Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
National Security and Defence
Issue 6 - Evidence, Afternoon meeting
TORONTO, Thursday, December 2, 2004
The Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence met this day at 1:03 p.m. to examine and report on the need for a national security policy for Canada.
Senator Colin Kenny (Chairman) in the chair.
[English]
The Chairman: This is the Senate Standing Committee on National Security and Defence, and the committee is here to receive testimony relating to Canadian defence policy.
We have before us Mr. Michael Marzolini, who is Chairman and CEO of Pollara. He provides research-based counsel on corporate image, strategic positioning, public affairs, marketing and communications to a wide range of companies, institutions and industry associations in North America.
I can say, as a personal aside, I had the benefit of his excellent services when I was active in the tobacco wars and he was very helpful to me through a poll that was commissioned giving us insights to assist us with legislation in getting young people to stop smoking.
The purpose of today's hearing is significantly different. What we are looking for are insights into how Canadians see themselves in the world, how Canadians relate to the military. I think it is fair to say that the committee feels probably that politicians in Canada have generally got it right over the last couple of decades and that accounts for the relatively low level of public spending on military matters.
The issues that are of interest to us are if politicians are accurately reading Canadians, in that, if they do not have a great interest in these matters, then how should the question be forged? How should Canadians be approached? Is it a question of Canadians being concerned about the threats and vulnerabilities that they see? Is it a question of national pride? Is it a question of altruism and a desire to reach out to assist other countries and create a stable world? What are the issues that connect with Canadians that would cause them to see a value in having a military?
It is around these issues that we hope you can assist us this afternoon, Mr. Marzolini. I understand that you have a brief opening statement, and then we hope to have the chance to ask you questions.
Mr. Michael Marzolini, Chairman and CEO, Pollara: Thank you very much, senator. It is a pleasure to be here this afternoon and thank you very much for your invitation.
National security and defence are issues that I have been involved with for more than 30 years, so I am hopeful that I can be of some use to this committee. Before I became an opinion pollster, which was about 25 years ago, I was a soldier and served as a peacekeeper, and was also trained in counter-terrorism in advance of the 1976 Olympics. My company, Pollara, is currently Canada's largest domestically owned public opinion firm. We have 925 employees and seven offices across Canada. We are unique in that we manage, and not just measure, public opinion. We provide data-driven strategies for changing public opinion, whether for marketing efforts or aimed at changing the public policy environment.
Public opinion is civilization's most powerful currency. It starts and ends wars, develops new markets for products and services and impacts on every decision made by both the government and the private sector. Now, over the term of the Chrétien government, I provided the Prime Minister with regular strategic counsel, mainly on domestic issues, but also on many international conflicts. Our initiatives in Kosovo, Afghanistan, the war on terrorism as well as Iraq were areas in which I tracked the feelings and opinions of Canadians and made recommendations that were not always accepted. We regularly examined attitudes towards military spending, toward our own Armed Forces and all internal and external threats to Canada.
While Pollara has in the past 12 years produced about 14,000 pages of reports and tables reflecting Canadian values towards national security and defence, I will try to précis some of these in a few sentences.
Overall, three quarters of all Canadians believe that the world is a more dangerous place today than it was 10 years ago. They are very concerned about terrorism, far more so than global warming and climate change, crime or illegal drugs. Their greatest fear is terrorists with nuclear weapons, and indeed, 63 per cent of Canadians believe there will be a terrorist attack in the future with such devices, although not in Canada. Nine out of ten expect further suicide attacks in the United States, and a small majority say it could be likely in Canada, too.
Of course, the future is a long time, but if we look at the short term, some of our recent polling reported in Maclean's earlier this fall reveals that almost half of Canadians believe it very likely that there will be a major terrorist attack on U.S. soil within the next six months. Only 15 per cent believe that such an attack is likely in Canada during this same time period.
Interestingly, whether they believe an attack is imminent or not, only 1 out of every 15 Canadians, that is, about 7 per cent, have modified their behaviour to take this into account. Only this small portion will avoid flying in an airplane, taking subway or commuter trains or going through tunnels or over bridges. We very much continue to have in this country an attitude of "It cannot happen here," and this attitude has increased the further we have evolved in time from 9/11.
Still, Canadians do recognize that we have a responsibility to participate in the war against terrorism, though by a 2 to 1 ratio, we do not believe that such a war can ever be won. The acceptance of this responsibility is a driver of their very real concern about the lack of military funding.
In our 20 years of tracking support for public spending in all areas, support for increased military spending peaked in 2003, with 56 per cent of Canadians saying the government should spend more on our Armed Forces. This has since dropped to 50 per cent, likely as a result of the helicopter and other purchases made in the past year, with some additional pressure from the unpopularity of the war in Iraq. I also feel that it is likely that in our next survey, we might find that the submarine issue has impacted on this as well. However, this is still three times what it was back in 1996, and it continues to be a higher spending priority than social assistance programs, R&D, job retraining and many other government priorities.
Last month, in the special Remembrance Day poll for Maclean's magazine, we reported that 63 per cent of Canadians believed the Canadian military to be underfunded, with the largest portion saying it is significantly underfunded. This number is greater than 70 per cent across the rest of Canada, but declines to just 41 per cent in Quebec, where a slight plurality believes the military has enough funding.
This regional view, of course, has often been reflected in all of the public opinion material on all of these topics and has resulted in a problematic political overlay to giving this issue priority. Indeed, in surveys we have conducted within the Armed Forces, we found that the rank and file strongly believe that the government is out of step with public opinion as it applied to them.
We know from our yearly polls for DND that 9 out of 10 Canadians believe that the forces are doing a good job. Some 92 per cent of Canadians have a very positive impression of the troops, and they use terms like "dedicated," "committed," "loyal" and "patriotic" to describe them, which leads to the internal view that they are unappreciated by government and confusion as to why some of their greatest achievements, such as their action at the Medak Pocket or what they accomplished in Afghanistan, go largely unrecognized by politicians and the media.
On a related personal note, I was amused two years ago to be presented with a peacekeeping medal only 26 years after the event. I could not fail to think that if Parliament had authorized this medal sooner, many thousands of Canadians who are no longer with us might have appreciated it.
However, funding and appreciation aside, there is no clear answer among Canadians as to the best way for Canada to play a significant role in world affairs. In a poll we conducted last month and reported in the media, we found that Canadians were split between two options. Half believed that we can be a major world player through "only diplomatic and alternative efforts." The other half believed that to do this we must definitely strengthen our Armed Forces. Now, this latter view is supported by a good-sized majority of Canadians in every province outside of Quebec, where almost 7 in 10 believe that we can be a world player only through diplomatic means.
This regional difference is, of course, not new. There has always been less support in Quebec for most defence initiatives. However, in the last three years, this gap has widened considerably. This is most apparent in Quebec's strong opposition to Canada's participation in Iraq and to missile defence, which is less defined in the rest of Canada. However, it is noteworthy that a majority of Quebeckers did support in very strong numbers Canada's involvement in Afghanistan, indicating some flexibility in their view due to events.
Over the last few years, the public's desired role for the Canadian Forces has been evolving slowly away from peacekeeping and towards defending Canadian sovereignty, as well as combating terrorism within Canada. There is strong support for the use of our forces to combat terrorism abroad and even for using lethal force in restoring peace to war-torn countries, but this is tempered with an understanding that our resources may not run to such measures outside of our own country.
Indeed, since the events of 9/11, our more traditional role of peacekeeping has taken a back seat in public priority. We now prefer a military with the ability to monitor and defend Canadian or North American air space in cooperation with the United States and to fight a war alongside our NATO allies to maintain international peace and security, as well as stopping ethnic cleansing and genocide. We have tested each of these issues and they are, right now, a higher priority than peacekeeping.
Countering terrorism in Canada or in Canadian embassies abroad ranks even higher and the most important role for our military is perceived to be an ability to wage war to protect Canadian territory, including the far North. This is a significant change from the expected and desired peacekeeping role that Canadians wanted for our military back in the 1990s. Since 9/11, the public has taken a more global and less introspective view of our place in the world. Our view of participating in the Iraq conflict aside, Canadians recognize the world is now more dangerous, that our military must be better prepared and equipped, both to protect our interests and to contribute to international stability.
I thank you all very much. I am pleased to answer your questions. We have a good deal of material on a lot of topics, from the submarine purchases to the forces' salary levels to Iraq, and also on whether Canadians think that Osama bin Laden will ever be captured, a poll we did last month. I look forward to the discussion.
The Chairman: Thank you very much for a very enticing menu, Mr. Marzolini. I wonder if you could comment briefly on the words "lethal force." I think the sense of some members of the committee is that those are two words that one associates with the Canadian Forces with difficulty; that Canadians in the past have not seen the Canadian Forces as people who go out to administer lethal force, if necessary. Do you have any work that would enlighten us on that?
Mr. Marzolini: I believe it is in the public domain, although I do not want to quote it directly, but in September of 2002 there was a study for DND that used exactly that term, "lethal force." I have made a practice since then of asking a very blunt question, because Canadians' opinions on some of these issues are very much shaped by what they hear in the media, and we do not want there to be any misunderstanding of what we mean.
The question that we have repeatedly asked in the last few years, both privately and as part of our regular reports, and also a few years ago for a DND survey — which again I will not quote but it should be accessible under access to information — is "For each operation, can you tell me whether you strongly support, somewhat support, somewhat oppose or strongly oppose the use of lethal force to restore peace to war-torn countries or regions?" On that we have a total of 69 per cent supportive and 29 per cent in opposition, with the remaining 2 per cent without any opinion. We have seen the support for this generally increasing as time has gone on, from 2001 to 2002.
There have been a lot of benchmarks in Canadians' attitude towards the Canadian Forces. The first one was in 1997, which was when the surge for spending increases actually took place. It had nothing to do with the war on terrorism or any of those issues. It had more to do with media reports of the plight of the troops serving within the forces and being unable to make ends meet on the salaries that they were getting; plus the usual Sea King stories did a lot to increase that.
However, in terms of a new view of what Canadians are looking for from the actual structure of the Canadian Forces, this has mainly changed in the last three years, certainly toward the blunt issues of lethal force. We have used a lot of different terms on that, but we find that that one separates the wolves from the sheep in terms of the answers that were given.
The Chairman: As a professional, how many more questions about lethal force would you have to ask in different ways before you could feel you would have a good understanding or grasp of how Canadians thought about the subject?
