator Cordy: You are right — volunteers, including the fishermen who gave up livelihoods for a long period of time to help with the Swiss Air disaster. Can you give us examples of where government agencies have not worked well together?
Capt. Hickey: No, I cannot. I am not trying to be evasive here. I have been in this particular job for two years. I had some involvement in other government department operations before that. In the two years that I have been in the job, we have dealt with the fallout from Swiss Air and the closure of North American air space.
I cannot think of any instance where it was complete chaos as a result of departments not working together. There may well have been situations where things could have worked better.
Senator Cordy: Once someone actually takes charge, departments do come together?
Capt. Hickey: One of the things we have learned from these exercises that we have done is that establishment of the lead agency for any event tends to be somewhat problematic. People do not want to make eye contact when talking about this because usually, if you are the lead agency, you end up paying.
There can be a lot of time wasted at the beginning of an incident because the departments go in with a very narrow perspective, generally speaking. I am talking about a reactive situation, not one where we have had a few days to think about it. It is happening now and we have to deal with it.
Their perspective is based on whatever their statute says they have to enforce and they think of the incident in those terms.
I will use the example of the cruise ship scenario, where we have a vessel at sea and there is obviously a major health problem on board. There are explosions, damage, and there could be terrorism activity associated with this. The first priority is to get a hold of the ship, because it is on the high seas. You have to contact Transport Canada or the Coast Guard. The priorities shift as an event unfolds. The lead agency will shift. The key is to do the handover between lead agencies smoothly so nothing gets dropped.
In my experience, both as a naval officer and with land forces Atlantic, the army generally, we have found ourselves acting as facilitators. I believe there is a role here for the military as facilitators because we have campaign-level training. We are able to step back because we do not have a narrow view of a statute we have to enforce, but we can say we need to prioritize here and these are the priorities to be laid out. Once there is this meeting of the senior people, then it usually runs smoothly after that. It takes a while for that to get underway.
Senator Cordy: You cannot legislate and set in stone that the lead department will always be the navy, for example, when an incident involves ships, because the scenario that you described would bring in the Department of Health?
Capt. Hickey: There was an incident a few weeks ago in Halifax with an Egyptian-registered ship that was suspected of having anthrax on board. That was a Health Canada lead agency situation. We had indications that this vessel was en route to Quebec. The Threat Assessment Group I described earlier was activated.
In addition to the four major players in the TAG, Health Canada was brought in and it was determined that in fact there was not likely a security threat associated with this particular vessel, but it was certainly a health threat. It was decided at that point that Health Canada would assume lead agency status.
The RCMP provided assistance. The Coast Guard provided a vessel to transport the monitoring teams who boarded the ship to investigate and to take samples. The navy was to provide a backup. The navy provided an area for the vessel to dock. In addition, the navy provided advice to Health Canada about the boarding and the areas on the ship to investigate. It was suggested that it would be a good idea to take ball caps to give to the first mate and captain. These are ways we have operated in the past. That is an example of an incident where an unlikely lead agent was determined fairly early. Health Canada was never involved in anything like that before. The regional director had only been on the job for approximately two weeks.
Senator Cordy: We have heard that it is cheaper for the military to hire Provincial Airlines to gather information. Do you receive information from Provincial Airlines flights?
Capt. Hickey: I am not sure who said it was cheaper for us to do that. We do not actually hire Provincial Airlines in the Atlantic to do our surveillance. We have an arrangement with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans that the surveillance information that the aircraft picks up is sent to a server at Provincial Airlines, and we are granted access to that server. In fact, it is even better than that. We can get the information from the aircraft as it is flying. That is a fairly recent breakthrough, maybe six months old.
What I have just described is another example of where, as a result of September 11, the information flow has opened up. Prior to September 11, 2001, we were only allowed access to the Newfoundland region surveillance information that DFO had. Why did we not have access to the other information? It involves negotiating with the regional directors as to whether we could get that information. There are four regional directors in DFO and it simply was not available to us.
After September 11, there was a realization that maybe DFO ought to be able to give us this information. We take that information and convert it into positional information that we pass out to our ships. We also put it on the CANMARNET. That information is available to other government departments as they dial up.
Senator Cordy: Do you also have intelligence analysts on staff who analyze it?
Capt. Hickey: Yes.
Senator Cordy: After it was analyzed, who would get those data?
Capt. Hickey: The intelligence we undertake at Trinity is defence related. What you find in practice is that each of the government departments that have their own intelligence section would use its intelligence for operations that it needs to undertake.
