Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
National Security and Defence
Issue 1 - Evidence, May 8, 2006
OTTAWA, Monday, May 8, 2006
The Standing Committee on National Security and Defence met this day at 10:05 a.m. to examine and report on the national security policy of Canada.
Senator Colin Kenny (Chairman) in the chair.
[English]
The Chairman: It is my pleasure to welcome you to the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence. I am chair of the committee. Before we begin, I should like to briefly introduce members of the committee to you.
The distinguished senator from Nova Scotia, Senator Michael Forrestall, has served the constituents of Dartmouth for the past 38 years, first as a member of the House of Commons and then as their senator. While in the House of Commons, he has served as the official opposition defence critic from 1966 to 1976.
Beside Senator Forrestall is Senator Michael Meighen who is a lawyer and a member of the bar of both Quebec and Ontario. He is chancellor of King's College and past chair of the Stratford festival. Currently, he is chair of our Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs and he is also a member of the Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce, as well as the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans.
Beside Senator Meighen is Senator Norman Atkins from Ontario who came to the Senate with 27 years of experience in the field of communications. He served as a senior adviser to former federal Conservative leader Robert Stanfield, to Premier William Davis of Ontario and to Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.
Senator Wilfred Moore is from Halifax. He is a lawyer with an extensive record of community involvement, and currently serves as chairman of the Bluenose II Preservation Trust Society. He is a member of the board of governors of St. Mary's University and also sits on the Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce and the Standing Joint Committee of the Senate and the House of Commons for the Scrutiny of Regulations.
Senator Marie Poulin is from Northern Ontario. She is a former Deputy Minister in the Government of Canada and a broadcast executive. She is a member of the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration.
Senator Joseph Day from New Brunswick is the chair of the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance. He is a member of the bars of New Brunswick, Ontario and Quebec and a fellow of the Intellectual Property Institute of Canada. He is also former President and CEO of the New Brunswick Forest Products Association.
Senator Rod Zimmer from Winnipeg has had a long and distinguished career in business and philanthropy, and has volunteered his services for countless charitable causes and organizations. He sits on the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples and the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications.
Our committee has been mandated to study security and defence and the need for a national security policy.
We have produced a number of reports since 2002 and are currently reviewing Canadian defence policy. We have held hearings in every province and engaging with Canadians to determine their views on national interests, their perception of Canada's principal threats and how they expect the government to respond.
Today we have before us Honourable Gordon O'Connor, Minister of National Defence. Mr. Mr. O'Connor was first elected to the House of Commons in 2004 and was re-elected in 2006. He has served as critic for Department of National Defence and has been a member of the Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs. He began his career in the military with the Armour Branch and rose to the rank of Brigadier-General. Following retirement he earned success in the private sector. We are pleased that you are appearing before us today, sir. We understand this is your first appearance before a parliamentary committee and we are honoured that you have chosen us.
We understand you have a statement you would like to make.
Hon. Gordon O'Connor, Minister of National Defence: Thank you very much. It is different being on the other side. Asking questions is a lot easier than answering them.
I would like to thank all members of the committee for your efforts to bring defence and security matters to the forefront of public consciousness. Over the years, this committee has been a staunch supporter of the Canadian Forces and I would like to thank you for that support.
I know that each of you has much to contribute to discussions on defence and security, and I look forward to hearing from you on these very important matters.
I will be more than happy to answer your questions over the next hour or so, but first I would like to provide you with some preliminary thoughts on the government's visions and priorities for defence and what we hope to accomplish with the new budgets.
[Translation]
So today, I am very proud to appear before you as Minister of National Defence — a position that allows me to not only implement the Conservative government's plan to rebuild and revitalize the Canadian Forces, but also to represent Canada's men and women in uniform.
Prime Minister Harper once said that military service is the highest calling of citizenship. He is right. The responsibilities of the courageous men and women of the Canadian Forces are among the most difficult and dangerous that exist anywhere. We have the best and most highly motivated troops in the world, and we must support them as best we can so they can get their job done. Our security depends on it.
[English]
Mr. Chairman, we live in a dangerous and unpredictable world. Since the end of the Cold War, we have faced a variety of new threats such as those emerging from failed states, global terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. If September 11, 2001 has taught us anything it is that terrorists can strike right here in North America.
[Translation]
These are unsafe times, Mr. Chairman. And we must be ready to defend ourselves at home, on this continent, and around the world. But we also face issues that have potential implications for Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic. While the Department of Foreign Affairs has the lead in managing these issues, we at Defence need to ensure that we have the surveillance, presence and response capabilities required to assert our sovereignty and protect our citizens in every part of this country, including the North.
[English]
Mr. Chairman, the government is committed to a modern and effective military capable of playing a decisive role at home and abroad.
Our Canada First commitment for defence will strengthen the Canadian Forces' ability to defend our country and its citizens, assert our sovereignty and assume a leadership role in international operations.
Our strategy will allow the Canadian Forces to do more at home by fulfilling essential national responsibilities and assisting civilian authorities and it will allow Canada to better fulfil the responsibility we share with the United States in protecting the North American continent. It will make Canada an even more reliable defence and security partner.
Our strategy will also see our military continue to bring stability and security around the world, just as our troops are doing today in Afghanistan.
Mr. Chairman, we will move forward with determination to deliver on this vision. We will increase the strength of the Canadian Forces by 13,000 regulars and 10,000 reservists. We will ensure that our new recruits are trained in an effective and timely manner by expanding the existing recruiting and training system. We will also reform the defence procurement process to give our military the right equipment at the right time, in a fair and transparent manner.
We will also provide the Canadian Forces with enhanced capabilities. We will increase their deployability by air and sea; improve their national surveillance capabilities along our coasts; strengthen the Canadian Forces' presence in every Canadian region; and ensure sure that we have the necessary people and capabilities to fully exercise our country's Arctic sovereignty responsibilities.
Our defence vision calls for a three-ocean navy, a robust army and a revitalized air force, all operating as part of an integrated and effective Canadian Forces team in Canada, in North America or anywhere in the world.
To implement this vision the government provided new funding for defence in last week's budget. Defence will receive an additional $5.3 billion over the next five years. Defence will see an increase to its 2005 baseline of $1 billion in fiscal 2006-2007 and $2.3-billion increase to the 2005 baseline in 2007-2008.
[Translation]
Our Canada First commitment for Defence will strengthen the Canadian Forces' ability to defend our country and its citizens, assert our sovereignty, and assume a leadership role in international operations.
The increased defence budget will allow us, among other things to: recruit an additional 13,000 Regular and 10,000 Reserve personnel; improve base infrastructure and housing; invest in the equipment needed to support multi-role, combat-capable maritime, land and air forces; increase the Canadian Forces capacity to protect Canada's Arctic sovereignty and security; increase the Regular army presence in all regions of Canada and initiate the establishment of territorial battalions in or near major urban centres. We have a procurement plan ready to go, but it must now get cabinet's approval. The budget has given us the money, so as soon as we get the green light from cabinet, we will proceed with several major projects.
[English]
Mr. Chairman, this is an important moment for the Department of National Defence and I hope that members of the committee will share my enthusiasm for the great prospects for the Canadian Forces. For over a decade our military has suffered from insufficient funding and neglect, but this government is addressing and correcting these problems.
We understand the importance of defence and the need to give the men and women of the Canadian Forces the tools they need to do their jobs.
Budget 2006 is a clear sign of how this government intends to increase its commitment to defence. It is a first step forward, but more will need to be done.
The changes that we are promising will not happen overnight. It will take time too implement them and get the Canadian Forces back on the right track, but we are confident that everything is now in place for real and lasting changes to our military and with last week's budget we now have a solid foundation upon which to build.
Thank you very much. I would be pleased to answer your questions.
Senator Forrestall: Welcome, minister. Because time is a little tight this morning, permit me to extend a warm welcome to you. I can assure you that this committee is concerned about matters that affect the security of our country; matters and concerns that we share with you.
We work under the assumption that the government's defence policy is the defence policy statement published in April 2005, and the commitment your government has made during and since the election campaign. Is that generally a fair interpretation of the way in which the government is proceeding?
Mr. O'Connor: Currently, we are developing a capabilities plan and overarching that plan will be a policy statement philosophy that will encompass our campaign statements and much of the previous policy. DND will go forward once cabinet approves the capabilities plan and it will become the department's guiding document.
Senator Forrestall: We understand, minister, that the government's priorities, which we support, include such things as expanding the forces by 13,000 regular force and 10,000 reserve personnel. We understand the priority of stationing 650 regular army personnel at CFB Goose Bay and at 19 Wing Comox. Other priorities include the purchase of strategic airlift aircraft, the forming of territorial battalions, and re-establishing the airborne battalion at CFB Trenton. Further, the government intends to increase investment in base infrastructure, build a deepwater port in Iqaluit and an Arctic training facility at Cambridge Bay. The acquisition of armed icebreakers will serve to create a three-ocean navy for Canada. Is this statement accurate? If it is accurate, can we afford it? Will we get on with the commitments sooner rather than later?
Mr. O'Connor: I have the military statistics on these government commitments and information on the various options because sometimes there are innovative ways to proceed that we have not used before. Essentially, yes, we have the money to implement what we said we would do. Certainly, I have the capital to proceed with six to eight projects. I need only the approval of cabinet. I do not have any shortage of money for capital expenditures. I am ready to move a great deal of capital as quickly as I can get the approval and as quickly as National Defence, Public Works and Government Services Canada and Industry Canada can handle these projects.
In terms of personnel, there is not a shortage of money. The need of personnel is the greatest challenge that I face in looking at the model to the future. Uncontrolled attrition in the Armed Forces during the 1990's has left the Armed Forces lacking in personnel that would be senior NCOs and middle-rank officers today. These personnel would flush out the training system. In my view, the single biggest challenge I face is trying to solve the training system problem. It is not so much a problem with recruiting but rather with training once we have the recruits. I cannot tell you this ``confidentially'' because this is a public meeting, but I have been pushing the military to bring on people faster so that we can grow faster. There is only so much that we can accomplish in a hurry. In peacetime, when we start changing personnel balances we have to think of the long-term effect of that balance. I cannot bring on personnel faster than the Armed Forces can absorb them, train them, and fit them into the system.
As each year passes, our capacity to increase the number of personnel will increase. I am confident that ultimately we will not have any problem acquiring and training 13,000 regulars and 10,000 reserves.
In the operation and maintenance area, there are approximately 20 Level 1s at NDHQ and each one has a business plan. These plans have to be pulled together and, when accumulated, there seems to be a great deficit. We actually have a deficit that I think we are overcoming but I do not know if that deficit is as big as claimed. We have enough money to address that deficit.
Senator Forrestall: Your confidence will be welcome words to a bus driver in Halifax by the name of Rear-Admiral MacNeil, who has the honour of being the first bus driver to try to get things rolling back the other way.
My next question is on funds, the complexity of which you will understand better than the members of the committee do. If might seem hopeless to us, but we hope that you have a handle on it.
Based on shortfalls the committee has identified in capital procurement, infrastructure recapitalization, and operations and maintenance, our calculations are that the department needs an additional $700-$800 million this year just to function as it did last year, let alone grow. Budget 2006 allocated only an additional $400 million. Please explain why the government allocated the defence funding profile in that way.
The previous government had a clawback arrangement that took about $200 million per year away from the department. Is that clawback still in effect or are the allocated funds truly the amounts with which we are able to proceed?
Mr. O'Connor: Currently, Treasury Board and the Department of National Finance are looking at this clawback problem because it gets worse as the years go by. Five to six years from now it will total $2.5 billion. It just keeps growing. I knew about the first two years but I did not know about the years beyond. We are in the second year of the Liberal plan. I believe the intent of the government is to do away with clawbacks, but we are in the midst of it and trying to figure a way out of it. I cannot give you a definitive answer but that is the trend. The ministers are looking at this to determine what they can do about those clawbacks because it is not the way we budget. If we are to give $1 billion, then you will get $1 billion. Right now, we are in a financial bind because of the previous plan. We are trying to get out of it. My expectation is that the dollars stated for defence will be the dollars that defence will receive.
In respect of your question about the additional $700-$800 million, the amount of $400 million is right on line with our plans. Before the election, our internal planners were briefed on the government finances and $400 million is the precise figure that we planned to have as we took over. However, we did not expect the clawbacks to be in effect in future years, and we are working hard to try to eliminate this clawback. If we are successful, then our budget will work, although I am not saying that if we were not successful we would have to increase the budget in successive years. For now, we hope that they will be successful in eliminating the clawbacks.
Senator Forrestall: We would encourage you to increase the budget should it be necessary.
Senator Moore: I have a supplementary question for the minister. Does it mean, with respect to the additional $400 million and given the $200 million clawback, that it will be $200 million in real dollars?
Mr. O'Connor: You could put it that way or you could say that the original $600 million is only $400 million. The $600 million from the Liberal plan plus $400 million from the recent budget totals $1 billion for defence over 2005. At the moment, we are trying to deal with the clawbacks. I do not know whether or how much of that we will face but it should be resolved over the next few months.
The Chairman: Minister, you said that you are waiting for the defence capability plan before you go ahead with any further acquisitions.
Mr. O'Connor: The finalized plan will be presented to the cabinet by the end of the summer. However, we are in the process of producing an outlined concept of where we are going, with enough detail for the cabinet to understand the implications and to identify the projects that are ready to proceed. I anticipate that if the cabinet approves our outline concept of where defence is going, subject to the final document, we will start moving capital projects soon.
The Chairman: With regard to your answer about the expansion and the rate-limiting step of training, are you looking at alternatives to help you with that, for example, retention bonuses to keep people in or bringing back some recently retired people to assist you or, perhaps more importantly, a pause in additional deployments?
Mr. O'Connor: Except for the last alternative, which I will address later, we are looking at all possible ways of improving recruiting. My estimate, subject to what happens in the future, is that we will probably be able to expand it two or two and one-half times the Liberal plan. That is with current conditions and anticipating the improvements that we can make. In the future, we might be able to accelerate better than we can today if we are successful in straightening out the recruiting system. We must be innovative to achieve these goals.
With respect to additional deployments, we have to do three things at the same time. We have to conduct operations, and the operations have to be successful. We have to put the resources, training and manpower behind those operations. We also have to try to start generating new forces to expand the Armed Forces, not only people but also organizational structures, equipment, et cetera. We are also in the midst of a transformation, which overlaps both. We are trying to transform the Armed Forces, both in operational and administrative terms, to address future threats.
Each area takes a lot of effort and we are trying to find that balance. Again, this is subject to cabinet approval, but we anticipate that as long as we are expanding the Armed Forces, we will not be able to maintain two heavy lines of commitment from the army. We have to devote a large part of the army, air force and navy to generating themselves so that three-to-five years from now we have a robust army and revitalized air force. In the meantime, we have to be careful with how much effort we put into offshore operations.
The Chairman: Is Afghanistan going to be the main effort?
Mr. O'Connor: We can maintain Afghanistan, as is, into the future basically forever, but we would be greatly challenged for a substantial commitment elsewhere in the world.
The Chairman: When you said twice the rate of the Liberal plan, it was back-ended and it looked like 4,000 of the 5,000 were not until years four and five.
Mr. O'Connor: What did they do? Eight thousand over five years or something like that.
The Chairman: Just about nothing in years one, two and three.
Mr. O'Connor: Next year you will start to see increases. This year, because we are just grabbing hold here halfway through the year, we are trying to rev up the system. You will see a large national advertising campaign to try to bring in recruits. We will move as quickly as we can to start expanding.
Senator Meighen: Minister, this is probably gratuitous, but with regard to the advertising campaign, I worry, on the one hand, and hope it will be successful, on the other. Speaking from some personal experience, if it is very successful you will get a lot of applications, and the challenge will be in processing those applications.
The anecdotal evidence of people waiting and hearing nothing for months and months is distressing. I wanted to put that little bug in your ear and hope that you will be able to address that problem.
Mr. O'Connor: I am not here to tell you that we are reducing the Armed Forces; we are increasing the Forces. Our challenge is to increase the Armed Forces and make things better. We will always face challenges.
Senator Day: Minister, I thank you for being here today and for your clarification of the budget and increased funding for the Armed Forces.
We have had some difficulty in sorting out the promise and the announcement that this government has made in relation to the promises of the previous government. I think that your comments on 2005 and saying that this fiscal year will be $1 billion more that is the $600 million that the Liberal government had promised and the $400 million more that you had promised, and that brings it up to $1 billion. That is very clear.
For the next fiscal year, it is $2.3 billion over the 2005 base. We keep going back to the 2005 base. Four or five years down the line, if everything keeps working properly, the previous government's promise of $12.8 billion and the current government's promise of $5.3 billion would be almost $18 billion over the 2005 base.
Mr. O'Connor: That is correct. We are building on the Liberal plan.
Senator Day: Our difficulty was that in some instances in the budget it was clear that the government would continue the previous plan and build on it. You have clarified that for us very nicely.
Mr. O'Connor: This came out in the campaign. If we stay on track with our current plans by 2011, we expect our budget to be about $20.3 billion.
Senator Day: In the Main Estimates, it is $14.8 billion, and that includes the previous government's promise of $600 million but does not include the $400 million, because that came out in the budget after the Main Estimates.
Mr. O'Connor: The other one is that the operations in Afghanistan are on top of that.
Senator Day: We are talking about a base for operations. We talked a little bit about procurement here and I would like to explore that more. When we get into buying of equipment, major equipment is expensive for the Armed Forces, as we all know. Will that be an additional budget item when the decision is made to proceed?
Mr. O'Connor: As members of the committee probably know, they use accrual accounting for capital. Just for the public's knowledge: If we want to buy a piece of equipment that will last for 20 years, we amortize the cost of the equipment over 20 years. This is why I said that currently in our funding framework we have sufficient funds now to move six or eight large projects. They are in the framework. They are capitalized over whatever the life of the project is, say 15 years or 20 years. If there is a budget increase in a particular year, and if you take pieces of it for capital, you can multiply each piece by 20. That is the way the accounting works. Yes, the money is there.
Senator Day: In the projections that you have made, the money is there that will be available for the Armed Forces over the next five years. Is there enough money to buy the capital equipment that you would like to see purchased?
Mr. O'Connor: Yes. The money is there, but then you have to look at the practical problem of how many projects you can manage and the sequence they are in for cash flow. It is not a major problem of getting the money. Sometimes, if you cannot spend it, then you cannot call that project up, so it is a matter of sequencing the projects.
Senator Day: Let us talk about capital equipment first and then I will talk about the personnel. There was an accelerated process to purchase certain pieces of capital equipment, such as fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters, and then everything stopped because of the election. With the new government taking office, I presume everything is the same and will be until you present the documentation to your colleagues to buy into these projects.
Mr. O'Connor: Yes. From the department's point of view, they are ready to go. I just have to get the approval of cabinet to proceed with the six or eight projects that I mentioned. They are ready to go.
Senator Day: Can we assume that all of the specifications have been dealt with? We have seen equipment procurement procedure for the last 15 years and the whole idea was to get away from that process.
You indicated that the defence procurement process we undergo reforms. Can you tell us your plans in that regard?
Mr. O'Connor: The department has already started down that road. In the past, as some of you may know, it took four years for a major piece of equipment to go to contract. That is, it took four years from the time somebody had the brilliant idea until the documentation was prepared and ready to go to contract.
Senator Day: Four years is an underestimate.
Mr. O'Connor: I am kind; it took at least four years. For major pieces of equipment, the department now is stating the requirement in terms of output, or performance. They are trying to keep the performance statement down to a page or two. This cuts down on department time.
The other thing is that it is top-down direction. In the old days, it moved in a bottom-up direction where a junior officer would start with the requirement, go to see his or her boss, and keep moving up the food chain through committees. We still have committees and the approval processes to ensure proper control, but the direction is coming from the top now. That is accelerating the process.
With some exceptions, we will abandon the need to Canadianize everything. When I was in the service, we called it C1 and if someone had a rifle, a truck or helmet, we had to Canadianize it. We are abandoning that practice, unless there is some overwhelming requirement to Canadianize products that are proven products in other nations.
We are trying to avoid where possible any developmental equipment. We do not want to buy paper trucks or paper airplanes. They have to be real, operational and proven. In the past, we also went down the track of buying stuff that was not quite there and did not quite deliver, and it involved us investing money and time with the manufacturer.
