Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
National Security and Defence
Issue 5 - Evidence, Afternoon meeting
WINDSOR, Wednesday, December 1, 2004
The Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence met this day at 1:56 p.m. to examine and report on the need for a national security policy for Canada.
Senator Colin Kenny (Chairman) in the chair.
[English]
The Chairman: Good afternoon. It is my pleasure to welcome you to the Senate Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence. Today the committee is hearing testimony relating to the review of Canada's defence policy. My name is Colin Kenny. I am a senator from Ontario and chair the committee. We have before us today Dr. Andrew Richter. He is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Windsor. His principal areas of research are Canadian and foreign and defence policy, proliferation, and the impact of advanced technology on the use of force. His most recent book is Avoiding Armageddon: Canadian Military Strategy and Nuclear Weapons. Welcome to the committee, professor. I understand you have a short statement, and we would be happy if you proceeded with it now.
Dr. Andrew Richter, Assistant Professor, International Relations and Strategic Studies, University of Windsor: Honourable senators, visitors, ladies and gentlemen, to begin, I wish to thank the members of this committee, and especially the chair, Senator Colin Kenny, for extending an invitation to me be here today. I also wish to welcome the committee to Windsor, and I hope that they enjoy their stay in Southern Ontario.
I have a few brief remarks on some choices facing the government on matters relating to national defence, after which I would be happy to answer any questions.
Canada today stands at a turning point in its history. It can either begin the process of reinvesting in its military and start rebuilding its defence capabilities, or it can decide that it no longer needs a "multi-purpose combat-capable" armed force, to borrow the phrase from the 1994 defence white paper, and instead pursue the constabulary force that was recommended by many observers at the time of the last defence review in 1994.
Let me be perfectly clear. A wealthy and supposedly active internationalist country like Canada, one with a military tradition that dates back over 100 years, one that is a founding member of the Atlantic alliance and a partner with the United States in the defence of North America, and one that made enormous sacrifices in the last century, such a country demands and deserves a well-funded and modern military. Indeed, increasingly, people from all sides of the political spectrum realize this.
It is thus not only Conservatives and those on the political right who today call for increased defence spending in Canada, but many in the Liberal Party and even New Democrats as well, as all realize that there are consequences — serious, negative consequences — of having a weak and underfunded military.
Having said that, then allow me to make my main point. For the last four decades, defence spending as a percentage of both government spending and gross domestic product has been declining in Canada. Thus, the current downturn did not begin, as many believe, in 1994, when former Prime Minister Chrétien implemented the first of a series of painful defence budget cuts, but rather in the 1960s, when defence spending was effectively frozen.
That process has encompassed both Liberal and Conservative Prime Ministers, and in fact there has not been a significant difference between the two parties' leaders in terms of their actions on defence — notwithstanding the fact that Conservative Prime Ministers have consistently talked more about defence spending than have Liberal ones, which takes me to the present.
The Department of National Defence has a budget of approximately $13 billion, from which it equips and maintains a force of some 52,000 personnel. To be sure that is a significant amount of money and hardly the pittance that some critics suggest. Having said that, though, the defence budget is just 1 per cent of Canadian GDP, which is among the lowest of such figures in the world.
In addition, of the $13 billion, about 20 per cent, or a little over $2 billion a year, is earmarked for capital equipment — $2 billion to buy new planes, ships, artillery, helicopters, surveillance and reconnaissance equipment, in other words, everything that a modern military force requires. Thus, while a couple of billion dollars is a lot of money, in terms of defence equipment it is not.
Modern military equipment is enormously expensive, and on the current capital equipment budget, Canada today is barely modernizing its force. The equipment that it does buy has to be paid for over very long periods of time, which helps explain why the Victoria class submarines are not expected to be fully refitted until 2010. Thus, very often in Canada, equipment is outdated by the time it becomes operational, as many years may have passed since the time that that piece of equipment first entered the market.
Unless DND's overall budget is increased substantially in coming years, the consequences will be dramatic. Already, the department has announced an effective moratorium on new peacekeeping missions, so stretched is the land force. In addition to the manpower squeeze, Canada's navy and air force are also in increasingly desperate shape. The air force's CF-18s, while modern and capable aircraft at the time they were purchased, a little more than two decades ago, are today badly dated, and will remain so even after the present modernization program is completed.
As for the navy, while I have previously written that it is in the best shape of the three services, it, too, is facing serious equipment problems. Its destroyers are 35 years old and will be retired from service at the end of this decade. Even the frigates, which in many ways are the pride of Canada's entire military, are now over a decade old, and by all accounts are aging more rapidly than expected.
As everyone on this committee knows, while the replacement for the Sea Kings are finally on the horizon, these 40 year-old helicopters will have to keep flying for an additional five years before the replacement will be introduced into service.
The choice facing Canada is clear. Will DND get a significant increase in funding, through which it can begin the process of rebuilding, or will the budget remain relatively static, in which case Canada might as well go the constabulary route, because within another five years to 10 years, the CF's military capabilities will have effectively rusted away.
While I recognize that there are many spending priorities facing the government, this is one area on which I do not think we have much choice. All of Canada's allies and most of our enemies spend comparatively more money on defence than we do. If we want to be taken seriously as a country in the 21st century, particularly in a post-9/11 world, and if we want to perform the global roles that Canadians keep telling pollsters that they want this country to undertake, then we effectively have little choice but to increase the funding to our military.
I am aware that this committee has heard a similar message before, but Canadians and their political representatives need to understand that time is running out. Sometimes, states make decisions not through their actions, but through their inactions. I fear that Canada is on the verge of making one such decision with regard to its military.
It is still not too late to change the outcome, but to be sure, the Canadian Forces are getting to the point where core capabilities will soon be gone, and once that happens, the decision will have effectively been made. I would be happy to answer any questions that you may have.
Senator Cordy: Certainly our committee has advocated that the government spend more money on the military, and I am from Halifax, which is a military community, so I understand exactly what you are saying. How much money do you think we need for the military, and what are the priorities, in your mind? If we suddenly got an influx of money into the DND, what should be the first things that we look at purchasing or doing, or is it a staffing issue, or all of the above?
Mr. Richter: Defence spending in Canada has been declining for so long that it is hard to even come up with a figure as to what it should be. I said a moment ago our defence spending is at 1 per cent of GDP. The NATO average is about 2.2 per cent. Most of our allies spend over 2 per cent. The United States spends consistently between 3 and 4 per cent. Most of our enemies spend over 5 per cent, many over 10 per cent.
Five per cent of GDP would be, effectively, a 500 per cent increase. That would bring the defence budget to $65 billion. That will not happen; 3.5 per cent of GDP, to make us consistent with the Americans, would be a tripling and a half. That would bring it to about $45 billion dollars. That will not happen. Even bringing it to a level comparable to the French and the British, which are in the low 2s would be, in effect, a little more than a doubling, to, maybe, between $25 billion and $30 billion.
I would like to say that would be a reasonable figure. For the record, let me say I think 2 per cent of GDP is a reasonable figure. I probably should say that. I am very aware that that is highly unlikely, and so that will not happen any time soon. I am also aware that this committee, and others like it, have been calling consistently for increases in defence spending, but nothing has happened. Therefore, I am honestly not sure what to say. Everybody is in agreement. Not only are this Senate committee and other similar committees suggesting that defence spending should be increased dramatically, but the academic community generally is also in agreement, as is the military community.
I do not know where that leaves us. It is a difficult issue. I would like to see a substantial increase. Prior to the election, there were spokespeople from the Liberal Party — I honestly cannot remember their names right now — publicly stating that defence spending should be increased dramatically, but it did not happen.
Senator Meighen: Mr. Pratt.
Mr. Richter: Yes, who was, I believe, the chair of the House committee.
Senator Cordy: He was actually defence minister.
Mr. Richter: He was defence minister, right.
Senator Cordy: However, an example of that is David Pratt is certainly on the record. He was the former defence minister and Chair of the House of Commons Committee on Defence, and he is certainly on the record as being very supportive of higher military spending, but he was defeated. Now maybe that was just his particular riding, but that issue of whether the Canadian people are behind substantial increases in military spending is certainly a factor that we have to look at; you know that our defence committees agree that our military needs an influx of spending, and not just a one-shot deal, but consistent spending.
Mr. Richter: That is why I do not know how useful it is for me to tell you how much money we need to spend, because I think everybody here is in agreement. Having said all that, you raised an interesting point. Mr. Pratt was defeated. I do not think that had much to do with his calling for an increase in defence spending, but the larger issue is what level of spending are Canadians comfortable with, and I am a little afraid to admit that they are probably okay with the amount of money that is being spent right now, at approximately 1 per cent GDP. At least, I do not see any protesters lining the streets of Ottawa saying "More money to DND now." I have not seen that.
That does not necessarily mean much, because sometimes polling gets the answers that the pollsters want to get. For instance, the National Post, a conservative paper, has done many polls showing that Canadians would like more spending on defence, depending on how questions are framed. If the question is framed in terms of, "With the current capability, Canada really cannot do much, but would you favour an increase in defence spending if this meant that we could undertake peacekeeping missions in developing countries and could contribute more effectively to North American security?" the answer is yes.
Senator Cordy: Does the Canadian public truly understand peacekeeping, that peacekeeping actually requires an offensive military? I think there are a lot of Canadians who think that peacekeeping is just going somewhere, holding up the flag, and all will be well, and they do not understand that we really do need a strong military. What is the saying, that peacekeeping should not be soldiers, but only soldiers can do peacekeeping? I am not sure that Canadians understand. They think of peacekeeping as being very informal and they do not think that you need the military skills that in fact you do need.
Mr. Richter: I think that is partly because the image has been created — the blue helmets — over many decades. For a long time, that was partially true. For several decades in the post-war environment that was mostly true. Peacekeepers tended to be fairly lightly armed. They were going into situations where there was a truce. There was not the use of force among the conflicting parties.
That broke down in the post-Cold War environment. It broke down in several high-profile cases, like the former Yugoslavia, or Somalia and Bosnia, and ever since then — I would agree with you — there has been a disconnect between what peacekeeping truly entails and what Canadians think it entails.
That is not entirely the government's fault. Former Minister Axworthy talked about peacemaking, peace building and peace enforcing, trying to educate the Canadian public about the fact that these terms were changing, but I do not think they really got the message. In fairness, while former Minister Axworthy talked about that, he was also partly responsible for the consistent massive cuts to the department. He was the foreign affairs minister. It was not his jurisdiction specifically, but he played a part in that. The minister was talking about the need for Canada to play a more active role, but at the same time, the military was being starved, and as everyone on this committee knows, the biggest cuts came between 1994 and 1999.
I just talked about how the cuts have been happening for 40 years, so you cannot refer to them as relatively recent, but the biggest cuts happened in the 1990s. Those were massive, and they were significant and they were painful. We are just now, of course, coming to the point where we are spending roughly what we were spending before the cuts.
Senator Cordy: Getting back to the previous point, there really was not a huge public outcry about the cuts.
Mr. Richter: No, there was not.
Senator Cordy: I asked you earlier if you had a priority. If you were allowed to direct military spending and you received a huge influx of money, what would be your first priority, or your first couple of priorities?
Mr. Richter: I was actually debating whether to forward an article I wrote for an American journal about a year ago. I chose not to because I thought it would pigeonhole me a little, but maybe that is what the answer to this question requires. The piece was about prioritizing the navy. It was written for an American defence journal, and essentially, the argument was that Canada is not spending enough money, which is, of course, what I have just said. Given that that is unlikely to change in the near future, the department will have to make some difficult choices. I do not want it to make difficult choices, but it will probably have to if the money is not increased.
I argued that the navy was probably the service in the best shape, as I just said a moment ago here. It is a function of several different things. It is a function, firstly, of the fact that it got lucky. Navy modernization was completed just before the enormous cuts in the 1990s. The frigates, for instance, came online, as everyone here knows, in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
It is also because naval forces are inherently multi-dimensional, and so they can be utilized in a wide array of missions and operations, more so, I believe — and in fairness I am not sure if this could even be argued, but somebody probably would — than ground forces or air forces. Therefore, they allow the government to come up with several different responses and then tailor naval forces to that requirement.
I suppose that would be my answer, perhaps the navy, but that does not mean that I would not like Canada to have a modern and capable air force or army, and in fact, peacekeepers come out of the army, as you know. They do not come out of the navy.
Senator Cordy: I do not have your paper in front of me, but do you think we should get into more of a specialization?
Mr. Richter: If the budget is not increased substantially, then yes. I would have to say yes. There would have to be what some people term "a defence niche," niche capability. I hate that term because I really believe the 1994 defence white paper, although it is 10 years old, is not that badly dated, to be honest. Yes, 9/11 has happened since then, and yes, it was an enormous event, but many of the conclusions in that paper are probably still valid.
I would still argue that Canada needs multi-purpose combat-capable armed forces. The threat environment is unclear. Our responses are varied, or should be varied, and so that is the type of force I would like us to have.
