Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
National Security and Defence
Issue 6 - Evidence, Morning meeting
TORONTO, Thursday, December 2, 2004
The Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence met this day at 8:10 a.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 morning. It is my pleasure to welcome you to the Senate Standing Committee on National Security and Defence. Today our committee is continuing its hearings this week on information we need for development of our paper on Canada's defence policy.
We have before us today Dr. Conrad Winn. Dr. Winn is President and CEO of COMPAS. He is the author of five books and many professional articles. He has taught public affairs and communications for almost three decades at the undergraduate and doctoral levels in Canada and abroad.
Welcome to the committee, Dr. Winn. We are pleased to have you before us. We understand that you have a short statement that you are prepared to make and the floor is yours.
Mr. Conrad Winn, President and CEO, COMPAS: Honourable senators, my statement is short because of the great risk of misusing your time. Let me say that if you run out questions, I do have an agenda of things that I would like to raise, but let me say that I come really with two perspectives. One is from the good fortune of having been asked by media over the years to do a lot of opinion polls. We have them on our website. In fact, one of the strong philosophical principles of COMPAS is that all the original data should be available for anyone to scrutinize because the same number can be interpreted in different ways. The classic example of is the glass half full or half empty.
To the extent that I do teach, and I teach less than full time but I have the rank of full professor, it tends to be about media and its role in forming public opinion. Those are the two perspectives that I bring.
The Chairman: That is very helpful. The committee is particularly interested in getting a better and a clearer understanding of how the public reacts to its security, its defence, and its place in the world, if you will. I think if you understand that is where we are coming from, we will go straight to questioning.
Senator Cordy: Thank you very much. I guess you are used to getting questions, not responses, are you not? One of the things that we know is that in the early 90s and even going back long before that there have been cutbacks in military spending, yet there has not been a great outcry from the Canadian public about that. Canadians have been quite happy to have money directed in other directions, whether it is health care, education, the children's agenda or whatever. However, if you ask Canadians, "Are you interested in building a strong military," they will say yes. My question is, when you go beyond that answer that most Canadians want a strong military, what do you find?
Mr. Winn: Well, you are asking the most difficult question, and I figured that would be the first one. It is extremely hard to know and to be able to say what Canadians think, for a bunch of reasons. I am still going to try to answer your question, but let me tell you why I think it is so hard. Number one, there is almost no polling, and most of the public opinion research on defence and security issues, including our own, should be taken with a grain of salt.
If you look at the two main clients for public opinion research on foreign affairs and defence and security, they are government and media. The first rule for government is a kind of Hippocratic oath, do not do the client any harm, which means that you rule out all sorts of questions that could be embarrassing. The first rule for media polling is, more headlines per buck, so it is all about getting a very strong headline for dollar invested.
To really understand something as complicated as security and defence, and I think you described it perfectly, you really need to ask a lot of questions and give a lot of information. You cannot do that for government departments because that puts them at risk, and you cannot do that for media because that risks their budget. That is one of the reasons why we know so little.
Another factor is that if you look at the actual behaviour of Canadians, their consumption of the media as an indicator of their interest, it is fair to say that they are delegators. Seventy-five years ago the average household subscribed to 1.2 newspapers. Today newspapers are no longer a mass medium. Fewer than half the households in this country subscribe to newspapers.
Furthermore, if you look at what I personally consider the best newspapers, the National Post and the other national newspaper, they are not doing very well. Very few people subscribe, and the bet that they are in the red, both of them, may not be outlandish because when you ask people why they want a newspaper, it is for local issues. It is for, where do I go out on a Friday night? If you have kids, where are the good schools, what school scandals are there, where is there crime, and when is there going to be a transit strike. It is very local, very practical.
This is partly because, in some ways, people are news-evasive. News is negative and depressing. Furthermore, you do not know what to believe. In a nutshell, journalists who cannot be trusted are reporting on politicians who cannot be trusted so it can be awfully depressing for the average person. You do get some consumption of real news but it is highly concentrated. A small number of people are consuming all the news, especially on international stuff. These are basically the subscribers to the two national papers.
When they do consume news, it is in a crisis, and that is why you have the spikes. When you have 9/11, everybody watches. It is like the fire next door or the accident on the highway you are travelling on. Then between 9/11s, no one is paying much attention.
Does that mean that they will not blame government for not having planned for the next 9/11 even if they themselves are not planning for it? Of course.
Then you have some specific factors at play. Why was there no support apparently for defence spending? Well, a key issue was a rising sense of ethics among the electorate about where and how government should be spending. Politicians were often behind the curve, not realizing how quickly ethical standards were changing or norms were changing. What used to be taken for granted as efficiency, the proper way of doing things, like patronage appointments and that kind of thing, was then viewed askance, to some extent driven by post-1960s journalism. You have got a real sense among the public of value for money, and defence was not value for money. It seemed to be just child's play. Why would you need tanks, for what purpose?
Some of this hesitancy to support defence spending was driven by a real sense of propriety in the use of public money and efficiency. It is all part of this rapidly rising ethical standard, to put a charitable spin on it.
Senator Cordy: If you are asking questions and you are a pollster, it is very difficult to get into lengthy discussions and to scratch below the surface because, if I am phoned at home and a pollster on the other end says, "Can I have some of your time," I will say, "How much time?" If it is 30 minutes, I might say, "Sorry, call back another time," meaning please do not call me again. If it is 15 minutes, then I will probably say, sure.
How do you get below the surface? You sort of talked about it a bit, that the Canadian public does not necessarily want to hear all the things. An example of that would be, I am not sure that Canadians understand what peacekeeping is and how peacekeeping has changed over the years. I think Canadians still have the feeling that peacekeeping is sort of: you get there, everything is calm and quiet, and you just wave the flag and say, "We are keeping peace, not peacemaking." In order to be a peacekeeper in 2004, heading into 2005 and going into failed states, you have to have fully equipped forces. How do you get into Canadians' feelings about it, or is the Canadian feeling just value for money and they don't want to hear all the details?
Mr. Winn: No, they are susceptible to hearing the details, but it would take very theatrically powerful and persuasive political leaders to communicate directly to people because not only do a minority of people read newspapers, look at how they read newspapers.
Senator Cordy: First paragraph.
Mr. Winn: It is the first page if you are lucky. It would take very, very high levels of skill to reach them because they are really busy, and they do not know how and why their opinion would matter, and these things are awfully complicated.
The best combination is a crisis and theatrically powerful leaders. Then there is a natural setting for the public to pay attention and there is the skill of leaders to speak directly to the public.
There are other factors and there are all sorts of interpretations. There were alternative explanations for the decline of support for defence spending. I have given you several really now, but there were others, too, in fairness. Colonel Macdonald, who used to be on CTV years ago, took the view that it started with the unification of the armed forces. Unification drove out the best-educated officers so that we ended up with a military that was relatively uneducated and, therefore, not astute about public affairs. It did not fund the interest groups that would create the public opinion environment to support defence, unlike, say, Environment Canada, the Women's Bureau or various other domestic-oriented elements of the Federal Government which have had on their payroll for decades groups that, in effect, advocate their own departmental agendas.
Senator Cordy: We heard yesterday that the Canadian military is one of the best-educated in the world, but perhaps what they are not doing is advocating the role of the military.
Mr. Winn: He is not talking about today; he is talking about the origins of it.
Senator Cordy: All right.
Mr. Winn: In any case, it is his theory, not mine. I am trying to be helpful here.
Senator Cordy: You talked about reaching Canadians. How do we reach them? Is it pride in their country? I think even since 9/11 Canadians are becoming more complacent about security of our country and just assuming that it gets done. In the first few months after 9/11, Canadians were quite willing to ensure that we moved very quickly as politicians to pass legislation to better protect our country. Now, I think if we were to look at similar legislation, they would talk about privacy issues and a lot of other issues.
Mr. Winn: I think there are two separate issues here. One is where the public stands and where the advocates or activists stand. You can have a huge separation. The activists in a post-9/11 environment would realize it was futile. However, in the present environment they would sense it is not a bad time to speak about privacy, even if the decline in support for such initiatives was modest. You really have to separate out where the public stands from where the activists stand on any given issue. Even if you took the most extreme issue, abortion, which is always portrayed as pro-life versus pro-choice, in fact, the vast majority of the people are in between.
Senator Banks: Dr. Winn, you said that there are some points that you wanted to make sure were made. What are they?
Mr. Winn: I think there are probably three big issues. One is how do we account for a historic shift from a very activist country to a very pacifist country? If you look at any of the wars, from the Boer War through the Korean War, you have evidence of very strong commitment, whether it was governmental commitment, commitment indicated through public opinion or just commitment through voluntary enlistment.
How do we account for this shift? I think there are a number of factors. We talked about a few of them. One is value for money in a real sense; that the government has to prove that its spending is proper. If you have any doubt of the magnitude of this, look at what happened to the Conservative Party. The entire history of party politics since Ms. Kim Campbell has been tumultuous over, basically, spending issues. If you have any doubt that the public gets very excited about misspending, just look at what happened to the evolution of the Conservative Party. I think that is a very important factor. People do not want to support spending if they do not understand it. You have to explain it to them. You have to be able to persuade them that it is not a waste of money, and it is not toys and vehicles for politicians to ride around in, that it has a purpose. There has to be a purpose that is clearly explained to them, and you have to give them alternative purposes.
I think there are other factors, too. One is that public opinion is not only a driver of policy, it is a rationalizer of policy. As Mr. Henry Mayo, the great Canadian political philosopher once said, It is not that man is a rational animal; it is that man is a rationalizing animal. Canadians know we do not have heavy military expenditures and they know that the Americans are our best friends, whether we like it or not, as President Bush quoted or said just recently, and they have a real sense that the Americans will defend us and it is not necessary. The main exception to is being business leaders. We have done a ton of polling of business leaders, in part because we do the weekly poll for the Financial Post. What you have is a persistent opinion that we put at risk our economy as a whole by being perceived as freeloaders in the military arena by the Americans. There is a real sense that if we do not commit to the military and we do not commit ourselves to a common perimeter, we risk the futures of several generations. However, that is business leaders who focus on simple things such as, we are the world's leading exporter and almost all our exports go to the United States and Ms. Carolyn Parrish is not the poster child of goodwill. For most of the public, they do not think of these issues. They do not think about imports and exports, the trade relationship and its implications. Why should they think about it?
Where do Canadians stand? I think that apart from saying that Canadians are more sympathetic to military spending than they were 20 years ago, it is really very hard to know. What are the impediments to understanding? Let me give you the ABCs of the impediments to misunderstanding where the public stands.
One is, they are ambivalent. All sophisticated people are ambivalent. You ask them the question; any given question can be misleading so often you have conflicting polls that come out. One that says Americans are our best friends and the other that says that anti-Americanism is rising. They are both perfectly compatible. They are both probably totally right. It depends on the situation. They are of two minds. People are much more sophisticated than polls can possibly represent. Polls are like a photo. They are not three dimensional. We are bifurcated. There is no set of policy issues which splits English and French, or Quebec and the rest of the country, more than defence and foreign policy.
Here, what you have is more than a century of passivism in Quebec, reinforced and strengthened by the fact that the Quebec media depend more than ever on French media, with the undercurrent of anti-Americanism that comes through there. Of course, the media in English Canada do not depend on Agence France-Presse very much, so you have bifurcation.
As I have been saying all along, every opinion is contingent. It is contingent on the facts and on the context. It is even contingent on aspects of methodology. For example, if you were to do a survey and say that you were phoning from the Centre for the Study of Free Trade, Trade and Public Welfare, the public good, economic growth or something, and you asked people what they thought of Mr. Brian Mulroney, he would get astronomical scores. If you phoned and said you were doing a poll for the Centre for the Study of Ethics in Government, he might not get astronomical scores. That is just one context.
We know that the gender of the interviewer has an affect. If you have only female interviewers, you are going to get lower support for defence and you are going to get gigantic support, for example, for affirmative action from the domestic front. There is a bit of a bias there because female interviewers are often the best interviewers.
When leaders speak, you get a different reaction. We know, for example, that when leaders who are popular advocate things, the public goes with them, and when leaders who are unpopular advocate things, the public turns against them.
Then I mentioned the problems of measuring accurately when the two main sponsors, government and media, have constraints on the fulsomeness of their polls.
Then the third big question is, where will Canadian public opinion go in the future? I think the key issues are going to be where Canadian leaders will try to lead them because they are not resistant to argument. It has to be presented to them in a digestible way; we have this alternative, this alternative or this alternative. As public figures, you know that you have to explain it to them 50 times and then another 50 times; explain it to them, tell them how you have explained it to them, and maybe 25 per cent of the public will have heard you.
Those are the key things that I thought I should mention.
Senator Banks: For the sake of argument, let me argue with you for a minute. You say, how can we explain this shift? I am not sure that it is a shift. I read an article the other day that was written by Mr. Stephen Leacock and published in the University Review in 1912, in which he said exactly the same thing that many of us are saying now, and articulated a lot of the problems. At the beginning of each of the two great wars, Canada was absolutely unprepared and did not have a large army because people do not flock to the army when there is no perceived danger. It seems to me that Canada has always been a country that is essentially non-belligerent and sees itself as being non-belligerent and peace loving and safe. It has always ramped up as soon as somebody, but only when somebody, punches us in the mouth one way or the other. Is that not historically true? If that is true, then is it the case that there has not been a shift, that we are the same way we have always been, which is complacent until somebody bloodies our nose?
