Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
National Security and Defence
Issue 10 - Evidence, February 2, 2005 - Afternoon meeting
ST. JOHN'S, Wednesday, February 2, 2005
The Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence met this day at 1:15 p.m. to examine and report on the national security policy for Canada.
Senator Michael J. Forrestall (Deputy Chairman) in the chair.
[English]
The Deputy Chairman: Our chair, Senator Kenny, is pleasantly detoured to other duties that will foster and further the work and hopes for this committee.
We are very pleased this afternoon to be in St. John's and to move in this panel number three, to Mr. John Butler of the Canadian Coast Guard. Mr. Butler is the regional director of the Canadian Coast Guard in the Newfoundland Region. In the 10 years that he has held that position he has done an outstanding job.
Mr. Butler joined the Coast Guard in 1982 as a navigation systems engineer. He was appointed regional manager, telecommunications and electronics, in 1990, and served on the team of transition for Coast Guard reorganization, 1994-95. In 1995, he was appointed director of operational programs responsible for fleet and marine programs.
Mr. Butler, we welcome you. This afternoon, we had an enjoyable outdoor visit and looked at the SAR principal piece of equipment, the Cormorant helicopter. We had a chance to see the exterior and the wharf and the buoys and the general workplace that you are responsible for, sir. I must say it is in good shape.
Mr. John Butler, Regional Director, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canadian Coast Guard: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, honourable members of the Senate committee. It is indeed a pleasure to be here this afternoon to brief you on the security role of the Canadian Coast Guard and, equally, to welcome you to St. John's and our region.
I would first like to provide a little background on this region as well as a description of some of the responsibilities we have to Canadians and international seafarers that go by our coast.
The Canadian Coast Guard in Newfoundland and Labrador is responsible for almost 29,000 kilometres of coastline, similar to the B.C. coastline, and approximately 2.5 million square kilometres of continental shelf. We often operate in severe sea conditions that can be complicated by severe ice conditions. The region has three-times the national average of distress incidents, 80-100, and the longest duration of SAR cases in Canada. We have the largest oil-handling facilities in Canada in Placentia Bay and offshore. Our waters are on the great circle route for all transatlantic shipping, and contrary to popular opinion, we have very active offshore and near shore fisheries. We are a busy region.
This region has in excess of 800 employees. We have a search and rescue coordination subcentre, which I would have loved to have shown you this morning, which works hand in glove with the Department of National Defence in marine search and rescue. We have seven search and rescue bases. We have five marine communications and traffic centres. The Coast Guard has an environmental response capacity in-house that is capable of responding to a 10,000-tonne oil spill. We have eight large vessels and six smaller ones. We have four helicopters and 56 light stations. On behalf of the Government of Canada we manage 1,600 aids to navigation. We are extremely proud to have 1,000 Coast Guard auxiliary volunteers at work in this region. The auxiliarists operate almost 500 vessels, which greatly enhances our ability to respond to the needs of Canadians and the maritime public. We also have as a strong technical support group.
I think most of you aware of the clients that we serve. The inshore and offshore fishing fleets are our primary clients in this region. Commercial shippers are a growing segment of our business. We also service recreational boaters, provincial and federal ferry systems, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans science and fisheries management programs and other government departments and agencies, such as the RCMP, Environment Canada, et cetera.
These services include, but certainly are not limited to, our marine communications capabilities, which cover all of Eastern Canada, our aids to navigation, our search and rescue system in partnership with the Department of National Defence, oil spill response capacity in partnership with the industry, our waterways development, the NAFO (Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization) patrols that we do with conservation and protection officers, and our fleet support to other departments.
The Newfoundland and Labrador region of the Canadian Coast Guard is dealing with increasing and new program demands as a result of our growing offshore activity. This increased activity is due to several factors. The first and primary factor is that the smaller fishing vessels in this region are going further and further offshore to access crab resources and shell fish. We have a growth in the offshore oil and gas industry. We have new activity on the Labrador coast. You are probably familiar with the Voisey's Bay project. We are developing a Labrador fishery and there are also, I understand, some new mining activities on the northeast coast that are being proposed.
International commercial shipping, using the great circle route and transiting our northwest Atlantic waters, is also increasing. We have also experienced an upsurge of cruise ships and recreational boating activities on our coast.
Increasing Coast Guard involvement in maritime security has also placed new demands and opportunities on the Coast Guard resources. This region has been provided with additional fleet time in support of maritime security activities, and our marine communications and traffic services centres are the first point of contact for commercial vessels reporting their intentions to enter into Canadian waters; they are cleared here before they enter into our waters.
Still, it is important to know that, unlike the U.S. Coast Guard, the Canadian Coast Guard remains largely an unarmed, civilian organization that does not have specific enforcement responsibilities. While not mandated for security, however, the Coast Guard does have a critical role to play in supporting the mandates of the larger federal security community.
The Canadian Coast Guard fleet is a cost-effective, multi-functional, highly adaptable service to this country, and, as such, it is instrumental to the Canadian Government in realizing its maritime safety and security obligations.
The Coast Guard's multi-mission philosophy offers significant economies of scope to the government in support of all of its maritime priorities, including security. It also provides the government with a broadly-distributed resource base, including regional operations centres, bases, and marine and technical expertise.
The Coast Guard's role as a service agency providing on-water presence and support to the strengthening of maritime security in Canada was formally recognized by the federal government in its national security policy released in April of 2004. This fiscal year, this region received almost $1 million for increased maritime security patrols in addition to the $1.8 million received for increased NAFO patrols. This increased our presence on Canadian waters.
The national security policy provides the federal government with an excellent framework for the way ahead. It is a clear statement that national security is a Canadian priority and will receive the requisite attention. The policy emphasizes the enhancement of collaboration and coordination among Canadian government departments and agencies as a key component of maritime security.
Within this multi-departmental and agency approach, Transport Canada takes the lead for maritime security policy and regulation; the RCMP takes the lead for anti-terrorism response on land and sea; the Canada Border Services Agency is the lead agency for customs and immigration enforcement; and, DND is the lead department for the coordination of on-water response to terrorist incidents and a military back-up to all threats to Canada.
Consistent with the Canadian Coast Guard's current role, our agency will continue as operator of the federal government civilian fleet, with operating capacity in the Arctic and inice-infested sea areas along the entire coast of Canada and all sea areas, including near and offshore. The capacity for the provision, operation and management of a civilian government fleet, including the requirements of the RCMP, resides within the Canadian Coast Guard.
This approach is one that harnesses current capabilities and builds on existing organizational strengths and expertise in order to maximize efficiencies and economies of scope while reducing the possibility of redundancies, duplication and overlap.
This has certainly been the underlying key to the effectiveness of maritime security initiatives for the Coast Guard in this region. Having clearly defined, streamlined, strengthened, and integrated roles and responsibilities is critical to ensuring the success of this multi-task, multi-mission undertaking.
The government believes that the way ahead is for each department and agency involved in maritime security to play to its organizational strengths and to seize every opportunity for collaboration of effort. A thoughtful and coordinated effort amongst the RCMP, the Canadian Forces and the Coast Guard can and will be successful in the implementation of practical, doable solutions to on-water response and surveillance gaps in Canadian waters. Such an approach involves coordination across a number of departments and agencies, but the payoff is that each is focused on its organizational strengths.
In December of 2004, the Government of Canada directed that the Coast Guard become a special operating agency within the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. This change reflects a desire by the government for the Coast Guard to be focused on operations, and to deliver cost-effective and high-quality services to all government departments. This is what we do best.
As a service organization mandated to provide support to the federal government's maritime priorities, including security, the Coast Guard regularly collaborates with many other government departments and agencies as an integral part of the government's maritime security strategy. At the same time, and very importantly, we continue to provide vital support to both maritime commerce and environmental response and safety.
On behalf of the over 800 men and women of the Canadian Coast Guard, I would like to thank you very much for the opportunity to have a brief presentation here today. I appreciate you being here.
The Deputy Chairman: It is our privilege and pleasure. Thank you very much, Mr. Butler.
Senator Banks: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, sir, for being here. It is, as the chair said, we who are appreciative of your being here.
You mentioned that you have eight large and six small ships, but we have heard and have known for some time that the Coast Guard fleet has over a hundred vessels, 120, I think.
Mr. Butler: Yes.
Senator Banks: Are only 14 of those vessels in your region?
Mr. Butler: Our region, as I think you are well aware, operates in probably some of the harshest conditions in Canada, so what we have found to be the most effective is a suite of large vessels. For example, The Sir Wilfred Grenfell, one of the ships that you probably saw today, provides search and rescue coverage, environmental response, and a full suite of Coast Guard services in a large area of Canadian waters. In other regions where they are capable of operating smaller, higher-speed vessels, they have done so because it is appropriate for their requirements. In our region, where we operate offshore, we need larger vessels. We need the capacity not only to be able to respond to an incident close to shore, which could have horrendous sea state conditions, but also to be able to operate offshore for extended periods of time. So, we have a smaller count, but if you look at the mix of vessels, we have a higher proportion of larger, sea-going vessels.
Senator Banks: Are the six small ones, the 46-foot boats?
Mr. Butler: We have two 47-foot, high-speed cutters; they are on the west coast, in the gulf waters.
Senator Banks: I was referring to the six small ships that you said that you have in this region.
Mr. Butler: Yes.
Senator Banks: Oh, you mean the west coast of Newfoundland?
Mr. Butler: Yes, I'm sorry.
Senator Banks: Now, let us talk about the state of those ships. We have said in our previous reports, and others have as well and we have heard since then, that the fleet, of which those 14 ships are an important part, is in need, and in some cases, dire need, of fixing up and replacement.
As the regional director, what do you know about the plans that are in place to correct the problem? How dire is the need? How immediate is the need? Are design questions being asked?
Please give us a couple of minutes on those general questions.
Mr. Butler: We have been looking at this issue for a number of years. About eight or nine years ago we developed a new class of vessel; the 1000 class vessel. We recognize that our fleet is aging and getting to the point where it is absolutely essential that these vessels are replaced on a systematic basis over a period of time. Inside the Coast Guard, we have developed a prioritization of which vessels need to be replaced first and we have in the works a request for a replacement of those vessels.
Senator Banks: Do you have some confidence in that respect?
Mr. Butler: I have the utmost confidence that Canadians and the government recognize the importance of the services we provide and that we will be given the resources to do this essential retrofit of our fleet in due course.
Senator Banks: I would like to move to the question of the operational tempo.
The Deputy Chairman: Sorry. Just before you move on, you say you have a comprehensive document that lists your fleet and a schedule for replacement and replenishment? Could we have a copy of that schedule, or is it confidential?
Mr. Butler: No, I do not believe it is a confidential document. I could probably arrange for it to be shared with you.
Senator Banks: That information would be very helpful to us as we are more concerned with the future than in the past. Could you get that information to our clerk?
Mr. Butler: I will certainly give it a go, yes.
Senator Banks: You mentioned that this year your increases are in the aggregate of $2.8 million dollars.
Mr. Butler: Yes, for NAFO and security.
Senator Banks: I presume that would translate into an increase in steaming hours by comparison with what was going on before?
I presume that you have information in this respect, and that you would be able to provide us with that information. You do not have to answer right now, but we would like to know about the 14 ships and the steaming hours of this year compared to the steaming hours of the year before in order to see the increase in the use of the ships.
Mr. Butler: We could certainly provide you with a copy of our fleet plan.
Senator Banks: Does the fleet plan set out steaming hours or steaming days?
Mr. Butler: It sets out where the ship is and the program in which it is involved. It sets out the multi-tasking of the ship in certain areas. For example, in a couple of months, during the sea fishery, the Henry Larsen will be working on the northeast coast. It will perform ice-breaking duties. It will be in support of search and rescue operations, and will participate in a seal survey being conducted by DFO. Our conservation and protection officers and our fisheries officers will be operating in the area.
The fleet plan will be able to show you where and what each ship did in its specified area and will indicate the additional time that was spent as a result of the increased security resources.
Senator Banks: Very good. We would be grateful if you would provide that information to the clerk.
I think that the ship that you just mentioned is capable ofice-breaking in the north in the winter. Is that correct?
