Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
National Security and Defence
Issue 17 - Evidence, March 8, 2005 - Afternoon meeting
CALGARY, Tuesday, March 8, 2005
The Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence met this day at 12:53 p.m. to examine and report on the national security policy for Canada.
Senator Colin Kenny (Chairman) in the chair.
[English]
The Chairman: Good afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen. Welcome to the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence.
I would just start by introducing the committee. Senator Forrestall is out of the room briefly. He is the deputy chair of the committee. To my immediate right is Senator Jim Munson from Ontario. Beside him is Senator Meighen from Ontario, then Senator Pierre Claude Nolin de Quebec, Senator Jane Cordy from Nova Scotia and Senator Norm Atkins from Ontario.
Appearing before us this afternoon are two distinguished panellists, Dr. John Ferris and Dr. Stephen Randall.
Dr. Ferris is a Professor of History and a Fellow of the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary. He is an expert on international threats and conflicts, the formation of strategic policy, and the value and limits to intelligence and decision making.
Dr. Randall is a Professor of History at the University of Calgary. He is the Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences. He came to the University of Calgary in 1989 and is a specialist in United States foreign policy and Latin American international relations and politics. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada and holds the Grand Cross Order of Merit from the Presidency of Colombia. Dr. Randall served with the United Nations international elections supervision in Nicaragua in 1990, Cambodia in 1993, with the Organization of American States in El Salvador in 1991 and Venezuela in 1993, and with the Carter Presidential Centre in Jamaica in 1997 and Venezuela in 2004. He is the author, co-author, and editor or co-editor of a number of books.
Gentlemen, we welcome you both to the committee. We understand you both have brief statements to make. Who would like to proceed first?
Mr. Ferris, you have the floor.
Mr. John Ferris, Faculty of Social Sciences, International Relations Program, University of Calgary: Honourable senators, the approach we decided on was to consider what one possible future for the Canadian defence forces and for Canadian policy might be a few years from now. Operating on the assumption that the recently announced defence budget will be honoured for the next five years and also on the assumption that something like the defence policy being proposed by General Hillier will actually be followed, then, if that is the case over the next five years, there will be enough of an investment in the Canadian Forces that we will be back up to about 80 per cent of what our real defence expenditure was in 1989, taking inflation into account. I think using the correct treatment of investment in the Canadian Forces to give us an independent capability should be the first call on our resources. However, assuming that that happens, what will our circumstances be, if we create the capabilities without actually having a policy set up in the first place.
In a lot of ways the revival of our military forces in the past three years has been dominated by a kind of ad hoc response to American political pressure and to a sense on the part of Canadians that there are threats to our interests which we must somehow meet. Now Canadians are on the verge of developing a meaningful capability without a clear sense of why. What I think we would be well advised to do is ask a question like that.
In the past decade our problem to a large degree has been impotence. The new problem we will have will be to decide what do with some power, because we will have some power under our control. My own interpretation would be that, if we are given the defence budget we are talking about, we finally have the minimal amount of funding we need to meet a defence policy like that which in theory we were trying to follow in the middle 1990s. Because our military is unusual, or at least the army is unusual, in that it is built on an expeditionary-force basis — that is to say that we have always set it up so that we can send our forces somewhere else, then in a lot of ways the investments we are making, although not that great, will have a significant impact on the ability of our military to project some power overseas. In world terms, in fact, the capability we will have to project power outside our borders, as defined by soldiers, will be actually fairly large, although certainly much smaller than the American, British or French capability. When you move away from that level, in fact, the kind of deployable force for overseas intervention that we will have will actually be fairly sizeable in world terms. It may only be a few thousand trained men a year, but, in fact, a few thousand trained men a year is more or less the best the large European nations can do.
On the other hand, if it is a lot of power compared to other countries, it is also not necessarily a lot of power compared to the kinds of problems we might be called upon to tackle. If you think about it, for example, the Americans deployed, roughly speaking, 1,000 marines in Haiti; they kept them there on and off for a good many months; and yet I do not think any of us would say that American policy in Haiti actually was particularly successful. Haiti, although a small-scale problem, required a force level of about 1,000 men to really be able to play in that league. That, roughly speaking, means that we will really not be able to consider intervening in more than one or two crises at a time in the world.
Now, the theory that General Hillier has put forward on many occasions goes something like this: He defines Canada's role as being an attempt to help stabilize the world. In some ways, what he is putting forward is a line of policy that, if you like, is like the realist side of the liberal internationalist school in Canada — the Michael Ignatieffs, the Arthur Kents. What he is saying is that it is a good thing for Canada to be able to help stabilize the world by dealing with crises in many places, ranging from Rwanda to Haiti, and so on.
According to General Hillier, there are many states that have failed or are in the process of failing and will collapse. He puts forward the argument that the Canadian military has to be able to help these failed states from collapsing, because, if they collapse, that will then be a problem for all of us. His argument is that we need to be able to be involved in what counterinsurgency theorists call a ``three-bloc war'' — in other words, a situation in which you try to deal with political, military and social issues simultaneously.
Canada may well be moving into a position where we have that capability. Clearly, that kind of capability would fit into a Pearsonian foreign policy; it would fit into the kind of policy that many Canadians on the left are actually fairly comfortable with; but there are a lot of questions that we also have to ask, if that is the case. Will Canadians be happy to be intervening in other countries? Is this a kind of liberal internationalism more than a kind of neo-colonialism? Are Canadians willing to pay the price in terms of casualties for this kind of involvement? Can we actually seriously be involved in a policy of nation building? Will we drift into a situation where we end up being something like a boy scout in a three-bloc war?
The point that I would like most to raise and discuss is this: We probably will build capabilities that mean we can do something in the world. We will no longer just be talking big; we will actually be in a situation to do something. If that is the case, what is that ``something'' that we want to do with our forces? What are our interests? How do we want to use our power to further them? With that, I will pass it over to Stephen.
Mr. Stephen J. Randall, Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Calgary: Thank you very much, John.
Good afternoon, honouable senators. Bonjour. I am from Ontario originally, but I lived in Quebec for a long time and now I live here in Calgary.
I have organized my thoughts, and this very short presentation, around three areas, or questions. I know the committee has been particularly interested in: What are the threats and vulnerabilities that concern or perhaps should concern Canadians currently? What are our national interests? Why do we need a military?
Let me touch very briefly on those, and then I will touch as well on NORAD and NATO, and so on, in the course of my comments.
I do not think there is much doubt that policy makers and academics have acquired a much more subtle and nuanced understanding of what constitutes threats to national security in the last 20 years. This is particularly true in the post-Cold War environment, where the threat of nuclear catastrophe has faded. It has not entirely disappeared. Traditional defence issues and the threat of conventional war should obviously remain critical factors in the development of any Canadian defence policy. They have to be there.
There is, however, a wide range of other factors that generally academics, at least, would view as threats to Canadian national security. Clearly, these factors include terrorism, about which we clearly need to have a discussion; internal subversion, as opposed to an external threat of terrorism; narcotics and the organized criminal activities that are associated with illegal narcotics industries and trafficking; immigration and migration pressures that result from civil strife elsewhere in the world; environmental degradation that threatens the health of Canadians; natural disasters — and of course the tsunami situation in Southeast Asia a case in point; threats to borders, which all of us became acutely aware of after the 9/11 attacks on the United States.
Not all of those threats require direct military response, but some of them do. I think the challenge for Canadian defence considerations is to find the nuanced balance between conventional threats to Canadian national security and some of the, shall we say, softer responses and more-difficult-to-determine responses to threats to national security. That really is the challenge for Canadian defence considerations. These are very complex issues, obviously.
I think it should be very evident from those comments that I do believe it is in the Canadian national interest to promote the resolution of international conflicts, insofar as possible, through the promotion of economic, social and political development strategies, as opposed to simply a military one. The promotion of a stable, peaceful world order, in which civil strife, poverty, disease, illiteracy and oppression are minimized, is clearly in the interest of all Canadians.
That is part of the national interest about which you are asking. It is also obviously in the interest of all Canadians, I would argue, that Canadian political, economic and social institutions be adequately defended at home against threats of internal subversion or, indeed, international terrorism. The promotion and survival of the Canadian state and way of life is, after all, in the final analysis, the ultimate test of any successful national defence policy. Any analyst of foreign and defence policy will conclude that it is the protection of the core values of any society that lies at the heart of any national defence policy. That is what national security policy is all about.
Let me be a little more specific on the role of the military and the importance of Canada's current military alliances. The first is the case of NATO. I think we all recognize that there are some concerns, not just in Canada but internationally, by the changing world order and the changing role that NATO has played in the post-cold world war and also the implications of the changing composition of NATO in the post-Cold War as well.
There is little doubt that questions do need to be asked about the relevance and value of, as well as some of the hazards associated with, Canadian membership in NATO. It has changed significantly. As one of the questions you have posed asks: Does NATO have the moral legitimacy to support interventions around the world? Well, likely not. Not the moral legitimacy. Does it have the power to do so? Yes, it does. Power does not necessarily give moral legitimacy, however. That is quite a different phenomenon. What I think is important here from the Canadian perspective is not NATO per se, but rather the importance of multilateralism in terms of the Canadian international role of multilateralism versus what I think has been the U.S. inclination toward unilateralism for the past 25 years and probably more.
The current situation in Afghanistan, to give you an example, is illustrative of the positive role that Canada can play, working within the international community, in the case of Afghanistan, as part of a much larger international force. Thus, while there are certain problems with an expanded NATO, which I think we all recognize, the principle of multilateral defence which NATO symbolizes is one that I think is critically important for Canada to continue to be associated with.
Canada, I believe, should continue its membership. It should do so on a cautious basis, guarding against any use of NATO by member states to resolve largely internal conflicts. I think we all recognize that there are concerns in that regard. Let me quote to you from the NATO Alliance's strategic concept which was approved in 1999 by the heads of state and government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Washington. I think the statement captures this sentiment extremely well:
The dangers of the Cold War have given way to more promising, but also challenging prospects, to new opportunities and risks. A new Europe of greater integration is emerging, and a Euro-Atlantic security structure is evolving in which NATO plays a central part.
I think that statement is fundamentally correct. It is absolutely critical for us to continue to be part of that. Do we want an alliance that involves Europe and the United States without Canadian involvement? I think that would be a disaster for the Canadian interest. The statement goes on to say:
The alliance has been at the heart of efforts to establish new patterns of cooperation and mutual understanding across the Euro-Atlantic region and has committed itself to essential new activities in the interest of wider stability.
I think that in itself makes it much more incumbent on Canada to play an active role, even if it is a cautious role, in the NATO environment.
Then we come to NORAD. There is, of course, considerable speculation about whether or not the recent decision of the Canadian government not to participate with the United States in the ballistic missile defence system will compromise the capacity of Canada to play an important role in NORAD, or to continue to play an important role; and, frankly, there is the potential to compromise a number of other issues in the Canadian-American relationship. Regardless of that broader debate, I think it is clearly in the Canadian interest to continue to make the bilateral defence relationship with the United States work, and to work successfully, however one does that.
Clearly, NORAD retains its importance, even though the main strategic threats to North America are unlikely to come in the form of conventional nuclear missile attacks. Is it anarchistic? No. Nonetheless, the conventional definition of NORAD's role in the Cold War period obviously has to evolve.
There is considerable legitimacy to the criticism of the United States for an overemphasis on the threat posed directly to North America by such rogue states as North Korea or Iran — Iraq having been taken out of the equation — or frankly from other nuclear states such as South Africa, Israel, Pakistan or India. There is little threat to the North American environment of a conventional nature from those states. That does not mean they are not security threats, but their primary threats are not to the United States and Canada, but to their immediate and regional neighbours and also to the destabilization that their nuclear capacity presents to the global order.
On the specific issue of whether or not NORAD should be modified next year, when it is renewed, I think the answer is affirmative. I think we do need to look very carefully at the precise role that NORAD plays in North American air defence, aerospace defence, even more strongly so in light of the Canadian decision not to participate in missile defence. It is absolutely essential that we find an effective role for Canada within the North American defence system.
Finally, with respect to Canadian military capacity, and to pick up to some extent on what John has already alluded to, the Canadian mission in Afghanistan, to use that example, is indicative of what Canadian Forces can do when well- trained and well-equipped. The Canadian military does need to be of sufficient strength and flexibility to fulfill the kind of peace-building, if not peacemaking, role it has engaged in in the past — the Pearsonian vision that John alluded to, the peace-building effort in which it is engaged in in Afghanistan and which it engaged in in the Central East European context a few years ago. At the same time, it must have the capacity to provide effective coastal border and air defence for Canada within the North American environment.
The precise size of the military and the precise nature of the technology that would be required to provide optimum defence capability in those areas is something that I would leave to those who, like John, are more expert on the technology side than I am.
The Chairman: Before we go to Senator Nolin, who is the lead questioner on this panel, Dr. Ferris, I just have a point of clarification with you. Did I understand you correctly to say that you felt that with the recent budget the army is adequately funded?
Mr. Ferris: No. What I am saying is that, if we go through the next five years and the money is put through in the way the budget proposes, my sense is that the army will actually be able to maintain at full establishment level the units it has; and that, in turn, means that it will be able at a minimal level to further the kind of foreign policy that we attempted to pursue in the 1990s. I personally think that you need more expenditure than this, but this is enough for us to actually be able to have a meaningful presence. Beyond that, the real problem is that it does nothing for the air force or the navy. We have looming problems of block obsolescence coming up 10 to 20 years from now in both those cases.
The Chairman: Well, I think some members of this committee would argue that we have obsolescence now. We reviewed the impact statements on each of the environments just in the past month and for the last fiscal year. If you totalled up the three environments, they were short by $720 million. If you looked at the Canadian Forces across the board, it was short by $1.2 billion. We saw $500 million in new money, but the claw back of several hundred million dollars.
We also noticed that there was zero for capital expenditures this year and next year. The first significant bump up was three years out. Then in years four and five, where there was a suggestion that there was serious money, it was subject to a base review, which leads us to believe that anybody counting on anything beyond year one is smoking something they should share with us.
Mr. Ferris: I would not disagree with you. If that is the case, then we are in a catastrophic situation. At the moment, I am simply saying for the purposes of argument that, if they actually do what they are proposing — and I agree that all of the expenditure comes in fourth or fifth year — we will be in the position I have suggested.
The Chairman: Well, I guess I am concerned about the premise of your argument. Tell me who is in government and for how long.
Mr. Ferris: Oh, I accept that point.
Senator Nolin: Good afternoon to both of you. Thank you very much for accepting our invitation.
You have already touched on my first question referring to our national interest and threats. I want to stay on the macro level and after that I will go into more specific questions.