Mr. Marzolini: Well, they certainly do understand it. In any major survey, we would want to ask a lot of questions around it and get a sense of the drawbacks, emotions and feelings on those, but this is very much like the capital punishment question. Everybody knows that in Canada, 70-odd per cent of people are in favour of capital punishment, however, fewer than 6 out of 10 Canadians are in favour of the death penalty. They are in favour of capital punishment and they are against the death penalty. The wording is the difference. "Death penalty" assumes something that is less bureaucratic, less institutional and more personal. It is something for which they may have to take some responsibility.
It is the same with use of lethal force. This is a term heard on police shows. People are familiar with it. They know that it entails violence, it likely entails death, and certainly, if we were looking at the worst-case scenario for this question, this would be the wording that we would use to get it.
Senator Atkins: Some of the information you are passing on in your presentation is a little mind-boggling. Can I ask you a couple of practical questions about research? In recent times, when doing political research, you will ask the question "What is the most important issue facing Canadians today?" When you ask that question, you get health, you get the economy, you get education, and then way down at the bottom you get defence. How do you equate that with this kind of information? Is it because the questionnaire that you are using is primarily on issues of military interest?
Mr. Marzolini: I think those questions do a disservice to all but the top issues. Those questions, on what in your opinion is the most important issue facing Canada today, are generally measuring what is top of mind. What did people watch on the news last night? It is not necessarily what they are concerned about. We have asked that question to find out exactly that, and we get 1 or 2 per cent of people saying that defence issues are the most important in the country. This has been done in the past, and I believe there has been some disservice done to this issue, but the answers to this question right now, aside from health care being at 40 per cent, show concerns about national defence and the Armed Forces are at 1 per cent and national security at 1 per cent. Now, that does not mean that 2 per cent of Canadians are concerned about that issue. That 2 per cent would put those issues above all others, including health care and personal economic situations that they are facing, in order to give that issue priority.
If we asked a much more intelligent question, which more people should be asking but it is more expensive for pollsters, which is why it does not get asked as often, is "How concerned are you about each of the following issues..." Then we get this issue ahead of many others, and I do not have the ranking right now, but I know that in terms of spending priorities, it is ahead of research and development and job retraining and social assistance programs in general. People are very concerned about these issues.
This is like the environment. Environment consistently gets 2 per cent of mentions across Canada in terms of the most important issue, but when we ask people how concerned they really are, it is second only to health care in terms of the real latent concern. Therefore, you have salient concern, which is reflecting what people see in the media, and you have latent concern, which is what is really on their minds. It is just not top of mind.
Senator Atkins: When you are framing a questionnaire, you are obviously doing so on the basis of how you will satisfy the client's interests in the subject?
Mr. Marzolini: No, we write our questions to get to the truth of what public opinion is. I look at public opinion as basically sacred. We do not skew it. We do not try to make it appear a little more attractive in any way. Public opinion is about the only thing you cannot take away from people. You cannot tax it, you cannot change it. Well, we can try to modify it. Certainly, I believe that skewing public opinion, framing a question that makes it appear that public opinion is a certain way, is a terrible disservice to the public.
Now, we have taken criticism in our company because we design strategies to change the way people are thinking about issues. We did that with the deficit in 1995, when nobody thought it was important. The government thought it was important, so we looked at ways of bringing that issue to the public and making it important to them. I do not believe the government should ever follow polls blindly.
Polls are an indicator of what public needs and wants are, but when the people in Parliament make decisions, it should be a case of the pollsters then using public opinion to look at problems with those decisions and work out ways of selling the issues. For example, the deficit had to be sold to the public. They knew nothing about it. In fact, only 20 per cent of Canadians knew what a deficit was in 1993, and that made things difficult for all governments that had to deal with it.
Certainly we do not set out to gild the lily in terms of the questions. We may set out to test arguments that will move people from one side to the other or to draw a line in terms of the actual worst results that we may get on a survey. It is a little like underestimating a budget surplus. You do not want to go overboard in terms of what you are reporting. Therefore, we will not use a term like "the use of lethal force" in the wording of a question, knowing that that is a big hurdle for people to cross, but if they do cross it, then that is significant.
Senator Atkins: In your experience since you have been in the polling business, have you sensed that there has been a shift in the Canadian population that has some impact on the kind of results you get?
Mr. Marzolini: There have been many impacts. September 11 was the biggest, and certainly I have never seen changes in people's attitudes that rapid.
I was, however, very concerned about some of the media polls that were done that week. If you remember, within 48 hours of the World Trade Center bombing, The Globe and Mail had taken a survey that basically showed that 70-odd per cent of Canadians were willing to let people read their email, have access to their private written mail, and they were in favour of carrying identity cards to be presented to anybody. They were willing to put all sorts of basic rights on hold. That is as a result of asking those questions within 48 hours of the crisis. When a crisis appears, the opinions are formed by thinking about what is the answer to this problem — "Well, these options that this pollster is giving me, like allowing all of our mail to be read, carrying ID cards and having retinal scans everywhere we go, that is an answer. I am in favour of that because I do not have any other answer." I warned many people in government at that time that those were very dangerous polling results, certainly if decisions had been taken on them. I think the aftermath, at least in Canada, might have been quite different. However, we generally lost about 5 or 6 per cent of resolve on that issue for every two weeks after that, declining down to a point where we were basically back to normal in January.
The Chairman: I take your point that if the government had acted on the poll that was taken immediately after the tragedy, they would have not come up with sound legislation. However, how do you contrast that with the fact that people's opinions crystallize around shocking events, causing them make judgments they will carry for a certain time after that, and if governments do not seize those opportunities, they then miss significant chances to effect change in how society thinks about things?
Mr. Marzolini: There is a fine balance in trying to work out where public opinion is. We are not in the business of predicting public opinion, but there are clues as to where and how fast it is going. I was in Washington in March 2002 just a week after our soldiers were bombed in that friendly fire incident. I was trying to urge people in the White House that they did not need to try to build support in public opinion on Iraq. The American government has never had a good understanding of public opinion, and that was very clear on Desert Storm, Desert Shield. They were trying to build support in public opinion when they did not need to.
In the case of September 11, a blank cheque was written. In fact, there was strong support for Afghanistan in many countries, including Canada. It was 76 per cent in favour of our involvement in that. It was going down by a few per cent almost every week after September 11th. The blank cheques came in the first week, and we were losing anywhere from 8 per cent to 12 per cent support for that blank cheque, depending on the month. In the United States, they were not losing it. They did not start to lose it until the second year, and then on a much slower basis than here. If they had made the decision that they knew they would make in March of 2002, they would not have had the opposition problems right around the world that they wound up with.
Senator Atkins: If you were making a recommendation to the DND, what would you suggest is the way to raise the profile and the awareness of the military among the public?
Mr. Marzolini: Sorry, raise the image?
Senator Atkins: Yes, and the profile.
Mr. Marzolini: That is a point I think I made in my remarks. Herodotus, Suetonius and Rudyard Kipling have reflected at different times that the troops, the common soldiers, are always poorly regarded in peacetime. However, the impression of the members serving in the Canadian Forces has been incredibly positive. The public has a great deal of respect for them. I think that is your leverage right there. They may feel that the Canadian Forces are top heavy, that they may be bureaucratic, that they are shackled by government or underfunded and all those types of attitudes, but the linchpin of everything is the serving men and women, who are greatly respected, admired and seen to be doing the very best job possible with what they have.
Senator Atkins: How do you tell the public that?
Mr. Marzolini: I think the public has told us that they already know that. It is a case now of leveraging that good regard in terms of support for better equipment, which there already is, and perhaps more political support. Perhaps the shutting down of the Somalia inquiry was an issue. It might be that some of the changes of the last 10 or 12 years, or maybe going further back, are reflected in this, but many Canadians do not believe, and certainly the people within the services do not believe, that the government has always given proper backing to the forces.
Certainly the level of support for increased funding has been rising for eight years now and shows no sign of going below where it has been. It is just important that the pollsters reflect that accurately by asking direct questions on it, by asking people straightforward questions on funding and not some of the spin polls that we have seen in the past that say only 2 per cent say that national defence and security are the most important issues, so these are not spending priorities. I have seen polls conducted both for media and pressure groups and presented that way in Ottawa. I could table them if I had them, but I think they are easy to find.
Senator Atkins: However, that seems to be one of the problems, in that the further away you get from 9/11, the less urgency there appears to be in the minds of the public, which makes it more difficult for government to implement measures for addressing the entire issue of terrorism.
Mr. Marzolini: Yes, and it is further exacerbated by the current views of about 80 per cent of Canadians on the U.S. administration, which impacts on the missile defence issue far more than the issue itself impacts on the issue.
Yes, the blank cheque was there on September 11. The United States could have done whatever they wanted in order to fix things, and certainly in this country we were questioning within three months the treatment of al-Qaeda prisoners, whether to hand them to the Americans or what to do with them in terms of our own sovereignty and everything else. It is a complex issue and impacts on a lot of things. The further away from that you get, yes, the more difficult it does become.
I am trying to make the point that there is a lot of support there now, whether it is residual or has been there for a long time. It is certainly strong enough to base decisions on without offending the majority of people in every province, except, of course, in Quebec, which has some sensitivity to those issues and it may take a little time to work through them with the public there.
Senator Meighen: Mr. Marzolini, your fame has preceded you. I enjoyed listening to you for the first time. I have not, unfortunately, had an opportunity to do so before this. Senator Atkins knows far more about this than I do and has asked the questions that I wanted to ask, but given that you have said the support base is there, how do you explain the political lag? Or perhaps it is not a lag; perhaps, in your experience, it takes a long time for politicians to catch up with public opinion. Is that what we are seeing here, or is it just a no-win situation in the minds of most politicians, so why the heck get out in front on this issue when they do not have to?
Mr. Marzolini: I think there are a lot of factors that impact on the way the politicians handle that issue, and certainly foreign relations has been a factor there in the last two or three years. In terms of the lag between politicians and public opinion, there usually is, and probably should be, some sort of a lag. I think that is part of an effort to avoiding the blind following of public opinion as in mob rule, and actually making considered decisions based on study and knowledge. However, in terms of where the lag is now, I believe that the issue is still ahead of the politicians. There is still not the buy-in at the political level.
Senator Meighen: But there is the buy-in at the public level?