I am talking to my colleagues in Treasury Board and Industry Canada and Public Works and Government Services Canada. We have officials working together to ensure that the other parts of the government process are simplified and shortened.
As we move these projects through, you will see that they will not take eight or ten years but will move as quickly as the government can handle them.
Senator Day: My recollection is that the average for major capital equipment was 14 or 15 years. Obviously, in order to get an average of 14 or 15 years, it has to be over quite a few years.
Mr. O'Connor: My recollection is that it took six people to develop the plan for the M-113s. We ordered hundreds of these carriers. When we became involved in the light armoured vehicle acquisitions, as many as 100 people were involved in the project. The reason for the involvement of so many people was that the standard practice was not only to state the requirements but also the directions. If we wanted a blueberry pie, we did not simply say that we needed a blueberry pie, we said the pie must be this size and contain so many blueberries, and so on. We are out of that business now.
Senator Day: Are these reforms generated internally?
Mr. O'Connor: Yes.
Senator Day: Have you had any discussions or looked into procurement to see whether you need all the current governmental steps that include the involvement of PWGSC in the procurement process for military equipment?
Mr. O'Connor: As I said, we have only been in for three months. We have officials starting to discuss that part of the process. I do not know what ideas they are coming up with, so I cannot answer that question. You have to ask the Minister of Public Works and Government Services or the Minister of Industry Canada to answer those questions.
Senator Moore: Minister, you mentioned that pending cabinet approval, you have six to eight capital projects ready to go. Can you tell us what they are, what they will cost, and how they are to be paid?
Mr. O'Connor: At this moment, I cannot give you the costs because I have not finalized the costs and I have not been to my own cabinet to get approval. However, the costs are covered in the budget. I do not need an extra dollar to do these things. There are sealifts, trucks, and about four airlift projects. I forget what other projects are there, but a number of projects are ready to go.
Senator Moore: You say that the costs are covered by the budget. Are any of those costs being covered by cuts from existing activities?
Mr. O'Connor: No, not so much the capital, but as we get into our plans for the future, the department is over- programmed. That means that we have projects on lists in the capital program that will never happen. We have staff working on projects that will not happen. I have not looked at it yet, but we must bring the capital program into reality. We must eliminate projects that are needed but not vital to our policy. We have to work with what we have and determine what we have to do. Down the line, we will likely change some of the items inside the capital program, which is over-programmed by 20 per cent or 25 per cent into the future.
Senator Moore: Has a decision been made as to the type of aircraft that we will purchase for the airlift?
Mr. O'Connor: Not to my knowledge. If we keep airlift to its simplest terms, we are talking about strategic lift and tactical lift. There is no determination of the airplanes we will acquire, certainly not at my level.
Senator Moore: I am from Atlantic Canada and given the new added-on Maritime role for NORAD, I am concerned cuts to the Aurora maritime control aircraft at Greenwood and the submarine and surface vessels out of Halifax. Can you confirm that they will not experience cuts?
Mr. O'Connor: Nobody has brought a plan forward to me to cut them. I know three months seems like a long time, but there are levels of detail I have not yet reached. I have not received any suggestions of changes in force structure.
The other day, and this is not a change in force structure, I was presented with a situation with the Chicoutimi. We had the option of spending more than $100 million to put it in the water for 12-16 months and then pulled it out of the water and put it into mid-light upgrade and rip out everything we had put into it. I said that the best plan was to keep it out of the water, mothball it and do the upgrade at the proper time. I have not received any force structure changes.
Senator Forrestall: Senator Moore has touched on the area I would like to pursue. Minister, I gather that capital purchases of equipment, the strategic aircraft lift in particular, is a priority. I gather that you will not simply buy off the shelf.
Mr. O'Connor: Substantial aircraft anywhere is pretty well off the shelf.
Senator Forrestall: Let me go to the next step. I believe that Canadians understand that this is an urgent situation. Would you take a proven piece of equipment and simply purchase it, bypassing the tendering process and the calling for specs?
Mr. O'Connor: The ideal process is a competitive tendering process, but there are exceptions. We sometimes go ``sole source'' which occurs when we need something right away or if there is only one possible solution. I will give the immediate need in Afghanistan, where we had to have armour plating or something like that right away. Other than that scenario, our policy is to involve ourselves in the competitive tendering process.
Senator Forrestall: As we look forward to acquisition of vessels and, certainly, to the replacement of the spine of our fleet, are we considering the revitalization of Canadian shipyards, with a view, of course, to tendering in a competitive sense on the construction of these vessels?
Mr. O'Connor: I imagine that would be of interest to Industry Canada. I pay for part of it. The Coast Guard exists, too, and Canada produces other vessels.
I am trying to identify the naval requirements for the future, and I only have part of them now. We have a long-term procurement plan for the navy, but that does not prevent me from moving on other plans. When I have this long-term plan, I will speak to the people at Industry Canada, who will be aware of that long-term plan.
I cannot speak for the Coast Guard, but I assume the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans will have a long-term plan for the Canadian Coast Guard, and then Industry Canada can look at the plan and see how that wraps together for shipyards. I am not specifically involved in shipyards.
The Chairman: Minister, you mentioned you were not buying any paper equipment, that you want proven equipment. The committee cannot find any existing joint support ships. Would that be an exception to the paper rule?
Mr. O'Connor: If you have a requirement that is unique and meets our needs, then I guess we will have to build a ship.
In the case of shipping, if they do not have the type of ships that we need and we have a definite requirement, we will have to be involved with Industry Canada in developing the ships. As a principle, we do not want to be in developmental work or buy paper airplanes or trucks et cetera. I am old enough, and maybe a few of you on the committee are as well, to remember that technology always promises great things but never quite delivers what it promises. It is nice to have something you can put your hands on, see it operate and know how much it costs per hour to operate. That is our preference.
Senator Day: I want to finish up with the budget issue from the perspective of additional personnel. This committee has been supportive of the government's position in terms of additional personnel for the Armed Forces. We have come out with several reports in that regard. In fact, we were quite excited when the previous government made an announcement for additional personnel, but several months after that, Admiral Buck, whose responsibility it was at the time, told us they had not even started anything when everyone knew there was a need for more personnel. We asked him why that was the case, and he said he did not have the money to make the changes.
We have been advised that there was a shortfall of approximately $800 million in the budget of National Defence. Now there is an additional $1 billion in the budget for this year, which was your promise and the previous government's promise. Undoubtedly, there are many other expenses, and if we take out $800 million out of the $1 billion, not much will be left for all the other activities you have indicated.
Do you have a personnel program in place for this year? You talked about the advertising campaign, but how many of these 23,000 recruits will join the Armed Forces within this fiscal year.
Mr. O'Connor: I may have it wrong, but I think the Armed Forces have to recruit 5,000 a year to maintain their numbers. In the last year, they reached 106 per cent, which was their maintenance level and a little bit.
A budget is an intention and there the estimates, the approval and the Treasury Board. The extra money for recruiting above the Liberal plan will kick in around July. We will start to see some increases in the manpower of the Armed Forces over what the Liberal plan was, but it will be modest because we are just starting to get our money into the system.
Next year, they will have the full tranche of money they will need to increase at the rate they can increase, and it will be there in the subsequent years. It will be slower taking off because they still have the training problem. You will see some modest increase in the level of the Armed Forces today, which is at 62,500 right now, paid regular. Next year, you will see an increase, and then the increases should start to show up each year.
Senator Day: We will not get into it at this stage, and I am sure we will have an opportunity to talk about the huge difference between those that are paid and those that are effective.
Mr. O'Connor: That is a problem. There are roughly 10,000 people tied up in recruiting and training non-effectives. If we become efficient, we might be able to squeeze 1,000 or 2,000 more effectives out of that system.
Senator Day: I am concerned about the $400 million promised by this government, which came out in the budget, but will not be authorized until some time after the Supplementary Estimates in November and December of next year. That is almost the end of the fiscal year and you will have to wait that long before you receive that additional money.
Mr. O'Connor: It is the budget process. The money has been announced in the budget and the budget has to be approved. It is the budget process.
Senator Day: Because of the timing of the election and when the government fell, we are doing supply but the $400 million is not in this supply bill.
Mr. O'Connor: It is based on last year's budget.
Senator Day: The supply the current government is asking for goes through to November and December, so National Defence will not get a chance to deal with the $400 million promised by this government in the budget until after supplementary supply comes along.
Mr. O'Connor: My recollection is that whatever amount of money was put in the budget this year to support the Liberal increase will be double that amount.
Senator Day: I am not sure where you are coming from with that one.
Mr. O'Connor: The plan was to commit $100 million extra to buy new people. I may have these numbers wrong, but because of our budget process where we are caught at the rear end, we will be able to commit $200 million extra to buy people, above maintaining ourselves.
Senator Day: Will that happen next year?
Mr. O'Connor: It will occur this fiscal year. These details are being worked out, but that is where I think they are going. We will spend more money than originally planned on people this year. Accountants' magical shuffling of dollars will give extra money to buy more people this year.
Senator Day: The magic of accountants unfortunately has resulted in the Armed Forces not having enough money to do the job we ask them to do. That is our concern and why we are putting these questions to you.
Mr. O'Connor: As I said earlier, there is a shortfall in operating and maintenance, but that shortfall is identified by at least 20 individuals. Sometimes the shortfall starts to change.
For example, when we replace the current Hercules fleet, which is costing upwards of $400 million a year to maintain, you will find that the new fleet, whichever one it is, will not cost the same amount of money to maintain. That type of situation changes the operations and maintenance mix.
I do not want to guess at a number on trucks because I will probably state the wrong number on the record, but it is very expensive to maintain our medium army trucks. As we replace the trucks, the cost of their maintenance will go down.
Many of the operations and maintenance problems are the result of having out-of-date equipment that costs a fortune to maintain. As we start to move through some of these capital projects, the balance will change. We will certainly improve the problem in the future; not so much by pouring more money into it, but by changing how we maintain and upgrade the equipment.
Senator Poulin: Minister O'Connor, I thank you for your opening remarks recognizing the work of this committee in bringing defence and security matters to the forefront of public consciousness. I think you will agree that one of the reasons for our success is due to the broadcasting of the committee proceedings.
As you know, before I was called to the Senate 10 years ago, I worked as a broadcasting executive for more than 20 years. I know firsthand that Canadian journalists, technicians and producers have always been very respectful of victims and their families when covering events that involved deep grief.
[Translation]
Mr. Minister, we know that Canadians are very proud of our soldiers, whether they are working here in Canada or on a mission in another country. We also know that Canadians feel a deep sympathy for the families who have lost a loved one on a mission.
Mr. Minister, I do not understand the new government's decision to prevent the media from being present at Trenton for the arrival of the bodies of the soldiers we lost.
[English]
Mr. O'Connor: As I said in the House of Commons, the press has full access to every incident that occurs in Kandahar. The press has imbedded reporters who report every incident happening daily in Afghanistan. Nothing is hidden from the press. Every time there is a casualty, it is known instantly across the nation; it appears in newspapers and on television.
At funerals and memorial services, if the family wants the press there they can have the press and if they do not we make sure the press is not present.
At the second stage of receiving the bodies, which is the first time an individual comes face-to-face with the coffin, in most cases the wives, everything is theoretical up to the moment when they see that coffin and it goes into the hearse.
I do not care if the press has boom cameras watching the bodies come off the aircraft. That does not matter to me. I do not want the press capturing individuals when they are falling down on the coffin crying and having a private moment of grief. That, to me, is inappropriate. That is a private moment. I intend, and the government intends, to protect the privacy of people during those situations.
If individuals want to deal with the press later by way of press conferences, they can do what they wish. We are Canadian citizens, and we are free to do that. However, the moment that coffins are received in Trenton is a moment of private grief, and our policy is to protect the privacy of all individuals.
You may not know it, but not everybody wants the press there to see their grief. Therefore, our government has come up with a policy that stands for everybody. We protect those who do not want the press there during their moment of grief. For those who do, we provide coverage at the funeral.
[Translation]
Senator Poulin: Will it be the government's policy, from now on, to prevent the media from covering the arrival of our dead soldiers from other countries?
[English]
Mr. O'Connor: I know, senator, you have a background with the press, but I do not understand the problem. There is no intention to hide anything. The intention is to protect the privacy of the grieving individual. If the press wants to report things at the beginning and at the end, that is fine.
I do not know if any of you are aware, but in the last decade in Bosnia we had 20 to 25 dead come home, and no one ever knew they came home. They were brought home in the middle of the night. There was no press in attendance. That is what you are talking about when you refer to manipulating the press.
We have no intention of manipulating anything. We are trying to protect the privacy of the family members when they receive the coffin. After that, they are free to do what they want; they are free to go on television, to complain against me, to do what they wish. The moment the coffins arrive at Trenton is a moment reserved for the families.
Senator Meighen: Welcome, minister. We are running out of time, so I will ask a couple of questions based on what I heard you say; namely, that very little is written in stone right now, and that you and the department are still open to different ways of doing things.
In that regard, I wonder about the procurement process. Would you consider raising the expenditure limit of the minister to $250 million, for example, so the department does not have to deal with a whole bunch of other departments, thereby delaying the process? Rather, could they proceed internally to make an acquisition if that seems to be appropriate?
Mr. O'Connor: Again, we are starting to talk among departments to try to simplify and accelerate the process. I do not know about specific amounts.
Senator Meighen: Could the limit be increased?
Mr. O'Connor: Yes. As you know, National Defence handles more substantial projects compared to other departments. In principle, if the Minister of Defence's authority was greater, the projects could move along more quickly. That is part of the discussions we will have to have in the future.
Senator Meighen: That is a decision this committee has espoused, and I want to underline it.
Similarly, we have espoused the principle of arming the Coast Guard to act as an armed constabulary. There are pros and cons to that, of course.
I was thinking of the North where the Coast Guard has ice breaking experience and the navy does not. That might be an option to consider before spending a great many dollars to train the navy and to construct the ships necessary for them to get into the ice breaking business.
Mr. O'Connor: Our vision for the North and sovereignty for the North is at the heart of our policy. We are fully committed to maintaining our sovereignty on land, air and sea throughout the North.
I cannot speak for Canada's Coast Guard, but my understanding is that there is no intention of arming the Canadian Coast Guard. With respect to the navy, they will get into the Arctic one way or another, for example with nuclear submarines. They are very expensive, and whether we require them is another issue. We could use icebreakers or hovercraft. There are different ways to do it.
I have the staff working on the Arctic options, but because we are in the early stages of the initiatives, it will take awhile to see the various ideas. We may end up with a mix of icebreakers and hovercraft — or maybe there is another way to do it.
In the future, beyond my time, I want our navy to have the capability to go to every bit of water and ice that is part of our ocean responsibility. I want our army to be able to go to every speck of land and our air force to survey every piece of land so that our sovereignty is secure.
As you know, it will take awhile, but the Northwest Passage will one day open up on a regular basis. We have vast amounts of resources up there including oil, gas, minerals and diamonds. The world's population is growing and the need for resources is increasing with that growth. We are not facing an imminent invasion; it is a matter of ensuring that we are sovereign over our territory. I do not think we would object to any vessel going through the Northwest Passage as long as it follows our laws. We have to monitor vessels that might be carrying toxic material, for instance. In that case, we would have to carry the consequences of such a spill.
Senator Meighen: There is a similar case in the South right now.
Mr. O'Connor: Yes, we have to impose our sovereignty so that other nations obey our laws.
Senator Meighen: I do not think you will find much objection here to the necessity of heightening our presence in the Arctic.
Finally, our Prime Minister visited our troops in Afghanistan in February and I think he was generally well received. I believe you have a Canadian Forces show tour planned in May with some entertainment personalities. This committee is anxious to go to Afghanistan in the fall.
We have written to you and had an acknowledgement of our letter that a more detailed response is forthcoming — I think the words were ``in the future.'' My comment is merely designed to urge you, if you could, to let us know as soon as possible so that we can get on with the planning process.
Mr. O'Connor: I am always looking from the troops' point of view because they have streams of visitors. I am trying to get the number of visitors under control.
The people that should definitely visit the troops are people from the Senate committee and the House of Commons defence committees because that is your interest. What I would like to do is arrange a visit so that both groups are together — you go at the same time — so that we do not devote a whole lot of resources on an endless stream of visitors.
In principle, that is what I would like to do. I have to talk to your committee and the other committee to see if it is possible. If it is not possible, we will have to come up with some other arrangement.
Senator Meighen: I take it that your office is prepared to do what it can to assist in that endeavour and I thank you very much.
Senator Atkins: You said that to maintain the level of the military requires 5,000 intakes a year.
Mr. O'Connor: About 5,000 intakes, yes.
Senator Atkins: Is that in addition to the 13,000?
Mr. O'Connor: Yes, and each year as you increase, you need 6,000 and then 7,000 to maintain. As you keep increasing the force, you are just replacing your attrition.
Senator Atkins: It is about 10 per cent.
Mr. O'Connor: I am told it is about 5,000, so over 60,000 it is 7 per cent or something like that.
Senator Atkins: I think you have a challenge ahead of you. Over the years, this committee has faced this recruitment question and although we have received assurances that the process has been streamlined and improved, it never seems to happen.
To give you an example, we have been in CFB Borden and seen new recruits hanging around waiting for assignment. This raises the other question, which is the cadre that have to train them. We found that not only in Borden, but also at Camp Gagetown. We were told that they were shuffling the deck of cadre for training purposes. How do you propose to address that if the recruitment process is moving even faster?
Mr. O'Connor: There are a number of ways to face the challenge. The first intakes go to flesh out existing units. You have one of these Catch-22 situations. Where existing units are under strength, they cannot afford to send NCOs; therefore, the schools do not have NCOs so they cannot train people. It is an endless circle.
On a number of fronts, you have to start fleshing out existing units bringing them up to strength. Perhaps you have to do innovative things, as mentioned by Senator Kenny, where you bring back former instructors on temporary contracts.
You may also bypass the system. For instance, if you need a large number of infantry, maybe you bypass the training system. You take 150 recruits, give them to battalion X and say your job is to train these recruits. There are ways to do it.
The difficult part is in training the highly technical trades. You cannot give someone a group of recruits and say train them. You have to have the whole structure, so some of the critical trades are the problem.
Senator Atkins: Will this require a total reorganization of the infrastructure?
Mr. O'Connor: I do not know. I have not seen the infrastructure plan. We have too much infrastructure. We have too many buildings, too many everything. However, until I see a detailed plan on where the too many is against what our policy is and what our intentions are, we cannot start making adjustments. Down the line, there will be adjustments to the infrastructure.
Senator Atkins: Concerning the air borne, I assume the reason you would put it in Trenton is that is where the training facility is located.
Mr. O'Connor: It was located in CFB Trenton where the airhead was and still is located. I did not ask the air force, but I do not think it intends to change the airhead.
The Chairman: On behalf of the committee, we would like to thank you for appearance today. Your comments have been very helpful and constructive. We would like to get back to you about the idea of a joint committee going to Afghanistan.
We have some reports that we would like to give your staff so that you are familiar with them. We would like you to know that we have appreciated your attendance very much today and are very pleased that you have chosen to come here for your first committee hearing.
We have before us to discuss recent developments in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, including the force's role in Afghanistan, Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli.
Commissioner Zaccardelli joined the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in 1970. He was appointed as the twentieth commissioner on September 2, 2002. Under the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act, Commissioner Zaccardelli is responsible for all aspects of the management and ongoing operation of the force and its roughly 23,000 employees.
Committee members have met with Commissioner Zaccardelli, both informally and formally, a number of times over the years, but today is the Commissioner's first official appearance before the committee.
Welcome, Commissioner.
Giuliano Zaccardelli, Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police: Thank you very much. Good afternoon.
I am looking forward to this opportunity to explore and discuss with this committee the best ways to respond to the security, safety, law enforcement and leadership issues before us.
Before we begin what I know will be a fruitful discussion, I would like to make a few comments to set the stage.
As the members of this committee know, the context we face for law enforcement, crime prevention and for creating a comprehensive approach to security and law enforcement to ensure the safety of citizens and communities is more urgent than ever before. We observe a complex web of interwoven and interconnected factors that make our jobs in law enforcement and yours in the capacity of advisers, counsellors and leaders, challenging, to say the least.