Senator Cordy: What seems to happen now is, we get our DND budget first, and then we work around that. I think you would agree with what we are saying, which is, you get the plan, and then you get the budget to fit the plan. Several people on the committee — I was not among them — actually worked on the development of recommendations to the government in the early 1990s.
Mr. Richter: For 1994?
Senator Cordy: Yes.
Mr. Richter: In 1994 there was a wide-ranging debate, of course, about what kind of forces Canada should have, and there were a lot of witnesses who concluded or suggested that Canada should go the constabulary force route, essentially, a peacekeeping force. The committee ultimately decided against that and went for the multi-purpose combat-capable force, but the funding was not consistent with those conclusions. The white paper called for this force, and then it was effectively nullified by the lack of financial support.
Senator Atkins: When we came out with our first report, recommending a $4-billion increase and 75,000 military, what was your reaction to that?
Mr. Richter: When was that?
Senator Atkins: Last year.
Mr. Richter: I was obviously in favour of it. My main concern would be whether the $4 billion would be a one-off shot that would then be gradually clawed back in future years. Or was that to be built on in future years?
Senator Atkins: Well, it was to be built on.
Mr. Richter: Well then, I would be fully supportive of that.
Senator Atkins: When you look at our forces as they exist today, would you describe them as multi-purpose? I have another reason for asking that.
Mr. Richter: All right. Go ahead.
Senator Atkins: We are in Afghanistan, and we are in Haiti. Do you think the forces are trained to deal with those two different situations?
Mr. Richter: Generally, yes, but the reason I paused is because it is not a simple question. Over time, Canada has effectively gotten out of the high-intensity war-fighting business. We do not do that any more. We do not have that capability. Any mission that requires high-intensity combat we cannot do. Any mission that requires mid-intensity combat, it is debatable whether we can do that. I know that DND's policy is that we should be able to fight such engagements. I am really not sure if we can.
So much depends on what kind of environment exists on the ground in any of these engagements. In the two examples you raise, Afghanistan and Haiti, I think our forces are sufficient, but it is quite conceivable that a situation could arise where that probably would not be the case, where our forces would be insufficient.
Therefore, the leadership of the CF, which is very good, I believe, is very careful about what kinds of missions the Canadian Forces can be sent on and what kinds of engagements they can participate in.
Senator Atkins: When you look at the multi-purpose force as it exists today, a lot of its equipment would be considered to be either outdated, antiquated, or needing a serious upgrade. Specifically, what kind of equipment, if you had the options, would you invest in for the future military?
Mr. Richter: If we were to pursue a truly multi-purpose force, which I will accept as a given for purposes of this question, all the services would have modernization requirements. The air force and the army are in worse shape, as I just said, than the navy. The navy is in comparatively better shape. The air force's primary aircraft is, of course, the CF-18, and they have transport aircraft, the Hercules.
The Hercules is essentially completely obsolete. They are more than 40 years old. They have enormous requirements to stay in the air. They are too small. Everybody on this committee knows they are too small to move much of the CF's equipment. They could not get to Afghanistan. We had to hitch a ride with the Americans. Therefore, that would be a requirement, but the CF-18s are not a whole lot better.
The CF-18s were the original A/B version. I do not know how much the committee knows about the various modernization programs in the U.S. Ours are the original A/B models. They were bought in the early 1980s and delivered in the mid-1980s. The Americans are currently on what is called the Super Hornet model, or the E/F version. Notice I said "E/F," which means I left out the C/D, which means that was the model prior to the one they are currently using. Once this modernization program is completed, in about five more years, we will be at roughly the C/ D standard. So we will be at the standard the U.S. Navy left behind in 2000, because the F-18 is a navy aircraft.
Senator Atkins: What about the army?
Mr. Richter: The army has had a lot of changes in the last couple of years, and some of what they have done has been very good. The army has the LAV IIIs and the Coyotes, which, according to everything I have read, are highly regarded, and the Americans are actually purchasing some of these same vehicles, so that, to me, is a sort of seal of approval. They must be very good. They are also, of course, moving to a wheeled force with the Striker, which is a defence system that the American army is moving towards as well. They seem to be in the midst of a modernization program, but I am not sure if the funding will be there.
I do not really have a problem with any of those programs. The army made a decision to get out of the heavy armour business, to get out of heavy tanks. The Leopards, of course, are still there, but they are obsolete and they have made the decision not to purchase a replacement. I have no problem with that decision whatsoever, because it strikes me as extremely unlikely that Canada would be asked to perform or even want to perform a heavy armour role.
The army is in not bad shape. That leaves the navy, and the navy is in decent shape. As I just said, the frigates are decent, but they are aging. I am sure this committee has been told that. From my understanding from speaking to navy people, the frigates are aging a little more rapidly than was thought when they were procured. It looks like they will be 20-year vessels, which means they have about 10 years left on them, but they are very good. The destroyers are being withdrawn at the end of this decade. The destroyers are important because they have the command and control capabilities that allow Canadian warships to perform a leadership role in multinational task forces.
You lose the destroyers, you lose that capability. There is some talk in the navy of effectively transferring some of that command and control capability to some of the frigates. I do not pretend to be a naval expert, I want to make that clear, but as I understand it, that is possible but difficult. The frigates are about 20 per cent smaller than the destroyers. So you have to cram that much more into a smaller ship.
The navy is also moving forward with the supply ships, which are inherently multi-purpose. They are intended to take the role of the re-supply ships that are currently obsolete — I believe it is the Protecteur class — but also to perform other roles, such as naval transport, for instance. They came up with this idea because they were concerned about a lack of funding down the road. I know the navy is also considering what kind of vessels should be introduced after the frigates are withdrawn from service, but that is 10 years down the road, and we have other requirements we need to get to before then.
On the helicopters, the best estimate I have seen is that they will be introduced towards the end of this decade, which means that the Sea Kings will be in service for 45 years. That is an embarrassment, and I will leave it at that.
Senator Atkins: Did we make the right decision on the new helicopter?
Mr. Richter: I have no reason to think we made the wrong decision. The process by which the contract was ultimately awarded was deeply flawed. There was obviously a lot of political involvement over time in the decision, and I think the committee has probably discussed that at an earlier point. For instance, in the late 1990s or at the beginning of this century, the contract was effectively broken up into two: one for the electronics, one for the air frame. Everybody said this was not the smartest thing to do, but in any event that is all in the past, and I think the decision they made was fine. I have no reason to doubt it.
Senator Atkins: How would you deal with the Hercules? How would you replace them, or would you?
Mr. Richter: I would, but only if there was money there. There has to be money there. The Hercules are expensive. There are several different ways to go. Again, I am not sure if the committee has discussed this. I assume you have. First, there is a more modern version of the C-130.
Senator Atkins: It is larger.
Mr. Richter: It is larger, and it is more expensive, of course; I think it runs to about $100 million an aircraft, but please do not quote me on that. It is larger, but it is still not a large aircraft. The Americans have moved to the C-17, produced by Boeing, called, I believe, the Globemaster. It was introduced about five or so years ago. It runs at about $250 million an aircraft.
I know there was some discussion about Canada cooperating with other countries to share the cost of this, but I have not heard much of that in quite some time. I believe that proposal is dead. That sounded like a reasonable alternative to me. That way, each country is spared this enormous cost outlay up front, and on top of that, by their very definition, these aircraft are not required that often. It seemed to make sense to me, but I think it is off the table.
The Chairman: You made a comment a moment ago, "Please do not quote me on that." I just wanted to remind you that this hearing is on the record and what you are saying is being transcribed. Therefore, in the event that you wish to say something further that might qualify your earlier statement, I would do that now. This is a public meeting and the transcribers are sitting immediately to your right.
Mr. Richter: No, I do not believe so. Was there anything in particular you thought maybe I wanted to correct?
The Chairman: No, I thought what you said was perfectly in order if those are your views. It is simply that you said "Please do not quote me."
Mr. Richter: I was actually referring to the fact that some of the numbers that I cite off the top of my head may not be perfect.
The Chairman: That is how I understood it, but I just wanted to make sure you understood the dynamics of the meeting.
Mr. Richter: Yes, I understand that. That is entirely reasonable.
Senator Atkins: My final question is related to the reserves. How do you see them fitting into the overall military organization as we look into the future?
Mr. Richter: I think there is an important role for the reserves. The reserves have been heavily utilized, of course, in the last 10 or so years as a result of the declining force. The force has been declining from the mid-1980s, from about 80,000 or 90,000 to its current 52,000, so the reserves have been utilized to make up that gap. I think down the road, the reserves are a useful capability that should be pursued, so there has to be adequate funding for reserves as well.
Senator Atkins: Do you see them with a specific assignment relative to domestic circumstances, or do you see them as a reserve pool for a multi-purpose force?
Mr. Richter: Ideally I think, as do many people, the reserves should be held in reserve should they be needed, but yes, primarily for domestic purposes. They really should not be utilized as they have been for the last 10 or so years, to make up the gap in the regular force and serving in many of our peacekeeping missions. I do not know the exact numbers, but I do know that many reserves are constantly being introduced into the regular force to serve on the peacekeeping forces. That is not their original intent, but that is what has happened because the regular force has been shrunk so dramatically.
Senator Forrestall: I am just a little surprised to hear you say that augmentation is not a meaningful role for the reserves in your view. Could we just stay with that for a minute or two, although it may be unfair, you may not have thought it through. How would we have met the offshore obligations that Canadian Forces undertook and the roles and tasks that have been assigned to them by the government had we not used the reserves for augmentation purposes? Would we have been able to accept the roles that we have in, say, the last 10 years?
Mr. Richter: No, we would not have.
Senator Forrestall: What do you think might have been the consequence of that?
Mr. Richter: The consequence had we not been utilizing the reserves?
Senator Forrestall: Yes.
Mr. Richter: We could not have accepted many of the peacekeeping missions that we ultimately did. I understand your question. I did not mean to suggest for a moment that the reserves were not important. I think I said they were important.
Senator Forrestall: No, I was not implying that you said they were not important, but I did get from what you said the very clear impression that they should not be used for combat purposes.
Mr. Richter: Well ideally, I do not think they should be. Ideally, that should be the purpose of the regular force. The reserves should be utilized for largely domestic purposes. In the last decade, Canadian Forces have been utilized for all sorts of tasks, from fighting floods to snowstorms, et cetera. There is a lengthy list, and it is important to keep some force capability in Canada, so I think that is the role of the reserves.
Senator Banks: I want to go back to Senator Cordy's line of questioning. If you were in the government, not just on this side of the table but in "the government," you would say with respect to all of us clamouring for more money for the military, very much including this committee, "Yes, everybody likes that idea except the people." Everybody likes it but the public, because as you observed earlier, when the cuts came, people did not hit the barricades, there were not front page editorials on the question, and it did not seem that Canadians cared very much about that.
Then we talked about polls, and you know better than I, I am sure, that we can write questions to make a poll say anything that we want it to say. For example, as you pointed out, if you ask people, "Do you think there should be more money spent on the military to bring it up to snuff so they can do more?" everybody would say, "Oh, absolutely."
Mr. Richter: Yes.
Senator Banks: However, if you asked the corollary question, "Would you like to pay for that by reducing the expenditures on some other government program?" the mug's game question, or, "Would you like to have your taxes raised?" or whatever, you get an entirely different answer from people. Suddenly, the priority goes way down. Comment on that. It is a fact that politicians react to political pressure. They just do, and when you have a nation such as our neighbours to the south or our neighbours in Australia, who see a clear and present danger to themselves, they are pretty happy to avidly support this, including, "Yes, raise my taxes for defence purposes." We have not been beaten up yet, so will we agree to that as a nation before we are?
Mr. Richter: There is no easy answer to this. Canadians are lucky not to be facing direct threats. We have not had a direct threat in a long time. You can, of course, argue that terrorism is now perhaps a direct threat, but it is a little less immediate than some others. Therefore, we have the luxury of living in a relatively safe environment, certainly safer than the vast majority of countries, and that allows us a certain luxury in terms of not spending a lot of money for defence.
We also have had the luxury for the last 50 or 60 years of living under an American defence umbrella. While it was not often talked about, I think everybody understood that, that the Americans would defend us. They would defend us, regardless of if we even wanted them to, I suppose, which again provided us with some luxury.
How much Canadians should spend on defence is thus a difficult question because we are lacking the kinds of military threats that some countries or some people see, and they respond to those threats. You suggested Australia a moment ago. Australia has raised its defence budget somewhat dramatically in the last couple of years. In fairness, Australia spent more money on defence as a percentage of GDP prior to 9/11 than we did, but is now about two and a half per cent of GDP.
I do not know if this is where you are going, but maybe I will make a more general statement, which is that the spending of public money in Canada is a difficult business. I am fully aware of that, and there are a lot of demands on it. I understand that completely. When you ask Canadians, "Would you like there to be greater defence spending if it meant a reduction in health care or education?" for example, they will say no. I understand that.