Mr. Marzolini: There is, but remember that for the last three years, the federal government — and I am almost getting into the area of analyzed opinion — has been more reactive than proactive in the way it follows issues. There seems to be no strong motivation to put issues like bank mergers or patent protection of drugs or whatever on the table. It has been driven more by way of management and trying not to scare the horses. That is a style of government we have seen for a few years, and as such there have not been a lot of new issues opened up or really explored, this being one of them. There is also that Quebec side to the issue, which makes it one that many politicians do not really want to tackle, head on at least. Certainly the public is well ahead of elected members on this. There is support, and certainly I noticed in a survey that you had circulated that it looked like there was more support for the equipment side than the manpower side in terms of what was really necessary to raise the force to the level where it could do its job. Aside from that, I really cannot comment on why the government has lagged behind public opinion. I think the government has had a good reading from various pollsters. You had one in this morning and he would have likely reflected this as well. It is not a secret that the public are behind the forces and want more funding for them. It may not be the top of mind issue in the country, but it is certainly, in terms of latent concern, very important to them.
Senator Meighen: In many ways that is very encouraging, because you gave us the example of deficit reduction, which you said had very little share of the public mind and very little support. Yet political authorities decided in 1995 they would ride with issue, and you devised a strategy, or somebody did, and they were quite successful. Therefore the corollary would be, would it not, that here we have an issue that has much greater support in the public mind, so surely it would be that much easier to derive a strategy to ride with it and meet public expectations?
Mr. Marzolini: The public will is there. The political will has to be worked on.
Senator Meighen: I think the problem is at the top, obviously, not the bottom.
Mr. Marzolini: This issue also benefits from being easily understandable. It is still a fact that the majority of Canadians do not know how many millions are in a billion. Most would say 100, maybe 10,000, maybe a million, but only 40 per cent know how many millions are actually in a billion. Therefore, on any issues to do with taxation and spending, that becomes a major concern. Plus, only 20 per cent of Canadians could select a proper description of a deficit out of five different options, which, of course, is only random selection, so that was very difficult.
Here these issues are more salient. People have heard the Sea King stories, they have heard the submarine stories, they understand the need for additional funding, for more support, and it is not a great leap for them to get over those barriers.
Senator Meighen: Did you see any marked change in the days and months following the friendly fire incident in Canadians' appreciation of the dangers for our forces going abroad?
Mr. Marzolini: I was concerned, when we went into the field about 48 hours after that, that Canadians would lose the stomach for a continued role and that would impact on related issues. I was quite surprised to find that it was the opposite, that it strengthened the resolve.
Senator Meighen: I would think.
Mr. Marzolini: It is as if we have now spent blood, so we are there to stay. It is not a case of we can go whenever we like. We have made a commitment. It has been a major commitment, and now we have to do what is right by those who have died, stick around and do the job. I found that very heartening and positive on the part of Canadians.
Senator Meighen: Are Canadians unique in any particular respects that your polling has demonstrated to you? In other words, if you asked the same question, would you generally get the same answers in other Western democracies? For instance, everybody is concerned about health care, surely, and that could be affected by the efficacy of the particular system in the particular country, but would that not likely be the number one issue in other countries, since everybody has a self-interest in it?
Mr. Marzolini: That is the topic of a few good books, and I do not know if I could go through the issues one by one and look at the differences between this country and others. It is fair to say that we are all basically made the same and there are a lot of regional impacts from political systems. I am sure they are not talking about health care in Ukraine this week. It is really too complex to address. I hate to sound like Kim Campbell in saying it is too short a time to discuss the issue.
Senator Meighen: No.
Mr. Marzolini: I believe Michael Adams, President of Environics and a very fine pollster, had written a couple of books on that, Sex in the Snow and some others.
Senator Day: Senator Kenny said in his opening remarks that we had the impression that during the 1990s, the politicians got it right in reading the Canadian public; the Canadian public did not want to spend money on the military and therefore politicians did not. I think I am hearing you say that it was not just the effect of September 11, 2001, but there might have been an inherent support for the military even before that?
Mr. Marzolini: It was a pendulum effect. We expected a peace dividend when the Berlin Wall came down. We expected that we would not need to keep a large portion of our army in Germany, there would not be the expenses and we would not need to keep buying new jets. It was a period when the term "peace dividend" was circulating quite widely and people expected to get some relief in terms of spending in that area. However, in all situations like that you get the reverse of the coin after a few years, and that is what you were seeing. The public were thinking that it had not been a priority for five or six years, and they start reading the stories about the Sea Kings falling apart and the stories in, I believe it was the Toronto Star and other publications, saying there are families of those who serve in the forces who are going to food banks. That bothered a lot of people.
We talked about the deficit earlier. The deficit was very much a media-driven issue. The most important thing that happened was publication of an article in the New York Times, or it might have been the Wall Street Journal, describing Canada as the Brazil of the North. It basically said this country was an economic basket case. When that happens, people start paying attention. If the Americans say we are not up to scratch, then we tend to examine the issue a little more and be a little more sensitive on it. That is what we did with the deficit. There have been messages from south of the border that the NATO commitment is not being met, but they have not made a huge impact on public opinion. However, the sight of people who are greatly admired and respected by Canadians, that is, those who are currently serving, going to food banks was an issue that really woke people up.
There were some small fluctuations between then and the expectation of a peace dividend. There were the hazing incidents in the parachute battalion. I forget what the new name was, but the battalion that was disbanded, that was unfortunate in terms of the Airborne Regiment.
Senator Day: Yes.
Mr. Marzolini: I have a friend who served with the Airborne back in the Second World War and he was quite upset by that. It was not handled that well. There were other hazing incidents.
The image, the PR for the forces, was not great in the early 1990s.
Senator Day: Somalia.
Mr. Marzolini: Somalia, yes.
Senator Day: Am I correct in interpreting your comments as saying that there is an inherent and fundamental support for the Canadian Forces across the country? It may be higher in some areas, higher in the Maritimes, in Ontario, than it would be in Quebec, for example, but that inherent support is there?
Mr. Marzolini: It has always been there. Even Quebeckers have a very positive view of those who serve. The support, as you say, has always been higher in Atlantic Canada. It is also pretty good in the West and in Ontario. Quebec goes up and down, depending on the situation, but as I mentioned in the opening remarks, Quebec's attitude can be driven by events. They were very supportive of Canada's initiative in Afghanistan, so certain issues will move them one way, but public opinion is always a moving picture.
Senator Day: It does not take a September 11, 2001, or the friendly fire incident in Afghanistan to rally that opinion a little. You can notice a change even as you describe the living standards and the necessity for a soldier in Victoria to work off the base on his time off in order to pay for his housing. That kind of issue also rouses the sleeping giant that exists.
Mr. Marzolini: Every attitude changes over time. That is why we track surveys over time. For example, I talked a little about the blank cheque at the beginning of an issue and the way it dwindles down, and here we have a tracking. This is a quarterly tracking survey of concern over Canada's security from terrorist attacks. That is this line here. It started at 43 per cent in the first quarter of 2002 and declined last month to 29 per cent. That is not quite a regular decline, but it moves along and that is the level of concern. Canada-U.S. border security, this line here, nobody really cares about that much in terms of whether it is a concern or not. One of the reasons they do not care too much about it is that they believe it will actually get a lot better, and it is part of the attitude that it cannot happen here. For the expectations of Canada-U.S. border security, we have currently 65 per cent believing that will improve significantly or slightly. Canada's security from terrorist attacks in general, 63 per cent believe it will improve significantly or slightly over the next year, that our security will improve. This is actually lower than it was shortly after the September 11 attack, when it was about 73 per cent.
Canadians have a great deal of confidence in their government and in their forces to react to these problems.
Senator Day: That is the next area I will get to; do Canadians have that complacency because they have not been shown otherwise, even though we have talked about it for a long time? When you poll or analyze public opinion, do you look at their support of the Canadian Forces, that it does not touch them quite as closely, as they are also supportive of education and health care, and in order of priority, they want the government to spend money on things such as transportation, things that hit them on a daily basis, as opposed to the military, which is off to the side somewhere?
Mr. Marzolini: We try to look at everything in a holistic way. My survey process involves at least two or three major surveys a day. I do not always get to see all of them but I try to look at all of them. It is like studying history and saying, now when the Romans were doing this, the Chinese were doing this, and how does it all come together at some point? Certainly we look at every issue and try to tie them together. Many times, you cannot tie them together. There are different priorities, and when support for one area appears to go down, it may not be that the support has actually gone down; it may be that another issue is taking support from it. I know that is not easy to follow and I have not explained it well. There is a pattern in it, but it is not overwhelmingly clear.
Senator Day: Could it be that politicians are looking at a finite amount of funds and saying, "Well, there is support there for the military, but if we let that sleeping giant lie, we can deal with other things, and we will be okay there as long as attention is not raised on that, which we are certainly not intending to do?"
Mr. Marzolini: Then again, you are asking me to comment on the relationship between what government is thinking and what the public is thinking.
Senator Day: I do not mean to interrupt you, but I would like to try to get some appreciation for why the political realm has not reacted to the clear public support that exists, in spite of the efforts of a number of other groups and various committees, including the Senate committee, who have tried to raise that issue. We know there is an inherent level of support, but the political level has not reacted to it, and basically, has gotten away with not reacting to it.
Mr. Marzolini: That has been curious and I wondered about that occasionally. I know the memo that Eddie Goldenberg wrote in 1975 to Mr. Chrétien, wondering, speculating, about do we really need a Canadian Armed Forces. It was perhaps reflective of the views of some about the necessity. To me, as it is to a great majority of the public, it is a no-brainer that you need some sort of strong military in order to be a world player. Although clearly, half of all Canadians believe that you do not, and that you can fulfill that through diplomatic and alternative means.
Senator Atkins: The memo was in 1995?
Mr. Marzolini: No, that was 1975.
Senator Day: Way back.
Mr. Marzolini: I remember it because I was in the forces at the time, and it is probably an inappropriate line, but when it was made available under access to information a number of years ago, I was heard to exclaim, "Goldenberg was still screwing around with my career even back then."
The Chairman: I would like to just follow up, if I may, on Senator Day's comment, because it is fundamental to part of the work plan that we have developed for this committee. That is the level of confidence you have that there has been a higher level of public support than the politicians have appreciated. Essentially, you are saying that the politicians have not got it right, and you seem to be suggesting that we should not be focusing on what causes Canadians to arrive at the point of view they are arriving at, but simply on inside the beltway. Empirically, we know that focusing on inside the beltway does not work. It does not move the cabinet. It does not move the situation. We are looking at an alternative course of action, simply because we have not been successful with the course of action we have been following to date.