Mr. Winn: There is a lot of merit there. I may not have articulated myself well enough. I think I wanted to say, if there has been a shift. I was not interested so much in imposing my interpretation as being useful by sharing a number of interpretations, like Colonel MacDonald's, for example.
Senator Banks: My second question is, you said that rule one was like the Hippocratic oath; do no harm.
Mr. Winn: Yes.
Senator Banks: Do governments want you, and I am speaking specifically of governments now, any order of government, when they commission you to do a poll —
Mr. Winn: Sure.
Senator Banks: Do they sort of vet the thing to make sure that there are no questions that could do them harm as opposed to a government saying to you, Here is the question and we want to find out the truth?
Mr. Winn: Yes. Sure.
Senator Banks: Yes which?
Mr. Winn: It is the first, of course.
Senator Banks: They engineer the poll to get the desired results?
Mr. Winn: No, they do not. That happens sometimes, of course it does, absolutely, but the vast majority of the situations is, do no harm. So of course they vet the questionnaires and of course it is understood if you want to work with them that you are not going to do their careers harm. Ever since the ancient Greeks, we know what happens to the messenger of bad news.
Ironically, I think access to information has reduced the objectivity of some of this research because government departments live understandably in anxiety that this is going to go out and the journalists are going to do what they best do, which is play Catch 22. Given that, there is at least an understanding, and certainly there is a formal approval process, which rules out questions that on the face of it look as if they could harm reputations.
Senator Banks: That is very informative.
To move to another area, you talked about one reason for a perceived lowering on the public's part for military expenditures had to do with a shift in what you said could be most kindly called an ethical shift. What would be another word for it, if you were being less kind?
Mr. Winn: Paranoia about politicians, and I want to be kind.
Senator Banks: When they are really out to get you, it isn't paranoia.
Mr. Winn: Yes, even paranoids have enemies.
Senator Banks: The ethics that you were talking about were literally where, in sort of your aggregate view, having asked lots of different questions, people do not want to have a military because military harms people?
Mr. Winn: You do have those, but that is not the vast majority of the public.
Senator Banks: Which ethic is involved, I guess, is my question?
Mr. Winn: I think that there has been a consciousness for at least a generation and a half that government money has got to be spent honestly, efficiently and effectively. They are not readily persuaded that a large amount of money on defence is purposeful; for what purpose? The media have very limited resources, and they have to face the problem, fight the problem, that their audiences have a very short attention span. Audiences are not going to stay very easily with a news show that discusses defence policy, but a politician who was caught in flagrante doing financial and sexual improprieties all at once, that is a great story. That leads to a generation, two generations, of disparaging politicians and reducing confidence in public leaders and in a sense, government. That is a climate that makes it hard to persuade people to spend money on things where they do not see a clear role.
Senator Banks: If that is so, some of us may be on a wrong track then. One of the things it is fair to say — I will only speak for myself — is that I think our committee, this committee, has arrived at a collective opinion in which we are unanimous that we need to pay more attention and spend more money on the military. We need to do this for reasons of Canada's general national interest. We have said that many times in many ways. We are now concerned about governments of any stripe, of whatever form, being made, if that is the word, to do that, to move in that direction by public opinion. At least, we have been concerned about that. I guess what you have been saying to us is, never mind public opinion, lead, take a decision and explain, and then everything will be okay.
Mr. Winn: From two vantage points, I am not crazy about too much decision-making before explaining. From my professional stance, you have to judge each kind of decision. If a decision is useful for persuading, yes; if a decision is going to get people hostile, no. As a citizen, as a human being, I feel that democracy is really the highest level of civilization; that the most important role of a public figure is not to make decisions but to persuade people that such decisions need to be taken. I think what the Americans sometimes call the "bully pulpit" or the ability to persuade is the most important thing.
Senator Day: Dr. Winn, during your discussion with my colleagues, you have put forward two ideas that I would like you to elaborate on a little bit. For one of them, you were talking about a leader or politician having a theatrical bent or a capability in presumably his or her message. Then we have just been discussing what I would describe as a more logical type of leader, one who explains and uses logic to try and convince or establish his or her point. Which one of those leaders, in your experience through your polling and your observations over the years, is most likely to be successful in achieving and conveying the message here in Canada to Canadians?
Mr. Winn: You need both. There are lots of skills necessary for persuasion apart from logic because I think that the supply of logical people — I know this is going to seem strange — is very large. The supply of persuasive people is much smaller. Theatrical skills are very, very important; the extroverted personality, for example. If you look at President Bush's speech, and I've often said that President Bush can probably go down in the annals of debating as one of the worst debaters in political history, but that speech was extraordinary. The literary quality, the allusions to Canadian history, were very persuasive.
I will give you a simple example of using logic for theatrical persuasion. Those who advocate military spending sometimes fall into the trap of saying the Americans do it, we must therefore do it, too. That is not persuasive. What you can say is, which country have we seen a parallel with through much our history, Australia. We fought shoulder to shoulder with the Australians in this campaign, in that campaign, for freedom here, for human rights there, and like the Australians we have to prepare for certain challenges. That would be an example of using logic in a more persuasive or theatrical way.
Senator Day: Let us move from the issue of leadership to the question of just what is the psyche of the Canadian populace? I see Canadians rallying and an outpouring of sympathy when serious situations happen. If you look at the friendly-fire accident in Afghanistan, and a less serious occurrence also in Afghanistan when the soldiers needed material to help with their outreach in the communities to help rebuild the schools, many, many Canadians rallied to the cause there. Some of my colleagues in Ottawa have put large posters in post offices in their riding and people will come now and sign, sending messages to our armed forces personnel. Does that not suggest that there is a general support for our military that maybe is not being exploited by our leaders?
Mr. Winn: Yes, I think that is fair enough to say.
Senator Day: What do we do then to bring that out? What is the problem and why are our leaders not exploiting that potential? It is there.
Senator Meighen: Just do it.
Mr. Winn: I have some thoughts on that. I am not sure that all strategic thinking — that this kind of setting is the best setting for that, to be honest. It has to do with strategies of persuasion and so forth.
Senator Day: That is as far as you would like to go at this stage? We would like to know what —
Mr. Winn: If you would like to have coffee outside this setting, I am happy to speak with you.
Senator Day: Well, Mr. Chair, do you want to have coffee?
The Chairman: You are heading out for coffee, are you?
Senator Day: I just have one other point that I would like to explore your views on, and that is the lack of a military image in our country nowadays. I think back to the time when our Governors General would often have had a military background. Mr. George Vanier, for example, comes to mind immediately. We tend not to have military images in the public eye in Canada, and we have not had for quite a while. Our armed forces have been depleted so there are not very many people in uniform. Half the time the leaders in the military will tell their officers and men and women not to wear uniforms in particular situations. They do not want them to stand out. A lot of the military bases are away from urban centres, and the huge immigration population that has maybe a different history of the military. Does all that play into decisions that our politicians are making?
Mr. Winn: Sure. Those are factors absolutely, but Canadians do not know any part of their history. History has not been taught for decades and decades so why should they know any more about our military history than about our scientific history? The inventors in Canadian history are extraordinary. How many Canadians know who invented the Philips screw, and all the other things he invented?
The Chairman: Alexander Graham Bell.
Senator Day: No, Mr. Philips.
Mr. Winn: We are really deprived of that tremendously warm feeling to know what extraordinary things Canadians invented, whether it is in hardware or the oil and gas industry, which some argue was essentially a Canadian invention in many ways. We are deprived of knowing this so the fact that we do not know about our military history is no great surprise. We do not know about other aspects of our history either.
Senator Day: On that note, we just lost one of our great historians this last couple of days, Pierre Berton, who has told us a lot about our military history.
I would like to pass on to the next speaker at this stage.
Senator Meighen: Dr. Winn, have you noticed any change whatsoever in terms of perception or approval of the military, given the fact that the operational tempo of our armed forces has been frenetic, not to put too strong a word on it, in the last few years? The newspapers, to the extent they are read, have been full of stories, some very sad, but have certainly been there on the front page in terms of the activities of our military. The stories are there to an extent they were not, I venture to say, when we were sitting with a peacekeeping force in Cyprus for 20 odd years and they vanished from sight. The military has been there. Has there been any shift whatsoever in opinion that you have been able to detect?
Mr. Winn: Yes, I think there has been a little bit of shift. One of the things that I would like to focus on is what is the central motif of how Canadians look at the world? The central motif is ethics. I know it sounds Sunday-schoolish but it is true. Why is it that there is hardly a poll ever that does not show we want to spend more on health care?
Senator Meighen: Self-interest.
Mr. Winn: I do not think it is self-interest in the sense that most people think of it. First of all, anyone who is under 40 thinks he's going to live forever.
Senator Meighen: And never get sick.
Mr. Winn: Yes.
I do not think it is entirely self-interest. I think it is value of life. We do not murder each other, not because there is a policeman on every corner but because we think that is just an awful idea. We do not get into a lot of brawls, not because there is a security guard everywhere but because we think it is a pretty awful idea.
I think the huge support for health care is driven by that ethical concern, worship of life, and I think the misgivings about defence, or less than huge enthusiasm, is because people do not see the contributions of defence to life. They see it as killing people rather than protecting people.
Senator Meighen: I have one other question on a different line. Why is it that Canadians, at least I take this as so, and correct me if I am wrong, do not perceive that they are in any danger at all, if for no other reason than they are just across the lake from Rochester sitting right here? Precision bombs are sometimes not that precise. Even if we are not in the sights of the terrorists, a slight error could cause great damage in this country, but nobody cares. They think that there is no problem and that we will never be in the sights of terrorists. Why is that?
Mr. Winn: I am not sure they see it as no problem. If you ask people, as we have, to give us the probability on a 100-point scale of various kinds of acts against Canada, you get very high, measurable scores. By high I mean anything in the two digits. If you ask them point blank, they say yes, there is a very high probability.
Senator Meighen: Do you ask them what we should do about it?
Mr. Winn: Occasionally, but we do not have a lot of clients who are interested in knowing. I think there is an awareness, but there is also a sense of that is what they hire public figures for, to give them the options. Public servants are supposed to serve them by giving them the options and spelling them out. That is their feeling.
Senator Forrestall: Professor, why is it that American television has been preoccupied probably since 9/11 with violence, courtroom cases and murders? They are serial. They run from six o'clock in the morning until midnight. Is that a phenomenon?
Mr. Winn: Sure. It is called infotainment. It is the marriage of information and entertainment. That gets huge audiences. The O.J. Simpson trial was the perfect example because you just get huge, huge audiences because it is entertainment masquerading as information, and it is very inexpensive. Senator Banks is right, you have to consider cost all the time. The news we get is a balance between cost and audience appeal. It is just like pure entertainment shows. Why are there so many cops-and-robbers shows? Is it because they are so successful at getting audiences? No. The best comedy shows, such as Seinfeld, trounce cops-and-robbers shows, but the best comedy shows are so much more expensive and the probability of success is so much less. The same goes for news reporting. You report based on the cost of it. That is why you get so much, for example, on Israel and the Palestinians because it is so inexpensive to cover, and why you do not get the tumult in Southern Thailand, the problems in Malaysia or Indonesia or Nigeria or wherever.
Senator Forrestall: My point is, if there is a committee of senators sitting in Toronto today talking about another white paper in defence and then we go out and get blown up by some terrorist. Could the Canadian Press "spin" that into two, four, five months of four or five hours a day television, radio, and every newspaper story on the first three pages? Does it take that kind of a motivator for the press to create the interest because it would be the press, not the fact that somebody blew up a bunch of senators. You might get a round of applause.
The Chairman: If it does, I am not going there, senator.
Mr. Winn: I think there are all sorts of biases in what journalists do starting with the cost, but the fundamental bias is that they need an audience.
Senator Forrestall: They have a fixed and a variable cost and here, if it affects costs, it is nothing. You do not spend that money anyway. It is their time and it is salaries.
Mr. Winn: Right.
Senator Banks: I just want to make a point in response to your response to Senator's Meighen's question when you referred to ethics. Canadians' ethics, as far as having misgivings about doing certain things because they are unethical, are a constantly moving target. On 10/11 we could have brought in laws to bring back the rack and very nearly did. In fact, if it had not been for the Senate, there would have been laws put in place which allow things to be done under them without review, things which are anathema to Canadians. On that day in that circumstance, there was a little blip, and the same thing happened when those soldiers who were based in Edmonton were sadly killed by friendly fire. On the day after that, there were a whole lot of things that we could have done so that ethical point is a constantly moving one depending on the circumstances.
Mr. Winn: Yes.
The Chairman: Dr. Winn, it is very good of you to come here for the committee. We appreciate your assistance. We have been trying to unravel a puzzle. I think you have helped us focus on some elements of it and we are very grateful for your assistance. We hope to have a chance to talk with you again in the future. Thank you very much for coming today.
Honourable senators, our next witness is Dr. David Dewitt. He is head of the Centre for International and Security Studies at York University. The Centre is affiliated with the security and defence forum. Dr. Dewitt has written extensively on issues including Canadian foreign policy, international security, arms control, conflict management, and peacekeeping.
Welcome to the committee. We are glad to see you here. We understand you have a brief statement to make and we look forward to the opportunity of questioning you after that.
Mr. David Dewitt, Director, Centre for International and Security Studies, York University: Thank you so much for the invitation. I appreciate the opportunity of being here. I was caught off guard a little bit when late last night I found out that my colleague from the centre, Mr. Martin Shadwick, would not be actually preceding me. We were supposed to be coming here together and he was going to give you an introduction on his views, primarily on focusing on classic traditional defence issues, and then I was going to build on that. However, he will be seeing you after me so with some apologies, I had to restructure this a little bit, but nevertheless I am glad that I will have extended time to engage with you in some discussion.