What I would suggest, and this is getting off topic, is if we introduced a little more flexibility into, particularly, our health care system, which I believe we could. Canada has a totally public health care system. Everybody knows that. We spend 12.5 per cent of GDP on health care, the second highest total in the world. That is a thousand-pound gorilla that is taking up enormous resources, and those demands will keep on rising. That is obvious. As long as that thousand-pound gorilla is beside us, I agree. I do not know where the money will come from to go to defence. I cannot see it, but if you introduced a little flexibility into health care costs, as one possibility, to give you a little more discretion on the expenditure side, then the picture would look a little different. That is probably not on the table. I understand that.
Also, I will point out that all of the major political parties in Canada, including the Conservative Party of Canada, are in favour of the current health care system, so what I just said is a non-starter. It will not happen.
Senator Banks: There are those who would argue that if you did that, you would be downloading the costs onto the people.
Mr. Richter: I suppose.
Senator Banks: Any country's military stance, attitude, disposition, ought, at least theoretically, to be a function of its national policies, and in respect of extra-territorial adventures, expeditionary forces of one kind or another ought to be a function of its foreign policy, one assumes.
Mr. Richter: Right.
Senator Banks: If that is true, then what do you think Canada's national policy in that respect is now, and what do you think it should be; and the third part of the question is, do you think we ought to join expeditionary forces, or ought we to concentrate on the almost impossible task — it is almost laughable to say — of defending Canada?
Mr. Richter: That is a very good question. I think expeditionary forces are still important, and we should have that capability. I think I indicated that before, and that goes along with multi-purpose combat-capable forces. Your point about foreign policy underlying defence policy is clear. Your foreign policy should form the background out of which defence forces come forth.
Senator Banks: Well, you are a student of these things. Do we have a definable foreign policy that would apply there?
Mr. Richter: I would argue no, not really. Other people would say yes. Our foreign policy has been somewhat based for the last 10 years on the policy of human security and soft power. Now these were terms that were introduced by former Minister of Foreign Affairs Axworthy in the mid-1990s to late 1990s. I am not sure how much attention the government is paying to them right now. You are right. I study this, and I can honestly tell you I am not sure to what extent those principles are currently underlining our foreign policy. I am not even sure they underlined our foreign policy at the time they were being espoused so commonly, in the mid-1990s to late 1990s. I am not sure of that, but that aside, presently, I do not get a strong sense of what our foreign policy is. I really do not.
Perhaps we are seeing something begin now with the Prime Minister's address, was it to the UN a couple of months back? I cannot recall exactly.
Senator Banks: The right to intervene?
Mr. Richter: The right to intervene when —
Senator Meighen: Providing you have the forces to intervene.
Mr. Richter: Providing you have the forces to intervene with; but the right to intervene in humanitarian crises and that Canada should not blindly respect state sovereignty as an obstacle that would prevent you from undertaking this sort of mission. By the way, I would point out, as I did a year and a half ago, that I believe that if you really took human security seriously, Canada probably should have supported the intervention in Iraq, because no country's domestic population was in more need of foreign intervention than the population of Iraq. However, that is a connection that nobody in the government was willing to make. That is an aside. I think that perhaps we were seeing that in the address, was it to the general assembly?
Senator Meighen: Yes.
Mr. Richter: Perhaps it is a rebirth of that concept, but Senator Meighen is correct, you have to have the forces to do something about it in any event.
Senator Banks: Provided you are prepared to break rule 1 of the United Nations.
Mr. Richter: Well, yes, but according to the Prime Minister's statement, that is what that was all about, was it not? It was about getting around that. For 60 years this has been a concern, because the United Nations recognizes state sovereignty above all else, basically. It is the most important factor and to be respected at all times.
Senator Banks: And thou shalt not intervene.
Mr. Richter: Thou shalt not intervene.
Senator Meighen: Welcome, professor. It always makes the afternoon rush by in a sort of euphoric phase when you listen to somebody whose views largely correspond with your own, and I have enjoyed your presentation.
Going back to a matter that Senator Atkins raised, about reserves, as you know, there is this old controversy about the American law whereby employers are required to keep a reservist's job in place, somewhat like maternity leave, I suppose. They call it "military leave." In Canada we do not have any such law, but we do have the liaison council, which seems to have done some good work. However, you keep hearing complaints that, "Well, gosh, I do not want to join the reserves. I might lose my job." Where do you come down on that?
Mr. Richter: To be honest, I have not heard that it is a problem in Canada. If you have, I would certainly be interested in knowing what you have heard, but I am not aware of that. I do know what you are talking about. There is that law in the United States and it has become very important in the last year, especially as the reserves are being deployed in Iraq.
Senator Meighen: Yes, and they are over there for a long time.
Mr. Richter: Yes. I have read numerous stories about how this can create difficulties for employers if senior people in a company are away from their jobs for six months at a time, but it is the law in the United States. I am not aware of it being a problem in Canada, although I might be ill-informed.
I might point out one thing. Perhaps I should have said this when Senator Atkins was talking to me about this. In fairness, I have not done a lot of reading or research on the reserves. I thought I should state that. I have not looked at the problem of the reserves in much depth.
Senator Meighen: It is too bad you have to teach, because we have two reservists coming to talk to us.
Mr. Richter: I would have learned something, I am sure.
Senator Meighen: There is a school of thought that says that the Americans, being the world's one superpower, and given the wealth they have, have created an un-bridgeable technological gap between themselves and everybody else. Do you agree that try as they might, no one will catch the Americans in terms of their technological capability in the foreseeable future? If you agree, then maybe it is not such a bad thing that we are upgrading certain military equipment to a stage that the Americans left behind four or five years ago, because I assume — I may be wrong, and I invite your comments — that this is the situation that prevails in many other countries in the world, in the Western world anyway, that they too are on the other side of this gap.
If that is so, the question comes down to what can we do, to use the old phrase, to punch above our weight? We were at RMC a couple of days ago, where the case was made to us that one element that could enable us to punch above our weight would be a highly educated military, in which everybody had a university degree and officers had post-graduate degrees. You are not unaware of the fact that that exists to some extent in the Canadian military now, but if it were pushed and really encouraged, it would be a factor in giving us added thrust. There might be other things we could adopt that you might know of, such as maybe concentrating on electronic warfare. I do not know. I am throwing the ball to you to see if you could suggest something, not including searching out the niche. I agree with you, that we need an across-the-board, multi-faceted, combat-capable force of some size, but in order to give it an ability to punch above its weight, there must be some factor such as education that we can add to the mix.
Mr. Richter: There were a lot of issues there. I took careful notes on this one. There were several things I wanted to mention. Five or so years ago, I did a fairly intensive study on the RMA. It was when I was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of British Columbia, Institute of International Relations, and I looked at Canada's response to the RMA.
It was one of the early studies. I was one of the first academics in the Canadian community to look at this. I have not looked at it in some time, but I am not sure my conclusions would be that different today. The technology gap that you were talking about is referred to in the defence and security community as the "revolution of military affairs," or RMA. I included that in my biographical statement as one of the areas that I have worked on. It is the use of technology for defence purposes.
The United States largely invented the study and practice of this through the 1980s and 1990s. You asked if there was a technology gap between the Americans and other countries, and the answer to that is, absolutely; and the gap is large and getting larger. The reason I say that with such confidence is the RMA, and technology and warfare, is dependent on technology companies in the civilian economy.
Virtually all of the world leaders in information technology are American. I can come up with maybe a couple of others. There was a time, by the way, when Canada had one or two of them. I do not think that is true any more. Nortel would have been one of them. It is having its own problems right now and it is probably off that list. These American companies are underlining the information revolution that brings forth the RMA. There is this gap, and it is significant.
Canada began studying the RMA quite late. That was one of the things that I looked at in that paper of five years ago. I think the department was a little slow to respond to this, probably not unlike many other countries. The Americans were way out in front in the study of the RMA, by probably five or ten years, but other countries seemed to get their act together more quickly than we did.
I looked at Australia as a case study five years ago, and I concluded that Australia had not only studied the concept, but had a plan to put it into force long before we did. Subsequently, since about 2000, DND has studied the RMA quite actively. I want to make that very clear. I did most of my work in this area in 1998 and 1999, before DND really started pushing it. They have gotten into it, but it was just a little after some of the other countries had started looking at it.
Your last question was what can Canada do about this? I want to be clear. Canada is in the same position as a lot of the allies. A lot of countries are in exactly the same position. The United States is producing this 21st century super-modern armed force, and they are really laying down the gauntlet for their allies. They are effectively saying, "This is our force. You can cooperate with us in future missions, but you will have to be interoperable with our force." There is not a lot of negotiation involved here, so you can either accept their terms or essentially become uninvolved.
It was not always like that. The members of this committee might know that Canada not only was involved in the war in Kosovo in the spring of 1999, we played an important role in the bombing mission, but one of the things that came out in the aftermath was that our communications gear was not up to standard. The Americans have let everybody know — not just because of the problem with the CF-18s, there were others — that in future coalitions that will not happen. They are not interested any more in coalitions where they have to accept the lowest common denominator in terms of equipment.
Going forward, we will have to up come up with a role, but that is no different from what all countries are faced with. The situation we are in is really not that different from others, with the possible exception of the U.K, because they are probably the second country in the world — and, I suppose, the Israelis, so the three of them — that is moving to this information force. Outside of those three, everybody is probably in the same boat; and that is a very long-winded answer. I do not know if I answered any of what you asked, but I hope so.
Senator Meighen: Yes, you did, but you did not comment on the assertion we heard at RMC, that one of the ways to keep us in the game would be to have an armed force with superior education. Are there other things we could do?
Mr. Richter: Well, just now you mentioned superior education. I think to a certain extent we already have that. I do not have the figures — I am sure RMC would — as to the number of officers in the Canadian military who have graduate degrees. It is probably among the highest in the world. It might be the highest in the world, but I would hope that RMC could provide those figures.
Senator Meighen: Is that a worthwhile trend to encourage?
Mr. Richter: I think so. Yes, it is something that we have already started, and so it would not make a lot of sense to change horses now, when we already have much of that infrastructure in place. We do have a very educated military. By the way, there are personnel costs associated with that of course, and so our officer force is fairly well paid. We have started this ball rolling, and it would not make a lot of sense to reverse that now and move to something else.
Senator Meighen: One often hears criticism that DND HQ is top heavy. I do not know whether that is well-founded or not. Do you have any opinions on it, or any comment on that?
Mr. Richter: I do not. When you say "top heavy," do you mean a large —
Senator Meighen: I meant there is a lot of duplication, on both the civilian and military side, and that the process tends to be slow and cumbersome.
Mr. Richter: I do not have any comments on that. Again, it is not something I have looked at closely. I do know that we do have, as I said, a large number of officers, senior staff people. By the way, that is called the "tooth-to-tail ratio." I am sure you are familiar with that. It is the number of officers and senior personnel as compared to the fighting force. We have a large number of senior officers as compared to the regular force; that is the model.
I do not know if it is too top heavy. I am not in a position to give an answer to that.
Senator Atkins: I do not think we can conduct this panel without asking you the great question. What do you think about missile defence?
Mr. Richter: Do you already know my position?
Senator Atkins: No, I do not.
Mr. Richter: I have written about this. I published an article in a British journal last year. I have another piece that should be coming out soon. I am in favour of missile defence.
Senator Atkins: Why?
Mr. Richter: I believe it is in our interest in all sorts of ways. It is in our strategic interest. Missile defence is specifically defence. That is the part that the critics often get confused about as far as I am concerned. They believe it is offensive when the term itself indicates it is defensive.
Canada stands to benefit from this system. Now, we will benefit, by the way, regardless of whether we are involved or not, because the Americans have said publicly that they will defend Canadian air space whether we are on board or not. However, I believe that Canadians should be active, not passive, partners in the defence of North America. I think everybody on this committee would agree with that.
It is in our strategic interest, and just as importantly, it is in our political interest. Politics are enormously important in missile defence. Very possibly, they are as important as the strategic factors.
The Americans are looking for political partners on this program. This administration, and I am going to get a little off topic here, wants partners in many of its initiatives. It is prepared to go it alone. That is why they are often called unilateralists. I do not believe they are unilateralists. They want partners, but they want partners that will largely agree with what they have in mind. The terms are not often negotiable, but that does not mean they do not want partners. They do, and I believe that in missile defence they want partners badly. They want to be able to go to the Europeans and say Canada is on board. This looks good for the United States.
Having said all that, this would be very good for Canada too, because I believe that the political, the military and the economic relationships are all intertwined, and I suspect this committee heard that perhaps yesterday in terms of border discussions. There are linkages in the relationship, and our involvement would be effectively cost free. They are not asking for land. They are not asking for financial resources. They are asking for a political commitment.
Senator Atkins: They are asking for some technical tracking, are they not?
Mr. Richter: Not as it is currently structured, no. There is the possibility down the road they might require Canadian territory, but as the system exists now, and which is already being deployed in Alaska, as I am sure you know, there is no Canadian involvement whatsoever.
Senator Atkins: Are you satisfied they will be able to refine the technology to make it work?