If politicians had read our first report, we would not be sitting here today; or they would have read our third report and we would not be sitting here today; or they would have read our sixth report and we would not be sitting here today.
So help us out some more on this, if you will, Mr. Marzolini. The dots are not connecting. We all understand that if this was a popular issue, politicians would be gravitating towards it. Can you shed any light on why they have not so far?
Mr. Marzolini: First, it is not as if the government has been totally out to lunch on this issue. They have not. In 1993, when the decision was made to terminate the purchase of the Cormorant or the EH-101 helicopter — I think it was a $5.3 billion or $5.8 billion expense — it was basically casting the die, and it was not an unpopular move because it was decisive. However, selling that decision meant referring to it as the Cold War helicopter.
The Chairman: The gold-plated helicopter.
Mr. Marzolini: Gold-plated, but Cold War, anti-submarine, when that is probably not what we really need. It was sort of discrediting it and tying it in with a peace dividend, the fact that you did not have the Berlin Wall, the evil empire on the other side of the world waiting to create conflict. Therefore, there were about four or five years when actually, the federal government was very much in line with public opinion on that. When it started to shift in 1997 toward higher spending, it was a reaction not to any huge need or an emotional picture of torches and pitchforks being carried through the streets of the cities; it was a feeling that clearly we have to do something for people who serve, because the equipment is now pretty out of date and their salary levels are not all that good. We like these people, they are doing a lot for us and we do not recognize them sufficiently. We are concerned but not upset with their status.
The Chairman: I think we understand that, and it was probably best epitomized by the pizza delivery story — that is it, we have to do something about these people.
Mr. Marzolini: September 11 gave it a new imperative, especially on the equipment side. Is there a political gain to be had by making this a top issue and going forward with it? I think it is dangerous for most politicians, and I am speaking now as a political strategist, not necessarily as a pollster — but as a pollster as well — to be a single issue candidate, and on one that defines you so clearly, also taking into account the divisions across the country on these issues, which I think you reflected.
I read the Toronto Sun article on missile defence, which I thought was very accurate in terms of the divisions across the country on the issues and also some of the fallacies that exist. The public sees this as an important issue. They are not getting overly upset about it. There is a lot they have to be upset about, and concern from the public is a finite resource. They can be concerned about health care, they can be concerned about transportation and they can be upset with their latest Air Canada flight, as they likely have good reason to be. However, there are a lot of things that concern them, and by the time it comes to defence and national security, yes, there is a lot of concern there, but there is not a lot of energy. Is it enough to cause people to vote a certain way if it is positioned? Probably not on its own, but I would certainly recommend anybody of any party going to the public to have a policy of buttressing the equipment and personnel of the Canadian Forces. It would make good political sense. It would not make good political sense to be a single issue candidate on it or to go overboard and appeal to various parts of the country by looking like a warmonger.
The Chairman: You appear to have done some work on the public reaction to the phrase "peace dividend." Have you done corresponding work on the concept of "insurance policy" and the analogy that you pay for home insurance or fire insurance or car insurance, and the money you spend on the military is country insurance?
Mr. Marzolini: We do other work for the car insurance industry, and that is not an easy topic these days. I do not think you would want to make comparisons between this issue and car insurance, at least not in Atlantic Canada.
The Chairman: Only to the extent that people understand the logic that you need to have insurance for a car or you need to have a police department or you need to have a fire department if you do not want your house to burn down.
Mr. Marzolini: That would be the type of research we would be doing if we were devising a strategy to sell it. We have not done that. We have not been asked to, so we have not done that type of work. I would dearly love to do research like that. In fact, I have often said that if I had no clients, I would still poll just because I love to see the results of different questions and answers that people give to them. That is an interesting area for further research that I had not considered.
My rates are very reasonable and I can certainly send you a proposal.
The Chairman: This is a free commercial.
Senator Day: I am just wondering if you are satisfied that the public has an understanding of the term "peacekeeping"? Does it include peacemaking, or is it a more traditional policing-type activity?
Mr. Marzolini: We have asked a lot of questions on peacekeeping in different ways. We have not done focus groups on what people who are not correct in their views of peacekeeping might actually think it is. However, I think everybody has seen the films, the news reports over the years, and I would think their knowledge of peacekeeping, if not of what actually goes on there, is actually quite good, but is probably based on more the 1960s, 1970s type of peacemaking. I am not talking about early Cyprus but later Cyprus, the Sinai, and acting as a buffer but not taking a major active role such as at the Medak Pocket, when Canadian troops acted proactively rather than just reactively. I believe that is not generally known to most Canadians.
Senator Day: Would Canadians refer to the activity in the former Yugoslavia as peacekeeping?
Mr. Marzolini: The later part to some extent, not the early part, and that was a very difficult one in terms of looking at Canadian support, because support was lower for that than for any other initiative. I think it was down around 56 per cent. Canadians did not really understand much about the issue, or who were the good guys and who were the bad guys. They are used to watching a lot of movies and they like to understand things in black and white. There seemed to be too many players on that field.
They do not usually see peacekeeping as overly dangerous. When I told people about the number of Canadian casualties in Cyprus during the Turkish invasion of 1974, they looked at me in amazement and said, "I did not know that we actually lost peacekeepers." They do not really see it as a dangerous, aside from maybe land mines or types of explosives. They do not realize there are heated exchanges going on.
That is why we use terms like "lethal force." How far do you want this to go? We generally get a little uncomfortable in this country, unlike in the United States, with people who have taken a human life.
I once had to advise somebody who could have been a very good mayor that because he had shot a perpetrator in another role, it would make it very difficult to sell that to the population, who get nervous about the use of guns, the use of any type of force, whether lethal or non-lethal. It is not something that they want to see, necessarily, in their politicians. We do not have many people in the Commons right now who have fought in any sort of a battle. I believe in the Senate, Stan Waters had a very strong record on that, but it is not part of our culture.
People do not necessarily join the army when they are 16 or 18 as they do down there, which was also why, during the last U.S. election, the swift boat veterans' attacks on John Kerry were so effective; but I am rambling again.
Senator Banks: Welcome, Mr. Marzolini. We do not see you as often as we once did. I hope we will again. I will pursue that a little. You must understand, and I have to say this up front, that we, the members of the committee, are not just prospective clients, notwithstanding. You are right, because you said in your opening remarks that public relations, public perceptions, public opinion can literally start wars. The Spanish American War started because of political opinion.
Mr. Marzolini: USS Maine.
Senator Banks: Yes.
Mr. Marzolini: Havana Harbour.
Senator Banks: And there have been other examples.
Mr. Marzolini: Well, everything is public opinion. Religion is public opinion.
Senator Banks: Right. I was surprised, because I did not know this, to hear you say that your firm, by way of example — and I suspect you may be unique in this respect — not only determines what public opinion is but undertakes sometimes to change it. You can make people believe anything. Joseph Goebbels is as effective proof of that, I think, as anybody.
Mr. Marzolini: You can change opinions. You cannot change their values or what makes them who they are. There is a limit. You can persuade them that one hamburger is different from another or one type of car might be better for them or to vote a certain way and not another way, but you really cannot get to the inner person. You cannot change their values. They are very strongly held opinions. I will not change somebody's views on capital punishment or abortion in an election campaign, but if new information is put forward, they may decide that a different type of health care system or higher funding for the forces is more important, because that is an opinion. You can work on that.
Senator Banks: Well, I do not agree that you cannot, but I accept that you will not.
Mr. Marzolini: Well, I am not good enough.
Senator Banks: I am curious to know what the process is, because you have had a more than grazing attachment to a lot of the things you are talking about — the peace dividend, and the concept, as you mentioned, of making the general public attitude with respect to the deficit, ongoing deficit, the annual deficit and the big one, different than it was. I am curious as to what the process is. Since it has already been done, you would not be giving anything away. What is the process by which you did that? Simply, your having identified that as a problem or as an issue that would be susceptible of good use in an election, were you then commissioned to talk about how to do that?
Mr. Marzolini: Well, I had to do a bit of selling on that issue in internal discussions because I knew that people in office felt that it would be important, and we knew it to be important, but it was something that the public could not be convinced was important.
Senator Banks: You knew it should be important.
Mr. Marzolini: Well, I do not believe that that would be an opinion. I think any view of economics, when you are $580 billion in debt, and given the percentage going towards servicing the debt and taxes, et cetera, would say it was an issue. I have always not held many political opinions myself because I am a pollster. I do not want to be tainted by too many different opinions, but I think it is pretty straightforward that getting out of the hole at that point did not mean spending more money that the public did not have. Therefore, it was a case of selling the idea to people in office — you can do this, and no, the support is not there, but we can build it so that the people will not necessarily stand up and applaud you, but will accept what you are doing. We tried things with workbooks, we did exercises; we took people through the making of a budget, what goes into it, and tried to look at the economic literacy aspect.
I mentioned earlier that only 40 per cent of Canadians know how many millions are in a billion. Deficits and debts were nothing to them. We had to sell those issues as a crisis. We had to look at prods in the media. If you had heard from an American politician that we were an economic basket case, would this influence your decision about whether these people are on the right track? We would look at the hot buttons and the leverage that would impact on people. Some things they would not be influenced by and some things they would. It was a case of using those, not to manipulate public opinion, but to educate people in the right manner so that they would accept the importance of the issue and their views would be a little more relevant.
I remember after one of the budgets I was quite disappointed to see somebody I much admire, former Finance Minister Michael Wilson, giving an interview in which he said "Well, in our government we never went after the deficit because we never had public support for it." I look at that as a difference in philosophy of government. You should do what is right and then boost the PR side to influence public opinion and sell the decision.
Senator Banks: In fact, Mr. Wilson's opinion on what ought to be done was not that much different from Mr. Martin's.
Mr. Marzolini: Right.
Senator Banks: The difference was that Mr. Martin was permitted to do it and Mr. Wilson was not. Therefore, is it correct to say that people in the know in the government, including yourself and people like you, knew at the time that the issue of the deficit could be made into a saleable item?
Mr. Marzolini: It was saleable.
Senator Banks: But people had not figured it out yet?
Mr. Marzolini: The public was not yet aware of the issue.
Senator Banks: Right.
Mr. Marzolini: On that issue the public was basically where they are now on this issue. Support is there to be garnered. In fact, it is a lot more salient on this issue because there is support right now for the actions that we have discussed. We have to mobilize it and use it to head in the right direction.
