Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
National Security and Defence
Issue 16 - Evidence, March 7, 2005 - Afternoon meeting
EDMONTON, Monday, March 7, 2005
The Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence met this day at 3:05 p.m. to examine and report on the national security policy for Canada.
Senator Colin Kenny (Chairman) in the chair.
[English]
The Chairman: Before we begin, honourable senators, I would again like to reiterate on behalf of the committee that we are extending our thoughts and condolences to the families of the victims of the recent murder of the four RCMP constables and to the larger RCMP community. Our thoughts are with them during this difficult time.
If I could, I would briefly introduce the members of the panel. I have on my far right, Senator Michael Meighen from Ontario; beside him, Senator Norman Atkins from Ontario.
Beside me is the deputy chair of the committee, Senator Michael Forrestall from Nova Scotia, and at my far left, I have Senator Jim Munson from Ontario, and Senator Jane Cordy will be joining us momentarily.
Colleagues, we have before us Dr. Tom Keating. He is a professor of political science at the University of Alberta. He is an expert on Canadian foreign and defence policy, including humanitarianism, international institutions, and intervention and state sovereignty.
Dr. Keating has examined multilateralism and Canadian foreign policy for many years and is well versed on the role of the United Nations, NATO, and other instruments of defence policy.
Professor Keating, I understand you have a brief statement, and the floor is yours, sir.
Mr. Tom Keating, Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Alberta: Thank you very much. I would like to begin by thanking members of the committee for travelling the country and listening to Canadians. I think that is very important, and a special thank you for the invitation to appear before you this afternoon.
There are many issues that we could address this afternoon, but I thought I would start by commenting on one aspect of the security environment that confronts Canadians today, and that is the issue of what has frequently been referred to as ``failed states'' and the intervention of the international community that responds to these failed states.
One of the more significant developments at the end of the Cold War, as I am sure you have become well aware, is the increased incidence of intra-state conflict, and the fact that this intra-state conflict often generates failed states or results from the existence of failed states. These conflicts also have a greater tendency to target individuals and to involve non-regular combatants.
It is indeed impressive, the extent to which Canada and other members of the international community have responded to many of these conflicts, through robust interventions that have sought to deal with these conflicts, and they have turned to the United Nations and other organizations in support of such interventions.
The importance of dealing with intra-state conflicts and failed states has not diminished since September 11, 2001. Indeed, one can draw a linkage between the intra-state conflicts that have generated these armed interventions and the global threat presented by contemporary terrorism.
The terrorists themselves often feed off unresolved conflicts, and as we saw in the Air India bombing, they carried their resentment to foreign shores.
If anything, the threat posed by intra-state conflicts and failed states has become even more acute, for their persistence becomes one of the sources of, if not terrorism itself, then of the instability and criminality that allows terrorist cells to develop and expand.
Failed states present not only a direct threat to human security and regional instability; they also provide a place in which such extremist activities can take place.
An effective program for turning failed states into sustainable sources of peace and stability is an inordinately grand mission. It is, however, a vitally important one, given the instability such conditions create. It is also an area in which Canadians have been asked or sought to make a contribution.
As has been brought to the attention of this committee before, these intra-state conflicts that proliferate around the planet today tend to take the form of what has often been described as a three-block war, where one of the blocks is devoted to rebuilding society by reconstruction of schools, water supplies, et cetera. The second block tends to involve civil disorder or policing-type activities, property disputes and other such things. The third block often involves something approaching more traditional high-intensity combat situations.
Given the fact that such interventions are occurring in the contemporary period and that failed states are likely to remain one of the principal sources of instability in the international system, it becomes important for Canadians to consider if, when and how we are to continue to contribute to such ventures.
This raises, in my view, a number of questions that have implications for the type of response that the government might make to these intra-state conflicts. Among the questions that need to be addressed in determining how Canada might best contribute to addressing the threat posed by failed states and intra-state conflict, I would like to call attention to three.
First is the question of when to contribute. Here we have various options, including pre-emptive intervention, mid- conflict peacemaking or peace enforcement, or limiting ourselves to post-conflict peace building.
The second set of questions involves the matter of with whom we would make a contribution. Here, too, we are confronted with possible choices. Do we intervene alongside the United States or ``coalitions of the willing,'' or do we restrict our intervention to operations conducted under the auspices of the United Nations or other regional organizations?
A third question, of course, is what Canada should contribute to such operations. Given my previous comment about the nature of these conflicts, the so-called three-block war, we do have various choices: from the Armed Forces to civilian police; to various humanitarian workers; and civilian authorities, such as election officials.
It seems to me that each one of these questions requires various policy tradeoffs that the government must make, both involving domestic considerations and international considerations.
Before closing, I would just like to add that if and when Canada and other states decide to intervene in these intra- state conflicts, this response must be both multi-dimensional and long term.
In undertaking interventions in response to these conflicts, it is imperative to recognize, as we witness almost daily in Iraq, that winning the peace becomes as important as winning the war. It also becomes as difficult, if not more difficult, than winning the war.
Now, this is not to suggest that in responding to these crises and conflicts, that this is not a role for Canada to be involved in or for the Canadian Armed Forces to be involved in.
Indeed, as Major-General Nash, Commander of the U.S. 1st Armored Division in Bosnia, said back in the mid- 1990s when referring to peace building: ``It's not mission creep; it's mission. In a very real and self-serving sense, the military must do more than keep order and act as a deterrent; winning the hearts and minds of the population has been an objective of military forces for centuries.''
So it strikes me that that issue that confronts the Canadian Armed Forces and the Canadian government to make a more effective contribution to the longer term peace-building process and failed states is not a matter of the competence of the Canadian Armed Forces; it is, indeed, a matter of their capacity to make the contribution and determining when and if such forces should be deployed.
Thus while the capacity needs of the Canadian Armed Forces must be addressed, if Canada is to play an effective role in peace building, it is also vitally important, in my view, that the government consider the multi-dimensional and long-term requirements for effective peace building before it commits the country or its Armed Forces to such an international role.
Senator Munson: Good afternoon, professor. Just following what you were saying about failed states, who makes the decision; how is a decision made and by whom, and what is a failed state? What are the criteria to be a failed state?
I know we can walk through the United Nations, and they can sit down, and countries can discuss the issue, but at what point?
Mr. Keating: It is a very good question, and it is a very important question. And as I think we saw with the debate over the intervention in Iraq, it is becoming an increasingly difficult question to answer, because there are different ways of looking at failed states.
In one sense, you could look at simply the collapse of the infrastructure of the state and its ability to maintain civil order within a particular society. But increasingly, I think we are beginning to impose standards on states in terms of their domestic performance. As we saw in the case of Iraq, increasingly there are arguments that states have failed to meet these obligations, and that the international community must respond to essentially coerce them to meet these standards.
So I think the matter of the determination of failed states or which states qualify for such interventions is a vitally important one. We need to think of what standards we will use to make that determination and also who will make that determination, whether it will be a matter for the UN Security Council or whether it will be a matter for our allies or NATO or other states.
Senator Munson: In my work as a foreign correspondent for a Canadian network, and in my work for a former prime minister and also in covering Parliament Hill, the word ``multilateralism'' is heard over and over and over again. Multilateralism is sort of the backbone of Canadian foreign policy; yet we see these strains these days between our country and the United States of America.
What does the multilateralism conflict mean to our relationship with the United States right now, in the sense that the U.S. went into Iraq with a smaller coalition? We stayed out of the war and at the same time kept saying that there had to be a multilateral approach to this, yet President Bush felt the UN was not doing its job.
Mr. Keating: Right.
Senator Munson: How does that affect our relationship now with the United States? What building blocks have to be put into place to put this relationship back on track?
Mr. Keating: I think it obviously very much complicates our relationship with the United States, in a very significant way, for a number of reasons.
Obviously the bilateral relationship is very important for Canada, and sustaining a good relationship with the United States is very important.
Equally important from a Canadian perspective, however, in my view, is maintaining a degree of international legitimacy for international institutions and for the rule of law internationally. It becomes very important for Canada to get the United States, as much as possible, to support that legitimacy, to support those institutions and to support international law.
I think we are now at somewhat of a juncture where the international laws have all been evolving rather quickly in some areas, and this whole area of intervention is one of them.
In certain respects, when states try to move in advance of law by advocating interventions with respect to defending human rights or dealing with weapons of mass destruction or other such concerns and considerations, they are really pressing the limits of the legitimacy of law and the legitimacy of the institutions that they are calling upon to intervene.
This makes it a very, very difficult time for Canada and other states that want to support the legitimacy of these institutions because of the need, I think, to hold back those states that want to intervene early, and hold back the institutions until there is a greater degree of consensus around such intervention.
The reason I think that becomes so important is — and the Americans, I would hope, would discover this — as we are seeing in the post-war situation in Iraq, the need for this international consensus to support the longer term peace- building process is absolutely essential to turn these states and these regions into stable sources of peace in the future, and it requires multilateral support. It is something that cannot be done unilaterally, and it requires, essentially, institutional support.
I would hope that Canadians, in their diplomatic practices, could continue to encourage the Americans to be attentive to the need for this international legitimacy and place some hope in what I see as the underlying necessity for multilateral cooperation, if stability is to be secured in these regions.
Senator Munson: Given that, then, how do you see Canadian foreign policy and defence policy changing over the next little while?
You are talking about Canada encouraging the United States of America, but how should the Canadian Forces change to achieve that goal?
Mr. Keating: I think we see some constructive practices, as are taking place in Afghanistan today, and the contribution that the Canadian Forces have made in trying to restore stability and order and peace to Afghanistan.
I think what has happened, to date, in our contribution to that particular country suggests the need for, obviously, improved capacity. There needs to be an enhancement of capacity simply so that we can sustain our commitment, because if peace building is to work effectively, and if we are to make an effective contribution to it, then we need to be able to sustain our contribution over the long term.
This is not something that you can do in six months and then get out and everything will be fine; it is something that will require a regular rotation of forces over the longer term. So I think we need to ensure that the Armed Forces have the capacity to do that.
The other thing, I think, that is absolutely essential, is to try to integrate the Armed Forces with other aspects of Canadian diplomatic activities, as well as with the development activities in this so-called 3-D approach, which they are working on in Afghanistan and which I think stands as a good model that should continue to be developed.
Because as we have mentioned, with this idea of the three-block war, there are different elements to the peace- building process, each one of which needs to be addressed in tandem as you go along trying to reconstruct these societies. If that is to be done constructively, it will require very effective cooperation between those different elements that can contribute effectively to those different aspects of the post-conflict reconstruction.
Senator Munson: Are we really a player on the international stage? We talk of a game, but are we really influencing anybody in any great way?
Mr. Keating: I think our influence is on the ground, and I think that is vitally important. I think that can become the basis for a longer term and broader influence on the system as a whole. That is why I think the depletion in our resources and the resources we have committed to our foreign policy over the last 10 or 15 years has reached a point where, if it goes any further, then I think we are a non-player.
I do believe, however, that it is still possible to rescue that, but it will require an investment in our foreign policy, broadly defined: Our Armed Forces, yes, but also our diplomatic personnel, our development, our budgets as well.