Among these we face the emergence of terrorism as a real and present danger in our country and, indeed, around the world. It has been said that it is not a matter of whether, but when, Canada will encounter its own 9/11 or other countries will find themselves facing the same level of tragedy and its related demands. We are experiencing a crossover between community-level crime, organized crime, cybercrime and terrorist activities. This crossover means that we have little choice but to act to prevent and respond in a multilateral and multilevel fashion.
We have to face heightened public concern, which is justifiable even when fed by emotional fear rather than hard proof. This serves to increase the importance of informed, sound and open decision-making.
There is the need to balance the protection of civil liberties with the requirement to be able to act in a timely and effective manner to potential and actual threats. There is an ever-present need to find and allocate the required financial, human, technical, technological and infrastructure resources.
We face the challenge of ``operationalizing'' integrated and intelligence-led policing along with our colleagues in the intelligence community, NGOs, the criminal justice system, both domestic and international, and government at all levels.
We must meet the challenge of the ongoing requirements to manage the force appropriately and, in particular, to identify, recruit, train and support a topline workforce that is sensitive to changing demographics, new demands in the areas of science and technology, and issues related to employment equity, diversity, management, compensation, and so on.
We have an external environment that demands levels of transparency and accountability unsurpassed in our history, and with this, the concomitant interest of the media, the public, the political sphere and the numerous bureaucracies with which we interact.
Finally, there are the demands and challenges related to managing in this complex environment that mean that the old-style turf wars and traditional approaches to role delineation and leadership cannot be maintained. We must find the best ways to operate inside the deep-seated commitment to integration that law enforcement and our other partners have adopted, while remaining vigilant as to who does what, where final authorities lie, and achieving a balance between accountability and independence. We must find ways to deal with the thorny questions as to where resources will be found and how they will be allocated.
All of these need to be taken into consideration while we remain mindful of the fact that safety and security are not the only factors that determine quality of life and keep Canadians awake at night. Our work sits on a continuum of public policy and community issues that include health care, environmental concerns, the viability of social programs, and intergovernmental and international relations, among others.
Clearly, this is not an exhaustive list of the challenges that lie before us. Neither is it short enough to tackle all in one go or to come up with easy and definitive answers.
I welcome this opportunity to talk these matters over with you and to answer your questions, both philosophical and practical, as a means for creating the framework for moving ahead.
If I may, I would like to throw in a few questions, not to infer that I have the answers to them, but they are integral to this process of genuine inquiry.
How do we embed the model of integration that has been so widely acknowledged as the only way to tackle the complexities we face, while simultaneously protecting the integrity of the many players, both institutional and individual?
How will we identify roles, leadership functions, lines of responsibility and management in a way that respects integration and multilateralism?
How do we identify the need for more resources and targeted approaches to resource allocation in ways that are not seen to be self-serving and, more importantly, that do not become politicized?
How do we balance the careful tension between the necessary independence of law enforcement with democratic fiduciary and accountability needs of government?
We operate in complex times, but we have never been more ready, capable and interested to work with entities such as this committee, government departments, and political, academic, and bureaucratic colleagues in a spirit of open and shared leadership. Notwithstanding my personal responsibility to manage the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, I believe that the trust of Canadians and even inside our own organizations is at stake unless we can move forward effectively with vision and commitment to address all that I have raised here and more. I cannot state strongly enough that nothing is more important to safeguard than that trust.
Senator Meighen: Welcome, Commissioner. It is a distinct honour to have you for your first visit before us. I hope it will not be your last.
You have certainly posed some challenging questions in your opening statement. If you will forgive me, fortunately I am on this side of the table and you are on that side, so I can play for time in trying to figure out the answers to your questions while you do not have that luxury in answering mine.
I begin with a question to set the context of what you face as the person responsible for running the RCMP. What are the major changes that have taken place in the organization this past year and what are the major challenges you see in the year ahead?
Mr. Zaccardelli: In terms of the major changes, we are becoming a strategically focused, intelligence-led organization, which means that we have determined what we believe are the most important things to tackle and then have gone about systematically putting into place systems and approaches that will get us those results.
When we speak of joint responsibilities in dealing with the terrorist threat in this country, the most extensive changes in our relationship with CSIS have taken place this past year. That is not to say the relationship was not good before, but, for example, next week, the Director of CSIS and I are signing a new memorandum of understanding, which has been years in the making. This memorandum sets a new tone and approach to what we believe is a truly seamless partnership in the threat of and fight against terrorism in this country.
I cannot emphasize enough the steps we have taken to change the cultural makeup and mindset within our two organizations. For the first time, we have had joint sessions between our organizations with the people who are actually responsible, both on the ground and at the senior management level, including Mr. Judd and myself.
One of the greatest threats facing Canada is in terms of national security. We are proud that two of the key principal agencies in this country are working together to ensure our national security. The military and others play a role, but from a perception issue, this is something we are proud of because we know about the inquiries into Air India and the perceptions that have existed for many years. This is one of the changes that has come about in the past year. We are operating in a completely new era.
Senator Meighen: For my own clarification, is the effort being directed at breaking down the silo approach, which, of course, we saw in public evidence that came forth after 9/11 that so bedevilled the Americans, that one hand did not know what the other was doing?
Mr. Zaccardelli: Yes, but it is not so simple as to say we are breaking down the silos. The differences that existed between us and the issues that still face us deal with the way the legal systems are structured in this country and the policies that challenge the two organizations in terms of sharing and using information.
Senator Meighen: Is it a legal or personality challenge?
Mr. Zaccardelli: It is a legal challenge; there has never been a personality challenge. We are working closely with a Department of Justice committee to examine these issues and how to deal with the challenges.
Obviously, we respect the Charter, but can we maximize and use the laws and systems to maximize the sharing of information? We have made huge inroads in this area.
I am proud of the continued focus on organized crime, which is as great a threat to this country as the threat of terrorism. We have made substantial inroads in terms of leveraging the collective resources available in Canada to tackle the scourge of organized crime.
The RCMP has 25,000 employees, 17,000 of whom are police officers. There are 60,000 police officers in this country. Traditionally, it has been assumed that the RCMP or a small number of the major police forces are responsible for organized crime. We have made huge inroads in the past year in terms of integrating the collective resources of all the police forces to establish a truly national strategy where everyone participates, to a greater or lesser extent. The leveraging of the collective resources of all police communities to tackle organized crime is the envy of the world.
We have an intelligence approach with a threat assessment model that is copied around the world. Not only law enforcement agencies, but also various other departments and agencies are also participating in the model. We are truly maximizing and leveraging the collective resources responsible for public safety at the federal, provincial and municipal levels. Those are two huge advances that we have made in the last year.
Senator Meighen: Will you focus on those two primary issues in the upcoming year?
Mr. Zaccardelli: Absolutely, and at the end of the day, my role as a leader is to maximize and leverage the resources in this country. My job as a leader is to maximize the use of those resources against terrorism, organized crime, cybercrime and the threat against the economic integrity of this country, which is another area of concern.
Senator Meighen: Regarding organized crime, what groups are particularly active coast to coast? Would you classify biker gangs as organized crime?
Mr. Zaccardelli: I certainly would. They are at the top of the A list. We have a B list, which we are monitoring as up- and-comers.
Clearly, the motorcycle gangs are the most established organizations in the world, and this is a huge problem for Canada. Another is Asian organized crime. I do not want to sound discriminatory. When I speak of traditional organized crime, I am referring to groups such as the Italians, and so on. We have street gangs, which are becoming a serious issue which have become a major feeder system into these groups. Our concern is our ability and available resources to tackle them. For this reason, we need an intelligence-led process, a sophisticated threat assessment model to determine the greater threats. In terms of serious organized crime, our best guess is that we are able to tackle approximately one-third of what we know is out there.
Senator Meighen: In what ways can terrorists exploit the vulnerabilities created by organized crime?
Mr. Zaccardelli: Whether terrorist groups use organized crime groups, or vice versa, has been the subject of debate. There seems to be an emerging trend or indication that some terrorist groups clearly using organized crime groups to fund some of their activities. The indication is that we need to pay attention to the low-level organized groups that have not come up on our radar screen. We are re-examining those groups. There is an increasing indication that some terrorist groups are financed by either directly supporting criminal activity or indirectly receiving resources that are the product of illegal activity. That is a trend we are monitoring as having the potential to cause serious problems.
Senator Meighen: What progress have you made toward changing the face of the recruits coming into the RCMP to reflect the face of Canada?
Mr. Zaccardelli: I am glad you asked, senator, because I spent last week in Toronto at a conference with over 500 people including Aboriginals and other visible minority groups and police chiefs.
I feel we have been very successful in recruiting and training and our hope is to reflect Canada's new diversity. Between 8 per cent and 9 per cent of our force is made up of Aboriginals; we are well above the demographic numbers.
On the visible minority front, we are also making great strides but there is more to do because Canada's demographics are changing. An evaluation of our employment equity and the Treasury Board requirements shows that we are in a good position, although we are not on top. The new census will give us the numbers to guide us. It is not easy. We are competing against other employers for the new young men and women. Aboriginal recruiting is also difficult. However, we are holding our own. I have a number of national committees that give me advice and put me to the test. I meet regularly with the Aboriginal national committee and the visible minorities committee to hear how well I am doing.
Senator Meighen: How are you doing on gender diversity?
Mr. Zaccardelli: We are doing well. Are we at 50 per cent? No, but we are climbing all the time. We are at about 18 per cent in the force and about 25 per cent to 30 per cent in the academy. We are progressing. When we make mistakes, we learn from them. I think we are doing reasonably well.
Senator Meighen: Commissioner, this committee, just like the Auditor General, is concerned about the level of resources that you have at your disposal. I wonder if you could give me your comments on the loss of personnel through attrition, and tell me whether you have had any success in stemming those losses.
Can you offer some comments on the increasing demands from the federal government for policing the provinces, the territories and the municipalities?
We have had the impression that you are short of personnel, and the new budget gave you $161 million to begin recruiting 1,000 new officers. That money is for not only training officers but also prosecutors. You are short of officers now. Is this money to fill the shortfall that exists and add on a few or is this really money for 1,000 new people in uniform?
Mr. Zaccardelli: Are we short of resources? Absolutely, we are short of resources, but I do not know of any department or agency that is not short of resources. I want to separate the question between federal and provincial work and contract work.
I must also try to put some context on this. Seven years ago, shortly before I became commissioner, our budget was $1.8 billion. It has doubled since then, so I cannot say anything about shortages without also being fair in complimenting the resources we have received along with other mandates. However, we still have serious issues to deal with in terms of resources.
On the contract side, the uniform side, for the first time in our history — last year the federal government through Treasury Board, signed an agreement where they will totally fund all the contract positions. People sometimes say that we are taking from Peter to pay Paul. I do not do that because I believe in an integrated approach and one complements the other. There was a time where we had to dip into federal resources to pay for contract positions. When we are under contract with the province of Alberta, for example, for a certain number of Mounties, the federal share is up front and it is paid.
I said we dipped into the federal side to supplement that, but there were also times when we dipped into the contract side to help the federal side and vice versa. On the contract side we are doing well.
On the federal side there is no question that we have not totally recovered from the cuts that we suffered in the mid 1990s. We have a serious shortage in that area. Again, in the last while, we have been receiving more and more resources. The latest infusion is the integrity funding of $161 million. My understanding is that the Department of Justice will take $27 million of the $161 million for lawyers. We did not actually get $161 million. The resources will go, in part, to fill the integrity issues and we will create a number of new positions. We are working on that number now. One of the challenges is that the cost of a fully-fledged and fully ready police officer is becoming more expensive. Given the complexity of the work and the requirement at the federal level, it literally costs $192,000 to fully load up a federal investigator or police officer.
About 30 per cent of that money goes to disclosure. When the Supreme Court asks us to disclose certain things in a certain way, we accept that and follow that, but the cost of disclosure has skyrocketed and the cost of every investigation goes through the roof because of certain requirements.
Disclosure is important, but when the decision was made concerning the handling of disclosure, there was no discussion regarding compensation of costs. It draws down on our ability to have as many people or to have the resources for each member. The cost of training a federal police officer is about $192,000 so, in fairness, this money is not necessarily going to get us 1,000 police officers; it is starting the process of getting us up to 1,000 new police officers.
We are pleased with the budget and I am extremely pleased with what we received. Our training academy, for the first time, received substantial resources that will enable us to train to the levels and fix the infrastructure issues such as more barracks and classrooms. We are going to move up to training over 2,000 cadets a year which is unprecedented for us.
We have substantial monies for peacekeeping, and for the first time we have A-base funding. We have been doing peacekeeping missions since 1989, but we have never had A-base funding. For example, every time five people were sent to Haiti, there were five vacant positions and CIDA would pay for the positions, but the positions were left vacant.
The DND funding we received is very good.
The budget was extremely good to us, but we still have the challenge of the exponential growth of the federal work that we are required to do. We have to be able to keep up with the federal demand.
Senator Meighen: Thirty-seven million for construction at the RCMP Academy, Depot Division is great news. Does that commitment include money for training personnel, given that you will be processing additional people?
The RCMP might experience much the same blockages as the military because of the lack of instructors to train these new recruits.
Budget 2006 allocated $161 million minus $27 million for prosecutors, which equals $134 million. Does that $134 million go to the A-base budget?
Mr. Zaccardelli: Yes, that is A-base funding for the federal side. To return to your point about the Regina Depot, $37 million will look after our infrastructure, et cetera. We will pull instructors out of the field to train up to the required levels. We will need ramp-up time but we will be able to do it.
Senator Day: We have just discussed the budget amount of $161 million for federal policing and $37 million for construction at the RCMP's Regina Depot. Are those amounts over two years in each instance?
Mr. Zaccardelli: Yes.
Senator Day: The RCMP will receive $37 million of the $161 million and $17 million for the Depot in that fiscal year; is that correct?
Mr. Zaccardelli: The $37 million is not out of the $161 million.
Senator Day: According to my figures, it is $37 million for this year and $124 million for the following, which totals $161 million over two years.
Mr. Zaccardelli: It is not. Rather, the $161 million is for federal policing to re-establish and assist with the integrity and to add new positions at the federal level. The $37 million is a separate amount for the Regina Depot.
Senator Day: My apologies. The amount of $37 million for the Depot is over two years and the $161 million is over two years; is that correct?
Mr. Zaccardelli: Yes.
Senator Day: We were confusing the figures. For this fiscal year, you have $37 million for policing and for the following year, you will have $124 million. The two figures total $161 million for policing over two years; is that correct?
Mr. Zaccardelli: Yes. The smaller amount is for this year and the larger amount is for the following year.
Senator Day: Thank you.
Senator Zimmer: Before I go to my questions about your meeting with the Prime Minister, I will ask about one of your comments to Senator Meighen on organized crime. You indicated that you touch about one-third of organized crime. Do you lack sufficient personnel to deal with organized crime? Is the problem that you do not know where organized crime is operating?
Mr. Zaccardelli: It is a function of resources, senator, and so it is important for us to support and operate according to the philosophy of intelligence-led integrated policing. We have limited resources so we need to know them well so that we use them effectively. That is why we leverage them with our partners in policing and with other relevant departments and agencies. It is simply a function of resources.
I mean one-third of what we know, because I do not pretend to know all of the organized crime that is out there.
Senator Zimmer: The committee is aware of your recent meeting with the Prime Minister. Could you give us a sense of the key directional messages that you received from the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness in respect of carrying out your mandate?
Mr. Zaccardelli: Senator, you can appreciate that I will not go into the specifics of any conversations I have had with anyone. However, I can assure you that we have had nothing but support for the carrying out of our mandate as a national law enforcement agency in this country. We have had support and much sympathy for the need for resources for this organization, and I am pleased with our direction. I would also add that I know this is the subject of much speculation, as happens from time to time. I do not receive, and never have received, any operational direction from anyone in terms of how to manage the force and what to do with my resources. That established principle has been respected as long as I have been around, and my four predecessors have said that it has always been respected. The matter is the subject of a great deal of speculation but we receive nothing but support in our efforts to provide the best security and safety for Canadian citizens.
Senator Zimmer: Have you been directed to change your priorities in any way?
Mr. Zaccardelli: We had five strategic priorities in the RCMP before the new government came to power. The priorities are the result of a sophisticated process of identification within the RCMP in consultation with our partners. There has never been an effort to change those priorities. Our priorities will change only when we believe they should change.
Senator Zimmer: The committee questions the effectiveness of the Integrated Border Enforcement Teams, IBETs. Given that the RCMP does not parole the Canada/U.S. border, are these intelligence-led inter-agency teams sufficient to ensure security between border posts?
Mr. Zaccardelli: That is a very good question and I am glad of the opportunity to respond to it. It is the firm belief of the RCMP that Canada has a number of vulnerabilities at land borders, at marine ports, on the Great Lakes and at airports, all of which are critical entry points into Canada. Obviously, depending on what we do, we become vulnerable, particularly in this post 9/11 era. Therefore, we asked for additional resources and received some 148-150 resources. Given that figure, we determined that it would be most effective to use those teams by creating Integrated Border Enforcement Teams. First, we created multidisciplinary teams from our 150 people and leveraged them. We invited the two provincial police forces, the municipal police forces and the Canada Border Services Agency, CBSA, and other agencies so that we could grow the system. Given the teams we had, we deployed them in 23 strategic locations around the country. In those locations, the teams became flexible and mobile and gave us the best opportunity to maximize their use.
I acknowledge that the number might not be ideal but deploying them in an integrated fashion across Canada was the best thing we could do. We did not place them on the border and we are often asked how they can be effective in protecting the border. The border is a line that separates two countries, and the people who abuse that border, whether through national security or organized crime, do not sit on the border when they conspire to violate the law. They are elsewhere, such as in Montreal or inland or overseas. We have strategically located teams to obtain the information and intelligence. They then investigate those groups that are using the borders. They are near the border when they need to be, they go around the world when they need to go and they go after the people who threaten this country.
The IBETs are limited in numbers but are strategically located so that they are able to maximize their use in partnership with our friends in Canada and in the U.S. The Americans has instituted the IBET system on their side of the border.
When people ask whether the IBET is a good system that speaks to whether or not it is functioning well.
Senator Zimmer: I am delighted that the RCMP academy in Regina will be getting improvements, because many years ago, in 1960, I took my Bronze Medallion, Bronze Cross and National Lifeguard courses at that location. They have a great pool, but I have to tell you that it is a brutal course. I am delighted that they will be improving it with the new funding.
Mr. Zaccardelli: That pool closed for several years because it had deteriorated so badly. For a non-swimmer like me, senator, I ordered the repairs and reopening because I felt we needed a pool in Regina.
The Chairman: Commissioner, the committee has come out with reports on a number of subjects over the past four years. We focussed on airports, the Great Lakes and ports of entry and we are concerned about what we see when we go and visit these areas.
Canada has 89 airports, and as best as we can determine, we see only 100 officers dedicated to national investigations at these airports. When we do the math, we do not like how it looks. Can you explain this to us?
Mr. Zaccardelli: Yes, senator, you are right. We have about 125 federal enforcement officers located at the three major airports in this country. I agree that number to too small but we have to work with the resources that we have.
There were not any there before we received the 124 resources. After the policy changes that took the RCMP out of the airports, there was no investigative presence at the airports other than the visible presence of the uniformed police officers from different jurisdictions. We argued and got it back to 100, and it is up to 124. There is a need to enhance that number.
Again, we try to integrate those 124 in a strategic way with our other units. There are inland sections targeting airport operations. Is that enough? Obviously, criminals use other airports to bring in contraband and so on. We will react to that if we have sufficient intelligence, but it is a reactive, not a proactive approach to policing, which is the ideal situation that one wants to be in. Clearly, yes, there is a need for enhanced enforcement and there is a need to have a seamless, integrated enforcement approach right across the board for the airports.
If I can anticipate some other questions: It is not good enough. As I said, we have the airports, the marine ports, the Great Lakes and the land borders, which are vulnerable points. If we simply enhance the security at any one area, we know that the criminals are not stupid; they will go to the areas where they think that they can best attack us. We have to respond in a systemic, holistic way to all of the vulnerable points.
The airports in particular, are a major source of concern for us in terms of organized crime and obviously from a national security perspective.