Senator Cordy: Who determines whether or not a ship becomes a ship of interest, one that you should be watching? There are so many ships and so many departments that could be involved. Who actually makes the determination?
Capt. Hickey: Each government department could say it is interested in this particular vessel. Likewise, we also have links with the office of naval intelligence in the United States, and they have a list of vessels of interest too.
It boils down to the intelligence section of whatever government department is looking at the information. I will not go into great detail in an unclassified forum here, but what might trigger a vessel being on a suspect list is the port of origin. There could be a history of drugs and illegal immigrants coming out of that port. It may be a very unusual route that the vessel has undertaken since departure, or perhaps the sequence of ports that a vessel has gone through. It could simply be that a particular commercial line has a history of not doing things above board.
Senator Cordy: You mentioned before that you work closely with our allies. Therefore, would you be made aware of a ship that the Americans think would be of interest to us before it headed into Canadian waters?
Capt. Hickey: Yes, on my staff I have a U.S. exchange officer from the office of naval intelligence.
Senator Cordy: If you find it is a ship of interest, do you pass the information along, or does your agency deal with it?
Capt. Hickey: It depends on why we are interested in it. If it were a drug case, then the law enforcement agencies, the RCMP in particular, would be brought in.
You want to be able to pass the intelligence to the agencies and individuals who need to know but not beyond that, because the more people who know about a sensitive subject the greater the risk of compromising the source.
The Chairman: I have a number of questions that I would ask you to touch on briefly. If you have a more lengthy answer, could we make arrangements for our staff to be in touch with you?
Capt. Hickey: Certainly.
The Chairman: Are you familiar with this committee's report, "Defence of North America: A Canadian Responsibility"?
Capt. Hickey: I hate to admit I have not read it, but I am familiar with it.
The Chairman: In the report, we talk about the importance of having a "layered" approach to defending the coastline. Does that term make sense to you? Would you agree with that?
Capt. Hickey: I understand the concept of layered defence, and in essence, that is being done now. You probably heard testimony from Coast Guard members about checking in 96 hours, 24 hours, in advance of arriving in Canadian waters. That is a layered approach.
In our surveillance planning, we do not only look within the 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone. We look beyond that, so we have a layered approach to surveillance as well.
The Chairman: You mentioned your suite of tools for determining what is coming toward the coast, but you did not describe it.
Capt. Hickey: I actually brought a list. We have patrol aircraft that can be used to conduct surveillance. Let me see if I can find the page here.
The Chairman: If you do not have it in front of you, if you could provide it, and with the approval of the committee, we could append it to our record.
Capt. Hickey: There are Department of National Defence ships and aircraft that go out on routine operations plus surveillance task missions.
You have the Department of Fisheries and Oceans contracted aircraft; Provincial Airlines holds the contract now. They, in turn, feed us.
You have an automated Coast Guard system known as INNAV for ships that are checking in on the 96-hour and 24-hour call-in. That information gets fed to Trinity.
There are fishing vessel transponders on board vessels that are in the NAFO fishing areas, that is, North Atlantic Fisheries Organizations.
We also take information from merchant ship weather reports. The merchant ships will say, "This is where I am. This is what the weather is like here," and they will pass that information to Environment Canada, who makes it available on a Web site and we can download from there.
There are allied reporting sources, namely, four major NATO reporting sources from which we get information on shipping.
We have two experimental high-frequency surface wave radar sites in operation now. They are undergoing operational and technical evaluation.
The Chairman: Are you getting more of those?
Capt. Hickey: I believe how many sites would be optimum is still being studied.
There are space-based systems that we can tap into through allies, and there are commercial sources. Oftentimes, shipping companies keep track of their own vessels and they will usually put that information on the Web; we can tap into that.
Those are all the surveillance inputs we can use, and from that we produce what we call the "recognized maritime picture," which is a compilation or snapshot of where we think ships are at sea in our area of responsibility at a particular time.
The Chairman: Do you believe you know all the vessels that are transiting through your area of responsibility?
Capt. Hickey: I would never say that we had a complete understanding or complete knowledge of every vessel that is in our area of interest or responsibility. I do not think any nation can say that.
I have a tremendous amount of confidence that we have a good idea of what is going on out there.
The Chairman: What is your confidence level?
Capt. Hickey: I am very confident.
The Chairman: Is it 80 per cent, 60 per cent?