Senator Banks: I am glad to hear that because we have been barking up that tree. That is a happy confirmation.
In the last of your pieces that we were given today, from last month, December to November, table 1, which is on page 6, points out that the support of Canadians with respect to focusing more on U.S. relations as opposed to relations with other countries has gone down a lot between April and November of last year. Is that attributable, in your view, to anything in particular; did this poll, this survey, find out whether there was a reason for that or does it just simply give the result?
Mr. Marzolini: I was just looking at this survey for the first time today. I did not actually put this together as a compendium of our polling on this because it was done for a private client and we do not usually discuss that or make it available, but there has been more of a focus outside of the United States and on other countries for a couple of years now, and most of that is related to the perceptions of the public on the Bush administration. We have done surveys showing that this is not anti-Americanism, it is not anti their way of government, but it is anti their policy in the Middle East and it is anti-George Bush. That has been turning people away from thinking we have to spend more time on our U.S.-Canada relationship and towards spending more time on the European-Canadian relationship. I think a lot of this, though, is emotional, and not necessarily something they would consider as time goes on. Certainly during the Clinton administration they would have had totally different views on this. Unfortunately, there have been a lot of cases where personal relationships have made a difference to foreign affairs, and I think this is one of them.
Senator Banks: Just to finish with the previous question, we do have at the moment a fertile field upon which someone could with success sow something?
Mr. Marzolini: I would not like to say that six times quickly, but I think you are absolutely right.
The Chairman: Mr. Marzolini, on behalf of the committee, I would like to thank you very much for your presentation today. You have been of great assistance to us in getting a better understanding of how the public views the military, and you have given us a number of what I would describe as clues, or thoughts, to help us in our further studies. I hope that we can call on you in the future as our study continues. Your perspective on and understanding of public opinion is very valuable to us and we appreciate you coming.
Honourable senators, we have before us now BGen. Lessard, a regular force officer, and Commander of Land Force Central Area since July 2003. He joined the Canadian Forces in 1978, served overseas in Cyprus and has been deployed on two tours to the former Yugoslavia. During his career he commanded the Combat Training Centre as well as Canadian Forces Base Gagetown. He was also the Commandant of the Canadian Land Force Staff College and Deputy Commander of the Striking Fleet Atlantic, in Norfolk, Virginia.
Accompanying him is BGen. Young. Gen. Young is a reservist and Deputy Commander of Land Force Central Area. He joined the 48th Highlanders of Canada as an infantryman in June of 1964. He was promoted to his current rank and received his appointment as deputy commander on August 15, 2001. BGen. Young is also a teacher with the Etobicoke Board of Education.
Welcome to the committee, gentlemen. We are looking forward to hearing from you. I apologize very much for being late, but we are delighted that you are here. I understand, Gen. Lessard, you will make an initial statement and Gen. Young will follow.
Brigadier-General J.G. Marc Lessard, Commander, Land Force Central Area, Department of National Defence: Honourable senators, it is my pleasure to appear before you today.
My mission is to generate and maintain a designated state of readiness, combat-capable, multi-purpose land force to meet Canada's defence objectives, both at home and abroad.
I have four primary responsibilities: to train and force generate soldiers, formed units, task forces or brigades for deployment on international operations; to command and force employ formed units, task forces or brigades on domestic operations within the province of Ontario; to manage departmental infrastructure in support of LFCA units and non-LFCA units garrisoned on my bases; and finally, to provide general logistical support to LFCA units and non-LFCA units garrisoned on my bases.
LFCA is one of the four regional formations that comprise the field force of Canada's army, and it consists of nine subordinate formations. These are: the 2nd Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group, garrisoned at Canadian Forces Base Petawawa. It is a regular force brigade group and is the primary source of soldiers for international and domestic operations; 31 Canadian Brigade Group headquartered in London, a primary reserve brigade group with units dispersed throughout Southern Ontario; 32 Canadian Brigade Group headquartered here in Toronto, a primary reserve brigade group with units in the Greater Toronto Area; 33 Canadian Brigade Group headquartered in Ottawa, also a primary reserve brigade group with units in three regions, the St. Lawrence corridor, the National Capital Region and the Sault St. Marie—North Bay corridor.
Another formation is 2 Area Support Group headquartered here in Toronto, comprising the five bases and area support units, one general support battalion and area level speciality units.
There is a Land Force Central Area Training Centre garrisoned in Meaford delivering entry level individual soldier training and basic leadership training through the conduct of formal courses.
The Canadian Parachute Centre, garrisoned in Trenton, is responsible for all parachute and air-mobile-related individual training for the army through the conduct of formal courses. The Canadian Parachute Centre will be transferred to the command of the Combat Training Centre in Gagetown in April, 2005, in order to consolidate army level schools under a single command. They will, however, remain garrisoned in Trenton.
The 3rd Canadian Ranger Patrol Group, headquartered at Canadian Forces Base Borden, commands 15 Canadian ranger patrols and 15 junior Canadian rangers, all of which are located in Northern Ontario, north of the 50th parallel.
The Regional Cadet Support Unit Central, also located at Canadian Forces Base Borden, conducts a cadet program in Ontario to provide leadership and citizenship training to some 17,000 cadets annually. The Regional Cadet Support Unit Central commands 267 cadet units across the province.
Since February of 2003, LFCA has force generated 2,690 soldiers for deployments abroad on international operations, the preponderance of which were to Afghanistan and Bosnia. In both cases, Land Force Central Area was staffed with force generation and reintegration of our soldiers upon their return to Canada.
Land Force Central Area is funded with $237 million to conduct its training and operations for this fiscal year. The area comprises 3,600 regular force soldiers, 5,500 primary reservists and 1,500 civilian employees. Central Area has again been tasked as a primary force generator for task forces for deployment to Afghanistan on Operation ATHENA Rotation 3, in February of 2005, and to Bosnia on Operation BRONZE, Rotation 1, in March of 2005, both of which are undergoing training as we speak. Central Area will also force generate Operation ATHENA, Rotation 4, in August of 2005.
I would now like to elaborate upon the primary reserves within Central Area. Land Force Central Area has 43 primary reserve units, grouped primarily into three brigade groups, as previously mentioned. There are also three specialty units within the 2nd Area Support Group, specifically, a civil-military cooperation unit, a military police unit and an intelligence unit. The 2nd Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group commands a single primary reserve unit, which fulfills a role of ground-based air defence. A significant number of individual reservists are also employed on full-time duty with units and headquarters throughout the area. LFCA is further supported by three medical reserve units grouped under our operation control, as well as by units of the communications reserve throughout the province. The collective footprint of our primary reserve units touches some 42 communities across Ontario.
As stated, Land Force Central Area currently has a reservist strength of 5,500, which is expected to grown to an approximate strength of 5,800 in the next fiscal year. Of these soldiers, 340 have been deployed on international operations in the past 18 months, to areas such as Bosnia, Afghanistan, the Congo, the Golan Heights and Sierra Leone. Although the preponderance of deployments has been in the form of individual augmentation to existing task forces, or as individual military observers, the numbers do include a composite reserve light infantry company that deployed to Bosnia as a formed sub-unit this past year. An additional 160 reservists will deploy in the new year, some to Bosnia and others to Afghanistan.
In summary, Land Force Central Area has been and will remain focused on generating units and individuals for overseas missions while completing the army's transformation plans. These two priorities will ensure that Central Area remains committed to combat readiness.
I would now like to introduce my deputy commander, BGen. Greg Young, who will elaborate upon the nature and role of the primary reserves within Central Area. Thank you very much.
Brigadier-General G.A. Young, (Res), Deputy Commander, Land Force Central Area, Department of National Defence: Honourable senators, it is my pleasure to appear before you here today.
As deputy commander and the senior serving reservist within Land Force Central Area, my role is to advise and support the commander in his mission, with particular emphasis on the management, training and employment of the primary reserve component. BGen. Lessard has asked me to elaborate on the nature and role of the primary reserves within LFCA.
You are aware of the Land Force Reserve Restructure, or LFRR, project currently under way. One of the first and most essential steps in the project was to clearly define the role of the primary reserve. As authorized by the Chief of the Defence Staff, the role consists of three essential elements: augmentation to the regular force, providing both complementary or depth capabilities and supplementary capabilities in which the reserve will be the primary or sole provider of that capability; a framework for mobilization or force expansion — each reserve unit has been given a clearly defined mission or task that it would be expected to undertake should there be a requirement to expand the force to meet a declared emergency. This element of the role requires that the army reserve maintain a larger command and control structure than the size of the force would normally dictate; to maintain a Canadian Forces presence within the communities throughout Canada, thereby promoting a closer link with the people of Canada.
Building upon our strong militia heritage, Land Force Central Area has aggressively prosecuted its assigned tasks under the LFRR project and we have achieved a high degree of success.
Our increased-strength targets have been met, and we are well poised for the next rounds of growth. We have established or are in the process of establishing army reserve elements in seven new communities throughout the province. We are taking the opportunity to relocate units out of the downtown core of major urban centres, moving them to where the target population resides.
We have successfully met the challenge of new reserve capabilities; 90 per cent of our original civil-military cooperation, or CIMIC, detachment, initiated just three years ago, has deployed on international operations. We have recently completed the recruiting of personnel that has doubled the size of this detachment and will add another 30 personnel over the next year.
The demand for geomatics capability is rapidly expanding as the army moves to digitized command and control systems. Based on a small trial conducted in Ottawa, we have clearly demonstrated that reservists are capable of providing this capability.
Using borrowed legacy equipment, we have demonstrated that reservists can provide support to municipal first responders at chemical, biological, radiation and nuclear incidents.
We look forward to the new challenges of information operations and psychological operations that we will face in the next round of growth.
I do not wish to paint too rosy a picture, for our success has been based mainly on the can-do attitude of our soldiers and their commanders. Many challenges in the areas of recruiting, equipment, infrastructure and training remain. We are faced with a number of conundrums.
There is a widening technology gap between regular and reserve soldiers. As we move to more advanced, and, consequently, more expensive systems, the availability of these systems for reserve training is lessened. Skill fade is a major obstacle, as most of these new technologies require constant hands-on refresher training. The training differential between regulars and reservists is growing, generating an increased pre-deployment training bill for reservists augmenting regular units on operations. This is not a uniquely reserve problem, as the regular component is also currently forced to share equipment for training. The best example I can provide is that of the new family of radios, which we refer to as TCCCS. Land Force Central Area has insufficient radios to conduct proper training to support domestic operations, with a significantly higher percentage of these shortages being within the reserve component. In response to domestic operations of a humanitarian or disaster relief nature, the ability to provide formed bodies with integral communications is a paramount factor.