The Chairman: The committee has visited the three major airports to which you have referred. When we talk to the officers in charge, they list an extensive number of criminal families that are active airside within those airports. We are not talking about around the fence; we are talking about inside the fence.
Given that we have such a well-known number of criminal families inside the fence, why do you not give them greater priority?
Mr. Zaccardelli: It is not a question of a greater or lesser priority, senator. I have to return to the fact that, at most, we are able to cover one-third, and I am almost being a little generous, of the organized crime groups. That means that two-thirds of the groups are out there that we are not actively working, which means that the organized crime groups are actively working at the airports and so on.
What we do is we use our intelligence-led model and our threat assessment model to try to identify the groups that are most threatening or causing the greatest amount of potential danger to this country and we target those groups. Some of them are using the airports; some of them are using the marine ports, and so on. We try to identify the groups that are the most threatening and go after them. Given the resources that we have and our limitations, we know that there are groups that we cannot go after, and that is a given.
The Chairman: Commissioner, you raised the subject of ports. There are 19 ports in the national system and you have 30 officers dedicated to investigations in those ports. If you work that out, it is just a bit over one officer per port.
We have had coast-to-coast testimony from your officers. In St. John's, there is no one in the port and there is no security at all. In Halifax, we are getting a huge push-back from unions in terms of getting proper background checks and proper ID.
How can the federal government or the RCMP possibly take a serious look at criminality in ports when you have only 30 people in 19 ports?
Mr. Zaccardelli: Again, senator, you raise some good points.
When I talk about the airports, marine ports, land border and the Great Lakes, the marine ports, in our view, are most vulnerable in terms of organized crime and national security.
We have to look at how to maximize our resources. I realize that we do not have a lot of manpower. You used the number 30, and we have around that number. However, remember that there is a strong inland backup group working with those 30 officers.
The organized crime groups are not at the ports per se. The people that direct those criminal activities are not at the ports. They use the ports, they use the workers there or they use the facilities, but the brains behind the operations are somewhere else. We go after the brains somewhere else. We need some presence, obviously, on the ground, but also a presence in the investigative capacity to tackle whatever is going on at the ports.
You are right that those are not sufficient resources to cover all the activities that we believe are going on in the ports. However, that is more than we had several years ago, when there was no one there, senator.
The Chairman: The committee calls the Great Lakes ``the great black hole'' in terms of security in Canada, 244,000 square kilometres. We do not see any activity on the lakes or on the St. Lawrence Seaway. We saw the trial Shiprider program in which a few people participated last year. Perhaps you would like to comment on that and then I will come back with more questions about the Great Lakes.
Mr. Zaccardelli: I cannot dispute anything that you are saying, senator, but traditionally the Great Lakes have not been an area where we have done any work or had a permanent presence. The Great Lakes have not been considered a serious, vulnerable point for the country. We have received some limited resources, we are maximizing those resources, but they are not enough.
We have very limited resources and we have leveraged them with our partners. We are working closely with the military and with the Canadian Coast Guard. We are working with local police forces that have some capacity — for example, Toronto — in certain parts of the Great Lakes.
When you take that all together, however, it is not a strong presence; at best, it is a weak presence. These are vulnerable points that we have to look at to enhance that presence. The resources that we have been given have been deployed, but you are right; we have very limited resources covering a whole lot of water.
The Chairman: ``Weak presence'' is the appropriate word. The program ran for two weeks last summer, which is not much protection on the Great Lakes.
Mr. Zaccardelli: The trials demonstrated that there was value to that program.
The Chairman: Is funding coming forward so that we can have a Shiprider program that runs year round?
Mr. Zaccardelli: I can assure you that our people are actively preparing plans or business cases to request further funding. Transport Canada is very concerned, especially at the marine ports, and is supporting our efforts. I believe there is recognition of the vulnerabilities, the need to enhance resources and to coordinate and integrate those resources amongst the agencies that are the key players.
The Chairman: In the jargon of the navy, they talk about having a recognized maritime picture, which means that you know who is on the lakes and who is moving back and forth and you are able to sort out the good guys from the bad guys.
Do you have or know of any capacity to have a maritime picture to keep track of who is moving along the Thousand Islands or farther down the St. Lawrence Seaway?
Mr. Zaccardelli: We are developing that capacity, and in partnership with the military, we have operation centres that track some of the ships and cargos that are moving in the waterway. We are working with CBSA, who are key players in terms of cargos, so that capacity is being developed. We have a centre on the east and west coasts, and we are developing one on the Great Lakes, again, in partnership with the military and the Coast Guard. There is a capacity there, but I agree that it needs to be enhanced.
The Chairman: At the current rate of progress, when would you expect to be in a position to know which vessels are crossing the lakes?
Mr. Zaccardelli: I cannot give you a very precise answer, but I am heartened by the fact that we are preparing a serious business case, and the minister is looking forward to receiving it. I am hopeful that there will be a strong reception and support for a serious enhancement.
The Chairman: I can only say that the committee looks forward to that as well. We have put out a number of reports on it, and we have a sense of unease that we do not have enough resources. Until we see some more folks who are able to address these problems, you will see our reports flowing on a regular basis.
Senator Atkins: When we first started this committee, there was a sense that there was a disconnect between the different agencies, and as a result, the previous government put together the department. I do not know what you call it now, but it was similar to homeland security.
Are you satisfied that it is seamless now and the disconnect has been corrected?
Mr. Zaccardelli: I am satisfied that we have made substantial progress. I am not satisfied that we are totally there, and I say that with the greatest respect. It is always a work in progress. There is always room for improvement, but solid work has gone into coordinating the various agencies. I do not like the term ``public safety and emergency preparedness'' and am glad they are shortening it to public safety. I also do not like the term ``Canadian homeland security.'' We have to call it what it is, and I say that with the greatest respect, senator.
A great deal of progress has been made and one of the best examples is the relationship between CSIS and the RCMP. The relationship between CBSA and the RCMP and buying into the philosophy of integration and being intelligence-led, not just in Canada but also around the world, has made a lot of progress. In fairness, there is still work to do. I am concerned about how fast we are moving on the issue of interoperability between the agencies, the technology and so on. We are making progress, but we are not there yet. In comparison to what it was before 9/11, I have seen steady progress, and I am pleased with that progress.
The minister is clearly a strong supporter of this notion of integration and sharing to leverage our collective resources in this country for the greater good. Just the belief and understanding of that philosophy has made a huge difference. People are coming to Canada to study it. I have mentioned that the Americans have bought into the IBET system because of the obvious benefits of that program.
I was with the administrator of the DEA, Drug Enforcement Agency, last night until 11 p.m., and for the first time we are doing joint threat assessment among the RCMP, DEA, FBI and our other key partners around the world. We are literally setting up the virtual law enforcement global connection. That comes from the genuine belief and the need to harmonize and work together where we have a common interest and face common threats.
Senator Atkins: If there were a national emergency, are you satisfied that you would be able to deal with it in connection with other agencies in an effective manner?
Mr. Zaccardelli: I believe so, senator, but as you know, when emergencies happen, they do not always go smoothly. I guarantee that there is a commitment and a desire to work in an integrated way that I have not seen in my time as a senior officer in the RCMP. That is what excites me, and that is what keeps me going.
I want to be clear, however, that there is room for improvement. We have the people that have the commitment and desire to make that improvement.
Senator Atkins: Does the coordination of that integration come under the new minister?
Mr. Zaccardelli: He is our leader; there is no question. He is the one that makes it happen for us, but there are players outside of that ministry, as you know. Transport Canada plays a key role, and it is not under that ministry. That does not mean the department is not cooperating. There are other players.
There are four levels of law enforcement: international, national, provincial and local. We are talking about the federal level. There is a need to engage the provinces and the municipalities, especially when it comes to potential disasters, because they are the frontline people. Many steps have been taken to engage them. It is it about harmonizing and ensuring that all involved know their role and are integrated and collaborating. In the past we had a tendency to ask who the most important player is or who has more resources. It is not about who is more important or has more resources; it is about everybody having to cooperate and integrate. That is when we get the maximum benefits for Canada as a whole. That is what we are all about. Whether at the municipal or federal level, we are about securing or maximizing Canada's safety and minimizing the dangers to it. I am pleased with where we are.
If a disaster happens, we will not get it right because we will make mistakes. We know that. The nature of handling major disasters is that we will not get everything right all the time, but we are well positioned to maximize our resources and the efforts for Canadian safety.
Senator Atkins: However, there is a clear line of authority?
Mr. Zaccardelli: Absolutely. The minister is the one who is responsible, and he is our leader.
Senator Atkins: You spoke about 25,000 employees of the RCMP, of which 16,000 are uniformed police.
Mr. Zaccardelli: I believe it is 17,000.
Senator Atkins: Are the other 8,000 hired as specialists or as administrative personnel? How do you break them down? How are they qualified to meet your requirements?
Mr. Zaccardelli: We have regular members, uniformed members and civilian members hired as specialists in support of police operations. Civilian members such as forensic scientists work in close collaboration with the front line police officers.
We have another category, which includes the public servants. There are many support staff not included under the RCMP Act. Regular and civilian members are included under the RCMP Act; public servants are included under the Public Service Act.
I manage three categories of employees, and that can be a headache at the best of times.
Senator Atkins: These days, if you are doing a lot of flying, CATSA seems able to hire as many personnel as it needs. In fact, it is excessive. Is this as a result of the pay schedules? Why is it that the RCMP cannot raise the level of employees to meet the requirements you say you need?
Mr. Zaccardelli: Actually, senator, we are meeting all of our needs. We have all the people that we have monies available to hire.
Senator Forrestall: Do not stand on that. You have a nice block there.
Mr. Zaccardelli: We are meeting our needs, senator. That is another one of those perceptions out there. It is becoming more competitive, as I said, for all of us. Our pool of folks waiting to get in is not as large as it traditionally has been, but we are meeting our needs and then some.
Senator Atkins: In terms of recruitment, how long do you estimate it takes to process someone who applies to the RCMP up to the point of training camp?
Mr. Zaccardelli: My short answer is it takes too long, senator. I am not pleased with that process and we are trying to reduce the amount of time it takes for recruitment. Traditionally, we have had a lot of people waiting, and we have had a cumbersome system. I am not satisfied with that system and we are looking at the problems.
What has been happening is that while some of these good men and women are in the process, they are being picked up by other police forces and organizations. We are starting to shorten up the period it takes for recruitment.
That is not affecting the numbers we are getting. We have the people. The fact that we are not processing them quickly enough is the challenge, and we are dealing with that challenge.
Senator Atkins: After these people are trained at training camp, how many other agencies are cherry-picking the recruits you have trained?
Mr. Zaccardelli: We always consider it a compliment when someone cherry-picks from us, senator. I do not like it, but that happens from time to time. Like in the military, you hire someone from Alberta, they happen to be posted to Nova Scotia and some of them want to go back to Alberta.
Now that we are in collaboration with Treasury Board, we are in the process of trying to get authority to allow police officers in other forces to transfer their pensions to the RCMP. Presently under Treasury Board rules, they cannot transfer their pensions. That limits our ability to do a bit of cherry-picking ourselves. When that authority comes into place, I think it will even off the balance. It is not a major problem for us.
Senator Atkins: In the old days, you used to have to sign a recruit for five years. Would it make sense to force them into a commitment of at least three years? You are saying that it costs $192,000 to train a recruit.
Mr. Zaccardelli: We did have that policy. We abandoned it because it does not stand up in court. If someone wants to leave before the contract is fulfilled, it is very doubtful that you can hold him or her to that contract. The other practical aspect is if someone wants to leave, I am not sure you want to hang on to them anyway.
Again, we do not lose a lot of people. The vast majority or people that join our organization want to stay; they want a career and they end up staying.
We continue hearing about young people wanting to have three or four careers in their lives these days. Those that want three or four careers are not joining the RCMP because they are staying. We must be doing something right to retain them. I hope it stays that way.
Senator Meighen: In terms of retention, is it a growing trend or not? There are people I come across who, for example, are based in New Brunswick and are transferred out to Alberta, but want to stay in New Brunswick. They end up leaving the force and are rehired on a contract basis.
Mr. Zaccardelli: Some people are rehired but there is less and less movement. People do not want to move as much, especially if they have a spouse who has reasonable employment.
The other thing is that it is too costly. If I want to move a constable from New Brunswick to Alberta, it will cost me $40,000. I cannot afford to do that very often. We are trying to be selective and move people for career development and for the needs of the organization. If someone wants to stay in an area, we let them stay.
It is more important for a person at the senior level to move in order to get the experience. However, in general, if people are leaving, they are not coming back on contract.
Senator Meighen: You do not hire anyone on contract who has left the force?
Mr. Zaccardelli: We do hire some, but it is a small number and for very specific reasons.
Senator Meighen: Are these people specialists, or do you have trouble staffing smaller towns, for example?
Mr. Zaccardelli: These people do not usually come back and do front line police work. They are usually administrators. We will rehire someone who has an expertise in a certain administrative area, for example.
As an aside, we have talked to Treasury Board and we are setting up a reserve. We are trying to set up a cadre of retired members that we can call in to service a specific area. For example, in Kelowna, British Columbia, where we have huge influxes of tourists in the summer, you cannot increase the complement of the force to the level you need, so you might take in ten retired members for two months.
Senator Meighen: More specifically, in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, which is equally attractive to tourists as Kelowna, I know you have hired some retired members.
Senator Forrestall: I want to draw to the attention of my colleagues page five of this excellent summary. They might find there a comparison on the Great Lakes alone of which you have indicated we are doing as well as our friends to the south. While a little more trade passes over the bridges and through the tunnels, not a lot more goes in by way of water than comes in by way of Halifax, Vancouver, Montreal and a few others.
What is the experience of contracting out with Canadian helicopters? For helicopter services, you have had a year- or two-year-long trial run. Have you drawn any conclusions from that experience?
Mr. Zaccardelli: I am sorry, senator, I am not familiar with that issue.
Senator Forrestall: The whole question is with respect to helicopter pricing: Should you have your own or should you contract out?
Mr. Zaccardelli: We do have some helicopters and fixed-wing units. We rent helicopters or planes from time to time, but usually we use our own. I am not familiar with the particular project to which you refer.
Senator Forrestall: It was as much, if not entirely, for the Greater Toronto Police group, but the cost of the six- month pilot project was $1.3 million.
Mr. Zaccardelli: In Quebec, we share a helicopter with the SQ; in Edmonton, we also share one with the Edmonton police, where it is mutually beneficial to both of us. They use our hangars and they pay some of the costs for the helicopter.
Senator Forrestall: Do you have any intention of expanding your rotary wing?
Mr. Zaccardelli: When we look at our vulnerabilities along the various borders, we will be looking at the use of technology and helicopters and planes along the border.
Senator Forrestall: I have one general question, perhaps somewhat philosophical at this time but one that has captured the attention of members of this committee over the past couple of years. That is the plight in our ports — the question of ports' policing. I am talking about marine ports, but I am also thinking out loud about airports and other forms of port activity.
It seemed to me over the years that we were not as well served as we might have been with the national port police association, in that they did not get the type of uniform training that your force would be able to expose to your recruits. It is very important, as our world becomes more complex and sophisticated in many respects that our police learn from common training — they sing from the same song sheet.
We have called for the RCMP to expand its capacity in this regard. Someone has to tell you to do this. I get a feeling that you are not too anxious to move into this area. It seemed to me you were anxious to get out of airport policing to the degree that you could. That probably had to do with everything other than prosecution of federal matters as they came up from time to time.
During your recent years, have you noticed sufficient change in the work and the demands on the force? Has it occurred to you that perhaps peace officers and police officers should have common training and probably should answer to a common boss, a common director — that perhaps all of these matters should now be under the one head?
We have, as you will appreciate, 25 or 30 different police forces in the nation, not to mention municipal and provincial police forces. I am wondering if perhaps now is the time that our industries and communities give this idea some thought. People who have a common understanding of the laws should be looking at not necessarily 100 per cent RCMP because I do not think that is necessary, but perhaps 100 per cent in vulnerable areas such as our ports.
Mr. Zaccardelli: You raise a number of very important issues. I can assure you that although there are obviously different levels of police forces, there has been a very strong move to harmonize the training, regardless of the differences in jurisdiction. The goal is to harmonize to a very high standard. As an example, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police has a specific committee that looks after training so that best practices and best methods of policing ensure that all police forces operate at the highest standard of Canadian policing. That model is world-renowned.
There is a lot of harmonization taking place; whereas a couple of generations ago, there were many disparities. More recently, there has been a real move toward standardization and a high level of policing. We are always looking to harmonize. I do not know if you will ever get it to 100 per cent; and I agree with you that the last thing we need is one police force everywhere in this country. However, I believe that we must make sure that what we have lives up to the standards that Canadian citizens expect.
I know you said that either the RCMP or myself seemed to have been anxious to get out of policing, whether at the ports or at the airports. I do not believe in getting out of the airports or not having a strong presence at the marine ports. What I believe is you have to have a strong investigative capacity. Clearly, in a place like a marine port, you need a physical, uniformed presence; but this was the debate about whether we should have done away with or reinstituted the ports police.
I think we need a physical presence; but the real threat at the marine ports is not whether or not you picked up someone who is impaired, or involved in an assault. The national and international criminal organizations are the serious threat. These criminals are using the ports, airports and the borders to facilitate very dangerous criminal activity. To undertake investigations against those organizations you need more than a few uniformed police members, you need sophisticated squads to take them on and dismantle them. To achieve this goal requires a multidisciplinary approach with people working all over the world in a seamless way. That is a different type of policing.
When people say let us just reinstitute the ports policing and we will have some people at the airport, yes, you have to have a physical presence at the airport. However, that physical presence alone, without sufficient numbers of sophisticated investigators with the ability to use the laws and use technology, is useless. With them, you have a seamless approach and you can dismantle those organizations.
That is the real danger. The debate has gotten lost sometimes or has been focused only on whether or not we should reconstitute the ports police. With the greatest respect for what we used to have, that system had a limited capacity. We never had the sophisticated investigative capacity to dismantle the organizations that were not at the ports — they were outside the ports. These organizations were often half the way around the world. That is the key we must tackle, and we are committed to doing that at the marine ports, at the airports if we have the resources, and also on the Great Lakes or on the land border. Wherever these organizations go, we want to be able to be there, to be flexible and mobile to take them down and dismantle them.
Senator Forrestall: We have run out of time. I would have liked to get into the multidisciplinary security committees we have in place and whether they are functioning — all of which would tend to isolate the need for separate, but trained commonly types of courses.
Senator Moore: Senator Atkins was asking you about the time to train an officer. You said you were working to try to reduce the time. I did not hear you say the length of time of the training period.
Mr. Zaccardelli: We were talking about the process. The time one applies to the time one actually gets to the academy would vary. It can take up to one year. At one point, the wait time was as long as 18 months. We recognized that was too long a time to wait, as people would simply get tired of waiting. We have worked hard to reduce that length of time. Now it is under one year. We have to get even better. That is just the time it takes before a person is accepted to go to the academy. That is six months of basic training, after which there are two years of training with field coaching in whatever field they are posted to.
Senator Moore: It is interesting to hear you speak because it is clear that the nature of policing and police work has changed dramatically in the recent past. You are talking about cybercrime, terrorism and crime against the economy of Canada. Please give us an example of crimes against the economy of Canada. Are counterfeiting or stock market crime common examples?
I would also like to know a bit about terrorism. We all know what happened with 9/11. What has been happening against the integrity of our country and against our peace, order and good government?
Mr. Zaccardelli: In terms of economic integrity, we have seen what took place in the United States with the Enrons of that country. As a result, for the first time we realize that there are individuals involved in certain activities that can shape or threaten the integrity of a whole industry and even in some cases the stability of the markets.
When we saw what happened to Enron and some of those other companies, we approached the government to enhance our capacity to investigate those types of crimes should they happen in this country. We did receive $30 million from the government. We have created what we call the integrated market enforcement teams. If you are getting tired of the hearing the word ``integrated'' from me, I am sorry, but it is a concept and philosophy we believe in because it is the best way to leverage our collective resources. There are integrated teams located in Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary, which are the main financial centres. They investigate serious stock market manipulations and major potential frauds that have huge impact on this country.