Mr. Butler: The Larsen performs ice-breaking in the summer.
Senator Banks: In the summer, but not in the winter?
Mr. Butler: She spends about four months each summer in the Canadian Arctic.
Senator Banks: Do you have among those 14 ships a ship that is capable of being in the Arctic in the wintertime.
Mr. Butler: The Henry Larsen is capable of wintering in the Arctic. The predecessor to the Larsen, the Sir John Franklin, which has been renamed the Amundsen works out of the Quebec region, and actually spent a full winter in the Arctic with scientists on board. So, yes, we do have ships that are capable of spending the winter in the Arctic.
Senator Banks: Can those 14 ships communicate on the same system when required with navy ships?
Mr. Butler: One of our current challenges is the interoperability between the navy and the Canadian Coast Guard and other civilian ships. Generally, our communications are not secure communications, so we operate through satellite systems, HF communications, and VHF communications. Our ships do have the capacity to operate securely with the military and with other security agencies. The actual interoperability between ships, though, is something with which I am not familiar. I understand that there is a project that has been headed up by the interdepartmental maritime security working group that will be looking at improving that interoperability among the vessels, and in particular, they are looking at interoperability in a secure mode.
Senator Banks: It is not hard to see.
Mr. Butler: Non-secure communications is not a challenge, but secure communications is a challenge.
Senator Banks: One can easily imagine, at least a landlubber from the Prairies can imagine, circumstances in which secure communications might be a very useful thing.
Mr. Butler: Absolutely.
Senator Banks: Do you think that you are moving in that direction?
Mr. Butler: Yes.
Senator Banks: Do you have any sort of date in mind by which that might be able to happen?
Mr. Butler: I cannot tell you that, sir, but I know it is one of the high priorities of the interdepartmental working group.
Senator Banks: Is it being talked about or is it something that is being worked on to be installed?
Mr. Butler: My understanding is they are in the planning process for having a system that would enable the secure communications between the security folks, which would include ourselves, the RCMP and DND. I do not have a specific date when that will be complete.
Senator Banks: We are very interested in the completion of the plan and would appreciate if from time to time you would keep us posted in that regard. That is a question that we have been asking for some time now.
When you talked about the things that your folks do and do so well, you talked about being a platform to deliver enforcement agencies, like the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the RCMP where and when required, but you did not mention that from time to time, your folks take active part in an armed boarding party. Does that ever happen in this region?
Mr. Butler: We have about 47 people trained in armed boarding; 21 are ships' officers and 26 are ships' crew. They exercise and go through scenarios on a regular basis, but the actual use of armed boarding is relatively infrequent although it is a skill that is continually exercised with the fisheries officers, the Department of National Defence and the RCMP.
Senator Banks: Right, and one hopes that they would be used with increasing infrequency; I mean, that is the object.A policeman in the city uses his gun very rarely, but he has one, and some enforcement is enforcement by sight.
This leads to my next question. Have you read our recommendations?
Mr. Butler: Yes, I have.
Senator Banks: We have said that consideration ought to be given to permitting at least a constabulary level of function for Coast Guard vessels. And the example that I have used before and will again is that if I am travelling around this part of the Atlantic with a ship that has got a load of bales of its decked marked "Heroin,'' and I see a white ship with a red stripe coming, I have got to run like hell because I know it is going to stop me and find it, but if I see a red ship with a white stripe coming, I can just keep on my merry way unless there happens to be a Mountie on board. To this Prairie-based landlubber, the enforcement by sight, whether or not it ever needs to be invoked seems an extremely practical thing.
As a matter of philosophical bent, the Coast Guard does not have a present inhibition about having armed folks who will, in certain circumstances, provide enforcement in the case, for example, of fisheries functions on your ships. Is that correct?
You said you had 47 trained people to do it and, however infrequently, they still do it, so it is not a philosophical problem, is it?
Mr. Butler: We currently have ships' crew and officers who support the fisheries officers in performing their enforcement functions.
Senator Banks: Right, including boarding from time to time?
Mr. Butler: Absolutely, yes. And as I have indicated, this is exercised on a biweekly basis.
Senator Banks: Excellent. Thank you very much, Mr. Butler.
Senator Day: Mr. Butler is there or have there been occasions when your ships' officers have boarded and have used a firearm without anybody else present from the RCMP or the Department of Fisheries and Oceans?
Mr. Butler: No, our role is to get the enforcement officers to the scene, to support them in their operation, to get them to the vessel of interest, to ensure the security on the vessel of interest, and to ensure that the operation is conducted safely.
Senator Day: Yes, I understand that, but in your comments you say, "The Canadian Coast Guard remains largely an unarmed, civilian organization.''
What do you mean by "largely?''
Mr. Butler: "Largely'' means only to the extent that we support other enforcement agencies.
Senator Day: You are totally unarmed, not "largely'' unarmed, then? The other people are on board your ships are armed, but they are not members of the Coast Guard; they are from fisheries or RCMP.
Mr. Butler: No. For example, there could be two fisheries officers and three Coast Guard personnel that go on the FRC armed to conduct the boarding in order to secure the foreign ship while the fisheries officers do their inspections. They are there to ensure that fisheries are able to access and egress that ship safely. In that instance, they are armed and they are under the direct control of the fisheries officers. They are in support of the fisheries officers. They get their authority to function this way from the Fisheries Act.
Senator Day: I understand now. That clarifies that point. Thank you.
Mr. Butler: It is not a separate role which the Coast Guard performs on its own.
Senator Day: I understand.
You seem quite content to have the Coast Guard performing several different functions at the same time and you feel that that is probably the most efficient way for the services to be offered to the government's various departments.
Mr. Butler: Absolutely.
Senator Day: One of those functions is the search and rescue coordination subcentre and seven search and rescue bases. Presumably, that is all water search and rescue?
Mr. Butler: Yes it is.
Senator Day: We dealt with air search and rescue this morning.
Mr. Butler: You dealt with both the Department of National Defence and Department of Fisheries and Oceans, who both cooperate on maritime search and rescue. They provide the air resources; we provide the sea-based resources. For example, 200 miles offshore, the most effective resource to get to a ship in a timely fashion, if there are no ships of opportunity in the area, is through an air resource. There are times of the year when the helicopter is not an effective resource due to the sea visibility. There are limitations for both resources. What we do is work together to provide an efficient system.
Senator Day: Does the Coast Guard have search and rescue officers who are trained through the Coast Guard?
Mr. Butler: Yes.
Senator Day: Do the Armed Forces also have search and rescue officers who are trained through the Coast Guard?
Mr. Butler: JRCC, of which our rescue centre is a subcentre and reports to Halifax, is responsible for this entire area. It is operated by Coast Guard officers who provide the marine expertise. At a desk adjacent to the rescue coordinator for maritime activities is a controller that will task and manage the air resources for an operation. So, if we had a serious SAR case offshore, it would not be unusual to see the primary SAR resource and maybe several secondary SAR resources tasked off the east coast by the rescue centre here in St. John's. They have a direct line; they talk to each other minute by minute. The air resources would task the helicopter out of Gander and they would also task the Hercules or something like that to provide top cover.
Senator Day: Would it not seem logical to coordinate all of the search and rescue under one management umbrella for training purposes and for efficiency rather than have marine-based under your organization and air-based, under DND?
Mr. Butler: No.
Senator Day: Does not that just duplicate efforts to have another guy sitting beside the Coast Guard guy?
Mr. Butler: They have different skills and expertise.
Senator Day: The search and rescue officer has the same kind of medical skills, does he not?
Mr. Butler: He is a search and rescue technician.
Senator Day: Does the technician provide the medical help and aid to the person that you are trying to help out? That is what we were talking about.
Mr. Butler: Perhaps I can paint the picture a little bit clearer. Of the ships that respond to primarily search and rescue taskings, most of the time, it is an auxiliarist that responds and tows or provides the support. About 39 per cent of the time, the auxiliary boats are there. They are the most logical resource to respond and they provide the support. The Coast Guard responds in the remainder of those cases and if we get on scene first, we have rescue specialists. They are not trained to the same degree as the SAR technicians are trained.
Senator Day: You do not have SAR technicians?
Mr. Butler: We do not have people trained to the level of the SAR technicians you saw this morning. We have people that are trained to provide basic first aid, and basic support to the injured crew person, et cetera. If we need additional support, we can ask for the back-up. If there is a broken bone or something like that and our fellows can handle it, they will handle it. If it is a case of hypothermia or something like that, our fellows will handle it. If we require additional expertise, we will look for a SAR technician. We have two parallel agencies, not overlapping, but working hand in hand to provide what we believe is a very effective response to search and rescue.
Senator Day: I want to make the point that there are two separate chains of command. I am looking at it from an efficiency point of view.
Mr. Butler: Well, the chain of command is actually to the Department of National Defence. The rescue centre Coast Guard officers are located here and for the line command structure for response to search and rescue, they respond to DND.
Senator Day: Tell me about the six vessels and the seven SAR bases and the subcentre. Under which department are they commanded?
Mr. Butler: When they are tasked, they are tasked by a SAR controller. That SAR controller is in a line organization in DND.
Senator Day: When they are trained, they are trained either by DND or by the Coast Guard depending on which group they fit in. That is the point I am trying to make from an efficiency point of view. You and I do not have to debate that any further here.
Mr. Butler: Okay.
Senator Day: I just wanted to clarify the point.
You mentioned JRCC. Is the first word "Joint?''
Mr. Butler: Yes, Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Halifax.
Senator Day: I have one final point that I want to clarify, and we are really asking questions just to clarify and to get a clear understanding for how things are happening and where we might be going.
Is the recent announcement that the Coast Guard will become a special operating agency good from your point of view? Does that excite you?
Mr. Butler: Absolutely.
Senator Day: Is that because the Coast Guard will now have its own budget that might not be robbed by some other greater department's needs and priorities?
Will the Coast Guard, as a special operating agency, have cost recoveries for the services and the platforms it provides for other departments?
Mr. Butler: I will answer the last question first. We currently have cost recovery. We do recover costs for ice- breaking and marine navigation services, and we recover incremental cost from other departments for which we provide services.
Senator Day: Does the cost recovery stay within the Coast Guard or does it stay within the Department of Fisheries and Oceans?
Mr. Butler: It stays within the Coast Guard. One of the great opportunities of the Canadian Coast Guard becoming a special operating agency was the government's recognition that the Canadian Coast Guard is a national institution and needs to operate on a national basis.
If I have a challenge in this region, whether it is to do with finances or with resources I have one boss. My boss, John Adams, is responsible for all of the Coast Guard all across the country. It is now very clear that if I need a resource or if I work with my colleagues, say, in the Maritimes or Quebec region, if there is a dispute or a problem, we are all working for the one boss. We have been given the clarity and the flexibility to work inside our organization to transfer resources to the highest priorities of the Coast Guard.
Senator Day: Are you saying that it was not there prior to December of last year when John Adams had the same job, but you were under the Department of Fisheries and Oceans?
Mr. Butler: It was more difficult. He was a functional commissioner. He did not have line authority to me or to any of the other regions of the Canadian Coast Guard.
Senator Day: Did he have to operate under a budget?
Mr. Butler: He had his own budget. The rest of the budgets were part of the regional DFO structures.
Senator Day: Are you satisfied that all of the cost recovery funds for navigational aids and operations in the shipping lanes is kept within the Coast Guard and used for Coast Guard purposes?
Mr. Butler: It is, yes. The Coast Guard is still part of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and there are advantages to being part of the department. One of the strengths of the special operating agency, as you pointed out, was the clarity of organizational structure. If the government gives additional resources to the Coast Guard to do its current roles or enhances roles, it is very clear where the resources go. The accountings back to Parliament are very clear, but let us make no mistake, being part of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is an advantage too. Twenty to 30 per cent of our programs are in support of things that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans does. Also, being part of a department, when we have financial challenges, they can support us as well.
The chairman wonders whether you bill the Department of Fisheries and Oceans for the platforms you provide for them.
Mr. Butler: We have service agreements with science and also with conservation and protection of fisheries management to provide fleet services. We also provide them with other technical support services because we are a highly technical organization, so we have trained electronics technicians that can support other operations of the department as well. So, we do that, yes, on a cost recovery basis.