What would you think if, in fact, I were to tell you that it is estimated that there are more than 50,000 aliens in this country but only 18 are accounted for, and those 18 that are accounted for are costing the Canadian economy somewhere between, depending on how you add it up, about $13 billion and $42 billion annually? I think that statistic would suggest to you a very serious security problem. It threatens our core values because of its enormity and because it reveals how little we know about these aliens. It threatens our institutions because of the enormous cost and drain on our economy, and for the same reason, it threatens our capabilities.
Let me suggest it is a fundamental security problem. However, let me also relieve you of one concern in that I am talking about invasive, non-indigenous species, which there are somewhere in the order of 50,000 varieties in North America. Of those 50,000 in Canada we have been able to track approximately 18, and that 18 are costing our economy somewhere between $13 billion and over $40 billion a year.
Our scientists know a fair amount about the science of it. Our policy-makers and our academic experts in the social sciences, law, environmental studies, ethics and humanities only barely touch the surface of our knowledge. If that is not a security problem to the Canadian state, to the Canadian people, to the Canadian interests and to our future, it is hard to identify what, in fact, we would classify as a security problem.
I point this out not only because of its profound seriousness and because of the lack of knowledge and intelligence we have on it and our inability to track it, which we can run parallels in all other kinds of security issues, but to point out that your call for this discussion and moving towards a white paper is long overdue and most welcome. It must address the reality, as is implied, I think, by the title of the committee in terms of national security and defence. Not all security issues are necessarily defence issues, and not all security issues are necessarily best handled by the Department of National Defence. It is important to realize that both for the agenda of national security and also for the vitality, vibrancy and credibility of DND. It must be clear to them what their missions, goals, commitments and responsibilities are. They have to be aware of areas of security but, in fact, they do not necessarily take the lead, and they should not be asked to allocate their scarce resources to address these areas.
I think that is an important thing to reflect on. It is a knowledge, an awareness, we should have had many years ago. It has perhaps become more directly relevant since September 11, 2001, when it became increasingly clear to the Canadian government and the Canadian people the diffuseness and the changing nature of what a threat is and what a security challenge is.
In the few minutes, I was asked to take only five or six minutes to make some introductory remarks. There is lots to say. Obviously I will not cover much of it, and hopefully will get to that in discussion. I would like to just pick up a couple of points, I think. I want to suggest that we are a very privileged society in Canada. I think there is a long-standing commitment that continues, even though there is some stress and strain, that as a very privileged society with a particular ethic, we have understood that we have an obligation, a responsibility to play a responsible role in the international security environment, broadly defined. Where that involves issues of harm to people and harm brought on by violence, we have prided ourselves in having an expeditionary capability that, when selectively and carefully applied, can bring an appropriate level of intervention, address and redress in issues of security, violence and war.
I think that kind of expectation continues. I was not here to hear Dr. Winn's full representation in terms of Canadian public opinion, but my guess is that there is a long and deep reservoir of admiration and support among the elites and among the Canadian public in general and an expectation that our Canadian military has this role and should be given that capability.
That said, I think there is an enormous frustration, a growing frustration, among the Canadian public, and I think perhaps in the privacy of their own homes among the Canadian military, with the lack of capability and the lack of leadership. However, I would go one step further and put it out to you simply as a hypothesis, that in many cases the Canadian military has been their own worst enemy in making the case for their role in international security.
For a very, very long time, the Canadian military, yes, has faced substantial constraints imposed by finance and treasury. We know the commitment capability gap. I do not have to refer to that in any detail. However, when challenged, the Canadian military has tended to fall back on tried and true statements; a combat-capable, multi-purpose force that has to do everything for everybody at all times and be fully inter-operable.
I think it is long overdue that we recognize that we have to ask the question: Where are we going to provide the value added? Where can we make a difference not just in the broad-brush issues of international security — which are much broader than merely the military, as my opening comment tried to suggest — but if we are here to talk about the role of the military, where can the Canadian military make a difference and how?
My colleagues in the military often cringe when they hear the term, niche role, because of the constraints and limits that places. However, I would like to suggest that this is something we have to address. The military's inability or unwillingness to do that, often for some very good understandable political and other reasons they shy away from that, is something that needs to be overcome.
Indeed, I think it would strengthen both the Canadian military as a combat-capable force and strengthen the political support the Canadian military would have within Canada should we as the Canadian public, the Canadian political leadership and in particular the Canadian military take this on directly. We cannot do everything. What do we do? That which we do we should do extraordinarily well. Do we make a commitment as a combat-capable expeditionary force to do one or two things, and to be in the front line of doing those and not pretend that we should be able to say "ready, aye, ready" always on all things?
That may impose some tremendous challenges in terms of doctrine, education and procurement, but I think that is something we must address.
I think I have taken my five or six minutes, and I have addressed only one point of the many that I would like to, but I should stop here because perhaps I will be able to get those out in the context of whatever questions you might like to raise.
The Chairman: Dr. Dewitt, perhaps you could give us a quick menu of the other points without going into them. That would assist the committee in its questioning.
Mr. Dewitt: Let me point out then a few things that I think we need to take into consideration. I can provide you with a copy of this report that my colleagues and my centre and I did about a year ago on Canadian defence. Certainly we all felt that it was in Canada's interest to recognize that we are not facing any serious traditional military threat and that when we talk about threats to Canadian well-being, we have to look in two terms.
We have to look, one, in terms of our own changing state, the concerns that are driven from within in terms of national priorities and national concerns. Those concerns run from terrorism, transnational crime, addressing the changing nature of the demographic structure of the state, economic espionage, and a whole range of issues dealing with the national well-being and the future of the Canadian people and the Canadian state.
Clearly, our relations with the United States are essential. They are essential not only because of our trade and economic relations, but we have many fundamental issues of ethics and preference in terms of a way of life in common. We have to find a way to pursue these in harmony. At the same time, we have to ensure we explore those areas where we differ.
In terms of national defence and national security issues, we have no choice but to address the demands and expectations that come from our sharing a continent. To pretend they do not exist is foolish. At the same time, that does not mean that we do not have some flexibility and options. I think we all know that those are priority issues that we have to address.
We have issues of hemispheric security and hemispheric international policy and regionalism that deserve our attention.
The questions of UN reform feed into our security definitions, our security concerns and the role of our military, what role our military can play in contributing in a significant way to moving the UN reform further.
In fact, I was just involved with Mr. Paul Heinbecker this morning on a CBC Radio issue of The Current addressing aspects of this.
The Chairman: What I was really looking for was UN reform and how the military can help it.
Mr. Dewitt: Yes.
The Chairman: Item 2, if you can give us a quick overview, then you will find the questions will lead to these things.
Mr. Dewitt: Sure. I would focus on multilateralism and that is UN, that is NATO, and that is the question of the coalition of the willing. I have already suggested that a major one is the question of Canadian defence and its niche or specialized capabilities. I think for now that is a good start. Let me stop there.
Senator Day: Dr. Dewitt, thank you very much for being here and sharing with us some of your ideas. We look forward to the continued discussion. We are trying at one time to focus on a defence policy, but from your comments I am wondering, do you agree with me that we really have to start with a clear-stated foreign policy and then from that a security policy, and then from that a defence policy?
Mr. Dewitt: Absolutely. We have all been waiting for the international policy review that is supposed to be forthcoming. I think that is essential. It has been long understood by some, although it is a contested understanding, that security policy, both national and international security policy, is almost a prism that mediates between foreign policy and defence policy. I think that is a position that many of us would take. Until we identify security issues, both domestic and international, and our priorities in that context, and within those security issues which ones are seen to be threatening to us nationally versus as a member of the international community, until those are addressed, I do not think that we can be sufficiently well informed to deal with the development of Canadian defence policy, both national and international.
Senator Day: During the last federal election there was a statement made by the Prime Minister that he envisages an expanded role, an additional role for the reservists in Canada in relation to a type of homeland security that would deal with first-responder-type issues, especially with respect to issues that are nuclear, biological, chemical, et cetera. Can that be dealt with in the abstract, or are we just dealing with silos here where we are not looking at the broader security issue and whether a military-type organization is the best to deal with those kinds of security issues?
Mr. Dewitt: You have raised two important points. Let me deal with the second one first, which is your comment about silos. From an outside critic I was heartened to hear from many of my colleagues who had long service in the Canadian government that one of their greatest concerns are the silos, the extent to which there is so much overlap of concern and interest. Many of the different departments do not coordinate well either in terms of knowing what each is doing, or in terms of policy as well as in terms of operations. Therefore it is important to break down silos.
As I understand it, the new department that Ms. Anne McLellan serves as minister is one significant effort that the Canadian government has undertaken to break down those silos. In terms of the specific issues, the kinds of particular items that you mentioned, you are asking me to stretch beyond my own area of competence. Some of these areas are highly technical and require the technical capability which I understand from some of the reports I have read that Canada has not had in the past and that we have to gear up for.
Certainly the new national security document that was released this past year indicates that it has to be a commitment of this government. To the extent to which that happens, there is obviously going to have to be co-ordination, and the role of the Department of National Defence in that, I think, is essential. Whether or not they are going to take the lead responsibility is something to be sorted out.
Senator Day: You probably are familiar with our report where we were concerned about these various silos within the government. The creation of Ms. McLellan's department was at least in part as a result of our urging and we were very pleased about that.
My concern is that statements being made in relation to the reservists that I just referred to might be moving back into this silo type of situation because it is part of a defence policy, defence thinking, whereas the role is quite a bit broader or potentially a bit broader in relation to security issues generally. That is my concern. That is what I was addressing my comment to.
Mr. Dewitt: I appreciate the concern. I think it is well placed. I guess I would put it back to the representatives of the government in terms of their views and the allocation of responsibilities and where the capabilities are going to come. I would be concerned in terms of it slipping back into DND, as you raised. I would also be concerned about, does that stretch once again the capabilities of the Department of National Defence when they are already constrained in some of their more traditional areas, linked to their expeditionary roles. Does DND, in fact, have the appropriate capabilities to deal with a number of the areas that you have raised?
Senator Day: I would like you to talk a little bit more about your concept with respect to the niche role, because we have had some conflicting points of view on that.
First, let me just finish on this other area where you talk about a lack of leadership within the military. Have you been able to analyze why that might be occurring, and have you had a look at what I would call the NDHQ being politicized? Have you had a chance to think about that in terms of most of the senior military leaders in uniform tend to become much more civil-service oriented in their thinking and in their ability to make decisions and to show leadership? Have you done any thinking in that area?
Mr. Dewitt: I do not think I used the term "lack of leadership." I did question their range of being able to open up the discussion. I think the reality is that the Department of National Defence is like most other major federal departments. When you rise to the senior positions, your responsibilities become protecting the capabilities of that department to deliver the mission that they have been entrusted to deliver. That takes substantial political skills. It takes the capacity to deal with committees and budgets, and address the challenges that are posed by competing interests around the cabinet table, particularly from finance and treasury. This has been an observation that many have made for a very long time, and it has been made from within the department itself.
I think the extent to which the department has actually been able to perform under enormously difficult circumstances suggests that, in fact, there has been leadership to deliver in areas which it is responsible for.
I would, therefore, suggest not lack of leadership but there is a time that you have to break out and, in fact, stand up to those that put those other constraints and pressures on and say, we can do only so much. The question is, if we want to do it to the very best, not just of our abilities but to the very best of which the task requires, then we have to make some choices. You on the political side are constraining us, are preventing us from making those choices and, therefore, we have to keep muddling through. We have to keep "satisficing." We have to find a way to make it work.
If there has been a lack of leadership, it is perhaps in being able to, time and time again, challenge the political constraints that the government has placed. My guess is, and it is just a guess, that if you brought the best of the military around the table and said, "Here are the constraints. Here is an opportunity to tell us how you are going to break out of those constraints. You have to make some choices. Tell us what choices you are going to make because you cannot do everything. We no longer expect you to do everything." Then I think you would force them to start rethinking.
That is where I think they have been circling the wagons to protect what they have during a period of not just constraint but clawing back. I think there is also a mindset that is quite understandable, which is if you have been sitting in the military for the last forty years, your base of operations has been three pillars; continental defence, which requires active and intensive co-operation with the United States and therefore interoperability and integration; NATO, in which your assets are multiplied, the extent to which you can continue your active interoperability with the United States; and then the UN.
If you look from the outside, the reputation of Canada and the Canadian military from peacekeepers through to those who have been asked to actively intervene in areas of high conflict, the reputation has been built from the outside looking in on Canada's responsible role in multilateral security through the UN. However, our doctrine, our procurement, and our force deployment, everything is built around the other two pillars.
Now, NATO itself is going through profound changes and we have to clearly examine that. The U.S. position is now going through substantial change. I can well understand why our colleagues in the Department of National Defence are triggering on our relationship with the United States because that is where the technology is, that is where the interoperability is, and therefore it colours the whole range of operations. However, from outside of Canada, our reputation and well-being is based, in fact, on our multilateral, primarily UN, performance, and that performance has been extraordinary.