Looking at the use of technology today, when I was a young investigator, people would issue fraudulent cheques and steal money from an individual. They would be investigated and arrested. There is the potential through the use of technology for people to wipe out whole groups' life savings and to undermine the stability of a company simply through the use or misuse of technology. Those are the types of crimes we are looking at or considering the potential to investigate. These things bring into question the viability or stability of the economy of this country and our ability to deal with them effectively. That is why economic crime or economic integrity last year became one of our five strategic priorities, because we identified it through a sophisticated scanning system.
Senator Moore: We heard about that in a banking committee hearing. What about terrorist activities?
Mr. Zaccardelli: Again, I cannot get into specific examples, but there is a real threat to this country. As I said in my statement, we have been identified; we are a target. There are people outside and inside of this country that we believe can cause us potential harm. Therefore, again in partnership and in an integrated way, we are working closely and targeting these individuals that have the potential to cause this country harm and do serious damage to us.
The Chairman: Thank you, Senator Moore.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Zaccardelli, for coming today. We have appreciated the information you have brought to us and your candour in describing the changes taking place in the force. We wish you every success and hope to have you back again shortly.
Mr. Zaccardelli: Thank you, honourable senators, for allowing me this opportunity. I do look forward to these sessions because I learn as much as I hope you learn. It is only by discussing these issues that we can arrive at solutions that are beneficial to Canada. I look forward to your next invitation and thank you for your collective support for what we are trying to do.
The Chairman: Our next witness is VAdm. J.C.J.Y. Forcier, Commander, Canada Command. VAdm. Forcier assumed his position as Commander of Canada Command on July 1, 2005. The vice admiral is the commander responsible to the Chief of the Defence Staff for the execution of most operations within Canada.
The committee enjoyed meeting with VAdm. Forcier, in his former role as Commander of Maritime Forces Pacific, when we travelled to Esquimalt in January 2005. We are also grateful for the invitation to visit Canada Command on May 16, to which we look forward. We welcome you and look forward to hearing your remarks.
[Translation]
Vice-Admiral J. C. J. Y. Forcier, Commander, Canada Command, National Defence: Honourable senators, thank you for your invitation.
[English]
I am pleased to discuss Canada Command. Canada Command became operational on February 1 of this year. We are now three months into our journey, which enables us to reflect on where we have come from and to outline what we hope lies ahead.
I was heavily involved in the planning surrounding last year's transformation of the Canadian Forces. As head of the CDS action team working for Canadian Forces Command and Control, I looked into implementation of the ``Canada First'' approach to defence and security, to join Canada as a single theatre of operations. Based on that experience, I was fortunate to be asked to stand up Canada Command.
[Translation]
We began with the official announcement on July 1, 2005. With a small, dedicated team of 12 personnel, we began building the foundation of an integrated command structure focused on the defence of Canada.
Since that point, we have grown significantly. Currently, we are staffed with 99 military personnel and 16 civilians. I anticipate that the remaining vacant civilian and military positions will be filled in the coming months, taking us to a total of 153 personnel.
[English]
My command team consists of a range of military staff positions, such as intelligence, operations, engineers, logistics, planning and communications, with additional support of subject matter experts and advisers. Thus, we no longer have to coordinate a joint response to a domestic crisis through the numerous chains of command that were part of the former departmental structure.
This point is critical. As you are well aware, the Canadian Forces have always responded well to domestic crises, as was evident during the ice storm and the 1997 Manitoba floods. However, the presence of a truly integrated command structure to bring to bear on the crises has been lacking.
Canada Command provides that structure. As commander, I have been delegated the authority from the Chief of the Defence Staff to plan and execute all routine and contingency operations domestically and continentally, with the exception of those missions that fall within the range of NORAD.
Beyond improving our internal Canadian Forces structure, Canada Command provides a vehicle for operational coordination and planning with our civilian emergency management partners. Significantly, we are also the operational link to U.S. Northern Command in Colorado Springs. My staff works closely with the Department of Public Safety, RCMP and other Canadian government departments to ensure a coherent approach to domestic operations.
I also interact regularly with my senior-level counterparts to set priorities and discuss common issues. For example, an interdepartmental national events calendar has recently been created, and provides us with a picture of significant national events for the coming years that will require the Government of Canada's attention from a security perspective.
At a regional level, interaction with civilian counterparts and partners is equally significant. Canada Command's six standing joint task forces — Joint Task Force North, Joint Task Force Pacific, Joint Task Force West, Joint Task Force Central, Force d'operation interarmèe de l'Est and Joint Task Force Atlantic — are responsible for integrated regional military planning.
Unlike the previous structure, where regional engagement was ad hoc in nature and event specific, my commanders engage their regional counterparts in a proactive and coherent fashion. The Joint Task Force commanders provide a focal point for senior-level regional Canadian Forces engagement in the regions, meeting regularly with federal regional representatives and provincial and municipal authorities. The joint task force footprint is critical to the daily domestic situation awareness that is the key enabler of my mission.
I will now turn to the added dimension of situation awareness and the development of a common operating picture of Canada and the continent. The situation awareness picture is consolidated in my joint command centre, which is manned 24/7, and is linked to our regions, other Canadian Forces operations centres, NORAD, U.S. Northern Command and the Government of Canada Operations Centre.
I understand that this committee will visit my command centre, as Mr. Chairman mentioned, on May 16, and we look forward to seeing you there. I am certain that you will find viewing our daily situational awareness brief and seeing our connectivity firsthand to be a valuable experience.
Indeed, Canada Command's ability to pull together a consolidated picture of significant events and issues, such as during the recent flooding in Western and Central Canada, assists us in deliberate planning for potential missions to support civil authorities. This planning enables us to ensure that we are well positioned to provide a timely and effective response once a request has been received.
[Translation]
It should be clear that we have done far more than build a Headquarters. We have already conducted numerous operations, completed contingency planning for specific events and have been proactively engaged with our civilian and law enforcement partners to enhance cooperation and build relationships. Moreover, we have interacted regularly with our continental defence partners in NORAD and US Northern Command.
So, what lies ahead for Canada Command? There is still much work to be done to move the markers forward.
[English]
My successor, LGen. Dumais, will see the significant differences between Canada Command and the Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff organization that he used to lead and he will provide the leadership to continue the development of the command. Some of the challenges that he will face include: working closely with our government partners and strategic headquarters to ensure that the processes for requests for assistance are streamlined and responsive; striking the right balance between ``leaning forward'' and reinforcing the important lead role of civil authorities and first responders in domestic contingencies; and finally, continuing to grow the domestic expertise and capability of the Canadian Forces that are required to enable Canada Command operations nationally and regionally.
In closing, I would like to emphasize that it has been a great privilege to stand up Canada Command and to work with the dedicated men and women who are the backbone of my command. I will continue to watch with great interest as the transformation continues to take root within the culture and organizational structure of the Canadian Forces. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, I am happy to answer any questions that you may have.
The Chairman: Thank you very much for giving us this overview.
Senator Atkins: Welcome. In your opening comments you say that you have been able to reflect on where you have come from and outline what lies ahead. Do you want to expand on that beyond what you have said in your text?
VAdm. Forcier: Certainly. I had the opportunity previously to work in joint operations. I was working directly for the Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff from 2000 to 2002. I lived through several operations that we went through at the time, both national and international. From my perspective, we usually dealt with crises fairly quickly. However, we did not always take the time to reflect and to focus on a roll call of potential contingencies.
If we go back to the best-known national emergencies that were supported by the Canadian Forces, for example, the floods and the icy conditions we had here in Ontario and Quebec, it took us a few hours to get organized, for several reasons. First, we did not have a command control structure that defaulted automatically to response. We had to connect the pieces together. Finding out where the partners were and who was in charge from a civilian point of view was also done on the fly. We have removed that from the equation now by having a structure that allows us to connect beforehand, including myself at the national level and, more importantly, at the regional level, with these six generals and admirals who now have the duty of focusing on supporting that planning.
Perhaps what we need is more work on contingency planning and to get more comfortable in working together within our agencies. I mentioned briefly that we had a chance to meet at the associate deputy minister level.
It is fair to say that since I took over in July of last year, preparing to stand up the operations in February of this year, we met occasionally with some of the key partners, but once again, it was not always focused. I think we have turned the page. That meeting that we had a couple of weeks ago was a watershed. We had 14 assistant deputy ministers around the table, or the equivalent, and we were singing from the same song sheet, looking at the future, at potential tasks for the Government of Canada and thinking about contingencies. That is where the real road ahead is. It is not just Department of National Defence or individual partners; it is the teamwork effect of working together, doing some long-range planning and connecting the dots, and not just at my level. My directors, at the colonel and lieutenant-colonel level, are building those relationships across the department as well.
Senator Atkins: Where there was previously some disconnect, you are satisfied now that the coordination and connection is really working?
VAdm. Forcier: I am satisfied that we are making progress. I have come to realize that this is like any other line of business. You have to establish your network and relationships and maintain those relationships. This will be the secret in the future. As I go out there and build relationships with my directors and regional commanders, I have to admit that when I talked to them about the domestic structure in the country, their initial reaction was: ``We do this already, boss. We have been out there. We have handled floods and little crises. We know the territory.'' After three months, they are singing a different song: ``We did not know as much as we thought.'' They are now connecting up at the premier level. You now have generals and admirals engaged with the senior leadership and their federal counterparts. It is not just the keen, dedicated young captains and majors in the domestic support cells we had across the country. That is the real plus.
Senator Atkins: In your statement you say that ``We no longer have to coordinate a joint response to a domestic crisis through the numerous chains of command that were part of the former departmental structure. This is critical.''
VAdm. Forcier: Thank you for that. It is critical. It is a critical component.
We are still structured from what we call a ``force generation'' point of view to prepare our troops for the full range of missions that we undertake, both here and overseas, through the three services. Basically, the chiefs of the army, navy and air force are focusing those missions in country, here. Under the old paradigm, if I wanted to take a group of sailors from Halifax to work with soldiers from New Brunswick and air force personnel from Nova Scotia, I would have to negotiate on the fly for the force package I would like to have.
First, you would have to put someone in charge and say, ``You do the basic work here. What do you need for this crisis mission or deliberate mission?'' There are things we do ahead of time. You would have to almost negotiate your way through ``I need this or that capability.''
That is no longer the case. I have the authority to go out there and determine what we need to accomplish the mission. If it is a deliberate capability that we want to bring forward for an event some months down the way, of course we will negotiate, because we do not want to hurt the generation capability, and we will go to alternate solutions and alternate forces. However, if it is a national response we need for a national or a regional emergency, all bets are off. Basically, I simply inform my colleagues at the army, navy and air force that I am grabbing those forces, they are now under my command, and they will do what they need to do to save Canadians. It is instantaneous.
Senator Atkins: You have the authority?
VAdm. Forcier: I have the authority.
Senator Atkins: What is the outline organization of Canada Command and its strength? Where is the subordinate headquarters located? Why is this military structure better than it was?
VAdm. Forcier: The foundation of the primary structure is the six joint task force commands.
We looked at this process early on last year as part of the CDS study that we did on transformation, trying to find out where the logical boundaries would be. We determined that the best capability was to have a joint task force commander for the Maritime provinces because there is a strong bond and rapport between the provinces on emergency management, as well as a good information exchange. The Joint Task Force Commander Atlantic is RAdm. McNeil, out of Halifax, who also works for the navy to generate naval forces. His deputy is BGen. Parsons, who still is the Land Force Atlantic Area commander. Incidentally, they are coming together today; we have an exercise going on today and the two of them are focused on working on their relationship in an emergency situation. They are responsible for the link within the Maritime provinces to develop such a response plan. Moving west is the province of Quebec, where Gen. Barabe, in Montreal, is responsible for its response plan. In Ontario, Gen. Thibault, headquartered in Toronto, is responsible for the response plan and is involved daily with the Emergency Management Organization of Ontario and his counterpart from the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness. There is a strong triumvirate to be seen across the spectrum.
Joint Task Force West is comprised of the three Prairie provinces. MGen. Grant, of Edmonton, has that responsibility. Given that three provinces are involved, satellite offices exist in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and all three liaise. RAdm. Girouard looks after the navy mission on the West Coast and is also responsible for the integrated Joint Task Force West response plan.
The final one is for the Arctic, with Joint Task Force North in Yellowknife. It is responsible for operations in the three territories. I highlight JTFN because last year, the three services went up north to train and operate. They tended to treat the commander in Yellowknife as a host command and demanded he support them. However, it is no longer that way. The colonel in Yellowknife now directs operations in his area only. The army, the navy and the air force offer up options for the North, where we work collectively, and when they cross that line they work under his command. They have made the transition, and the focus is on doing business in that way in the North.
Senator Atkins: You are describing a line-staff organization.
VAdm. Forcier: Yes, we are doing that, in some ways, and it is a good point. Before, we operated under a structure where the lines of staff and command were very blurred.
Senator Atkins: How often would the senior commanders who report to you meet?
VAdm. Forcier: We have a video conference once per week, or, depending on the schedule, our chiefs of staff will meet. For consideration of the operations schedule, we will sometimes meet two or three times a week to discuss business. I should add that an important feature is doing a deliberate study of the disjointed nature of the communications that we experienced before. That caused us to look at the structure of the air force operations. In conjunction with our colleagues from the air force, we developed a novel approach. MGen. Bouchard, of Winnipeg, is Commander 1 Canadian Air Division and the Canadian regional commander for NORAD. He is a busy man with a versatile staff. Previously, he did not have a grip on what was happening in the day-to-day operations of the air force within Canada. Examination of the structure and negotiation allowed us to create a national planning process that is ongoing daily. It plans for the future and provides a matrix for everyday tasking. It is visible not only to the air force, but also to me and to my six task force commanders. In that way, all of us are looking at the same picture of availability. Prior to this, they focused on specific operations, not on the entire capability of the air force as it exists today in Canada.
Senator Atkins: What are the major threats to Canada against which you principally plan?
VAdm. Forcier: The mission is three-fold. It is fair to say that after the transition post-Cold War, the classic defence threat to Canada is highly diminished. We perform surveillance of the coasts to maintain sovereignty, but the bulk of Canada Command responsiveness will be in one of two roles: consequence management in helping our partners in the event of crisis or assistance to law enforcement. The concept of a threat to Canada is much more focused on supporting a security component than on classic defence as we had before.
Senator Atkins: Who decides on the definition of these threats and makes the ultimate decision on threat priorities?
VAdm. Forcier: It is a little early to say because we are in transition. Before, we had three environments. The navy planned surveillance based on their own capability. The army provided immediate reaction in case they were called upon to support the RCMP and other police forces. After three months, we are in a much better cycle of planning for today and the future. The parties are still determined through a fairly iterative process, including the nature of the threat, the vulnerability and what assets are available today, because we have to live within our current capabilities until such time as we develop more. In short, I look at all the factors in terms of threats.
Senator Atkins: What is the nature of your link with NORAD?
VAdm. Forcier: The connection with NORAD is interesting, because we are not part of the binational nature of NORAD. However, the connection exists where the command centres are joint. I have total transparency in NORAD. My watchkeepers are on chat lines and the phones with NORAD. We can focus our capability to support its Canadian components. If an event such as a downed airplane on Canadian soil were to happen, we would look at what we could do to assist, including the provision of pertinent information on the event.
The best explanation of our relationship with NORAD is to understand our continental responsibility. There are both the Northern United States Northern Command, in Colorado, and NORAD, which, incidentally, is commanded by the same officer in two roles, one national and the other binational. The triumvirate provides defence and security support to the continent. That relationship is maturing. The Deputy Commander of NORAD is a Canadian, Gen. Findley, whom I have known for a long time. He and I have built a strong rapport. I have also built a good relationship with Adm. Keating, who was commander of both NORAD and NORTHCOM. He was in my command post two weeks ago because we regularly exchange meeting places.
Senator Atkins: That would be an important connection.
VAdm. Forcier: Yes, it is important. We are trying not to look through a single lens, but rather through a wide-angle lens to know and understand total capability. When we do contingency planning, we look at Canadian capability first. If we were to have a catastrophic event in this country, we would not want to have to ask about NORAD capability, et cetera. We need to know those answers going in. As senators will recall, many Canadians went down to support the Americans during hurricanes Katrina and Rita. We understand one another's capability, but sometimes they are surprised by what we can bring to the table. They are also envious of our command structure because it is not complex. That allows me, on behalf of the Chief of Defence Staff, to preordain authorities accepted by the department to demand planning immediately or to reposition forces when an event is unfolding. That is a flexibility they do not have.
Amazingly, they have to go through a fairly convoluted political process to move forces around the United States.
Senator Atkins: Except that you are new, so you have not been tested, in their eyes.
VAdm. Forcier: That is true. Well, we have not tested that. I should say that we have not had a catastrophic event.
When I look at our structure now, we are engaged in a series of contingencies. It would not surprise you to know that I am focusing on one of several contingencies and I have been looking ahead to supporting my colleagues for the 2010 Olympics, once again having a free-floating arrangement whereby my regional commander can speak to the province, to his regional counterpart in the RCMP and so on, and I can talk nationally to my colleagues at the RCMP and the other services. It makes it easy, because we have this free environment in which to operate. I do not have many bureaucratic boundaries at this stage.
You are right; we have not had a large event to test us. The last month has been an interesting one. We were prepped to deal with all the floods that occurred in Northern Ontario. We were upfront in providing a second-line-of-planning effort for the Manitoba Red River again this year. Thankfully, we did not have to use it.
[Translation]
Senator Day: Vice-Admiral Forcier, I would like to thank you for appearing before the committee this afternoon and for all that you have done for the Canadian armed forces, particularly regarding the changes, an area you have been working on for several years.
The expression ``Canada First'' is in the government's policy. What does this expression, which you have also used, mean?
VAdm. Forcier: The expression is an appeal to get back to our roots, if I may be so bold, regarding the creation of an armed forces that defends our sovereignty. I believe that our contributions over the decades have mainly focused on international capacity for valid reasons, owing to our participation in ensuring global security.
We have perceived our domestic capability as merely an adjunct, as an ad hoc reaction when we had problems. The government's policy aims to put the emphasis on domestic capability and its ad hoc deployment.
This gave me a focus, a mandate to review the goal of Canada's response capability and structure. The goal of our discussions is to determine if we are able to establish an aggressive enough authority to react to a crisis and whether or not we are supposed to have a planning deadline like the one we have overseas.
If I can make a comparison, let us say that if the government decides to send troops overseas, even in a crisis situation, the negotiations and planning will take several weeks. As for the response to a national emergency, if the members of the Canadian Forces are not on the ground within 12 hours to come to the assistance of Canadians, I do not think our mission has been a success.
``Canada First'' means that we are taking care of Canada, that we are doing more than paying lip service. We need to have the means to plan and react rapidly to support our country.
Senator Day: Does that mean the operations in Canada are more important than those elsewhere?
VAdm. Forcier: I would not say they are more important, I would say the planning and reaction time must be quicker. In a sense, this is at the forefront. It is important to defend our country first and to stand by our population.
Senator Day: That is what that expression implies?
VAdm. Forcier: Yes.
[English]
Senator Day: Did Paul Hillier have it right in 1960? All you are talking about here are the problems that you have had because there are three different forces, the three different elements, and the importance of getting these men and women all working together. Now, that is the implication of all of this organizing that you are doing. You are talking about ``joint'' and ``integrated.''
VAdm. Forcier: There are some significant changes. I was one of those who came in right after unification.
Senator Day: About 1971.
VAdm. Forcier: Our view of ``jointness'' was not mature enough at the time. No one's was, actually. If you take the great example of those who have written extensively about and played with that joint system in the United States, and of several other colleagues, the structure was not really capable of handling that at the time.
There are a couple of instances I remembered from my youth as I was looking at what this unification idea is. We tried to force the Canadian Forces into one model, with no soul and no belonging and no connectivity to history.
It was not until I had been in the Canadian Forces for 10 years that I really started to study the history of Canada. When I came through the ranks in the early 1970s, we did not teach history. We were too busy unifying to remember our history and our services' individual histories.
This time around, we are respecting the spirit and the soul of the three services. We are saying, ``Let's get smart about this. If we must plan, let us plan up front to see what the three environments can bring to the table.''