Senator Day: Do you? Yes?
The Deputy Chairman: Are you saying you do it on a cost recovery basis?
Mr. Butler: Yes. Our ships go to sea, we do the work, and we recover the costs.
Senator Day: Do you have amortization of your floating stock within this cost recovery so that over the years you will build up an amount of money to replace your ships?
Mr. Butler: No.
Senator Day: No? You are getting cost recovery for all of your operating expenses, but not for capital replacement?
Mr. Butler: As you understand and realize we face the challenge of inflation that every government program faces and, of course, the "rust out'' and aging of our most expensive asset base, which is the fleet, which is costly to maintain and operate in an efficient way.
Senator Day: There has been some speculation that the Coast Guard may find its way into and become an agency under the Deputy Prime Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness.
Mr. Butler: PSEP, yes.
Senator Day: You seem to be very happy in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and that is a very big part of your work right now.
Would it be a disappointment to you if you were moved to PSEP, and would you see a major change in the focus of the Coast Guard if you happened to be moved into that new department?
Mr. Butler: The Canadian Coast Guard, as a special operating agency, has been set up so that it can provide services to all of these government departments, including PSEP, the RCMP, and Environment Canada, and what have you.
I really do not think it matters too much where we are as long as we have the resources to maintain our infrastructure and train our people so that we can do the best for Canadians. We want to be efficient and effective and not overlap and duplicate resources that may be found in other government departments.
Our objective is to focus on operations and efficiency. The Coast Guard is a SOA and as a result we have not had to deal with some of the regulatory policy stuff and have been able to follow our objective. I do not really care where we are. All I want to do is do our job well and support the core services for which we are responsible, such as search and rescue, ice-breaking, aids to navigation, all of that stuff. If there are additional programs that you want us to do, then we are trained and ready to do it.
Senator Day: Do you get full cost recovery for operation and maintenance through your activities?
Mr. Butler: Well, for example, with the science program, I believe we received between $6 million and $7 million this year. That work included offshore surveys on stock status. So, again, that covers the fixed and variable costs associated with providing the people, the technical support, and the infrastructure to do that job.
Senator Day: What about the overhead for your department at this regional office?
Mr. Butler: No, that was already in our A-base and at the time of merger in 1995, there were resources that were transferred to the Canadian Coast Guard from the old, marine division of DFO. They did not have very much in this region. They had a wharf that was in really rough shape, a truck and four people. Those resources were transferred and in other regions, there were more resources or less, depending on where you were. It all came together and that became the new basis for the Coast Guard and for the addition of the science and conservation and protection work, because, remember, prior to 1995, we did not do that stuff. Only on an exceptional basis was the Coast Guard called upon to support conservation and protection activities; they had their own fleet. The logical thing to do was bring the fleet together to cross-train the people, and allow them the professional flexibility to do these different roles, because they are a very highly skilled, trained group of people. There are not many other arms of a number of the services where you get people that spend 25 years doing these jobs at sea. They are very skilled at what they do. It just makes sense for us to do these combined roles on the sea.
Senator Day: Thank you very much, Mr. Butler. You are leaving me with the impression that you have ample revenue to perform the tasks you are being asked to perform in this region and the only funds that you really need are for fleet replacement.
Mr. Butler: I do not think I said that. What I said was that the revenue that was collected as part of the service fees was collected nationally. It does not come directly to me in the region. It goes to the Coast Guard nationally.
What I can tell you is that we provide services based on the resources we get for science and conservation and protection. We do have challenges from an operating and maintenance perspective. A one-cent increase in the price of fuel means and additional $130,000 for me, and we spend all of our $6 million a year in fuel. You know what has happened to the price of fuel. We have challenges with our salary budgets when the Treasury Board gives us the adjustments for salary, but they do not give us the additional overtime and other personnel costs. So, we have had challenges and we have tried to respond to those challenges by taking from our lower priority activity and using it to fund our higher priority activities. I think it is probably fair to say that the net result of that is we have not been investing sufficient resources in our fleet and some of our shore-based infrastructure. Last year, the government gave us an additional $47.3 million to help us fund that deteriorating asset base. Our capital budget this year in our region is about $8 million; that is the highest it has been for years, and it is the same for Maritimes region, the same for Quebec and Central and Arctic and Pacific. Right across the country, we have been able to take those additional resources and renew the communications towers that are part of the marine communications and traffic services system, bring them up to standard, improve the bases, and have them painted.
We have challenges, but as a special operating agency, we are better able to respond to those challenges on a national basis. Our biggest priority is the recapitalization of the fleet.
Senator Day: I would like to know about the new surface wave radar that has been installed here in Newfoundland. Does that play a role in your surveillance of the ocean and does that cut down on the number of Coast Guard ships that have to go out on patrol?
Mr. Butler: The surface wave radar system is a Department of National Defence system. We became aware of it a number of years ago when DND began to develop the system. As a matter of fact, a lot of the technology was developed here in St. John's by a company called C-Core, and then a company called Northern Radar, which subsequently spun off to Raytheon, I believe.
We were interested in it at the time because it could give us a picture of everything that was out there on the water from a traffic management perspective, from an iceberg perspective, and from a safety perspective. That system is able to ascertain the next closest vessel able to assist a vessel in trouble.
Since that time, about 15 years ago, the Coast Guard has not been involved directly with the system, but the information goes to and it is part of this data fusion centre where they are trying to bring together all of the domain awareness information. We can get that information from that fusion centre in Trinity, Nova Scotia.
Senator Day: Do you access the information provided by the system?
Mr. Butler: We do not very frequently access it. Probably, the best example I can give you is we had a mystery oil spill on the south coast a couple of years ago and we were getting birds washing ashore; dead birds, oiled birds. At that time, we had radar coverage for a certain portion of Placentia Bay. We had our ECAREG information that told us the ships that should have been in the area, but we went to DND and asked them to use their system to find any extra vessels out on the sea. We were given the list of vessels and we shared it with Transport Canada, who does the investigations on the commercial shipping spills. Presumably we had good information because we had the use of CANMARNET.
Senator Atkins: Sometimes I have difficulty separating your regional responsibilities and when you refer to "we,'' I think you are referring to the Coast Guard generally.
Is the $43 million you are talking about for the Coast Guard generally?
Mr. Butler: It is national, yes.
Senator Atkins: In your presentation, you referred to the region receiving $1 million for increased maritime security patrols and then you used the figure of $1.8 million.
I do not know what the total Coast Guard budget is, but that does not seem like a lot of money even for your region.
Mr. Butler: Actually, it is. Our total budget is about $86 million this year.
Senator Atkins: Is that for this region?
Mr. Butler: Yes, in this region. Remember that there are ships in the region that have crews and that are fully staffed. Someone earlier today referred to a 10, two and one cycle; 10 cycles operational, two cycles lay-up and one cycle for refit. With the $1 million we are able to extend the operation of the ship so that apart from its down time during refit, it is operational. The $1 million is just the incremental cost for salary, fuel, food and provisions, and what have you.
It does not take a lot of money to fully mobilize a ship. If you have to add an additional ship, if you have to buy it and deal with all of the start-up costs, that is quite different. We had capacity that we could put into service.
The majority of the resources that we are referring to in the NAFO file were used for the Cygnus. It was a ship that was out of service for two years, but was still a good ship. We spent about $1.5 million refitting it and then we gave it a crew. The Cygnus is offshore beyond the 200-mile limit right now with fisheries officers. It does not take a lot of money if we already have the infrastructure in place to provide additional sea days. It is a different issue altogether when you begin to talk about expanding the fleet beyond the current number of hulls that we have in the water at the present time.
Senator Atkins: How long have you been regional director?
Mr. Butler: About 10 years.
Senator Atkins: As regional director, do you submit a budget every year?
Mr. Butler: Yes.
Senator Atkins: Do you submit your budget to your broader region here in Atlantic Canada?
Mr. Butler: Last year, before we were a special operating agency, that budget would have been submitted to the head DFO person in the region. Currently, we prepare a budget and submit it to the Commissioner of the Coast Guard.
Senator Atkins: So, I assume that over the last, say, five years, you have requested an annual increase?
Mr. Butler: Yes.
Senator Atkins: Have you received what you have asked for?
Mr. Butler: We have done fairly well. As I had indicated to you before, we spend about $45 million a year in salaries. Salary costs drive a lot of what we do. We have not been fully funded for our salary costs, but as I had indicated to you before, we have been very effective in changing the way we have delivered some of our programs to free up some money. We have been modernizing the aids to the navigation system. As an example, 15 years ago, we had hundreds of nine-foot-six buoys that bob around in the water with a bell or a horn or a flashing light. We have worked closely with the marine industry, our fishers, and our commercial shippers, who have supported us in modernizing the systems. We have changed the very expensive buoys to plastic buoys with solar panels. The plastic buoys do not require sand blasting every two or three years. We have cut costs because a major ship is not needed to lift the buoys out of the water so a group of technicians can keep the circuitry in the top of the light going. We have taken those resources and reallocated them or redirected them to either our fleet or back into our technical services. For example, a lot of our aids to navigation are being provided by harbour authorities. We have partnerships with the harbour authorities. We give them the buoys and we pay them several hundred dollars a buoy to put them in their proper place. They continue the maintenance on the buoys keeping them alight and so on. Through these efforts we have been able to save money, which has enabled us to get along during these periods of restraint.
Senator Atkins: So, tough budgetary measures have made you made efficient?
Mr. Butler: Necessity is the mother of invention, yes, and we have been inventive. You did not spend any time with our folks on our vessels, but they are a pretty dedicated lot and they take what they do very seriously. I assure you that we are trying to support and train them as best we can.
Senator Atkins: In terms of upgrading or replacing vessels that are on stream at the moment, what do you consider is the most immediate challenge?
Mr. Butler: Our most immediate challenge, irrespective of the security challenge, which is not directly our mandate, is the science fleet. The Hudson, that does blue water science, is 40 years old. The Hudson and its crew undertake missions to understand our climate and environment. If we are going to continue to perform these functions we need to begin to replace those vessels.
You may or not have noticed the Sir Wilfred Templeman; she was just coming in off of a ground fish survey this morning. The Templeman is 24 years old. It was built as a fishing vessel, not as a government vessel. As a commercial vessel gets old, without the redundancy that we have in traditional Coast Guard vessels, you just cannot maintain the same reliability and availability. It just does not happen. When the engine fails, the ship stops. In a type 1100 vessel, we have three engines. If one engine fails, if one screw fails, we have two. There is redundancy, there is back-up, because of the nature of the operation. The science vessels do not have it, and when they cannot do their science work, they cannot get the data that our minister needs to do his job properly. So, they are important to us and create some of our greatest challenges.
Senator Atkins: Would you look for a new vessel design if you were replacing the fleet?
Mr. Butler: Our country is going to dictate that one vessel will not cut it. We will not be able to design one multi-task vessel to do all of the functions that we need to do. In the Straits of Juan de Fuca a small, high-speed, medium endurance vessel is needed, whereas, you cannot design a high-speed hull for offshore Newfoundland and Labrador, because it would not be able to survive out there. I believe we will have a mix of vessels that will respond to the different needs of the program.
The Deputy Chairman: Perhaps you could give us a list of your future requirements. Could you add to that, if it is not too much trouble, a current list of all the vessels under your control and their capacities?
Please include a list of crew members and how many engines they have.
Mr. Butler: I do have a list of the type, the year built, the length and speed of each of the vessels.
Would that information be adequate for that requirement?
The Deputy Chairman: Yes.
Senator Meighen: We all seem to agree that the big problem is the rusting out. I suppose the situation is similar in other parts of the country.
As vessels get older they presumably require increasing amounts of maintenance?
Mr. Butler: Yes, they do.
Senator Meighen: I think the assumption is that with the $1 million and the $1.8 million that you received for increased patrols, the activity level rises. I assume that because of increased patrols that your vessels must spend more and more time in port undergoing maintenance.
Do you have anything that indicates "lost days'' because of maintenance days over a period of time?
Mr. Butler: Yes, we have that information.
Senator Meighen: Would you be able to make that available to the committee?