There has been a lot of discussion on the three Ds approach for our foreign policy review: development, diplomacy and defence. What role do both of you see the Canadian Forces playing in that three D approach to foreign policy?
Mr. Ferris: What do you mean by ``three D approach,'' so I am clear?
Senator Nolin: The three Ds are development, diplomacy and defence.
Mr. Ferris: If, indeed, the government really wanted to follow that approach, it would make a good deal of sense. Indeed, I would say that, if you do not follow the three Ds approach you will not be able to actually have a strategic ability to interfere in any place where there are problems or a government cannot function. In that sense, defence is absolutely fundamental to making it work.
My own view would be that you can make the three Ds approach fit into a Pearsonian vision of Canada's role in the world. You could certainly then ensure that Canada as an independent entity was actually able to exercise a beneficial influence in problem areas for the good of Canada and the world order. I must say that actually, if it were to be honoured, it would be a rational foreign policy. The problem at the moment is that it is actually not capable of being done. If you do not have somewhat more resources on the defence side, then it will remain wishful thinking. If you are willing to follow the line of argument that the government has put forward in the recent budget, then you could make it work several years down the line. In that case the Canadian government could quite legitimately say, ``We are good global citizens. We see problems. We want to help solve them. We actually have the means to help solve them.'' It could say that, as against our simply throwing our hands up in the air and saying, ``Oh, gee, it is too bad that the world is the way it is.''
Senator Nolin: Dr. Randall?
Mr. Randall: If I could follow up, I hope it was quite clear from my presentation that I think the three Ds approach is absolutely essential. I agree fully with John Ferris's remarks. Depending on the particular region in which one is working, without the military capacity to be credible we are not credible. We do not have the capacity to really do the other two Ds in an effective way, the diplomacy and the development.
Military capacity in the context of Afghanistan, or in the Kosovo-Bosnia-Herzegovina context, for example, is absolutely critical, just as it was in Rwanda, although there are other variables there that did not work terribly well as we unfortunately know. I think the three Ds approach is consistent with Canadian tradition on the whole, in combination and particularly with a focus on diplomacy and development; but we are not credible in many respects on the military level — and it is not simply because Paul Cellucci daily reminds us of this fact. We are simply not, in many respects, credible on the military level.
A few years ago John Hemery, who was then, as I recall, the highest civilian ranking individual in the Department of Defence, gave a couple of presentations in Calgary in which he articulated a very sustained critique of soft power and a few security issues. I do not agree with all of his critique, but, in the final analysis, he said, the only thing that really counts are boots on the ground. You cannot be effective diplomatically, or effective in terms of development strategy, unless you have the power to back it up.
Much as I find it distasteful on one level to agree with him, he is, I think, absolutely correct. It is certainly the case in Afghanistan. It certainly would have been the case, if we were in Iraq. Happily we are not. It certainly was the case in the context of Kosovo-Bosnia-Herzegovina a few years ago.
Senator Nolin: Dr. Ferris, you co-authored a paper called ``National Defence, National Interest: Sovereignty, Security, and Canadian Military Capability in the Post 9/11 World.'' That paper suggests that Canada must invest in the area of military power for a comparative advantage. I have a series of questions. Why? Which areas in particular? Are you advocating that the Canadian military look for niche roles to perform in support of the U.S. and other allies?
Mr. Ferris: Oddly enough, the proposal that is put forward by General Hillier would fit in with my general definition, although my general definition is also broad enough that many liberal internationalists might agree with it too. My view is that Canadians have demonstrated an ability to deal with certain kinds of political problems through the use of force, which not many military forces can do. Maybe only the British and the Australians really are capable of dealing with those things as well as we are.
That being the case, it does us good to use an area where we are actually better than other people are, because it allows us to trade off what we can do for things that other people do for us; so my own sense would be that this is the kind of approach, if properly funded. If it is not funded, it is not an approach at all.
Senator Nolin: Which areas?
Mr. Ferris: I would say, first of all, building up your ability to project land power to a small country which is undergoing some kind of internal trauma. If you are unable to play with at least 1,000 trained soldiers, you are not able to play at all. You also have to have the means for units to train in Canada. You also have to have a way for people to have a normal life back home. So, in other words, you need lots of other forces to rotate in and out. You need the means to get those forces there, which means probably some kind of sea lift capability. Airlift is more expensive, but I think you can still make a strong case for it. You also need some kind of lethal fire power at your disposal so that you can show people that they cannot simply up the ante and open fire on your troops as a means of breaking out of whatever kind of political objectives you are pursuing.
Under those circumstances, I think we could do the kinds of things the French are doing in portions of Africa, or that the British are doing. We would then be able to have some impact, a decent impact, on the world and also on the peoples of a given area. On the other hand, given the limits to our resources — and also the limits to Canadian willingness to be involved abroad, I do not think that we could hope realistically to try to take on one of the bigger- scale problems.
In other words, my general theoretical approach is that what General Hillier is pursuing is a reasonably rational use of limited Canadian resources.
Senator Nolin: The paper you co-authored suggests that the U.S.-driven revolution in military affairs — essentially, the idea that changes in technology can revolutionize armed forces, power and war — poses a risk to Canada. Can you be more specific on that?
Mr. Ferris: The risks that are posed are there in the sense that, if the Americans actually are able to transform the meaning of military power, then what that means to small states and middle-sized states is that either they dramatically ramp up their expenses, compete with the Americans and build the means to compete in this new area, or else they fall away.
The reason why that matters to us is that the Canadian military historically over the past 60 years has maintained substantial naval and air forces, which, in fact, at the moment are able to speak to the Americans and to participate with them, and that makes us unusual in the world. If the Americans were to continue ramping up the revolution of military affairs, they would force us either to funnel our resources into ramping up so that we could continue to talk to them or else to lose that ability.
What I said in that paper was that, historically, if you look at the Dreadnought revolution of the first decade of the 20th century — the revolutionizing or modernizing of the battleship — some of the victims were actually unintended. Up until the Dreadnought revolution there were lots of small and middle-sized states with small and middle-sized navies, which, in fact, mattered a lot. Once the Dreadnought revolution was carried through, those navies could not compete. They fell by the wayside. They ceased to matter in terms of naval power. So, in other words, if the Americans were to pursue this approach whole-heartedly, it would pose dangers for us, as well as forcing us to ask a very tough question: Are we willing to raise our defence expenditure? If we are not willing to raise it, how will we use it? Are we going to meet the RMA, the revolution in military affairs, or are we going to maintain some kind of means to project our power overseas? If we make only one of those work, the other one will suffer. Frankly, unless we are willing to raise defence expenditures far more than the government is talking about, I doubt that we have much to gain from the RMA.
Senator Nolin: Dr. Randall, in your book Canada & The United States: Ambivalent Allies, you agree that, while the Canada-U.S. relationship is generally cooperative, it is also conflictual both in its details and in some of its fundamentals. Could you expand on what you mean by that?
Mr. Randall: Yes, but very briefly, obviously, since we spent a few hundred pages trying to look at this. I think the most recent decision on ballistic missile defence is a reflection of divergent value systems in the two societies.
Senator Nolin: Down to the fundamentals?
Mr. Randall: I think there is a fundamental difference between the two societies in the way in which we approach defence issues. Canada has been, as you well know, in two world wars and in Korea. It has shown the capacity to gear up for major war and to do so in an extremely credible manner; but it is a considerably less militaristic society than is the United States by any measure that one could possibly use. I think the fact that the current ambassador to Canada from the United States has to consistently remind us of the fact that we are not a very militaristic society, that we need to spend a great deal more on the military, if we are going to carry our weight in the world as well as in the North Atlantic environment and in the continental environment, is a reflection of the fact that Canada has taken a very different path over the last 50 years or more. I think that is a fundamental difference between the two societies.
John Ferris mentioned a moment ago, and I think he is 100 per cent correct, that in many respects the defence budget is a reflection of Canadian values. We have not shown ourselves in peace time — whether we should or not is another question — as willing to spend what are perceived to be inordinate amounts of money on military build-up.
There is also, I think, a high degree of suspicion of the motivation and the direction of U.S. military and foreign policy as it has developed over the last several years, and particularly with respect to the current Bush administration. That feeling is not unique to Canada. You simply have to listen to what the Europeans have been saying in the last four years about the U.S. direction in defence and foreign policy as well.
I have just come back from the Ditchley Foundation Conference held in Oxfordshire last week. It was dominated by the Europeans, the British, French and Germans. In spite of the fact that there was some genuflection to Condaleeza Rice's and George Bush's visit to Europe and the somewhat polite overture to Europe to resource the trans-Atlantic relationship, there is a high degree of skepticism among European countries over the direction of the United States' foreign policy and its defence policy and its approach to international terrorism as well as to conventional defence issues.
I have, however, digressed from your question.
Senator Nolin: That is a good line, because I was intending to lead into that.
Mr. Randall: Oh, good.
Senator Nolin: You have raised the NATO question, and that is probably where we can play a role.
Mr. Randall: I think the basic answer to your question is that Canadian emphasis on human security, on soft power, on peacekeeping and peace building, as opposed to making war, has been, to some extent, by necessity, because we are too weak to do the opposite; but it is also a reflection on Canadian values. They happen to be Canadian values that I personally share as well.
Senator Nolin: But the fact is that we are not spending as heavily as the Americans — and, by the way, can they sustain the intensity of the spending? In some quarters a great many people doubt that they can sustain that kind of spending, but that is beside the point. Let us assume that what they want they will do, and accept the fact that the Europeans are looking at them with suspicion. Nevertheless, the day after, we will still be the neighbour of that big country. So do you see in that geography a positive role for Canada? Of course, I have in mind NATO.
Mr. Randall: Yes. I think I said in the presentation that I feel that Canada's role in NATO is extremely important to maintain. We have to be part of the Euro-trans-Atlantic relationship on a military, a political and, indeed, an economic level, in the same sense that we need to maintain the NORAD relationship as well.
Suspicion is one thing; non-collaboration is something else. We do not have to agree with the United States on everything. Indeed, we should not probably agree on everything; but we do have an extremely important bilateral relationship. I also think the European relationship is extremely important for Canada to maintain, and frankly for the United States to maintain as well.
Senator Cordy: Just to continue along that line, certainly, we have that conflict, and I agree with you that it stems partly from the value system of Canadians; Canadians are, for the most part, delighted that we are not in Iraq, just to cite one example. Ballistic missile defence is probably about as divisive an issue as one could get in talking to Canadians. Nonetheless, we have made that decision.
On the one hand, we have great ties with the United States. We have geographical ties, historical ties, economic ties, and so on. On the other, how do we go about solving issues like the missile problem? The Americans obviously were not happy with our ballistic missile defence stance. They were not happy with our stance on Iraq. Because we are neighbours, do we just have to agree to disagree on these things? Is that the way it will work?
Mr. Randall: It is a difficult question, and there is not a simple answer to it, I do not think, but let me give you several responses to that. The first is that regardless of whatever we do that alienates the United States, we have to find other ways to continue to collaborate. If we make a negative decision on ballistic missile defence, then we have to find a way to work more effectively within NORAD with a revised NORAD. We have to find a way to work effectively on smart border issues for example. We have to find a way to demonstrate that, if we are not prepared to collaborate on ballistic missile defence, then we will do something about the issue of perimeter defence through the use of more conventional forces.
On one level, the bottom line is, of course, that there is no proof that the ballistic missile defence system would ever work or that, indeed, the real threat would come from ballistic missiles. However, that is another issue and there is no point in our revisiting that particular debate here.
I guess the next point I would make is that the Canadian-American relationship on an economic level is so important to both countries — to the United States as well — that, even when we make negative decisions that have potential consequences of a negative nature, the day-to-day bilateral relationship will continue, the cross-border trade will continue, the collaboration in the manufacturing and potentially in the agricultural areas will continue. Obviously, some areas of friction will also continue, whether they happen to be softwood lumber, BSE and meat exports from various provinces or a range of other issues. That is simply the nature of the bilateral relationship, it seems to me.
Strictly on the defence-related issues, as John said, we have to be in a position technologically where we are able to talk to the Americans on a technological level in the military sector. We cannot lose that capacity. We have to be able to work in an integrated way, especially where naval and air forces are concerned.
I think John has said this extremely well already. How do we fix the situation? We are dealing with an administration south of the border that tends to be hard-line in approach, potentially very vindictive in many respects, and highly ideological in its orientation. We simply have to work around that in order to maintain an effective working relationship with the United States. Ours is the most important relationship to the United States, and it has to be maintained. That does not mean that we cannot make decisions that Canadians feel are in the Canadian national interest.
However, I think it is open to question whether a decision that was made was a political decision based on particular values or was a military decision that made sound military sense. Those are two very different issues, it seems to me. I think you will find considerable division, and already have heard considerable division, on that issue.
Senator Cordy: True. Absolutely. You spoke in your opening comments about our effective role with the United States regarding the defence of North America; and you certainly touched on that in your comments in answer to questions. Certainly, we have heard a great deal of talk about the defence of North America, particularly since 9/11. You mentioned having to work together on technology, on things like the smart-border issue. Are those the kinds of things we work on in assuming our role in protecting or in defence of North America, or do you see it going beyond that?
Mr. Randall: Those are critical features. They obviously relate to things like narcotics trafficking and illegal immigration pressures, which potentially are a threat to national security on a very different level from missile threats, obviously. I think a good argument can be made that the real threats to national security in North America will not come from missiles; hence, a very expensive missile defence system will not address those threats. For instance, imagine an individual with a nuclear bomb in a suitcase. That requires not just military defence, but a very sophisticated intelligence operation.
Mr. Ferris can comment much more effectively on this than I, but an intelligence system in close collaboration with the United States and, as well, very effective police collaboration around the border in a wide range of areas are the things that we actually have. I think we have a good, effective, day-to-day working relationship with the United States. That fact is often lost sight of when we talk about something that is kind of on the broader umbrella level, like ballistic missile defence. There is a day-to-day collaboration on the military, police, and intelligence level that is absolutely critical to our bilateral relationship. In other words, staying away from economic issues for the time being, it is the border, perimeter defence and intelligence.
Senator Cordy: Dr. Ferris, are we receiving good, strong intelligence that our military can use? It is not just our military, I guess, because there are departments other than the Department of National Defence that use intelligence.
Mr. Ferris: I think the first thing that I would say is that the military dimension of this is narrower than the security dimension, by far. It is absolutely essential that Canada never be perceived by the Americans as a threat to their national security. It is also absolutely essential that we never do anything that we think is wrong in order to appease the Americans. It is in the middle ground between those two imperatives that we have to formulate our own policy.