We have been out of sync. If, in fact, our military leadership looks very carefully at the history of our operations, and where our reputation and name is drawn from and says if that is where we are going to make our commitment, if that is where we are going to make a difference in international peace and security, what does that mean for rethinking our doctrine, our procurement policy, and our force allocations. If we shift away from focusing on NATO and Western Europe and we look at other forms of operation and other areas of inter-operability, does that change what our choices are? Does it change what, in fact, our doctrine on procurement should be?
I am suggesting that is the kind of careful examination, the extent to which the government is going to start building on responsibility to protect, on the ethos around human security. The military does not use that language yet, but, in fact, they do a lot of it already. Are they well positioned to be at the cutting edge of that? Those are the kinds of questions that I think we have to address.
If the Canadian government is going to pull back from the responsibility to protect, and focus primarily on continental issues, that leads to a different outcome. If they are going to continue to push the UN role, in the changing UN and multilateral environment, how do we have to develop our doctrine, and how do we have to invest in the long-term, very substantial procurement choices. I think we have an obligation to do this, and I think our military leadership has been reluctant to because the tradition and the rewards have been skewed in favour of looking at NATO and the Canada-U.S. relationship as the determining factors for how we think our military has to be educated.
Senator Day: Your comments raise many questions. I would just like to ask one specific question, and then I will pass this on to the Chairman.
We have heard speakers, such as yourself, suggest that NDHQ, the military part of national defence headquarters, should be moved out of Ottawa and let the soldiers in uniform be soldiers and do the military aspect, and then the other aspect of national defence —
Mr. Dewitt: Right.
Senator Day: — the civilian side would be looked after in Ottawa. Have you any comment? Others have said that no, we have to politicize our senior military leaders in uniform more than they already are now.
For whatever the role of the military is going to be for the future, which one of those models do you think would best serve the role that will be determined?
Mr. Dewitt: I am sorry, senator. I do not think that I can give you a well-informed opinion based on significant scholarly research. I can give you an opinion as a Canadian citizen. In that context, with all the difficulties that I know my military colleagues face and frustrations with being in Ottawa, I think that it is terribly important that the civilian leadership within the Department of National Defence and at National Defence Headquarters has access to extraordinarily well-informed and experienced military officers.
Similarly, I think the world is highly politicized, that many of the decisions that are made are decisions that are linked to political preferences and options. I think it is very important that our military leadership be sensitive and aware and always testing themselves against that, against civilian leadership.
I think it is very important, given that our democratic form of government requires the military to be always subservient to civilian leadership, that it be institutionalized and transparent. With all the difficulties I understand and all the frustrations I can appreciate, I think there is a reason to have that parallel structure. That does not say that it cannot be reformed and improved. I am sure it can and should be looked at. However, from a citizen's point of view, I feel comforted actually with that kind of sharing of responsibilities and that exchange of knowledge on a daily basis.
The Chairman: Dr. Dewitt, just on the testimony that you have given with Senator Day, perhaps I did not hear you clearly, but I had the impression that you were saying or you made it sound, at least to me, that the military was driving some of these engagements. Had you said it in the context of politicians are moving the military agenda forward, politicians are causing the military to be deployed, politicians are creating the tempo, then a lot of what you said, I would follow the logic. You described it as though the military was deciding the tempo.
Mr. Dewitt: No. Thank you for wanting clarification. I guess I made that classical academic mistake of assuming a certain degree of a leap of logic in the sense that I certainly come from a position where the military are responding to political orders or requests or demands from the political leadership, the elected leadership of government.
The Chairman: The second point, in the last part of your answer you implied that there was a good and continuous dialogue between the senior levels of the military and the political leadership. Do you really believe that exists?
Mr. Dewitt: Not to the extent that I would like it. That is why I suggested that reform is terribly important. I suggested that it should be there. As a citizen I would want it to be there. I have been involved in some of it, and I have heard the frustrations from both sides on some of it.
Senator Forrestall: Will this white paper need a preamble, and if does, you have almost given us what I think would be embedded in a preamble. If it needs a preamble, in two minutes, what would it be?
Mr. Dewitt: The preamble would acknowledge that there are fundamental changes that have been occurring both in Canadian society, in the Canadian state and in the international community. It would have to identify what is meant by security, and that Canada has a tradition of acknowledging both the government's responsibility to the Canadian citizen and the Canadian state, but also the responsibility and obligation to address the insecurities of peoples world-wide. We have recognized from our privileged position that those sensitivities may well be changing because of the change in demography and the change in sensitivities of the Canadian citizenry. Security challenges are challenges that require multiple instruments of competence to address, of which the Department of National Defence and our military are but one. Terribly important but they cannot be expected to address all areas of insecurity, both the state and internationally. That would be the first cluster of comments.
Senator Forrestall: Let me just deal with this because you are going in an interesting direction and one that we have to consider, accept, reject, modify or do something else.
Would the role of agencies in national security and defence include, for example, recognition that pandemic illness, as we are being warned in recent weeks, is facing us? Would that be, in your judgment, in the category of a threat to Canada?
Mr. Dewitt: Absolutely. It would not be an issue which I would expect the Department of National Defence and the armed forces to be required to address, though they might be asked to provide support in certain areas that I could imagine bringing some of their assets, but it would not be their area of responsibilities.
Senator Forrestall: Would you consider our northern coastline, a question of sovereignty, an area of potential threat?
Mr. Dewitt: Yes, I am less concerned about the narrow area of sovereignty, and more concerned about the shared responsibility of the Arctic rim and the ecology and environment, both short-term and long-term issues. I could get into the science of it if you would like.
Senator Forrestall: Coastal border defence otherwise?
Mr. Dewitt: Yes. Again that would be a very interesting area to explore because it could usefully use some of the Department of National Defence's assets, but the threat would not be a military threat. It would be linked to all kinds of illicit movement of drugs, weapons, and illegals, and of environmental, ecological questions and the management of resources and security issues.
Senator Forrestall: It is interesting. We have never talked very much about exporting war. In our case that would be defending the homeland to other tiers of operation. Recently we are talking about that publicly. People in your profession and military people are beginning to talk about it and so are many others.
We cannot rely on that anymore.
Mr. Dewitt: I am sorry, I do not understand. We cannot rely on what?
Senator Forrestall: We cannot rely on fighting, defending Canada — I am hesitating — in outer space anymore. We are going to have to defend it here at home from terrorism because that is a threat, a different kind of a threat, a new threat. I am just wondering if recognition that agitation is going to come to Canada in one form or another, and we might as well be prepared mentally for it and the white paper should reflect it?
Mr. Dewitt: There is no doubt that there has been in the past and there will be in the future domestic challenges to domestic security issues. There always has been. They change in kind. Certainly the proliferation of a horizontal type of threat from a global terrorism that challenges the vertical organization of the state, is profound. It requires now increasing capabilities in intelligence and surveillance and the ability to interdict. There are a whole range of potential security challenges that are domestically located. Many of those, I would argue, would not be the responsibility of the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces, although some of those assets could be brought to bear. However, I would not want to see the Canadian Armed Forces burdened with those kinds of expectations. At the same time, many of those threats can be addressed not just domestically, but as they arise from abroad. Where they arise, they may arise in a context in which we would want to have the military assets to participate multilaterally in an engagement. Indeed, in the report that has just been released to the UN where they are starting to be transparent about the necessity to discuss a multilateral approach to understanding what prevention and pre-emption might require, that is a role that Canada, as a responsible actor in the international community and a leader in multilateral diplomacy, might wish to have the assets to make a difference in.
Senator Forrestall: Our preamble then generally will be perhaps more necessary with this white paper than it has been recently.
Mr. Dewitt: I agree because I think it is a much more complex environment, both internationally and domestically. More than ever before, and this is the buzz word that everyone knows, in this world of globalization and the porousness of borders and interdependencies, it is both difficult but necessary to understand both the separateness and the connections of security outside and inside, and where the roles and responsibilities ally.
Although I and many of my colleagues in my centre are often seen to be among the leading critics of Canada's international security policy, I want to go on record saying that I think that not only with me personally, but within Canada, there is an enormous reservoir of admiration and support for the Canadian Armed Forces. I think the challenge is that there is frustration over how they are used and what is expected of them given the resources that are available and the changing nature of both international and domestic security. I think that has to be sorted out before anyone on the defence side can be expected to give a proper assessment, self-critical review and forward-looking posture, and that is a very tough thing to do.
Senator Meighen: Dr. Dewitt, thank you for being here. I think you have raised some tremendously fundamental questions and questions, even going so far as to put in my mind anyway, a seed of doubt about whether we are going in the right direction on this committee.
I think you have underlined, as I hear you, the interconnection of so many elements that we face as Canadians. We were in Windsor yesterday considering matters obviously of national security and international trade in connection with bottlenecks at the Ambassador Bridge and whatnot. It was frustrating when one realized that notwithstanding Minister McLellan's appointment, which we advocated and were pleased to see, but to put it crudely, and I do not say this critically, she does not have the ability to blow up silos. If it is a Department of Transport matter, by gosh, it has to be the Department of Transport that does it. If somebody wants to do harm to the Ambassador Bridge and they are coming from the Canadian side, they can get right to the middle of the bridge and nobody has checked them.
However, I cannot conceive in my mind, I confess, of the appropriateness of giving even somebody as important as the Deputy Prime Minister the right to blow up silos, and to be a sort of a super king or queen and say, "Right, Department of Transport, you are not doing this. I am going to order this, I am going to order that and I am going to make this work in this fashion." Have you any thoughts as to how we can get around the silos, how we can meld the silos, and how we can blow them up if necessary?
Mr. Dewitt: That is an enormously challenging and very important question of which I have little expertise. Let me try a few things. As Dr. Winn referred to in his earlier testimony, we do not teach much history anymore unfortunately, but recent history suggests at some levels interdepartmental co-operation has actually worked.
Many years ago there was the Interdepartmental Committee on External Relations, ICER, chaired by the-then — I believe it was Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs who at that time was Allan Gotlieb. As Canada's international undertakings started to take up the interest of more and more departments, environment, agriculture, immigration and trade and so forth, there was a recognized need for this interdepartmental committee. Now, I think there is some criticism of how it worked or failed to work. However, the effort to bring on a regular basis senior bureaucrats together to check, to inform one another, to engage one another, and to share information — the fact that the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Department of National Defence have exchanges where they have members of their respective departments sit on relevant committees — that is not inconsequential. Obviously, that has to be looked at and considered whether that is a model that has to be expanded and the development deepened with some capability.
I am somewhat constrained in what I can say because I have a conflict of interest with Ms. Anne McLellan's department. I cannot go into this. It would be inappropriate but my sense is that budgetary and finance issues obviously constrain as well. Departments are not willingly going to relinquish areas of responsibility because of what it does to their complement both in terms of personnel and their budgets. Others are not going to willingly take on new areas of responsibilities if it does not come with those capabilities.
Can you realistically break that down? Probably you cannot. I think it would be very hard. Can you get interdepartmental committees and teams? I think that is something to look at carefully, interdepartmental operational teams. I chair a program at a university in Washington, D.C.; so I am in touch with people on a regular basis. My colleagues in the United States are not very happy with their new super department. The way I understand it from their external assessments of it, it has created extraordinary difficulties and solved few. The giant bureaucracy is just that. The political and bureaucratic battles —
Senator Meighen: You are talking about the Department of Homeland Security?
Mr. Dewitt: That is right. Exactly. Many of us questioned from the outset whether that is an appropriate model. I think there is increasing evidence to suggest that it should be questioned. However, I do not have an answer for you other than I think there has to be the goodwill and serious commitment to bring people from the various departments together to work on these things. There has to be, however, a recognition that these things are not manageable unilaterally. It is curious. We in Canada have had the rhetoric for years about trying to preach to our friends, not just our American friends but our friends world-wide, that most major problems cannot be and should not be handled unilaterally. We have to find ways to do it collaboratively, cooperatively and in a sustained way. We should give the same message domestically. That is increasingly the situation we face. There are some interesting parallels to draw, but unfortunately, I wish I could offer you an answer but I cannot.
Senator Meighen: I suspect there is no absolute answer even if you could tell us all about your conflict of interest. I think what you have suggested is very helpful and I suspect also it goes along the lines that this committee has been thinking.
Mr. Dewitt: With respect, one thing again, this may already be happening and I am not aware of it. If the government in its wisdom struck a number of high-level committees or commissions that brought people who were knowledgeable about the workings of government from inside, and also well-respected people from outside who without fear could be critical and bring their knowledge and skills to bear and could have access to the kind of unfettered information that is required, then I think you might develop a better understanding and some interesting but probably highly contestable suggestions about how to address this.
The fear I have is that like almost every royal commission I have ever taken the time to look at, when they are really exciting and really challenging, they gather dust because they are bureaucratically or politically sensitive and that recreates a dislike for movement.
The Chairman: A concern has been raised, Dr. Dewitt, and perhaps you could assist us. You mentioned that you have a conflict of interest with the department that is run by Ms. Anne McLellan.
Mr. Dewitt: Right.
The Chairman: Is it possible for you to clarify that for the committee, and indicate how that might impact?
Mr. Dewitt: Certainly. With the change of responsibilities in a number of departments that department took over an area in which my wife is a principal employee.
The Chairman: Thank you very much.
Senator Meighen: Just to clarify, and I think I am over generalizing what you said, but you referred to a lack of leadership or ability on the part of the military leadership to challenge constraints placed upon them by the political leadership. What has caused that? I tend to share your view. We have had a frustration in this committee, to put it in the vernacular, getting the military leadership to tell us what it is like and how it is. They are very reluctant to do it. We all know of a long-standing tradition in this country and other countries that the military leadership is not there to direct the political leadership but rather the reverse. Has an exaggerated sense of that caused it? What can be done to encourage the military leadership, once the context has been established by the politicians, to vigorously discuss alternatives as to how to carry it out?