I keep suggesting, every time we do contingency planning, that we step back from our automatic response. We have a wonderful example of prepackaged land forces capability; they can be out of the door in so many hours and they can respond. You ask, ``Where is the naval element? Where is the air element?'' The culture shift is: What is the package that you can bring? In the constant studies we are conducting now, we are intending to reshape that permanently into a changed structure. It will not be a land force immediate reaction unit alone; it will be a regional immediate reaction joint force right from the beginning.
At the time, there were some elements, obviously, that carried over. I do not think that we would have succeeded in those days, no matter what, because we did not understand. We were focused on feeding three branches of NATO capabilities. Air forces, armies and navies work well together in NATO, and extensively, through the United States connection here. However, people did not always work as joint packages. Obviously, things have evolved. I think that we got it right at the right time.
Senator Day: Is there still a role for the Deputy Chief of Defence Staff?
VAdm. Forcier: In my view, no. We have abolished his position. On February 1 his position was dissolved and his domestic capability came to me. His international capability went to Gen. Gauthier. The items that kept him away from operations, the corporate side of his job, the force development options that he had to work on, have now shifted back to a strategic level in National Defence headquarters.
I used to laugh. During the height of the Gulf War last time around, when our troops were in Afghanistan the first time around, I was planning for the G8 summit on the heels of the Summit of the Americas. I was not able to meet my own boss, the Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff, who was in the same building the entire week, probably 20 hours a day. He was chasing 30 committees, busy on the budget and with the future vision of the Canadian Forces, but he was the senior operator and he could not do operations. That is gone now, and I like the balance that has been regained. We have a much smaller strategic joint staff of about 50. They are rear admirals. They are focusing on the vision for the Chief of the Defence Staff and that connectivity that is needed nation to nation.
I focus on Canada every day. I know what is happening in this country. I try to find out as much as I can, as I am sure my friend in CEFCOM is looking outward to other countries. It is a much more focused effort and you do not get sidetracked by strategic issues.
Senator Day: We are starting to get a sense of Canada Command. We have had the opportunity to visit with the maritime security operations centres on the East and West coasts, in Halifax and Victoria, and are familiar with the high frequency surface wave radar and the information fed from it. The previous government had a policy of implementing or deploying more of those. I do not know if that will continue with the new government, but how does that fit into your role of Commander of Canada Command? Does that information flow through the chief of the navy, for example, to you, or does that come directly to you as director of Canada Command?
VAdm. Forcier: We are still in transition, but if it relates to providing information to make decisions for operations, it does not flow to the Canadian navy any more.
When Admiral MacLean was about to retire, he and I were discussing the transition as two sailors, and he admitted at the time that his day-to-day preoccupation with operations was gone. His work was to build the best sailors and ships possible and help the Chief of Defence Staff focus on a vision of the Canadian Forces, and to support that effort.
The information provided to the maritime security operations centres, which flows to Adm. Girouard and Adm. McNeil when they are focusing on operations work for me, does come to me. We are focusing much more on that entire architecture, trying to make it more robust — and a little more redundant as well. We call it a ``common operating picture,'' so it is one data bank of information. The two main gatherers of information, a validator of information and an analyst of depth of information, were on the coast before and still reside there. I get the benefit of that synthesis here in Ottawa, and I can share it with our American friends when we are dealing with continental issues.
Senator Day: You do that on the two coasts. How do you do that in the North and the Great Lakes?
VAdm. Forcier: I would describe the Great Lakes as a work in progress. The Maritime Security Operations Centre in the Great Lakes is not run by the navy or Canada Command. It is run by the RCMP. There is a small support team of technical experts who support the folks out there, and we are debating it. I am not comfortable with my knowledge about their capabilities so far, so I will not speculate.
With respect to the North, you probably heard clearly that we want to put more capabilities up north. We want to put more eyes on the ground, more capability of detection and, eventually, intervention. Those are two files that we must concentrate on. It is difficult, because in one case, we are talking about the Great Lakes area, where the timelines tend to be very short in terms of response. So far, intervention is much more focused on crime, and obviously, RCMP intervention is important.
Up north we are talking about a vast area and a small population, and there is not a strong classical defence threat, but there is vulnerability in terms of our sovereignty and our country. We look forward to continuing to work with the government this year, as our capital plan on the strategic level is being developed, to see what we can afford. You mentioned some systems such as the high frequency surface wave radar, which I am not clear about so far. It will be in the funding envelope, and I expect that and other capabilities will be discussed with the department.
Senator Day: Are we talking about next year with respect to that issue?
VAdm. Forcier: I am not sure of the timeline.
Senator Day: Would it make sense for maritime security information on the Great Lakes to be taken from the RCMP and become part of the information fed to you as head of Canada Command, or your successor?
VAdm. Forcier: It will be part of the same picture. It is like one big TV screen. The technical feed of that information will flow into the overall picture because the technical expertise for this resides with the few sailors who are helping the Great Lakes region build that awareness.
The issue is how they will be structured to intervene, and the lead for that is not us. In this case, it is the RCMP, and if I remember correctly, negotiations were taking place last year with the Coast Guard on providing some vehicles to help move ships around.
If I am looking at a Halifax picture, or the East or West Coast of Canada, I am looking at one big TV screen, with as much information as I can pull together.
The Chairman: With respect to the Great Lakes, I have a question about how you link up. On the American side, they have a law they refer to as ``posse comitatus,'' which limits what they can do with their military. We also have a treaty with the Americans, the Rush-Bagot Agreement, which prohibits armed vessels on the Great Lakes. We also did not see the U.S. Coast Guard included in the binational planning organization. Therefore, how are we connecting with the Americans vis-à-vis the Great Lakes?
VAdm. Forcier: Regrettably, Mr. Chairman, I have to admit I have not had time to focus on the Great Lakes relationship. Thus far, we have provided technical support for the architecture to build a picture down there. However, with respect to the example of the U.S. Coast Guard, Coast Guard officers are working inside U.S. Northern Command. I have met several of them down there who have worked within the operational, intelligence and planning branches, and they are contributing to the discussion of how this overall architecture will evolve. However, at this stage, I have not had time to spend one single day focusing on the Great Lakes issue because I was dealing with our partnership first. You are quite right, however. That issue has components that will have to be revisited.
The relationship between the U.S. Coast Guard and the Canadian navy is very good, and it works well on both coasts within the search and rescue districts out there. Since 9/11, we have expanded the work to deal with more than just search and rescue in our day-to-day interaction. The maturity of the Great Lakes relationship in the maritime environment is not there yet.
Senator Forrestall: Welcome, admiral. I wanted to meet the bus dispatcher. We met a couple of the bus drivers, and they are excellent. The admiral on the East Coast could not have been a better one. All those who follow him I know are of the same calibre.
We need to get a handle on you. I do not want you to be known as Captain Canada or anything like that. How about bus dispatcher? I think the dispatcher is a cut above the driver, but just a cut.
Out of curiosity, where in the structure of your responsibility does Joint Task Force 2 stand?
VAdm. Forcier: JTF2 belongs to the third operational command, which is Special Operations Command. They are just like any component in existence before. Other capabilities have now been added to that command.
They are, however, responsive to me. If there is a national event, I can use their capability. In the normal course of events, in a counterterrorism type of scenario, it is not unlikely that the request will come from the RCMP to us and we will be the first line of response. We will then engage JTF2.
The Chief of the Defence Staff, as he commands the Canadian Armed Forces, reserves the right to retain them under his own command if he wishes to do so. By default, if there is a national event with a counterterrorism component and we are marshalling joint force capability, they will be involved in the decision process.
Senator Forrestall: Perhaps I can put that question to the general when he joins us later. I was wondering about the capacity for calling upon the Expeditionary Forces.
VAdm. Forcier: My colleagues at CEFCOM have the same working arrangement. The Chief of Defence Staff may decide to deploy and supervise Joint Task Force 2 overseas, but we normally leave it under the command of the Expeditionary Forces Command.
I would also like to briefly revisit your comment regarding a dispatcher.
Senator Forrestall: When I mentioned that, I meant someone in overall charge.
VAdm. Forcier: It is important to understand that we have established a certain amount of autonomy for the six regional commanders whereby, yes, in some cases I will be the dispatcher, but in other cases, they have the authority to self-dispatch. That is something we never had before.
If there is a rapidly mounting crisis out there and they are into open dialogue and discussion with the civilian authorities for consequence management, obviously we will not be self-deploying for support to a police operation. We would never do that. That remains at the ministerial level.
However, if there is a fire or a flood, an event that may be rapidly developing, the regional commander can engage his capability as he picks up the phone and says, ``Dispatcher, I am already on the way. I am doing this, and I will give you an update as soon as I can. I will probably request more support.''
That is a feature, once again, of trusting generals and admirals to think for themselves, giving them the authority to save Canadian lives first, and worry about the process later.
Senator Forrestall: That comes back to what I am mostly concerned about.
This committee has spent a lot of time meeting and talking with first responders across the country. Indeed, we have compiled, among the documentation we have put together, a fairly clear outline of how a large number of Canadian centres, over 40, stand and fare in emergency preparedness. I wish Senator Banks were here because he would perhaps expand on one of the points of concern to me.
Constant throughout those hearings, among a lot of other common problems, was the difficulty of communications among police forces, military forces, medical personnel and fire personnel, and general overall coordination during any kind of major panic.
How do you feel that your relationship with first responders, either through the provincial authorities or, even more directly, with a large city, stands? Is the relationship healthy? Is it getting healthier? Does it need a lot more repair?
VAdm. Forcier: It is one of the top items on my challenge list for regional commanders, but it is improving. We are taking a positive approach right now.
As an example, I personally went to speak with Ontario first responders. They had their annual meeting in Gravenhurst a month and a half ago. They wanted to know more about Canada Command. They wanted to have a good chat about the possibilities for the future.
Gravenhurst is a very vibrant community. In the days of 9/11, I was in the National Defence Command Centre. I was in the operations room when the airplanes hit. I was there trying to help Canadian Forces move cots, blankets and supplies and to deal with the fact that airplanes were down. We were working with NORAD.
I have seen the calibre of the people now in the first responder community. I have skipped a few episodes here, but along the way in my career I have had a chance to work with many of them. I have been most encouraged in the last year or so by how aggressively the provinces have focused their emergency management organization and nurtured the first responder community.
You are correct; we have a long way to go in collectively dealing with communication. It will always be a difficult challenge in a country this size. However, at the same time, we are looking for ways to work around it.
I requested that my six task force commanders get to know these people and their organizations: You are not there to change it; that is not your mandate. However, if you need to splice additional capability onto your organization to better connect, do so.
I am not only referring to liaison officers here, but also to the technical side. The communication packages that go into a field with a brigade troop may not be what we need to operate with the Toronto emergency management team, for example. We have looked at that.
Toronto is a good example. We have already made strides with this effort in that city. We now have the capability to get into the police radio network, with their permission, when a crisis comes up so the events party that supports the commander on the ground can do some of the work without the old barriers getting in the way.
That is the challenge we have thrown out to the commanders on the ground, namely: Do what we are doing. Find out where the holes are and close the gap. That is our immediate focus for improving that challenge.
Senator Forrestall: Give me two other examples of where you have problems that you are working hard at improving or eliminating. Give me a couple of examples that you are happy with in terms of achievements. I am trying to get a feel for the rate of progress that you are experiencing.
You have told me that you are proud of your small numbers. I would be proud of you being proud of that, if in fact I am satisfied that you are making the type of progress you are referring to that would not necessarily be accelerated by additional strength.
VAdm. Forcier: The issues that we must work on are all related to process, for example, when my colleagues are looking ahead and want to look at our capability or want to formally ask for minister-to-minister support. We have room here for improvement in the bureaucracy.
At the same time, we are engaging the lawyers from all the different departments to consider if bureaucracy is an impediment, is it just because it is bureaucracy or is it because of legal statutes? I will not poke fun at my friends who are lawyers, but the reality is that we are getting people around the table to discuss these issues. That is one of our challenges.
However, I am optimistic that we can be a little more proactive. We have gone around some issues in the past by having instruments like Orders-in-Council or memorandums of understanding signed by Crown ministers under certain federal statutes, which allowed us to shortcut the process. We want to go through many of these arrangements and see if they are good enough. Intuitively, because I worked in that environment for a long time, I believe many are not nimble enough.
The other one, simply because of the size of the organization and the time lag, is this massive connectivity with U.S. Northern Command. It is a factor of 10 to 1 in staff capability. Having said that, they are envious of some of the nimbleness that we have. However, when you put 1,600 people onto a problem, you can come up with some novel and aggressive solutions.
The challenge is to become engaged at the right level instead of chasing every potential line of inquiry and planning. Having the right match-up is a challenge that we will be working on. Those are two of the challenges, but I see nothing that is catastrophic.
Successes that really make me smile in the morning are things like when I walk in and can tell you that this year we have mapped out all of the ice roads in this country. You know what?
Senator Meighen: They are a diminishing number.
VAdm. Forcier: Yes, at the height of the season. I may be wrong because we have not queried every department and specialist, but I could not get an aggregate picture of the ice roads in this country so we built one. We went province by province, region by region, until we found out which individual had the information and who had the authority for those ice roads and ice bridges. Like everyone, we watched the thaw coming and tried to figure out where the vulnerability was. What was the likelihood of being asked for support?
This became a daily tactical evolution and my staff mapped out 64 roads with 10 provinces and three territories that had a stake in those. We are not there to be in charge; but when the phone rings and the community is isolated and there is no easy commercial solution, it would be nice to know something about it beforehand.
Recently, using that mentality, we created a campaign plan for all the regions to look at the typical weather cycle — floods, fires and so on. Thank God, we did not have to send Canadian Forces out to Manitoba this year. However, two weeks before the events started appearing in the press and on television every day — overflowing riverbanks, et cetera — obviously someone was affected, and that is unfortunate.
We were seeing these images on television and the discomfort level was rising in some places. The phone was ringing and private citizens, politicians and journalists were saying, ``Are you mobilizing Canadian Forces?'' We said no, we did not think it would happen because we had done our study with the provinces. We did the modelling and we forecast the extent of the flooding. I could go to bed at night saying, ``I may have to deflect a few queries here but I am 90 per cent certain we will not deploy this year.''
At the same time, we had all these Northeastern Ontario communities with totally different dynamics. Communities of 150, 200 or 500 people were now, within the short timelines of ice breakup, river flooding and EMOs, working beautifully in looking at this issue. Day by day, the solution was if they do not evacuate by a certain time, then maybe there is no other option than to get some helicopters from the Armed Forces to lift people out.
Those kinds of success stories are wonderful because my staff now thinks about this. We finished the briefing on the flood. The next formal briefing that I will give the Chief of Defence Staff is something of a comfort zone, looking forward — ``Next week, chief, we will start to brief you on fires.'' I think that type of aggressive looking forward has been a success.
Senator Forrestall: Good for you, vice-admiral, dispatcher extraordinaire.
Senator Zimmer: Thank you, vice-admiral, for appearing before us today. Before I put my question, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Armed Forces on what they did in Manitoba during the 1997 flood. It is a success story.
It is remarkable how people pulled together in the face of disaster, how the Canadian Forces moved in and literally saved the city and the surrounding area. You are absolutely right; you did meet the 12-hour rule. Secondly, you are also right that the discomfort level this year was rising in direct proportion to the water level. Fortunately, you did not have to move in.
It resembled a Rockwell painting, the way Canadian Forces worked side by side with the citizens of Manitoba, day and night. In fact, in the end, a painting was done. Most of us recognize that the Canadian Forces play a role in peacekeeping around the world, but we did get a new appreciation of the other roles that they play, as flood, hurricane, ice and disaster fighters. We consider them to be ambassadors; and in Manitoba, we consider them to be saints. On behalf of the citizens of Manitoba, I want you to pass on to them again our heartfelt thanks and gratitude for the good memories that will never be forgotten.
VAdm. Forcier: Thank you very much.
Senator Zimmer: I do have a special place in my heart for the Canadian Forces because in the 1970s I worked with the Minister of National Defence, the Honourable James Richardson, from Winnipeg.
In the summer before 9/11, I had the good fortune to tour NORAD and inside Cheyenne Mountain. After three days of touring, we had a session with the American general, and the Canadian general was also there. It became apparent to us that given the missiles around the world in different countries, it would be impossible, if they shot their missiles off all at the same time, to get them in the air. It became apparent to us that the real way to handle that is by a counter-threat, and I think that is the way they do it.
At the end of the questions, I asked the American general: ``Do you know where everything is?'' He looked at the Canadian general, and then he paused, turned back and said, ``We have no surprises.'' Then came 9/11.
What is the nature of your link with NORAD today? To what degree are you engaged in NORAD activity or is NORAD engaged in CANCOM activity, and what adjustments have we made since then to try to counter those types of actions?
VAdm. Forcier: I have to start my answer by saying that I am not responsible for NORAD operations. The Commander of NORAD deals directly with the Chief of the Defence Staff on providing strategic military advice on aerospace defence and control.
My relationship is one of fairly open cards from them on all their activities since I am a partner in the defence of the continent. However, I am not responsible for, nor do I have any say in, their day-to-day activity. As I said, I have connections in two ways: first, through our relationship with the hybrid capability down in Colorado, with Northern Command co-located with NORAD; and second, through Gen. Bouchard, the Commander of Canadian NORAD Region, who also has a relationship with me and is supporting my operations in the country. We are plugged in electronically to those two sites. I can go to my command centre and see the NORAD picture. I am aware every day of their missions; I am aware every day of their positioning of defences, to keep my focus on things. The Commander of NORAD has that mandate himself. That is the extent of our relationship.
Senator Moore: VAdm. Fortier, you mentioned that you could demand forces from the three services in times of emergency. Does that extend to forces that we currently deploy overseas?
VAdm. Forcier: No. The best way to look at the forces deployed overseas is that they are under the Expeditionary Forces Command. If they are preparing to deploy but are still in the country, I could then task them, depending on the incident. We keep tabs on everybody through the services report, so I will know, for example, that a certain battalion is training at a certain level at this time and preparing to work for LGen. Gauthier overseas at a certain date. If I had an emergency for which that would be an appropriate unit to use, as LGen. Gauthier and I are co-located at the same headquarters and our operational planning staff speak to each other every day, they would quickly check what the impact would be if we pulled this battalion from their training. In a national crisis, most of the time there would probably not be much of an impact if it was for a day or two or three. If it were to be a long stay, we have a referee called the Chief of the Defence Staff. However, the protocol on which we have agreed is that we would consult each other.
I can give an example. When we responded to Katrina we used the forces from the Maritimes, shaped by RAdm. McNeil, to deploy to Mississippi and Louisiana. Under Canada Command, the approach would have been a little different. RAdm. McNeil would have said, ``I need these different capabilities. If I take away the battalion that is training in Gagetown today, which may be in Afghanistan in two weeks, or a component of their capability, it would be very difficult.'' Under our thinking now, the first thing I would say is, ``I know where the rest of the capability equivalent to this is located.'' Maybe it is in Quebec or Ontario. ``The regional commander in Ontario, you are now swinging that capability; start driving east''; or, ``air force, lift that capability to me and bring it to Halifax, because I need to use it.''
Senator Moore: In that example, if Katrina happened today, and given this new command structure has been in place for the last three months, would it be the expeditionary commander who would look after that?
VAdm. Forcier: No.
Senator Moore: You have the continent, do you not?
VAdm. Forcier: I have the continent, yes, as part of that. Outside the North American continent, it would be CEFCOM. Once again, there would be a dialogue because of the capability that we have, but the only difference, obviously, is that I will not cross international lines without the Government of Canada being asked and agreeing. That does not stop me from turning on the planning machine and looking at options.
Senator Moore: Can you command forces from the Canadian Coast Guard if you need them? What is the link between Canada Command and the Coast Guard?
VAdm. Forcier: From the point of view of structure, we command military forces under the National Defence Act. ``Command'' has a specific legal meaning here. The Coast Guard works with us already. They work with us in the search and rescue environment. It is a shared responsibility. The Department of National Defence, exercising its command through three regions that now, de facto, have fallen under Canada Command, does task them, but it is not quite the military command relationship. We give directions and they will execute them.
In Katrina, the Coast Guard volunteered a ship in support of the naval task force. It is like anything else. One is in support of the other. I hesitate to use the term ``command.''