Mr. Butler: Yes.
Senator Meighen: Would I be right in concluding that it would show an increase, a rather escalating increase?
Mr. Butler: I think it would be fair to say that there would be an increase, yes. Traditionally, we plan for about one month refit per year, and it is fair to say that the refit time increases as the ships age.
We have also encountered challenges with work that occurs outside of the normal refit breakdowns. We also have that information; information that indicates the increased amount of time it takes to maintain an older vessel and how the maintenance time has changed over the last few years.
Senator Meighen: Everybody from the Auditor General to this committee, the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries, and the union seems to agree that we cannot go on forever juggling and improvising and crossing our fingers and spending more days maintaining the fleet before it is going to fall apart.
As I understand the subject, there has not been any substantial recapitalization of the fleet for heaven knows how long.
Mr. Butler: The last major program was the scrap program and that was in the early 1980s. That was the last time we had a major replacement of the fleet.
Senator Meighen: When did we extend the 200-mile limit?
Mr. Butler: We extended the limit in the 1970s.
Senator Meighen: That probably prompted some of the activity, yes. That is the information that I think would be helpful to us.
Senator Cordy: In the list of items for which you are responsible you mentioned that you have eight large ship, six small ships, and 800 employees.
Ten years ago when you began your present job, how many ships were in the region and how many employees worked for the Canadian Coast Guard?
Mr. Butler: We have more ships now than we did then. When I started in 1982 the DFO vessels were part of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Early in the 1980s, we received the J. E. Bernier and at that time, we took out of service a small class of vessels.
There has been a growth in the fleet in our region over the time that I have been serving and, in particular, a large growth with the addition of the science and fisheries management vessels. So, again, it grew from a large fleet to a very large ship fleet. We have about 500 sea-going people at any point in time, so it is large.
Senator Cordy: I am interested in the Coast Guard auxiliary volunteers.
Is that program similar to a reservist in the military? Are they paid?
Mr. Butler: The Coast Guard Auxiliary is actually set up as a separate organizational structure, although they work very closely with us. They have their own president and chief executive officer. They have regions and they have districts that are subsets of regions. For example, in Newfoundland and Labrador, there are 10 different districts of auxiliarists, and the auxiliarists are spread out all over the island and Labrador, and their role is primarily to support the search and rescue operations. The auxiliary varies a little bit as you go further west across the country.
Our auxiliarists are fishers. They have their own commercial fishing boats and are professionals at what they do. We have contribution agreement with them and we receive about $500,000 dollars to fund their out-of-pocket costs, their training costs, and their organizational costs. They work hand in glove with us. We meet with them, train with them, exercise with them, and we support them any way we can. They are an arm of the Coast Guard as much, I feel, as some of our own branches and sections.
Senator Cordy: They work as eyes and ears for the Coast Guard?
Mr. Butler: Absolutely, because they are the front line of the Coast Guard. We have worked with the RCMP and their coastal watch program and understand the notion of having eyes and ears around the coast. The RCMP are talking about enhancing that coastal watch program and are looking to the Coast Guard Auxiliary to see if they can play a role in that area as well.
Senator Cordy: I brought up the subject of the Swiss Air disaster this morning and this reminds me of Swiss Air because a lot of fishers in Nova Scotia were involved.
Mr. Butler: Absolutely.
Senator Cordy: When Michael Wing, national president of the union of Canadian transportation employees, appeared before our committee, he said that the Swiss Air disaster brought home the seriousness of the cuts to the Coast Guard.
Mr. Butler: I can speak for our region. We have enhanced the SAR presence in this region over the past number of years. We have gone from two small boats on the northeast coast to one small vessel and one 600 class, like the Cape Roger. She is an offshore vessel. We have replaced an 1100 class, a mediumice-breaker like the Cornwallis, with two high-speed, 47-foot vessels on our west coast. We have the Sir Wilfred Grenfell off the east coast, and we have the NAFO vessels.
The important thing to think about with the auxiliary is that they number 1,000 persons. The Coast Guard has 14 vessels; they have 480. We are not and will never be where all the action is. What we bring to the picture is our professionalism, our very capable personnel and resources. The auxiliary is often the first responder, and are often there when the incident occurs. It is often one of their sister vessels that gets into trouble. They can provide the first level of support. If things go bad, we are there, because we have more capable vessels. We have a real partnership in the fact that we do not overlap our capabilities but we complement each other. That relationship has proven to be very effective in this region and I know in your region as well.
Senator Cordy: You certainly have made reference to all of your demands such as the fishing vessels going farther off the coastline, the oil and gas exploration, and mining. You have also mentioned that there is the possibility that the Coast Guard will be called upon to do more security checks. When do you say, "Enough?''
How do you keep adding more and more and more responsibilities to the Coast Guard before you say, "We cannot perform the extra functions; we do not have the funding.
Mr. Butler: A lot of what we do does not occur simultaneously. We have a multibillion-dollar investment in sea- going vessels. We have hundreds of millions of dollars invested in people. I think that the people who complained that we have gone too far with the multi-tasking of our people probably would have been the union representatives.
I think we have the capacity to do more. I think it only makes sense to do more, but we have to be sure to have well trained, well prepared people. We spend a lot of time working with the scientists to figure out what they need to do their job and how to make the best use of our professional skills to assist them. Likewise, when we do diving exercises with the RCMP, or fast rescue craft training, or when we support them in their policing operations on the Labrador coast or offshore, we need to be trained to enable them to do what they need to do on behalf of Canadians. It is not overlap or duplication; it is working together cooperatively. I think our people are professionals and capable of doing more, and I think the unions feel that they were capable of doing more.
The Deputy Chairman: Mr. Butler, I want to thank you on behalf of the committee. You have enlightened us.
We look forward to additional information that you can make available to us. You are doing a good job. I joke about it, but you are a good bunch of people doing a heck of a job. So, thank you for coming and thank the union for their presentation. We look forward to hearing further from the union on some questions that were opened up this morning.
Senator Colin Kenny (Chairman) in the chair.
The Chairman: Our next witness is Lieutenant-Colonel Camsell who joined the army reserve in 1982 as an infantry soldier in the Rocky Mountain Rangers, Kamloops. He has held a variety of appointments in the 36 Newfoundland Service Battalion from 1998-99, as well as appointments outside his unit at Aldershot and Borden.
In April of 2002, he was promoted to his current rank and assumed command of the 36 Newfoundland Service Battalion.
In civilian life, Lieutenant-Colonel Camsell is a social studies department head at the local high school.
We also have with us Lieutenant-Colonel Leonard who has served with both the regular and reserve components of the Canadian Forces. He has served in various commands from platoon commander to operations officer. LCol. Leonard commanded the Newfoundland Composite Company, which deployed on Operation RECUPERATION to the Ottawa area during the ice storm in January of 1998, and recently served in the ongoing NATO peacekeeping mission in Bosnia, receiving a Commander, Canadian Contingent Stabilization Force Commendation for his work with the various refugee groups.
In his civilian career, Lieutenant Colonel Leonard is employed as a full-time firefighter with the St. John's Regional Fire Department.
Finally, we have Lieutenant-Commander Harvey, a native of Bell Island, Newfoundland, who served in the Canadian navy for 29 years in a number of at-sea and onshore positions. In July of 1999, Lieutenant-Commander Harvey returned to Newfoundland as a training officer of HMCS Cabot. He served as executive officer prior to his appointment as commanding officer in June of 2003. In September 2003, Lieutenant-Commander Harvey transferred to the naval reserve and we understand he has some very bad friends in the room.
Gentlemen, it is a pleasure to have you before us. That was an in-joke in that we have a captain who is on our staff; Captain Stewart. We gather they are old friends. We are very pleased to see you.
Lieutenant-Commander Max Harvey, Commander Officer, HMCS Cabot: Mr. Chairman, honourable senators, guests, thank you very much for the opportunity to appear today and a warm welcome to Canada's easternmost coast.
I look forward to providing my input and perspective on the naval reserves in Newfoundland and Labrador. My remarks will provide some of my background which includes the background of Cabot and of my ship's company.
I have been in the navy for 29 years and some of my background includes navigation, which I taught at the naval schools, and navigational officer on watch. I was a commanding officer of a recruiting centre in Rimouski, responsible for eastern Quebec recruiting, and after went on to DND headquarters as recruiting staff for officer production. I went to sea operations staff in Halifax, where I was responsible for other government department support and international exercises. In particular, for the reserves, as a regular force officer, I went on the maritime coastal defence vessel project, MCDV, project in Ottawa, where I was the operational requirements manager, and then attended staff college in Toronto for three years.
I have been in St. John's for five years, and for the last year, I have been a naval reservist and I am very, very proud to be one.
Newfoundland and Labrador have a proud history with the naval reserve. We formed in 1900 as the British Royal Naval Reserve and we made considerable contributions to the war efforts, both in World War I and World War II. As a region and a community, we are very proud of our naval and maritime heritage.
Cabot was established in 1949 as part of the new provinces' entitlement to have a reserve and militia. We are the sole naval reserve division in this province. We have a wonderful new building on the south side waterfront that we share with five other military units, all of them cadet organizations. We have memorandum of understanding, MOU, with various other government departments from Cabot, with the Coast Guard, DFO and RCMP to use the facility and the jetty. As a matter of fact, DFO is doing some training in our building today. We have had close links with the regular warship visits here and the proximity of the coast at Halifax gives us visibility with the ships and great opportunity for our sailors to go back and forth.
Our establishment at Cabot has 174 sailors; that is a number that has doubled in the last four years. We have also added a diving team in the last two years. Our composition is mostly university students at junior levels with about 35 per cent of our ship's company being female. We cover a large regional area and many of our students commute; some over a 100 kilometres weekly. We had one individual who commuted 400 kilometres for the training. Our full daytime staff numbers 11 and we are mixed with both regular and reserve force. Our budget is about $580,000, primarily for class A pay and part-time training. We are also sponsored by NAVERSHQ, naval reserve headquarters, for other training to the tune of about $400,000 in the last year.
Many of our sailors have demanding civilian careers or academic pursuits. Overall, they are young, highly educated and capable. They have an exceptional level of professionalism. Their commitment is outstanding, as they balance school, family, social life and other work with their considerable and growing career expectations. It is not an easy balance for most, but clearly reflects the commitment and pride of the reservist.
The mission of the naval reserve is to provide maritime command with trained personnel to man its combat and support elements. Our mandate is clear. Cabot supports out-of-unit tasking for the ships, the maritime coastal defence vessels,diving/port security, naval coordination and guidance to shipping organizations and force protection teams on a full-time basis. The various schools, headquarters and bases are equally supported by naval reserve divisions like Cabot.
A secondary mission of the naval reserves is, through the naval reserve divisions, to represent the navy across Canada. We have a naval presence through community relations, liaising and working with OGDs and assisting the community. While we are not formally part of any local or regional first-responder teams, we do liaise with the various local groups and are kept informed.
We have a large facility at Cabot. We have small boats and qualified personnel, so we are an obvious resource, although any tasking and support would be staffed at higher levels and come to us as tasking from our headquarters. Our 9/11 response, our Y2K preparations, environmental stewardship and the port emergency plan are a number of examples where we have been involved with local authorities.
While running a large, multi-user unit has considerable complexities, there are four main focus areas at Cabot that are particularly relevant to your review; attraction, retention, training and contribution.
Recruiting is performed at two basic stages; attraction and processing. The NRDs are responsible for attraction, and the recruiting centres for processing, although there is mutual support between them.
Growth of an NRD is a real challenge. Competition in our market is intense. We have five other reserve units in the local area as well as good regular force opportunities, including atwo-year program at the Fisheries and Marine Institute of Memorial University of Newfoundland. The Newfoundland economy in St. John's is doing very well.
Our success is linked to the team approach both internally and externally. We stress involvement, priority and plain hard work. The naval reserve offers great programs of benefits and opportunity. We have a message to get out and then ensure the follow-up is done to translate the interest into completed applications and, later, enrolments. Certainly, our ship's company has been our best recruiters. The processing phase may take from one-to-five months or longer, primarily due to medical and security screening. For a part-time opportunity, this can be a show-stopper for some.