Capt. Hickey: It is difficult to measure. Your next question is how do you know what you do not know?
The Chairman: Not so much that, but if you had a picture and then tested it, would you expect to miss 10 per cent of the vessels out there, or would you expect to miss 2 per cent?
Capt. Hickey: I cannot give you a number because I really do not know.
The Chairman: How often are you surprised?
Capt. Hickey: Not very often.
The Chairman: For example, you were surprised when the Tamils came ashore.
Capt. Hickey: Yes, I was not in this particular job then and that was 10 years ago.
The Chairman: However, someone was surprised at that time?
Capt. Hickey: Absolutely. I hope I have been able to get across today that the information flow that we are getting into our surveillance centre — and I just described the inputs — is substantial. It is actually very good.
If you talk to other nations like Australia, for example, who understand our system, they will tell you, not that we are leading the world in this, but we certainly are well known within the Commonwealth and the Western world as being on top of our game.
The Chairman: We are at least the best in the northern half of North America?
Capt. Hickey: I think we are better than the Americans. Prior to September 11, they did not pay a lot of attention to what I would call "white shipping," which is commercial shipping that is not suspected of doing anything. They did not pay a lot of attention to it because it was not the way they did business.
When a plane landed on the Pentagon and they lost a lot of their recognized maritime picture, they asked for our feed. They were very surprised by and impressed with what we provided them.
VAdm. Cutler Dawson, the Commander of Second Fleet, came to Halifax last week to discuss greater cooperation between Canada and the United States in naval operations. They continue to express appreciation for the work that we have done in that regard and use us as a model to emulate.
The Chairman: In our report, "The Defence of North America: A Canadian Responsibility," we discussed the establishment of two multi-departmental operations centres, one in Halifax and one in Esquimalt, capable of collecting and analyzing shipping intelligence to provide a combined operational picture for all government agencies that deal with incoming vessels; and to address coastal threats to North America while designing pictures to deal with anticipated threats.
Was that a good recommendation?
Capt. Hickey: I think the idea of having operations centres such as you described, in Halifax and Esquimalt, or Victoria, is a good idea. I did not catch the first part — who would be running those operations centres, or did you not specify that?
The Chairman: I will work up to that.
Incidentally, East Coast is called "Trinity," is there a name for West Coast?
Capt. Hickey: Athena, after the Greek goddess.
The Chairman: Should Canada consider combining all agencies responsible for maritime security into one operational centre? If it did, who should take the lead?
Capt. Hickey: I am from the waterfront. That really is a major policy decision, so I would say that you would have to speak to our minister about that.
The Chairman: However, it is the guy on the waterfront who has to make it work; it is the guy on the waterfront who sees the problems; and it is the guy on the waterfront who, if it is not working right, runs into problems. We are not asking you to decide. We are asking you to give us what information you can, from the waterfront perspective, so we can talk further about it. If the guy on the waterfront just says, "Talk to somebody else," with respect, the minister knows as much about this as we do, and that is not a lot. Can you tell us a little, from the perspective of the guy on the waterfront, about how you see it?
Capt. Hickey: What was the original question?
The Chairman: The original question was: Should we consider combining all agencies responsible for maritime security into one operational centre on each coast — intelligence gathering, analysis, surveillance inputs and overall operational control of multi-departmental assets?
Capt. Hickey: I guess my comment to that would be, from the waterfront —
The Chairman: If I could interrupt. I will go back to your comment about how people's eyes do not meet at the start of the meeting because they do not want to take on the load. We are saying that with a decision along these lines, everybody's eyes could meet from day one because they would already know who was going to —
Capt. Hickey: Right. I guess the question I would have to ask myself is whether or not the awkward meeting at the beginning, the length of time it takes to determine who the lead agency is in some of these reactive operations, is such that it really detracts from the overall ability to resolve whatever crisis with which we are trying to deal.
My sense right now is that it does not. Perhaps I might have misled you a little. When I talked about people not wanting to make eye contact, that is a result of these exercises that we have been doing, where we have the ability to debate and argue about our own little piece of the pie because something is not really going on.
In reality, when things are really happening, that whole process occurs much faster and there is much more emphasis on trying to resolve it. In an issue between the navy, for example, and the RCMP, our admiral will get on the phone and talk with the commanding officer of H Division. They will agree upon who is taking what particular action in an operation. Then it flows down to me and I get on with my part.
Is your question whether a multi-agency operations centre would solve some of that? Probably. I am not personally convinced that it is necessary at this stage.