What I would say about the American military is that, in fact, the American military, especially the personnel who have to deal with Canadian Forces, actually are well disposed to Canada. The Republican party is less well disposed to Canada, strangely enough, than American military figures are. That is in part because, when it comes to relations between our military and theirs, often Canadians can actually provide useful assistance to their military people.
Now, on the intelligence side, we are playing catch up. The difficulties in many ways are that there are big differences in attitudes towards a lot of issues that can usually strain the way in which security or intelligence services can operate, leaving aside, as well, the fact that we do not have complete parallels with the Americans. The CSE or our signals intelligence organization is well linked to the NSA. CSIS is probably fairly well linked to the FBI, although within the American system itself the FBI actually is often more marginalized and alienated.
There are big areas in which we have no organization that can cooperate with an American organization. The issue of how much information they will give us depends to some degree on how much information we give them. One of the reasons CSA works is that we have been able to provide the Americans with lots of important, useful, data which means that we have something to trade with. CSIS or the RCMP clearly have something to trade with their American opposite numbers. There are large dimensions of security intelligence, or intelligence as a whole, where the Americans do not have opposite numbers to turn to.
Finally, on the purely military side, Canada is in fact, or was until recently, in the inner ring of foreign countries with which the Americans are willing to provide information, and because of NORAD I think we were actually tied with the Brits for being in the inner ring.
So there are lots of areas where we have done fairly well, but the room for problems is significant. I personally foresee serious problems emerging here, because the Americans' sense of insecurity, combined with our sense of the limits to which we are willing to pursue security, leaves room for lots and lots of friction. I think we are just beginning to see some instances of it.
Senator Cordy: Our committee is looking at defence policy; what should we say about intelligence gathering by the Canadian government, and how would we then generalize it?
Mr. Ferris: I think what we need to say is that Canada must be in control of all intelligence gathering done in Canada and that Canada itself must control its own independent intelligent agencies that meet the need of the Canadian state. That I think means that we seriously have to consider whether we will expand our foreign intelligence gathering. It also means that we have to seriously consider the importance of intelligence as a product and as an institution in the centre of Ottawa. So there are areas where we do have to seriously consider changes, because the danger is very simple. If the Americans feel insecure, they will look after themselves.
Canada has always been impelled, historically, to do certain things in order to preempt the Americans. I do think on the security and intelligence side that this is an area where we actually are facing much more pressure than we are with respect to BMD.
Senator Meighen: I will be very brief. What I am taking away from this conversation is that we can cover off, at least from the American perspective, a lot of perceived failings on our part in the strictly military area if we can concentrate and improve on our showing, if you will, on border matters and intelligence and the like. I tend to subscribe to that. There is nothing that makes the Americans more nervous than that border. The fact that containers come in at Halifax and get on a train and go to Chicago, with few people, if anybody, looking at them or machines inspecting them, et cetera, makes them very nervous. I think at a relatively reasonable cost we could probably satisfy them on that level.
Turning to the strictly military side of things, we heard early on in this committee about the technological gap. It was kind of a given that the gap is the gap and we will not close it. Nobody can afford to close it. The Americans are just too far ahead of everybody else. I would like your comments on that.
One or both of you said that we have to be able talk to the Americans. I believe it was you, Dr. Ferris. We have to be able to talk to the Americans. I assume you meant that in a technological sense. We could not talk that well, I guess, during the Kosovo operation with our CF-18s, although that situation has been rectified. Can we afford to be able to talk to them technologically or is there a certain level where we have to draw the line? We can talk up to a certain level, and then after that they will have to talk to themselves, because nobody can afford to play in that league. Obviously with their military technology, it is hard to see who can stand up to them in a traditional type of warfare.
With Iraq, they sure as heck won the war, but they sure as heck are having a pretty difficult time winning the peace.
Can we devise an army that can play a useful role, leaving aside for the moment the question of the gap, which I know you will address, but can we devise a military and afford a military that can participate in the type of operations you mentioned earlier, of going into failed states and doing our job there, and at the same time perhaps succeeding to a greater extent in winning the peace than the Americans are seemingly able to do.
Mr. Ferris: There is no doubt at all that the Americans have found actual policing, which the British would have called imperial policing, very hard to do. That is not really a particular surprise, for what it is worth.
Senator Meighen: Just to them, is it not?
Mr. Ferris: They did not think they were going to have to fight this kind of war.
Senator Meighen: Surprise.
Mr. Ferris: Certainly, if you read what the marine corps, or American military officers or army officers dealing with this sort of thing were writing before the war, they do not regard this as an area where the Americans are strong. My own view would be that the revolution in military affairs has multiplied American power where they were strong and done absolutely nothing to help them where they were weak.
Now, to answer two different questions. First, yes, there is no reason why we cannot have an army that is capable of solving significant problems and doing so better than the Americans. I mean, generally speaking, our army has in fact been quite good. Like the Australians and British, we can actually fight well on the field of battle, as well as being effective in counterinsurgency operations or peacekeeping, however loosely you want to use that term, and do so fairly well.
The bigger problem is how do you talk to the Americans? The real issue is how far the Americans will go. After their experience in the 2003 war, Australian and British military personnel and officers were writing very clearly that, from their point of view, they could barely keep up with Americans in terms of C4, command, control, communication, computers and intelligence. Their own belief was that, if the Americans continued to ramp things up, they would not be able to continue to talk to them.
For what it is worth, like Senator Nolin, I am not actually convinced that the Americans can go on ramping up those expenses. I think that we will see a levelling off of their investments. If that is the case, that will reduce some of the pressure.
The real problem I foresee for the Canadian military in the next 10 to 15 years will be this: The navy and the air force at the moment are capable of talking to the Americans. In fact, the navy can participate effectively with American forces. On the other hand, their equipment is clearly obsolescent now and there is no reason to believe that they will be replacing that equipment, whether electronics, hulls or hardware, in the next 10 to 15 years. Their ability to continue talking to Americans is essential to their ability to participate with Americans; there is no question about that. All we can do is hope that the Americans do not ramp up their average level of C4 to the point that we cannot speak to them, because if the Americans do that then we actually lose the ability, unless there is expensive complete re-equipment of our air force and navy to actually participate with the Americans.
Senator Meighen: We and everybody else, I suspect.
Mr. Ferris: It is possible that the British may be able to make the investments in a small number of forces. I do not know that very many other countries will be able to; so we are not certainly unusual here.
Mr. Randall: John, I think, has addressed the strictly technological dimension in terms of the capacity to interact technologically with the Americans. I have just a couple of quick comments.
On the issue of the budget deficit in the United States, there is a strong divergence of view on this within the United States as you know. The comment has been made that the deficit represents only 3 per cent of GDP, and, you know, we are all Canadians so who cares. I have heard very prominent economists in Washington make that argument. That is a frightening consideration, especially in a province that is now largely debt free. I am not sure what we have been doing for the last ten years, if it was not important.
Nonetheless, there are some technological areas where Canada could justify considerably more investment. As we have all been told, our airlift capacity is pathetic. Our ability to move forces rapidly in the global environment is not at the level that it needs to be if we want to be significant players internationally; and even a pacifist society like ours could enhance its capacity.
My understanding from members of the Canadian Forces who have been in Afghanistan is that, technologically, the Coyote, for instance, has been a great success. Moving in a similar direction with other areas of technology, about which John knows much more than I, is the kind of thing we need to do. We will not be able to compete with or match the Americans on every level, and there is no sense in trying, but there are certain levels where we obviously have to make improvements.
My sense from Cambodia in 1993, for example, just as a comparison with the French, is that the quality of the equipment that the French troops had was superior to that of the Canadian Forces. They had armoured personnel carriers and they had heavier weapons at their availability, while the Canadian Forces were really quite ill-equipped for the task at hand. We cannot send our forces into international conflicts where potentially they are at risk, at least in that manner. The same was true obviously in Central Eastern Europe ten years ago.
Senator Meighen: I am sure you know that we have been cautioned by any number of people about the dangers of trying to play a niche role, because, among other reasons, we might choose the wrong niche, and there we would be left. You are skirting around the edge of a niche there and I hear you. I suspect that you are crying your eyes out about the fact that we do not have an aircraft carrier or tanks or main battle tanks. We are clearly losing that latter capacity. There may be, I suppose, some other areas.
Is there equipment or abilities or capacities that our forces should have, particularly the army I am thinking of, if we are likely to play an increasingly important role in the stabilization of societies and failed states? For instance, should we concentrate on linguistic skills? I take for granted that they have to be combat-capable soldiers. Over and above that, should there be linguistics skills, should there be particular types of equipment? What should there be as opposed to traditional army skills?
Mr. Ferris: There has to be enough mobile lethal fire power that Canadian soldiers always have the upper hand, if they have to go to the highest levels of force that are available, because if you do not have that then you are automatically inviting the other side to escalate. You, in other words, have to have the low level equivalent of a nuclear bomb. Now, that probably means helicopters and it probably means Coyotes. So if you have those two, you are probably doing fairly well.
Now, beyond that, the soft skills that you are talking about are absolutely fundamental to any kind of peacekeeping, nation building, imperial policing and doing counterinsurgency. It is important that we recognize that you need to have those things. It is actually harder to prepare for it than you would think, especially if you are talking about a small country like our own. The way British and French imperial policing worked was that they had political officers on their frontier, or in their system, who already, in theory, knew the local languages, knew something about local customs and could, in effect, handle that interface.
If you do not have that equivalent, then for Canadians it is a very dicey question. How do you predict where you will have to go? Do you need somebody who speaks Spanish? Do you need somebody who speaks an African language, or whatever language you can imagine? I think it is more important that the system understand the need for this kind of human personnel to handle important functions than it is for us to try to prepare for it, because I do not think there is any realistic way that we can actually prepare enough people to ensure that every time we go into a crisis we will be ready.
Mr. Randall: I think John has said it very well. Cultural sensitivity training and cultural skills, whether they are linguistic or something other, are absolutely critical, but they are not the primary responsibility of the military. I think we do a better job than many other countries in the world in this regard. I think Afghanistan is a very good case in point. Some of the events in Kosovo-Bosnia-Herzegovina demonstrated that as well. I think we do a better job than the United States does in terms of the aftermath of actual fighting — in other words, the winning of the peace. It is not necessarily the same people who need to do both tasks; of course that is a different matter. I think John's point is absolutely fundamental, that Canada has to have the capacity to have mobile lethal fire power at air and ground level to achieve its objectives, and it has to have the equipment that is sufficient to achieve those goals. The sensitivity, the cultural sensitivity training and so on, I think, is a contextual part of that, but it is not key.
The Chairman: Just to clarify a couple of points, Dr. Ferris, did you suggest earlier that, given a choice between cutting the military cloth to fit the funding and describing the military that Canada needs, you thought we would be better served by cutting the cloth?
Mr. Ferris: If we were to have the defence policy that I would advocate, it would be, at the minimum, the one that the current government is advocating, and then I would increase expenditures by another 20 per cent. My aim would actually be to do with the army what they are talking about and then to ensure that the air force and the navy could be maintained at least at the relative position they are in right now. In other words, I think that the minimal investment in the army that has been advocated is enough for us to meet the justifiable foreign policy.
On the other hand, if the government is unwilling to raise its defence budget above what it is talking about, then I actually think the best solution is the one that General Hillier is advocating, which is to get the army up to a tolerable level, let the air force and the navy starve it out for 15 or 20 years and hope that before they die of starvation you are actually able to salvage them. Personally, I think that is a very bad policy and I would say that they must be spending much more than they are.
The Chairman: Well, I am still confused with your premise, because with the current level of funding the army cannot do what it is expected to do. The army and navy are already at starvation levels. You know, frankly, you are talking a language I do not understand.
Mr. Ferris: When I began talking I was going on the assumption that within five years they will be receiving what the government is talking about right now. As to the navy and air force, they can in fact, without necessarily wanting to do so, keep their present air frames and hulls going for a few years longer than they are suggesting. I am not at all implying that that is a desirable thing. I am simply saying that they can just, if barely, eke it out for a few years longer.
I do not think we disagree over the specific issue of whether they need a lot more money now. Yes, they need a lot more money now. I do not think I have said anything other than that.
The Chairman: Well, I certainly have to take issue with you about stretching out the life span of the air frames. The pilots will not be able to fly the planes, because they will not be getting the flying hours they need. You and I just seem to be on a different planet, when I hear you describe it like this, because they are not getting the funding they need. The funding you are talking about is dreamland funding that is to be out five years from now, and this from a minority government. I do not understand why you come before us and talk about it as though it is real money. It is not.
Mr. Ferris: My argument was along the lines of asking, if we assume that they will make that investment, what situation we will be in. I think it is actually important to try to think of where we will be, if certain levels of investment are made.
The Chairman: We are sitting here struggling with a defence review. So far the government has not made its mark yet in terms of when it will produce it. This committee has sat through four defence ministers that have been promising defence reviews and none of them have delivered yet. We look at a budget that is significantly under the last fiscal year's impact statement requirements. In order to be of assistance to this committee as it is moving forward, we are looking for advice on how best to go.
There certainly is a school of thought that says that this government will never fund — in fact, no government will ever fund — the Canadian military in an appropriate way. It is not the Canadian thing to do. There is another school of thought that says, no, that, if you ask them and badger them enough and stick with it long enough, eventually a leader will come along and say, ``I see the way; follow me, and we will find a way out of this.''
Mr. Randall: I think the other concern, Senator Kenny, if I might just add to this, is that even if funds were committed today you are still looking at a four-to-five-year buyout time before there is any significant impact.
The Chairman: Well, this is why I took issue with Dr. Ferris's comment about the air force being able to go on. What we heard in Cold Lake was a death spiral where the lack of flying hours and the demographics of the people repairing the aircraft and the lack of funding will only get worse and worse and worse. So I do not understand anyone coming before us and saying they can starve it out for another ten years. It will not happen.
In any event, turning to you, Professor Randall, you made a comment about ballistic missile defence. You suggested that the decision was made either based on values or on a military basis. Do you think the decision was made on either of those?
Mr. Randall: All I can do is repeat what I said. It is open to question whether the decision was made on political grounds or on military grounds. There is a military argument for and there is a military argument against. There is a political argument for and there is a political argument against. That was my only comment.
The Chairman: I do not have the blues here, sir, but the word ``values'' is actually what I heard.
Mr. Randall: Yes, and that is correct. I can only repeat, Senator Kenny, what I said before; and that is, that there are some fundamental differences in values between Canadians and Americans on defence- and military-related issues here. If you do not accept that, sir, you are quite welcome to have a different point of view.
The Chairman: No, it is not a question of that. I was wondering whether there was a third option and whether it was simply political survival?