Mr. Dewitt: Let me give you first a general response and then a specific one. The general response is that literature, not literature focusing on Canada but literature focusing on such complex organizations, especially within democratic governments, suggests that people who rise to the top in these kind of organizations rise to the top because they are seen to be both capable and reasonably safe. They are safe in the sense of supporting tradition, supporting expectation, and being sympathetic to those who make those decisions to allow them to rise to the top.
Senator Meighen: Excuse me, are you referring to the military specifically, or would you extend that to political leadership or other areas?
Mr. Dewitt: It refers to complex organizations, especially bureaucratic organizations, where you have to move through a combination of performance, recognition and evaluation in moving up. It is a combination of achievement and ascription, and that is not taking away the merit, but the merit often comes because the person is less likely to rock the boat. There have been all kinds of studies on that and all kinds of commentary on that.
I think on the Canadian side specifically that has to be a principal factor. I think your reference to tradition is a very strong one. However, I also think that it is done in all honesty and with great integrity by the military leadership who understand that part of their role is not only to support the requests of the government to the best of their ability but to look out for the well-being of the military as a professional organization. That means its budget, which deals with everything from pensions to procurement, and its relations with its principal allies that have been determined by political leadership. Those principal allies are first, the United States and second, the more significant actors in NATO.
If that is the constraint and the set of expectations, then you are going to move in a particular direction. You are not going to raise other kinds of questions, especially if, in fact, asking about specialized skills and knowledge, capabilities in a niche or limited range of roles might, in fact, take you away from some of our traditional areas of operation.
I honestly believe that I can disagree with the people I have met, and I have enormous respect for their integrity and efforts, but I think they are constrained by tradition, profession, and a sense of obligation and responsibilities. I think they are partially wrong, however.
Senator Meighen: If I may end on this note, but I do not think time will allow us to get to the bottom of it; the niche role versus the non-niche role and what is niche? Maybe there is no bottom of this barrel. We have now decided to abandon the heavy armour and main battle tank concept. That has "niche-ified" us to some extent. A long time ago we decided we would not have aircraft carriers anymore. How far do you want to niche us?
I will give you my theory. I think we should have a highly sophisticated, in every sense of the word including education and whatnot, highly mobile, highly trained, and highly intelligent armed forces that we can adapt whether your philosophy carries the day or the present philosophy carries the day. The Americans are not looking for us to provide lots of people. They are looking for us for political gain for themselves. They are looking for us to pull our weight in a sort of general moral sense, in the sense of our collective homeland, North America. I think that if we had that — what I would call somewhat niche-ified armed forces — we could do that as well as doing the things that you said, and I think correctly — I was intrigued by it — brought us accolades from external sources, such as work in the UN and whatnot. However, if we do not have that sort of force, it does not have to be huge in numbers, how the heck could we get to Rwanda quickly and prevent what went on?
Mr. Dewitt: I think there are multiple ways to find a niche. Let me give you two examples, and the second will be my preference at this moment for the Canadian niche. One example to which we are often compared is Australia. Australia has a niche, fully combat-capable. It has a niche because of its geopolitical location, where it has defined its strategic and security interests to lie and how it is going to operate. That is a niche which I do not share for Canada. It is a niche, in fact, that Canada has been playing for a very long time in terms of its force structure, but the difference has been we have been willing to be a global actor and argue that we have global interests. Using the old phrase some people have alluded to that former Canadian diplomat, Mr. John Holmes, used, "Canada is a regional power without a region." Well, Australia is a regional power in a region and it has regional responsibilities. We made a decision long ago —
Senator Meighen: And threats.
Mr. Dewitt: — from 1947 with the Gray Lectures on, from Louis St. Laurent's statement on, that we had global responsibilities, and we were going to be a global actor. Having a niche like Australia does not work for us because we are prepared to deal globally. However, if we were going to have the same force structure, which we have tried to have, or a similar one, over all these years, we find that we are increasingly beyond our capacity to sustain it. We make the decision, politicians make the decision, that the government is not going to provide the budget to have 120,000 or 150,000 armed forces, and the fighter aircraft, the tactical support, the strategic air lift and the blue water capabilities that would go along with it. You cannot have it both ways, although we have been trying to, and our military have done a marvellous job of trying to act that way.
I would run a different niche to the definition for Canada. It sounds very similar to what you said. I would say a niche capability for Canada is to define what the principal security challenges are in the international community, and to Canada domestically. Within those what are the threats? Once we identify those, what threats are addressed by agencies other than the Canadian military? Once we are able to clear our minds of that, then the issue is, for me as a Canadian citizen, I want my Canadian military to have the best of everything in terms of training, equipment, doctrine, and capability to go out and do the best job possible in the safest circumstances for their own well-being. That does not mean, as you have already said, we have gotten rid of all kinds of equipment. Should we invest a whole lot more in the kinds of air assets, let us say helicopters that can lift, whether it is JTF2 or is it —
Senator Meighen: Strikers?
Mr. Dewitt: — the Dart, in and out of hostile environments to secure an area, to hold it, and to bring and allow others to come? Do we want to be in the forefront of the kind of thing we did and continue to do in Afghanistan? For that we need particular kinds of assets; we do not need other kinds. There are different kinds of missions we could all identify.
I would put my preference into looking carefully in terms of Canada continuing its long tradition of being an expeditionary force in a multilateral environment, dealing with increasingly complex and difficult security challenges where there is everything from ongoing serious violence to post-conflict reconstruction. It would also involve the security reform that has to go with that, security sector rebuilding and construction that has to go with that, and ask what kinds of capabilities we need there. For me, rapid, light, highly combat-capable individual soldiers, properly organized, with the best of equipment, with the ability to be interoperable with allies means that no, we do not necessarily need submarines. We have to ask that question. What are the threats there? What are security issues or aircraft carriers or the heavy artillery? There could be an argument, I imagine, where we could say, we do not need to place the F-18s with the next generation of fighter aircraft because we are going to make our assets the assets that get our people there and on the ground and protected.
Someone could come back and say what we do need. We actually do need some fighter aircraft because we need to have that tactical support. We need that kind of training and inter-operability. I think that is a discussion that needs to take place but not the old discussion in a context of a different war that was expected but never came.
I guess the controversial thing to say on this would be my colleagues who are F-18 pilots say, look at what we did in Iraq or over the former Yugoslavia. Absolutely. My response to them would be, if our 18 or 12 fighter aircraft had not been in either Iraq or over Yugoslavia, would we have been missed? Would that air campaign have taken place? Probably. We would not have been missed the same way. If we had different assets, could we have provided just as important a contribution but in a more sustained way or in a way that is more sustainable from our perspective because it is more fungible into other areas of international peace and security?
That is a controversial hypothesis to put forward, and I am not prepared to take a definitive position on it, but I would love to see it properly examined by people from within the military, experts from outside, and really have a serious, well-informed engagement and look at the consequences of making those decisions. Look at the consequences not just in the short-term but in the long-term because, as we know, procurement is a 15-or 20-year issue because it is not just procuring the equipment, it is then making sure you have the personnel who can fly and service those planes. If you do not have them, who are you going to have? You are going to have other people doing other things. That is the kind of serious study we need to encourage.
Senator Meighen: Well, thank you very much, Dr. Dewitt, I appreciate that. The only caveat I put on it, and it is not a serious one, is you have got to make a lot of judgments under that scenario, and human beings have a nasty habit of being wrong in their judgments, so there has got to be an element of flexibility or adaptability.
Mr. Dewitt: Absolutely. That is why we are doing it in a multilateral context. When we do these studies, we do it with our American and NATO friends, and with others in the growing international community that have military assets that are involved in these overseas kinds of things. Then, if we make a decision, that decision is not made in isolation of knowing what other countries are planning to do and how we fit. It is a very complex area. I am just saying let us open the box and ask those tough questions and explore them knowledgeably rather than ideologically. Thank you.
The Chairman: A military bureaucracy's function is very good. Have you got a paper? Have we missed the paper where you have been describing a niche approach that you can share with the committee?
Mr. Dewitt: I wrote something that began that discussion that was published in 2000.
The Chairman: Have you expanded on it since then?
Mr. Dewitt: Not in detail, though I have been slowly working on it so I may have something for you in a little while.
The Chairman: The observations one has to make are that the military's posture arguably is a holding strategy until funds come. They think they can walk and chew gum.
Mr. Dewitt: Yes.
The Chairman: They are just hoping that some day there is going to be the political will to allow them to do that. The proposal, it took until the very end of your presentation to bring the time factor in that we have to address lag times in many cases of 13, 15 years. All this discussion assumes that we are not dealing with a dynamic situation with our allies. The debate takes place now and it is a static situation. You have a photograph now, you go through the tradeoffs, and 15 years later when the equipment arrives, suddenly the other members of the coalition are someplace else doing something else. Really the net result of where you are going is you are ending up with a government with significantly fewer options, and really that is the exercise we are in when we are talking about niches. We are saying we are going to give the government fewer options to exercise its foreign policy. We can do that, but it will have consequences.
I would argue that one of the things this committee will try to do is to demonstrate to the government the options they are going to lose if they do not fund appropriately. However, to go the whole route on the analysis, is it really worth the effort given so many of the factors are going to change over the period of time it will take to put it into effect?
Mr. Dewitt: The easy response is the classic one in the world of defence and security. You always go with the worst case and the worst case analysis leads you to a particular kind of mindset and particular set of expectations because the worst case means that it gives you the greatest range of options.
The Chairman: This brings you back to keeping all the capabilities.
Mr. Dewitt: That is right. That is why I suggested that for us to undertake this exercise in a serious way, we have to recognize that we are not a unilateral actor; that we do not act in this realm outside of our borders on our own. It requires a degree of coordination and collaboration, and at least awareness with our principal allies. That gives us, in a sense, a greater set of assets within which we place our own particular range of options. If there is a worry of the direction that our allies are going, that would change the calculation. I agree that a government never wants to reduce its options. It wants to keep its options open and flexible.
To make the argument that trying to stay apace with the revolution in military affairs and having a full range of armament across all services to do all things is possible but both the financial costs and the political costs are unlikely to be desirable from any government's point of view for the foreseeable future. Then the challenge is to make a realistic assessment of what the alternatives are.
The Chairman: I accept that. Do you accept that it would be a fair test of your hypothesis to look back 15 years and take a look at where our allies were then and see, had we made these tradeoffs then, where we would be now?
Mr. Dewitt: I will say two things. It would be foolish not to look back and do that because that would be closing your mind to a whole range of possibilities.
Second, if you did that, I think the position that I am taking would be strengthened.
The Chairman: I am looking forward to your paper.
Senator Cordy: My first question was, can you give us your vision of the future of the military, but I think you have done that quite well. For clarification purposes, I think when we have heard the term "niche" used by other presenters, it was, in fact, do without this or do without that. However, when I hear your interpretation of niche, it is actually for Canada to find its niche within the international community instead of trying to be everything to everybody.
Mr. Dewitt: That is right.
Senator Cordy: Would that be a shortened version of your definition?
Mr. Dewitt: Absolutely. Yes.
Senator Cordy: You mentioned NATO, and NATO has certainly changed in the past number of years just with enlargement. NATO troops are now going to places that we never would have envisioned them to go, and NATO is developing a rapid response force that again may take us to crises around the world. What are the implications of the changes in NATO for Canada if, in fact, there will be implications?
Mr. Dewitt: As you know, Canada has been for a very long time in the forefront of trying to argue the necessity to have a rapid reaction capability. The extent to which NATO is now addressing that I think is long overdue, and is a good thing. That said, obviously, it is in our interest to be able to play a responsible and active role in that, indeed a leadership role.
The extent to which NATO is moving beyond its traditional area of responsibility, that obviously is a politically charged reality. I expect that if I were involved both in NATO reform and in the debates emerging in the UN, I would want to look at the changing nature of what might loosely be called — and I say loosely because they are of such different types — regional organizations or regional institutions. Some of these have military capabilities and some of are traditionally called alliances but no longer are alliances in that old-fashioned term of collective defence.
NATO has moved from a collective defence posture to something else. I can imagine some people arguing that it is a vision that the UN should look at as providing a highly competent military capability to provide peace and security in areas where it is needed. There is a lot of political work that has to be achieved between NATO and the United Nations to make this seen not as an extension, a 21st century equivalent, of colonialism or imperialism.
I think Canada has a very important political role to make sure that NATO goes down this direction very carefully and sensitively. Putting those political issues aside and I do so reluctantly, it is a very important area, but it does provide enormous opportunity, and it provides an opportunity for Canada in terms of our military roles. We clearly made some decisions over the last 15 years about our competence to contribute to NATO. We withdrew significant assets and we have not replaced them. On the other hand, we have been active and responsible actors in the European theatre, those out of area for NATO.
So ultimately what is our role? If our political leadership decides that we will continue to be an active and responsible partner in NATO, and I hope they do, then we have to be in the forefront of rethinking NATO's role as possibly a specialized institution that can bring military assets to bear world-wide. Should it be done? That is where I think it is highly charged politically. Does it come from a NATO decision only, or does it always have to be in the context of a particular relationship with the United Nations? I could see various arguments being made. So long as it is within the NATO theatre, it is NATO's decision. As soon as it moves outside the NATO theatre, it has to be through a process of a relationship with the UN and under UN charter. One can explore that. I think it will have to be.