It will require a reinvestment, but I think that reinvestment can pay off. We will never be the player we were in the 1940s or 1950s. There are just too many other players out there, and there are too many things that need to be done. I do not think we can expect a return to that period, say during the late 1940s or 1950s where we were one of the more significant actors in the international community; however, I do think we can become a more significant player.
We may need to focus a little more on those areas that we do address, and I do think this is one of those areas where we can be an effective player, because we are so good on the ground, but it will require a significant reinvestment of resources in our foreign policy, broadly defined.
Senator Meighen: I want to further explore something that Senator Munson raised and you responded to: The whole question of winning the peace and how, as I understood you, it is necessary to have the international community involved at that point.
Prime Minister Mulroney was successful in persuading President Bush to get the UN backing for the first Gulf War. Prime Minister Chrétien was not, and Bush II went ahead without United Nations backing.
It seems to me, for better or worse, at least, with another president's regime in Washington, this is likely to be the general tendency. I have not seen any evidence that he said, ``Oh gosh, I agree with you, and now I will not go ahead unless I know I have international backing, particularly, to win the peace.''
Given the difficulty the Americans are having in Iraq, can we conclude from that that perhaps next time around — if there is, God forbid, a next time around in a similar situation — they would put more importance on the necessity of having international backing, and what can we do to encourage them, if anything?
Mr. Keating: It is difficult to predict their willingness to pursue a greater level of international support for their activities. This is the United States.
I think we are seeing some hints of it, with the President's recent trip to Europe, and I think, depending on how the situation in Iraq evolves, that there will simply be the necessity, sooner rather than later, unless things change dramatically in the very short term, for a greater level of international support for American activities there.
I think there will be a greater degree of international pressure on the United States to get that support from Britain, for example, and from some other states, because of the recognition that that degree of international support and the wider involvement of the international community will be essential if this is to work; both in practical terms, because of the need for additional resources, and in more, if you will, political terms, to give the legitimacy to the post-war effort in Iraq.
Unfortunately, it may depend on a further deterioration or a further experience of problems by the U.S. administration when it tries to act unilaterally or in smaller coalitions, so it may require that sort of situation before we get a real change. But it may occur sooner, because of the growing recognition and, perhaps, pressure from closer allies or close supporters of the existing coalition, of the need for that sort of support.
In terms of what Canada could do, I think what Canada could do is probably continue to make a contribution in those areas where we are making a contribution, like Afghanistan, demonstrate through that a willingness to make a contribution to a legitimate international effort to restore peace and stability. In that way we can begin to rebuild our credentials and not by, in my view, signing on to what they are doing when we have fundamental disagreements with it, as I think in many cases we do and we should have. We can show them that when things are established properly, when things are organized under a greater degree of international cooperation with a wider degree of consensus, we will be there with the material resources and the political support to make these things work.
It seems to me that that will help, then, to restore the credibility and to demonstrate to them that if and when they are willing to return to these multilateral processes, there are states like Canada with not only the willingness, but the capacity to lend them support.
Senator Meighen: As I think you said also, to play that role to the fullest extent that we are able will require a not insignificant increase of our investment in our diplomatic efforts and in our military efforts.
Maybe I am asking you how to do our job, but this community in particular is very close to the loss of four soldiers in Afghanistan.
I think we have, by all accounts, acquitted ourselves very well in Afghanistan and the Gulf, and yet if you believe public opinion polls, except in a few isolated areas, the support for increased expenditures, at least with regard to the military, has not increased a heck of a lot.
My own thought is that politicians have to take the bull by the horns and say, ``We are elected to serve Canada's national interests as we define them; we are elected to lead. Here is what we propose to do,'' and go and do it.
If you wait for public opinion to come along, you will be in for a long wait, and it already has been too long a wait, given the operational tempo of our overstretched Armed Forces today.
Mr. Keating: I would agree, and it is made more difficult because of the indirect and obscure threat, if you will, that such situations present to Canada.
I believe that it is important for Canadian security to be addressing the instability in places like Afghanistan and other places in the Middle East and places like central Africa. I see a Canadian interest in doing that. However, it is apparent to me that for the general public that sort of connection is much more difficult to make than it was, say, during the period of the Cold War. And it does seem to me, therefore, that there is a greater responsibility on the part of political leaders to essentially make the decisions and move along and to bring the public kicking and screaming after.
It is really disappointing, at a time when the country became much wealthier than it had ever been in its history, its foreign policy commitments have been depleted so severely over this period of time.
It seems to me that we need to begin to reverse that and to begin to — and it is, I think, maybe a question of political leadership, but maybe also for all of us as educators as well — make the case that it is important to invest in our foreign policy, that it is important to invest in the international community if we are to make a difference.
Senator Meighen: When you talk about increasing our diplomatic efforts and whatnot, I did not hear you mention the word ``intelligence.'' Was that because you do not think it is particularly important, or is intelligence part of our diplomatic effort, in that you would subscribe to the notion — I do not want to put words in your mouth — that we have got to increase our intelligence-gathering capability as a means, perhaps, of filling whatever void is left anywhere we cannot afford some of the military equipment or personnel that we might otherwise want to have?
Mr. Keating: I would agree, but I am not an intelligence expert, so I am not quite sure I would go out on a limb and say exactly where we need to make that investment, but I do think that we do need to invest in the intelligence area.
We need it for a lot of reasons. We need it not only in the immediate sort of memory sense, to deal with terrorism and those issues, but we also need it in order to be able to determine, as I suggested earlier, where and when to intervene.
We need a better reporting mechanism, if you will, on the world's crises and where we can make a difference. That, to me, is also part of what will be involved in intelligence and part of what Canada needs.
Maybe we do it in cooperation with others; it is possible, because some of this seems to me to be of general utility to the international community, of which we are a part. Some of it, obviously, is more privileged to us or something that we would want to keep greater control over.
I would agree that investment in intelligence would be part of that investment, but I would not go too much further, because you have heard from others who are much better informed about that than I.
Senator Atkins: We had the former ambassador to the UN appear before us, and he told us that some proposals and reforms are to come out in the fall. How important is the UN to us, what role should we play, and to what extent do we have any influence on the UN?
Mr. Keating: I think the UN continues to be of some importance in our foreign policy and some importance in the wider international community. It remains the only place where one can construct a truly international consensus. It still remains the only body in which you have representation throughout the international community, so I think it retains the potential to lend legitimacy to actions, particularly actions of intervention that are increasingly necessary or increasingly common in the international community. I think, therefore, the legitimacy that could be provided by the United Nations, or is sometimes provided for the United Nations, does still carry considerable weight.
There are, however, many ongoing problems with the United Nations, and one of them, of course, is in the whole area of the Security Council. The view of many is that the Security Council is simply too heavily dominated by Western powers and by the United States specifically, so I think that it is important to look at significant reform of the institution if it is to retain that legitimacy into the future.
As to the degree of Canadian influence, I think Canada still rests upon some of its laurels at the United Nations, so probably carries a little more influence there than it might carry in some other institutions, such as NATO, where its laurels have long been tarnished, and it probably does not have the degree of influence that it once did.
I think there is the potential for Canada to continue to have some influence at the United Nations, but we must be more modest about what we are capable of doing in that institution, I think, and recognize the need to work with other states much more collaboratively, if we are to move it in a more positive direction, from our perspective.
Senator Atkins: Is it a convenience for us to be able to high-beam the UN on occasion?
Mr. Keating: Too often. Too often it has become a convenience and a certain unwillingness to try to push the UN further, I think partly because of our own uncertainty or our own inability to make the full commitment that we want to make, but also partly because of the concern about the consensus, and that is something that we need to address.
Again, getting to this point of being at a juncture where the laws are changing and the international practices are changing, I think that there is probably more support for some of those changes. There is more support, for example, for intervention to protect and support human rights than there has been historically, but there are still reservations about that, because there is a concern on the part of many states that that intervention means the Americans coming in or a smaller collection of more imperial powers coming in.
What I think is necessary at this juncture is to encourage those states that have those reservations to work through an organization like the United Nations, using more constructive and legitimate interventions in support of human rights, so that addressing intra-state conflicts and dealing with civil disorder issues can take place. It does not mean that you will be stepped on by an imperial power or that you will leave yourself at the mercy of the U.S. military or something else.
I think that the United Nations becomes the one forum — not the only forum, but certainly one forum — in which you can try to build that consensus so you can get support for something like the ``responsibility to protect'' that has been proposed by Canada in recent years. Perhaps in working through the UN more constructively, you can get a wider degree of commitment to such practices.
Senator Atkins: Do you think that the UN membership's perception of Canada is that we are playing our role?
Mr. Keating: I guess I would hesitate to answer that. I think they probably still see us as a relatively activist state, but probably one whose capabilities are being diminished, and our attention is increasingly seemingly turned away.
It is a little bit difficult for me to say how we are perceived, but I think certainly not as favourably as we would have been, say, even 20 years ago.
Senator Atkins: Now to move to another subject, now that the government has made its position — I am not sure — totally clear on ballistic missiles —
Senator Meighen: Today.
Senator Atkins: Right.
What do you think the fallout is in terms of our relationship with the U.S.? How serious is it, or is it just a dung shower?
Mr. Keating: I guess my sense is that it will be a short-term problem. I do not consider myself as fully briefed on the process as perhaps I should be or perhaps others are.
It strikes me that the process of a lot of these issues is the source of the problem as much as the decision; the way in which decisions are communicated sometimes creates more of a fallout than the actual decision itself.
I think that was partly true of the decision not to participate in the war in Iraq, and the more I hear, the more I think that it is part of this decision as well, that the process by which the decision was taken and the Americans were informed of the decision may have been as much of a problem as the decision itself.
I do not see that the decision is inconsistent with past practice of the Canadian government, so the Americans should not have been overly surprised that Canada would decide in such a way, because there is nothing that would suggest that we would do anything differently. If we misled them into thinking that we were going to or we were not more upfront in informing them that we were deciding in such a way, that strikes me as problematic.
I think what is a little bit interesting is the way in which domestic groups in the United States are using it, but I think that will be short-lived.
Senator Atkins: But is that our fault?
Mr. Keating: No. We have no control over that. In my view, they will pick up any straw they can that will help them carry their debate in the U.S. political process, and I think, in the general sense, that will —
Senator Atkins: Even if it creates an environment of being somewhat anti-Canadian?
Mr. Keating: If it works for their interest, yes. I think we have seen that historically on other issues: on the magazine issue and other issues in the past where the American interests will develop an anti-Canadian attitude and try to generate that in their relevant constituencies so as to maintain their political interest, yes.
I should respond that Canadians do the same at times, I think, so I do not think that either country is totally surprised by this.
Senator Atkins: Why would the Americans not see Canada as an effective intermediary for some of their foreign policy?
I mean, if you talk to Canadians who go around the world, regardless of where they go, there is always a very positive reaction to Canadians vis-à-vis Americans, and why would it not be in their interest to turn that into a positive and let it work for them, even if we do make decisions regarding Iraq or ballistic missile deterrence?
Mr. Keating: I do not think they have an interest in intermediaries on many issues. Oftentimes I think their approach to issues tends to be slightly more dogmatic, and that their willingness to compromise on issues is not always there; I think that tends to be as much of a problem, and this has historically been a problem.