The Chairman: Our sense is that there is a lot of ad hoc decision-making.
Capt. Hickey: Yes, there is.
The Chairman: Not just where you are, but elsewhere in government. Our sense is that sometimes Canadians say, "Well, that is the virtue of it, that is the Canadian way, and we rather like to do things in an ad hoc way." The committee is troubled about how long do we continue to do things in an ad hoc way, and at what point do we start putting in place procedures to handle things in a more routine way?
Capt. Hickey: I understand what you are getting at.
The Chairman: If you overlay that with the changes in command, the personnel rotations, when do you get to the point where there is a standard operating procedure with which people just fit in? In other words, you know how many seats there will be around the table; whether they are all filled or not will depend upon the nature of the problem, but there is a seat for everybody.
Capt. Hickey: I understand that.
What do I say? Certainly, such a policy would go a long way toward solving that, to making that a much easier nut to crack.
The issue of security and enforcement is fairly complex, though; I am not sure what sort of structure you could set in place that would take all that into account. As I alluded to in my opening remarks, the ability to enforce Canada's laws varies significantly depending upon which zone you are in — the exclusive economic zone, the contiguous zone or territorial waters — as well as which particular statute you are talking about. I honestly do not know how you would be able to put that all under one roof.
The Chairman: This goes to the nub of one of the committee's concerns. Departments are quite properly driven by the legislation that they are charged with enforcing. That seems to be their overarching concern. It does not necessarily translate into the best benefit for Canada when you have different groups saying, "Well, my piece of legislation covers me from this spot to that spot." We are not quite sure whether that overlaps neatly enough with the next agency that has responsibility for this spot to this spot.
There appears to us to be a preoccupation from time to time with the particular piece of legislation with which an agency has been entrusted. Perhaps that preoccupation is to the detriment of the overall benefit of Canada.
Capt. Hickey: I understand what you are saying, and that goes to the heart of what I said at the beginning.
It is an organizational or cultural effect in many cases, where departments tend to view problems in terms of their very narrow mandates. They use the term "stove pipe" to describe it.
I do not know. I tried to answer Senator Cordy's question about how to get around that. Education is one means. If you establish a new organization or a new body to deal with that, I do not know that you would actually resolve it. It is a possibility.
The Chairman: You mentioned that in your suite of tools you had access to satellite imagery from other countries and commercial groups. Do you utilize that much?
Capt. Hickey: Yes.
The Chairman: Is it expensive?
Capt. Hickey: I never get involved in the actual payments. I do not get a bill every month from Bell Canada or something like that.
The Chairman: You have no restraint then on how much you use?
Capt. Hickey: I am not saying that. I do not pay for it out of my operational budget. If we are using satellite resources for communications, the funding comes from the Department of National Defence.
When I say, "satellite resources," I am also talking about information that may well have been pulled in by another nation and then transmitted via land line. It is not necessarily a service. It is information about ships' positions that is provided to us on a quid pro quo basis. We in turn take make what we produce available to other NATO nations, including the Americans.
The Chairman: If you wanted to access the satellite picture over part of your area —
Capt. Hickey: I do not get involved in that. When I talk about a satellite product, it is a finished product. It is a plot that shows the disposition of ships.
The Chairman: If you were concerned about a particular vessel, you would not routinely decide to take a satellite picture of it three times or five times that day?
Capt. Hickey: That is not something that I would do. I could investigate how that could be done.
The Chairman: You are saying that that is not part of your suite of tools?
Capt. Hickey: I am saying that the satellite aspect of my suite of tools is something that provides me with an "X" on a chart that says that an object was here at a certain time.
The Chairman: You do not have a line in your budget that provides a certain amount to buy "X" amount of satellite time for which you can choose the when and how?
Capt. Hickey: No.
Senator Day: If you did, would your job be easier? Could you do your job better if you had more direct access to satellite imaging?
Capt. Hickey: I am not a communications expert. Much of the satellite usage is handled strategically here in Ottawa. Could I make use of it? Yes.
Senator Day: You would have a better picture of the maritime environment if you had it?
Capt. Hickey: Yes.
The Chairman: Do you keep a maritime picture at Trinity?
Capt. Hickey: Yes, sir.
The Chairman: Do you share that with other departments?
Capt. Hickey: We make it available on the CANMARNET. Any government department that uses the government enterprise net can dial up and access the recognized maritime picture we produce.
The Chairman: You have told us that you receive data from the Coast Guard's maritime vessel traffic communications system.