I personally would argue that the future of NATO is one of the driving forces for redefining the Canadian military. If NATO is going to be truly effective, it needs to have not just combat-capability but extraordinary flexibility. It has to have that capacity to move quickly and effectively, and to be self-sustaining. For Canada to play a role in that, we have to have a different military.
The Chairman: Dr. Dewitt, this has been a very instructive morning. I can tell you that the committee has found your testimony to be provocative, challenging and interesting. We even agree with some of it. I would like to say on behalf of the committee that we would like to engage with you more, and we would like to see the material that you have written. If you have other material that is coming forward within the time frame that the committee is examining these issues, we would be very pleased if you would share it with us.
I want to thank you very much for coming down and for sparing the time to assist us in the course of this study.
Mr. Dewitt: I appreciate this opportunity and your willingness to listen to perhaps some heretical comments, but I understood that was the purpose, to try to open things up a little.
The Chairman: We think it is good sport and so we are delighted that you have come.
Honourable senators, our next witness is Dr. Martin Shadwick. He has lectured in international relations, and Canadian foreign and defence and security policy at the Political Science Department, York University. His areas of specialization include defence procurement, alternative service delivery, peace support operations and Maritime security. He is the author of several articles and columns on Canadian defence and security policy.
We are very pleased to have you before us. We understand that you are going to give us an abbreviated version of the document we have here, and then we look forward to asking you questions. You have the floor, sir.
Mr. Martin Shadwick, Research Associate, Centre for International and Security Studies, Professor of Political Science, York University: Mr. Chairman, I very much appreciate the opportunity to offer some analysis of Canada's national interests, and more to the point, the place of defence and the place of the Canadian Forces in helping to advance and protect those national interests.
I will focus my attention on four interconnected areas of study. First, the nature of the defence review and the quality of the defence policy debate that we have had in recent years in Canada; second, Canadian public opinion on the national defence and security; third, the Canadian Forces structure options that are available to Canada; and fourth, some of the potential financial ramifications of the various force structure options that we have.
Time constraints preclude including some important issues in my prepared remarks and, indeed, even in the text — things like strategic mobility, maritime sovereignty and security — but I would be delighted to address any number of those issues during the questioning period.
By way of introduction, it is no less true for being obvious that recent years have brought forth a flood tide in some respects of reports, studies and critiques dealing with Canadian defence policy and national security issues. These reports, as I note in the text, have come from parliamentary committees, academic constituencies, think tanks and other non-governmental organizations. Heightened media attention to issues of national security and defence, of course, has been reflected in countless editorials and seemingly miles and miles of videotape in recent years.
This outpouring of literature and other indicators of heightened awareness in defence is, in part, reminiscent of the sort of policy debate that we saw leading up to Mr. David Collenette's white paper on defence in December, 1994, which, in fact, yesterday celebrated its tenth birthday. This went unremarked; so I thought I would sneak it in at this juncture.
I am wondering though if the debate we have had this time in the public domain has been of high quality. Have we truly engaged Canadians in a debate on, and meaningful discussion of, Canadian defence and security issues? I would argue that the debates we have had in recent years has fallen short of the modest levels that we saw even 10 years ago. The reports from 10 years ago tended to be more multi-purpose, looking at the fundamentals of Canadian defence and security policy, and often offering very specific suggestions for Canadian Forces structure approaches by Canada.
The reports this time around that we have had since, let us say, 2,000 have tended to zoom in on narrower areas, inter-operability, for example, the Canada/U.S. defence relationship. It has been relatively unclear what selections the various editorialists are making in terms of where defence policy as a whole should go, or where Canadian Forces structure should go.
I think part of this, of course, reflects the uncertainties introduced by 9/11 because reports that were immediately pre-9/11 became less relevant clearly by the events of that particular day. Also, the quality of the documents that we have seen, studies, reports and so on, in recent times also perhaps reflect some uncertainty about the nature, scope and mechanisms of the Chrétien government's second look at defence policy in recent years. They also reflect a great deal of uncertainty, I think, as to what form that was going to take; a single holistic document looking at security and defence very broadly or separate policy statements on defence, foreign affairs, developing systems and so on. There was also debate over whether we would see a full-fledged policy review or something more of an in-house program review with the relevant departments, thereby narrowing the opportunities for external input into the process.
Similarly, were we ever scheduled to receive new white papers on defence, we received a glorified series of press releases, or as I like to say at the minimalist level perhaps not a white paper but a white paragraph, something really condensed.
This is not to denigrate Ottawa's efforts to engage Canadians in debate. We have seen some interesting use of online consultations this time around, ministerial consultations with interested stakeholders. As I note in the text, this has had some effect. There is no Canadian that I know of over the age of 18 that is unaware of the fact that you must be put the word "aging" in front of Sea King; we have reached that level. That does not mean to suggest, though, that Canadians fully grasp and appreciate the scope of the security and defence challenges that face the country. It is not clear what choices Canadians would make as to where we should head with defence and, indeed, whether they are prepared to pay for the options which at times they indicate they would prefer at this time.
It is conceivable that the enhanced and more broadly based public support for security and defence which is apparent in recent public opinion polls can be translated into increased defence spending or increased support for defence spending.
Unfortunately for the proponents of a new deal for defence, seemingly stellar polling numbers are no guarantee of financial largesse from Canadians or from their governments. Canadians remain a decidedly fickle lot even post-9/11. They, by all indications, continue to aspire to a global role for Canada in national security terms but are reluctant to pay for it. It is as simple as that. There is a basic paradox — one could say hypocrisy but paradox might be a better way of looking at it — a disconnect between what Canadians say they wish and what they seemingly are willing to pay for.
There are, I think, signs of change. It is interesting to note in recent weeks how little attention was paid to the signing of the contract for Cyclone Helicopters to replace the Sea King helicopters, unlike the crescendo of controversy that greeted the selection of the EH-101 Cormorant back in the early 1990s. Perhaps Canadians are understanding that security comes with a price. However, I would suggest as a cautionary note when we look at the newer public opinion polling data, that it was not that long ago, in the late 1990s, admittedly pre-9/11, that one public opinion poll, when it gave Canadians a choice between increased defence spending and increased spending on subsidies for film and television production in Canada, Canadians voted for the latter. It is one thing for defence to lose out to increased spending on health care and education, but to lose out to increased film and television subsidies strikes me as a quintessentially Canadian comment. We are either extraordinarily frugal or we have an extraordinarily relaxed approach to issues of national security and national defence. I think we have to remember the weakness in the constituency for defence in this country.
In terms of Canadian Forces structure and defence economics, there are many variations that we can, in theory, at least look at in Canada. I would suggest that we confront basically three whole options perhaps as we look at mapping out our defence force structure options for down the road. Arguably there is a notional fourth option of having no military at all. I think it would require a rather brave approach to endorse that option at this time for any number of reasons, not least the likely reaction from the United States. There is even the question of whether the no-military option would, in fact, save all that much money because there are core functions that DND currently performs that would have to devolve to other government departments and the private sector. New entities would have to be created, and when you add up the cost of doing that, it is not as if you somehow take the defence budget and reduce it to zero. You are still looking at substantial expenditures, even if there was no military, but I will put that aside.
Very quickly, I think there are, as I said, three core options. One is to, in effect, try to replicate in the current context the basic themes and messages of the 1994 white paper on defence. Although it is now of course out of date, it has at least aged rather more gracefully than its three immediate predecessors, the white papers of 1971, 1987, and indeed 1964 had a very short shelf life. Canadian white papers on defence tend to implode very soon after their release. The '94 white paper, although overtaken by events, has aged rather more gracefully in some respects.
That is option one, to follow through with the basic message and intent of the 1994 white paper, appropriately updated to deal with the changed geo-strategic environment, and deliver on the promises of the type found in the 1994 white paper.
A second option would reaffirm the requirement for a combat-capable defence establishment, but opt instead of the multi-purpose combat-capable defence establishment, sort of niche combat-capable defence establishment that has been discussed in a wide variety of the literature. The risk, of course, and I will come back to it later, is the great difficulty in picking the niches that are most useful. The great risk is that we would load up on capabilities that proved not to be needed but not have key capabilities that do prove to be needed. That is option two.
Option three is a little more convoluted. It comes in two forms, option 3a and 3b if you will.
Both would be unabashedly Canada-centric in their orientation. The first would be essentially a constabulary type of military, an aid of the civil power army, a coast guard of the air, a navy that looked more like a coast-guard-type of establishment. This could be the type of force essentially geared to home defence, sovereignty protection, fisheries, surveillance, disaster relief, and the standard constabulary- or gendarmerie-type of role. It would have perhaps some capability for traditional peacekeeping overseas, to the extent that traditional peacekeeping survives to this day, but certainly not the more robust forms that have become the norm, post-Cold War.
There is a variation on this constabulary, Canada-centric model that would add in some credible combat capability for North American defence. In effect, I suppose what this comes down to is sort of a constabulary model 3a. Constabulary model 3b is more like a constabulary with an attitude because you have included, really, some core combat capability.
Once you get past those core options, it seems to me you still run into some interesting other questions, and I will run through those very quickly to leave time for discussion. For example, should the overall Canadian Forces structure of the future be asymmetric in nature? In other words, should all three services be receiving equal shares of the defence pie, or are there other variations? For example, do we pick bureaucratic winners, that two of the three services would be enshrined as the core combat edge of the Canadian Forces. The third service would be forced presumably into a life raft at gun point, and forced to fall down to the level of a constabulary, so asymmetrical here. Two would be combat capable, able to go overseas. The third becomes more of a constabulary-type force. You can fill in the blanks, your own preferences, as to who gets into that particular life raft.
To what extent should asymmetries exist within individual services? In other words, should the Army force structure so overwhelmingly favour the infantry at the expense of artillery and armour? In the Air Force, should tactical fighter requirements take precedence over airlift requirements or vice versa?
To what extent is it desirable or feasible to retain key skill sets and the requisite equipment at the cadre level, either for operational training, or as a basis for expansion in time of crisis, or to provide a limited home defence and expeditionary capability? I would suggest for later discussion that, if we go the niche route, we have to choose those niches with extraordinary care and in some cases seek to retain at least a cadre of capability. We may let the tanks go on a large scale, but keeping some nucleus of capability for operational training and other reasons might be a prudent fall-back position rather than completely eliminating selected capabilities. Obviously, there are limits as to how far you can shave the ice cube in that sense. For example, submarines, if this question gets re-opened; going down to a one-submarine navy does not strike me as a viable option. The overhead for maintaining one submarine would make this a total non-starter, but there may be other ways in which you can retain a small cadre of capabilities. Keeping a small number of main battle tanks, for example, might fit within that category.
There are, of course, other perennial issues: division of labour between the regulars and reserves; the extent to which one can use the private-sector alternative service delivery in a defence context; the question of the degree of interoperability with the United States; and the impact of the evolution of military affairs. There is a very long list and I will spare you the recitation.
The other pivotal variable, of course, is the financial side. Regardless of which option we choose, where is the money to come from, and how much money are we likely to be talking? Clearly, as this committee well knows, this has been a difficult decade or so for the Canadian Forces. The Chrétien government, in its later years, became much more generous in its funding of defence, but if you go back and look at the immediate extra monies for national security post-9/11, very little of that actually flowed through to DND. We were funding other law-enforcement-related agencies, and very little actually went to DND. Even in those cases, it went to things like Joint Task Force 2 or the communications security establishment and so on rather than the core combat capabilities of the forces.
There may be some hope here for the future. One suspects certainly that Mr. Paul Martin's government will prove at least theoretically less dogmatic in its attitudes to defence, perhaps a little friendlier to defence than Prime Minister Chrétien's government was. Certainly if one takes at face value Prime Minister Martin's, I think, very interesting speech at Gagetown in April of this year, it could suggest a different mindset at work in the government of Canada.
Similarly, it is imperative throughout, regardless of how much money is available for defence, that we spend smarter. We are still not getting, it seems to me, the best value for our defence dollar. The problem that you run into is that closing things like surplus bases, and we still have an ample inventory of surplus bases, is a politically difficult thing to do. They exist, in part, for political and socio-economic reasons, and cannot instantly or easily be dispensed with. However, there are monies within the available pot right now of the defence envelope that could conceivably be redirected to areas of greater import.
My apologies, I will speed this up. One quote that has stuck in my mind about defence economics in Canada comes from the Subcommittee on National Defence of the Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs way back in May of 1983, which made, I think, a trenchant observation about Canadian defence spending.
...the current Canadian level of expenditure on defence does little more than buy the country the worst of two worlds. While the expenditures are large enough to represent a significant charge on the national exchequer, they are too small to produce worthwhile results.
That is a 21-year old quote, but I think it is still relevant in today's context, or at least in defence economics context.
Whether there is a white knight out there to rescue the Canadian Forces is an interesting debating point. Certainly when the Trudeau government re-thought its defence policies in the mid-1970s, the fact that we had tremendous pressure from our European allies to spend more on defence at a time when we were seeking the contractual link with the Europeans as part of our trade diversification strategy, that had very tangible benefits for the Canadian Forces. A great deal of the equipment that we now have today is equipment that was purchased in the 1970s as a result of the volte-face by the Trudeau government in 1975.