If you go back and see how Lester Pearson was treated when we tried to resolve the Korean War in the 1950s, it strikes me that —
Senator Atkins: When Brian Mulroney was Prime Minister, there were times when I think President Ronald Reagan used Mulroney as an intermediary, and it worked.
Mr. Keating: It does happen occasionally, and it did happen during the Vietnam War when Paul Martin Sr. worked as a bit of an intermediary.
So there are occasions where it does happen, but it strikes me that the willingness has to be there on the part of the U.S. administration to use an intermediary to try to deal with some of their issues, and I think that is one of the differences that we have now. That interest does not seem to be as apparent, in some cases, and I think you find that with respect to Korea, and you find that with respect to Iraq.
Senator Atkins: Well, environmental issues.
Mr. Keating: There is a whole series of issues, though, where they do not seem to want that. It just does not seem to me that they have as strong an interest in that.
I do not think that is unique to Canada; they do not seem to be wanting to turn to anyone to do that sort of work with them or for them at the moment.
Senator Atkins: But on the ballistic missile issue, do you think it is a short-term fallout of our relationship with the United States?
Mr. Keating: That would be my expectation.
Senator Atkins: Something else will come up that will —
Mr. Keating: Yes, that is my expectation, based on the historical experiences.
The Chairman: Professor, what are Canada's interests in dealing with failed states? How do you explain to the average citizen why we should be spending resources, sending out our young people to dangerous environments? What business do we have in a place like Kabul?
Mr. Keating: Well, I think that the interest that we have is that these failed states become a breeding ground for transnational crime; they become a breeding ground for transnational terror; they become a breeding ground for regional instability that has both economic and political effects on Canadian interests, from simple things like travel and tourism to more significant investment and trade relations.
They undermine, potentially and more broadly, international peace and stability, depending upon their specific strategic location. While we may not feel the immediate effects of such instability, we will feel the longer term effects of such instability in terms of economic cost, in terms of refugee and displaced peoples, and potentially in areas of terrorism and crime that will increase internationally as well.
The Chairman: Do you think any of these issues are top of mind with Canadian citizens?
Mr. Keating: No, I do not.
The Chairman: What about the imposition of Western standards on some of these states, the idea that democracy is a terrific thing, and we will go to parts of the world that have never seen democracy and have cultures that go back thousands of years?
Do we have any business exporting our standards?
Mr. Keating: I would say no, but that is not a reason not to intervene; it is only a reason, in my view, to turn things over to the local community as quickly as possible and to involve the local community as early as possible, as fully as possible, in the peace-building process.
Especially when one gets into political questions about the nature of their government, the process of elections and those sorts of things, I would not agree that we should be there imposing our standards.
At the same time, however, I do believe that there is sort of a broad humanitarian standard of providing sufficient order and protection for civilian populations that we do have an interest in, and I do see that standard as not being a Western standard or a Canadian standard, but a broader humanitarian standard that such interventions are necessary to engage in, in many cases.
The Chairman: But if the issue is a dictatorship, and we do not like the smell of it, where do you draw the line?
We could come up with a list of bad guys, well into the double digits, where none of us, as Canadians, approve of the way they run their countries or are comfortable with it, but where do you draw the line as to when the state has failed and when intervention should take place? What criteria do you need?
Mr. Keating: The criteria are obviously grey ones; they are not black and white, but for example, I, personally, would not have seen Iraq in January of 2003 as a case warranting intervention on these grounds as a failed state; whereas I would have seen Rwanda in the spring of 1994 as a case where a country had deteriorated, even though there was a government in power, to the stage of mass brutality against its own citizens, where intervention was required.
Those, to me, are two cases where one did warrant and one did not warrant intervention, but I think in between that is a grey area. Haiti, for example, is a problematic case.
Senator Meighen: Sudan?
Mr. Keating: Sudan is a difficult case. I am not sure if Sudan required armed intervention, but there may have been something short of armed intervention that might still be attempted in Sudan.
Senator Meighen: You would put it in the past?
Mr. Keating: Sorry, I did not mean to use the past tense. It still may require some form of intervention.
The Chairman: Rwanda has had a lot of publicity because of General Dallaire. Absent General Dallaire, and most Canadians would not know about Rwanda.
That was a classic case where the UN was engaged, but not really, and did not have the resources or the capability of providing the resources, so how do you mix?
You know, at some point you may have your criteria in place for what constitutes a failed state, but on the other hand, you do not have a mechanism to deliver the resources to address the failed state; both switches have to be on.
Mr. Keating: They do.
The Chairman: How do you address that?
Mr. Keating: As far as the United Nations, I think there has been some evolution since 1994 in terms of the United Nations response, and one must also keep in mind that, at that time, it was Belgium and the United States that really tried to inhibit a United Nations response to Rwanda and to what was going on there.
That is why I think the evolution that I am talking about and the need to build this international consensus about where, when and how to intervene is one that is ongoing and that we need to make a contribution to, because not only do you need to consider, I would say, the actual conditions on the ground and whether they warrant intervention, but you need to consider the effectiveness of the intervention itself, and if, indeed, it can make a difference; if it can be not just timely, but if it can make a difference in the sense of providing a real opportunity for a longer term peace-building process within those communities.
Not all of them will make a difference, and that is, again, a judgment call. It seems to me that it is a judgment call that individual governments have to make when deciding whether to intervene or not, whether to put their own soldiers at risk or their own humanitarian relief workers at risk, or whomever they decide to deploy to these situations, as well as for the international community.
I do not think this is a refined art; I think that it is an evolving situation on the part of the international community about how best to react to things.
The Chairman: It is certainly not a refined art, but if you are looking at Canada's interests, are we doing it right where we seem to fritter away small amounts of resources to dozens and dozens of countries? Or should we focus more, make choices, say no to a whole lot, and then when we move, move with a big bang, large footprint, and try to provide both the defence resources and the foreign-aid resources in a significant way?
Mr. Keating: I am leaning more toward the latter. The bigger footprint is probably the more effective use of our resources, given the excessive number of demands that are out there.
The Chairman: It means saying no to a lot of people a lot of the time.
Mr. Keating: It does mean saying no, and it may, indeed, mean some greater degree of coordination at the international level so that you are lining up the states that are able to make contributions in different areas, so that you work where either the need is the greatest or you have the most effective contribution to restoring stability, because then you have the capacity to move on to the next one, having achieved a degree of success and stability.
Whereas what we find increasingly in the United Nations is that a lot of the small steps tend to go on indefinitely or recur, and that that requires a re-intervention of these international forces, something like in Haiti.
Perhaps a more effective response in Haiti in 1995 might have had a much greater likelihood of providing a longer term or sustainable structure of peace and stability and order within that country than what materialized, because the contribution was more limited, more ad hoc, and was never really fully engaged.
The Chairman: Stretching from Alaska and British Columbia to the very far edges of Eastern Europe, what sort of governance problems do you anticipate with an enlarged NATO? Do you think that unanimity, or rather consensus, which is unanimity there, will be an effective tool, or will we see a new form of governance with an inner ring, an outer ring, or whatever mechanism to move away from our consensus decision making?
Mr. Keating: Well, I would hope that we retain consensus decision making or we move toward consensus decision making, because I think it would provide greater legitimacy, if we can retain that within the expanded NATO.
The Chairman: You are saying unanimity on every issue?
Mr. Keating: Yes. It may not be on every particular issue. I know that is how NATO works now.
The Chairman: Those are the rules now.
Mr. Keating: Those are the rules now, and ideally those would be the rules that would be retained.
The reason for that, I think, is because it provides us opportunity to really expand the legitimacy of the institution in a way that would make it a more constructive entity for dealing with some of these what used to be called out-of-area problems, but to be a more effective presence in responding to situations in places like Afghanistan and other places around the world. It seems to me if it fractures from that, then it will lose some of that legitimacy and some of the credibility that it has reflecting the full membership.
One of the worrying parts of the Iraq response was the degree to which that coalition was pulled from different parts of NATO. I do not think there was ever any suggestion that it was a NATO operation, but it originally could have started as a NATO operation; it did not, obviously. I think that by some of those states signing on to the American operation and others not, it potentially undermines the legitimacy of the organization to be an effective agent for intervention in different areas around the world.
The Chairman: Then you do not see it as a coalition of the willing with an effective command structure, where people opt in or opt out of coalitions as it sits in their national interest?
Mr. Keating: I do not, no. I would not like to see it become a case of members opting in and opting out on the face of whether they are supporting it.
The Chairman: That is exactly what it is now.
Mr. Keating: You mean in terms of the existing membership?
The Chairman: Well, with the existing participation in Afghanistan, you have got the advantages of the command structure and the capability to make decisions, but some countries have opted in, and others have chosen not to.
Mr. Keating: But not in a political sense.
The Chairman: Not in a political sense, but in terms of boots on the ground.
Mr. Keating: Right, yes, in terms of boots on the ground. But that, to me, is less significant than the political, because boots on the ground means that then you are capable of perhaps responding to another situation where you would not necessarily draw from all the member states; you deal from a smaller selection of the states to make that contribution, but you still retain the political cohesion.
The Chairman: On behalf of the committee, sir, I would like to thank you very much. It has been very instructive to us for you to be here. You have touched on issues where we have been deficient in terms of exploring, and we are grateful to you for taking the time to share your views with us and for your participation.
Our next witnesses are from Cold Lake. Colonel Sullivan is Wing Commander of 4 Wing and Base Commander of Cold Lake. He joined the Canadian Forces in 1979 and is a fighter pilot by trade. He has served in a number of command and staff positions in Germany, Ottawa, Winnipeg and Cold Lake. He was the commanding officer of the CF-18 detachment in Aviano, Italy, which participated in the Kosovo air campaign in 1998.
Colonel Sullivan is a graduate of the Royal Air Force Command and Staff College in Bracknell, England, the advanced military studies course, and the national security studies course at the Canadian Forces College in Toronto.
With him is Colonel Werny, who has been Commanding Officer of the Aerospace Engineering Test Establishment in Cold Lake since July of 1998. He is a helicopter pilot by trade and received his pilot's wings in 1975. He has served in command and staff positions in Germany, Winnipeg, Gagetown and the Middle East. He commanded the Canadian contingent of the Multinational Force and Observers in El Gorah, Egypt, from 1996 to 1997.
His professional military education includes the Canadian Land Forces Command and Staff College and the Canadian Forces Command and Staff College.
Gentlemen, welcome to the committee.
Colonel C.S. Sullivan, Wing Commander, 4 Wing Cold Lake, National Defence: Mr. Chairman, honourable members of the committee, ladies and gentlemen, it is indeed a pleasure for me to be here today, a privilege and an honour to share with you my insights and perspectives on 4 Wing and Canadian Forces Base Cold Lake.
Please let me begin by stating that CFB Cold Lake is a thriving and successful military operation. We have a long and rich history that dates back to 1954, and last year we celebrated our fiftieth anniversary of the base.
In 1953, the federal government signed an agreement with the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan for a tract of land, approximately 120 nautical miles by 40 nautical miles, for use as an air weapons range. This was, and continues to be, the raison d'être for 4 Wing and our fighter force operations. The Cold Lake Air Weapons Range — or better known as the CLAWR — and the base of Cold Lake has evolved to the point where they are now considered to be one of the finest facilities of their kind in the world.