Mr. Randall: I would not agree with you on that. It is not an issue of political survival.
The Chairman: So the government would have survived, if it had gone ahead?
Mr. Randall: Oh, do you mean political survival for the current government as opposed to Canadians?
The Chairman: Yes, that is what political survival is in our language.
Mr. Randall: I do not think that this is really something that I particularly want to get into. The Liberal Party did not have the backbench support. The Conservative Party was not willing particularly to take the lead on this. The New Democratic Party would have voted solidly against and the Bloc Quebecois would have as well. That is your political reality, sir.
The Chairman: Which of the three do you think was the driving factor in this decision?
Mr. Randall: I think that political decisions are based to a large extent on values. That is the nature of our political system. I cannot add anything beyond that. I do not want to put words in your mouth, although you are putting words in mine, but if what you are suggesting is that political decisions are purely cynical and pragmatic and are not based on a value system, I would not agree with you.
Senator Nolin: Can I add something?
The Chairman: Please do.
Senator Nolin: Going back to your numbers, you would agree with that two per cent target that the Secretary General of NATO has been vehemently trying to impose on all the members for many years; you would agree when you are adding in your 20 per cent?
Mr. Ferris: If you were to put in a constant escalator and say that you will have two per cent added on to your base budget every year, it would end up and down.
Senator Nolin: No. The two per cent is a percentage of the GDP, so it would increase with the economy.
Mr. Ferris: That would be fine with me. However, at the moment, I would be very happy to actually see Canadian Forces that are not on the verge of collapse, which is the current reality.
Senator Nolin: So you are all saying the same thing.
Mr. Ferris: I am not quite certain why the senator seems to be determined not to understand what I am saying. I am not suggesting that we do not need massive investment. All I am saying is that, if we do get massive investment, where are we and what do we do then? What does the world look like? For purposes of that discussion, I am perfectly willing to assume that perhaps this government or its successors will follow that approach. If they do not, we are in serious jeopardy. We are in serious jeopardy right now.
The Chairman: Well, we have gone through two decades without governments following that approach.
Senator Atkins: You talked about the deficit in the U.S. and that there is a major debate going on. Mr. Greenspan flew a warning just the other day. Do you think he is right in putting up the red flag.
Mr. Randall: The simple answer is, yes, from my perspective. I disagree very much with the economists who argue that having only three per cent of GDP is an insignificant problem, particularly when you look at the long-term implications for the American economy.
Senator Atkins: And the American dollar.
Mr. Randall: And the American dollar relative to the Euro and other international currencies. In that respect I think the United States and, potentially, Canada, given the nature of our economic relationship, are headed for some very difficult times down the road, particularly if, not just the military issue, but things like the issue of social security revenues are not resolved.
You may know that one economic analysis suggests that just by extending the retirement age in the United States by three years one could address the social security costs for the next 75 years. So there is a range of very complex issues involved here. I think Mr. Greenspan was absolutely correct in holding up a red flag of warning about the direction in which the American economy and the deficits and the debt, frankly, are going. The United States cannot continue to rely simply on the capacity of other nations to purchase its commodities.
Senator Atkins: Getting back to the government decision on the BMD, was there not an opportunity for the Canadian government to work out some kind of trade-off that would fit into what you are suggesting in terms of negotiating a new NORAD pact, and those sorts of things.
Mr. Randall: I would agree with you. I guess I would personally want to stress that I think it was badly handled. I really do feel it was extremely badly handled. It was not done with the kind of diplomacy that I think Canadians are capable of. There were far too many rumours of a conflicting nature that were public, that were leaked, in fact, by high level government officials. There was clearly a disconnection between the Prime Minister's Office and the newly appointed ambassador. There was a range of problems. It was badly handled. I am sorry to have to say that. This is not the way in which to maintain an effective working relationship with the United States. Regardless of what the ultimate decision actually was, it could have been handled in a much more effective way.
Senator Atkins: Are the Americans not interested in establishing a radar warning system in Canada?
Mr. Randall: John, do you want to comment on that?
Mr. Ferris: The Americans need an array somewhere, but it does not absolutely have to be based in Canada. In fact, there are countries that have agreed to participate in BMD in which it could be based. I would answer your question quite simply: Yes, it would have been better for Canada on this issue to make a symbolic political commitment to BMD than to do what they have done, for the simple reason that the Americans are not actually asking a great deal of us. It is very clear that the current administration and the Republican Party regard this issue as being very significant.
The other point I would emphasize is that if you are looking for leverage on the American's military system, there is an area where we have leverage. NORAD and NORTHCOM are both American commands with limited resources, where Canadian resources are in fact important to solving American problems. Strangely enough, if you want to build a constituency in the American government that has reason to think that Canada does it good, it is by being involved in continental defence. We could actually have made some significant gains from doing this. Now, although I do not think this will destroy our relations, I do think we will end up paying more than is worthwhile for what in the end would have been a fairly small symbolic gesture.
Senator Atkins: We would have been seen then as contributing to North American defence?
Mr. Ferris: Yes.
Senator Atkins: In view of our decision, the United States Pentagon divided the world into commands. Do you think there is any danger of the Americans now setting up an American-Canadian command?
Mr. Ferris: Well, NORTHCOM is the American command that is charged with, if you like, continental defence; so there already is this kind of command. NORAD, which is part of NORTHCOM, is an organization which Canada is still involved in. Beyond that, there is another organization called STRATCOM, which in some ways is interested in these sorts of issues.
Although this is not something Canadian nationalists like to admit, the Americans have actually treated us quite well on issues of national security.
Senator Atkins: Cautiously.
Mr. Ferris: Now, they have bullied us on economic issues. There have been many areas where, in fact, we had every reason to be quite unhappy, but over security issues they have actually gone out of their way not to abuse their power. In NORAD, Canada had far more power than one would expect from simply looking at the relative strength of the two. My own fear is that we are driving the Americans toward unilaterally solving problems that involve our interests but in which we will have no voice. Under those circumstances, they no longer have any reason to continue treating us fairly generously. So my own fear is that we may well find that we are encouraging the Americans to be less friendly toward us.
If you bear in mind that the Americans do not recognize our claim over the Northwest Passage and bear in mind the possibility of Arctic warming, we are heading toward a potential clash of interests with the United States over issues of sovereignty, environment, and economics where we may wish that we had every card we could play, and there may well be a time ten years down the line when we regret having so few cards in our hand.
Senator Atkins: You have referred to the Republicans and their attitude. Are you referring to it in the intelligence context or in the political context?
Mr. Ferris: The Republican Party. The Democratic Party for electoral reasons does not openly, constantly, oppose BMD, but they clearly are not enthusiastic about it. The American military does have organizations that have to solve the problem; therefore, that is what they try to do. If you look at American investments among their commands, it has to be said that BMD up until now has not rated high in terms of cost, although it has been a significant factor when it comes to investment and leading-edge weapons.
Nonetheless, in the end, the constituency that exists in the United States that most cares about BMD is to be found in the Republican party; and from our point of view, I think it is very foolish to antagonize them uncharacteristically.
Senator Atkins: Just to follow along on that, the strength of the Republican Party is primarily based in the South.
Mr. Ferris: Well, the West.
Senator Atkins: The West, yes. They are probably the ones who know the least about this country. Do you think that that has an influence on the Republican attitude?
Mr. Ferris: Perhaps. I would say that democrats and also, surprisingly, American military officers and people who work for the Pentagon are very well disposed towards Canadians and Canada. My sense is that you may be right in saying that, the less you know about Canada and Canadians, the more unhappy you are. Beyond that, however, there is no doubt whatsoever that many Americans are angry by what they interpret as snotty-nosed anti-Americanism on the part of lots of Canadian intellectuals.
I must say that I have sometimes — shall I say, frequently? — seen Canadian academics behaving in snotty-nosed ways towards Americans that made me rather ashamed to be a Canadian.
Mr. Randall: May I just add a point, Senator Atkins, just very quickly?
Senator Atkins: Sure.
Mr. Randall: I think the distinction that John made between the Democrats and Republicans is a valid one. I do not think it is strictly a geographic issue; however, there are some very fundamental differences between the two parties that go well beyond geographic on occasion.
Senator Atkins: Yes. This is my final question. You are certainly buying into Hillier's approach and concept. Do you think that when all is said and done he has the clout to move it forward?
Mr. Ferris: I don't know. If I were to sit down and predict what the budget will be like five years from now, I would be pessimistic too. It is a minority government. It has no hold over what its next permeation does, let alone anyone else.
My sense is that Hillier has won the battle for the moment. He would not have been placed in the position he is in, had he not done so. You can make a hard-headed argument about resource allocation that says, if you are forced into dumping people off a life boat, this is the best way to choose to dump them off a life boat.
The real problem I foresee is that, if we adopt the Hillier approach and we send forces into another Rwanda and five Canadian soldiers are killed, will Canadians really feel like staying there. In other words, do Canadians really in the end want to live up to their claims to want to make the world a better place? If it involves any kind of real sacrifice, I am not really sure how Canadians will respond.
Senator Atkins: Well, even if you did not take the five years but just took the first two years, it is a question of whether the $5 million is realistic because of the expenditure review.
Mr. Ferris: Agreed.
Senator Atkins: So he may be battling from a weak position.
Mr. Ferris: Exactly.
The Chairman: Gentlemen, on behalf of the committee, I would like to thank you very much. You have been of assistance to us in looking at a number of issues. The committee is very grateful for you to take the time this afternoon to come down and talk to us. We value it very much. We appreciate the exchange of ideas. You have been of assistance to us in our task, so we are very grateful.
Mr. Randall: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We wish all of you well. It is a difficult task that you have before you. We look forward to the result of the two phases on defence and broader security issues in the course of the year. Thank you.
Mr. Ferris: I wish you good luck.
The Chairman: Colleagues, we have before us today a distinguished group of officers who will provide us with information on reserves in the Calgary area.
Colonel J. D. Gludo is the Commander of 41 Canadian Brigade Group of Canada and has served in that post since 2003. He joined the primary reserves in 1987 and trained as a logistics officer with the 11th Service Battalion, Victoria. While in Victoria, he held various command and staff positions, including platoon commander at the BBCLI Battle School in Wainwright with the Infantry Section Commander's Course. In 1998, he was appointed deputy commanding officer of the 14th Service Battalion and subsequently was appointed commander of that unit.
Colonel Gludo is a management consultant with a focus in technology strategies for IBM Business Consulting. He now is a master's student at the University of Calgary in the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies.
We also have before us Lieutenant-Commander Derek Carroll, Commanding Officer of HMCS Tecumseh. He joined the naval reserves as an officer trainee in 1978 at HMCS Chippawa in Winnipeg. He was posted to HMCS Porte Saint Jean as navigating officer and as executive officer. He has also commanded HMCS Porte Quebec and HMCS Porte de la Reine.
In January of 1997 he was appointed Commanding Officer of HMCS Whitehorse. A year later he left his command to return to Calgary. He was appointed to his current position in 2003.
Lieutenant-Commander Carroll served as honorary aide-de-camp for a number of Lieutenant Governors of Alberta. He currently works at the Canadian Revenue Agency as a tax avoidance specialist.
Lieutenant-Colonel F. L. Villiger has been a commander of the Calgary Highlanders since March of 2002. He joined the Calgary Highlanders in 1983 and served in the ranks until 1985, when he was commissioned as a direct entry officer. Throughout his military career, he has held the positions of adjutant; operations officer; Officer Commanding, Alberta Training Detachment; and, later, Deputy Commanding Officer of the Calgary Highlanders.
In his civilian life, he is a school principal at the Juno Beach Academy of Canadian Studies.
We also have before us Lieutenant-Colonel B. R. Gilkes, who has been the Commanding Officer of the King's Own Calgary Regiment since September, 2004. He was initially commissioned as an armour lieutenant in 1985. He served in the regular force for six years with the 8th Canadian Hussars in Lahr, Germany, as tank troop leader and battle captain. He transferred to the King's Own Calgary Regiment in 1994. He was promoted to major in 2001 and served as regimental second in command until his promotion to his current rank and position.
In his civilian life, Lieutenant-Colonel Gilkes is president of a company that designs and delivers land combat computer simulation.
Major John Lalonde is Deputy A1 Air Reserve Coordinator (West). This position follows a 29-year career in the regular force. Major Lalonde joined the Canadian Forces in 1970, beginning his career as a finance clerk. He retired from the regular force in 1998; following a summer of employment at HMCS Quadra with the naval reserve in 1999, he returned to the light blue with the air reserve, where he has served until today.
Gentlemen, thank you very much for taking time out of your obviously busy weeks to come before us. We appreciate it very much.
We understand you have brief statements for us. Who would like to begin?
Colonel J.D. Gludo, Commander, 41 Canadian Brigade Group of Canada, National Defence: Sir, we talked amongst ourselves, but, being the Colonel, I decided to pull rank. I thought if we all talked at once, it would not make much sense, so we are going to start with the senior service first, then the two army commanding officers, then the Air Force, and then I will be the last to speak.
Senator Forrestall: I appreciate that. It is good to see all of you together.
The Chairman: That works very well for us, Colonel; so the senior service will be first.
Lieutenant-Commander Derek Carroll, HMCS Tecumseh, National Defence: Good afternoon, senators, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Lieutenant-Commander Derek Carroll, and I am the Commanding Officer of HMCS Tecumseh, Calgary's Naval Reserve Division.
It is both a pleasure and an honour to be here before you today. I hope to be of assistance in your worthy endeavours.
I joined the naval reserve in July, 1978, at HMCS Chippawa, as the senator mentioned, and spent the majority of my time there, either in Winnipeg, where I was attending the University of Manitoba, or in Victoria or in Halifax.
I am a MARS, or Maritime Surface Officer, and received my bridge watchkeeping certificate in 1982. I served as a navigation officer aboard various training vessels. The longest period would have been about four months.
In May 1985, I moved here to Calgary and began my civilian career with Revenue Canada, much to the regret of my fellow commanding officers.
I currently am a senior tax avoidance specialist — that is, an auditor — with the Calgary Tax Services Office. The name sounds silly, but sometimes the job is not.
In August, 1994, I received my minor war vessel command ticket and commanded various vessels for periods ranging from two days to two weeks. As also indicated, I commanded HMCS Whitehorse for two years. I returned to Calgary in 1999 and was appointed to my current position in 2003.
The Naval Reserve has been in Calgary for over 80 years; it began as a group of 50 sailors under the name of the Calgary Half Company of the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve, the RCNVR. This was later expanded to a company of 100 sailors. In the 1940's, the unit was commissioned and given the name HMCS Tecumseh. In World War II, over 4,000 Canadians joined the Navy at Tecumseh and went on to serve around the world.