Senator Moore: Senator Meighen asked a question in one of this morning's sessions on the surveillance of the Arctic and protecting Canadian sovereignty, our Coast Guard being probably the most experienced organization in Canada in that regard because of the icebreakers and so on being up there for so many years. Should they be made job-specific and armed, rather than the navy creating new vessels to do that same task?
VAdm. Forcier: Giving the mission to the Armed Forces or the Coast Guard is a political decision that is beyond my boundaries.
Senator Moore: If you have a unit that knows what they were doing, why would you not call upon them to carry on doing that, rather than mounting an entirely new establishment and training them? They obviously are not trained in armaments, but you people certainly are.
VAdm. Forcier: I understand the department is still looking at whether or not that is the preferred option. I am not sure.
I look at it, once again, from the user capability and the coordinator or supporting capability. I described my evolving relationship with all my partners in the other government departments. If Team Canada, as we have used that term, provides a piece of the puzzle that happens to be the Coast Guard to lend support in the North, I have no difficulty with that. At the same time, the Government of Canada will decide who has the lead, not me.
Senator Forrestall: When the Halifax Rifles are available, you grab them. They are the best in Canada.
Senator Meighen: You will notice that I have been very restrained and have not asked any questions. You talked about Team Canada bringing its assets to the table and you being, to use Senator Forrestall's words, the ``head dispatcher.'' What about the Canadian Rangers up north? Do you integrate with them?
VAdm. Forcier: Absolutely. They are part of our organization as well. The simple way to describe it is this: If it wears a uniform in the Canadian Forces and it does a job or carries out operations in the country, it falls under our purview.
Senator Meighen: Is the uniform the Rangers wear considered to be a uniform of the Canadian Forces?
VAdm. Forcier: Yes. Thank you for bringing this up. Of course, I must admit that as a sailor, I have not had that much familiarity with their capability.
Senator Meighen: I think that was Senator Moore's point as well.
VAdm. Forcier: I have been involved in looking at the capability of the Canadian Rangers. The department as a whole is involved in refocusing its training and streamlining its command and control.
I was in Yellowknife six weeks ago. I had a chance to speak to a group of 55 Rangers who undertook, I would say, the most challenging patrol that we have ever done up north — 3,500 kilometres on Ski-Doos, almost up to 79 north. It was incredible. I was really proud of how well it was planned and how well they trained for this mission. Except for a few young, keen sergeants who helped with some of the logistics and supported the focus, the expertise was all internal. I was having a discussion with some colleagues about it.
One can train for winter capability, and one can train for Arctic capability, and believe me, they are different. The expertise and skill of the Canadian Rangers is phenomenal. In the three territories, 1,500 rangers are under the command of the Joint Task Force North, and the commander could not complete the mission without them. We plan to focus much more on this.
I was very impressed. I knew that the rangers were people from the land who had skills, but to pull this together and go places where no one else can, and do it with a smile and with safety requires phenomenal capabilities.
[Translation]
Senator Meighen: Thank you, Vice-Admiral, and good luck. I hope you are not abandoning us entirely and that you will remain in contact with the Canadian armed forces.
VAdm. Forcier: Absolutely. I will do what most retiring military personnel do and decompress somewhat, after which we will see.
[English]
Senator Atkins: Under the new expanded arrangement with NORAD, would Team Canada have a special interest in that expansion?
VAdm. Forcier: That is a good point, and I believe we are voting tonight. Obviously, if the agreement is finally ratified here with the expansion in the Maritime Domain Awareness, there will be more of a link.
In fact, I discussed this last week with the staff of NORAD to bring once again the triumvirate to the table to ensure we maximize the connectivity in information flow on the maritime surveillance piece. Under the enhancement role in information sharing, the response from maritime advance in Canada would still reside with me, as it would with my colleagues in the U.S.
You are absolutely correct. We will now go from decades of goodwill and ad hoc biparty arrangements — I refer back to comments made in my opening remarks that I was committed to Maritime Forces Pacific — my staff and I had very good connections with my colleague in the United States Third Fleet, with Coast Guard districts both in Seattle and Alaska, and with the forces in Hawaii. We had that history of multiple exchanges and arrangements made over the years.
Under that structure, we will now have a much more focused and sustained information exchange between the forces of the continent and their approaches. From my point of view as a user, that is a plus.
The Chairman: Thank you, VAdm. Forcier. We appreciate your attendance to outline your new command with the committee. We know this is only the first half of the presentation that you are going to make to us. On behalf of the committee, I thank you very much, and we look forward to seeing you at that time.
Senator J. Michael Forrestall (Deputy Chairman) in the chair.
The Deputy Chairman: Honourable senators, our next witness is LGen. Michel Gauthier who was promoted to his current rank in April 2006, upon which we all warmly congratulate you and wish you great success.
LGen. Gauthier has served as commander of the Canadian Expeditionary Forces Command since September 12, 2005, and is the operational level commander responsible for military operations outside Canada, including Afghanistan. LGen. Gauthier last appeared before us over a year ago when he held the post of Chief of Defence Intelligence.
We welcome you, sir, and look forward to hearing from you.
[Translation]
Lieutenant-General J.C.M. Gauthier, Commander, Canadian Expeditionary Force Command, National Defence: Honourable senators, I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak with you today about the development of the Canadian Expeditionary Force Command or CEFCOM. I understand that your focus this afternoon is on the progress being made by the new operational commands and that, at some future date, you will look more specifically at the CEFCOM mission in Afghanistan.
I have prepared opening remarks based on this understanding.
[English]
I was named to this appointment in September 2005 and assumed command of the Canadian Expeditionary Forces Command, CEFCOM, when it formally stood up on February 1. From September until February my focus was almost exclusively on building the team and the headquarters infrastructure and processes that would position us to be operationally effective in command of current Canadian Forces International missions on February 1. Since this date I have been responsible to the Chief of Defence Staff, CDS, for the conduct of these missions.
Over the next few minutes I would like to talk about what we are, what we do and, more important, where we are going as a command.
As some honourable senators may know, until February of this year all Canadian Forces operations, both domestic and international, were planned and coordinated under the direction of the Deputy Chief of Defence Staff, DCDS, at National Defence Headquarters. At the same time, the DCDS was responsible for overseeing defence intelligence, joint force development, joint force generation, departmental protocol and foreign liaison, and all personnel posted to non- operational positions outside Canada. As a level-one authority within National Defence Headquarters, the DCDS was also a member of the departmental and CF corporate management team, all of which entailed membership on strategic-level boards and committees.
Under this new command-centric, operationally focussed command-and-control construct, my exclusive focus is on the conduct of Canadian Forces operations overseas. There are two basic aspects to my role as Commander, CEFCOM as I describe it to all who will listen. I am accountable to the CDS for exercising effective command of Canadian Forces operations and setting the conditions for successful execution of our CF missions by deploying Canadian Forces elements. Put another way, it is my job 24 hours a day, seven days a week to ensure that our forces deployed overseas have what they need — clear plans and orders, the right capabilities in terms of people and equipment in the right proportion, the appropriate training and the necessary support infrastructure to accomplish what the government has set out for them to do. I have a supporting headquarters that has exactly the same role and focus.
Mr. Chairman, I have included in your material a number of graphics that help describe the concepts that underlie the creation of CEFCOM and its headquarters. At the heart of the concept is a vision founded on strategic relevance, operational responsiveness and tactical decisiveness. The vision summarized in the first graphic applies not only to CEFCOM but to the Canadian Forces as a whole in its approach to operations.
[Translation]
CEFCOM per se, consists of a Commander and a headquarters of approximately 200 men and women located in the East of Ottawa, and a small deployable headquarters in Kingston. The actual operational capabilities of CEFCOM are assigned to me from the army, navy, air force and other elements the Canadian Forces on a mission-by-mission basis. Today, I have roughly 2,700 Canadian Forces personnel assigned to me, employed on 19 missions around the world. On many missions, these are small groups of staff officers, advisors or military observers. In the case of Afghanistan, the force is based on a large task force tailored for the mission.
The CEFCOM mission statement is to conduct fully integrated, global operations, across the spectrum from humanitarian assistance to combat, in concert with national and international partners, to achieve timely and decisive effects in support of Canada's national interests.
The supporting concept for expeditionary operations is summarized on the third graphic. CEFCOM's ultimate purpose is to deliver decisive effects on behalf of the Government of Canada, consistent with the objectives set for each of its operational missions. My headquarters is fully integrated — comprised of army, navy, and air force personnel, both Regular and Reserve, as well as a number of civilians.
Deployable capabilities will consist of a fully integrated, high readiness element able to deploy on shorter notice, and mission specific task forces formed, equipped and prepared for defined missions drawn from maritime, air, land and special operations units and formations. Key to the concept of integrated forces is the harmonization of effort with our national partners to create a whole-of-government — or 3D — approach, as well as the need to be capable of and poised to operate alongside military allies as well as international organizations and NGOs.
[English]
The fourth graphic provides our theoretical end-state. This encapsulates my vision of what Canada's expeditionary forces ought to be capable of as CEFCOM and the Canadian Forces transform.
A fundamental principle for CEFCOM's future development is the delivery of focussed, timely and decisive effects. For too long we have simply decided to provide forces to be employed by others, without clearly defining national or military objectives and the associated effects to be achieved. CEFCOM will sharpen the focus on desired effects, define the capabilities required to achieve these effects for a particular mission and develop campaign plans that will be managed over time to synchronize deployed capabilities and desired effects. Effects and effectiveness will be measured and reported regularly to allow the mission to be reinforced, shaped or adjusted as necessary.
[Translation]
As indicated earlier, CEFCOM will foster and strengthen partnerships within the whole-of-government model. We will work closely with other government departments — Foreign Affairs, CIDA, the RCMP and others — to have the greatest possible effect in countries where the CF deploys.
[English]
Operations in the 21st century present complex challenges, such as those our forces face today in Afghanistan, and threats that have evolved dramatically over the past decade in particular. CEFCOM must be prepared to conduct what we call full spectrum operations in complex environments, what we have also referred to as the three-block war, that is, war fighting, stability or peace support, and humanitarian tasks conducted virtually simultaneously, all against adaptive opponents.
To facilitate these outcomes, CEFCOM will need to assist the CF in establishing a fully integrated, managed- readiness system. This system, which will involve the services as well as the operational commands, must be capable of delivering modern and relevant strategic operational and tactical capabilities within a framework that enables seamless and rapid transmission from force generation in Canada to effective force employment overseas. Responsiveness in time and desired capability are key.
Looking more specifically at my headquarters, the fifth graphic summarizes the principles that have served as a basis for structuring my staff and building the processes that will facilitate effective command and control of operations.
[Translation]
Effectiveness is the first, over riding principle. The Headquarters is structured to scan the global security situation proactively, to maintain timely situational awareness on our missions, and to leverage the full range of Canadian Forces and national Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities. The Headquarters staff has been structured to facilitate an integrated and unified approach to operations focused downward on setting our deploying forces up for success and outward on the range of national and international partners we can expect to work with.
[English]
A more robust planning staff has been built into the structure of my headquarters to focus more sharply on defining outcomes and effects in relation to national objectives and to build force packages that will best achieve these outcomes. Likewise, the headquarters has been structured to facilitate a timely response to operational requirements, to enhance the force preparation process along with the services and to speed up the transition to operational effectiveness in a theatre of operations.
The final graphic provides a notional depiction of our transformation road map. I say ``notional'' because some of the specific elements have yet to be fully developed. In a general sense, CEFCOM will progress toward its eventual end- state over a period of years, certainly not weeks or months. As new capabilities are delivered by the Canadian Forces, consistent with government policy, our overall expeditionary capability will grow. My near-term focus, with respect to the transformation challenge, is to build a foundation and a framework for future development.
That said, it is important to emphasize that we have been at this for barely three months. Above all, my focus, and that of most of my headquarters for the past three months, has been on succeeding in operations currently underway. In our missions, large and small around the globe, our men and women are making a difference.
[Translation]
In Haiti for example, Colonel Michel Duhamel, the Chief of Staff of the 7,400-strong military component of the UN Force (MINUSTAH), along with the Canadian Staff Officers in the Headquarters are playing a role which has been central to the success of that mission.
Then there is Colonel Barry McLeod, the head of the Election Assistance Task Force responsible for the coordination of all the UN efforts supporting the Haitian electoral process. Colonel McLeod deployed at the specific request of Ambassador Valdez, the Special Representative of the Secretary General for Haiti, and has played a very direct role in ensuring that the elections in Haiti this past February and April were conducted in a fair and open manner.
[English]
In Bosnia, after years of large Canadian deployments from 1992 to 2004, we still have a presence supporting the European Union Force, EUFOR, and the NATO headquarters in Sarajevo. The soldiers who support EUFOR engage with the local authorities and liaise with other agencies taking the pulse of Bosnians in order to stimulate a responsible and positive attitude towards change. Our contribution to NATO headquarters in Sarajevo has supported both the EUFOR elements and the NATO efforts, which have led to the implementation of defence reform partly based on the Canadian regimental system and organization. The defence reform saw the inauguration of a single Ministry of Defence for the armed forces of Bosnia Herzegovina on January 1, 2006 which, with the continued assistance of NATO, could see Bosnia accepted as a partner for peace later this decade, and possibly as a member of NATO at a later date.
These are two examples of small missions in which Canadians are making a difference. We are also providing equally important support with relatively small numbers of Canadian Forces personnel in key appointments in Sudan, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cyprus and throughout the Middle East. With each one we are achieving significant impact and strategic effects from a Canadian perspective.
[Translation]
Our contribution in Afghanistan has been substantially more significant in scope and scale. Much as CEFCOM could not afford to fail on operations when it stood up in February, Canada cannot afford to fail in Afghanistan. This mission is vital to securing Afghanistan's future, to demonstrating solidarity with our allies, and most importantly to defending Canada. Our country cannot risk Afghanistan once again becoming a failed state and a haven for terrorists.
[English]
As commander of CEFCOM and a member of the CF, I am extremely proud of what we have accomplished since we first began conducting ground operations in Afghanistan in 2002. This past November, after successfully ensuring a security for provincial council elections, the Canadian Forces closed Camp Julien, their main base in Kabul and consolidated operations in Kandahar.
As we all know, Kandahar is a dangerous place and our mission there has not come without a human cost. Sixteen Canadians, including a Foreign Affairs Officer, have given their lives for this mission, and more have been injured.
I visited our mission in Kandahar for several days, 10 days ago, and our men and women are making all Canadians proud. The mission is as complex as any the Canadian Forces have undertaken in several decades. Brigadier-General David Fraser is playing an extraordinarily important international leadership role. His efforts will be key to supporting the successful transition to a NATO-commanded mission in the southern region of Afghanistan this summer.
Our soldiers understand the mission. They readily accept the risks associated with it and they feel they have an opportunity to make a difference over there.
I look forward to elaborating on this important mission in my next appearance before you.
My visit to Afghanistan brought home the importance of our transformation efforts. CEFCOM has been created to improve the support we give to the men and women on the front lines of international operations. As CEFCOM's transformation moves forward, our ability to transform operations like CEFCOM will get better and better. CEFCOM is a young organization with much room for improvement. We will continue to grow our capabilities in step with the changes and capability growth to the Canadian Forces command structure brought by General Hillier's transformation initiatives. As transformation continues, CEFCOM will continue to provide unparalleled command support to our missions abroad because this support will always be our ``no fail'' task for the Canadian Forces.
The Deputy Chairman: Thank you very much, general. No matter when you were promoted or when you accepted command, sir, good luck.
LGen. Gauthier: Thank you.
Senator Atkins: What is your connection with General Fraser? Is it a direct command relationship or are there commanders or officers in between?
LGen. Gauthier: It is absolutely direct. With each of the 19 commanders that we have deployed around the world, there is a designated task force commander and that commander reports directly to me. There is a defined command relationship between me and General Fraser, in this case. I am his boss. I write his Canadian performance evaluation report, which is always the test of who you actually work for.
Senator Atkins: He has to be nice to you.
LGen. Gauthier: Most of the time; not always. He is working in a coalition environment. If you would like, I can elaborate on that. This is the nature of most of our missions overseas where the Canadian task force commander, in many cases, has an international boss as well as a national boss. In this case, General Fraser wears two hats. As commander for Task Force Afghanistan, he is accountable to me. At the same time, he is commander of Multinational Brigade South, which today, is part of Operation Enduring Freedom. He also has an international commander who is the commander of Combined Joint Task Force 76, Major-General Ben Freakley.
Senator Meighen: What if there is a conflict?
LGen. Gauthier: He receives his operational instructions on a day-to-day basis from his international commander. We have assigned these forces under the operational control of the coalition. His assigned day-to-day tasks are necessarily in support of that broader multinational mission, and he receives his day-to-day orders from his multinational boss. I exercise national command on a day-to-day basis.
Senator Atkins: He went overseas before the restructuring.
LGen. Gauthier: I expect that he might have done so, although he did not take command of the task force until March 1. I was there to take the handover from Colonel Noonan, the previous commander of Task Force Afghanistan, and pass the torch to General Fraser. He might have deployed, or some elements of the task force might have deployed, before CEFCOM,was created, but he assumed command after I had assumed command.
Senator Atkins: Are you satisfied now that we are providing our troops in Afghanistan with the best equipment? Are there shortages? Do situations arise that require better equipment?
LGen. Gauthier: I can say unequivocally that the Canadian Forces, the army in particular because this is principally an army deployment, has pulled out all the stops to support this mission and to provide the troops with specialized capabilities that are best suited to the environment of southern Afghanistan. We have done more for this deployment than for any other deployment in my experience, in providing troops with the kit they need. If I can believe what the soldiers said to me, and I talked to hundreds of them, they are very happy with the equipment. Is it perfect? Absolutely not. Are there specific pieces of equipment that some would prefer? Absolutely yes. We cannot buy everything to satisfy everyone's requirements but I can say that setting this task force up for success has been an area of major emphasis over the last six months. The troops are very happy with their equipment.
Senator Atkins: In your statement you said that operations in the 21st century present complex challenges, such as those our forces face in Afghanistan today, against threats that have been evolving dramatically over the past decade. You said that we must be prepared to conduct full-spectrum operations in complex environments, or three-block wars, whereby we provide humanitarian aid or assistance to others thus engaged, stabilization or peace support operations and high-intensity fighting.
Is the three-block war working in this situation? Would you comment in general on that paragraph in your brief?
LGen. Gauthier: Are you asking specifically about Afghanistan?
Senator Atkins: Yes.
LGen. Gauthier: The mission in Afghanistan is multi-faceted in many respects. It is a complex environment in many ways, such as geography and terrain; the people of Afghanistan; the dynamics of tribalism; criminality, to a certain extent; insurgents; and poverty. Afghanistan presents many challenges.
Senator Atkins: That is why I am asking about the three-block war.
LGen. Gauthier: Because of that, we have to take a broad-based approach to the mission. Our campaign plan for Afghanistan mirrors the Afghanistan Compact — the Afghanistan National Development Strategy — to rebuild Afghanistan, which was acclaimed at the London conference in January. It is effectively founded on three pillars: security, governance and economics. Which of those leads at any given time is open to debate.
Without a secure environment, it is difficult to achieve the other two but for a secure environment people have to believe in those that provide the security. They have to be convinced, and they have to be confident in their government and in the forces present to help them. A 3D Plus effort, an effort from the Canadian perspective is principally military, cannot be decoupled from the roles that Foreign Affairs Canada and the Canadian International Development Agency, CIDA, have to play in governance development; and the role that the RCMP has to play in helping to build capacity within the Afghan national police. In all those respects, given what has to be done and the balance between the security, governance and economic pillars, on any given day our soldiers might find themselves defending against an attack. At the other end of the spectrum, they might find themselves enabling the work of non-governmental organizations, NGOs, Foreign Affairs Canada representatives or CIDA representatives, or engaging local authorities. There is a full range of activities.
I met General Charles Krulak, Thirty-first Commandant of the United States Marine Corps, who coined the term, ``three-block war.'' I do not know whether he had Afghanistan in mind as an operational environment when the term was conceived but it is what we are living in today. Full spectrum operations are being conducted, and necessarily so.
Senator Atkins: Is the third pillar working?
LGen. Gauthier: The social and economic development pillar is progressing. It will take a long time because many development decisions are required after what Afghanistan has been through.