Mr. Richter: I am. I also believe that that is their concern. This is a common concern about missile defence that is raised by critics. It will not work. Well, the Americans are spending the money, so let them figure out whether it will work or not. As I said, they are not asking for our financial resources or even our technical expertise. If they were asking, then I think that would be a valid concern, but they are putting forth all the resources.
I think there is a good chance it will work, probably not 100 per cent, but to a degree that would make the endeavour worthwhile.
Senator Atkins: They had problems with the Patriot missile.
Mr. Richter: Yes, they did.
Senator Atkins: Which they thought worked.
Mr. Richter: Yes, they did. Your point is well taken. I do not mean to suggest it will be a perfect system. It will not be a perfect system. The technology of missile defence is extraordinarily difficult. They have been working on this for 45 years, since the late 1950s. They have not perfected it yet, but they are making strides all the time.
The Israelis have an operational system around much of their country. It is called the Arrow system, and it was built with American cooperation and assistance. To the extent that they have commented on it publicly, the Israelis have said it is quite effective. I am sure that the American missile defence system will utilize some of that.
Senator Atkins: Any comments on NORAD?
Mr. Richter: Yes, I think NORAD has worked to Canada's benefit for 45 years, and it will continue to do so. Canada should be at the NORAD table. We get a lot of advantages and benefits from it, and I think it would be a very sad day for Canada if that cooperation were to ever end.
Senator Atkins: If we were not cooperative over missile defence, do you think it would affect any of our relationships in discussions on NORAD?
Mr. Richter: That was a common concern about three or four years ago, that if we were not on board with missile defence, NORAD would be weakened over time to the point of being eroded completely. I do not hear much about that any more. There are a couple of reasons for that. One is the Americans have introduced different military commands. There is NORTHCOM now, which is involved in some of the same types of issues. Canada is not a party to NORTHCOM, but we are involved in it in a sort of arm's-length capacity.
Also, the missile defence debate is not new. Missile defence in its current incarnation —
Senator Atkins: With Reagan.
Mr. Richter: Well, I would not say that. No, that was SDI, but its current incarnation began in the mid-to-late 1990s. The Rumsfeld report was in 1998. That was before Donald Rumsfeld was Secretary of Defense. He chaired a committee that looked at emerging missile threats to the United States.
Clinton passed the National Missile Defense Act in either 1998 or 1999, so this has been on Canada's radar screen for about six years. One of the things I cannot understand is when I hear some critics of missile defence say they will not have us pushed on this debate, or it is happening too fast. It has been six years.
Frankly, as far as I am concerned, the Americans have shown extraordinary patience with us. I will stand on the record on that — no problem. They have shown extraordinary patience over Canada's answer on missile defence. As far as I know, they are not pushing us at all. Perhaps this committee knows differently, but everything that I have read in the public record indicates they are not pushing us.
Senator Forrestall: I had one or two questions to do with the reserves, whether or not there was any role for them in the future other than aid to the civil power. What would you think of using them with respect to coastal defence, for augmentation of existing naval transport defence agencies like the Canadian Coast Guard and RCMP? Could reserves, given our coastline, the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes, play a role in coastal defence?
Mr. Richter: I do want to reiterate that I have not given that much time to studying the reserves. I suppose they could. The roles of the reserves are not so clear that they could not be broadened. I do know that Canada's Coast Guard is in a difficult situation. I was at a conference last June, the Sea Power Conference in Halifax. Perhaps some members of the committee are familiar with it. There was a lot of talk at that conference about the U.S. and Canadian Coast Guards and the differences between them, which are fairly dramatic.
I heard an interesting statistic that I might share. On its own, the United States Coast Guard is the fourth or fifth largest navy in the world. This is what I heard at the conference, so if it is incorrect, I will blame the official who told me that.
Canada's Coast Guard, of course, is not anywhere near that size, and in fact there are consequences to that. I am sure members of this committee know that frigates and destroyers have been used on fishing surveillance operations. They are forced to do that because we do not have the Coast Guard vessels to undertake these missions, to ensure that the waters off Grand Banks, Newfoundland, are not being overfished. We rely on Canadian naval ships to perform these functions.
I know I am not completely answering your question, but I do not have strong views on the reserves.
The Chairman: Thank you, Professor Richter. We much appreciate you taking the time to come before us. Your comments have been helpful to the committee and we are grateful for your assistance.
Honourable senators, our next witness is LCol. Ron Trottier. He has been involved with the Canadian Armed Forces for over 38 years. He has served in all local emergencies when the military has been called out to give assistance and was employed for two weeks as second in command of the Rapid Reaction Company in Cornwall during the 1999 ice storm. He has served as a commanding officer of the Windsor Regiment since October 2003.
Also appearing before us is LCol. Phillip Berthiaume. He joined the Canadian Forces in 1971 as an infantry officer. His initial posting was to the first battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment. He then transferred to the primary reserve in September 2000 after more than 28 years of service. He began his second career, as emergency management coordinator for the County of Essex, at that time. He has commanded the Essex and Kent Scottish Regiment since June 2001.
Also with us today is Cdr. Chris Ross. Cdr. Ross assumed command of HMCS York in July 2004. He had previously commanded HMCS Goose Bay, a Maritime Coastal Defence Vessel. His time with the Goose Bay included various training and operational missions to the Caribbean, Europe and Canada's Arctic.
Gentlemen, we appreciate you taking time out of your busy day and your other activities. We understand the demands that are placed on members of the reserve, and to appear at this time, and in your case, commander, in this place, is an effort that the committee appreciates a great deal. We understand that you all have a brief statement.
Lieutenant-Colonel Phillip Berthiaume (Res), Essex and Kent Scottish Regiment: Senator Kenny, since Cdr. Ross was the last to arrive, we have chosen to have the senior service present first, and then we will go in specific order from there, in the traditional fashion.
The Chairman: That works well for us. Commander, the floor is yours.
Commander Chris Ross (Res.), HMCS York: The senior service is stepping forward, sir. Mr. Chair, senators, guests, thank you very much for the opportunity to appear today. I am looking forward to taking part in this process, and I am eager to see the results of the committee's work.
I would like to start with a quick overview of my background so that you might better understand the experience on which my answers to your questions are based. I have been a member of the naval reserve for over 18 years, the first eight primarily as a part-time or Class A reservist at HMCS Scotian. For ten and a half years now I have been a full-time reservist and have spent almost eight of those years serving in ships, and it has been my pleasure for the last four years to serve as commanding officer in Kingston Class ships.
Together, my ship's company and I conducted domestic operations with various other government departments; participated in more training deployments than I can recall, including one to the Southern Arctic; and an exercise in two multinational mine countermeasure exercises, one off the coast of the United States and one in European waters.
Since leaving my last sea posting, sadly, two years ago next week, I have worked in a staff position in Halifax and this summer assumed command of HMCS York, Toronto's naval reserve division.
The naval reserve is made up of just under 4,000 members. Those men and women are currently serving in 24 naval reserve divisions across this country, five headquarters, six schools, 10 ships and two fleet diving units. Approximately 1,200 naval reservists are currently employed full-time on Class B or Class C service.
The mission of the naval reserve is to provide Maritime Command with trained personnel to man its combat and support elements and enable Canada to meet its objectives in time of peace, war and crisis. It is important to note that the naval reserve has a unique role within the Canadian Forces, manning of the Kingston Class with an expertise in mine countermeasures and coastal patrol. This role is not resident in the regular force. Without the naval reserve, this critical mission would not be possible.
Also of note, the Naval Control of Shipping classification has recently undergone a migration or a change. They are now assuming a double role as reserve intelligence officers.
The naval reserve has been specifically tasked to provide the personnel to operate 10 ships, four non-standing port security and naval cooperation and guidance to shipping units, or NCAGS, as well as two standing and four non-standing port inspection dive teams. As a point of clarification, non-standing units do not have a full-time establishment. They are constituted when required by reassignment of personnel from other duties. These people would primarily come from the Class A, or part-time, community.
A secondary mission of the naval reserve, through the naval reserve divisions, is to represent the navy across Canada. We do this by actively recruiting in each community, maintaining a naval presence through community relations, liaising and working with other government departments within the community and assisting the community in times of emergency.
There has been a naval reserve presence in Toronto for over 80 years, and HMCS York was commissioned in 1942. I apologize for talking about Toronto while here in Windsor, but that is where I am from. This includes those currently in full-time service in York and elsewhere, as well as those who, for a variety of reasons, are temporarily excused from parading and training with the unit.
Included within our numbers are MARS officers like myself, logistic officers, NCAGS, or intelligence officers, as well as various trades required to support York's primary mission, which is force generation, that is, to recruit and train personnel to support the missions of the naval reserve.
On the recruiting side, the national recruiting targets for this year are 467 non-commissioned members and 74 officer candidates. In York, our targets are 25 non-commissioned members and 2 officer candidates. In many cases, we are allowed to exceed these numbers, but permission from our headquarters is required. Since April 1, our recruiter has been in contact with 300 interested applicants. Over that time frame we have forwarded 62 files to the recruiting centre in Toronto. Of these, six have been enrolled, fifteen files are still in progress and 41 have been closed, either through voluntary withdrawal or because they have been deemed unsuitable.
On the training side, this is primarily what people do when they show up at York. We call them "training nights" or "training weekends." Our people provide admin support to the training activities and provide the teaching, or they are the students. The type of training can be broken down as follows: distributive training or distance learning, which is in preparation for the next formal course; OJT, or on-job training, to complete the last formal course; regenerative or operational training, which is focused on maintaining existing skills.
Operational and regenerative training is conducted on a regional basis and emphasizes the member's standing within the team. This training may take place at an NRD, another training facility, or at sea. Our secondary mission is to enhance the navy's presence in Toronto, which I have already touched on.
I will quickly point out a few things that I see as our challenges in York. Recruiting is a challenge. Retention of trained personnel is a challenge, as is providing robust training opportunities, given the resources, both in Toronto, to York, and the navy.
In summary, York and the other naval reserve divisions generate trained naval reservists for the operational formations, MARLANT and MARPAC. We provide a civilian and military expertise that is unique to the naval reserve, thereby making a vital contribution toward domestic and international security.
We are active in the Toronto community and are constantly building relationships with other local entities, both private and governmental, with whom we share an interest in the marine community.
Lieutenant-Colonel Ron Trottier, Windsor Regiment: Mr. Chairman, I am the Commanding Officer of the Windsor Regiment, the Royal Canadian Armoured Corps. It is my distinct pleasure to appear before you today to be allowed to share my experiences as a commander in the reserves and to answer any questions you may have on the role of reservists in defence matters.
The Windsor Regiment is one of 17 reserve armoured reconnaissance units across Canada and one of only two armoured reconnaissance units in 31 Canadian Brigade Group, which is headquartered in London. The regiment was formed in 1936 as the first Canadian armoured regiment from a cadre of officers and senior NCOs from the Essex Scottish Regiment. Therefore, our community ties and involvement go back to the mid-1800s through our mother unit.
One of our greatest strengths lies in the true sense of family that all in Windsor share. Our extended regimental family includes three, soon to be four, affiliated cadet corps. We have No. 202 Royal Canadian Army Cadet Corps in the town of Amherstburg — they are currently undertaking an expansion into the town of Essex — No. 1112 cadet corps in the town of Tecumseh and 2828 cadet corps in Windsor.
We have a vibrant regimental association, a very active regimental senate, a past RSMs senate, a close relationship with the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 578, which was founded by Windsor Regiment senior NCOs in 1956, and a strong overseas affiliation with the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards in Scotland. Our regimental motto, semper paratus, meaning "always prepared," originates from the Essex Scottish Regiment's own and is considered as the regiment's first priority in all endeavours.
My mission is to generate soldiers, both individual augmentees and formed sub-unit elements for both domestic and international operations.
I consider the following to be my primary responsibilities in achieving this mission: to train combat-capable soldiers and hone their skill sets to enable them to safely and efficiently integrate into the regular force operational deployments; to be prepared to provide soldiers for domestic operations in accordance with CONPLAN RAPTOR; to ensure that all training is carried out in the most cost-efficient and effective manner possible; to retain existing soldiers and reduce attrition by continuing to provide realistic and exciting training opportunities according to our regimental five-year training plan; to increase my unit strength by recruiting high-calibre candidates through an aggressive program of intensive cadet corps support and combined garrison recruiting initiatives coordinated through the CFRC; to coordinate and conduct collective training opportunities with an emphasis on combined armed tactics; to prioritize and conduct individual training at unit, brigade, area and national levels on a stringent trained-to-need basis in accordance with ARE, which is the Army Reserve Establishment, and the Army Qualification List requirements; to foster and maintain a positive relationship with all local communities by continued participation and visibility in community events in accordance with 31 CBG's link to the community program; to also continue to develop and refine the unit's command succession plan and to promote support of the CFLC's aims, goals and programs, both within the unit and the local business community.
Some facts on the Windsor regiment: Our current total effective strength is 118 soldiers, comprised of 15 officers, 16 senior NCOs and 87 other ranks. Of our total strength, we have 101 males and 17 females. We currently have on strength four regular force cadre — one officer, one warrant officer, one sergeant and one master corporal; 109 soldiers in Class A. We have four Class B soldiers, and we have five soldiers who are extra-regimentally employed.