Recruiting must remain active as there is a large turnover of personnel at NRDs, especially during the first five years of service; this is a transition period for many.
Keeping people in the reserves when there are so many competing demands for their time and effort is a challenge. My view is that there are four major factors that serve to keep people in. The benefits, the pay, the education reimbursement, and the pension, medical insurance benefits, et cetera encourage recruits to stay in the reserves. Recruits soon reap the benefits of professional and personal development, leadership skills, and civilian career applications. They achieve personal enhancement and enrichment, and soon understand that what they do is worthwhile and challenging and fun. The team itself becomes a unique experience and this aspect is a major component of apart-time career. The naval reserve offers ample opportunity in all those areas.
People leave due to reduced availability, or transfer to other regions for other opportunities. When people leaving for availability it is because they want to give a hundred days a year, they can only give 30 days because of other commitments. In my experience, attrition is primarily the result of lack of availability. There are very few who leave the naval reserve due to dissatisfaction.
We are an excellent feeder organization and this is fully supported. We often transfer our junior personnel to the regular force and in return, many senior personnel from the regular force join the reserves when they retire, as I did. In the past three years, Cabot has seen about 36 personnel transfer to the regular force or move on to other units outside the province.
Our primary focus is to provide trained personnel, and this means training for readiness and coordinating availability to actually go and do the jobs. The "stone frigate'' nomenclature is still used.
September to May is our training year and the summer is for coursing and employment as available. We conduct various in-house training and coordinate out-of-unit training during some weekends and during longer periods in the summer. Increased computer-based training and shorter out-of-unit modules for some courses have been very helpful for reservists who have availability limitations.
Contribution means readiness and availability both in the unit and to deploy for training and employment. The main operational focus of the naval reserve has been the MCDVs, and while remaining the major tasking, there are force protection, port security and exercise taskings. The in-unit contribution in terms of port security and naval coordination and guidance to shipping, are increasing. The considerable NRD administrative and coordination activities keep the unit effective. NRD is a busy place year-round and there is a real sense of being able to make a difference while you are there.
There are demands and challenges to be sure, but there is a clear mission with the accompanying resources, support and a first-class team to help us meet our mandate. Through it all, our headquarters looks to improving how we do business. They listen to our input and they demonstrate flexibility and leadership in the way ahead.
We are proud of our ship's company and the contribution we make to our country, our navy and the communities we serve.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my opening remarks. Thank you.
Senator Meighen: Could I get an interpretation of "MCDV,'' "NCAG?''
The Chairman: In fairness to the witnesses, we have not explained to them that we have a fine of 25 cents per acronym and that has subsidized the committee for some time now.
Senator Meighen: "MCDV?''
LCdr. Harvey: The "MCDV'' is the Maritime coastal defence vessel.
Senator Meighen: Oh, yes.
LCdr. Harvey: There are 12 of those 1000-tonne ships, six on each coast.
Senator Meighen: Oh, yes.
LCdr. Harvey: "NCAG'' is a relatively new title for naval control and guidance to shipping. That was the old "NCS'' you may have heard previously, naval control to shipping, which now includes intelligence.
The Chairman: In fairness, what Senator Meighen is addressing here is awfully important. If the public does not understand what you are saying, then we have a communications breakdown. We know you have a type of shorthand that you use and it is important to you to speak efficiently, but translating to us and to the public is also important.
Lieutenant-Colonel S.P. Leonard, 1st Battalion Royal Newfoundland Regiment: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, honourable senators, and guests. It is my pleasure to appear before this committee today as a witness. I do realize that since the inception of this committee each of you has developed a situational awareness of the military. I fully support your mandate and I am sure that it will be of significant benefit to Canada, the Canadian Forces and to Canadians as a whole.
I am the Commanding Officer of the 1st Battalion, Royal Newfoundland Regiment. My unit is located in St. John's along with the Royal Newfoundland Regiment Band. The Regiment has a second battalion located in central and western Newfoundland, specifically, Grand Falls, Corner Brook and Stephenville. These two battalions and the band are units belonging to 37 Canadian Brigade Group, which is headquartered in Moncton, New Brunswick. This brigade reports directly to Land Forces Atlantic Area, LFAA, Halifax.
The Royal Newfoundland Regiment is the oldest regiment in Canada. It was embodied on April 25th, 1795. The regiment has served its sovereign with distinction throughout its history. It played a prominent part in the War of 1812, covering itself with glory in such battles as Lundy's Lane, York, and Stoney Creek. During the First World War, from Gallipoli to Ypres, the Royal Newfoundland Regiment fought with distinction in many actions. The steady advance of the regiment at Beaumont Hamel against all odds is one of the most outstanding examples of disciplined courage and devotion to duty in British military history. The Royal Newfoundland Regiment is the only colonial regiment to receive during the First World War the prefix "Royal'' in battle. As well, it has the distinction of bearing on its regimental colours the battle honour "Gallipoli,'' carried by no other Canadian regiment. Following the end of the First World War, the regiment was disbanded for almost 30 years. On October 24, 1949, it was granted authority by King George VI to remuster as a militia unit.
Today, as citizen soldiers, the men and women of the regiment are proudly and efficiently doing a job of real importance in their community and for the security of the nation. My battalion has a posted strength of 175 personnel with an authorized strength of 204. My operating budget is just under $1 million. The band, with a posted strength of 25 and an authorized strength of 23, has an operating budget of just over $117,000.
My mission is to generate and maintain combat-capable,multi-purpose soldiers to meet Canada's defence objectives and to support current operations through force generation. As well, being on order for domestic operations contributes to the force generation of a self-sufficient platoon on 48 hours notice to move in either New Brunswick or Newfoundland.
My soldiers have been very reliable in meeting this mission and are commended for their efforts. For example, during the ice storm of 1998, a company group of 138 soldiers deployed within 36 hours notice from the St. John's garrison to the Ottawa area. Two infantry platoons and the company headquarters were from the 1st Battalion. An equal number were prepared to deploy for Y2K. A number of my officers and non-commissioned members have deployed on operational tours to Cyprus, Croatia, the Golan Heights, Bosnia, Haiti, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan.
I would also like to mention the important contribution of our regimental band and regimental advisory board. The band provides a key means by which our Connect with Canadians initiative is achieved. Through ceremonial parades with open concerts, the band provides an essential part of our public relations within the Province of Newfoundland.
Our advisory council is as strong as ever and continues to play an important part in promoting the interests of the regiment. Indeed, just within the last few months, as a result of the advisory council members' efforts, $12,000 was raised to allow for the replication of the regiment's First World War colours for display at Government House.
My unit has benefited from the land forces reserve restructure program, LFRR. The 1st Battalion has been assigned a new role and capability: an infantry reconnaissance platoon. To date, 10 out of 36 new positions have been filled and it is anticipated that the platoon will be completed following the area rank and trades school, ARTS, this summer. This platoon will then deploy to be employed in its primary role during the area concentration exercise scheduled for late August.
At this point in my remarks, I would like to take the opportunity to describe some of the challenges facing my unit. First, recruiting continues to be an important topic. I must clearly state that improvements have taken place with regards to the process. Indeed, the new provisional enrolment initiative has reduced enrolment waiting times previously experienced during the processing of medical files. However, a number of applicants are failing the fitness testing portion of the process. This is somewhat contradictory to our system because once a member is enrolled in the primary reserve, there is no fitness standard required for a class A reservist. In addition, it has been noted that some basic recruit training courses must be conducted at the end of the high school year, during the summer months as opposed to just during the fall and winter. Higher headquarters have acknowledged this and there appears to be a concerted effort to accommodate this in the coming months. I believe this will lead to an increase in the number of recruits joining the reserves and the achievement of LFRR targets.
A second challenge facing the reserves is defining what our role will be as the transformation of the Canadian Forces continues towards a medium-weight fighting force. Some new roles have been allotted to the reserves, for example, CIMIC and PSYOPS, and are being done exceptionally well, yet the reserves have much more to offer and a niche role could be the answer.
The Chairman: Again, sir, if you could tell us what "CIMIC'' and "PSYOPS'' are.
LCol. Leonard: I apologize for that, senator.
The Chairman: You are up at about $7.50 right now and it is climbing.
LCol. Leonard: I will owe my paycheque before I leave. I apologize for that. "CIMIC'' stands for "civil, military cooperation'' and it is one of the new roles that has been assigned to the reserves in the past several years, along with "PSYOPS,'' which stands for "psychological operations,'' a secondary role that has also been given to the reserves.
My final point involves retention. I believe that many of the applicants who enrol in the military are looking to be challenged, including those who join the reserves. We as leaders must be imaginative in the scheduling of exercises and training that allow our soldiers to feel as though they have achieved something. I fully support component transfers, CTs, to the regular force. I see the move as a gain rather than a loss. Yet, with the announcement that the regular force will be accepting 5,000 new personnel, I believe that it will have an adverse impact on the reserves, leading to an increased number of component transfers.
To conclude my remarks, the Royal Newfoundland Regiment has served its sovereign with pride over the past 210 years. Although faced with the challenges of recruiting, retention and force transformation, the men and women of the regiment continue to soldier well.
I would again like to thank the committee for this opportunity. Your efforts will certainly help further development of a new defence policy for Canada. I look forward to your questions. Thank you.
The Chairman: Thank you, Colonel Leonard. No one who has been to Beaumont Hamel can help but be moved by the sacrifice that your regiment made and it was very fitting of you to remind us of it here today.
Senator Atkins: Hear, hear.
The Chairman: Colonel Camsell, you have the floor.
Lieutenant-Colonel J.F. Camsell, 36th Service Battalion: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to present a short brief to you.
36 Service Battalion was formed in 1917 and initially designated the Newfoundland Militia Service Battalion. The 36th was assigned to the unit in August 1975. The first Commanding Officer was Lieutenant Colonel Alex Cowan, now the unit's Honorary Colonel.
Initially, the headquarters and supply, maintenance and transportation companies were located at Fort Pepperrell, St. John's, with the administration company co-located with the Second Battalion of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment in Grand Falls, Corner Brook and Stephenville. In September 1978, the unit crest depicting a steadfast Newfoundland dog facing left and the unit motto, "Nulli Secondus,'' was given royal approval by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
In 1986, the personnel and equipment of the administration company in central and western Newfoundland were absorbed into the Second Battalion of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment. This resulted in the entire strength of the battalion being concentrated in St. John's. Since its formation, the unit has provided combat service support to other Newfoundland reserve units including the Canadian Rangers, the RCMP and numerous civilian agencies. The unit supports the opening of the House of Assembly, royal visits and other significant occasions.
Reserve members of 36 Service Battalion have served with the regular force on Canadian Forces bases across Canada and in Germany and have augmented regular force units in Golan Heights, Cyprus, Egypt, Cambodia, Bosnia, Crotia, Rwanda and Afghanistan. Presently, one member is deployed on OP ATHENA in Afghanistan while another is deployed on OP DANICA in Golan; four other members have returned in the past six months from other deployments. Domestically, the unit supports four cadet corps and has provided a platoon to OP RECUPERATION for the ice storm in Ontario in 1998 and to the Canada Winter Games in 1999 in Corner Brook. We have also provided the operation of a domestic headquarters as part of the Y2K contingency planning and during the 9/11crisis.
In April of 2002, I was appointed Commanding Officer of the unit. The unit establishment is 164 positions, including 10 regular forces. Currently, 123 of these positions are open for recruitment. The unit has 110 members consisting of five regular force members, two reserve force members on full-time service and 103 reserve force members on part-time service. The unit is organized into two elements: a command and control element known as the battalion headquarters, and a mission element, the close support company.
The battalion headquarters is comprised of the command section, battalion personnel administration and financial support, operations and training cell, and a recruiting cell. The close support company is organized into functional platoons with a company headquarters. The three functional platoons are maintenance, transportation and supply. The company headquarters include a command element as well as limited integral support personnel such as cooks and attached medics.