The 4 Wing base is the only Air Force base in Alberta and the largest employer in northeastern Alberta. The wing and the base represent a large and diverse military operation made up of 13 squadron-sized units, which are under my command and control as wing commander; and 11 lodger units, which I support as base commander.
The base has approximately 1,700 military and 430 civilian personnel. Including our family members, our military population is 5,300, with a total regional population of just under 12,000, which includes both military and civilians. CFB Cold Lake represents 46 per cent of the local population, which is a unique privilege for our military community.
Cold Lake has one of the largest and busiest flying operations in the Canadian Forces, with four fighter squadrons, a combat support helicopter squadron, an engineering test facility and a continuous presence of close friends and allies who come to Cold Lake to train year-round.
The 4 Wing's two CF-18 tactical fighter squadrons are expeditionary units capable of deploying anywhere in the world in a matter of days in support of NATO, UN peace support operations and global contingency operations. On a day-to-day basis, portions of these two units maintain high readiness alert postures in support of national and North American air sovereignty, homeland defence, and Canada's NORAD commitments. Each tactical fighter squadron has an establishment of 13 CF-18 fighter aircraft and approximately 170 personnel. Of note, the CF-18 fighter aircraft on 4 Wing's tactical squadrons have just completed the first of three phases of a modernization program that has re- established our CF-18 community as one of the most modern and capable fighter forces in the world. The CF-18 modernization program has been tremendously successful and has exceeded all our expectations.
The 4 Wing's third CF-18 squadron is an operational training unit with an establishment of 22 aircraft and approximately 220 operations and support personnel. The squadron trains 30 to 40 fighter pilots per year and is also home to the fighter weapons instructor course. The squadron also conducts all CF-18 operational tests and evaluation and the CF-18 air show demonstration.
The 4 Wing has a second tactical training squadron that conducts phase 4 of NATO Flying Training in Canada, better known as NFTC. After students complete their basic training in Portage and Moose Jaw and are selected to fly fighters, they undergo fighter lead-in training in Cold Lake on the Hawk aircraft before transitioning to the advanced fighter aircraft like the CF-18. This truly international unit is commanded by a Canadian officer and trains all Canadian fighter pilots, plus the pilots of five other nations. The unit has 25 instructors from eight different countries. Of note, the unit is established with nine Hawk aircraft, which are maintained by Bombardier Aerospace with 39 civilian maintenance personnel.
Cold Lake's 417 Combat Support Squadron employs the Griffon helicopter and provides search and rescue to Cold Lake. They also do medical evacuations and utility air support to the Cold Lake air weapons range. The squadron has 17 air crew and 29 support technicians, and maintains crews and aircraft at high-alert readiness postures to respond to emergencies.
The 4 Wing base also has a fully deployable Tactical Radar Squadron and an Airfield Engineering Squadron. Both these units are vital to the training and force employment activities at Cold Lake. The 4 Wing base also has an Air Maintenance Squadron and a Field Technical Training Squadron. The field technical training squadron conducts CF- 18 technician training for the entire CF-18 community.
And 4 Wing is proud to be home to the Air Force Tactical Training Centre, better known as AFTTC, and Exercise Maple Flag. Maple Flag is an annual international training event that takes place in May and June of each year, and is now recognized as the largest coalition training event in the world. Since the first exercise in 1997, Maple Flag has seen participation from 17 countries, and has been observed by 14 other nations who are interested in becoming future participating members.
Maple Flag is a rare opportunity for fighter, transport, AWACS, air refuelling, and various other combat support personnel to plan, coordinate and execute the coalition air campaign, including the application of the entire weapons system against heavily defended targets and capable adversaries in a real-world combat scenario. Future Maple Flag exercises will include UAVs, night all-weather training, and specialized training for command and control personnel and air expeditionary forces.
Cold Lake and Maple Flag are regarded by our friends and allies as the best in the world due to our airspace, weapons ranges, instrumentation systems, surface threat emitters, advanced weapon systems and our 27-year reputation in conducting coalition training events.
The usual workload at 4 Wing accounts for approximately 40 per cent of CFB Cold Lake's force generation and infrastructure capacity. During Exercise Maple Flag, the base surges to approximately 140 per cent, with the help of Canadian and American augmentation forces. Excess capacity exists of approximately 40 to 60 per cent for several months of the year when Maple Flag is not in progress. Our intent is to share this excess capacity with our closest friends and allies, so as to further improve Canada's interoperability with the air forces around the world.
As bright and positive as 4 Wing truly is, we are not without our challenges. 4 Wing is experiencing a shortage of experienced aircraft technicians due to personnel reduction initiatives in the early 1990s, followed by high attrition rates. This is an issue for all flying units across the Air Force and is being addressed by higher headquarters. Initiatives have been implemented and are already starting to show improvements.
CFB Cold Lake also has unique challenges with medical and social services, due to our relatively isolated location. The CF downsizing of the 1990s, combined with provincial initiatives to centralize health care services in larger urban centres, has resulted in a lack of specialist services at our base. As a result, 4 Wing personnel requiring the attention of medical specialists are required to travel to Edmonton. In 2003, almost 2,000 military medical referrals were made to specialist clinics in Edmonton, resulting in almost 2,200 work days lost.
Housing and the cost of living at Cold Lake are artificially high due to a local booming Alberta oil industry. This has elevated local housing prices and rents downtown, which has precipitated increases to military housing rents on base, as directed by Treasury Board guidelines. Although all military personnel are affected, it is our most junior members who are hardest hit. The 4 Wing base is currently conducting a study to identify the need for lower military housing rents and a post-living differential allowance to assist our personnel. The senior leadership of the Canadian Air Force is sensitive to this issue and is awaiting the findings and recommendations of our study.
As I mentioned earlier, CFB Cold Lake celebrated its fiftieth birthday last year. The majority of our infrastructure and facilities are beyond life expectancy. In many cases, repair is difficult and costly. Replacement is becoming the only viable option and will require significant funding over the next decade. Higher headquarters is aware of the need to recapitalize existing infrastructure and is developing resource and funding strategies.
One of the greatest challenges facing CFB Cold Lake is the area of security and force protection. In May and June of 2005, Cold Lake will host large contingents of American, British and Israeli personnel, with several other international partners, at Exercise Maple Flag. Security measures must be upgraded to include video surveillance, electronic swipe cards, an extended flight line security zone and new fencing. Additional security force protection personnel will also be required to provide adequate protection to our friends and allies. Higher headquarters is aware of these challenges and is assessing our requirements. We are currently working full out to ensure all necessary security measures are in place to protect our friends and allies during Exercise Maple Flag.
Looking to the future, 4 Wing Cold Lake is ideally postured to flourish in the years to come. We have achieved and continue to maintain our focus as an international centre of excellence for coalition and air expeditionary training activities. Our theatre-sized airspace and world-class weapons ranges, combined with our wing and base infrastructure and facilities, make 4 Wing an ideal location for our friends and allies to do their training.
It is well understood that our top priority is to defend Canada and North America; however, we also realize that we could be asked by the Government of Canada to deploy at a moment's notice to go anywhere in the world in support of international peace and security. The good news is that our dedicated and professional Air Force personnel are ready to champion our fighter force mission right now, whether that mission be at home or abroad.
Colonel W.S. Werny, Commanding Officer, Aerospace Engineering Test Establishment, National Defence: Mr. Chairman, distinguished senators, it is my pleasure to be able to brief you on the Aerospace Engineering Test Establishment, or AETE.
The primary role of my unit is to provide flight test services and expertise to the Canadian Forces. We play an essential role in the determination of technical air worthiness and role suitability. We do this by methodically verifying that the air weapons systems meet the expectations of our procurement authorities, our technical authorities and our air crew.
I will spend the next few minutes discussing the issues that were directed to me.
Test and evaluation is, indeed, a critical aspect of our procurement process. Civilian air worthiness standards are valuable starting points, but they must be adapted to the specific military roles to ensure the safety of our personnel and military assets. For example, an aircraft certified to airline standard is not necessarily safe to operate in the anti- submarine warfare role. It is my responsibility to ensure their applicability to our mission.
The AETE is a world-class flight test organization. In addition to the typical test equipment used in the business, we have unique test capabilities in the areas of night-vision systems and escape systems.
The issue is AETE's ability to test. We have gone through a large personnel reduction, approximately 33 per cent seven years ago, and we are now at critical mass in some areas. I have a few members who deploy as much as 180 days per year. With a new budget, a number of personnel shortfall issues will hopefully be addressed.
Wherever possible, AETE's test and evaluation capability is made available to domestic and foreign militaries and industry on a cost-recovery basis. This is done under the Canadian Flight Test Centre concept, and it has allowed companies like STARS Air Ambulance of Alberta to access our state-of-the-art night-vision test facility and gain Transport Canada certification to operate with night-vision goggles. This facility is not available anywhere else in Canada.
Part of our business strategy has been to establish a network of test and evaluation agencies and to share in the cost of doing business. Last year we furthered our natural partnerships with the National Research Council and Defence Research and Development Canada by releasing press releases for turnkey services. Additionally, we have a close relationship with our fellow test agencies in the U.S.A., U.K., France and Australia, to name a few.
Cold Lake as a geographical area and as a community has served AETE very well. Our proximity to one of the best air weapons ranges in the world, the outstanding base support and the generally clear weather make Cold Lake a test- friendly environment.
AETE is established for 232 regular force and public service employees in positions of test pilots, flight test engineers, aircraft maintenance, imaging and instrumentation technicians, navigators, various engineering and technologist disciplines and support personnel.
Eighty per cent of the engineers require post-graduate training with master's degrees. Such a concentration of qualified personnel is simply unheard of in a remote area such as Cold Lake, and it poses a real recruiting problem. I currently have 15 unfilled positions, and I have had to accept personnel who do not have the required qualifications or experience. This can be managed, but at a cost in time and efficiency.
Other human resource issues that further exasperate manning shortages include the projected retirement within the next three years of civilian personnel accounting for over 190 years of experience and continuity; the limited number of aerospace engineers undertaking post-graduate training due primarily to two factors: demographics, where we downsized in the 1990s and there is not as many personnel eligible; and personnel not sure of the future are not ready to commit to such a degree; and then, finally, the reduced experience levels of CF technicians posted to AETE.
AETE's infrastructure is not an issue. We have one of the newest hangars in the Canadian Forces, and we invest in infrastructure renewal every year to ensure we keep abreast with technology. We have just let a contract to BAE Systems to update our optical tracking system on our instrumented range. This will bring our range up to par with the most modern in the world.
AETE's operating budget is sufficient to meet our flight test mandate, with the exception of a shortfall in civilian pay. This shortfall means I am unable to hire our current establishment. This situation is similar to other entities in the department that have had a shortage in funds to acquire personnel. Hopefully, the new defence budget will rectify the situation.
With respect to the unmanned air vehicles, or UAVs, or the status of the Sperwer UAV that was used in Afghanistan, we were recently tasked to conduct additional ground and flight tests. This test plan is broken down in two phases. The first limited flight test program will occur this month and will focus on verifying the functionality of the two newly purchased Sperwers, along with an initial evaluation of cold-weather operations. The second phase of testing this fall is to certify the system for deployed operations in conjunction with the army and to acquire additional data to authorize more extensive operations within Canada. This will include validating the accuracy of the navigation system and refining recovery procedures.