Capt. Hickey: That is correct.
The Chairman: How do you integrate that and how does it come to you?
Capt. Hickey: At present, that is accessed via an Internet site. We are able to access their Internet site.
We are hoping over the next fiscal year to be able to access it directly. In other words, we will access their server as opposed to an Internet site.
The Chairman: You have indicated to us that any agency can determine that there is a vessel of interest out there.
Capt. Hickey: I do not believe that I said that.
The Chairman: I did not mean to put words in your mouth. Tell us what you would like us to understand.
Capt. Hickey: I was saying that any agency, using their resources, can say, "We have an interest in this vessel. Navy, would you have a look and tell us where it is and keep track of it?"
We are given the suspected vessel list on a daily basis and the vessel of interest list coming from other intelligence sources as well.
The Chairman: If an agency comes to you and says a certain vessel is of interest, do you always say that you will keep an eye out for it or report on it every six hours?
Capt. Hickey: It is in our interest to keep track of it once it has been identified as a vessel of interest. We would do that on our own.
We are talking about federal departments here. If the department wanted further information, we would make it available to them as required.
The Chairman: When a vessel of interest has been identified —
Capt. Hickey: This does not happen often, by the way. It tends to happen only in drug interdiction cases.
The Chairman: When a vessel of interest has been identified, are you always able to find it?
Capt. Hickey: Not always, no.
The Chairman: When you do find it, are you always able to keep track of it?
Capt. Hickey: Generally speaking, yes. Once it has been identified, we can keep track of it. We can use other tools from the suite to keep track.
The Chairman: In your experience, you have never lost a vessel?
Capt. Hickey: I am not saying that.
The Chairman: What are you saying, sir?
Capt. Hickey: I am saying that the preponderance of evidence is that we are able to keep track of the vessels once we find them. There have been cases where two vessels passed in close proximity and we did not have an aircraft right on top at the time. Our resources ended up looking at the wrong vessel. That has happened.
The Chairman: Would an aircraft on top be the —
Capt. Hickey: I am talking about the one time in the last 10 years that it has happened, but it has happened.
The Chairman: Fair ball. Would an aircraft on top of it be the only tool in your suite that could have done that, or would other tools possibly have been sufficient? For example, would that be a time when satellite access would be useful?
Capt. Hickey: That probably would not be a case for satellite access. Much of it depends upon the range or the distance from the coast where this activity would be taking place. Obviously, the closer to the coast you are, the greater the fidelity of your picture.
In this particular case, the vessel was quite far away. It was quite a distance for the aircraft. As a consequence, the aircraft simply was not on station when the shift occurred.
The Chairman: You mentioned the high frequency surface radars. How will their data be merged into Trinity?
Capt. Hickey: How? They are being merged into Trinity now. They are basically raw contact data. We are seeing dots. We are seeing contacts are out there and then it is up to us to use different tools to determine what those are.
You are raising another difficult aspect of surveillance, what is known as data fusion.
Every tool that I described will provide you with a contact at a single point in time. What happens if multiple sensors are detecting the same contact and they are separated in time? You will end up with perhaps four or five different contacts on a map.
The Chairman: You think you have three vessels?
Capt. Hickey: You think you may have three or four or five vessels. Someone has to determine that that contact is likely which one.
There are automated tools, but it boils down ultimately to a human trying to resolve that. That is a way that you end up missing contacts or losing track, when somebody has made a false assumption.
The Chairman: How will the Coast Guard's automated identification system be received and used by Trinity?
Capt. Hickey: We would use the same method of electronic feed from the Coast Guard server to Trinity. I believe it would be the same method as the one we would use for INNAV.
The Chairman: Are there significant differences between Trinity and the system on the West Coast?
Capt. Hickey: In terms of the functions, the roles and their product, they are pretty much the same. Their sizes are a little different in that Trinity has more people.
The Chairman: You have been most helpful, Captain Hickey, and we appreciate your appearing before the committee today.
You have added significantly to the committee's understanding of the situation on the East Coast. We would ask that committee staff members be permitted to contact you to clarify some of the questions that often arise at a later time. Thank you.
For people watching the proceedings of today's meeting, you may submit your questions or comments by visiting our Web site at www.sen-sec.ca, where you will find witness testimony and confirmed meeting schedules. Otherwise, you may contact the clerk of the committee at 1-800-267-7362 for further information or assistance in contacting the members of the committee.
The committee adjourned.