The regimental operating budget for fiscal year 2004-05 is $976,817. It is broken down as follows: individual training costs of $395,000, which is approximately 40 per cent of our budget; collective training costs of $320,000, which is 33 per cent; operating and maintenance costs, which include our combined garrison orderly room, are $180,000, which is 19 per cent; and finally, our connect to the community, ceremonial and mandatory training takes $80,000, which is 8 per cent.
The Windsor Regiment continues to support operational deployments with individual augmentees, as demonstrated by the participation of three pers. on Op ATHENA Roto 0 in Afghanistan last year and one pers. to Op ATHENA this year, but unfortunately, we have been unable send formed sub-units due to the unavailability of armoured positions in the infantry-centric employment opportunities currently being offered.
Personnel from the regiment have strongly participated in all domestic operations, including a 20-man contingent to assist in the Op RECUPERATION Ice Storm as well as sending individuals to the Red River flood and the OAS Summit 2000 in Windsor.
The major challenges that I foresee for the regiment are the continued retention of our trained soldiers, the annual recruitment of sufficient numbers of high-quality candidates who will remain in the regiment for a full career, thereby mitigating the inevitable attrition that will occur due to personnel moving away for civilian job opportunities, schooling or component transfers to the regular force, and lastly, garnering support from civilian and government employers in our community that will enable and empower reservists to take full advantage of the myriad opportunities that currently exist.
The major role in the community that the reserve forces promulgate is the ongoing inculcation of citizens, both young and old, into the military ethos. This has been done by training soldiers and, indirectly, their families and friends, in what it means to be responsible citizens of their community and their country.
During the 38 years that I have been in the Windsor Regiment I estimate that we have imparted a positive moral and ethical sense of responsibility and the true meaning of being a Canadian to over 11,000 young people and countless family members and friends.
LCol. Berthiaume: Mr. Chairman, I can now admit to the method in my madness in allowing senior regiments to go ahead of me so that I can keep my remarks much shorter and concentrate on the discrepancies or differences as opposed to the similarities; and there are, as I am sure you have heard from the two gentlemen before me, a lot of similarities in the reserves, whether it is army or naval concerns and training at this time.
I have the privilege to command a light infantry reserve unit of the Canadian army, one of six infantry reserve units of 31 Canadian Brigade Group, headquartered in London. The history of our regiment goes back to the 1700s, officially to 1885. I am sure it is no coincidence that this committee is sitting in the Dieppe room, with, across the river, the international connections that we have shared for well over 300 years in this community. Our motto as well is semper paratus, always prepared, and from our previous regiments come the existing Essex and Kent Scottish and the Windsor Regiment.
My mission, the same as Col. Trottier has outlined, is to generate soldiers for operational tasks, international and domestic, both individual augmentation and formed elements up to platoon level. My primary responsibilities are the same as Col. Trottier has outlined.
In my unit, I have 142 soldiers presently operating from two armouries, a new joint training facility with which we have been blessed here in the city of Windsor and an armoury in the municipality of Chatham-Kent. For our operational, training and fiscal year 2004-05, I have an operating budget just in excess of $1 million, $1,073,000. Forty-seven per cent of that will be spent on individual training costs. Those are individual courses and qualification training for our soldiers. For collective training, our weekend training and combined operations training, I will spend 37 per cent of that. Operation and maintenance costs are only 10 per cent, and our ability to connect with the community, ceremonial and mandatory training is 6 per cent of that 1 million-plus.
In accomplishing the assigned mission of providing an individual and formed element augmentation to the regular force, past and present serving members of the regiment have participated in most Canadian Forces international deployments since World War II, including Korea, Cyprus, the Middle East, Croatia, Bosnia, Haiti, Rwanda and Afghanistan, as well as domestic operations in Canada such as the Eastern Ontario-Quebec ice storms, Manitoba floods, Saguenay floods and support to the OAS Summit held here in Windsor in the summer of 2000.
In 2003-04, 16 soldiers of the regiment were deployed to Bosnia on Op PALLADIUM Roto 13, and two officers were deployed on Op ATHENA Roto 0 in Afghanistan. All were successfully recovered. In 2004-05, one officer and one soldier are scheduled for Op BRONZE in Bosnia and three for Op ATHENA in Afghanistan.
Similar to the present and future challenges that Cdr. Ross and LCol. Trottier have outlined, mine are effective and efficient recruiting, training and retention programs, and the delivery of such in the community. The primary reserves, in general, and the regiment, in particular, must be exceptionally visible within the surrounding communities. This visibility or footprint must also be accompanied by credibility as a professional organization that has recognized local, national and international responsibilities.
We compete with other employers for our recruits, so we must maintain a distinct advantage in what we offer in the way of life skills and challenges. Pay and benefits alone do not get our applicants through the door. However, once they come through the door and demonstrate an interest in the primary reserve, I am convinced that we can meet and exceed their expectations through interesting, challenging training and deployment opportunities, as we have seen in the past.
Retention is also directly related to our presence in and acceptance by the local business community. With stable careers and the understanding support of families and employers, we can keep the recruits we hired as high school, college and university students, provide them with basic and advanced training, promotions and appointments, and retain a strong professional core that meets the standards and expectations of their regular force counterparts while at the same time maintaining a very strong presence in the local community. For those reasons, much of my personal assigned duties and responsibilities are focused upon gathering and maintaining the community and employer support that is so vital to the life of my regiment.
Senator Forrestall: May I extend a very warm personal welcome to each of you, and to Cdr. Ross, thank you, sir. I want to talk a little about recruitment and training and retention, retention particularly. It is common to all three of you. I want to perhaps leave the issues on job protection to Senator Meighen and Senator Atkins — they have been religiously pursuing it — and I want to touch on augmentation, but first could I ask the general question, how is the morale?
LCol. Trottier: Morale of the troops is very good. We are getting new equipment in, individual equipment. We have just been issued the tactical vests. The soldiers are quite happy with that. The equipment that they are giving us, the clothing, the clothe-a-soldier program, is quite well received down on the armoury's floor. The large-scale exercises are very good also. The soldiers really like that.
LCol. Berthiaume: If I may echo that, Mr. Chairman. Senator, we just completed a weekend training exercise — and the reports back to me are that morale is exceptionally high — very challenging training, considering that they spent the entire weekend in the wind and the rain of Southwestern Ontario. When I hear that, I automatically figure either I must be doing something exceptionally wrong or something exceptionally right, but the challenging training is there. As I mentioned in my remarks, we have been blessed with the recent receipt of this joint training facility and a new armoury here in the city of Windsor. We are looking forward to a new replacement training facility in Chatham-Kent as well.
Col. Trottier has mentioned equipment, vehicles and clothing that have come down to us. We have come a long way from what I had heard from the regular force, when I was employed there, of the poor country cousins in the reserves. So I cannot say enough on this point.
Cdr. Ross: I would say morale is good in York. I am not quite as enthusiastic as my friends to my right. In order for us to really get the troops enthused and have them do what they want to do — and this is part of retention — we have to get them to sea. That is what sailors want to do. They want to go to sea. Obviously we cannot do that here on Lake Ontario, so our challenge is getting them to sea on the coasts, and I would like to do that a little more often than we do right now. Morale is good, but I think it could be better.
Senator Forrestall: What is the size of your command now?
Cdr. Ross: On the books, 175 people. We average around 90 on a parade night because various people are away on full-time service or excused for other reasons.
Senator Forrestall: I have been trying to resurrect the Halifax Rifles for several years now, and there is a great temptation to do that with you gentlemen here, particularly you, commander. We have thousands of kilometres of coastline, not the least of which is the Arctic, and you have some experience with respect to that.
Is it a viable thought that some of the very historic regiments that we have put down for a while, put to one side for a rest, might be brought back into being, amalgamated with existing units and given the task of coastal defence? Let us say the ground force is supported by the reserves. There has been a suggestion, of course, that the Coast Guard be set up along other lines to undertake some of this work and activity, or the Canadian military. I have some difficulty with putting blue water ships in some of our harbours chasing whatever, and not a properly equipped naval reserve group.
Could I ask each of you to briefly, because we do not have a lot of time, comment on that broad-brush outline that has no foundation in anything other than the wishful thinking of a lot of people?
Cdr. Ross: On the issue of coastal defence, that is certainly what our Kingston Class ships were intended for. A lot of time has been taken up with conducting training, and they are still operating off our coasts primarily. I think it would be important to somehow get them back into that active coastal defence role that they are supposed to be playing.
Senator Forrestall: Is it, colonel, a role that you feel you could play even here on the lakes, with their enormous coastlines?
LCol. Berthiaume: Senator, I would say first that the missions obviously are assigned to us by the government, through the minister's office, and depending on the priority for security. We are light infantry. We could provide, with the assigned mission of port security or vital point security, defence on land of those facilities. Thereby, I would say, allowing those water-borne forces to do those jobs. It is within port security or our coastal waters, our mandates, our training, and could be considered within domestic operations, I would suspect.
LCol. Trottier: As part of our reconnaissance role we do surveillance of large areas. We could also work with the naval force on the water and with the infantry on vital point security and supply communications over a larger area. There is a possibility of that. It is one of our missions now, not strictly on the coastline, but we do observation and screening as a reconnaissance regiment, which would fit into that very well.
Senator Forrestall: Could I ask one of you to then — or all three of you because I imagine it is pretty much the same — address the question of difficulties in retention.
LCol. Trottier: The biggest problem we have in retention is the ability of the reservists to get time off from their employers to go on all the training. If the soldiers can go on all the training that we provide for them, then they stay in. If they have trouble with their civilian jobs or with schooling, and they cannot go on all the training, obviously we lose some of them along the way. The training is there for them, but not everyone can participate in all of it.
I think we need a lot more employer support. A lot of the younger people are afraid to go to their employers to ask for time off. It is a difficult challenge, trying to get them to ask for the time to do the training that we offer.
Senator Forrestall: Chair, with this closing observation, I will let either Senator Meighen or Senator Atkins take a look at another aspect of it, if they care to. When you next hear about this story, it may have taken on a much larger coloration.
Senator Banks: Thank you, gentlemen, for being with us. Today I will address my question to my colleague, the ex-bandsman. Col. Trottier joined the services in the first instance as a bandsman, the best reason on earth to join the services, I must say, and I bemoan the fact that we do not have the number of military bands, both regular forces and reserve, as we once had in this country, because they are an important face to the public.
However, Col. Trottier, yours is an armoured regiment, and I am asking you a question which has not so much to do with the militia, I think, as the permanent forces, because armoured regiments have now become, as you have said, reconnaissance regiments. It is a two-pronged question. You talked about the exercises on which you go. When you do those exercises, what kind of vehicles are you using, and are they up to date? Do you get to use LAVs? Do you get to use Coyotes? That is the first question, and also with respect to armour, the Canadian Forces have made a decision to get out of heavy armour and to move away from tanks to track vehicles, the Striker system, for example, and you are an armour officer. What is your view on that? I think it is a fait accompli. Nonetheless, I would like to hear your view.
LCol. Trottier: Senator, to answer your first question on the equipment, when we go away to do our training, it depends on the location that we go to. In this area, we do a lot of our training in the United States because it is more cost efficient. The bases are closer here. It takes two hours for us to get to Fort Custer. It is about four and a half hours to go up to Grayling in Northern Michigan. If we go to the United States, we normally get Hummers to train on. Sometimes we bring our own vehicles. We take our vehicles by car carrier to Grayling, which is a large expense for us. It cost $10,000 two weekends ago when we went up to Grayling to take 10 Iltis, but the Hummers were not available.
There is not enough equipment for the forces due to the financial constraints. Equipment is pooled. Our equipment is pooled. Recce equipment is pooled in Meaford, Ontario, which is about a six-hour drive away. We will draw the equipment from there, utilize it for that weekend, turn it back in, and the next weekend another unit will come. Many times there will be two and three units vying for the same equipment on the weekend on a larger exercise, and there are some problems with that, but generally, although there is not enough equipment for everybody to have their own, the pooling system does enable us to train our soldiers on it quite effectively.
On the second part of your question, on the tanks, the fact that the Leopards are all out in the West now and have been taken away from the units in Ontario, from the RCD —
Senator Banks: And will not be replaced, as we understand.
LCol. Trottier: They will not be replaced. You are correct, sir. That is a political decision, a budgetary decision that has been made. It is not within my purview to question why it was made; however, I would like to say that all the operations that are ongoing now are coalition based, and you do not have to bring everything to the fight. Now, the MGS is air transportable, whereas the tanks are not. Even the Americans do not transport their tanks to the theatre by air. They transport them on ships, and when we go, we will take the equipment for the things that we do the best, our surveillance equipment. The Coyote is a world-class piece of equipment. The Americans are envious of the Coyote. They are buying into it. We do have good equipment; we just do not have everything because of the cost of trying to support everything that is out there.