Much of the infrastructure to support the reserves in LFCA was constructed in the early 1900s, when the army was still riding horses and drill was an important part of battle tactics. Armouries built in the 1950s and 1960s used the same basic design as the old armouries, but employed the construction standards of the day. Most of our armouries are inefficient from both an operating and training perspective. The cost to bring these armouries to required standards for such things as barrier-free access and cabling systems to handle modern computer systems is extremely high. LFCA has embarked on an aggressive reconstruction plan using innovative and cost-effective approaches.
In June of this year, a new facility was opened in Windsor using a unique financing arrangement. We teamed with the City of Windsor Police Service to build a combined armoury and police training facility. We are currently pursuing similar arrangements with Toronto, Halton Regional Police Services and Mississauga Emergency Services. In smaller communities, we are downsizing our footprint, constructing smaller, purpose-built armouries and disposing of obsolete structures.
Approximately half of the LFCA reservists are infantry. Twenty-five per cent of those are other combat arms, such as artillery, reconnaissance and engineers. The remaining 25 per cent are maintenance, logistics and specialty troops. This force mix allows LFCA to meet both its augmentation tasks in support of international operations and to provide for domestic response capabilities.
In the last few years, the army reserve has experienced a significant growth in strength and capability and has demonstrated great potential to support both international and domestic operations. However, despite this recent and ongoing regeneration, the reserve remains a fragile institution that must be carefully managed and resourced if it is to realize that potential and successfully accomplish the roles which it has been assigned.
In particular, reserve support to international and domestic operations has increased and is anticipated to continue to increase in both size and capability. In order to successfully meet these challenges, the reserve will have to be adequately resourced and current reserve personnel policies reviewed in order to provide programs, such as the employer support program, that will allow the real potential of the reserve to be tapped.
That concludes my statement. We are now prepared to answer your questions.
The Chairman: We heard a strong endorsement of the new Windsor Armoury from the Essex and Kent Scottish Regiment and the Windsor Regiment yesterday afternoon. We did not get a chance to see it, but they certainly seemed to think it works pretty well.
I think we have visited most of your facilities over the past three years and we have seen the good, the bad and the ugly. We have reported on it in our reports, and we certainly concur that a lot of effort needs to go into improving your infrastructure. It is sorely in need of assistance.
[Translation]
Senator Meighen: My questions are for General Young since they relate mostly to the militia. In your presentation, you mentioned a few points that are of concern to me.
[English]
Senator Meighen: Listening to you, Gen. Young, I underlined things that I wanted to ask you. I will just go through and raise, as long as the chair lets me have the floor, the questions that concern me.
On the first page, how far have you progressed in defining areas where the reserve will be the primary or sole provider of a capability? The navy was often cited as being way ahead of you fellows because they gave the coastal patrol vessels over to the reserves. I think it goes a back a few years; the army saw the reservists as the hewers of wood and drawers of water, and there was not always the warm, friendly relationship that you alluded to between the regulars and the reservists. It seems to have improved markedly, and I am just wondering how far along you are in the roles that are been given over to the reservists.
BGen. Young: At this point, that capability, meaning it is exclusively found in the reserves, is limited to CIMIC, our civil-military cooperation units.
Senator Meighen: Can you explain what that is? That was another question.
BGen. Young: They are units that work in small teams, two-man or four-man teams, and their task is to be the liaison in theatre between a task force and the civilian population. They are involved in a lot of tasks such as rebuilding of schools, digging wells, that sort of thing. That capability currently resides exclusively in the reserves. We are supplying all of the CIMIC detachments for the task forces in both Bosnia and Afghanistan.
Senator Meighen: Who would be on the team? Would it be a reservist and a regular?
BGen. Young: No.
Senator Meighen: Or two reservists or two regulars, or what?
BGen. Young: The capability rests exclusively with the reserves, but that does not mean that there might not be an occasion when a team cannot meet its full complement and they might have to take in a regular member. However, the intent is — and we have come pretty close to fulfilling that — that those teams are completely staffed with reservists, top to bottom.
Senator Meighen: That is the one role that has certainly been defined and put into action?
BGen. Young: There are several others that are in the process of being developed. These are new capabilities, as you can appreciate. Psychological ops is another one that has been assigned to the reserves, but it is in the process of being defined in terms of doctrine. Info ops is another one that our area is to take over in a year. I am not sure that one will be exclusively reserves, but there will be a heavy reserve presence.
Senator Meighen: Do the roles or the areas where the reserves are the primary or sole provider of the capability tend to be ones that result from what you referred to as the growing technological gap between the regulars and the reservists? Is it based on, "Oh gee, the reservists cannot be trained to the high degree the regulars are, so therefore they have to be assigned a role which is a little less technologically dependent?"
BGen. Young: The only one I can speak to is CIMIC, because that is the one that we have developed, and I think the short answer is no. CIMIC was a capability almost perfectly designed for the reservists, who in that function bring to the table their civilian skills, which is a perfect fit in theatre in terms of the liaison between them and the civilian community.
Senator Meighen: Exactly.
BGen. Young: It is also a requirement that does not generate a large bill in terms of personnel. The teams are quite small. The capability of reservists, who obviously have other occupations, to meet those demands is quite good. It is not a technological issue in the case of CIMIC.
Senator Meighen: However, if I were a reservist, could I be a radio operator, be promoted and given equal responsibilities with a regular?
BGen. Young: Absolutely. The question really is ensuring that the reservists, who are obviously only part-time, have an opportunity to get the training that they might be deficient in before they are deployed, and we do that.
Senator Meighen: In that respect, I gather there is a still a challenge, for purposes of training, in getting to the reserve units the proper equipment, both in terms of volume and quality?
BGen. Young: Yes. I think the short answer is yes.
Senator Meighen: Yes.
BGen. Young: We have taken steps to alleviate that by pooling equipment, by redesigning how we train, and it has been very effective, but at the end of the day, we could probably do with a little more equipment.
Senator Meighen: You will not want to answer this, but is that because the regulars do not want to let it go, or is it because there is a shortage of equipment per se?
BGen. Young: Well, I would not want to comment on the latter.
Senator Meighen: You would not want to say there is a shortage of equipment?
BGen. Young: I would be willing to say that it is probably realistic to assume that the army has a budget that only allows it to purchase —
Senator Meighen: That may be.
BGen. Young: Yes.
Senator Meighen: Do you have enough equipment in terms of volume?
BGen. Young: We have enough to meet our task, meaning we train with the amount that has been allocated to us.
Senator Meighen: I understand that, but could you train more people if you had more equipment?
BGen. Young: Sure.
Senator Meighen: You have enough equipment now for the people who are joining the reserves?
BGen. Young: We do.
Senator Meighen: You have enough equipment now to go overseas?
BGen. Young: Enough to train our soldiers to deploy with task forces that are properly equipped, yes.
Senator Meighen: Well, that is very good to hear.
The Chairman: Then what you are telling us is, when we are writing our report, you do not need any more equipment?
BGen. Young: No, I am not saying that.
The Chairman: Well, we want to know what you are saying.
Senator Meighen: Before you answer, let me explain this is one of our difficulties. We hear that you do not have the highest-quality equipment possible. We hear you do not have enough equipment, but we have difficulty in getting you to say it. Surely it does not go against military doctrine for you to tell me that you could do with more equipment in order to provide better training?
BGen. Young: I would agree with your last comment. The equipment that we have now is certainly limited.
Senator Meighen: In what way?
BGen. Young: It is limited in quantity. I am talking from my own experience, which is with reserve units. If you took the number of reserve units we have, and I think the general referred to something like 43, if you are talking about could we provide every unit in its home station with its full complement of equipment to deploy on an operation, for example, the short answer is no. Would it be nice to have that complement of equipment in each of those locations? The short answer would be yes. However, we have sufficient equipment pooled in facilities like our area training centre. I am not trying to suggest that this means we could not do with more, but there is sufficient equipment for the reserves, the same equipment that the regulars use for the most part, pooled centrally in a location to which units that may not hold it in the same quantities at home station can come and train.
Senator Meighen: Well, I am dumbstruck. You go ahead. This is a whole new world.
The Chairman: We understand that you are feeling constraints from elsewhere. However, this committee has had extensive experience. When we go into the field, we talk to the people who are driving the equipment. We talk to the people who are fixing the equipment, and they do not tell us the same things we hear from the people who are running the show. We have had testimony this week about people going down to the United States, where for a dollar a day, they get a Humvee and opportunities to train that they feel are significantly better than in Canada. When we wander around, and we do a lot of wandering around — and we have done a lot of wandering around in your neck of the woods — we do not hear people saying "We have everything we want."
Now you are both here, and we will put the same questions to both of you. We want to know what you need and what you want, and as it is a parliamentary committee, you have parliamentary privilege.
Senator Meighen: You can start with radios, which, you say in your own testimony —
BGen. Lessard: If I may?
The Chairman: You may, general, because we would like the straight goods, please.
BGen. Lessard: I will let Gen. Young, if he wishes, continue to talk about specific equipment — and I assume that is the thrust of your question right now on the reserves — since he knows the reserves in Ontario quite well.
The issue of equipment is much more than reserves or Central Area. It is the Canadian army. I cannot speak for the air force or the navy, but there has been a paradigm shift. When I joined in 1972, you had your equipment. You trained with your equipment. Today, equipment costs a lot of money. We cannot afford to give equipment to every unit, so there is a deliberate shift right now within the army to what we call "managed readiness." The equipment goes to our training centre in Wainwright. We know that units have predictability for two reasons. People know at least two years in advance when they will deploy on a task force somewhere in the world, but also, we concentrate the equipment — I am talking now mostly about regular force — some of which is extremely expensive, in those units that are undergoing high-readiness training.
If your question is do we have all the equipment we would wish, the answer is "probably not." However, if your question is more do we have the equipment it takes to properly train the task forces to go overseas or that are earmarked for domestic operations, the answer is yes.
I spent the last two days in Petawawa. The training I saw yesterday and the day before, with 12 inches of snow, was second to none, and I have served since 1972, in Germany in the Airborne Regiment. These are the troops leaving for Afghanistan in February.