In particular, I would be remiss if I did not mention one of our former officers, Lieutenant Robert Hampton Gray, who was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for extreme courage in the face of the enemy. He is the only Canadian sailor to have received this award during that conflict.
HMCS Tecumseh currently consists of approximately 165 personnel, of whom ten work full time and 155 work part time, including myself. I say ``approximately,'' as the numbers are constantly shifting, due to releases, recruiting, and transfers. The numbers are consistently above where we were last year and reflect a growth of about 10 per cent over that time.
These sailors represent ten different trades and five different officer classifications. Their ages range from one 16- year-old recruit to a gentleman who is 57 this year; and they come from all walks of life, cultures and background. Of the 165, approximately one third are trained sea-going personnel; about one-third are trained personnel who would not, in the normal course of events, be assigned sea-going duties — for example, bandsmen, divers, clerks and the like; and approximately one-third are untrained personnel in what is called the basic training list, or BTL.
As you might surmise, Tecumseh represents a considerable pool of varied talents and skills that are available, should the need arise in a crisis. As an NRD, we are not configured or tasked with the formation of teams, as was the case in the past, but represent a considerable pool of individual talents and skills. These would normally be available to the Chief Maritime Staff in the event of an urgent need.
To give you some idea of my current capabilities, I will mention the following: I have four command-qualified officers, three of whom have commanded a Kingston class vessel. I have over 20 other qualified officers of various classifications, ranging from logistics to intelligence and maritime surface. Approximately 80 other trained sailors represent various trades and classifications. Each of these sailors is trained in shipboard firefighting and damage control and, in my opinion, these skills would be invaluable in any sort of 9/11 event here in Calgary. I have A complete dive team consisting of ten divers capable of diving to 150 feet in depth, and capable of conducting underwater searches and patrols.
Just as an aside, it is my understanding that, technically, when divers dive in a location with the altitude of Calgary, which is about 3,000 feet, they are actually restricted to a depth of 50 feet.
We also have three operational rigid-hull inflatable boats, or RHIBs, of various sizes up to six metres in length.
As the CO of Tecumseh, I, like all of my brothers and sisters commanding Canada's 24 naval reserve divisions, have faced the significant challenge of recruiting sailors and the even more arduous task of retaining them once they have been trained. Of particular note here in Calgary, we have been lucky in the sense that the local economy, in my opinion, generates a lot of jobs at the introductory level. As such, we have seen some numbers of personnel either transferring here from other units or, more encouraging, returning from long time, full-time service. In addition, for reasons that I am unable to determine, we have also seen a significant number of personnel wishing to return to our ranks from the SRR, the supplementary right of reserve. In the normal course of events, this process of transferring off the SRR and back into our ranks can often take months or even years, but we have found ways of gainfully employing them during the waiting process.
You may be interested to know about regenerative training or maintenance-of-skills training. I recently had the pleasure of participating in a weekend workshop where we met to revise the combat readiness requirements for personnel in sea-going MOS here at the units. Through firefighting, damage control, blind pilotage and shipboard evolutions, we maintain the skills of individual sailors to be ready to go to sea at short notice.
The great demand on the Kingston class vessels for operations and MOS training, limits the number of billets available to individual sailors. One way units like Tecumseh have of providing at-sea experience and team building is to conduct training of groups at sea in what are called YAGs. The YAGs are coming to the end of their operational life and will be replaced by the Orca class. While the six vessels of this Orca class are primarily meant for officer training, and as a result may reduce some demand on the Kingston class, it is also hoped that they will be available to NRDs for at-sea training activities.
As I said at the beginning of this statement, it is a pleasure to be here, and I hope to be of assistance in your endeavours.
The Chairman: Thank you very much.
I have just one technical announcement. We are experiencing some interference with the sound system. Could we ask people to turn off their cell phones. It could be that that is the cause of the hissing sounds that some microphones are getting.
There is one other thing I should remind the panel of: Could you please avoid using acronyms, unless you explain what they stand for. We actually have a fine system; I think it is 25 cents a letter, and it goes into the Senator's benevolent fund. Seriously, we would be grateful if, for the record, and actually for the benefit of all concerned, you could say out the whole expression.
Lieutenant-Colonel F. L. Villiger, Calgary Highlanders, National Defence: Good afternoon, senators. It is indeed a privilege for me to testify here today as Commanding Officer of the Calgary Highlanders and as a member of the Canadian Forces Reserves for 22 years.
The Calgary Highlanders is an infantry reserve unit of approximately 160 personnel, of which we parade from 60 to 120 soldiers every week. Our mission is to support the Canadian Forces Mission and the Army of the West, Land Force Western Area. Our unit's specific mission is to conduct individual and collective dismounted infantry training, with a view to augmenting the regular force. Essentially, we train infantry soldiers in the skills necessary to augment the regular army and to provide reservists, as required, for supporting domestic operations.
To fulfill this mission, we have a training capacity based on two mission elements. This includes two light infantry companies supported by a headquarters company, which provides command and control, unit administration and regimental affairs. In one infantry company we have the trained infantry soldiers that ready themselves to augment the army; the second infantry company facilitates courses, professional development and support to our garrison and training exercises.
This year, our unit training budget and support to the regiment was just over $660,000. This money allocated to our unit adequately covers the 37.5 training days each soldier is authorized to parade.
As a reserve unit, we share the Mewata Armoury in downtown Calgary with two other reserve units, two cadet corps and offices from 41 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group headquarters. For infrastructure, this suits our unit administration, classroom studies, and armoury floor training very well. Larger field training and exercises are conducted in Crown lands close to the Calgary area and in the Western Area Training Centre at Wainwright, Alberta.
Our recruiting challenges remain the same as for most reserve units, with the long processing time and in-depth security checks. As Calgary Highlanders, we appreciate the advertising done at the national level, but feel it needs to be more directed to the experiences and realities of the infantry soldier training on the ground. Retention can be a concern for the Calgary Highlanders, if you call attraction to the regular force a problem. However, we do lose soldiers to competition with the civilian sector, because of lack of course availability, and because of the time it takes for soldiers to progress in rank.
However, as Calgary Highlanders, we feel that during the last several years we have made a contribution to Canada and to Land Force Western Area by placing more than 200 soldiers in various regular, or Class C, and Class B augmentation positions. This would include the former Yugoslavia, a few to Afghanistan, UN missions in Africa, and domestic operations that include the G8 Summit and B.C. fires. This also includes numerous senior and junior NCOs being employed full time as staff at Camp Wainwright.
In this regard, limitations on augmenting the regular force range from family and job commitments to job protection, pay competition, and onward to rank and course equivalencies.
As Calgary Highlanders, we have traditionally held strong links to our community. This liaison with the community has paid off in developing our local training exercises, working with the City of Calgary, the CPR, the Calgary Police, and the City Police SWAT Team.
We have also been successful on the social side with our connection to the Calgary Stampede Board, the Calgary Flames and Stampeders, and our regimental mess dinners hosting the chief of fire, the chief of police, local politicians and prominent Calgary business people. As members of this community since 1910, we feel this has immense benefits for our unit and the CF alike.
In many ways, this link has been a big part of our unit traditions, regimental parades, esprit de corps, modern-day soldier confidence, and has contributed somewhat to the retention of our soldiers. In turn, we are active members of the Canadian Forces Liaison Council and have been the lead host on numerous civilian visits.
As Calgary Highlanders we believe we are a fine infantry regiment that has a strong sense of history and a great sense of purpose. We are successful as a modern-day reserve unit, and we try to make a strong contribution to Land Force Western Area and to Canada.
Thank you.
The Chairman: Thank you, sir. Who will be next?
Lieutenant-Colonel B. R. Gilkes, King's Own Calgary Regiment, National Defence: My name is Lieutenant-Colonel Bruce Gilkes. I am the Commanding Officer of the King's Own Calgary Regiment. Thank you for inviting me here today to speak.
For training capacity, which I was asked to comment on, the King's Own is composed of two subunits: We have a brass band and a reconnaissance regiment. There are currently 116 soldiers in the King's Own Calgary Regiment in total; however, we are currently embarked on a very large recruiting campaign, and this number will likely go up significantly.
In a typical year, while we are conducting day-to-day collective training, we will run two courses in the Calgary area, each with approximately 20 to 30 candidates. This year is slightly different because we are re-rolling from an armoured regiment to a reconnaissance regiment; so we formed a training cadre of 20 people, who, in turn, re-trained the rest of the regiment. This is done in lieu of conducting day-to-day training.
A similar methodology could be used to train, for instance, a large influx of recruits; however, if this was prolonged over a long period of time, it would have a significant negative impact on morale, retention and collective training skills of the actual trainers.
In order to conduct the year-to-year training, I receive approximately $450,000, with which I run the regiment. This amount includes all pay for part-time reservists and the cost to attend training exercises during the winter. All of my full-time support, as well as summer training and area-level courses, are funded centrally, and the area support unit in Calgary takes care of virtually all my infrastructure costs. I have enough money to do my job, and in the case of extraordinary circumstances — for instance, a large influx of recruits, I have confidence that I would be able to ask for and receive additional funding.
The largest challenges that we have are recruiting and retention. These, in fact, are probably the largest challenges facing any reserve regiments. I am responsible for generically attracting soldiers to the Canadian Forces Reserve and doing the initial screening and paperwork. Some of them go off and join the infantry, some join the Navy, some join the regular army, but I do attraction and hope for the best.
The challenge continues to be the length of time required between attracting candidates and when they can be enrolled and paid. It is my opinion that the commanding officer usually has enough information, within a couple of days, to make a decision on conditional enrolment of the candidate, and more latitude for conditional enrolment is the best way to improve the process.
The attraction of new recruits is the highest priority in the regiment. A team of four soldiers working full time for the past two months — well, basically a month and a half now — and using innovative methods has had a large degree of success. They have spoken to over 10,000 Calgarians, mainly students, of whom 2,500 have expressed interest in the reserve, 400 are in the basic application process, doing the paperwork, and approximately 50 are now leaving our sausage machine and entering the Canadian Forces recruiting system.
We expect the latter number to increase dramatically in the next couple of weeks. My goal is to have approximately 200 recruits by the end of March.
With respect to retention, the most pressing problem is getting intermediate-level soldiers — that is, the sergeant to master warrant officer level — their career courses. In the past, these courses were frequently cancelled for a variety of reasons. However, I have confidence that steps are being taken now, and that the senior leadership completely understands the problem and is addressing the issue. I also fully support Command Land Force Western Area's efforts to encourage leaders to instruct during summer courses, and I believe that will go a long way toward solving the problem.
As to our contribution to the regular force, approximately 30 per cent of our soldiers have participated in UN and NATO missions, and almost all of them have participated with the regular force on domestic operations or on training in Canada.
With respect to limitations on providing more personnel to the regular force, the majority of reservists are students or are employed full time, and that therefore limits the number who typically volunteer to participate in operations. I believe there are a couple of ways to increase participation. If reservists volunteer for an operation, they should, soon after, be given a contract that guarantees they will deploy on the operation, provided they are operationally and physically fit. We are not trying to send people who are not qualified, but we believe that we can help bolster a guarantee on their employment, because, otherwise, they face a great degree of personal and financial risk to undertake volunteering for an operation.
Second, I believe that more soldiers would participate in operations as a formed ``squad'' with their buddies than through individual augmentation. This point has been partially addressed through the current deployment planning in the Canadian Forces. However, if it goes further, I believe that more reservists would be inclined to participate.
The impact on the local community is one of my personal focal points. I participate in local events such as Chamber of Commerce activities and strategic studies events at the university. Our unit participates in ``freedom of the city'' parades, and we are also involved with the community in various other parades and presentations.
Finally, an important way that we connect with Calgary is through providing ``soldier athletes.'' Our adventure racing team recently represented Canada and came in second place in the world in a 650 kilometre trekking, biking, and sea kayaking race in Patagonia, Chile. We have also supported biathletes in the past, and one of Canada's most promising biathletes is an ex-King's Own Calgary Regiment soldier.
That concludes my statement.
The Chairman: Thank you, colonel.
I should just like to interrupt the presentations briefly to introduce Senator Tommy Banks, who I am sure is well- known to all of you. He is a remarkably hard-working member of our committee, and he has actually spent the day Chairing his own committee, which is Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources, which is also holding hearings in Calgary. He left the committee last night to fly up and join us in Edmonton at the town hall meeting, flew back down, Chaired his committee here this morning, and now he is here with us again this afternoon.
Senator Banks: Regrettably, briefly, but thank you.
The Chairman: And we are very pleased to have him. He is here because of the importance of this panel to Alberta, and to Calgary in particular, and so if you would continue with the presentations, thank you very much.
Senator Banks: Thank you.
Major John Lalonde, Deputy A1 Air Reserve Coordinator (Western Area), National Defence: Mr. Chair, senators, thank you for the invitation to appear before the committee today. It is my understanding that you have had a few opportunities recently to learn about the air reserve from my air reserve counterpart in the east, on February 1, as well as the chief of the air staff on February 7, 2005. As a result, my presentation will be focused on the air reserve contribution in the western area, to domestic security and international operations within a total force environment.
To begin with, I have been involved with the military for the past 34 years, 29 of them as a member of the regular force, six months in the naval reserve, and five years in the air reserve. I am presently serving as a full-time reservist as the Deputy A1 Air Reserve Coordinator for Western Canada.
Our office is located in Comox, British Columbia, and is part of 1 Canadian Air Division Headquarters located in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Our office is responsible for supporting air reserve flights located in Abbotsford, Comox and Victoria in British Columbia; Cold Lake in Alberta; Moose jaw in Saskatchewan; three units in Winnipeg, Manitoba; and one remote flight in Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories.
There is one other unit that employs air reservists within this geographic area; however, this is a tactical helicopter squadron located in Edmonton, Alberta, and it falls within the responsibility of the air reserve coordinator for 1 Wing Headquarters located in Kingston, Ontario.
As mentioned by my eastern area counterpart, the air reserve has a single integrated regular and reserve chain of command, and is an integral part of the total air force. Looking in on the workings at any wing or unit, it would be impossible to distinguish between a reserve and a regular force member of a team, because they work side by side and respond to the same chain of command. So my role is more advisory in nature.