Senator Banks: When you say that getting out of heavy armour, tanks in particular, and not replacing the Leopards is a political decision, does it makes sense to you that politicians would decide whether the Canadian army will have tanks or not?
LCol. Trottier: This is quite above my level, senator.
Senator Banks: I am just asking a personal opinion, colonel.
LCol. Trottier: Personal opinions that are given in this venue —
Senator Banks: Are public.
The Chairman: You are on the right track, colonel.
Senator Banks: You might want to say "I do not want to answer that."
LCol. Trottier: I would leave that to the area commander and the Vice CDS, whom you will be meeting later, to answer those questions, sir.
Senator Banks: When you go to the central pooling point to get the shared vehicles that you use to train, are there Hummers there?
LCol. Trottier: No, not in Canada, but we go down to the U.S. quite often, and it is more cost efficient for us to use their equipment rather than to bring ours over.
Senator Banks: Right, but in an event which would involve all of us, some North American defence-oriented event, one assumes that probably United States soldiers will be using those Hummers on the day. Since your soldiers will not be training on what they normally use, instead they are training on Hummers, and we do not have any Hummers, what is the connection?
LCol. Trottier: Our soldiers are currently trained on the Iltis. It is a Jeep-type vehicle, and we are getting eight of the new LUVWs, which are coming in next year, next May/June time frame.
Senator Banks: "We" the pool?
LCol. Trottier: No, this is my regiment. All 17 armoured reserve regiments are now reconnaissance regiments. We used to have five reconnaissance regiments, and now they have broken everyone away from the Cougars because the Cougars are no longer in service.
Senator Banks: Right.
LCol. Trottier: We are getting the LUVWs, and I will be getting 16 of them for myself. Right now they have given us back 15 of the Iltis, which are presently being taken out of the system, so that we still do all our training on the Iltis.
Senator Banks: Those 16 will be yours. They will stay with you?
LCol. Trottier: Yes, they will.
Senator Banks: Well, that will be a vast improvement, will it not?
LCol. Trottier: Yes.
Senator Banks: I am very glad to hear that.
Senator Meighen: Welcome, gentlemen. Col. Trottier, I should start with you because you were the one who said, if I recall correctly, that in terms of retention, sometimes your soldiers were having trouble getting time off from their employers. I ask this question of every reservist, so I may as well try you on for size. As you know, in the United States there is a law that requires employers to maintain the jobs of reservists if they go off for training or on a mission. We do not have such a law in Canada. There are those who say that is the way it should be, because if you had such a law, then a lot of employers might not hire reservists because they know that they would be off on deployment. Where do you come down on the debate?
LCol. Trottier: Senator, legislation is definitely out of my purview. I was in attendance in 1984 at a white paper meeting in Kingston, and it included all the chief warrant officers and senior warrant officers from Ontario. It was a two-week course, and that was the main thrust — whether job-protection legislation was a good thing or a bad thing. The consensus reached at that group was that it was not a good thing because employers would not hire reservists.
Senator Meighen: That goes back to 1984, though.
LCol. Trottier: That goes back to 1984, so this has been on the books for a long time, talk of job legislation, the pros and cons of it. I worked at Ford for 30 years. I always got my time off, but I always had to fight for it, and it did cost me. It cost me in promotions, and I understand why people do not want it.
The Chairman: Senator Meighen, if I might just intervene on this. I think you are in scope on this one. In terms of the answer, what we are really after is how each area feels about it, because it varies across different parts of the country and we are looking for local points of view on this.
Senator Meighen: Well, exactly. Do you think it would be helpful to you if there was such a law? I am king of Canada, and I create the law right now. Would that be helpful?
LCol. Trottier: I personally do not feel it would be a good thing, senator, because the employers will not hire them. I have soldiers right now who are police officers in Windsor, and we have a great rapport with the chief of police here. He says anybody who wants time off can have time off, but the individual soldiers who are police constables on the beat do not want to ask for time off because their peer group has to cover for them. There are ramifications with their immediate supervisors. Even though it is supported at a higher level, it is not perceived as a good thing for them at this time.
Senator Meighen: Hard to win, is it not?
LCol. Trottier: It is.
Senator Meighen: You have your superiors supporting you, yet their fellow officers do not give them a hand. Is this a ramification of the lack of interest of the Canadian public in the military?
LCol. Berthiaume: May I answer that, senator? It is a combination, I think. We are looking at a number of solutions to the problem of employers and employer support to our reservists. If I may take a short walk down memory lane, when I was still a member of the regular force and working here with the Essex and Kent Scottish, we were training in Fort Knox one weekend, and we took along a group of employers under the auspices of the Canadian Forces Liaison Council. It was the employers' introduction to what we did.
Coming from the regular force as a career infantry officer, and wondering how my trade could lead me into in a second career, other than the fact that I can see hill, take hill and keep hill, sort of thing, I did not know what we were showing these employers and what would be attractive to them. I was pleasantly surprised by the impact of that visit on the employers who participated. Their eyes were wide open. Their jaws dropped, and they could not wait to approach the individual soldiers to say "What are you doing? When are you graduating, and when are you available?"
It was my first lesson in what we provide by way of life skills through our military training — the teamwork, the self-discipline, the physical fitness, the problem solving, the crisis management, all in various contexts, and in fact in worst-case scenario contexts. I think back to the question of are legislated requirements the answer? Partly, but I think the important part is we have to sell the product, and as I mentioned in my opening remarks, we have, to use the vernacular, a very fine product in the reserves and in the regular army that we have kept hidden from the Canadian public for the longest time. I know for a fact that the bases that I served in are now part of the community.
We have to sell that product, and that is our mandate. We are doing that through the Canadian Forces Liaison Council. We have instituted an initiative here in the city of a group of friends of the regiment, if you will, and we are calling it Delta Company, because it will provide that delta between what we have and what we do not. Community and business leaders are going out to actively sell our reserve product, our Canadian military product, and we have to sell them on it first. It is from the bottom up, but also with assistance.
I have the benefit of working for an employer with a military leave policy. It has been implemented over the past two years, but as Col. Trottier has mentioned, if I am away, someone else must pick up the slack. There has to be an alternate, and it adds to their workload. Legislation per se will not solve that. It will be different in each venue. Have I gone around in circles?
Senator Meighen: No, that has been very helpful. In fact, I am not persuaded that a law would be helpful. The contrary may be true, and you mentioned the Canadian Forces Liaison Council. They are doing excellent work from what I know, and I am glad to hear you reinforce that, but in terms of the community, I have always been worried about the policy that we have adopted in this country, of hiding you people away at Camp Borden or Petawawa or God knows where, out of the large population centres. Do your soldiers, Col. Trottier, for example, or yours, LCol. Berthiaume, and indeed, Cdr. Ross, come to the armoury in uniform and leave in uniform? Are they, to use the vernacular, hassled?
LCol. Trottier: They do not get hassled. They come in their uniform. Most of the young people today have cars, so it is not like before. I joined in 1967, and for a while during the Vietnam War we could not wear our uniforms on the buses because we got hassled. That does not happen with the soldiers now. They do not get hassled on the street at all as far as —
Senator Meighen: Do you confirm that, Cdr. Ross?
Cdr. Ross: I would concur with that in the case of Toronto. I come from Halifax, and a uniform on the street does not turn any heads. Nobody notices.
Senator Meighen: Halifax does not turn any heads. What about Toronto?
Cdr. Ross: No, Halifax certainly does. The uniform does not, and in Toronto often people stop to ask, are you a policeman? It is a way, a crude and initial way, to open up a dialogue to some extent, but no, we do not have any problems.
Senator Meighen: We were in Vancouver two years ago and visited the Seaforth Highlanders Armoury. There they said they had no equipment and they could not count on the reservists getting paid. Now has the situation turned around, or are you just lucky down in Southwestern Ontario?
LCol. Berthiaume: Senator Meighen, besides being lucky, or good, the system has changed. Again, if I may go back to when I first arrived on the scene six years ago as a regular force member of the cadre to the unit, our pay was sporadic. It was very much dependent upon an archaic system, an ancient system, and upon the proficiency of those who could input into the system.
There has been a complete revamp to the current pay system, whereby for the last five years here — and I cannot speak for the rest of the country — our soldiers are paid on time, and they receive pay statements on time. Also, any claims in support of temporary duty are acted on in a timely manner, and we have a system in place with the combined orderly room to identify problem areas or exceptions.
Senator Meighen: Having been in the regular force, you would be a good person to answer this question, Col. Berthiaume. I may be wrong, but a few years ago I was clearly of the impression that the relations between the regulars and the reservists were not the greatest. I tend to feel that those relationships have improved quite dramatically in recent years. Do you agree or disagree?
LCol. Berthiaume: I agree, senator, and again from personal experience, on the one hand, we did not have much occasion to work with the reserves from the time that I enrolled through my career and postings in Germany, in Winnipeg, but the situation has changed. Our operational tempo has increased. Our ability to man those has not increased or necessarily kept pace. A dependence on the reserves has come about.
At the same time, and I go back to my experience working with our regimental battle school, we brought training standards and course standards in line, which married up the reserve force levels of proficiency with the regular force. There was always, and there remains, I suppose, the battle cry or suspicion that you never know who will arrive at a concentration or reserve augmentation until they get off the bus.
However, we now fully appreciate, both on the regular and the reserve side, why we cannot forecast who will show up until the bus arrives and they get off. There are more distractions for the reservists than for the regular force counterparts. They must juggle their part-time military career with their full-time civilian career. Their families, when they leave them behind, are not part of a formal support system that exists on all of our Canadian Forces bases, and on top of that, it is just a question of juggling time and more time. That does not surprise me. That has remained constant, but you are quite right, the impression was, "What do we need them for?" The impression now, and from my regular force peers, is "We cannot do without them."
LCol. Trottier: Sir, if I could just add to that. When I came up through the forces, the opportunities for deployments or any operational tasking were very limited. Now the reserves play such a large part in every deployment, and there is no difference. When people go over to visit those on deployments, they cannot tell who is a reservist and who is a regular force member.
My daughter, who was a master corporal, toured in Bosnia three years ago as part of a two-man psychological ops det with a regular force captain, and it just happened that she was a reservist when she got that job, but it could have been a regular force member. They cannot tell the difference because the training is there, and the respect is there on both sides now. I think both sides understand a lot more just because of the sheer numbers of reservists who are going on these deployments and working with the regular force, and the fact that the regular force needs the reservists because they are getting overburdened.
Senator Meighen: That is very encouraging, but surely there are some jobs, maybe in the navy in particular, commander, that require year-round or full-time training to be able to deal with the high-tech nature of military operations today.
Cdr. Ross: Certainly some of it does, and we have a lot of people who are on full-time service. Indeed, over 25 per cent of the naval reserve is on full-time service getting that training. We have people moving in and out of Class B and Class C service regularly. We have also modularized a lot of our training so that people can take it in two-week blocks. We try to do our training up front in the summertime obviously, and do as much as we can to support their taking the training.
I have written letters to employers, to return to the employee side of it, in the Toronto area asking them to let members go off to take a very important course, a career course they need for promotion and advancement. It is difficult and it is important. We try to make especially our senior courses accessible to our more senior members who do not have a summer off to do summer training; that is how we get everybody trained up.
Senator Meighen: Would all of you support greater involvement of the reservists with a civil power in times of emergency?
LCol. Berthiaume: Yes. Given our community involvement, involvement in domestic operations is a very good fit for our soldiers in a number of ways. Being in the local community, being members of the community, being the on-scene resident experts, we can act literally as the advanced party for any regular force augmentation that is brought to bear in support of a domestic operation in a certain area. We have the experience there.
It is a task that we can do within the normal mandate. We also, though, have to appreciate that when an incident or emergency involves our particular community, we also have distractions in getting our reservists out because, again, they may have an obligation to their employer first. A lot of them are first responders. A lot of them are small-business owners who may have to look after their businesses and families first before they can then volunteer their military experience to assist in a domestic operation in their respective area. However, we have the experience from the ice storms and the floods of offering support elsewhere.
Senator Cordy: I would like to question you about recruitment and retention of reservists, and I notice, Cdr. Ross, that you started a summer youth employment program. Perhaps that is a good way to get people involved in the reserves, but how difficult is it to recruit and how do you set about it?
Cdr. Ross: Recruiting is one of our constant challenges. We have one recruiter in York, and that person is expected to go to the job fairs, to the schools, to go out to the public wherever she can and sell the navy. That job is a sales job. That is what they do; as well, they are expected to do the administration, the paperwork involved, and there is a lot of it. They get assistance with that, but that person is very busy.
We do work with our recruiting centre in the local area to get into the high schools. York has a band, senator, which is an amazing recruiting tool, and we use them as often as we can. Of course, they want to play, so we have tried to play at opening ceremonies of the Raptors and events like that in the Toronto area. That is another effective tool that we employ.
We can get them in the door, but there are challenges in getting the files through the system. There a lot of delays with security clearance, medicals, things of that nature. An average security clearance will take in excess of a year. So part of the problem is "Okay, thank you very much for your file. We deem you to be suitable," and then we send the file up and it can sit there. While it is sitting there, the member sometimes loses interest or finds another opportunity.