Senator Banks: I will put the question a different way, and I will ask Gen. Young, because you are directly in command of those 42 separate, disparate, in-different-locations units. I will take Senator Meighen's suggestion as to radios, for example, because everybody has to have a radio. Is it correct that the radio equipment on which those separate units train is pooled in a single location and they generally go there to train?
BGen. Young: In some cases. Not in every case. Every unit is given a basic stock, if you want to call it that. You were in Windsor yesterday. The Windsor Regiment, for example, has a pool of radios and vehicles that they can use for in-location training. Should they require equipment beyond what they hold, if they want to elevate the scale of their training to —
Senator Banks: Operational level? If you were planning to do training at a real operational level, those individual units would not quite have what they would need to do the job. Is what I just said correct?
BGen. Young: If I understand it correctly, you are right. They only hold a fraction of the equipment locally.
Senator Banks: Therefore, here is the question: We have the perception that the equipment that the reserves have with which to train is what we can afford, not what we need. The need would arise, in the event of an operation of any kind, an ice storm, a flood, whatever, to mobilize and go into action tomorrow — not with two months' notice, but tomorrow, allowing those people to do their job. There is not, if I we understand it correctly, enough equipment to go around to allow those soldiers to do those jobs. Is that correct operationally, not training wise?
BGen. Young: No. A reserve unit would not hold enough kits to conduct, if I am reading you correctly, an operation.
Senator Banks: Right.
BGen. Young: They would have to be augmented by equipment from outside the unit.
Senator Day: This should save us some time later on, hopefully. I just want to understand. When you say "operation," we are talking now — earlier, Gen. Lessard was talking about deployment internationally — about a domestic operation and the role that you have to play as a reservist in support of the civil authority. You get called out tomorrow because there is a problem. What do you do? Do you send your people off to Petawawa for a few hours of training before they go to provide the support?
BGen. Young: In a domestic operation?
Senator Day: Yes, you are performing your backup support role to the civil authority in a domestic operation.
BGen. Young: When you talk about domestic operations, you have to remember those could be anything from an ice storm to a flood to a civil emergency of some sort.
Senator Day: I understand that.
BGen. Young: What the reserve unit might be required to supply or do would depend to a large degree on the nature of the crisis.
If I can use, for example, the one that I am most familiar with, which was the ice storm, the requirement was for the reserve to provide organized bodies of troops with a command and control mechanism that could assist first responders, essentially, in maintaining control or moving people from point A to point B. In that scenario, and I was part of it, the reserve units had to provide troops and a limited capability to move themselves into the theatre. They were capable of doing that with some augmentation from the area.
Now, if you are talking about a domestic operation of maybe a higher degree, that might involve terrorism or something like that, those roles have not been clearly defined for the reserve, and if the government, DND, expects the reserve to be able to respond to higher levels of domestic crisis, then as I said in my statement, we would have to be resourced that way, because we do not currently hold the kind of kit that you might need for problem A, B, C or D. Problem A, B, C or D has not even been defined to us yet, so we have a limited capability to respond, but we have done quite well.
Senator Meighen: As an example, does the regular force have all of the Strikers that we have contracted for or are they still being delivered? My last question, just to get it in, is do the reserves train on Strikers?
BGen. Lessard: First of all, the term we use is the LAV III. You are talking about the infantry-carrying vehicle?
Senator Meighen: Yes, the reconnaissance vehicles.
Senator Banks: Sorry, no, you are talking about a mobile.
Senator Meighen: Yes, the Striker.
BGen. Lessard: Just so that we understand each other, a few years back we had the Coyote, which looks very much like the LAV III. The Coyote is a reconnaissance vehicle, and we are fully equipped with the Royal Canadian Dragoons, which is the armoured unit of 2 Brigade in Petawawa. There is one battalion of the LAV III, light armoured vehicle, in Petawawa, the First Battalion of the RCR, and they are fully equipped. The third member of the family, about which the announcement has been made, and which we will receive in 2007 or 2008, is the MGS, or Mobile Gun System.
Senator Meighen: That is it.
BGen. Lessard: That is basically the same chassis, a turret, with a 105-millimetre gun. That will go to the armoured corps, but out West. There will be none delivered to either 5th Brigade in Valcartier or to the Royal Canadian Dragoons at Petawawa.
Senator Meighen: All right. Well then, would a reservist belonging to a unit in Eastern Canada, unless he or she went west, not have the opportunity to train on that vehicle if things stay as they are?
BGen. Lessard: Well, I think the issue is a little more basic than that because within the Royal Canadian Armoured Corps, the reserves have a reconnaissance role.
Senator Meighen: All right. That would require what vehicle, the Coyote?
BGen. Lessard: Right now, the reserves are undergoing a transition. We are slowly doing away with the Cougar vehicle that we have had for quite a long time. We have the Iltis now in the transition phase for about 12 months, and you probably know we are phasing in the G-Wagon. The G-Wagon is already in operation in Afghanistan. Slowly, the regular force is getting them in Petawawa, and within the next 12 to 18 months, the regular force and the reserve armoured units will have the G-wagons.
What does this mean? It means the five reserve armoured units within Central Area will have the G-Wagon and will be able to do reconnaissance on this vehicle, the same type of missions as the infantry reconnaissance platoons in Petawawa.
We are sometimes mesmerized by technology. There is no doubt that technology is an enabler. The Coyote is a first-rate vehicle and it has been used with success in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan. Technology is one thing, but when you are talking about operations, human intelligence is as important, if not more, in the "Three Block War." We sometimes downplay the G-Wagon. It is a state-of-the-art light patrol vehicle. As we know, we will train good troops in the armoured reserve units just as we do in the reconnaissance platoon, the infantry. The human element is as important, if not more important, as some of these high-technology surveillance platforms. Given that the reserve armoured units will have the G-Wagon, this is a task for which I think they can train successfully. It is something they can achieve and it is a task for which we can deploy armoured units with a G-Wagon on any international operation and I think we will have success.
Senator Meighen: I will end on one question at which my colleagues will groan because I ask it everywhere. Have you found the absence of a law in Canada requiring employers to give time off to reservists to serve, such as exists in the United States — now, I do not happen to think it is necessary, but I would like the opinion of somebody in the field — to be any impediment to recruiting?
BGen. Young: That has been the general topic, and the specific question has been near and dear to my heart for a while. I have been in the reserve for 40 years, so I think I have a good feel for the difficulties that arise when you try to generate reserve forces for operations. The current requirements in terms of reservists supporting operations internationally have been met, there is no doubt, up to company level, 140, let's say in a unit. That was not easy to do. It was difficult to generate that number of soldiers who can leave their jobs and their families.
Senator Meighen: Excuse me, for about 13 months, if I remember?
BGen. Young: With the training, a little less than that, but not much when you include identification, selection, processing, training, the actual deployment and then the leave, of course, and the post-deployment processes when they return home. It is pretty close to a year. That is hard. Not everybody can walk away from a civilian job. They tend to be those who are either unemployed or could leave their civilian employ. Quite frankly, a significant number of them are students who are able to take a year off from a community college or their university studies; so it was easier.
We have been able to do that. I am familiar with the American, the British and the Australian systems. They are similar, but there are slight differences in terms of the subtlety or lack of subtlety in how you get the soldier out. It has not hampered us to date, but there is the possibility on the horizon that reserves will be used in greater numbers on operations, and we are in the process, over two weekends, actually, of looking at precisely this issue. How will we generate larger numbers of reserves, not necessarily for longer periods of time, when we do not have any capability other than the soldiers volunteering and being able to put their lives in order, and employers who are supportive of that? It has worked reasonably well so far. The Canadian Forces Liaison Council has been very helpful that way, but at the end of the day, it still depends on the employer agreeing to let the individual go.
Would we require legislation? Personally, I feel some personnel policies need to be reviewed. The American system is attractive because it has the force of legislation and the punitive aspects that go with it. However, there are problems associated with it, which we could get into if we had more time. The British and Australian systems are similar but much more user friendly for both the employer and the employee. I think we need to at least look at some policies, maybe not the American system, but some policies that would make it easier for employers to allow individuals to go.
I think we need to do something, but it is certainly a sensitive topic because there are pitfalls either way. Whether we can keep relying exclusively on volunteers when the requirement is going up is, quite frankly, a question mark right now.
Senator Meighen: We were told yesterday in Windsor that one way to generate enthusiasm among employers is to take them on a training exercise.
BGen. Young: Oh yes, we have done that quite often.
Senator Meighen: It seems to work?
BGen. Young: Yes.
Senator Meighen: Thank you very much.
The Chairman: Just to finish off that question, obviously, this committee's concern is there will be difficulty in getting hired in the first place if the employer knows that an individual is in the reserves and such a law is passed. It may be subtle, but we are concerned that there may be some discrimination if we did have a law like that.
BGen. Young: As I said, I have had some experience in the United States, and they have that problem, quite frankly. I just came back from the war college, where that topic was discussed. There has been some considerable friction reported in the United States because employers were possibly reluctant to hire someone they know is a reservist. I think that the American system is a little too draconian.
The British system is very attractive. There is legislation, but it is not this compelling type of legislation that once they identify a fellow you have to let him go. I think there is some merit in looking at how they and the Australians do business to come up with a compromise that would be beneficial to both sides.
The Chairman: If this is an area that you are looking into, would it be possible for you to get back to the committee by means of a letter, advising us what sorts of options or flexibilities might improve the system?
BGen. Young: I would not want to mislead you, sir. The group that is meeting in a couple of weeks is looking at the entire issue of how we generate troops for operations. I have no doubt that this topic will come up there, but I do not think it is the working group's mandate to recommend courses of action specifically related to legislation or measures that the department might adopt. It will definitely be discussed in a broad sense.
The Chairman: I understand.
[Translation]
Senator Day: General Lessard, you referred to the civilian-military cooperation groups. This is the first time I hear about this. Where are those groups based? Are there any in the whole of the Central Area or are they concentrated in a specific location? Where do they get their training?
BGen. Lessard: I believe this point was raised by my Deputy, Gen. Young.
[English]
BGen. Young: I would be reluctant to admit that you might have to repeat that in English.
Senator Day: No, I do not mind at all. We actually have translation, but I will ask the question in English. This civil-military cooperation group is new to me, and so I am interested in knowing where you do the training and whether you have groups throughout the central region or just in a specific area at this time.