Senator Atkins: You have been there on more than one occasion. On your last occasion, did you sense any difference in the public's attitude toward the presence of the Canadian Forces?
LGen. Gauthier: I have been to Afghanistan about 10 times since 2002. I saw more of Afghanistan during my last visit than I had in any of the previous visits. It is not an easy question to answer. In 2002, our forces were deployed on a combat mission through Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, PPCLI. One of their roles was to provide security for the Kandahar airfield and to conduct combat missions with American forces. They were not geographically focussed on the province of Kandahar. I went over there four or five times in my role. It was not easy to gauge the mood locally because this was not their area of operations. Since 2003 and slightly beyond 2005, we have been Kabul- centred. There has been a very positive improvement in local conditions in the plight of the average Afghan living in Kabul, although there are still many challenges there.
It is still early to say anything about the south. We have been there effectively for only two months now, and we are not in a great position to judge the effects we are having at this stage. They are reported on a weekly basis. I can talk to you about what is being reported, but it is early to be saying that.
Senator Atkins: Do you think the media is treating our involvement there fairly?
LGen. Gauthier: I would say yes, absolutely. The coverage that we have seen from embedded journalists overseas has been fair by and large, where they are able to see the soldiers and live and talk with them — at least that specific aspect of it has been fair. I will not comment on the Canada-based media coverage; I am more focussed on the mission itself. It has been positive.
Senator Day: LGen. Gauthier, congratulations on your promotion.
LGen. Gauthier: Thank you very much.
Senator Day: Can you give me a better understanding of the use of some terms here? With respect to the expression in your overhead, ``Canada's expeditionary forces are fully integrated and unified in their approach to international operations,'' we have just spent quite a bit of time talking to VAdm. Forcier about joint operations. Could you explain to us what ``fully integrated'' and ``unified'' means?
LGen. Gauthier: ``Joint'' can be perceived by some as services working cooperatively side-by-side. For this reason, more than any other, CDS coined the term ``integrated'' to mean beyond joint, so ``fully integrated'' in the way that you and I would understand the term ``integrate.'' I might have taken that a bit beyond the initial intent of the CDS to mean integrated beyond bringing the services together and weaving them together in that sense, but take that and apply it to the 3-D notion. That is where I see a truly integrated effort being necessary.
If you apply the term ``integrated'' to the mission in Afghanistan, it is about all of that so that our platoon, company and other commanders that are involved in the mission are thinking beyond their specialty area to the broad range of assets that can be brought to bear to support the mission.
Senator Day: Does ``fully integrated'' imply NGOs or other non-Canadian Forces personnel who are part of the Provincial Reconstruction Team, PRT, operating there?
LGen. Gauthier: It means just about anyone who is able to add value by Canada to the conduct of international operations to achieving success. If we can bring them into our team and they can add value, then we want to make them part of our team.
Senator Day: Are there other government people working as part of the team in Kandahar?
LGen. Gauthier: Yes, on my second-to-last visit to Kandahar, there were not just Canadians in the PRT. The Canadian military was there along with Foreign Affairs Canada, CIDA and RCMP representatives. Beyond that, other international organizations were represented in the same PRT. It was not just a Canadian effort.
There are not a lot of international NGOs in Afghanistan right now, especially not in the south of Afghanistan. That is a bit of a challenge today, but they also need to be part of the solution, clearly.
Senator Day: In that whole concept of the Provincial Reconstruction Team, do the RCMP, CIDA and the Foreign Affairs Canada people who are there report through and take direction from General Fraser?
LGen. Gauthier: I think they all see themselves as partners. Depending on the subject, there will be a leadership role to be played by one or another. ``Command,'' of course, is a military term.
Senator Day: That is right. That is why I try to avoid it.
LGen. Gauthier: They are partners. They work together. From a military perspective, we see ourselves on the ground as having an overarching responsibility for security, and that includes providing security for other Canadians involved in this operation.
Senator Day: As one of the lessons learned in this type of operation, are you spending time protecting your Canadian partners? For example, if they want to go visit a town, is there some additional risk to the military people because they are providing security to other Canadians who are partners in this project or operation?
LGen. Gauthier: Fundamental to our mission is finding ways to extend the legitimacy and credibility of the government of Afghanistan to the provinces and to the districts. Also fundamental to the mission is the idea of building capacity across the spectrum. The military is focused more on Afghanistan National Security Forces, but we are also there to enable capacity-building in other areas. My answer is, and it is a long way to get back to the question, that is why we are there. They are part of this broader 3-D effort, full-spectrum operations in this complex environment. Our military force should not see it as a burden to provide security for these other elements; they are part of the effort. We are there to support them.
Senator Day: Who would make the decision? For example, a CIDA or a Foreign Affairs Canada representative wants to travel 35 kilometres away from the base in Kandahar to visit the mayor of a little town. The military says the road is very dangerous. Who makes the decision to transport that person?
LGen. Gauthier: That would be made by the military chain of command. It would start with the commander of the PRT because he is right there working side by side, cheek by jowl with our partners. He would connect with the chain of command of the military task force responsible for the province of Kandahar. They would go through the risk and threat assessments to make a judgment as to whether it is sound. It is a dynamic process. From day to day, the two are working together so that military operations and these other operations really are complementary.
Senator Day: Afghanistan may be the first time that Canada has participated in a provincial reconstruction operation, and it is an evolving dynamic. Are there lessons we have learned thus far, or is it too soon to talk about lessons learned?
LGen. Gauthier: It is a bit early. We started the PRT task last summer, the first time we had ever done this. It was in Kandahar province. For that particular stage of the operation, we had a PRT commanded by Canadian. That effort was Canadian, but it involved working alongside an American battalion that was responsible for providing security and conducting security operations in that province.
That effort was relatively unique as compared with what we have now, which is a Canadian PRT that is part of a larger effort in the province of Kandahar involving Canadians.
There were certain lessons drawn from the first six months that clearly were applied to the current effort. We are learning other lessons with every day and week that passes. We are making progress. I visited the earlier PRT last November and I spent a large amount of time at the PRT in this last visit. They are making good progress, but progress according to Afghanistan metrics as opposed to Canadian metrics, which means a little bit slower and with a longer planning horizon.
Senator Day: I suppose if the PRT has one country providing the military security, it does not get too complicated. However, if the military security is provided by a commander who has several different countries providing personnel, the countries who provide soldiers can possibly put caveats on what the soldiers can and cannot do, which restricts the command and control capability of the commander. We have seen that with respect to certain NATO operations and it has been brought to our attention. Have we experienced any type of caveat problem in our operations thus far?
LGen. Gauthier: Not that I can recall with Operation Enduring Freedom. We are looking ahead to the NATO operation now, with NATO transition occurring hopefully sometime this summer.
The issue and question has come up. It comes up regularly in our meetings because we are working with our international partners to set the proper foundation for the International Security Assistance Force, ISAF, component of the operation. Everything looks positive now.
Senator Day: Does Canada, in providing armed forces personnel, provide or impose caveats on what those armed forces people can do, similar to the problem I was describing to you earlier? Do we do that as well?
LGen. Gauthier: Every nation, to some degree, is caveated by its rules of engagement. I have not heard of any complaints about how those rules are being interpreted or applied in the context of the mission that we are part of right now. It is not an issue.
The Deputy Chairman: It would be interesting to go down that road for a few minutes.
Senator Day: Another time.
Senator Meighen: Welcome, general, and congratulations. I will not go down that road. I want to go down a multifaceted road very briefly and that is your diagram here in blue and yellow of all the operations in which we are engaged around the world. It is impressive, 18 different operations and 2,701 personnel employed.
I think it is generally agreed that we could not sustain another operation simultaneously the size of Afghanistan, but in addition to Afghanistan we are sustaining these various operations around the world. Are any of them scheduled to be terminated that you are aware of, freeing up personnel and resources? Do you know of any?
LGen. Gauthier: In fact, on March 24 or 25, I was at Camp Ziouani in the Golan Heights to witness the closure of that mission, effectively. We had a Canadian logistics battalion that contributed to that mission for some 32 years. We have reduced that to a four-person mission today, down to two people as of this summer. That is an example of one.
We did not want to leave anyone else cold, so in exiting from that mission, we had to work with international partners to do a proper handoff; and we were able to effect that.
Senator Meighen: Do you know of any others that are being terminated?
LGen. Gauthier: No, not off the top of my head.
Senator Meighen: Can you refresh me as to what Operation Sextant is?
LGen. Gauthier: That is the deployment of HMCS Athabasca. That is a good one that you focus on because it is a six-month rotation.
Senator Meighen: I notice it ended up in the middle of the ocean, so I figured it had to be a naval one.
LGen. Gauthier: That command ship supports Commodore Denis Rouleau, who commands the Standing NATO Response Force Maritime Group 1, which is one of two standing NATO maritime groups. He is the commander. He has a relatively small multinational staff that provides command and control for a small maritime task group that is deployed for six months. In fact, it is supported by HMCS Athabasca and will be supported for a further six months by HMCS Iroquois. In the fall and following that, that mission will close up. There is another example of one that has an end state.
The Deputy Chairman: For the time, it remains a major chair at the NATO table.
LGen. Gauthier: It is certainly helpful.
The Deputy Chairman: When it withdraws, we will know the strength of our table.
LGen. Gauthier: This is rotational. Different nations fulfil this command role over time. It is Canada's turn.
Senator Meighen: I have one other question on this chart concerning Operation Archer, theatre support base, establishment 266, which is quite large. The line goes to an interesting location — I presume that is Camp Mirage?
LGen. Gauthier: Yes, it is.
Senator Meighen: That is needed presumably to support the operation in Afghanistan.
LGen. Gauthier: Absolutely.
Senator Day: However, we cannot talk about it.
Senator Meighen: Well, it has an interesting location, if you look.
LGen. Gauthier: That is in deference to our allies and hosts, who do not wish us to talk about its location.
Senator Meighen: Senator Atkins just asked me about Operation Crocodile.
LGen. Gauthier: That is in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Senator Meighen: Is that an open-ended operation?
LGen. Gauthier: Frankly, I cannot recall. I think it might have been in the 2001-02 time frame that we began — I can get you that information. It is available on our website.
Senator Meighen: It goes on, though?
LGen. Gauthier: Absolutely, yes. In fact, the situation in the Congo today is that there is a major milestone coming up. At the end of July the country will hold its presidential elections. This is one of the milestones they need to get to; and it is one of those missions where a relatively small number of people — staff officers in headquarters positions exclusively on that mission — are doing important work. They are making a contribution.
From my staff's perspective, it is a little bit of a challenge to maintain proper overwatch of each of these individual missions. It is not impossible. We are structured to do that. The contribution we are able to make with small numbers of people is, I believe sincerely, out of proportion to the number of people we have involved. They are in meaningful positions and they are appreciated by the command structures for each of those missions.
Senator Meighen: I do not quarrel with your assessment at all, which brings me to my next question. How do we measure success of the operation in Afghanistan? Is it by the fact that there are fewer attacks on our troops, that there are fewer incidents in the general area we are responsible for, and that there are more kids in school? Are there any empirical measurement standards?
LGen. Gauthier: CDS and I discussed this issue just last week. It is not something that the Canadian Forces have tended to do terribly well: performance measurement as applied to Canadian Forces operations. It starts with having a clear idea of what you want to achieve. If all you want to achieve is to provide forces to be deployed by others, how do you measure that success? I guess if you have deployed them, you are successful. We are trying to take it beyond that to specify clearly that with any significant mission we undertake there are agreed national objectives. From those will flow strategic effects and from those will flow operational effects down to the tactical level.
For the first time, we are in the process of building an effects measurement framework for the Afghanistan mission so that we can actually try to measure success and report on that success for the first time.
Senator Meighen: Can you give me an idea of what you put into that?
LGen. Gauthier: You could base it on, in a security sense, how many attacks there were against coalition forces; how many attacks there were against Afghan national police and Afghan national army; how many attacks there were against civilians in a given time frame, for an example; and from a development perspective, how many schools were opened. There are any number of areas where you can define things that you can measure.
In many respects, our operation is about winning the confidence of the people of Afghanistan so that they vote in favour of their government and vote in favour of the international forces in their actions, as opposed to voting out of fear for the Taliban or the insurgents. How do you measure confidence levels? That is a bit of a challenge, but one we are looking at also. How do you measure perception? We are looking at this.
Senator Meighen: I am not fishing for you to get into any areas you do not want to, either from a military or a political perspective, but what operational lessons have we learned in Afghanistan? In an answer to Senator Atkins, you said, of course, we cannot have all the bells and whistles we might like to have. Surely there must be things that we have learned over the past since the PPCLI were there in 2002, things that have taught us something from an operational sense. Could you enlighten us on any areas?
LGen. Gauthier: Hundreds of lessons have been learned and we have a lessons-learned process and a database with a great deal of this information. In the most recent operations, certainly one lesson that we probably understood but which was reinforced was that the enemy is adaptive; we need to be adaptive also. In the January 15 improvised explosive device, IED, strike that killed Glyn Berry, I can remember Colonel Steve Noonan, who was the task force commander, making reference to the fact that it is an adaptive enemy and we also have to adapt.
Clearly, over the last six months, over the last two months, we have learned just how adaptive we need to be. We need to be on top of this, not to sound defensive and not to suggest that there has been anything dramatically wrong or flawed in our approach, but the bad guys are adapting and we need to adapt as well. We need a system in place to support that at the deployed end in theatre. That same agility that starts there has to make its way all the way back to the institution so that the institution is able to adapt on relatively short notice. We are actually doing that. I do not want to be specific about that, for security reasons, but we are conscious of that.
The second area of lessons that have been learned and are being applied is in our training process. In retrospect, the approach to training with the previous rotation generated all sorts of lessons, which we are applying in our approach to training. We have taken quite a different approach to training this time around as compared with what we did for the previous rotation.
The third point, which gets back to the first point in terms of a lesson learned, is the need for an effective lessons- learned framework so you can be adaptive in the way I am describing.
I am not sure if that was what you were looking for.
Senator Meighen: That is helpful. I am also thinking of an incident in particular that was publicly reported. I wonder whether communication is not one of the big challenges and whether we have to improve our lines of communication, though heaven knows, even if you all talk the same language it is still a challenge.
Presumably we have very few members of the Canadian Forces over there who speak the language of southern Afghanistan, so we have to rely on indigenous translators and people attached to us. Would that have had any role in the apparent reported confusion in the incident three or four weeks ago when there was a major confrontation with the Taliban and we were accused by some of supporting from the rear and in an untimely fashion?
LGen. Gauthier: In a word, no. With communication in that sense, of different operational cultures, there are many different aspects to that operation and there were lessons learned from that, clearly. As a result of those lessons learned, actually there was another story in the news a week and a half ago of a similar but very successful operation conducted on a weekend jointly by coalition forces, Afghan national police and so on. We have learned lessons in that area. I suppose in a sense those lessons were actually all about communication but not to do with interpreters or linguists.
Senator Moore: As a general comment, we ask a lot of these men and women who are fighting for stability peace support and humanitarian tasks. Some of these things are at opposite ends of the pole. I do not know how they cope with what they are facing.
Who are we fighting over there? I guess the Taliban is still there, but who is the enemy? You mentioned insurgents. We are uniformed. In news clips we do not see anyone on the other side in uniform, so how do we know who it is?
LGen. Gauthier: You say that, but that actually has a lot to do with it. I ask you to repeat the first part.
Senator Moore: Who is the enemy? In terms of combat and defence, who are we engaging in war fighting and how do you identify these people?
LGen. Gauthier: I want to be clear on the fact that our mission is not about fighting a war with whomever over there. Our mission is about supporting the Afghan government.
Our exclusive focus is not on one end of the full spectrum operations that I have described to you.
I would like to come back to your comment about asking our men and women to do a lot from one end of the spectrum to the other. You have to meet our men and women in uniform over there, and hopefully, you will get that opportunity. You will be impressed with their mindset.
This operation is complex. There is no question about that. I do not want to understate the dimensions of the challenge. At the same time, I spent a night at the infamous Gumbad Platoon House with a relatively small number of soldiers. They understand and were comfortable with their mission from one end of the spectrum to the other, which I found heartening. They understand the nuance that it is not about capturing and killing bad guys. It is about winning the confidence of the Afghan people and extending the legitimacy and credibility of the Afghan government. It is about building capacity with the Afghan National Army, ANA, the Afghanistan National Police, ANP, and others.
It is difficult to define who the enemy is. It is not like the good old days of the Cold War, where the enemy was clearly defined. That is why we use the term ``insurgents.'' We sometimes default to the notion of ``the bad guys.''
Senator Moore: Are these tribal warlords who are trying to carve out and keep their piece of the turf, and do not want you to stabilize, and hope you will get tired and go away?
LGen. Gauthier: There is a power structure in Afghanistan, and it is not the enemy. There is a segment that is doing its utmost to undermine the efforts of the Afghan government. A specific element of that segment we, with a relative degree of confidence, can associate with the former Taliban movement.
I do not want to be more specific than that, other than to say that clearly, there is a nexus between the former Taliban, as is relatively common knowledge, and the whole notion of insurgency. Above all else, we consider this group to be at the heart of the problems in Afghanistan today.
Senator Moore: Does the word ``end state'' mean the end or termination date of a given exercise?
LGen. Gauthier: It depends on the context in which you ask the question. That is why I made reference, for the purposes of CEFCOM, to a theoretical end state. I do not know that we will ever reach it, whereas for our missions, we define an end state. There is a defined end state for Afghanistan, which I am not at liberty to share with you in specific terms.
Senator Moore: I understand.
Senator Meighen: If you solved the problems you are confronting, that would be an end.
Senator Moore: The NATO-commanded commission will begin this summer. Has a date been set?
LGen. Gauthier: That is not so much an end state as it is a transition.
Senator Moore: Will Canadian troops serve under that NATO-commanded mission?
LGen. Gauthier: Absolutely. In fact, David Fraser's challenge today is to do all he can to help the Afghan people and government in the areas described, consistent with the Operation Enduring Freedom mandate.
Just as important is to act as a bridging force, effectively, between Operation Enduring Freedom and NATO. He will remain in command of the brigade, which will become a NATO brigade. We have a conditions-based plan for transition from one to the other as opposed to a specific date.
Senator Moore: When that happens, does the NATO commander have command over those Canadian troops, or do you still have command?
LGen. Gauthier: I have national command, but multinational command will shift from the commander of CJTF-76 to the commander of the International Security Assistance Force, ISAF, in Kabul.
Senator Moore: Do we have an exit strategy with regard to Afghanistan? You mentioned a date you do not wish to discuss, which I understand.
LGen. Gauthier: We do not have anything called an exit strategy.
Senator Moore: You must have a date of termination in mind. It must be a necessary milestone.
LGen. Gauthier: We do not use the term exit strategy. We focus on outcomes. We have an end state that focuses on outcomes. We also have a government mandate, which, for the time being, runs until February of 2007.
Senator Zimmer: General, congratulations on your appointment, and thank you for appearing before us today. I will be specific. I wish to discuss interests and values, both projected and protected; specifically, Canadian values of the Canadian Forces. What are they expected to project? Specifically, what Canadian interests are the forces expected to protect in Afghanistan?
LGen. Gauthier: Much of the answer lies in the mission statement and the national objectives that have been identified for the mission.
Fundamentally, the mission is about providing individual Afghans with opportunities that Canadians take for granted. The mission is about the rule of law. The mission is about preventing Afghanistan from, as I said earlier, descending once again into a failed state and therefore, a safe haven for terrorists, which then becomes a threat to Canada. Those are all part of our interests for being in Afghanistan.
The Deputy Chairman: Thank you, general, for taking this time to be with us. I have request. We will hold a series of meetings later this month, and I understand that you have graciously agreed to attend and speak about Afghanistan. Will you undertake to provide a series of those metrics of progress that you have referred to?
You are doing tremendous work. Some of you have spent 10 or 15 days in hospital. I know that around Kabul, there are enormous signposts of meaningful progress. We thank you very much, indeed, and look forward to seeing you again soon.
If any members of the public viewing this program have any questions or comments, please visit our website by going to www.sen-sec.ca, where we post witness testimony, as well as confirmed hearing schedules. Otherwise, you may contact the clerk of the committee by calling 1-800-267-7362 for further information or assistance in contacting the members of the committee.
The committee adjourned.