As I alluded to earlier, a contract worth upwards of $25 million over a 12-year period has been awarded to BAE Systems for the replacement and support of our theodolite constellation at our instrumented range. This system will allow us to test weapon systems with large safety templates, such as laser-guided bombs. It will use digital high-speed video cameras and will have infrared capability, allowing us to track weapons using their heat signature.
In closing, AETE's challenge for the future will be to continue to manage the present high-ops tempo and be postured for the influx of capital projects that will result from the newly announced federal budget. This goes back primarily to the personnel issues. We will need funds at the earliest opportunity to ensure that we can hire and train the necessary personnel to meet the future recapitalization program. To be fully effective, funds must be released at the inception of the programs in order to staff the positions incrementally. It takes two to three years to screen candidates and train test pilots, flight test engineers, test navigators and post-grad engineers. Again, I reiterate that additional funds allocated in the budget should address current shortfall in funding for personnel. It is my most critical issue.
Senator Forrestall: Welcome, gentlemen. I have jokingly said here that we know all the good news, now give us the bad news. You did not let us down in that respect.
Today, 2005, what constitutes a squadron? How many planes?
Col. Sullivan: Well, senator, if you were to take a look at air force doctrine or air power doctrine, the size of squadrons changes from community to community.
So if you were to look at a C-130 squadron —
Senator Forrestall: No, I am sorry, the F-18.
Col. Sullivan: Oh, with the F-18, okay. Our squadrons have changed over the years, and it depends on the resources and assets we have available. Today, our fighter squadrons — and this is post-modernization — have all new, modernized F-18s. They will be given 13 combat aircraft, and they have two additional what we call support or attrition aircraft, to make a total of 15 airplanes per squadron.
At the present time, we are capped or limited with the number of pilots we can have on a squadron. Our cap is 17 pilots, and then our maintenance cadre ranges anywhere from 140 to 190 or 200 personnel, and that is a typical tactical fighter squadron.
We have other squadrons for training, and those squadrons tend to be a little bit bigger, but the numbers I gave you are for a tactical fighter squadron.
Senator Forrestall: How many aircraft do you have available to you tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock?
Col. Sullivan: ``Aircraft availability and serviceability'' is the expression we use.
Senator Forrestall: Serviceability?
Col. Sullivan: Serviceability. Well, the serviceability of CF-18 aircraft in Cold Lake has never been higher than at the present time.
In fact, I have one tactical fighter squadron. It is currently deployed down to Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida, and last week prior to their deployment they had 100 per cent serviceability.
They had, at that time, 10 aircraft assigned to the squadron, and all 10 aircraft were serviceable, ready for the mission.
The other tactical fighter squadron is dealing with about 60 to 70 per cent serviceability, and, once again, those are very good numbers.
I suppose maybe I could comment on why the serviceability is so high. It has to do with the way we are approaching our maintenance at this time. We have quite a few inexperienced maintenance technicians, and in order to ensure that these technicians are trained so that they can work on airplanes, we have actually reduced the flying hours that we are flying on the squadron so that the technicians can be properly trained.
Another critical aspect to giving us these serviceable aircraft is the spare parts, the parts that come through the supply system. Again, the performance in that area, in the F-18 community, has never been better than at this point in time in Cold Lake.
Senator Forrestall: I would draw from that, in a sense, that in terms of your purpose and your mission, your facilities and structure are in pretty good shape.
The deficiency, then, would fall on the hygienic side — housing, office space, if you will, et cetera. Is that a valid observation?
Col. Sullivan: Well, sir, if I may, I would like to go back to the fighter squadrons.
First, there are some significant challenges that we deal with every day. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, we do have fairly significant concerns with a number of what we call trained and effective technicians on our squadron, and that is a very familiar term that you would probably hear in all the other communities.
What we would like to see on our fighter squadrons is approximately 90 per cent trained and effective strength.
On my two tactical fighter squadrons, the lowest squadron is at 64 per cent, and the next squadron above that is at about 68 per cent, and so that is a fairly significant challenge. When you are only starting off with two-thirds of your capacity, it is a significant challenge to try to generate all your serviceable aircraft and to fly all the flying hours that you have been given.
We are being successful in training our technicians, but what we have traded off is that we are flying fewer hours, which impacts the proficiency of our pilots.
Senator Forrestall: Is that a significant lowering of the hours you are flying?
Col. Sullivan: Yes, sir, it is. In fact, we are just coming to the end of this current fiscal year, and we will be 25 per cent underflown in our F-18 community in Cold Lake, and as the war fighters say, ``Hours not flown is capability not achieved.''
We could equate that into about a 20 per cent reduction in proficiency and capability.
Senator Forrestall: I would say in helicopters it is skills lost.
The Chairman: I do not follow that, colonel. I thought you were explaining to us that the serviceability of your aircraft is as high as it has ever been, that you have authorized flying hours, but you are down in terms of the number of people who are trained and effective.
My assumption from that would be that the pilots that you have are flying all the time. What have I missed?
Col. Sullivan: Well, there are a few complicated aspects to the equation, or what we call ``the force generation equation.''
It is true, we actually have aircraft that, on a very infrequent occasion, will actually sit on the ground; they will not fly; the pilots will not fly them. The technicians are working on these aircraft, and sometimes they are working on serviceable aircraft just to maintain their own skills and to bring them up to the proper qualification level.
With the pilots themselves, we are limited to the amount, in this case, of the hours that we are actually authorized to fly, to the amount of money that we are given to buy fuel — the AvPOL, which might be a familiar expression to you.
Whenever the price of fuel goes up, the number of flying hours that we have available to us tends to go down.
Senator Meighen: So that is the reason.
The Chairman: So the rate-limiting step is a regulation or a directive from Ottawa that says you can only fly X hours a year?
Col. Sullivan: The first constraint that is placed upon us is that they will only give us so much money to buy the AvPOL to fly our flying hours, and then that will give us a certain number of flying hours.
The Chairman: How many hours a year does it take for a fighter pilot to be competent?
Col. Sullivan: We would like our fighter pilots to fly about 180 hours a year. That is the goal. As it stands right now, they are flying about 150 to 160, which is not a bad achievement, considering some of the challenges we have with the technicians.
I did not want to mislead you about the serviceability of our aircraft fleets on the squadrons. I mentioned that we have one squadron at 100 per cent and the other squadron just slightly below that — 60 to 70 per cent which are recent, good numbers.
A year ago, we were dealing with serviceability rates at about 40 per cent, maybe 50 per cent. By rebalancing the equation, we have pulled the flying-hour throttle back. We are flying fewer hours, which is allowing the technicians to focus on fixing the aircraft.
If we were to advance the throttle and start increasing the YFR, the serviceability would go down, the technicians would not receive their qualifications and they would not be able to do enough training.
The Chairman: The question is, what is YFR?
Col. Sullivan: Sorry, YFR is our yearly flying rate, which is 180 hours.
The Chairman: With these reduced hours, how many of the pilots are air-qualified?
Col. Sullivan: All the pilots on the squadron, once they go through their training program, even with reduced hours, flying 150 to 160 hours a year, will finish their program and become mission-ready, as we say.
Now, we would like them to fly extra hours to improve their proficiency and become better at these basic skills, but at the present time they are meeting the basic minimum standard or qualification.
Senator Forrestall: I want to move to Colonel Werny for a few minutes.
Regarding the shortage that you talked about, I did not realize you were looking for people who have doctorates in engineering.
Could you elaborate a little bit on, first of all, where these trained people come from, what universities you are watching very closely, and what is your success rate annually?
What did you expect, for example, last fall or last summer? How did you do with the fishing ponds that were open to you?
Col. Werny: First of all, as I explained, hopefully, in the flight test business we require the experienced individuals, right from our pilots to technicians, and certainly the engineers.
Senator Forrestall: What about just the engineering?
Col. Werny: Just the engineering. We draw upon our engineers from our experienced aerospace engineering officers who are within the military. That is our primary source of flight test engineers we draw upon, and some of our post- graduate training as well.
Annual calls go out through the military to our rank and file asking for individuals to apply for the various disciplines of engineering that we require in the flight test business, from instrumentation, to structures, to aerodynamics — those sorts of things. That is the primary pool from which we draw.
There is a real lack of experienced individuals stepping up to the plate and putting their names forward to the universities; then they all go off. Once they do apply, they go through a screening process, and they are assigned to universities literally around the world, from the U.K., the States, and elsewhere, and they will go to attend that course.
They have obligatory service, which they will serve, and they will come back to us in the flight test business, and also to our technical folks in Ottawa with whom we work very closely, as we both have a requirement for these types of people.
We do not have the civilian positions to hire personnel out of civilian universities. All we can do is work closely with the University of Alberta and the University of Calgary. We work closely with them to try to identify students who may wish to become a public servant at some time, and then they can come into our system, in Ottawa or here.
Our success rate is not high. Again, that comes down to the business of money available to hire civilians, which I alluded to in my presentation, and that is a real shortcoming for us.
Senator Forrestall: Which is more difficult for you, recruitment or retention?
Col. Werny: Right now, it is probably, I would say, recruitment. Once the individual gets through the system and comes to us, retention is very good.
It is an exciting business — you know, state-of-the-art stuff and doing flight test exposure to various new weapon systems, et cetera — so the retention part is fairly good, but it is getting them in the door that is our difficulty.
Senator Forrestall: Slowing down a level in the technical requirement for your shop, the air frame and the folk to do the work, I guess, how do you manage recruitment and retention in that respect?
Col. Werny: Again in the technician aspect, because we are involved in highly technical aspects, all our aircraft, or pretty much all of them, are instrumented aircraft, so the technicians required to work on them must be experienced technicians. I am actually a thorn in the side of operational communities, because I am looking for that experienced technician to come to the flight test element, and that is my requirement.
It is very difficult for me to take a new individual just recruited into the military, because the requirement to train them up through the system is fairly lengthy, upward of four years, and I simply do not have the resources to deal with that, so I lean on my colleague to do the training and feed me back the experienced fellows and gals.
So it is a difficulty, again, trying to find that balance, because he needs experience and so do I, so we work closely together in that regard.
Senator Forrestall: I would not want to judge who is in whose back pocket. I think it is a chicken-and-the-egg question with you two.
Finally, the unmanned capability. Could you give us a word or two about the work you are doing there, the work that you have already done that was, in some cases, I thought, very successful? In other cases, I wondered whether you had bombed completely, such as in Afghanistan, for example. How successful is the program?
Col. Werny: Again with the Sperwer UAV, sir, we were brought a little late into the program in Afghanistan. With programs, again as I alluded to, we like to be brought in at the very onset of a program, and that way we become familiar with the system; we can advise the folks who are doing the purchasing and the procurement of some of the pitfalls that we might be getting ourselves into.
We were brought into Afghanistan when the Sperwer program was already being put into service, so it was the wrong time for us to do flight tests. We would like to have done that earlier. Needless to say, we did deploy some folks to Afghanistan, and we worked very closely with the army to try to find out some of the areas that were of concern, and we certainly uncovered a fair number; although the system did perform fairly effectively over there, from my understanding.