I think that is an issue that we all deal with, and I am not saying we should not do security clearances; do not get me wrong. A good file would be returned in two or three months, but that is not the average, unfortunately.
LCol. Trottier: We have basically the same problems with recruiting — that is, tracking them. There are a lot of programs out there right now that are of great interest to the young people. There is the education reimbursement of $2,000 a year for every year that they are in up to a maximum of four years. They get $8,000 out of that. That is a big draw. They also have just started in the last year provisional enrolments, whereby if the candidates meet all the requirements, they are enrolled with a provision that if there is a security problem or a medical problem, then it could be that they have to leave the forces. They have addressed that concern within the last six months.
There is not a lot of medical assistance. There are one or two doctors in Borden who have to do all the medicals for Ontario. They do not have to conduct all the medicals. They just have to sign off on them that everything is okay, but they are trying to do a good job. We have a full-time recruiter. All the units have full-time recruiters now. That costs my unit $45,000 a year for a master corporal. It is money well spent.
We do not recruit extensively in the summer as we did with the old summertime programs, SYEP, SSEAP, all the different names that they went through for all those years. We find that we are served better in my regiment to have soldiers come in during the fall and winter intake and get full-time employment in the summer. A lot of those we were getting just for the summertime jobs were quitting afterwards, and it was quite a large expense. It was about $14,000 a year to send one recruit up to Meaford for training, and if he left after the summer, that was a big chunk out of my budget, so we train them in the fall. Now this is their part-time job during their school year, and things are getting better from the recruiting end.
LCol. Berthiaume: Senator, our situation is much the same, just a couple of additional points. You heard that really the attraction is not a difficult problem. We can get them to the door. There is a problem with the length of time it takes for the files to be processed, and each of us in our own way has developed mechanisms to ensure that contact is maintained, because obviously, a lot of the audience that we are targeting, if they do not see a rapid return or interest, then their next appointment is with McDonalds or Burger King or some other employer during the school year.
We maintain interest through the full-time recruiters that we employ. We have also looked at how and when we recruit. As Col. Trottier has mentioned, our emphasis now is on bringing them in through the fall. That allows us the fall, winter and spring, through on the armoury floor courses, to both give them an introduction to the reserves, the primary reserves and the military; and also for us to see if they really are candidates that we want to spend top dollar on for full employment in the summer, because it is no longer the case that we must keep everyone we recruit. It is a selection process, and we look at that throughout the year.
My final comment is, traditionally, we have looked at high school students, college students and university students. I have been trying to push the envelope since arriving here to look at individuals with full-time jobs who are settled in the community, and we have an outstanding example of that here in Windsor, with the automotive factories. These are individuals with a set schedule who are looking for possibly that additional challenge on an evening, not necessarily a busman's holiday, but an interest beyond what they do on the factory floor, in the office or on the assembly line.
Senator Cordy: Is the military addressing the length of time for processing?
LCol. Berthiaume: It is being addressed, senator, by the recruiting system and the human resource department of DND. They are trying to speed the process up, but at the end of the day, where we have bottlenecks based on medical personnel limitations and so on, I do not anticipate a quick resolution.
Senator Cordy: Are older recruits more likely to stay for a longer time?
LCol. Berthiaume: Senator, it is my impression that we are bringing in people who are not necessarily at the end of a school year or their academic program and are looking for employment or careers outside of the city of Windsor or Chatham-Kent. These are people who have their roots in the community. Their families are here. There may be some discussions, heated discussions, with their families on how much time they can now spend with the reserves, but I think we have more of an opportunity to retain those individuals as opposed to the high school population.
Senator Cordy: Do you have such a thing as a leave of absence for reservists? I see people in their early 20s who have more free time than men and women with young children at home, who do not have the free evenings that they once had, and weekends become particularly valuable for families.
LCol. Berthiaume: Senator, within our military units we do. It is called "excused drill and training," and we can do that for three months, six months or a year for our reservists, based on some priorities that they may have with their employment or their family. It is a very good point that if more is required, then this may be a case of saying, "Thank you very much. Let us know when you can come back, and we will start the process over again." I am not personally convinced that they lose that training in the same time period as it took to train them.
Senator Cordy: Well, refresher courses would certainly be less time consuming than starting at the beginning. Colonel, you said that 6 per cent of your budget is for community events, so about $60,000 a year. Do you use community events for recruitment? You spoke earlier about bands, and I agree wholeheartedly with you. The military marching bands and parades were a great way to show off the military. You do not spend a substantial amount of money, but do you use those events for recruitment?
LCol. Berthiaume: Very much so, senator. In fact, most recently, our Windsor garrison units supported D-Day commemorative activities this past Victoria Day weekend, where not only did we participate with bands and marching troops, but displays, re-enactors, support to re-enactors, and military vehicles that came into town to honour our D-Day veterans. We also have a committee composed of community leaders and representatives from the units that is working towards a similar activity next May in support of the end of the Second World War hostilities.
Another recent example is the official opening of our joint training facility and armoury here in the city of Windsor, where again our bands, our marching contingents from each of the units as well as police services, re-enactors and historical or vintage vehicles had an extensive parade from the old armouries to the new armouries and created a profile in the community in that respect. Every opportunity we have, we do try for that.
LCol. Trottier: Senator, if I just may add that in my unit, I found out that of the top 31 people, my officers and senior NCOs, 27 have former cadet experience. That is why I key most of my efforts to and do a lot of support of the cadet corps. Although we do not get a lot of them, the people who come from the cadets tend to stay. They know what they are getting into. They have already been acclimatized to the unit because I send my soldiers out with them all the time, and we support them quite heavily. That is where we get our best recruits, and they know what they want and they stay for the rest of their lives; 27 out of 31 is a pretty significant percentage.
Senator Cordy: Cdr. Ross, if I read your biography correctly, you have always been a full-time reservist; is that correct?
Cdr. Ross: A little better than half of my time in the reserve has been on full-time service.
Senator Cordy: What is the advantage to being a full-time reservist as compared to a regular force member?
Cdr. Ross: I would say there is little, to be quite honest. Less pay would be one of the disadvantages, if I may so.
Senator Cordy: I assumed the pay would be less. I am just curious as to why —
Cdr. Ross: Certainly, with the pension coming next year, that is a help. Why would I do it?
Senator Cordy: We can generalize if you prefer, and say why would somebody do it?
Cdr. Ross: Well, no, I would rather tell you why I do it. I started doing this in the late 1980s, mid-1980s, and I have thoroughly enjoyed my time. I have been very lucky in that I qualified as a navigating officer just as the Kingston Class ships were coming online. It has been ten and a half years, and it still feels like I am on a summer job. I thoroughly enjoy getting up and going to work. At this point, I do not see any reason to change, to be quite honest. In the reserves, if you get command qualified, you drive a ship. In the regular force, you may not. There are some advantages from that aspect. Some people prefer to be a medium-sized fish in a small pond and some to be a medium-sized fish in a big pond. I chose the small pond.
Senator Cordy: Are there many full-time reservists?
Cdr. Ross: Twelve hundred in the naval reserve.
The Chairman: Just to continue the discussion on recruiting and retention, the story that the committee has heard has been replete with delays and blockages, usually with people pointing at Camp Borden and what goes on there. My question for the three of you is: Is there some form of intermediate step, a probationary position that would work in the reserves, whereby people who look like good prospects in every respect come on, with the full understanding that things have to be signed off on, and it will take a while to do that on a permanent basis, but they are part of the team now and are engaged?
I have heard too many stories of likely prospects coming in, signing up, or at least sniffing around enough to be really interested, and then finding themselves getting discouraged and ending up seeking employment elsewhere, where they could get a pay cheque in a matter of a couple of weeks.
LCol. Trottier: Sir, as I stated previously, there is a provisional enrolment. We are in the midst of a one-year trial on this provisional enrolment, whereby probably within six weeks the soldiers are hitting the floor. This just started in September. Anyone who had contacted the Canadian Forces recruiting centre prior to that was under the old system, but now they are starting to get these people in under the provisional enrolment, and that is —
The Chairman: Did you just say that now, sir? I am sorry then. I apologize. I missed it. If you covered this, I will check the transcripts. Please excuse me.
Cdr. Ross: Can I just interject? That is an army reserve trial. We are not benefiting from that yet in the naval reserve. I know it is being discussed, and it would certainly go a long way in assisting us. If they have people hitting the floor in six weeks, I am envious. I think that is tremendous.
Senator Banks: Is there a danger, and has it been taken care of by the prospective, putative recruit signing off on something, of a liability problem with these probationary recruits? If something happens during the first six weeks of training and they have not been vetted — and boom — who gets the bill?
LCol. Berthiaume: That is a very good question, senator. The way that we address it is they are aware coming in that it is a probationary or conditional enrolment, and we are very limited in what we can and cannot do training-wise and experience-wise with these provisional recruits. Short of arriving at the doorstep, coming in the door and being given periods of instruction, we minimize the dangers to them.
We cannot take them into the field. I will not deploy them. I will not employ them in field tasks nor, obviously, issue a weapon and live ammunition. That is the extreme edge of that scenario and we do have concerns about liability. We try to cover it as they come through the door, and it is an agreement between the employer and the provisional employee. At the end of the day, will that prevent us from having to go to court? That is a good question.
Senator Banks: Do you pay them as though they were working at McDonalds, or a little more?
LCol. Berthiaume: The average pay for a new recruit is in the neighbourhood of $100 per day. It goes up in small increments, based on their qualifications and confirmation, so for a recruit coming in for a half evening or a half day on a Tuesday evening, a Thursday evening or a Wednesday evening, it is $50 to $55 before taxes.
Senator Banks: Same thing in the navy?
Cdr. Ross: Same thing.
Senator Atkins: Would you be in favour of re-establishing the COTC?
LCol. Berthiaume: I must admit that I am a direct entry officer in the regular force, so I did my university degree and then joined. Other than the Royal Military College experience, which I am aware of through four years of staff duty there, I cannot personally comment on the COTC and the advantages or disadvantages of that.
Senator Atkins: You do not want to comment on it?
Cdr. Ross: I do not know anything about the program.
Senator Atkins: About the COTC?
Cdr. Ross: I was UNTD.
Senator Atkins: It is the same thing.
The Chairman: Then rephrase the question.
Senator Atkins: Colonel?
LCol. Trottier: Sir, I think it was a very good program. My brother-in-law went through that. He went to the University of Windsor. He did not attend RMC, but they paid for his schooling. He had to give them five years of service. He is now a vice-president of an oil company in Calgary. He did not stay in after his five years. He got out and got his law degree, but it is an excellent program and I think it should be expanded.
Senator Atkins: Would you ever encourage any of your recruits to go to RMC?
LCol. Trottier: Yes, senator, we encourage them to continue with their education. Reservists can attend RMC, but right now it is on a post-graduate basis. I do not think that is an option that is available to them at this time. Is it?
Cdr. Ross: I do not have anybody from York, but when I was in Halifax, I had a colleague whose son was attending RMC. He was getting paid in the summers as a reservist, and he did training with his friends from RMC, but when he finished, he did not have to give them any time. What he paid for his education was less than you would pay at Dalhousie, for instance, but he was not paid to attend the university itself.
LCol. Berthiaume: Senator, my degree program was at a civilian university, the University of Windsor, but I did spend four years as a member of the staff, so I spent a longer time at Royal Military College than I did at the University of Windsor. I would encourage not only a reservist, but any Canadian youth, if they have an opportunity to go to the Royal Military College, to do that. Its four-pillar degree program is outstanding; it is exceptional. It is difficult, but the product at the end is phenomenal, as I know from personal experience.
Senator Atkins: Cdr. Ross, on one of our tours we went to the training centre in Quebec City. Do you send any recruits to that centre?
Cdr. Ross: We do, sir. They do various trades training at Fleet School Quebec, and we send people there in summer and through the winter. That is one of the schools, and obviously we have Fleet School Esquimalt and an operations school in Halifax.
Senator Atkins: They have a very impressive operation there.
Cdr. Ross: It is a centre of excellence, sir.
Senator Atkins: Yes. Colonel, you talked about taking your regiment down to an American base and training them on Hummers. Is there any other American equipment that you use when you are down there?
LCol. Trottier: We use all their weapons systems, which are basically the same systems that we use, the C7s, the C9s — machine guns. They have the same types of weapons, so we use their weapons and ammunition. We use their vehicles. We use all their maintenance equipment. They are quite amenable to us using it as long as we get qualified. We will normally qualify up at Fort Custer, which is two hours away, during the year prior to the big deployment, so that when we go down, we do not have to spend our valuable training time there training them up on the vehicles.
Senator Atkins: So when you go down there, you just take your cadets. You do not have to take any other equipment.
LCol. Trottier: We just take our soldiers down. We went down to Fort Hood, Texas, last year. We took 72 from my regiment and we got the Hummers and all the equipment down there. We flew down to the base, where we had an advance party. They had all our vehicles. They signed them over to us, making sure everybody had their proper driver's licence and qualifications on the vehicles, and they were quite amenable to doing that.