With respect to domestic security, given that the majority, approximately 70 per cent, of air reservists are former regular force members, they contribute significantly to the domestic security role, alongside their regular force counterparts. Let me cite some specific activities. There is the field deployment flight in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, which supports the Canadian Rangers program in the north. In Victoria, British Columbia, there is the flying or servicing of Sea King helicopters at 443 Maritime Helicopter Squadron, preparing them for HELAIRDET deployments, as well as contributing to the search and rescue efforts at the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre there. In 19 Wing Comox, more are directly involved in the search and rescue efforts of 442 Squadron and the Aurora aircraft at 407 Squadron, in support of naval operations, fisheries patrols and counter-drug operations. There is also support for 410, 416, 417 and 441 fighter Squadrons at 4 Wing Cold Lake as part of our NORAD responsibilities.
With regard to international operations, air reservists either deploy individually or they backfill regular force positions, replacing those personnel who have deployed. In 2004, for example, deployments on international operations involved 198 air reserve personnel; domestic operations involved 158 air reserve personnel; and support to Canadian Forces Station Alert and incremental staff at various training centres around Canada involved 109 air reserve personnel.
One unique organization in the West is 192 Airfield Engineering Flight, Abbotsford. This is a reserve detachment of 4 Wing Cold Lake, Alberta, that functions as a stand-alone unit. It is located in and has strong ties to the community of Abbotsford, and works with community organizations on local construction projects — for example, Habitat for Humanity, the Trans-Canada Trail, et cetera — to train and maintain the currency of its members.
Additionally, rarely does a month go by without one or more or its members being deployed, and, at times, the entire unit is deployed in support of domestic or international operations, including Bosnia.
To summarize, as you have already heard, the integrated establishment, hiring of experienced personnel into the air reserve, and training air reservists to the same standards and qualifications as the regular Air Force members, enables a rapid conversion from part-time to full-time service in response to operational needs. In this way, the Air Force can mobilize its resources in a flexible and responsive manner, where and when required. Furthermore, adopting an integrated approach to total force means that costs associated with infrastructure and training are significantly reduced.
The Chairman: Thank you, major Lalonde. We will now hear from Colonel Gludo.
Col. Gludo: Good afternoon. I am very happy to speak to the committee as the Commander of 41 Canadian Brigade Group. I am not only a soldier, but I am also a true reservist. The 41 Canadian Brigade Group is the reserve army in Alberta that spans across the province with soldiers from every walk of life.
As the Commander of 41 Canadian Brigade Group, I report directly to the Commander of Land Force Western Area, and my purpose is to prepare my brigade to help him achieve his mission. Our focus is to help generate and sustain general-purpose and combat-ready combined-arms forces for operations at home and abroad in times of peace and war, today and tomorrow.
We generate qualified, capable soldiers who are willing to leave the comforts of civilian life to defend Canada and Canadian interests, and promote peace and security abroad. Our training and focus enables us also to deploy an effective sub-unit organization, if required, on short-notice domestic operations.
Sustaining this team is one of our biggest challenges. To accomplish this, we fight our own ``three block war,'' which is to attract, train and retain.
For attraction, we have in Alberta high employment or low unemployment, high education and high incomes. I find that overall public interest in the Canadian Forces in Alberta is guarded, while we enjoy great popular support overall. Unlike the regular forces, it is each unit's responsibility to attract their own recruits. For me to gain 400 able-bodied recruits, we must interact with approximately 88,000 Canadians in Alberta, or roughly 220 citizens for one qualified recruit.
For training, we must make it interesting and exciting, and realistic activity is the key. Commanding officers are given the ability to create training environments that reinforce and complement our soldiers' skills. A sense of purpose, being a contributor to the team and a recognition of value are essential. We have also re-energized our focus on ensuring that we have the capacity and ability to formally train everyone who has the ability.
As to retention, soldiers who are already in the army and trained need to be kept. Retaining my soldiers is paramount. Ways to retain them include aspects of equipment, ammunition, advanced courses, adventure, recognition of effort, a sense of team and an understanding of family and work. Access to good training is problematic. Our soldiers are intelligent, keen, and focused. We need to ensure that the training time they spend with us is treated with respect. Using only 12 hours out of a 48-hour period to train, because of distance to the training area, does not help to retain personnel.
Although a reserve organization, 41 Canadian Brigade Group is operationally focused. We are part of a larger team that generates the force by enabling the units to achieve their successes. We are always working towards constructing and creating elements of the team, and we continue to contribute to the communities in which we live.
Over the past three years, 41 Canadian Brigade Group has had soldiers deployed to 15 different operations and UN missions and has provided a significant contribution to fighting the forest fires in British Columbia.
The 41 Canadian Brigade Group is also transforming. We are changing how soldiers are equipped and units are structured. New roles, new missions, an increasing dependency upon reserve contribution: all these are factors in maintaining our focus on operations.
We are a large part of the team. We are the ``footprint'' in our communities. We are what the public sees when they think of the military. ``Soldier first'' is a way of life that brings skills, beliefs and understanding into our civilian worlds.
We are soldiers. We achieve success because we believe in what we are doing.
The Chairman: Thank you very much, colonel.
Senator Cordy: Thank you very much to each of you for coming this afternoon to help us out in our study.
Just walking in and seeing the panel of senators and the panel of reservists, one would certainly say that the military is a very male-dominated force. I cannot help but ask whether or not many women are volunteering as reservists.
LCdr. Carroll: I would start by answering the question this way. About a third of my ship's company are women. All trades and all classifications are open to them. We certainly do our best to attract a crew to train them, as we would anybody else.
Col. Gludo: To be perfectly honest with you, I do not have the statistics for the brigade; for one thing, I like to believe it is because we do not identify personnel based on gender. Previously, I was the commanding officer of the service battalion, which gives combat service support in logistics and mechanics; and in that environment, about a third of the personnel were female. That is the only frame of reference I have to go by.
LCol. Villiger: Senator, when I started in 1983, there was one Calgary Highlander female, a master corporal, and she scared the heck out of me when I was a private. Now, as the CO, I can look amongst our ranks and see probably 15 to 20 very talented women, and I am proud of each and every one of them. We have a number of master corporals, and if you know about the infantry trade, that is the bread and butter of our unit; and we are proud of them. We have two very good female officers who work with our unit and show a lot of talent.
I think you are right, senator: we probably should have one sitting here.
Senator Cordy: We only have one here, too. I am not bragging.
The Chairman: But she matches the rest of the team.
LCol. Gilkes: In the King's Own Calgary Regiment, about 10 per cent of the personnel are females, including some of the senior staff. Our adjutant is female. A new officer cadet, who just came in in the last couple of days, is female as well, and various ranks who have gone off on UN missions are female. We encourage women and hope more will apply.
Maj. Lalonde: The air reserve advisor was Brigadier General Patricia Brennan, and she has just moved up to the A1 position, so she is a reservist filling a regular force position now. As well as a number of female reservists, we have a 30 per cent range. The majority are support trades, but, as well, as the years pass, we are getting more and more in the tech trades as well, ma'am.
Senator Cordy: Thank you. You all mentioned retention and recruitment, and that is something that we heard in Saint John, New Brunswick; we heard it in Charlottetown; we have heard it everywhere that we have gone; so it certainly is a problem.
Colonel Villiger, you said you appreciated the job that the Feds are doing in terms of advertising, but... and I missed the ``but'' part of it.
LCol. Villiger: Yes, senator, I will elaborate on that. Knowing that I was coming here, I took some of the initial topics that were given to me back to our staff. Our recruiters are finding, when they analyze the Calgary Highlanders' perspective of things, that in trying to draw in recruits, as the commander alluded to, to a certain extent we are each on our own in trying to attract them.
We find that the commercials that they put on, or the posters, are very generic, and everyone in them is a beautiful model. They are outstanding citizens, I am sure, but in the Calgary Highlanders, essentially, we get wet, we get dirty, we dig ditches, and we do a lot of really rough stuff. Our soldiers and our officers, including myself, would like to see the grunt on the picture, showing what it is really like, and the sort of person we are trying to attract, so that there are no falsehoods to deal with when people come in. We do not want any misconceptions: we like soldiers to work hard.
Senator Cordy: Is there a disconnection, would you say, between what is being portrayed at the federal level and what is actually happening, so that when people come in they can be disillusioned?
Colonel Gludo, you certainly talked about why people would stay in, and one of the things was the excitement and the training and so on. Is there a disconnection between what people perceive to be the reserves and what the actuality is once they get into the reserves?
Col. Gludo: I do not know that I would capture it as a disconnection. I think, because we work for the government as the military, we are just an extension of what the public wants. We have to, in my view, model our advertising campaign in a way that will draw the largest crowd possible.
As you identified in your first question, we are weak as an organization, bringing in the representative demographic of what the society at large is. Units do a lot of the recruiting through word of mouth, and that draws on the true story, but we also have to get the word out to a lot of people who do not necessarily interact with our soldiers on a regular basis, telling them that there is room for them; so you get the poster children who look very good and are genuinely the ones we do not normally bring into our society.
So I do not think there is a disconnection. I think there are simply a few things being done at different levels to attract different people.
Senator Cordy: So the same thing is holding true in terms of ethnic representation in the reserves, and in the military, for that matter?
Col. Gludo: Correct.
Senator Cordy: A few of you made references to working within the community. For recruitment purposes, is it a good selling feature when you get involved in the community?
LCol. Gilkes: I guess to draw an analogy on your question, if the Department of National Defence is more responsible for brand awareness in terms of a marketing campaign, then we are the store managers whose job it is to sell the actual product. So in terms of the people who apply, the demographic that we deal with is primarily high school and college students, and very few of them, I think, if we did a pole, would actually have been attracted by some of the high level advertising campaigns.
What works in our case is this: we take a big armoured vehicle to the school and take a bunch of pieces of equipment inside — clearing it all with the school first, of course; that is what excites the students and makes them aware, and makes them want to come and join. It is because they see a bunch of green guys and a big armoured vehicle and a bunch of equipment. I do not think that it is the national campaign. The national campaign does not hurt, but it is the feet on the ground or the actual vehicle driving up to the school that does the work of recruiting.
Senator Cordy: It gets them in the door.
Col. Gludo: I believe you were asking about the effect of working in the community; that was your question?
Senator Cordy: Yes.
Col. Gludo: Interface with the community is very important for a couple of reasons. One of our mandates as reservists, and I believe the same is tru for the navy and the air force, is to be a community footprint, to be that bridge between the citizen and the soldier or the citizen and the military person.
The community has an expectation of what the military is, which is not necessarily an accurate representation; it depends on what movies you watch; but we also tend to be people of the community. So not only are we helping the communities to do that community footprint, but we are doing it to show people how we are contributing. It is all part of a bundle. Being like-minded, there is a chance for recruiting by working in the communities. It is a sense of feeling good because it is our community, where our children are, where we live; so we are trying to contribute back. We are trying to narrow all those pieces down.
I think every unit is very proud of their heritage, and most of their heritages are tied to those communities that they are in, and they want to jump on every opportunity to show themselves in a good light.
Senator Cordy: Are the majority of the people, who come to you as reservists, students?
LCdr. Carroll: Traditionally, they have been students, both high school students now, because we recruit at the age of 16, and university students. I would not say exclusively so. Certainly, we have had older people show up at the Tecumseh who are interested in it. One of my senior officers joined when he was about 35. He had been in the navy earlier in his life, had gotten out and done other things and then had come back; but he is more the unusual situation rather than the pattern.
The reality is that for a naval reservist to get the sort of base training needed to be an effective tradesman, whatever the trade is, it takes months of training, and there just are not that many people who are gainfully employed on a full- time basis that can give up that kind of time.
Senator Cordy: What percentage of students leave the reserves after they graduate from university or community college? It does not have to be a percentage exactly, but just in generalities.
LCdr. Carroll: I think I can address the question this way: There are probably two or three particularly difficult times in a reservist's career in terms of whether or not they stay in. First, waiting through the recruiting process nowadays is a difficult time. They may just decide enough is enough and get a job in the oil patch somewhere. The second point comes probably on that first or second morning, when they are woken up during basic training and somebody large and violent is shouting at them, and they are asking themselves what they are doing here.
Obviously, one of the more difficult times is when they establish that first civilian career and then have to strike a balance between their civilian job and their military job. It is a skill set. I am not sure how well we teach the skill set in the naval reserve, but it is a vital skill set if they are to stay for the long term.
The only answer I can give you is that we have to make it interesting. Strangely enough, part timers do not join the reserve for the sheer joy of filling out paperwork; so my challenge is to make it as interesting as possible, particularly with the focus on those people.
Senator Cordy: Several of you have spoken about the long processing time, from the time the person applies to become a reservist to the time that the person actually becomes a reservist, the problem being that some of them in the meantime lose interest. Is there anything being done to deal with this problem? It seems to me, if you can identify a problem such as long processing time, that it should be a pretty easy fix.
LCol. Gilkes: I can answer that one. The Canadian Forces recruiting group actually has a number of experiments going on. They have done an experiment on conditional enrolment, where they get the person in the door and working, based on acceptance of risk. That is one successful approach.
They have also identified bottlenecks in the processing, such as, particularly, a medical problem in the past. If somebody has ever served in the military before, a previous medical problem is a significant stumbling block to getting them back in. So those ones they are actually dealing with as well.
They believe that a clean person — one with no criminal record, no significant issues, you know, and who has all the paperwork in order — should get in the door in a matter of about three to six weeks. We have not quite found that yet, but it is getting better, I would say, compared to previous years.
LCdr. Carroll: I just want to add one comment. Before coming here today, I did speak to my recruiting officer, who is one of the full-time staffers that I have, because I wanted to get her impression as to how things have been going. From her perspective, the relationship between Tecumseh and the local recruiting centre is outstanding. Where it is possible to get people through in the three-to-six-week period, they are more than cooperative in doing that, given their other commitments to recruiting for the regular force, et cetera.
I do not perceive this as being a local problem. It is very much a national problem, and it has to be resolved at that level.
Senator Cordy: I was assuming that it was a national problem.
On the matter of retention of recruits, one of the things you spoke about was that, if you can train your people well, providing interesting courses and good equipment for them to train with, that certainly provides more of an incentive for them to stay.
What I am wondering is whether you do, in fact, have the appropriate equipment to train people. Do you have hands-on equipment for people to use?
LCol. Villiger: From the infantry perspective, ma'am, and this may affect the retention side of things, too, when they are on the low-level courses, they do have what they need to get going. However, when they get to Calgary, let us say to the Calgary Highlanders, there are often times when we are looking to support the equipment that we already have, in other words, the equipment tables for the companies. So when we go to an exercise situation, we often need to borrow equipment in order to get our training done at a higher level.
Now, we can do this, and we can do it very well, by staffing procedures early in the game, say six weeks in advance. If the equipment is available, and has not been set aside for other battle groups — for example, the regular force that needs the equipment too, and if we time it correctly, we can have the tools we need to train effectively; however, without good timing, because we just might hit the wrong season, we sometimes have to go a little short on things.