BGen. Young: Every land force area across the country has CIMIC teams. I can speak specifically to our area. The CIMIC teams are concentrated in a unit at Land Force Central Area Headquarters. They come from reserve units across the province, but when individuals volunteer for CIMIC, they are posted from their unit, like the Windsor Regiment, that you might have visited.
Senator Day: Yes.
BGen. Young: They are posted to the unit that resides in Toronto. They can do some training locally, but they have to come to Toronto for central CIMIC training, and they are sent on courses at Pearson Peacekeeping College. Foreign courses are also offered for CIMIC operators.
Senator Day: Are they infantry?
BGen. Young: Any arm.
Senator Day: So they could be any particular group.
BGen. Young: Any arm.
Senator Day: They could be communications people, for instance?
BGen. Young: Absolutely. You cannot join a CIMIC unit off the street. You have to be a trained soldier and transfer from an existing unit into CIMIC. It is usually a two-year posting so that they can get experience. They pick up the extra skills, they go on an operation, and then they are posted back to their units and we replace them with new soldiers.
Senator Day: You mentioned in your comments many challenges in the area of recruiting; we have talked about equipment and you have talked about doing some things in infrastructure and training. Do you wish to expand on any of the challenges? In particular, we have not discussed recruiting, so that might be a place to start.
BGen. Young: I am sure it comes as no surprise that recruiting has been a challenge for the reserve force, reserve component, for a considerable number of years. Some of the obstacles were, to be kind, internal bureaucratic processes that tended to slow up applications. Bottlenecks tended to be medical and security review of files.
There has been a pilot program under way for a little less than a year to streamline recruiting for the reserves. The medical has been streamlined a little. It is too early to tell if it has been successful because it was implemented in the middle of a recruiting year, but we are hearing from some of our units in the field that the process has facilitated the intake. Our numbers have increased marginally — and in a significant way over the last two or three years or so. I would not want to say that is because of the streamlined process because we have not had time to analyze it yet. If you asked me the same question in about a year from now, we would probably be able to produce some statistics to indicate whether or not these streamlined processes have really made a difference. Yes, the recruiting process is still problematic, although we have been doing reasonably well in meeting our targets. We are pretty close to 6,000 at the area level.
Senator Day: Is the recruiting done by the regular force recruiting group, or does the reserve handle its own recruiting process?
BGen. Young: It is a little of both. Reserve units are responsible for attraction, so they get the recruits. They will conduct some of the preliminary preparation for the actual documenting process. There is one Canadian Forces Recruiting Centre here in Toronto that is manned by both regulars and reserve, and they attract and process both regular and reserve candidates. It is done centrally there.
Senator Day: In your written and oral presentations you are talked about new facilities. You used a term here that I think, if I understood this correctly, is unfortunate. I would like you to clarify it. It says, "In smaller communities we are downsizing our footprint." Now, were you just talking about the physical size of a building or were you talking about the footprint of the unit?
BGen. Young: No, the actual plant. For example, right now there is quite an old facility in Chatham and we are in the process of looking to build a new one there. I am not insinuating or even suggesting that the military presence would be removed from the community. It is just that if you have a huge, old building, it may be replaced by a possibly smaller but more efficient one.
Senator Day: That makes me feel better.
You were talking about the current mandate of the reserve. You said, "As authorized by the Chief of Defence Staff, the role consists of three essential elements." That is now?
BGen. Young: Yes.
Senator Day: "One of those is a framework for mobilization. Each reserve unit has been given a clearly defined mission or task that it would be expected to undertake should there be a requirement to expand the force to meet a declared emergency." This, presumably, is a domestic operation?
BGen. Young: It could be.
Senator Day: That is one of the roles that you have now, right, it is not coming in the future? Then you talk about using "borrowed legacy equipment." "We have demonstrated that reservists can provide support to municipal first responders, chemical, biological..." et cetera.
BGen. Young: Yes.
Senator Day: Is that one of the current mandates that you may be required to mobilize for on an emergency basis?
BGen. Young: No, it is not. That comment relates specifically to one of the new capabilities that are currently assigned to the reserve on trial. We conducted a pilot on COLPRO, collective protection. The purpose of the pilot was not to test equipment. The purpose was to see if we could actually raise a body of reserves who could commit themselves to a task like COLPRO. They were all given nuclear, chemical, biological warfare training at Camp Borden. The equipment that they used was legacy equipment, meaning it is existing equipment. We anticipate that if the results of the tests are such that the Armed Forces wish to go ahead with this capability, the COLPRO would be provided with up-to-date equipment. The purpose of the trial was simply to see whether or not we could produce the soldiers with a minimum level of skills, and we did that using legacy equipment.
Senator Day: You say, "In response to domestic operations of a humanitarian or disaster relief nature, the ability to provide formed bodies with integral communications is a paramount factor." That is something you might be required to do tomorrow?
BGen. Young: Yes, the ice storm is an example.
Senator Day: You say, "Land Forces Central Area has insufficient radios to conduct proper training or to support domestic operations, with a significantly higher percentage of these shortages within the reserve component."
Do you wish to change that statement?
BGen. Young: Well, not change it, but maybe put it in context. "Insufficient" meaning if we had to take that unit out of Windsor, the one whose colonel you heard from yesterday, and deploy them with what they had on location, they would not have sufficient numbers of radios. They would have to be augmented with equipment either from the area training centre or maybe the regular force brigade in Petawawa.
Senator Day: Which would obviously slow down their response time, I would think?
BGen. Young: It may very well.
Senator Banks: Following along the same line, is TCCCS the radio system that does frequency hopping? Is that what that means?
BGen. Lessard: It is our new generation of radios that we have had for a couple of years now.
Senator Banks: It is the kind that makes it difficult to intercept because it is doing frequency hopping?
BGen. Lessard: Yes. It is our present new-generation radio.
Senator Banks: Can you tell me what geomatics is or are?
BGen. Lessard: I will try, but I am definitely not a geomatics expert. It is a sub-branch of the engineers who deal with the storage of data regarding geography — soil composition, rivers, et cetera. It is basically the collection of those data and the portraying of some of the data that various commanders need. We are using that more and more. It requires people with highly developed technical skills. If you are going into a new area of operations, you want to know about the geography, airports, sea ports, and visibility from various mountains. They have an astonishing ability to deliver that information. This is a new capability that we are developing within the reserves and the reserve unit in Ottawa.
Senator Banks: What kind of road would bear what kind of weight when you are going into a new area?
BGen. Lessard: That could be one use, yes.
Senator Banks: Well, given that and the other things that we were talking about, including the TCCCs, you say that the reason that things have been so successful so often so far is the soldiers have been able to bring a can-do attitude to whatever problems they face. Canadians are famous for doing that, for somehow getting the job done. Maybe that is the problem. Maybe one of these days we should say we cannot do that, but the fact is that one way or another, those soldiers get it done.
You point out in this report — and this is something that has been concerning us a little — that there is a widening technology gap and, therefore, a widening gap in the training that is required on the one hand, and available on the other, because I am assuming that most reservists are there for a couple of weekends a month and one or two nights a week. Is that about right?
BGen. Young: That would be right.
Senator Banks: As the technology becomes increasingly widespread through a unit that you send out to do whatever the job is, and as that technology and the demands on it become more and more complicated, will we reach a point at which there is such a disparity that will take so long to make a reserve soldier capable of operating integrally with a regular force unit that we will run into difficulties?
BGen. Lessard: I will answer first, and if Gen. Young has some comments he can carry on. Perhaps a few years ago we had that concern. We were trying to look at all the skill sets for the regular force and the skill sets for the reserve, and there was a delta. We were saying the delta will increase and what relevance will the reserves have?
Well, the reality we are talking about now is the Three Block War, meaning if you go to Afghanistan, you have to be able to do combat ops, stability ops and humanitarian ops, and a lot of it is not high-tech. You can look at the operations we are doing in Afghanistan right now. Some are based on high-technology, but some are based, and I will use the term again, human intelligence — foot-on-the-ground soldiers. If I can refer back to my example of the armoured corps, the regular force will have the new mobile gun system that you asked about a few minutes ago. They will have the Coyote vehicle that you might have seen, with a mast. That requires a lot of technical skills in the regular force. The reserve armoured regiments will have the G-Wagon, which is a modern patrol vehicle, but they will be able to do human intelligence patrolling, things that our infantry battalion regular force are doing. Both are totally complementary. Both are extremely important. The fact that some of the equipment might not be operated by the reserves in no way means that the reserves have a less important role in international or domestic operations.
The only thing is, you have to determine where the reserves can augment and where they cannot. I will give you an example. In Afghanistan we have a reconnaissance squadron of three troops with Coyotes, obviously regular force. The fourth subcomponent is a reconnaissance platoon, regular force infantry with the G-Wagon. In the future, could that reconnaissance platoon be an armoured reserve reconnaissance troop? Absolutely.
You see again the conundrum, which is being solved, between high technology and low technology, and both work.
Senator Banks: However, the augmentation could not be accomplished by putting a reservist into a Coyote?
BGen. Lessard: No, but inside that troop that has the G-Wagon and they operate as one unit.
Senator Banks: Gen. Young, you said close to the end of your remarks that in order to successfully meet the challenges, the reserves will have to be adequately resourced. Can you quantify that in respect of your reserve command, the 32 Brigade Group?
BGen. Young: I can certainly give you a broad answer because that is the way the comment was intended to be taken.
I know what we are capable of now and we have been meeting the requirements that have been put in front of us. In some cases it has been an effort, but we have been meeting them. The comment was more directed towards the future, because I see a future that will involve more reserves, and not only in terms of their use on operations, but the numbers of them. That is fine. I believe the reserve has the potential. There is certainly the attitude there that you identified. Reservists want to serve on operations. However, as the demand increases, my personal opinion is that there will have to be a reassessment of resources. There will have to be a reassessing and matching of capability, as the general mentioned a minute ago. What do you want them to do? Setting them up for a successful achievement of that will inevitably mean re-evaluating resources. It will mean taking a look at employer support programs to get all of the pieces in place, so that if the demand is there for the reserves to step up to the plate in greater numbers, they can meet it.
The Chairman: Generals, thank you both. It was very kind of you to come here today. The committee appreciates very much you taking the time to help us to understand better the challenges that you face. We appreciate the learning experience, the opportunity to get a better understanding of what is going on in your world and try to translate it into our world in a way that eventually makes sense in a report.
We appreciate you coming and we are grateful to you for your participation in this study. We will have a short presentation for you, but first I will adjourn the meeting.
The committee adjourned.