Senator Atkins: It sounds like a good deal.
LCol. Trottier: It was. It is called a "foreign military sale," and they charge us a dollar a day for each vehicle. It was a nominal fee. They did not charge us for the weapons. We had to pay for the ammo, and we also had to pay for the rations, because at the time they would not allow Canadian rations in because of the mad cow disease.
Senator Atkins: If you had to go to Borden, would you get the same —
LCol. Trottier: We would not have the same scale of equipment that they have down there. They just have so much. They are willing to let us use anything we want. They will give us tanks down there if we want, but then we are starting to utilize their personnel, and we get into having to pay for their soldiers. That is not quite as easy to do.
Senator Atkins: Do you find that ex-military dependants make choice recruits?
LCol. Trottier: Yes, sir. A lot of people from the regular force are coming to the reserve units now. In fact, my recruiter just came to tell me before I came down here that a private, a trooper from one of the armoured regiments, just got his offer today. They are giving him three years' time and rank, and they are enrolling him as a private, because in the regular force you have to have four years before you can become a corporal. In the reserves it is only two, so as soon as he hits the door, he will be a corporal.
We do get a lot of regular force. I think they could do a better job, when people leave the regular force, of informing them of the opportunities in the area where they are going. That would benefit the reserves. A lot of regular force people leave without ever hearing about the reserves, especially about the reserve units in the area to which they are relocating.
Senator Atkins: For a recruit who joins the regular forces, the time frame for the basic and advanced basic would be approximately six months? What would it be in the reserves?
LCol. Berthiaume: Senator, if we enrolled a new recruit this fall, they would be fully qualified by the middle of next summer. That is Tuesday evening work, one weekend, possibly two weekends, per month. It may include the March break period if we have some catch-up to do, and then in June, at the end of school or the course they are writing, that will complete their basic soldier qualification skills. Then the remainder of the summer may get them another qualification if they are available to spend the entire time in a place like Meaford, Petawawa, Borden or Gagetown.
Senator Atkins: Then if they were seconded, they would fit into a regular force at equivalent level?
LCol. Berthiaume: At that level, senator, they should. We send our soldiers off to join their regular force counterparts in preparation for deployment at the start of that deployment training. I am convinced that the quality of training that they have when they join their regular force counterparts is quite high, and even if they are lacking in some training, they will quickly catch up. I have a personal concern not only with the troops that I send, but the fact that they will be joining my son on an Afghanistan tour this coming year.
Senator Atkins: That reflects on your program.
LCol. Berthiaume: It does very much so, senator — the success of our meeting or exceeding the training level and the challenges that we set for ourselves.
LCol. Trottier: Senator, if I could just add, when a reservist goes on deployment, the deployment overseas is six months, but it is like a 13-month contract that they go on because they do six-month pre-deployment training that the regular force is also undergoing. There is a small delta that they have to make up that the regular forces do not, but by the end of the training when they do deploy, they have taken exactly the same training. In fact, the reservists do it twice, because they normally double book now for all the positions and then pick the best people. They do the training up in Meaford, and then they will go to Petawawa, in our case, and do pre-deployment training with the regular force there.
Senator Meighen: I will not keep you much longer, gentlemen; I just have a couple of questions. Somebody talked about the slowness of the paperwork, in some instances, when you are recruiting reserves. Is there the same slowness in the paperwork for a regular joining the reserves?
Cdr. Ross mentioned the pension issue. That was a big problem for a long time in the reserves, and I remember when we were out in Victoria a couple of years ago we heard a lot about that, but from what you said, it seems to have been settled. It is all very well to encourage regulars, when they decide to get out, to join the reserves, but if it takes far too long to go through the administrative work, they will get discouraged, will they not?
Cdr. Ross: Certainly in my experience that is not a problem. We have had people walk out of the regular force on Sunday and walk into the reserves on the Monday. That can be a fairly seamless transition. Ironically, the difficulty is with reservists wanting to join the regular force. That goes back through the recruiting centre process, and I do not personally understand why. We are getting somebody who is security cleared, who is trained. We have had what we call a bridge watch keeper, somebody qualified to stay on a watch on the bridge, and we have had people who are command qualified going to the regular force, and the files took six to nine months. That is really, I think, the bizarre aspect of that transition.
LCol. Trottier: Sir, if I can just add, if the regular force member knows he wants to go to a reserve unit when he is gets out, it is cut and dried. There is very little time involved.
Senator Meighen: Well, Cdr. Ross has put his finger on the problem that still exists, though going the other way, it would seem.
Windsor obviously is an area that has always been in the forefront, but you seem to be in the forefront in terms of armouries and innovative ways to get a new armoury. I gather you have cooperated with the police department on a new armoury that is a police training centre during the day and an armoury for you in the evening.
This is obviously quite new and innovative. What brought it about? What drove it? Are the old-style armouries no longer suitable, or are they in the wrong location or what?
LCol. Berthiaume: Senator, having been involved in the project right from the start and inheriting that shortly after my arrival here, I would first answer it by saying we were in the right place at the right time with the right needs. We had outgrown our 1901 facility. Technology had outgrown it. The facility was built for musket drill and basic administration, and in fact the only thing that had grown beside it was the parade square, which also doubled as the horses' compound and so on. That is just the history of that old building.
We found ourselves looking for a new facility, not necessarily as large or as grand, but to meet the training needs. We had one classroom for three units in that building but a very large drill hall or drill deck. We had thick walls that just did not lend themselves to computer wiring and so on.
At the same time, Windsor Police Service was looking for a new, central training facility. They had a range in the east end of town that had been condemned. They had purchased and were continuing to purchase training facilities at St. Clair College, as well as any overflow training facilities in conference centres, the Holiday Inn Select, Cleary Auditorium and other locations. They were looking to consolidate. By chance, these needs were commented upon at a social function, and I cannot even confirm if it was over a scotch or not, but from that came a review of the synergies, and no matter which way we looked at it, it was a win-win situation, and the end products remains a win-win situation.
Since opening in June and its official opening in the middle of October, the facility is almost in full use, day and evening, from about 7:30 in the morning until 10 or 11 at night. Of course, we use it on weekends, as do other users. As a city and shared facility, any surplus capacity is also being looked at by other agencies — community support agencies, other levels of government and other needs, including needs of academic communities in the surrounding location. There is an opportunity not only for synergies, but to share the cost of O & M.
This has been an outstanding partnership. We each go our own way, but we all have items that we can share. I cannot say enough about it, but I will get off my soap box at this point.
Senator Meighen: I hope it is well known around the country, because I am sure the age of most armouries is a problem.
LCol. Berthiaume: Senator, this appears to be the way to go, and we have been visited by a number of people, both municipal elected officials and representatives, as well as our area engineers across the country, looking at these types of partnerships. Is it the answer in all communities? It probably is not, or it may be on different scales in different communities, but it works exceptionally well here, and we are looking forward to a long existence in it.
Senator Forrestall: Senator Atkins had asked a question or two on one side of the coin, about transferring — and got some response — from the regular force to the reserves. I wish you well in your recruitment in that area, but can I ask about the difficulties that we have heard about, literally from coast to coast, of reservists who are finding it extraordinary difficult to transfer into the regular force? Do any of you have any comment?
Cdr. Ross: Just to add what we were saying, timely transition into the regular force is a problem for reserve members. I see them as skilled applicants. We have incentives for skilled applicants in recruiting, and here are people that I would certainly consider skilled applicants. They have a security clearance. They have had a medical. They have training. They bring with them skills that they have learned in the military, we want to retain them, and I believe it should be a smoother process than it is now. Obviously it affects me, because it means that my member is going somewhere else, but it is for the betterment of the navy and the CF overall. It is a problem and something that I think should be addressed.
Senator Forrestall: Where is the roadblock?
Cdr. Ross: Maybe my colleagues have better intelligence than I have, but I do not know, because the main roadblock in recruiting off the street, a civilian, is the medical and security clearance. Those are the most time-consuming administrative parts of the process. The applicant from the reserves has those qualifications already and those ticks in the boxes. Whether it is undermanned recruiting centres, lack of resources such as that, I am not sure. I would be speculating.
LCol. Trottier: Senator, if I may, it takes a long time for the reservist going to the regular force. Every year we have two, three or four who go to the regular force. They get in, but it takes a long time. They have to wait for their offer. I currently have five people in my regiment who are in for component transfers to the regular force. It is not as simple as taking a recruit into the regular force, where you are starting out with basic training.
These people already have qualifications. The staffing has to be done on them. What will they be offered? They get an offer from the regular force on their rank level. Usually, they drop down at least one rank, sometimes two, depending on their qualifications. The largest number of component transfers to the regular force that we have to do is at the master corporal level, and they go in as corporals most of the time. It does take a long time, but they are in the reserves while they are waiting for this process to take place. Most of them have civilian jobs or are going to school. It is really not that big a problem, although they want to get in. They are still in the forces.
Senator Forrestall: Col. Berthiaume, do you have the same problems?
LCol. Berthiaume: Senator, the same, and I would like to echo Cdr. Ross's point, that on the one hand we are losing trained individuals that we have recruited and so on, but at the same time, we encourage it. If that is the direction they wish to take, then we are very pleased and proud that they have chosen that profession, because as far as I am concerned, and I mention this to all my recruits, this is an introduction. This is a part of Canadian society that not everybody sees, and it is not necessarily for everyone.
If they decide to go down that road, be it part-time or full-time, then that is great. My experience on those component transfers from the reserves to regular forces is we have a lot of files going into an office system that can only handle so many at a time, and they have difficulty trying to forecast how many they will be dealing with, and therefore what surge capacity needs to be maintained. I cannot fault them for that.
What I can fault is the delays when we have interested soldiers who want to join the regular force. They want to join now. If they have to take certain courses, because of the numbers that we can take at a time, they may only be run once a year. Therefore they may be out of cycle for that, and so on. It is a balancing act, but at the very least we owe the soldiers communication, updates on how their file is progressing, and that is the best that we can do.
Senator Forrestall: Cdr. Ross, we ran across an unusual situation on the West Coast that had to do with a women's clothing issue, work clothing in particular. When it was explained to us, and we saw the difficulty, we agreed. Has that problem been corrected?
Cdr. Ross: I have never had any problems with women's clothing, senator.
Senator Forrestall: It evokes some of the strangest responses, I will tell you that.
The Chairman: The question is do you receive complaints from your women members that their clothing is designed for men and does not fit them properly?
Cdr. Ross: I have no idea.
Senator Forrestall: It has now been corrected, I would assume.
Senator Atkins: Cdr. Ross, are you on pension as a permanent reserve?
Cdr. Ross: Not yet. The pension program for reservists is coming into play next year.
Senator Atkins: Would that have any effect on a reservist applying to the permanent force?
Cdr. Ross: It would not. I am not a pension expert by any stretch of the imagination, but my understanding of the system is once you reach a certain point of reserve service — and five years is in my head, but please do not hold me to that — you are automatically enrolled in the same pension program as the regular force, and you stay there for the remainder of your career. From my understanding, it will be a seamless administrative process.
Senator Banks: Perhaps I misunderstood you. You have been a full-time reservist for, did you say eight years?
Cdr. Ross: Ten years.
Senator Banks: Have you not been pensionable in all that time?
Cdr. Ross: Correct.
Senator Banks: And now you will become pensionable?
Cdr. Ross: Yes, sir.
Senator Banks: Is it retroactive?
Cdr. Ross: Yes, if I buy it back.
Senator Banks: But you have to buy it back.
Cdr. Ross: My understanding is — and I do not think everything has been finalized yet — my contributions will be matched by the employer.
LCol. Trottier: Senator, if I could add to that, the pension plan and the severance package are a great retention tool. The soldiers look at that. They are not getting out. They are figuring out how many years they have to serve and how much they will be getting. It is a very good program. Having been in for 38 years, I have maxed out my retirement gratuity at 30 years. It makes no difference for me. I do not think it will be beneficial for me to buy out the pension time because I have not spent that much time on full service. I have never done a tour. It would not be worthwhile for me, but the soldiers down on the floor do look at this, and it is a valuable retention tool.
Senator Banks: You talked before about that $8,000 as an inducement. Is that their salary, or is that some kind of bonus?
LCol. Trottier: That is an education reimbursement. If they are going to post-secondary school, college or university, the army will give them $2,000 a year for a maximum of four years towards their education.
Cdr. Ross: That is a great recruiting tool as well. We all need to exploit that.
The Chairman: Gentlemen, thank you very much. We are very grateful to you for coming down here from Toronto on what is undoubtedly a busy working day for you. It is important for us to have an opportunity to have a discussion like this. It is remarkable how much we pick up and how much we learn.
This is a very valuable learning experience for us. It is also valuable to have you as a trio, because we have certainly noticed that each one's information complements the others and gives us something of a contrasting flavour. I will adjourn the meeting, but do not go away because we have a small presentation for you.
The committee adjourned.