The current operating budget for the 2004-05 fiscal year is $716,000. Of this total, approximately $600,000 is allocated for the mission element and/or for trades' training.The remainder of the funding is spent on items such as rations, fuel and administration. The unit is housed in two buildingsat Canadian Forces Station St. John's, buildings 312 and305, with a total of 1,200 square feet. Unit accommodations include offices, classrooms, storage areas and garages. The unit holds a complement of personal and support weapons as well environmental clothing, field stores and equipment. At present, a project is underway to fund the building of a new multi-purpose armoury to replace the Second World War buildings. As a combat service support unit, we hold significantly more vehicles than most other reserve units do. We have 29 vehicles, including four commercial pattern and five of the new Milcots variant.
The role of 36 Service Battalion is to generate and maintain combat-capable, service support soldiers; in other words, our role is to train reserve combat service support soldiers. As you understand, training for any soldier of any rank is a career-long process. The majority of our efforts are devoted to essential level of capability known as ELOC training, Levels 1 to 3. What this amounts to is an annual cycle of training designed to refresh basic soldier skills already learned through more formal courses.
The functional occupations in the unit are supply technician, mobile support equipment operator, and maintenance, including weapons and vehicle technicians. Individual training in these occupations involves basic military qualification, or BMQ, followed by soldier qualification, or SQ. This initial training is common to all army reserve units. Following this, these occupations require particular trades training and on-the-job experience. We are unique among army reserve units in regard to the mobile support equipment operator, or driver, occupation. It is the only occupation where trade-particular training is decentralized to units. Therefore, our resources are primarily devoted to these tasks: basic military qualification, driver training and soldier skills refresher training up to section and platoon level. With the exception of driver training, you will find this to be the case for all other army reserve units in this area.
As a rule, combat service support soldiers are very professional and better trained than they were 10 years ago. During my career, I have seen the individual training for reservists come in line with regular force training. More and more, regular and reserve force personnel attend the same courses and meet the same standards.
Unlike our regular counterparts, reserve CSS soldiers do not have workplace production requirements. The majority of time is thus devoted to training in our field or operational roles. Reserve combat service support soldiers are better prepared in this respect, but lack in trade-particular experience and skills, even more so for the more technical maintenance occupations.
The biggest challenge facing this unit is recruiting; however, certain factors that affect our success in that regard are out of my immediate control. The key source of recruits is high school students, but the training cycle as it exists could be better managed to attract this target. Currently, basic military qualification training is conducted during the school year, with recruiting focussed in the fall and early winter. At that time, summer employment is not the priority of many students. However, if recruiting were geared to training/employment that commences in the late spring and or summer, the army reserve might be a more attractive option.
To add to this a little bit, I see this quite clearly from my civilian occupation as a high school teacher because I have students asking me all the time about summer jobs. It is clearly difficult for students to commit to something during the year, before the summer.
Another factor that might make recruitment more successful is additional local training; for example, conducting basic military qualification and soldier qualification training in St. John's.
Finally, there is a need for a public relations/recruiting campaign on a regional or national level. Mass media, especially television commercials, geared at recruiting, are lacking.
The location and decentralization of army reserve units is a factor that may have an impact on recruiting. The army reserve as a part-time career is available only to those Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who live in St. John's. This is not the case for Second Battalion, the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, as that unit is dispersed among three west coast communities. This is a more equitable distribution of the army reserve opportunity within Newfoundland and Labrador. There is a significant difference in the availability of employment between St. John's and other communities. This is a potential resource for future recruitment.
Another challenge is the lack of full-time and part-time instructors at the junior leadership level. Very often, component transfers to the regular force take our most promising junior leaders, and this will become more critical if the regular force increases its strength by 5,000 members. Many of these new regular force soldiers will come from the reserve force. Conversely, as mentioned already, it is common to receive senior leaders from the regular force once they retire. Our emphasis on basic military qualifications and driver training creates a significant manpower requirement at the master-corporal level.
The reserve service battalion is lacking an operational role. This is being addressed by LFFR and the army support restructure. I see this role taking the form of a particular niche or aspect of the broader army combat service support on which reserve unit can focus, such as movement detachments, bath units, recovery, et cetera.
Also lacking is a domestic real time support role. As described earlier, our local training leaves little available for trade-specific training or maintenance of skills. The transfer of local production requirements from support units to reserve combat units would create this opportunity in a cost-effective way, but this requires additional funding.
Overall, the scope of combat service support training in the army reserve has improved greatly since the 1980s. Currently, combat service support soldiers are professional and dedicated to upgrading their training. They have significant opportunity for operational deployment and contribute greatly to the ability of the army in operations.
They key issue for 36 Service Battalion remains recruiting and maintenance of trade-particular skills at the unit level. At the civic level, the unit has left a significant footprint along with the other reserve units in St. John's.
The Chairman: Thank you very much, Lieutenant-Colonel Camsell.
Senator Cordy: Thank you very much to all of you for taking the time to prepare your presentations and come here to speak with us. It is always nice to have people here who obviously enjoy their jobs.
Each of you mentioned recruitment and retention, so I guess that is where I will start. Two of you mentioned that since most of your recruits are high school students, that it would make more sense to do recruiting in the spring and early summer, so that they would be able to train during the summer.
How difficult is it to make those changes? Are you able to make those changes yourself in St. John's or do you have to go through Ottawa to make the changes on recruitment strategies?
LCol. Leonard: Senator Cordy, our senior leadership within our brigade are about to take action concerning summer training; we will conduct training at local headquarters this summer. Their concern, and it is understandable, is that they do not want to draw instructors that would normally deploy to Aldershot and New Brunswick to conduct training at the schools. They want to make sure that they do not leave the school short of instructors. Fortunately, in this situation, we are going to use part-time instructors that are available throughout the week to offset each other.
LCol. Camsell: I will second those comments. The biggest issue is lack of instructors. The local headquarters and our brigade headquarters need to work that equation to make it successful. It is something we do not control at our level.
From my experience in St. John's, the recruitment is pretty good. We have a pretty fast process with the new provisional enrolments, and so on. The problem is quantity. I think you have probably been briefed before that it is usually a one-to-four ratio, four contacts to get one soldier.
LCdr. Harvey: I would just like to add that the navy model is very different from the army model. The army does training on weekends during the school year. The navy has courses that run for 10 weeks during the summer and then we follow that basic military qualification training with naval environmental training. Our students go away for the summer to Borden for 10 weeks or longer for their training. We have two serials in the summer, one that starts at the end of May, which is very excellent for university students. We have another that is at the end of June, which is geared to the high school training year. We also have billets in a January course for those who do not have a job or are available in January.
The training issue for manning the naval school in Borden was set up in the last five years. We take our reservists and some of our recruiters and we send them up to the school to instruct. We have class A that goes up and we have a small, standing cell at Borden. We have our own training school and, as a matter of fact, the naval reserve training division in Borden, a great success, started off with just navy. Now they train regular force, and army, and some air force personnel at that base.
Senator Cordy: We have been told by other witnesses that as soon as a student finished high school or university they stopped their training.
Has that been your experience?
LCol. Leonard: Senator Cordy, I conducted courses back in the late 1980s and early 1990s and my understanding is that they were successful. The attrition rate then was slightly higher than the attrition rate is now because we conducted the courses in the fall and winter. We have not conducted a local headquarters course in the summer in several years. We have also introduced the tuition reimbursement program and have the part-time pension plan coming in June of this year as well as medical and dental benefits for the reservists, and the pay itself is decent. I think that for the majority of the reservists that left 10 years ago, those benefits were not there, but now when they finish up a course at the end of the summer and realize that they only have to maintain a commitment part time throughout the year, they will be more inclined to stay.
Senator Cordy: Is there a focus also in recruiting older members to join the reserves?
LCol. Camsell: We do some of that kind of recruiting at Memorial University, but we have not been too successful in that area.
The majority of the students that we have are not at the university level. They are in the high schools here and many of them are concentrated in St. John's. To my knowledge and to my experience and history with the reserves, we have always had a majority of high school students. The recruiting age has been lowered to 16, which has also had an impact on the number of recruits.
The Chairman: Senator Cordy, please let me interrupt. We have heard that many militia units have good uptake from university students, but when the recruits graduate from university they move away and do not continue their career in the reserves. Is that your experience?
It seems that the university students benefit from the program for the time he or she is in the militia, but then after he or she leaves we are left without a person that we have spent time and money to train. This committee wants to know if this is a good program or not.
LCol. Leonard: Mr. Chair, if soldiers we recruit out of high school go on to university, we have them for that four year period. I think that the reserves benefit quite reasonably with the investment of four-to-five years.
The Chairman: Right, but at the end you lose them.
LCol. Leonard: We do lose the majority of them at the end, yes.
The Chairman: You invest a good deal of time in the training during that period and you would like to see the payback come over the next decade or whatever.
Do you have thoughts on how one retains these people once they graduate, or should we focus more on an older recruit who has finished his or her education?
LCol. Camsell: I do not think we will be successful with the older recruits. I think we have to continue to recruit at the high school level. I have heard that the attrition rates are heavier at the end of our summer program, but I have not seen stats on that, so I am somewhat doubtful of that, to be honest. As a CO, I would rather have 60 or 70 potential recruits for a summer course and live with the attrition at the end of the summer rather than try to piecemeal a course together during the year.
The Chairman: Why?
LCol. Camsell: The reason is because our recruitment program is not successful from September to April.
LCdr. Harvey: I agree with Colonel Camsell. I agree that the ideal time to offer courses is between May and August. That is the perfect time to have people employed, and that is when they are looking for employment.
We will focus our efforts on our older audience, but we will maintain the pool that we have right now with regard to high school and university students because that is our most successful area.
We have gone out to corporations and given presentations to people that are established in the community and have full-time careers. We have asked those people if they are interested in joining the reserves.
The Chairman: Thank you very much. Senator Cordy, you have the floor again.
Senator Cordy: Commander Harvey, you spoke about people coming from outside of St. John's. Are those people given travel expenses?
LCdr. Harvey: Yes. I would just like to say from the navy point of view in recruiting, we welcome everybody right up to age 55. We used to say at 52 years of age you could join; if you had three years to serve, you were able to enrol.
The naval reserve did a study a number of years ago and found that almost 70 per cent of naval reservists leave in the first five years, but after that, usually at the almost Master-Corporal Seaman level, they stay and have long careers because of the transition.
We have a number of older recruits at Cabot. We have a43-year-old woman with three children. She is a single mother and is progressing on, I believe, as a naval signalman. Certainly, you have the recruiting organizations that are very interested in older people. To my mind, absolutely, older recruits are welcome.
LCdr. Harvey: An older recruit is not the typical recruit, however, there are many opportunities for them and they are welcome. We find that older people do not want to have that dramatic life-style change at that time in their lives. It is often difficult for older recruits to commit to the tremendous initial training commitment that can take them away for up to four months for basic training or trade qualifications. They just cannot get the time off work. That is one of the issues that some naval reservists have; getting time off can be difficult.
Senator Cordy: Do you get many retired military people who want the join the reserves and come back to Newfoundland?
LCdr. Harvey: Yes, and we have a number of reserves that live outside of the Cabot area. They do get paid for their mileage and the benefit is quite good; it pays for the gas. And as a matter of fact, if there are three people in the car, they all get the mileage benefit, not just the driver.
Senator Cordy: Commander Harvey, you spoke about an advisory council. Is that the norm for reserve units?
LCdr. Harvey: Oh, it is absolutely usual, senator. There is a formation council. Are you referring to the establishment review?
Senator Cordy: You spoke about the advisory council and the good work that they do in promoting Cabot.
LCol. Camsell: I think that was Lt. Col. Leonard.
Senator Cordy: Oh, sorry. You are right.
LCol. Leonard: Yes. I must admit that the regimental advisory council does tremendous work for the unit. It allows us to connect with Canadians. It also does some lobbying for us with regard to interests that we are trying to follow. The council is very key asset for us.
Senator Cordy: Are they from the military, or are they reservists, or are they from the general community?
LCol. Leonard: Some are retired military, some are former serving members, some are serving members, and some are business personnel from the community itself.
Senator Cordy: Do you have full-time forces recruiters? Is it the recruiting done through the military, full-time, regular forces, or is it done part-time through the reserves?
LCol. Camsell: The attraction is done through the units, certainly for the army reserve, at local headquarters here, and we are funded to employ recruiters. It is up to the unit if they want to put them on full time or use that money to space it out over the year with the recruiting cycle.