I spoke with the folks who deployed to Cold Lake this morning, and over the next two weeks we will basically be taking a look at the Sperwer systems: looking at some new launchers to try to solve some of the launcher problems that we discovered over in Kabul; looking at cold-weather work, if we get some cold weather, to determine how this vehicle operates in that regard. In the fall, we want to go back to verify the navigation system to make sure that it is communicating effectively with its home station. We are able to monitor it, so I believe good success will come.
We have learned an awful lot, in the test world, on this program, and I think it will bode well for us as we get into more UAV testing and technology in the future.
Senator Forrestall: Are we collaborating outside of the Canadian Forces with any other country or any other interest?
Col. Werny: Collaborating to the point where we —
Senator Forrestall: Development and...
Col. Werny: Not to my knowledge in development, but certainly the Dutch, for example, are flying the Sperwer, and we try to glean as much information from them and their concerns as possible to assist us in developing our own test program.
Senator Forrestall: Is there anything on the go with our friends to the south?
Col. Werny: Not to my knowledge at the time, sir, no.
Senator Forrestall: That is too bad. I wish there was. With all that clean air you have up there, you have a wonderful asset.
Senator Munson: How much does a pilot get paid?
Col. Sullivan: You are referring to one of our CF-18 pilots?
Senator Munson: Yes, a CF-18 pilot.
Col. Sullivan: I think they are probably up around about $65,000 to $75,000 per year, depending if they are a captain or a major.
Senator Forrestall: Not as much as Tiger Woods?
Col. Sullivan: Not quite, but they do not play golf as well as Tiger Woods either.
Senator Forrestall: He does not fly either.
Senator Munson: $65,000 to $70,000?
Col. Sullivan: $75,000.
Senator Munson: Not much money, really.
Col. Sullivan: No, it is not, if you were to take a look at, say, the civilian industry, but there has been a fairly dramatic wage adjustment on the civilian side as well. We will say that, since 9/11, the civilian aspect of flying the commercial airlines has readjusted.
Senator Munson: But you must find it frustrating to do all this training and keep them for a short period of time, 10 years or less, and then they are off flying us on Air Canada. It must be very difficult for you.
Col. Sullivan: Yes. Well, it was. We are now seeing re-enrollees, as we call them, those who left when the airlines were really hiring. Since 9/11, when the industry has taken a little bit of a nose-dive, if I may use that expression, we are seeing a lot of pilots coming back in, and those younger pilots who were contemplating a second career opportunity with a commercial airline venture are reconsidering and choosing to make the Canadian Forces their career.
Senator Munson: Have you thought of new or different ways of recruiting? We talked about a lack of personnel.
Col. Sullivan: On the pilot side?
Senator Munson: Yes, from the pilot side.
Col. Sullivan: Well, the challenges on the pilot side, the other parts of the economy, are still very, very strong.
Whenever you have university graduates — and I think you may realize that we are required to accept those with a university degree now to come into the Canadian Forces for officer or pilot training — it is pretty tough to compete in certain areas. If there is somebody who is finishing up a university degree, they may have strong interests in pursuing a career in the line that they have just finished studying. To try to entice them to come into the Canadian Forces and spend upwards of four to six years just to go through their training before they might see operational duty on a squadron is a pretty difficult thing to compete with sometimes.
Senator Munson: Maybe I am asking a naive question, but why is it necessary, as a fighter pilot, to have a university degree? You could have some technical expertise from a junior college or so on and so forth.
Col. Sullivan: Yes.
Senator Munson: I mean, you are a fighter pilot. You are not doing academic exams flying around up there.
Col. Sullivan: Well, absolutely. Senator, that is an excellent question that is being discussed or even debated at this time.
Years ago, you could be a high school graduate and come right into the Canadian Forces and begin your pilot training. They used to test your aptitude to see if you had the proper focus and abilities to go into pilot training and to succeed. Once you were a successful pilot in the Canadian Armed Forces and it was necessary to give you greater academic broadening, then the preferred academic course would be to pursue a degree later on in your career.
I believe it was one of the findings from the Somalia inquiry, and I believe it might have been Jack Granatstein who recommended that officers coming into the Canadian Forces should have a university degree; that was accepted, and that is now the policy in place.
Senator Munson: I think, Colonel Sullivan, you talked about the tremendous training opportunities and mentioned the fighter instructor course.
Col. Sullivan: Right.
Senator Munson: It is our understanding that the course was cancelled this year. If so, why?
Col. Sullivan: Sir, the fighter instructor course, in fact, has just started in Cold Lake. It was what we call the fighter electronic warfare advanced radar course, or FEWAR course, and these two courses are essentially offered by the same school.
The course that we did cancel was a little bit of a risk for us to run this year. As you may know, we are right in the midst of modernizing our fleets or our fighter squadrons. The two Cold Lake squadrons were modernized just this past year. It is analogous to bringing a ship into dry dock. You basically stand down the squadron, and then you modernize all the aircraft. You give them the aircraft, and then the pilots learn how to apply their tactics with this new technology. There was basically a year when the two squadrons in Cold Lake were off-line and were not able to participate in this advanced level of training.
We equate the fighter weapons instructor course, or FWIC, to our Ph.D. level of fighter pilot training, and it is the most advanced training you can do. This year, just starting now in March, we are running a FWIC with four candidates, even though at Bagotville, our sister wing down in Quebec, those two squadrons are going through modernization. The candidates in Cold Lake are fully modernized; they will be participating in FWIC with the modernized aircraft. There are two candidates coming from Bagotville who are taking advanced training on modernized aircraft to participate in FWIC, but it was the fighter electronic warfare and advanced radar course that was cancelled this year as a result of modernization.
Senator Munson: I know it is early days, but do you have any indication yet of any of this budget money coming to Cold Lake?
Have you picked up the phone and talked to your boss in Ottawa who has talked to Ralph Goodale, just to put it in simple terms? You have talked about all these gaps, including being cared for medically and needing more pilots and technicians and so on. Is there any indication that you will get a good piece of dough?
Col. Sullivan: No, sir. I have received no indication at all that we will receive any new money; although I am always quick to point out that the F-18 community has been favourably viewed in the last number of years.
As I mentioned, we are just coming through a modernization, which is a $1.2-billion upgrade to our F-18 fleet, and as I speak to you right now, they are putting the final touches on our brand new simulator building in Cold Lake as well, which will give us a whole new capability to train and to prepare our fighter pilots on the new aircraft. That money has been previously allocated and set in place through other projects, and that now seems to be sustaining us for the next three to five years.
Senator Munson: I just worry, as a former reporter, that there are shell games being played from time to time with money that goes to the Armed Forces.
I do not know if this has any relevance to what we are trying to grasp here from Cold Lake and you, but you talked about the squadron being in Tyndall, Florida.
Col. Sullivan: In Tyndall, Florida, yes.
Senator Munson: Is this a common thing, working with the Americans? And with that question, what is your personal relationship like or your pilots' relationship like with the United States these days?
When you believe the media, our relationships are tough, and we are not getting along very well — ballistic missile defence, and you name it. How do you find, with the current climate, your relationship is with your counterparts in the United States?
Col. Sullivan: Well, those are two very good points. If I may, I will take the first point.
Our F-18 squadron we have down in Tyndall, Florida, is training with American F-15 squadrons there. This is what we call a quid pro quo, where they will come up to Cold Lake to train with us for a couple of weeks, and then sometime in the future they will designate when they would like us to go down to their base and train at their location using their facilities, their instrumentation and their ranges. Normally, each one of our three F-18 squadrons in Cold Lake will deploy once a year to an American location, and so that is what the squadron is doing right now.
With respect to the relationship between our pilots and the American pilots, it is quite an encouraging thing to observe. I can cite Exercise Maple Flag, where we have typically 12 or 14 different countries bringing all their crews and airplanes together for a six-week period, and even when there are, we will say, political differences between the countries, down at the tactical level we do not sense that at all.
The best example I had the opportunity to observe first-hand was last year when the French Air Force brought one of their largest contingents ever to Maple Flag, and at the same time the Americans had one of their largest contingents ever. I think we can remember back to the feelings between the French and the Americans, yet down at the tactical level — and we encourage this and we promote it — we leave political issues at home. We come together in the name of interoperability and to train together, to get to know each other better, so that we can prepare to operate together in the future.
The relationship between Canadian pilots and American pilots is excellent; it has never been better. That is something that has endured over the last number of years, and I expect it to continue.
The Chairman: The Americans run a program called Red Flag?
Col. Sullivan: Yes, senator.
The Chairman: How many French went to the American Red Flag?
Col. Sullivan: I do not think the French have been to Red Flag for a few years.
The Chairman: Just checking off the top.
You talked about excess capacity that you have at Cold Lake. What about consolidating Canadian flight training there? You pointed out that it is terrific to bring forces from a number of foreign countries to Exercise Maple Flag. Obviously this is not your call, but is the base suitable? Could it absorb and handle the other flight training that goes on in Canada?
Col. Sullivan: It is true we do have considerable excess capacity. We would prefer to market or to share our excess capacity with similar types of aircraft. For example, it is a little bit more efficient and effective to fly a fighter aircraft in the traffic patterns and on the runways. Bringing in other types of aircraft makes it a little bit more confusing; they are incompatible; but there is no doubt that we could bring more flying training into Cold Lake.
The Chairman: But the Hawks have the same flight characteristics as the F-18s.
Col. Sullivan: They do. In fact, they are very close. The Hawks themselves are very compatible in the traffic pattern and operating from the base in Cold Lake.
The Chairman: Is it not more real world to be dealing with aircraft that move at different speeds at different times?
When you have an AWACS aircraft coming in, it does not land at the same speed as an F-18, does it?
Col. Sullivan: No. In fact, there are special allowances made to bring in the slower aircraft, whether it be the air refuellers or the AWACS.
Senator, if I may, Cold Lake also represents a more advanced type of flying as well; whereas if you were to take a look at the flying in Moose Jaw, it is a very basic type of flying. I think concentrating the basic flying in one location and the advanced flying in another might be a better way of conducting those two very large flying operations.
To try to bring the two of them together — the most basic side with the most advanced side — could be problematic in that the basic side requires very intense instruction from the instructor to the pilot, and a lot of that intense instruction takes place right in the traffic pattern; whereas with the advanced part, there is a little bit of instruction in the traffic pattern, but it takes place out on the range.
The Chairman: That is pretty much what General McDonald has been telling us, and I saw the two of you outside conspiring, but thank you anyway.
Do we have a significant stockpile of smart bombs? More specifically, are we moving away from the old type of ordnance, and are our pilots trained to use them, and do we have sufficient of them available?
Col. Sullivan: Well, sir, we do not maintain the large war stocks we used to during the Cold War. We have downsized most of our holdings, and now we keep minimum holdings. In fact, the numbers that we do maintain are matched to what we call ``operations other than war,'' which is a lower intensity-type expenditure of those types of weapons.
We do have the stocks currently in our depots to handle operations other than war. If we were required to go back into some type of high-intensity bombing campaign, similar to Allied Force, Kosovo and Serbia, we would need to procure or somehow bring in extra weapons, more weapons, normally from American allies. They would provide them to us.