Now, it is difficult to see that scenario unfolding again today. The European card really cannot be played in the post-Cold War environment. There is the American card to be played, and certainly the Americans seem to be almost constitutionally bound to hector us to spend more money on defence at required intervals. The difficulty now, though, is that American pressure to spend more on defence can be seen as arguably counterproductive to some degree in terms of raising the hackles of Canadians about being lectured to by Washington on how much they should spend on defence. This is difficult particularly at a time when the public image of the United States in Canada has been damaged by its foray into Iraq and unilateralism as a guiding principle in American foreign policy.
I will pass over very quickly some comments about the strategic landscape because they are in the text. However, I would certainly draw your attention, if it is a document that you have not previously seen, the excellent monograph written by the British strategic analyst Mr. Colin Gray in 1994 entitled, "Canadians in a Dangerous World." He deliberately avoided offering force structure prescriptions for Canada, but he posed a series, I think, of interesting observations about things to think about when one is pondering national defence and national security.
They are listed, and I will not go through them other than to mention some of the general aspects that cover what he called the "hard cases." Prepare for the worst. Invest in high-leverage forces, as he called it. Invest in emerging trends in military effectiveness. That is a reference, in effect, to the Revolution in Military Affairs, RMA. Seek flexibility in quality and/or quantity. Flexibility was one of the key notes of the message that he was trying to get out. Exploit sunk costs. If there are ways to direct how we use the current inventory of equipment, re-roling equipment, seek those out wherever it makes sense to do so. I think finally, and most importantly, build fault-tolerant, balanced forces to the greatest extent possible. Hedge your bets because you cannot predict the future.
There is a great deal of inherent criticism that the militaries of the world tend to be inherently cautious and conservative, and that when they try to protect, say, their fleets of tanks, fighter planes, ships or whatever rice bowl it is, that they do so out of a tradition, a misplaced tradition perhaps. That happens. Bureaucracies tend to protect things that they have grown up with and have become familiar with. That is true in every walk of life and every area of professional endeavour. However, the militaries of the world, I think, are also similarly being cautious and hedging their bets because they are the ones who get to pay arguably the biggest price if we err and make incorrect decisions on what niches to go after, and what equipment to buy. The militaries may be conservative and bureaucratic, but I think they are also being prudent and cautious in trying to keep as many options available militarily as they possibly can.
Finally, looking at our defence landscape and the way ahead, the purely constabulary option, to my mind, is effectively a non-starter. Indeed, I think quite rightly, it was rejected by the 1994 white paper on defence in quite eloquent terms.
The variation on the constabulary option that would provide some combat capability for home defence is relatively more credible, but I am not sure that it is all that compelling. The niche option would ensure the survival of at least some expeditionary combat capability within the Canadian Forces. Again, I want to sound a cautionary note about the dangers and difficulties of picking niches. Just as an illustrative example, you will recall the celebrated resignation of the of Vice-Admiral Chuck Thomas in the early 1990s when he suggested after the first Gulf War that, in effect, the bureaucratic winners for the Canadian Forces structure of the future should be the Navy and the Air Force, in part, based on the Gulf War experience. That is where the core combat capability should remain and that the Army should devolve into a form of constabulary. After the events of Oka, that was not an unreasonable argument for him to advance.
The problem is that if we had done that for the rest of the 1990s, we would not have had the sort of force structure that was capable of responding to a remarkably diverse range of calls for our services globally, certainly in the Army. There is a clear danger there, I think.
My personal preference, to wrap this up, is that some variation on the multi-purpose, combat-capable type of mantra found in the 1994 white paper to my mind still looks reasonably compelling from a strategic perspective in a world that we cannot easily predict. The problem is, that requires money, perhaps not massive increments of additional money. I see no need to go on an American-style spending binge on defence even to fulfill the sort of mandate that was mapped out by the 1994 white paper on defence, but it is difficult to imagine very much money being made available. There are a plethora of competing and urgent demands upon the public purse in Canada. There is the question of public support being a little bit soft on defence in certain areas, certainly when it comes down to signing the cheques. My hunch would be that the multi-purpose, combat-capable vision of the 1994 white paper, although strategically the most flexible and leaves the most options available for Canada, is probably not affordable. I would like to say something else about that but I think that is a reality. My suspicion, therefore, is that we are more likely to wind up not with the niche model but with what I have called the niche-plus model or, if you will, the multi-purpose model minus. Somewhere in there is how this will ultimately shake out, but however we go, we have to exercise great prudence in making our strategic choices or niches for the Canadian Forces.
The Chairman: If the funding level stays the same, it is going to be niche-minus, let us not kid ourselves.
Senator Banks: The nature of war has changed from the nice neat time when my army would face off against your army. We would line up and spend the night and I will see you tomorrow afternoon. We all had the same sort of guns, and the only difference was really our numbers and uniforms. That is growing increasingly so from, I guess, Waterloo. Now, the kind of threats that have to be faced, dealt with, and conceived of for response by a military force, have fanned out and become myriad, so there are a whole lot of niches, if you wanted to slice up the loaf that we have to deal with. If we went to a niche, whether it was niche-plus, niche-minus or niche-whatever, it means that there are going to be some slices in the loaf that we are not going to have, by definition. We do not have them now but we cannot have them all. What worries me about it is who is going to do that for us? Who is going to fill that gap? If we say we are not going to have CF-18s anymore because we are going to have a really good JTF2 expanded times 10 on a bunch of fast ships that could go someplace in the world with helicopters aboard it. We are going to pass, on the air potential. Who is going to do our air then? The fact that we do not have it doesn't mean that we do not need it so how do we do that; by some alliance?
I am mindful of the fact that the Australians learned not to rely upon, for example, Great Britain to provide the sea power that they did not have because things elsewhere became a higher priority. Great Britain's navy, which was presumed always to be the bulwark against any invasion of Australia went away because there was other stuff to do, and they were left exposed. I hate to be cynical but even in the event of our signing an undertaking with an ally that, if we get rid of our F-18s, for example, and that ally will supply theirs when we need them, I assume that other nation's interests, in the event of an incident, are going to preclude us getting them, never mind an agreement. If we go to niches because we cannot have the whole loaf, are you not worried about who is going to fill the gap? I am worried about who is going to fill the gap.
Mr. Shadwick: Yes, I am quite worried. I share your concerns in that regard. It is partly, I suppose, a question of sovereignty. One wanted to have the capabilities in-house but also be dependent upon allies who, even with the best will in the world, might not be willing to make certain capabilities available to us at the time when we needed it.
Senator Banks: Right.
Mr. Shadwick: We should seek as much self-sufficiency as we can reasonably aspire to. Even Mr. Colin Gray, the British analyst, pointed out in that monograph that I referred to a moment ago, in addressing this issue in part the following: "Canadians will always care more about Canadians than will non-Canadians." What he meant by that was that if you needed assistance in a given crisis for helicopters or air lift or whatever it was, it is rather nice to be able to call upon your own people. They will give priority to meeting the needs and taking care of their fellow Canadians, and even friendly countries will naturally tend to give preference to their own national requirements. The ability to call upon their resources even with memorandums of understanding that air lift will be available or sea lift will be available or whatever it might be, makes one very uncomfortable to be beholden to them for too wide a range of resources and capabilities. Air lift, in particular, is one of the areas where we have to give very careful consideration. The great beauty of air lift is that because of its great flexibility, no matter which of these four structure options we wind up opting for, air lift of some sort fits into the equation. It is a given in any scenario, whether it is disaster relief or war situations, but I share your basic concern.
On this question of niches and capabilities, the word "niche" in a Canadian defence context has become popular in recent years. I should say for the record that I am considering taking up a petition to have the word banned, along with the word "transformation." If I hear that word once more in a DND document, I think I will leave the defence analytical field.
The Chairman: We just do not want it used as a verb anymore.
Mr. Shadwick: Very good. We have, of course, been shedding roles in areas for many years. Even if you go back to the mid-1950s when we were spending 43 per cent of all federal monies on defence — I mean it was an astonishing number — the Air Force was still unable to get back into the bomber business, for example. The aircraft carriers have been gone for more than 30 years at this point.
We have been shedding things quite steadily. The Army in recent years was going all wheeled, getting rid of the heavier armour and cutting back on artillery. Even at the tail end of the Mulroney period, we made, to my mind, a terrible mistake in eliminating the three basic categories of tactical helicopters; observation helicopters, utility transport helicopters and medium transport helicopter. Instead, we bought a fleet of 100 Griffons. Not to appear anti-Griffon, but my most quotable remark about the Griffon is that it is the world's finest constabulary helicopter. That doesn't necessarily mean it was the way for us to go. Anecdotally, at the time we got rid of our Chinook medium transport helicopters. To my mind, we are the only country that has had Chinook helicopters in its fleet, and has got out of operating them.
Every other country has been loading up on helicopters of that size. The only other country that got rid of their Chinook fleet was Vietnam, and it had rather different reasons, lack of spare parts from the Americans amongst others.
In getting rid of capabilities, the selection has to be careful. Also, while we are talking niche, that may well in some cases mean adding niches that do not currently exist in the Canadian Forces. It can work as a downward process, devolving, getting rid of things, but there may be some other niches that we very much need to look for.
Senator Banks: Let me go there for a minute. To use another word, specialization, we have developed certain specializations at which we seem to be pretty good. We seem to have really good snipers. Everybody says so at least. JTF2 seems to be very highly regarded in the world and it has the respect of our allies. Are there some specializations that we should pursue that we happen to be really good at, or well placed to pursue, that would equal those?
Mr. Shadwick: JTF2 and special forces are various flavours. I am sure we will get some slice of that additional 5,000-person increment. That clearly would be one area. Air lift is a niche that I would like us to resuscitate. One of the embarrassing things about the deterioration in our air lift capabilities in the past decade was that during the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and, indeed, even into the 1980s, we had, in effect, made air lift a special priority for the Canadian Forces. We had more air lift capacity than a country of Canada's population and overall military capability would reasonably be expected to have. Even today, as battered as our Hercules fleet is, we have 32 of them. Admittedly, not all of them are flyable.
The Chairman: Nineteen of them.
Mr. Shadwick: Nineteen. The 32 Hercules, remarkably enough, gives Canada the world's fourth largest fleet of Hercules aircraft. Now, if they were all brand new C130J models that would be most impressive. The official centennial year history of the Canadian Forces in 1967 actually singled out airlift as something that Canadians had built up and given special priority to because of the size of the country, our NATO commitment, and our peacekeeping commitments.
Senator Banks: But you could not put a Bison Armoured Vehicle in one?
Mr. Shadwick: Not easily.
Senator Forrestall: You have to take the turret off?
Mr. Shadwick: Yes, and some other accoutrements. We have let that go unfortunately. That was an area where we had international recognition of that capability. We had to give it over to other countries that did not have it, including some rather important European countries. We have squandered that niche, and I think that is one that needs to be resuscitated.
Senator Banks: Do we need Globe Masters per se or do we need a bunch of new Y-model Hercules?
Mr. Shadwick: In a perfect world, if the Airbus A400 existed today at the quoted price and at the quoted performance characteristics and we could get them in a reasonable time frame, within a year or two, I would opt for a mix of A400s and C-27Js for search and rescue, and lighter transport at the lower end of the spectrum. The sad reality is, of course, as you senators are aware, the A400 will not be available for export to Canada for probably close to a decade before we could get them in reasonable numbers. We need help before that because by that point the Hercules fleet will have more or less expired if it has not already in some ways reached that point already. Even the newest of our Hercules, 10 years from now, are not going to be young aircraft. The oldest of our H model Hercules are pushing 30. I find that astronomical, remarkably difficult to believe, but it is true.
If the A400 is not a short-term option at least, it seems to me that the C-17 option may be the way to go, combined with the best of our remaining Hercules. I know Boeing has put forth a report indicating to keep, I guess it was the 13, C130H Hercules models and buy four or five C-17s. It is not in there but it is my understanding that Boeing would also envisage that we buy a twin-engine, turbo-prop, search-and-rescue aircraft to squeeze out the Hercules from the search-and-rescue role.
Senator Banks: Yes.
Mr. Shadwick: Whether a fleet of 13 Hercules plus three, four or five C-17s would quite do is probably an open question. The C-17 end would be fine, but 13 Hercules do not have a lot of flexibility. Perhaps we need a little bit larger fleet, 15 or 16 aircraft. If the Boeing proposal is built around the C130H Hercules that we would retain, the trouble is, as I remarked a moment ago, our oldest C130Hs are themselves getting on. That is an issue that would have to be addressed. We have to have something between a C-27 and a C-17.
Senator Banks: Let me move away from that for a minute and ask you a question in a different area.
We were talking about the fanning out of capabilities of our armed forces. At the tail end of World War II, we had very substantial forces in all what were then the three traditional areas. We had a big Army and had a big Navy and an Air Force out of all proportion to our population. The technological capabilities that were required to do those things then were, relative to what is required now, small. The training to get somebody operational even in any of those three forces was less than it is now. You have studied this a lot and we have looked at this problem a lot too. We hear constantly that we spend a lot of money recruiting and training people in the forces and then teach them, train them, qualify them to be, you know, electronic technicians. Then somebody comes along and says, "Oh, those are really good electronic technicians," after their first term of agreed service and offers them twice as much money as we could possibly pay them and they go, as I would, in that circumstance. Are we paying our people enough, our men and women enough? Do we have to get more competitive? Are we short in that area, too?
Mr. Shadwick: I think we can get more competitive. In some respects, though, one is fighting a losing proposition there. It is difficult to match in every area of vocational skills or professional skills what the private sector can do.
Senator Banks: If we can match, do we end up with a bunch of people who cannot qualify and are not going to continue? Are we relying on love of country?