LCdr. Harvey: All the naval reserves, 24 in all, have full-time recruiters.
Senator Cordy: Do you have sufficient resources to do your training?
I believe it was Colonel Camsell that said that he was in need of a new building.
LCol. Camsell: There is a treasury board project underway that is looking into new buildings for the reserve units plus Canadian Forces stationed in St. John's. The focus is on an armoury similar to the new Windsor armoury, or the Toronto armoury.
Senator Cordy: Do you have all the resources that you need for training?
LCol. Camsell: I have enough resources for my unit and the tasks that I perform.
LCol. Leonard: I agree. Our infrastructure is very solid. The consolidation project for Pleasantville is a good project that will bring all of the military together under one roof. I think that we have sufficient infrastructure to meet our training objectives.
Senator Cordy: Commander?
LCdr. Harvey: We are located on the waterfront in a separate facility. We have a brand-new building, that is just five years old, and it is absolutely fantastic.
We have excellent resources and flexibility. Headquarters listens to us and considers any additional requests that we make. They have been excellent.
Senator Cordy: Do the older buildings have resources for information technology, for computers, that type of thing?
LCol. Camsell: That is correct. All the units are connected by the DIN or the Internet.
Senator Cordy: Colonel Leonard and Colonel Camsell, you talked about the people who have been deployed in your reserve units.
When they return, what impact does that have on the other reservists? Is it a positive impact?
LCol. Leonard: My experience is that it is very positive. The majority of soldiers have come back with a very positive attitude and passed on their experiences to the soldiers in the unit. This in turn motivates the unit and as a result the next group wants to go on tour.
Senator Cordy: Do they usually volunteer to go on tour?
LCol. Leonard: Yes, all have volunteered.
Senator Cordy: Commander Harvey, what about the personnel that you have?
LCdr. Harvey: We supply personnel to the ships and after three years the personnel is taken off the Cabot establishment. We do not follow them. We have had them on many of the ships and the diving units and the schools.
When they come back, the issue is sometimes that they are used to the full-time employment, what is called the class B. They get a three-year contract and when they finish and if they do not have a job, they come back. For some of them, it is a difficult transition to go to the naval reserve in part-time work, but for the many that do come back to the naval reserve units the experience is very valuable.
Senator Cordy: What are the most difficult challenges that you face with your reserve units? You have mentioned recruitment and retention as major challenges. Are there other challenges that you have not mentioned?
LCol. Camsell: I believe our biggest challenge is recruitment. Without success in recruitment, we cannot really improve upon anything. We need soldiers in the units to give that capability to have more and better-trained soldiers. We have the equipment to train a platoon at a time, but what I would like to do is have those 30 soldiers in the field on the weekends. In my present recruitment situation recruitment does not match the attrition. In certain years, we may over-recruit, but for the most part, we may lose if we do not get the increase that we need.
Senator Cordy: Is this a continuous struggle?
LCol. Camsell: Yes, it is a continuous struggle.
LCol. Leonard: Recruitment is as important as retention. I think that we must provide good, challenging training to the soldiers and by doing that, we will maintain their presence in the units. If we do not provide the opportunities for training, then soldiers will leave. We can recruit as many soldiers as we want, but if we do not retain them, we are going to have to keep recruiting.
LCdr. Harvey: Senator, in my opening remarks, I mentioned that the fun part of being a naval reservist is very important, because the payment for a night's work is not incentive enough to a reservist coming back. After taxes and taxis et cetera a reservists pay is between $60 and $70.
The demands of the naval reserve are growing. It might take one month for the reservist to do a job that requires 10 hours because the reservist works for just four hours on a Wednesday evening and during that time might have many other things to do.
The challenges of training people are growing because the training courses change and expand, and new technologies are added, and this creates extra administrative and divisional workloads for the recruits. I agree that the greatest challenges to the navy reserve are attraction, retention and recruiting.
We place heavy demands on our reservists. If a reservist attends all of the scheduled training events he or she will average between 30-35 days a year. We have a large number that put in between 50-120 days a year. At the senior levels, where they have the divisional and managerial functions as well as some training, the time commitment can be overwhelming.
As to attrition my experience is that some senior people leave because they cannot complete the job in the 30 day period. They do not want to do just one-half of the job. One senior reservist said, "I love the navy. I love the naval reserves. I cannot do my job at 30 days a year. I know you will give me 100 days, but I would rather put those 30 days to something else than one-half a job at the unit.'' I lost three senior people because of that situation. Now, they are coming back. They email and call and visit all the time, but they just cannot make the same kind of commitment.
This is a growing issue within the naval reserve community. We need to get the training done, but it takes a large commitment from the reservists. They have to work hard and go away for training on the weekends and have to go away to help the ships and that sort of thing, but they are doing it.
Senator Cordy: They are doing it. And what happens when you are in your twenties and children come along, family, all that type of thing?
When you talk about making it fun for somebody, is there sometimes a difference between what an individual sees in a recruitment ad and the actual training?
LCdr. Harvey: Yes. These recruits come to us after a full day of school and are put in a classroom where they are taught about pumps and so on. They have to work hard to learn the navy nomenclature. There is a lot of training and it is hard work, but that gets balanced out by the social side, the fun side. There are sports, and adventure, and the comradery of the military. There are many benefits and a heavy training workload. It is not all fun, they have to work hard, but it is also an adventure. One of the great highlights of a young sailor's career is going for the first little ship visit. We try to get the recruits to a ship very early on in training; we get them on the ships and take them out sailing. I have seen so many recruits return back beaming. That is the best recruiting, retention, motivational, fun thing that they do and it compensates for some of the classroom, grittier, role-up-your-sleeves kind of work.
LCol. Leonard: The first year is very challenging and I think that the soldiers are very pleased with it, but following that, it becomes very repetitive because of the amount of money that we are given and the amount of time that we have to train the soldiers. Each year we must achieve an essential level of capabilities, and the majority of that training is very repetitive, so soldiers find it uninteresting. We must find a way to challenge the soldiers and diversify the training so that they feel they are doing and learning something different.
Senator Cordy: Thank you very much.
Senator Atkins: Do you have a PT program that is built into the training?
LCol. Leonard: Unfortunately, no, we do not have PT in class A, because we are too busy trying to complete the tasks that have been given to us. Class B, which is full time, has a PT program, but for class A reservists, no, it is on their own initiative to conduct physical training.
Senator Atkins: Are there any sports built into the program and training?
LCdr. Harvey: Yes, in my unit and some of the other naval reserve divisions we have sports programs in the schedule. We do sports about three times a year on a training Wednesday. A lot of these people come in for only three to four hours on a training night and there is a lot to do on just in training. We do some sports tabloids, we might have an auction, we might have karaoke, but this kind of activity is to enhance the social side of the unit. We do not have a fitness program per se for class A, but we do have sports opportunities, basketball and little tabloids, and a bit of competition. Two weeks ago, we had shooting hoops and you had to put a balloon or move a feather 50 feet down the drill deck, so it was a lot of fun. We called it sports. The army would not call it sports, but it was a lot of fun and, certainly, it was fitness-oriented.
The Chairman: Commander you described the frustration that the regular feels when he or she is not fully engaged.
Could you elaborate on that for me, please?
LCrd. Harvey: Yes, sir. There are different career expectations between the class A sailor and the class B sailors; class A is the part-time sailor and the class B is the full-time sailor. A sailor from naval reserve division can go to a ship and spend a large portion of his or her career at sea. However, when that contract ends for whatever reason, say, a promotion or they just do not like it anymore, the transition back to the naval reserve division is difficult. It is a different environment from the operational focus on the ships. I would say that for some, the transition back is a bit more difficult and I do not know what else I can say in that regard. Certainly, they are welcome when they come back, but once we lose a reservist to the ships, they are gone for a long time.
The Chairman: I heard you say "difficult,'' and I do not want to belabour it, but why is it difficult? How do they describe it to you?
LCdr. Harvey: The transition is from shipboard life to school life. It is not difficult and I apologize for giving that impression; it is different. They are more focused on the full-time military than the class A side of it. This is an issue within the naval reserve, and it can be quite difficult for class B to find full time work when they return.
Senator Meighen: Commander Harvey you mentioned availability of time. Obviously, if somebody has a job, whether as a student or an employee, time is a problem. I do not know how to solve that problem.
I mean, if you were the king of the world and could wave a magic wand, how would you solve the problem?
I would like to have your views in terms of the eternal question of the advisability of a law in Canada that would protect reservist's vis-à-vis their employer or whether we are better off to leave the situation as it is.
As you know, there are two sides to that proposition. We do not have a law as they do in the U.S. Many people are in favour of leaving the situation as it is because if we change it, then perhaps the reservist will never get hired by that company.
LCdr. Harvey: As to the question of the law, my experience has been that there have been people who have found it to be a bit difficult, but I have certainly come across no one who said that they could not or would not if they wanted to go.
I have really no opinion. I know there are pros and cons and I really do not have enough knowledge to say which would be better. There are certainly advantages to both.
The issue of time is being looked at very closely. The naval reserve is putting together a small team, of which I am part, that is looking at the naval reserve organization specifically to identify who we need and what kind of jobs need to be created. Some of the ways that we save time for people is the online training and the shorter modules. We once had a junior leadership course that required the student to be away for up to seven weeks. The course is now offered online for two weeks and the time away has been reduced to two weeks for two consecutive summers.
We also are looking at offloading some of the administrative duties back to NAVERS Headquarters.
To my mind, the time challenge is unsolvable, and in order to successfully recruit and retain people we have to make them feel that their commitment makes a contribution. We have to make them happy to be there or we will lose them.
LCol. Leonard: Senator Meighen, my experience has been that we have been very successful with the Canadian Forces Liaison Council doing and the work that they do with civilian employers in our community. I do not have any negative experience with our soldiers getting time off to attend training, so my unit does not need that legislation.
My answer to the issue of time is that we must understand each and every soldiers' situation, whether they are married, or going to school, or have full-time careers. Once we have this understanding we must set the set the parameters of success for the units.
We at the 1st Battalion identify the key training events that we need our soldiers to attend, and for the most part, the soldiers make a good commitment to get out and attend those events. We must be flexible. We are reservists; we are part-timers, withfull-time careers and families.
Senator Meighen: Thank you. Colonel Camsell?
LCol. Camsell: I echo Colonel Leonard. We maintain a flexible schedule and try to set our training schedule as early as possible. We also stagger training, so if somebody is not able to meet the first session, they can do the same training on the next one. That system works well with the amount of equipment we have because we can run a platoon quite well.
We have to recognize that the members of the unit put their career and families before the unit. I had an officer who took two years to write his CGA exams; he did not have a lot of extra time on the weekends to write the exams. He did the essential level capability training and he also came on Tuesday and Thursday nights and acted as the operations officer. He was not there for a lot of exercises, but he contributed in that way. As a CO and certainly as the other leadership in a unit, you might have a workhorse here and somebody who can only put in so much there, but it balances and eventually it works out well.
In regard to any sort of job protection law, I guess I am the odd man out. I think there should be a job protection law. I will be honest. In 1998 during Operation RECUPERATION we sent a combined company to Ontario. All of the soldiers that we sent were volunteers and they were sent within 48 hours. I do not know if in the event of a large-scale domestic situation we could send many more volunteers because they have jobs to go to and family commitments. I think that the law should be looked at. I know the Americans and the British have such a law.
Senator Meighen: We have heard a lot of cries of anguish to the extent that all the good equipment, the most modern equipment, is all with the regular force and you guys get either the dregs or nothing at all. Do you have any comments on that?
LCol. Camsell: My unit has the most vehicles on the island and the equipment I have is exactly the same as the regular force equipment. I have an adequate number of radios. I have the same number of weapons, trucks, everything I need to run a platoon. I may not be able to do a company of 120 soldiers with 60 trucks, but I have enough to do what I have to do.
Senator Meighen: Are you saying that if your soldiers went to the regular force they would not come across equipment they have never seen before?
LCol. Camsell: That is correct, senator, yes.
Senator Meighen: Commander, are you in the same position?