The Chairman: They have this depth of inventory; you can rely on this, and not only can you rely on it, but you have MOUs that say they will provide it when you ask for it?
Col. Sullivan: I do not believe we have formal MOUs. Whenever we are called forward to join a coalition, which we have, when we arrive as a member of that coalition, those types of issues are addressed by the coalition commander.
The Chairman: But everybody needs them all at once, then, do they not?
Col. Sullivan: That is exactly true, and sometimes being accepted into a coalition has something to do with what you are bringing with you.
The Chairman: If you do not have it, you are not bringing it?
Col. Sullivan: If you do not have it, you are not bringing it, but if I may offer the case of Canada, what we bring to the table is tactical leadership and the ability to conduct operations in the most sophisticated environments and combat environments, and that is what the Americans recognize first and foremost.
When it comes time to provide air refuellers and strategic airlift, or weapon stocks, that is something that we have addressed when we arrive at the coalition.
The Chairman: The message I am taking away, colonel, is that our financial constraints have caused our stockpiles to go to minimum levels; am I taking away the right message?
Col. Sullivan: I would say yes, we are not allocating the same financial resources toward purchasing those weapons; therefore the weapon stocks have diminished.
The Chairman: Do we still have smart and dumb bombs, or is all the ordnance such that you can deliver it with precision?
Col. Sullivan: Sir, we maintain both the dumb bombs and the smart bombs, but we are in transition, and we are going over to maintain larger holdings of the precision weapons.
The Chairman: Can you give us a ratio?
Col. Sullivan: The ratio will be — and I would like to be able to verify these numbers — at the present time it is about 60:40 — 60 per cent precision, 40 per cent non-precision. Those numbers will go further over to about 80:20 in the coming years.
The Chairman: Help me. Obviously, the smarter the bombs are, the more expensive they are, but why would we ever want to use dumb bombs in the future? They do not go where you want them to go; they have collateral damage; civilians get hurt unnecessarily and so on and so forth.
I guess my question is, why did you not say 100 per cent?
Col. Sullivan: The dumb bombs that we have in inventory right now are remaining there from our previous holdings.
In a lot of cases, the bomb itself is the dumb bomb, and we purchase the nose-piece and the tailpiece to change that bomb from a dumb bomb into a smart bomb. In many cases, it is just the purchasing of the nose and the tailpiece. The more nose-pieces and tailpieces we do purchase, the more dumb bombs we will have available to convert into smart bombs.
The Chairman: Thank you, that was helpful.
The last area I wanted to pursue with you was the issue you raised with the Treasury Board guidelines and housing. Obviously, Cold Lake is not the only base that is faced with this. It seems to me that we have a peculiar system here where when an economy booms in a particular community, housing prices go up, and then rents go up accordingly. Members of the Canadian Forces do not participate in the boom. Other members of the community are undoubtedly participating in the boom, at least those who are not on fixed incomes.
Do you make representations back through the system for the bases that are in communities that are booming and consequently have anomalies in their housing costs? Are there collective ways — for example, we have the same story in Esquimalt — to send the message back that this is a policy that is really not working well, is not serving the interests of the Canadian Forces? Everybody understands the equity of the idea, but there appear to be unintended consequences.
Have you made representations back, and if so, what sort of responses have you had from higher authorities?
Col. Sullivan: Well, senator, we are in the process of doing that right now; in fact, you have nailed it bang on. What you have just said is my perspective and the perspective of 4 Wing Cold Lake.
Over the years, we have been making representations to higher headquarters about the inequity of our military folks living in a very booming economy. We have now taken a very rigorous and formal approach, where we have commissioned two consultants to come in and do a very detailed, in-depth analysis of the economy identifying each one of those items: car insurance, the price of a quart of milk, housing prices, whether you will buy or whether you will rent — or things along that line — to define exactly how much more expensive it is in Cold Lake.
In fact, I have word from the chief of the air staff that once this study is tabled by me to higher headquarters, to the chief of the air staff, it will be championed at the Armed Forces Council, and the issues that we will be addressing will be along the lines of the need for that post-differential living allowance.
That is very much needed in Cold Lake. At the present time, we do not have any allowance at all, and Cold Lake, from our perspective and in our study, is one of the most expensive places to live in Canada, whether you are looking at the price of natural gas or gasoline for a car. So that will be the living allowance.
We are also trying to win back the ability of the local military leadership to be able to adjust PMQ rents, especially for some of our most junior members.
As I mentioned in my comments earlier, individuals such as Colonel Werny and I get by very comfortably in Cold Lake — the senior members of our organization do — but it is the young privates and corporals and the young second lieutenants and officer cadets who really cannot get by.
We have a benevolent fund that we use to help them make ends meet, to pay their utility bills in the wintertime. The furnace is on almost continuously when the temperature drops to minus 40, minus 50. I think most people turn up their furnaces to keep themselves warm. The difficult part is that the most junior members of our organization cannot afford it, and that is when we step in with our benevolent fund to help them through. It is very sensitive, and it is one of the big issues that both Colonel Werny and I deal with in Cold Lake.
The Chairman: It is disgraceful. It is unacceptable.
Col. Sullivan: Yes, it is.
Senator Meighen: That is terrible.
The Chairman: This is not an Air Force issue, and it is not even a CF issue. I mean, the RCM Police have been through this. We have seen our division move out of Ontario to get to an affordable place. We see problems they have with transferring people to Vancouver, and issues like that.
It seems to me that there is room for common cause on this with a number of organizations that have the same pay level across the country. Again, this is not your field particularly, but just because you are feeling the brunt of it, do you know of any efforts to find common cause amongst different departments?
Col. Sullivan: No, I do not, but twice a year, all the wing commanders and base commanders get together for a week. It is normally championed by the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff, VCDFs, out of Ottawa.
A year ago, I made my position known about how hard we were being hit up in Cold Lake, and my study in Cold Lake now will be one of the wedges, if I could use that expression, to try to get it into the Armed Forces Council, and eventually the Treasury Board. That will hopefully cause people to re-examine the current mechanisms in place that have essentially taken control away from the wing commanders and the base commanders, and give us the ability to start looking after our people like we used to years ago.
Senator Forrestall: I listened with some interest to what you said. It would seem to me there are others, I am sure, but CFB Greenwood is not affected by enormous growth in that part of the valley.
In your study, are you looking at comparative pressures and comparative rents? Your housing is 50 years old plus, written off in the first two years. Consequently, the government rejected the suggestion that, on behalf of junior ranks, the force put away or in escrow a portion of money that would come to them when they left the force, balancing out that inability to build equity.
Do you know offhand what you might pay at Cold Lake, not necessarily at Greenwood, and what they may pay at Moose Jaw?
Col. Sullivan: Yes, senator. I believe we have 92 or 93 data points across the country as the basis of the study; all the military locations are included in the comparison, and then they have randomly selected other locations so we can get a very good cross-section. They are from all the provinces and territories and from all the military bases, plus other communities, that we are using as a comparative analysis.
Senator Forrestall: How long before it will be ready?
Col. Sullivan: Well, I was hoping four months ago, but when we get to a phase of the study when we think it is completed, sometimes it gives you more questions than answers, and so we are still continuing. I am hoping to have it finished by June.
Senator Forrestall: Would it be appropriate at some point in time for you to provide our clerk with a copy once it is completed?
Col. Sullivan: Oh, yes, absolutely.
Senator Meighen: Gentlemen, please stop me if I am asking a question that was answered when I was out of the room, but I was unable to avoid going out, so I apologize if I am being repetitious.
We were last in Edmonton as a committee in the year 2000, I think, and since then we have travelled to many bases and many communities around the country, and the deficiencies are depressingly similar, and the degree of the deficiency is depressingly high. It just seems that the training facilities and training time, the number of trainers to train, the infrastructure, access to medical specialists, quality and cost of housing, technicians and the difficulty of retaining them is the same thing as five years ago.
I know that pay levels in the forces have increased, I think it is fair to say significantly, so that is a good thing, but obviously when you discuss cost of living, particular cost-of-living problems, the higher authority — higher headquarters, rather — which I always thought was in heaven; I did not know it was in Ottawa. You learn some new expressions every time you travel, and I had not heard that one before.
But anyway, higher headquarters seems to be having a challenging time meeting these deficiencies in a reasonable time frame.
Can I go back to what we were discussing just when I had to leave the room, to see if I can get a sense of the government saying, on the one hand, because of restrictions, monetary restrictions, you cannot fly more than 150 hours?
Col. Sullivan: Yes.
Senator Meighen: And you would like to fly 180, which would be the normal period, so you are 30 hours short per pilot there?
And then on the other side, there was the situation of inexperienced technicians, which I gather was brought about largely by the loss of a lot of experienced technicians, and that, I guess, is a function of a booming economy, particularly where you are located.
Can you give me some time frame for either? If Ottawa tomorrow said that flight restriction is lifted, that you can fly 180 hours, what would you do then? Or conversely, how long will it take under your present plan to bring the technicians up to the proper standards?
Col. Sullivan: We think about that question every day, and sadly, the answer is not very encouraging.
We cannot improve the deficiency that we are living with right now with our technicians. We cannot make it go away; we cannot make it better. We have a gaping hole.
If you were to take a look at the distribution of our experienced technicians from those guys who have two years' experience all the way through to 25 years' experience, we have this gaping hole right in the middle of that picture. That emerged back in the mid to late 1990s. We cannot fill that hole. We could; there is one way we could do it: Hire back all the technicians who left, with money.
So we have this gaping hole, and that gaping hole, which is sitting at about the three- to five-year point right now, maybe out to eight years, will move through the boa constrictor snake, and it will take us 20 years for that deficiency to make its way through our squadrons.
This problem is with us for a long period of time, but we have tried to mitigate it. It becomes very depressing, but we have tried to mitigate it. One of the most successful measures that we have in place right now is amazingly simple, but if you take a look at our fighter squadrons, one-third of those technicians are untrained. They are just sitting there being looked after by the senior technicians, but doing really nothing all that valuable. The senior technicians are working full out to try to repair the aircraft they have in front of them, but also to try to look after the young guys who are there waiting to learn to become qualified.
We have created what we call these technical training flights, the TTFs. We have put one on each of our fighter wings, and I think they are dotted across the other Air Force wings. This technical training flight is like a basic technician school where we gather up the one-third from each of the squadrons, we bring them in and we train them academically off to the side, in a controlled environment.
The old way of doing it was that they were just going to learn on-the-job training. They were going to learn how to fix landing gear and to replace engines working alongside more experienced technicians, and that is the way the program used to operate and function, for the most part. This has caused us to be innovative, but in a very, very simple way, and that is to take these junior technicians off the squadron.
Now, we get a double bang for this, because these junior technicians are now being trained in a very controlled environment, but the senior technicians now can focus 100 per cent of their time on fixing the airplanes, and that is why we see amazing serviceability results, like I mentioned earlier, where we have this one squadron achieving 100 per cent serviceability, and that is because the 65 per cent of them, for a month-long period, focused on all their airplanes and got them all fixed.
They would not be able to do that if they were doing full-up mission operations or training and looking after the junior technicians, but that is what we have come down to. We have had to create these new ways of looking at our training processes at the wing level and how we can consolidate and train in a controlled environment away from the flight line.