Mr. Shadwick: In part we are. The danger, too, is that if we feed these people back into the economy, of course, that could count as a marvellous DND contribution to the Canadian economic development. The pool of trained people released into the society each year has a dollar value on it.
Senator Banks: Released is not exactly the word you want to use.
Mr. Shadwick: It seems to me, though, it goes beyond the purely financial. In dealing with the people side of the forces, if the men and women in the armed forces know and appreciate that Canadians know and appreciate the sacrifices they make, the challenges they deal with, the stress on families, et cetera, that Canadians put value on what the men and women in the Canadian Forces do and are trying their level best to provide reasonably modern equipment for them, that is worth an awful lot. It is not simply what is in the pay packet. I think it is a broader range of things that the men and women of the forces need, to serve. I think they sense that a little more now than they did perhaps 15 years ago. However, a lot of the truth is in the actual hardware that is available to the forces. An 18-year old who is asked to drive a vehicle that is twice his or her age, is going to take that as a sign that Canadians are not terribly interested in his or her day-to-day challenges.
I think it goes way beyond the money. There are intangibles here that count a lot as to whether people stay in the forces. The other downside, too, of course, to losing people at a high rate is a huge percentage of the forces' cadre of trainers are tied up permanently training, and then losing people very quickly. It is depressing and demoralizing for that reason as well.
The Chairman: Thank you, Senator Banks. You were not suggesting that we get older drivers?
Mr. Shadwick: No.
The Chairman: Thank you.
Mr. Shadwick: Although I must say that when I first had the opportunity to testify before a Parliamentary committee back in 1972, Senator Forrestall as an MP, was present on that occasion. As an 18-year-old, I actually talked about raising the retirement age in the forces. I think I was the only 18-year old who ever talked about raising retirement ages.
The Chairman: Senators like hearing talk of raising retirement ages.
Senator Forrestall: I remember that and some other questions that we were discussing in 1972. Since then, I have spent 10 or 15 years trying to replace the Sea King with obviously qualified success in one respect.
Could I ask you to shift gear just a little bit and give some thought to The Reserves and how they might fit into a projected force. Could I ask you to look at it in a couple of ways, first of all, border patrol and defence, and coastal patrol and defence? We heard yesterday, interestingly enough, from the commander of the naval reserve squadron here in Toronto. He said that yes, the reserve fleet, a relatively inexpensive fleet to modify for lot of things, could hold the Halifax Rifles and patrol coastal areas at their own initiative or at other requests. Could, you, sir, just address it from those couple of angles?
Mr. Shadwick: Certainly. I think there is great potential for The Reserves, all branches of the reserve establishment, in home defence and homeland-security-related missions. The specifics can be challenging, but in very broad terms I think there is a tremendous potential there. They are an important resource for all sorts of reasons. I think we can avoid what happened in the late 1950s. You will recall that in the late 1950s, The Reserves were basically re-roled or re-tasked into a national-homeland-defence-type model, but it basically meant reconstruction and re-opening cities after nuclear attack.
The net result of giving The Reserves that role in the late 1950s was devastating. It was so esoteric, too horrifying a role and people fled the reserves in huge numbers. The idea of being part of a flying column of trucks heading into a devastated Toronto held no appeal for anyone at all.
This time, though, the Homeland-defence-type of roles have a much greater sense of immediacy in the sense that the threat is not in the short term nuclear, but 9/11 showed the vulnerabilities of society to attack of various forms. The more that we can watch the backs of the Americans in the North American context, the better, as one journalist put it the other day. I think it is the sort of role that this time The Reserve would pleasantly embrace, unlike the 1950s. It is a more immediate threat. It is something that is much easier to relate to than the idea of going into cities after nuclear devastation: the practical realities of it, the equipment that would be required in some cases, a role that would have visibility in Canadian cities and towns to some extent and a role that would seem to address a variety of weaknesses in our current capabilities. The short answer is yes, there is great potential.
Senator Forrestall: Could I jump, since we are running out of time? Another area to be tackled in the early and late 1960s or early 1970s was the concept of spreading the national defence budget into one dealing with hygienic affairs and the second one with capital. The second one allowed the field commanders the opportunity of projecting requirements, organizing selection process and the ability to respond to the latest with some degree of intelligence as to where they could be and under what circumstance vis-à-vis equipment. The other part of the budget was the fixed costs of paying allowances and housing, food, training and so on.
Is there any merit in that, do you think, to try and save the lives — enormous difficulty that we seem to have since the days when we rented tanks. Not that that is not a solution. Maybe we might be far better off renting everything in this. I do not know the answer to that. However, we seem to have been caught up in an inability to deliver to the force leaders the requirements, the capital requirements that they needed when they needed it.
Mr. Shadwick: This is indeed a complex issue. I think I would address it at two levels. One is whether it is possible to have greater discretionary funding, signing authority devolve downward to some extent so that urgent operational requirements could be addressed much more quickly as they are identified in the field. In that way, one does not subject even a minor purchase of equipment to the vagaries and the delays of a wider procurement process. Obviously, you cannot give a general signing authority for a fleet of F-18 replacements on the general's own authority, but there are all sorts of lower-end, less expensive equipment. One example is self-defence weaponry for our frigates and destroyers when they are sent overseas so that somebody lower down could have signing authority to buy small-calibre weapons to help protect the ships and enforce protection capacity without having to get 10 million people to sign off at NDHQ.
On a wider scale, the defence procurement in Canada, this is indeed a depressing area. We must do better. Mr. Alan Williams, Assistant Deputy Minister at DND, has certainly identified some of the difficulties and is moving to expedite the procurement cycle for new hardware, but we have a long way to go. Not buying any equipment at all, by the way, is not the ideal way of fixing that particular problem. It expedites things tremendously if you do not buy anything. It speeds up the process. However, when we do wish to buy things, we must do much better. The Sea King helicopter has become the poster boy for delay and procrastination in procurement. However, think of the case of the Iltis, for example. I am now moving out of the fleet, thankfully. This is not rocket-science-type technology. We are talking a jeep-type vehicle. This is not too difficult. Your typical yuppie knows how to walk into a dealership and pick out a sport utility vehicle, SUV, without too much difficulty. However, if you look at the elapsed time between when DND identified the requirement for an Iltis replacement and the arrival of the last of the G-wagons that would replace the Iltis, that timeline took longer than World War II.
Now, that means that if in September, 1939 we had gone looking for a new jeep, it would still not have been available for D-Day or the liberation of the Netherlands. If we cannot do better on jeep-type vehicles, the hope for doing better on the joint support ships or whatever higher-end piece of military hardware one wishes to acquire, we are in very serious trouble. Even with Mr. Williams' estimate of speeding up the process for some items of equipment, we are going to have to do better than that. This is an embarrassment, quite frankly, particularly when you are dealing with a low-end piece of technology.
I might add, because I have the opportunity, I know that the G-wagon in the fleet is a far superior vehicle to the Iltis, there is no question about that. I would submit though that perhaps we still need a vehicle a little bit up-market of the G-wagon and the Cougar, something that is a true armoured-like reconnaissance vehicle of some description, which is the way a lot of our allies are going. A lot of our allies have G-wagons but they also put another vehicle in between it and their 8-wheeled or tracked reconnaissance vehicle.
Senator Forrestall: I have described it as having had a double-barrel shotgun.
The Chairman: Colleagues, I have a dilemma. We are at the end of our time. Senator Atkins has a short question perhaps and Senator Day also has a short question, so perhaps if we could deal with them both, and then we would wrap it up.
Senator Atkins: I have been sitting here this morning listening to the debate between multi-purpose and niche-type. When you think about the kind of challenges that our Canadian military forces have been given, whether it is Afghanistan or Haiti, are we training our troops properly to address an enemy that we have a hard time identifying?
Mr. Shadwick: I agree with your characterization of the dilemma. The problem now is that the threats are so diffuse, so different from the Cold War training which was a set piece. We knew how to do that very well by 1989. I am not quite sure how one addresses this. One can fall back on the old line, which I think is in part true, that, if you train for the worst-case scenarios, you can automatically adjust to lower-threat conflict situations and that a good, multi-purpose, well-trained soldier is inherently flexible. On the other hand, if we are talking niches, we almost have to get into niche training to some extent as well to go along with the equipment sets and the skill sets. It is a lot to ask of anybody in the forces now to be able to be trained to the full spectrum of missions to which we might assign people. Clearly, we will have to build in as much core training, if you will, that is flexible, and then expand it by modules in the training curriculum to deal with specific scenarios as much as we can.
In a sense, though, fortunately it is a dilemma that is not confined to us, and benchmarking what our allies are doing, the Australians and the Netherlands, for example, would be instructive.
Senator Atkins: The experience they are going through in Iraq?
Mr. Shadwick: Yes.
Senator Atkins: Are we going to learn anything from that in terms of how we prepare our forces for any future engagements?
Mr. Shadwick: I certainly hope so and I think the lessons would be sobering. They are certainly sobering for the Pentagon. The Americans are so short of line infantry that they have to use combat engineers not so much as combat engineers but as line infantry, military police units serving more as line infantry. These people have had to be re-roled. Questions have arisen within the American defence establishment, just how fast can you turn a combat engineer who admittedly knows how to use a rifle as part of his or her basic training, but can you really re-role them that quickly that they become credible infantry in urban warfare sort of situations? If they face the problem, we certainly face it as well.
Senator Atkins: It raises so many other questions in terms of procurement of equipment and where we are going.
Mr. Shadwick: It raises, too, parenthetically, the question of alternative service delivery and how we have been outsourcing certain DND functions and capabilities. We have let go certain skill sets that in a sense represented pools of talent that we can draw upon in emergency situations. Once a function is ASDed, if I can turn that into a verb, or privatized, which flows rather more elegantly, the odds of getting those skill sets back into the forces are almost zero because protective interests go around the privatized functions.
Sadly, we in the academic community have not done this. I do not think any of the committees have done it in great deal. We have not looked at the full ramifications of alternative service delivery, ASD, in a defence context to see if we have made the right choices. Are there areas that we haven't privatized that we could? Just as importantly, are there areas that we have privatized that perhaps we should not have and, indeed, have we saved very much money in the cases that we have? Certainly the Auditor General has suggested that in some cases the financial savings that were projected from ASD have, in fact, not been realized. If, at the same time we have lost flexibility in our defence capability, we are getting the worst of both words. We are not saving them money and we are losing capability.
Senator Day: I will not ask you to expand on your comments further with respect to defence procurement problems at this time, but we agree with you, and we have had Mr. Alan Williams, Assistant Deputy Minister, National Defence in to speak to our committee. That is a review from within. Has there been any formal review from without, yourself or anybody else, where there has been a publication of that study that we could take advantage of the reading of that?
Mr. Shadwick: There have been some and I should be able to put together some of the graphic data for you enumerating some of the literature that has appeared. The sad reality, though, is the number of people in the country who have studied these areas in depth is quite modest. They tend to be political scientists who, sometimes with great risk, get involved in economics, because we are not known for mathematical finesse sometimes. The economists at the universities in Canada tend not to be interested in defence economics at all. But certainly there are a number of studies that I would be happy to —
Senator Day: If you could. It may well be an area that we may want to talk to you again. However, if you could refer us to some publications, that would be very helpful. Also, the other area that I have a lot of interest in the one you have just described. There hasn't been a lot of study on outsourcing and alternate service delivery. If there is anything that you can get us started on, that would be very helpful.
Mr. Shadwick: I would be happy to do that as well. It, sadly, is much the same tale, in fact, probably even worse. For all the ASD initiatives that have taken in the past 15 years, there has been remarkably little study in academia or elsewhere on the pros and cons. It is almost as if it is because privatization became the flavour of the decade in the 1990s in all areas of public policy and all levels of government. It was sort of taken as a given that you could automatically apply it to DND.
My reservation has always been that DND is not like other departments. The mandate is so fundamentally different that what might work for Transport Canada or another entity of government is fine, but that it may not translate into a DND context at all.
Senator Day: I agree.
Mr. Shadwick: On procurement, very quickly, and related issues, the whole question of the future of the Canadian defence industrial base, which is something I edited out of my remarks, how much defence capability do Canadians wish us to retain? There question relates to, how much defence industrial capacity do we wish to retain as opposed to buying off the shelf? That is a difficult question. It is wrapped up, of course, in pork barrelling and other socio-economic imperatives and so on. Where do we build these new joint support ships, assuming, for example, that indeed we should build them?
I cannot resist making one quick comment about joint support ships. I would like to see the concept work, to be honest. I am worried about that program because no navy in the world has ships like the joint support ship. There are some similarities but nothing exactly like what we are talking about for those three joint support ships. This means one of two things. Either we have invented a better mousetrap or we are about to get ensnared in one. I am willing to be convinced about the joint support ship design concept at the moment. It could conceivably be made to work, but I would feel more comfortable if other navies had done some pioneering. That said, our Navy has not had a bad track record of pioneering. Maritime helicopters on small frigates were basically a Canadian invention when the rest of the world scoffed at us, and yet we made it work. Virtually every naval vessel and coastguard vessel in the world has a flight deck and hangar.
The Chairman: We have the document you left with us. I have had a request that if you have additional information, there has been some discussion of you assisting us with your notions of a preamble. If there is something that would supplement the document you have already given us, we would be very grateful for that.
Thank you on behalf of the committee for appearing before us. We appreciate you taking the time to come and talk to us and assisting us in a study that we are going to be at for the next number of months.
The committee adjourned.