LCdr. Harvey: The naval reserve mission crews the maritime coastal defence vessels. That ship is unique to the naval reserve and it augments our mission. It is top of the line, among the best in the world. I was very, very proud to be part of it.
We have excellent training at the unit. We havecomputer-based training and we are involved with some simulators and part-task trainers. We have diesel mock-up units, a top-of-the-line boathouse, a digital boat, a Zodiac, diving tenders, and we have a diving vehicle. From our point of view, the training material and equipment and support for our unit is first-rate.
Senator Meighen: Thank you. Commander Leonard?
LCol. Leonard: I believe that we have sufficient equipment to achieve the mandated training that we have been assigned and to achieve the missions that we have been given. Just as a note, for integral support with regard to a vehicle lift for my troops, I rely on 36 Service Battalion, Colonel Camsell, to provide that, but that has not changed in as many years as I have been in the forces.
With regard to the technical expertise, there is some equipment that my soldiers would have to train on if they were to deploy overseas with the regular forces. Some of the new technical equipment coming in would require that training, but that is something I am certainly sure they would be able to do.
Senator Meighen: Have any of you received any funding to help you train with first responders in the area, or do you have a liaison person to interact with first responders?
LCol. Camsell: Our LFAA has a provincial liaison officer and this person is the one that liaises with the emergency measures centre, and so on. We have a domestic task to provide based on what comes through that channel.
Senator Meighen: Have you had any interaction with first responders?
LCol. Camsell: No, sir.
LCol. Leonard: The provincial liaison officer for Newfoundland and Labrador is from my unit. He attended a meeting just this past Monday with 40 different personnel from different organizations, so we are well versed with regard to EOC.
LCrd. Harvey: My people from Cabot work very closely with Commander Reddy at Canadian Forces Station St. John's. For example, Y2K was coordinated to a large part with St. John's and when the 9/11 stranded passengers arrived here, we housed over 400 of them at HMSC Cabot.
I have been involved in informal meetings with the police chief and the RCMP at White Hills. I have met with the harbour master about the emergency plan for the harbour. We have also been involved in spill training with the Coast Guard through some of the coursing there. We are involved in maritime security issues with the Coast Guard, and some of our people do their training with them. As a matter of fact, I am going to evaluate it for the naval reserve.
We are not formally a part of the first response team; we would need to be tasked out, but we are ready and involved. Y2K was an excellent example of our preparedness; all the first responders were involved in that one.
Senator Meighen: I get the impression that if you were to pick the ages of your unit, it would look like a barbell. You havethe 25 and under, and then very few people, and then the 40 and over, with another bulge.
Do you know the average age of your unit, and is my description a bit unfair?
LCol. Leonard: That is a very interesting question. I guess that the majority of my soldiers are less than 25 years old and the senior leadership in my unit is perhaps older than 40, so you probably gave it a good description.
LCrd. Harvey: I would characterize it a bit differently. Our office corps at Cabot is small, a mix of juniors and somemiddle-aged soldiers. Our NCM corps and our seniornon-commissioned officers are older and their numbers are small; our junior ranks are younger and are very large. As a result of our successful recruiting we have more than 80 people on basic, coordinated training or distributed training. The average age is younger than I am.
LCol. Camsell: Our officer corps is quite small, with our junior officers in their twenties and the older ones in their late thirties and forties. We get a great many of our senior NCOs from the regular force and they are in their forties when they return to us.
[Translation]
Senator Meighen: A last question, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to know if Commander Harvey was welcomed as an Anglophone in Rimouski?
LCdr Harvey: I liked my stay in Rimouski during my tenure as commanding officer. I was in charge of the Laval area and the Rimouski area. It was a beautiful experience.
[English]
Senator Meighen: Good for you. I found myself in first-year law school as an anglophone at Laval University many years ago, so I know the feeling of being somewhat unique in a given environment.
Well, good for you. I am glad to see that the language courses do succeed in some places. It obviously took with you.
Senator Atkins: I think probably everybody on this panel has been to Beaumont Hamel at one time or another.
Colonel Leonard, I think a lot of your counterparts in different reserve regiments would be very envious of your budget.
If your soldiers were to turn out in full force on a regular basis, would you have enough money to get through on your annual budget?
LCol. Leonard: Senator, no, we would not. We parade about 75 per cent to 80 per cent on a given night, and that is how our budget is allotted.
Senator Atkins: That is something we just wanted to confirm because we are hearing that everywhere we go.
LCol. Leonard: Yes, senator, I think that is a very fair statement.
Senator Atkins: Would you support the re-establishment of the COTC or UNTDs into the university programs?
LCdr. Harvey: Senator, I do not know enough about it to comment on that program. I know there is the ROTP program, but we have nothing to do with it.
Senator Atkins: Would it be an incentive if the recruits could move from the reserve units into a university program that would be somewhat subsidized by their involvement in the military?
LCdr. Harvey: Sir, we have the education reimbursement program. I do not know how familiar the committee is with this program. This pays $2,000, up to one-half, for their university education. It is a hugely popular program. I think Cabot has 50 people who have applied for that reimbursement. That program is about to be expanded and it looks like there will be more benefits because they are looking at second degrees and that sort of thing.
I can not comment on the UNTD program.
LCol. Leonard: I think the reimbursement program that we have in place is very suitable for young, potential soldiers coming out of high school.
LCol. Camsell: I agree with Colonel Leonard. The tuition program is certainly very successful and has drawn quite of few young people into our ranks.
Senator Atkins: Do you see too much paperwork?
LCdr. Harvey: Yes, senator.
Senator Cordy: You did not even have to say, "Yes.''
LCol. Leonard: My feeling on paperwork is that it is a requirement. It has to be done in order to staff specific training and exercises, so there is a requirement to do paperwork. I rely on my staff to do a lot of it, so I tend to get away from a lot of it.
Senator Atkins: Is the paperwork necessary?
LCol. Leonard: I think it is necessary, yes, to make sure that we do not miss anything with regard to training soldiers properly and looking after their safety.
The Chairman: How much of it is hard paper and how much of it is online work?
LCdr. Harvey: It is 90 per cent paper, with very little online except some of the surveys. There is a large amount of paperwork that is necessary, but not as focused. For example, we take a tremendous amount of training and work for risk management, which deals with the safety organizations and the HazMat and making sure that every bottle of Windex has papers. It is all required by legislation, but it takes a tremendous amount of work from the day staff. We have other committees and reports that are required as well.
In some ways, the administrative load is huge, not in the sense that it is not good, but it is too much for some of the naval reserve divisions, and instead of doing their training or their divisional work to get their soldiers or sailors off, they are doing a report, a survey, a questionnaire, or implementing another policy change.
That whole issue of the administrative load of NRDs is one that is very important to naval reserve divisions and headquarters. There have been a number of studies on that subject. As a matter of fact, our establishment review is looking at what we canoff-load. The NPF organizations, with all the PeopleSoft experts and other people management experts take a tremendous amount of work. Our training and divisional work absolutely comes first.
The Chairman: I have often felt that having electronic files might be a solution to the problem of overwhelming paperwork. Do you agree?
Is there a program to reduce the paper burden and to catch up with the rest of the world?
LCol. Camsell: Yes, there is a program. Our unit went online five years ago. I find it a bit of a problem to have to go there pretty well twice a week to check my email, but our operating budgets and our training plans are found more and more online. We will be online complete this year. We do not have to wait for the old-style mail.
The Chairman: I would think you would not even have to go on to the base.
LCol. Camsell: Yes. A lot of operation orders are now sent through the internet with a hard copy to follow, so it gives you a heads-up that way. The good thing about IT is when you are recreating exercises and so on, you have a format and a template to follow, so that certainly has improved it to a great degree.
LCol. Leonard: I would also like to say that the distributive learning aspect of it has allowed soldiers more flexibility to attend courses, so we are making use of it.
The Chairman: It just seems to me that all the kids you are bringing in, you know, this is "easy peasey'' for them. It may not be for the rest of us, but it seems to me that that is the new army and navy.
LCol. Camsell: That is correct, senator. Our logistics officers and combat service support officers take roughly six weeks of their training at home through distributed learning. With the use of a CD-Rom they read and do questionnaires, and they do an online test for which they are paid. So, time-wise, it makes it much more effective for them.
Senator Atkins: When we were in Quebec City we went to a naval reserve training facility. Do you have access to that facility?
LCdr. Harvey: Yes, we do. We sent a large number of personnel to Quebec City for training at that Fleet School Quebec as well as Borden and Halifax and a number of other agencies.
I would like to clarify. We have a tremendous amount of electronic support in the naval reserve with our Taurus management system and PeopleSoft and emails and websites and DIN access to every document you could ever imagine, but there is still a lot of filling out of paper forms and going around and writing reports and checklists and that sort of thing.
Senator Forestall: On the pay allowance side of your activity, is the national Employment Insurance program apropos? Are you involved in it? Do you deduct for unemployment purposes?
LCol. Leonard: Yes, senator, we do.
Senator Forestall: All three of you? Yes. What about Canada Pension Plan? Do you make those deductions as well?
LCol. Camsell: I am uncertain about that, senator. I do not think so for class A reservists.
Senator Forestall: I suspect if you did one, you would be involved with all of those programs.
Have the reserves had any reason to visit the question of private life insurance taken out by a recruit who finds himself deployed to a live fire exercise, which might be injurious to his insurance program?
Have you had any occasion to look at that, examine it and if you have, what is the resolution?
LCdr. Harvey: Sir, we have had a number of briefings by the personnel at the station. We have a number of groups that have come from the station to see that the recruits have the right insurance and that they have the right kind of family support. We have our own local support for people that we deploy as well.
The pay side of it and the deductions, to my mind, has been absolutely excellent in the last number of years. Pay used to be a huge problem with the naval reserve and I would say that in the last five years I have had one or two issues on pay from the whole ships' company and most of it has had to do with late T4 slips or something like that. So, the pay seems to work out fantastically.
Senator Forestall: Have any of you ever had somebody draw benefits and come back and ask for even a day's work?
LCdr. Harvey: We have a number that are unemployed that do come in and they still parade and they make those claims or they have to declare that they have had these number of days and it is taken from their Employment Insurance.
Senator Forestall: They are allowed to earn a certain amount of money, are they not?
LCdr. Harvey: Yes. If they go over, they pay back. The commitment is so real that many of them do that and many volunteer for their time and they do not get paid at all. They get one-half of a day's pay and they might work for 10 hours. I am sure that this is the case elsewhere. The dedication of the reservist is absolutely incredible, despite the challenges and some of lumps and humps along the way.
Senator Forestall: Is there any way of enhancing or improving that aspect of pay allowances that might add to retention capabilities?
LCol. Leonard: Senator Forestall, I am not sure if you are familiar at all with the SISIP program for reservists. All new recruits are given a briefing during the basic training course in regards to the availability of SISIP. It is not forced upon them; it is their individual choice whether or not they would like to purchase it or get involved in the program, but it is a very good life insurance program. It is a term insurance-type program and the payments on it are very small and they offer some really good coverage.
Senator Forestall: Do you find much interest in your program?
LCol. Leonard: Yes, I would say that the majority of the senior personnel take advantage of the SISIP program. It is optional. I find that some of the new recruits do not like to get involved in it, which is unfortunate, I think.
LCol. Camsell: Senator, I am not sure if you are aware that there is a proposed pension plan for part-time reserves.
Senator Forestall: Where does it stand? When are you going to know about it?
LCol. Camsell: I have heard June 2006.
Senator Forestall: Oh, we are literally a one-year and one-half away.
LCol. Camsell: Yes.
Senator Forestall: That is good because I think that will be one of the most significant things that can happen. Thank you very much indeed.
The Chairman: Thank you, Senator Forestall. Gentlemen, thank you very much. It has been a very instructive afternoon for us. We have a real interest in the reserves and your panel has helped us significantly in getting a better understanding of the dynamics of how they function and what motivates reservists.
We value the work you are doing. Please convey to the men and women who serve with you that we are very proud of them and appreciate the work that they do.
On behalf of the committee I thank you very much for coming here and for speaking so ably on their behalf. Thank you so much. This meeting stands suspended and will continue in camera in the next room.
The committee adjourned.