Senator Cordy: And if something should come up, then you are going to be the first ones to lose it; would that be correct?
LCol. Villiger: Yes, and every Wednesday night on the armoury floor is another challenge, too. Part of retention is to see the kit there, right at their feet, I guess.
Col. Gludo: Sorry to interrupt, senator, but I do not think it is a correct assumption that we are the first ones to lose it. It is all based on operational requirements; if there is a higher operational need happening in Colonel Villiger's unit, then he will have priority call over that equipment and he will be able to maintain it.
Maj. Lalonde: And I guess from an armoured perspective, or now a reconnaissance regiment perspective, we have always had to share our equipment, and that is a trend that the Canadian Forces are embracing as a whole right now. Because of the requirement to have operational stocks, and stocks that are undergoing refit, and stocks that are at training centres, no one will have a complete complement of kit to roll out the door in, especially the large vehicles and stuff. So that is fine. We have actually been doing that for years and managing it through that process.
I think the risk or the trouble for a large operation or a domestic operation is when you actually have the people and everybody is equipped with enough rifles, but you do not have enough trucks and other vehicles and stuff to roll out and do that.
The fires in B.C. are a case in point. We had more than enough people to send there, but, when we got there, we were forced to rent vehicles or catch buses and in order to get back and forth. That is one way of doing it, but we might have been more effective in doing our jobs if we had taken some of our own equipment or had had a larger stock of equipment available.
LCdr. Carroll: It is obviously a different story for us. Most of our equipment is used in water. There is not a lot of salt water in the immediate vicinity. So the initial training at naval reserve divisions is largely in the classroom and computer-based, and I believe I have enough equipment for that.
The trick for me is on the retention side, where I have people who are qualified and want to maintain their skills. There are times available on the Kingston class where we can go out and take advantage of those, but as you may well be aware, the Kingston class are building-tasked, and it sometimes is a challenge to get all of the people out that I would like to get out.
Usually this is dealt with or organized on a regional level. One of my sister units across this particular region will have responsibility for coordinating how they get on board the vessels and who does what and where. I guess I would like to see more opportunities there. To that extent, I have been writing letters to my headquarters, and so on, talking about the Orcas and how I think we could use those in an environment where we can maintain these skill sets for which people have already trained.
The advantage of that for me, as well, is that it allows me the opportunity, one of very few opportunities, to have a significant number of Tecumseh reservists going out together to do something as a team.
Senator Cordy: Thank you very much. You have all been most helpful.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman: Thank you, Senator Cordy.
Senator Forrestall, you have the floor.
Senator Forrestall: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome, gentlemen. It is nice to see three different colours of uniform. I like that very much.
May I perhaps start with Lieutenant-Commander Carroll. It is our understanding that there has been significant change in the types of missions that the naval reserves have been assigned — that is to say, from naval control of shipping to intelligence. Have you adjusted your training programs to address this new task?
LCdr. Carroll: As the commander of a naval reserve division, I am tasked with training all sorts of classifications and trades, and yes, we have begun the conversion process.
As is the case with all my sister units, we do have responsibility for training a number of different classifications of officers. One of the more recent evolutions has been the change from naval control of shipping to intelligence, or to naval intelligence — I cannot remember the exact wording they use for the classification. At this level, it is fairly basic; that is, we are just beginning the training of the junior officers to become that classification.
A program will be beginning either later this year or early next year towards the conversion of some of the former naval control shipping officers over to the intelligence officers. That is happening on a national level, so it may or may not involve Tecumseh directly. I suspect there will be some classroom training, computer-based training perhaps, when that is required.
I would say that, as the roles progress, we have been changing the way we do things. Perhaps the most significant change that I have seen in the naval reserve in the last ten years, particularly with respect to naval reserve divisions, is the transition from team training, which is what we used to do ten years ago, to individual training, which is our focus now.
Senator Forrestall: How will the change in your basic direction and training impact on your capacity to retain traditional naval skills, seamanship skills, within your unit? Or has that lost some degree of importance as times and training methods have changed? While you are thinking about that, do you get some outside help with respect to naval intelligence or intelligence training, or will you simply rely on the computer?
LCdr. Carroll: I will answer the last question first, senator. With respect to the training of intelligence officers, it is done on a national level. They go to Canadian Forces Fleet School in Quebec and the training is conducted there. It is fairly intensive. We do not always graduate the people who attend. It is, as I understand it, a very challenging course. My executive officer was one of the first naval intelligence officers to actually graduate from that course. He went back and took it. He is an older gentleman. He is not a school-age person.
To answer your other questions, as Tecumseh goes, as I said before, we may be involved in the conversion training of some of the previously qualified officers, but that is still being developed as we speak. With respect to maintaining skill sets, that is a challenge. I sat on a committee in May in Quebec City, where we went through the table of activities that we undertake in order to maintain the skill sets of the part-time sailor. We identified quite a few skill sets that we felt could be handled either in the unit or by flying out to the Coast and taking advantage of the facilities there. We identified how often we felt these people had to do that sort of thing.
We do get a lot of assistance, obviously, from both the Coast and from NAVRESHQ in a coordination role in dealing with those skill sets, but it is a real challenge, given the fact that we are basically responsible for the development of individual skill sets rather than team seats. Because of the conversion of the way we man the MCDVs versus the way we used to man brigade vessels, it is a significant challenge.
Senator Forrestall: Do you have a liaison officer that works with local first responders among your members?
LCdr. Carroll: No, senator, I do not.
Senator Forrestall: Have you ever had any requests for one, or do you leave that to someone else?
LCdr. Carroll: So far, they have not asked. The one direction I have received is that, obviously, before taking on any operational task, I have to clear it with my headquarters in Quebec City.
Senator Forrestall: Okay, that is fine; thank you very much.
Colonel Villiger, you indicated that you have about 160 personnel, of whom 60 to 120 parade on a weekly basis. Given your budget of $660,000 annually, what would happen? Could you pay and train the full complement, were they to turn up in great numbers?
LCol. Villiger: Thank you for that question, sir. No, I could not. I do not think I even have 160 rifles; I would have to check on that one, too. However, when you think of the Calgary Highlanders and our network, we are certainly involved in a lot of the other support parts to our regiment.
For example, I have seven master corporals who trained regular courses in Wainwright. We have people employed to brigade headquarters and so on. So they are all out there.
The 60 to 120 varies, depending on the exercise and the Wednesday night activities, and that is pretty well where it usually stands. In the last year and a half, the turnouts on a Wednesday night have been around those numbers.
To answer your question whether we have enough money to pay them all, no, we do not. That would be a great challenge. Actually, it would be a pat on the back, if all 160 showed up; we would have a problem, but a very positive problem.
Senator Forrestall: Is it a matter of deep pockets?
LCol. Villiger: I do have a lot of support with the commander next door here, and not just because he is sitting beside me. He would look at that and say, ``Well, that's a great problem to have, Villiger. Put in what you need on a forward planning project, and let's see if we can get this done.'' Because I do not think we would ever turn any people away, sir.
Senator Forrestall: Colonel, would you be pleased to have that kind of problem facing you tomorrow morning?
Col. Gludo: That would be one of my most enjoyable difficulties of the day.
Senator Forrestall: Thank you. I expected no less.
You mentioned that you have a very active liaison with the local police and first responders. Could you elaborate with respect to your exercising with these groups? In what way is it beneficial? In what way are you helpful to the community?
LCol. Villiger: Senator, first of all, I want to quantify that our liaison seems to happen because of the personnel that are in our unit. For example, I have some police officers in our unit, and we have some CPR employees and the like. That seems to make the initial connection. Let me start from there. It has helped immensely with the exercises that we have done within the local area. It has helped both on the recruiting side, because we have our link to the community with soldiers actually in the community, and on the retention side, because it provides a different environment for our soldiers to feel like they are making a contribution, too.
It is just a positive thing for the Calgary Highlanders whenever we do an exercise in or around the Mewata Armoury, or near our other establishments, I guess we would call them, that hold reservists in the Calgary area. So it is a benefit.
I see what we do as a reciprocal learning process for both the civilian sector and the reservists. I will give you a good example of that. When the Calgary Flames' fans were flooding the streets with the ``Red Mile,'' we were invited as senior officers of the Calgary Highlanders to sit in the police operations room, where we watched the sea of red and how it went. They had SWAT tactical team members there, whom we got to know very well; so we made a connection with them.
We were just observers, but as the evening went on I found my skills as a principal were involved with connecting to caretakers in the need to help support their riot team get into the back of a school gym. It was amazing the skills the reservists had to help with this.
We also realized that with respect to their command and control over this large mob, and in between the sectors of police officers, they were lacking some of the skills that the armed forces have in communications. So during that one evening alone we shared some of our expertise and how they perhaps could improve their coordination; and then, of course, they shared with us some of the talents that they could bring to facilitate us.
When things did happen eventually, the connections we had made helped us to facilitate, in a much better way, our three-block corps exercise in the city; so it was a very positive thing for both sides.
Senator Forrestall: Do you have, within your command, a CIMIC section available to employ overseas?
LCol. Villiger: No, sir, we do not within the Calgary Highlanders have CIMIC. Did you refer to CIMIC, sir, the civil and military cooperation section?
Senator Forrestall: Yes.
LCol. Villiger: No, we do not. We do, however, have officers in the process of training to do that. As we sit here today, sir, we have two captains from the Calgary Highlanders who are new serving as CIMIC officers in Bosnia; but we do not hold a CIMIC section in our infantry unit.
Senator Forrestall: The King's Own.
LCol. Gilkes: Yes, sir.
Senator Forrestall: You mentioned that you are encountering some difficulty in obtaining career courses for your mid-level sergeants, your warrant officers at the supervisor level. What kind of impact does that have on your capacity to continue to train up?
LCol. Gilkes: Well, blessedly, the compulsory retirement age was raised this year, so that many of the people who are in the most senior positions can continue to occupy those positions. We have a generation gap of about 25 years between the senior cadre and the junior people who would step up to fill their shoes, when they finally do retire in a couple of years.
Now, this may be specific only to my unit, because I am not sure how it is with other units, but we have in the past had disconnections between when courses were run. They put on, for instance, a course in April for six weeks, and reservists typically cannot attend a course in April for six weeks, and so on.
That is water under the bridge. In any event, I believe that that is being gripped right now by the senior leaders and that more coordination and effort is going into making this a success. If we could talk again in six months' time, I could tell you how things have worked out.
Senator Forrestall: Well, you covered a supplementary with respect to that, too.
You are in the process of re-rolling to reconnaissance. Will this necessitate your requiring equipment for these purposes and, if so, do you anticipate difficulty with that?
LCol. Gilkes: Well, the short answer is, yes, we are changing equipment. Currently, the piece of equipment that we have that is suitable for armoured use is being phased out.
Senator Forrestall: What do you have now?
LCol. Gilkes: We have the Cougar armoured vehicle, general purpose, and that is being phased out. Its life end is 2007. We never held that vehicle in our unit except on a borrowed basis. It is typically brigaded.
What we had to do our jobs with before was a cadre of Iltis vehicles, and they were not suitable to armour. They are more suitable to reconnaissance. The Iltis is being phased out now. Coming in its place is the MilCOTS, which is a Silverado that we will have temporarily for about a year to do our reconnaissance training on, because a pickup truck is not a reconnaissance vehicle. Meanwhile, the forces have looked ahead and are procuring Merces G-Wagon vehicles, which are a more suitable replacement. We are due to get, I believe, 16 of those within a year's time; these were procured specifically to address the re-rolling of reserve regiments from armoured to reconnaissance.
Senator Forrestall: As a supplementary, colonel, when personnel come back to stay once in a while, for whatever reason, are you able to accommodate them with their requests? Do you have enough in reserve? Do you have enough in your command within the overall structure to say, ``Send this one here and that one there,'' to help them out? Or do you have an overall shortage in critical areas?
LCol. Gilkes: At the brigade, I do not hold, per se, extra vehicles. We work closely with the Western Area Training Centre, also known as WATC, where most of the equipment is held. The Land Force Western Area is a command- driven organization. General Beare, and I understand you met him yesterday, is very much a person willing to say he owns all the equipment in Land Force Western Area because he is the commander of it all. Most of the subordinates to him do not ever question that. Having said that, I also have the very positive sense that, if I needed extra equipment and he had access to it and saw that I had a requirement for it which fit into his operational focus, it would show up.
Rarely are we unable to train because of a shortage of equipment. We may not get the fullest training we would like to have, but then we can never necessarily predict exactly how many soldiers we are going to have show up on a weekend anyway. In many cases, it is a guess.
Senator Forrestall: When you do some cross-training with our friends to the south, is equipment a problem? If so, is it an easily resolvable problem?
Col. Gludo: Last year was the first year this brigade ever went south. We took all our own equipment down. We actually ``drained'' the Western Area Training Centre and took the equipment all the way down to Fort Lewis and Yakima, and we had tremendous support in getting our equipment down there.
There were enough vehicles for everybody so that we probably had the largest exercise ever as a brigade.
Senator Forrestall: Good luck with it in the future. I think you will find that our friends to the south are very generous with their equipment.
I have just a couple quick questions for the air side. Yesterday, we heard that funds for the Class A Reservists had dried up, and that was impacting on the operational capability of the unit. What caused this action? Have the air force funds for reservists run out? Were you just overtaxing the fund?
Maj. Lalonde: The funds have not run out, sir. The air reserve has a budget of just under $70 million, but the problem there is with the conversion of regular force O & M funds. It started to become a habit to give Class B status, to give full time to the reservists. That started to dip into the regular force funding. The reserve is supposed to be a part-time force. Ninety per cent of us are part time Class A, and this was bringing us back down to earth; that is really what was happening.
Much as many COs do not like the fact that they are being brought back down to earth, because they have become accustomed to and enjoy the Class B full-time person there, the wrench turner at the squadron and so on, nevertheless, that is the situation and that is the dilemma. We are within our funding envelope if everybody works part time.
Senator Forrestall: Is that an on-and-off tap? What a terrible way to have to work with that, under those conditions.
Maj. Lalonde: What happened is that they found an option, this O & M conversion, which is the operation and maintenance funds; but those funds are earmarked for regular force activities on a base. They are not supposed to go for wages of reservists. However, recently, during the last few years, COs found this little option and started to exercise it more and more, to the point of getting to over $10 million this past year. As a result, the commander said, ``We have to stop; our mandate for reservists is not full time. Let's draw back to where we should be at part time, and then it will be a regular force issue. They will have to go and get additional funding if they want some of their reservists to be full time.''
Senator Forrestall: My final question will be brief.