Senator Meighen: That is very helpful, colonel.
Would it not be wonderful, though — and you touched on this in your remarks — if you could hire back some of the people you spent thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars training. Then they got lured away, perhaps, by the civil aviation industry, and there they are; maybe they went into the reserves, and maybe they did not.
Time after time after time, this committee has heard about the incredible administrative difficulty of rejoining, if you will, or transferring from the reserve into the active forces.
Col. Sullivan: That is it.
Senator Meighen: You cannot find the record, it takes six months — absolute horror stories. Is there any improvement in that area?
Col. Sullivan: There are examples of improvement, because I think we are learning as we go along. It is tremendous bureaucracy: going through the recruiting centre — the recruiting and the training is detached, for the most part, from the operations; then they pop out; then they are given to the squadrons.
If we could take a trained pilot or a trained technician, who has maybe only been out for a couple of years, and say that we want to take them directly back into operations, we could try to shortcut or bypass that recruiting bureaucracy. There are some elements there that have to be addressed: They need to get their security clearance back; they need to be medically fit and go through that aspect as well. We recognize that, but for the most part right now, that recruiting, medical, security bureaucracy is still in place, and that is what causes these great big waiting periods to get someone who is fully trained back in very, very quickly.
Both Colonel Werny and I experience this on a regular basis, and it is very frustrating.
Senator Meighen: You have our sympathy. It defies understanding how this problem could exist for so long. Everybody says they are working on it. Nothing happens.
Col. Sullivan: That is right.
Senator Meighen: With these reduced flying hours that you alluded to, I assume, therefore, it takes longer for an individual pilot to become an experienced pilot, and if you become an experienced pilot, and as you become an experienced pilot, presumably you get promoted. Is this having an effect on promotion time, and if so, is that having an effect on morale?
Col. Sullivan: It has a ripple effect in a number of different areas. Flying fewer hours per year actually delays or drags out or lengthens that period of time it takes a junior pilot to become that experienced pilot. This is having a tremendous impact on our squadrons.
Whenever we used to have a training program or a training cycle where a new fighter pilot would arrive on a squadron, normally 18 months later he would be at a certain level, and that is the experience level, as we call it, of 18 months.
When he arrives now, it normally takes two to two and a half, sometimes three years for him to achieve that, which means we have to leave them on the squadrons longer, which slows the whole production of pilots coming through the mill, because every time some new pilots come in, we have to make room for them, so we take the senior guys out of the squadron to let the new guys in. The old guys being taken off the squadron have not achieved their experience level yet, so it is having a significant impact all the way down the line.
Senator Meighen: Final question, or would you like me to stop?
The Chairman: Go ahead. He just described a death spiral to us, but go ahead.
Col. Sullivan: That is exactly it.
Senator Atkins: Just out of curiosity, when a pilot takes his CF-18 up, what is the average time for each flight?
Col. Sullivan: If he is flying at Cold Lake, it is normally about an hour-and-a-half-long mission, and he would fly once a day.
Typically, if we can get him up two, sometimes three times a week, that would be a good week for him.
Senator Atkins: An annoying question: I know you described the range, 140 kilometres or whatever, but surely they are flying beyond that range.
Col. Sullivan: Yes.
Senator Atkins: Where do they go?
Col. Sullivan: The flying area at Cold Lake — and if you have heard some of this data before, please stop me — is the largest airspace in the world for conducting and flying training operations.
The low-level airspace that we can train in goes from the foothills of the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia all the way across the boreal forest into Manitoba, and it goes from the Arctic Circle, two-thirds of the way down to the American border. That is the airspace that we have where we can fly in the low-level environment, from about 250 feet up to about 12,000 feet. You can imagine: When our European allies come over and they see that chunk of airspace, it covers almost all of Europe. It goes from London all the way to Warsaw and Denmark down to Switzerland, so that is an enormous piece of airspace. The actual range itself where we have our targets fits inside of that, and that is the 120 nautical miles by 40 nautical miles.
When the Americans come up and take a look at it, they call it the largest Hollywood set that has ever been made, because we have 640 individual targets on the range; over 90 complexes; seven full-size mock airfields; and all these target areas have the hulks of aircraft, APCs, tanks, vehicles; they have radars set up across the entire range.
So a pilot can take off out of Cold Lake and fly for an hour in one direction and still be in our airspace and turn around and come home. There is so much airspace available that there is really no problem at all in fitting in all the different activities that we would like to do.
The Chairman: Our understanding was that one of the reasons why Goose Bay is not a destination of choice any more is that fighter doctrine has changed amongst NATO countries since the first Gulf war, and low-level flying is no longer in demand as much as it used to be.
You were describing the low-level flying opportunities here. Have I missed something?
Col. Sullivan: No, senator. In fact, you have described it basically right on. Goose Bay was predominantly for low- level flying. We can still do that low-level flying in Cold Lake, and some nations do; Canada does not.
We left the low-level environment for resource reasons. As our flying hours were reduced over the years, we started to shed or to download capability, and one of the first capabilities we downloaded was the low-level flying mission.
Senator Meighen: The Exercise Maple Flag is scheduled for this May, correct?
Col. Sullivan: Yes, senator.
Senator Meighen: So that is one, two months away?
Col. Sullivan: Yes, sir.
Senator Meighen: Are we still waiting for the authority to come through with the fence and the passes and all that? There is no hope in hell that you will have it by then, is there?
Col. Sullivan: No, sir. In fact, we are not waiting for the fences. The fences are going up. In fact, they are almost complete right now, and it has been a huge building effort or installation effort over the last six months to a year.
We will not have in place the other parts that I mentioned — the video surveillance cameras, the key access and the swipe cards — so what that means is we will have to bring in the security personnel, and that is what becomes very expensive.
The way we are working right now, we would eventually like to have fully funded, modernized security mechanisms and technology in place, which would dramatically reduce the security personnel costs.
Senator Meighen: So now you can keep the moose out, and that is about it.
I think you stated, Colonel Sullivan, that the two operational squadrons are air expeditionary units, so two questions flow out of that. How many are currently air-to-air refuelling qualified? How many of those are air-to-air refuelling qualified, and how large a contingent of CF-18s on deployment could you sustain on a continuing basis, given your NORAD responsibilities and personnel limitations?
Col. Sullivan: I will go back to referring to our squadrons as ``air expeditionary units,'' and that is a relatively new expression, although the Americans have been using it for quite some time. The term ``expeditionary'' means that we can go somewhere rather quickly, and we do not have to go from our big hangars at home to deploy forward to another hangar. We can take everything with us, so that we have all our deployable shelters, all our deployable aircraft hangars, which are like large tents but with rigid aluminum frames.
We have a command and control complex that we deploy as well, and this entire complex and air expeditionary unit is comprised of 450 personnel; we leave our hangars in Cold Lake and deploy forward to what we call an ``austere location,'' where we might find a runway and a taxiway and a parking spot, but we have to bring in everything else. So we are ready to do that. We are ready to deploy that. Cold Lake right now is prepared to do that; we have our air expeditionary unit. The unit is on a number of days' notice to move to go anywhere that we are asked to go.
With respect to your comment about air refuelling, all our pilots on all fighter squadrons maintain an air-to-air refuelling qualification, and this is, as you can imagine, essential.
Senator Forrestall: What do they train on?
Col. Sullivan: Well, we do see our own KC-130 Canadian tankers on occasion, and I would say a couple of times a year they will come through both to Cold Lake and to Bagotville to give everybody an opportunity to reacquaint themselves with how to do that type of procedure, which is very, very demanding.
Senator Meighen: Is that enough, twice a year?
Col. Sullivan: No, it is not. We actually have to do it more often than that to maintain our basic qualification, and in fact our preferred air-to-air refuelling tanker is the American KC-135. We have one of those on alert in Spokane, Washington, to come north to support continuous homeland defence operations in Canada, and we have one on alert in Bangor, Maine, as well, to come north to support the eastern part of Canada.
So if there were a real world mission, let us say at two o'clock in the morning, our aircraft are scrambled to go and put a cap over top of Vancouver, and we would see an American KC-135 in that cap waiting for us.
Senator Meighen: Is that under the aegis of NORAD?
Col. Sullivan: Yes, senator, it is. That is the air refuelling part, and the third point slipped my mind.
Senator Meighen: How large a contingent could you sustain on a continuing basis, given your other commitments?
Col. Sullivan: Well, that is that other question that torments us on a continuous basis. We train to do many things, but concurrent activity is our biggest challenge.
We can deploy a six-pack of CF-18s from Canada to go abroad and still maintain a fairly good, larger portion of our NORAD homeland defence commitment. We would not be able to satisfy the entire commitment, and some of these numbers are a little bit sensitive or classified, but if I may equate it to something, with a six-pack deployed abroad we could resume or go back to the same alert posture with aircraft deployed across Canada as we did for 14 months following 9/11. That will give you an idea that we can actually maintain a fairly good, significant portion of our homeland defence commitment, and we could sustain that indefinitely.
Senator Meighen: Senator Atkins just whispered a cheeky aside to me when you were talking about 450 support personnel and all that equipment.
In what would you carry it? I mean, do you drag it on a sled?
Col. Sullivan: Minister Graham was at Cold Lake just a little while ago, and I briefed him on these same issues, and he asked the exact same question.
At the present time, Canada does not have, within our own forces, a strategic airlift capability sufficient for such a huge deployment, but we have three options that are available to us: The most likely would be what we call the Antonov option, where we would bring in a commercial strategic carrier; number two would be our closest friend and ally, the Americans, who certainly have the strategic airlift, and if they made it available to us, then we could go forward; then the third option would be to any of our other allies, whether it be the British or the French or anybody that might want to come and assist us in deploying abroad.
Senator Meighen: Is there not a fourth alternative?
Col. Sullivan: Well, I was hoping that the fourth alternative someday would be our own, which would then move up to being our number one option.
Senator Meighen: You told Minister Graham that, I hope?
Col. Sullivan: Yes, senator, I did.
Senator Forrestall: How many do you need?
Col. Sullivan: How many? Well, to deploy an air expeditionary unit of 450 personnel — half of that is a squadron and the other half is all the other support people that go along with it, the cooks and all the engineers — we could move that AEU in approximately 14 Antonovs or 14 Antonov flights, so that gives you an idea.
It is a very large air movement, and depending on how quickly we could make those strategic airlift aircraft available, the personnel in Cold Lake are ready to move in a number of days, so as soon as the first aircraft arrives, we would start loading and start deploying.
The Chairman: That works out to 86 chalks and a Herc, right?
Col. Sullivan: Yes. In fact, senator, we have not computed it for a C-130.
The Chairman: Colonels, on behalf of the committee, I would like to thank you very much. It has been a very instructive hour and a half, and we do appreciate you coming down and assisting us in the course of our study. As you can see, we are on a learning curve here. You have added to our knowledge in a significant way, and we are very grateful to you for it.
Before you leave, I would ask you to take a message back to Cold Lake, to the men and women who serve there, that we are very proud of the work they do. We, as representatives from Parliament, are grateful to them for the service they provide the country, and if you could convey our gratitude and our pride on our behalf, we would appreciate it very much.
The committee adjourned.