Major Lalonde, we understand that one of the enhanced roles for the reserves is for seamen. We were rather curious whether or not that would mean that the airfield engineering flight at Abbotsford might receive additional personnel to accommodate overseas missions.
Maj. Lalonde: Well, they have done the overseas mission; however, it comes back to funding again.
Senator Forrestall: Back to funding again, is it?
Maj. Lalonde: Funding is definitely an issue.
Senator Forrestall: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman: Thank you, Senator Forrestall.
Colleagues, we have just a few minutes left. We have Senator Munson and Senator Meighen. Senator Munson, you have the floor.
Senator Munson: I am just curious; I have just a simple question. How much do reservists get paid? What is the pay scale? Is it enough?
Col. Gludo: Speaking as a consultant? I do not have the data sheets.
Senator Munson: Is it attractive enough? You are talking about recruiting. People have to get good value for what they are doing.
Col. Gludo: In my personal experience, it is attractive enough for those who are in school, especially with the education reimbursement. To start with, depending on how successful they are, it goes through a cycle where they do not stay for the money but because they believe in what they are doing. It is more an inconvenience because of the tax hit than it is a benefit for the wage that they get, but they have a belief in what they are doing.
To start with, for the initial stages, most soldiers find it appropriate.
Senator Munson: Everybody in public seems to put on a brave face about what he or she is doing. What is morale really like in reserves these days?
Col. Gludo: I am sure we all have an opinion.
Senator Munson: We want to get candid opinions.
LCol. Villiger: I think, from my 22 years in the Calgary Highlanders, we have had some ups and downs, some peaks and valleys. It was at its worst time, of course, right after Somalia and the disbanding of the airborne regiment, and it took a while. When I was a company commander in my first year, we were at 120 soldiers every night that we wanted to parade, and it jumped back down to about 35 or 40 quickly.
Sometimes there are various influences. Right now in the city, with the economy flying, you would think it would be difficult. It is not. We have a lot of strong-spirited people with great morale. What I am finding out is that, if they have a sense of purpose, if they feel they are making a contribution, they will be here. With the B.C. fires, bad as they were for everything, the reservists felt they could help to make a contribution. Despite the pay, they wanted to help out. Young teenagers are like that; they want to get involved; and other people are like that, too.
Having the Queen come here for the Calgary Highlanders and the King's Own Calgary Regiment is another carrot for them. They feel very proud in what they do, and when those things are on board, they will come out and they will be attracted.
Senator Munson: I am not sure how to phrase this, but with all these problems of recruiting, there is yet the promise of 3,000 more reservists coming; how are you going to attract them? We have been told by the people at the top, in Ottawa, that it will take five years to put them in place, and that there is no place to house them. I am curious to know how you are going to even get 3,000 more reservists, but even if you get only half that number the good reservists you already have will end up in the main military, because they will find that more attractive. I think you have a problem.
Col. Gludo: I would not say it is a problem. I try to distinguish, when I am talking to my boss, the difference between attraction and recruitment. You have all mentioned that you have heard that there are problems with recruiting. I do not necessarily agree that there is a problem with recruiting, because I have never stressed the system enough to find out that it is not working properly. However, I am sure there are always issues that pop out.
My focus is on attraction, and that is what I tell my commanding officers. I have actually brought a staff officer on board to try to address the attraction issue.
As I said in my opening statement, the ratio that I have come up with is that, statistically, it takes 220 people to be talked to, to get one soldier. To get the 3,000 soldiers, if we were lucky enough to get them all in Alberta, would require us to talk to a lot of people. We do not necessarily have the resources.
The army recruiting system is designed for attraction, but only on the regular force side. It is a unit responsibility to do that, and we are trying to offload that.
Yes, there will be people who transfer to the regular force, but those people would be transferring anyway, so I do not think that will be a negative issue from the brigade's points of view. I think it would just allow us to bring more and more people in. We would have to recover those attritions anyway.
You are right, though, that the problem is how to attract those numbers. We have been struggling with that in this brigade for a few years now. We are already about 150 to 200 personnel below where we should be for the size of the brigade.
Senator Munson: One of you used the expression, ``It depends on the movie you watch.'' Maybe you need a movie called ``The Reservist'' or something like that, because everybody else seems to be taking credit for the grunt work that you were talking about.
Thank you very much.
The Chairman: Thank you, Senator Munson.
Senator Meighen.
Senator Meighen: One of you alluded to the delays in transferring from the reserves to the permanent force, or from the permanent force to the reserves, because of the paperwork involved. Is that situation getting any better?
LCdr. Carroll: Let me give you our experience in dealing with the transfer of people from what is called the supplementary ready reserve. When personnel are already trained and so forth and, for whatever reason, decide to go inactive, we try to bring them back into the active part-time reserve. That process is very similar to recruiting. I know, because I went through it a few years ago. It takes a very long time, much like recruiting does.
We have been able to do what is called ``attach posting''; we take these people off one list and post them onto our active role, so we can get them involved and engaged again.
Senator Meighen: That is a conditional role.
LCdr. Carroll: It is about six months, and that usually gives the recruiting system time to catch up.
Senator Meighen: But I hear that medical exams and things like that become a problem.
LCdr. Carroll: The medical aspect is always going to be a problem, particularly if you are talking about older people. There is a physical standard that they have to pass and some of them, frankly, cannot.
Senator Meighen: But just to get the appointment.
LCdr. Carroll: Yes, that is an issue.
Senator Meighen: The rest of you have the same problem?
LCol. Gilkes: I can speak for our organization. The medical exam was an issue in the past. It would take six months to get somebody to have a medical screening. If you ever have an allergy, that is a real problem. One officer had the audacity to report that he was allergic to peanuts, and that caused a three-year delay in his enrolment; however, that situation is being resolved and the person is actually coming on board.
Senator Meighen: He promised never to eat peanuts.
LCol. Gilkes: You can understand there has to be strict enrolment standards and so on.
Conditional enrolment is another point that was raised, where a waiver is given on somebody: ``We will enrol you provided that you eventually meet all the standards.'' That has turned out to be a good tool when it has been used.
Another problem that I mentioned was the verification of former service. If you come in with experience, having got out of the forces for whatever reason, but not going into the supplementary ready reserve, that can be a problem. In other word, if you got completely out and then decided to come back in again, that has been a problem in the past. I do not know how it is going now. Typically, it is a matter of one guy in a basement somewhere being authorized to sign off on this, and you have to wait for him to get off a leave, and all that sort of stuff. So these are the little nitpicky things.
It is not a process; it is part of the large bureaucratic machine; and I have confidence that a lot of these things are being addressed.
Maj. Lalonde: From the Air Force standpoint, we run into that problem with the transfer from the reserve to the regular force. There is the issue with archives and documents, and that type of thing. It is frustrating when someone who has been in the regular force wants to go back in later on, and it is so difficult because the documents have been archived. That is something that is being addressed, though; they are working on it.
Senator Meighen: Let me stop you. I think if we had a nickel for every time we heard that ``they are working on it,'' whatever ``it'' is, we would all be very rich. One of the worst horror stories I have heard of, in the process that you were just describing, was with respect to some air force pilots, who were going out and then coming back, or vice versa, and nobody could find their records and they had to start from square one again. It is just a horror show.
Now you tell us that they are working on it. How long have they been working on it? When is it going to be resolved? Have you got confidence that it is on the way to a short-term solution?
Maj. Lalonde: I agree that it is frustrating, but I have also seen some of the pilots, and the issues that arise concerning their vision, and suchlike, as they are getting on in life. Sometimes they have to get waivers so that they can wear glasses. For each case, there is usually a unique circumstance that makes it frustrating. Some of them are excellent people — Air Canada pilots and the like; we do not want to lose them, but they bring with them challenges that the medical folks are not ready to sign off on that quickly.
Senator Meighen: I interrupted you a moment ago. You were about to add something.
Maj. Lalonde: It was just on another aspect of the recruiting: clean files. That, to me, is an important message. If applicants for the forces come in with a clean file, the process works quite well, or does for a large percentage.
I think if the committee had the opportunity to speak with the Canadian Forces Recruiting Group and heard their side of the story, you would hear some encouraging words that would suggest that the system they have is not necessarily broken. There are some interesting facts that they could portray about applicants not having clean files, medically and security-wise.
Another important aspect is the need for more funding for recruiting, for the courses, because we get people coming through who are ready to join the forces, but we have cut back so much that their course is maybe only once a year or every second year. If we had more funding to hold courses more often, then we would not have that bottleneck that we are running into.
Senator Meighen: This is my final question, and maybe we can do this by way of a vote from amongst you. The fact that you never know, from one parade to the next, who is going to show up, is obviously a problem. You never know who is going to go to a deployment or going to volunteer to do it. This obviously causes administrative and other problems.
There are two schools of thought. One is the American school of thought, and maybe that of some other jurisdictions, that there has to be a law that guarantees your employment. There is then the school of thought that supports the situation we have, that that will be as counterproductive as it is productive, because maybe employers will not hire people if they know they are reservists, and so they will get around the law that way.
Whereas the work of the Canadian Liaison Council and others is really making some progress, there are more and more employers who are civic-minded and proud of what their reserve employees are doing and give them the time off.
The Chairman: Is it a secret ballot, or is it by show of hands?
Senator Meighen: It is a show of hands. How many would like to change our system and have a law protecting the employment of reservists? I see two-and-a-half hands.
The Chairman: Let the record show two-and-a-half hands.
Senator Meighen: Did I not phrase the question properly?
Col. Gludo: Senator, just let me jump in there for a second.
Senator Meighen: You were abstaining, I think.
Col. Gludo: I was. I was actually a Canadian Forces liaison officer.
Senator Meighen: It is a good thing I gave it a plug.
Col. Gludo: They are a great organization. I think there are two pieces of this puzzle that we have to look at. One is the assumption that reservists work in an environment that is primarily private-sector. If we were to do a statistical study, I think you would find that roughly 75 to 80 per cent work in a government organization or an organization that supports only the government.
Senator Meighen: Which is the chicken and which is the egg, then?
Col. Gludo: Right. We have controls over government organizations that we can enforce without having to worry.
Senator Meighen: So is that why 75 or 80 per cent go there?
Col. Gludo: I do not know if they go to those places because it allows them to do reserve service or how it works.
Senator Meighen: By chance.
Col. Gludo: So I think the impact on that would be best designed by identifying where our reservists are coming from. I do not have a good picture of my 1,400 reservists and where they work. For one thing, I cannot ask that question.
Senator Meighen: Right.
Col. Gludo: So how would I know? We have to come up with how to identify where we are drawing these soldiers from, or these sailors or the air crew.
The second part is this: we had a lot of the same arguments that you are giving about following the American model, when we first started talking about maternity leave, and that disappeared really rapidly once we put it in place, and no one ever has a problem now. The same arguments you hear about reservists with job protection not being hired in order for would-be employers to get round the law, and all these horror stories, are the very stories or arguments I remember hearing when we brought in maternity leave. It does not seem to me that that became a real problem, so I do not think it would necessarily be a big issue with reservists either.
LCdr. Carroll: I guess, in addition to voting for them, I would also say this: I think it really depends on what you want them to do. If you are talking about someone serving at Tecumseh, do I think we should be given the legal authority to be able to require a civilian employer to give them every Wednesday evening off? I do not want to go there.
On the other hand, if you are going to send them out to fight forest fires, if you are going to send them out to deal with ice storms or with floods, then maybe we do need something in those specific circumstances that we can say to a civilian employer, ``I am sorry, but this person is needed elsewhere for national security reasons.''
Senator Meighen: And what about a foreign deployment?
LCdr. Carroll: It really depends on the nature of the foreign deployment. If you are talking about a Korea, perhaps it would apply.
Senator Meighen: I was talking about a Bosnia.
LCdr. Carroll: We have been able to meet our commitments there without it.
LCol. Gilkes: I would say that there is one thing that could be done, the same thing that many companies do with a maternity leave: they top up the employee's salary for a period of time. The government could top up the reservist's salary, and that might make deployment operations more attractive to the vast number of senior people who are gainfully employed full time. That might be an idea.
LCdr. Carroll: I have just one additional comment. One thing the Americans also do is to give preferential treatment to their reservists as far as getting federal jobs.
I have seen some of the hiring process with Revenue Canada, and there is a point system that they follow. Some of it is education, some of it is language, some of it is skills, et cetera, et cetera. I can certainly see, by law, adding some points in there for somebody who happens to be a reservist.
Col. Gludo: Just to add a point, I have to put a plug in here for Regimental Sergeant Major Kent Griffiths. He is an amazing person. He brought a situation to my attention a couple of months ago, saying, ``Why is the reservist the only organization in Canada that gets covered under the federal auspices, but reservists who are qualified are not allowed to apply for in-service competition within the government jobs?''
Senator Meighen: You are too quick for me on that one.
Col. Gludo: When you are applying for a job at the federal government, there are jobs that are in service and jobs that are out service. If you are in the police, you can apply for in-service jobs; but as a reservist you are not qualified to be thought of as in-service.
Senator Meighen: I see.
Col. Gludo: That was just a point for my regimental sergeant major.
Senator Meighen: That is why regimental sergeant majors always have such a great reputation; they bring the real problems to the forefront. Unless anybody else has anything to add, those are my questions.
LCol. Villiger: The regimental sergeant major of the Calgary Highlanders, if I may add a comment, thought, if the matter came up on the floor, that he would like to express this idea. It has to do with the equivalencies and movement from the reserve force to the regular force.
If you think of the Calgary Highlanders being on parade, going down through the line the colonel has the honour of seeing many medals on their chests, and they are young people, a lot of them. They will go off to Wainwright and they will be full-time teachers of regular force privates. Nevertheless, if they sign up to become a regular force member, and want to be class C full time, this very talented, very experienced master corporal or sergeant, all of a sudden is a private. That is, to me, a big problem.
LCol. Gilkes: In fact, it is easier to join the Australian army online than it is to transfer into the regular army here, and you get a higher equivalency, and quicker.
Senator Meighen: That is a quote you may see again.
Senator Munson: Absolutely.
Senator Meighen: Thank you very much.
The Chairman: Thank you, Senator Meighen.
Gentlemen, thank you so much for coming. You have seen how you have engaged the members of the committee. The reserves are important to us.
If there is a message for you to take away, and we really want you to take this back with you, please convey to the men and women who serve with you that we are very proud of the work they do. We are very conscious of the contribution they make to Canadian security, that it is important, that we value it, and that we appreciate their work and that Canada appreciates their work.
They do not hear that enough. We are here in town. We are asking you to tell them that on our behalf, please.
Thank you very much for the information you have given us. It is of great assistance in our study, and we look forward to seeing you again before too long.
The committee adjourned.