Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
National Security and Defence
Issue 4 - Evidence, June 21, 2006
[Editor’s Note]
Correction
At page 4:136 of the printed Issue, first paragraph, the text reads:
The Chairman: As a follow-up, we have heard from both the previous ambassador, who said he thought it would be five generations, and General Leslie who thought it would be two years.
The text should read:
The Chairman: As a follow-up, we have heard from both the previous ambassador, who said he thought it would be five generations, and General Leslie who thought it would be 20 years.
The html and pdf versions appearing on this site have been amended to reflect the corrected wording.
OTTAWA, Wednesday, June 21, 2006
The Standing Committee on National Security and Defence met this day at 12 p.m. to examine and report on the national security policy of Canada.
Senator Colin Kenny (Chairman) in the chair.
[English]
The Chairman: I am calling the meeting to order. We have a quorum.
This is a meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence. My name is Colin Kenny and I chair the committee.
Before we begin, I would like to introduce the committee staff. To my immediate right is the distinguished vice-chair of the committee, Senator Meighen. He is a member of the bars of Quebec and Ontario. He is Chancellor of the University of King's College. Currently, he is Chair of our Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs and is also a member of the Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce and the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans.
At the far end of the table is Senator Nolin from Quebec. He is a lawyer. He was deputy chair of the Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs and is currently deputy chair on both the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration and the Special Committee on the Anti-terrorism Act. He is also a member of Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs and the Standing Joint Committee of the Senate and the House of Commons for the Scrutiny of Regulations. He is a current delegate of the NATO parliamentary assembly.
Beside him is Senator Moore from Halifax. He is a lawyer with an extensive record of community involvement and has been a member of the board of governors of St. Mary's University. He 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.
Beside him is Senator Atkins from Ontario. He is in the field of communications. He served as senior advisor to Robert Stanfield, Premier Davis of Ontario and Prime Minister Mulroney.
On my immediate left is Senator Campbell from British Columbia. He was the mayor of Vancouver from 2002 to 2005 and a former member of the RCMP. His experiences as Vancouver's chief coroner inspired the Gemini-award- winning TV show, Da Vinci's Inquest.
Beside him is Senator Banks from Alberta. He is chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment, and Natural Resources and is well known to Canadians as a versatile musician and entertainer. He provided musical direction for the 1988 winter Olympic Games and is a Juno award recipient.
At the far end we have Senator Day from New Brunswick. He is chair of the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance. He is a member of the bars of New Brunswick, Ontario and Quebec. He is also a former president and CEO of the New Brunswick Forest Products Association.
We are pleased to welcome today General Rick Hillier, Chief of the Defence Staff. He was promoted to his present rank and assumed the duties of Chief of the Defence Staff on February 4, 2005. Throughout his career, he has commanded troops from platoon to multinational formation levels within Canada, Asia and the United States.
General, thank you for being here today. The committee has met with you many times on an informal and formal basis. We understand you have a brief statement.
[Translation]
General Rick Hillier, Chief of the Defence Staff, National Defence: Mr. Chairman, I thank you for inviting me to appear today. I am very happy to have the opportunity to talk to you about the Canadian Forces activities and in particular those of the men and women wearing the Canadian uniform, namely your navy and air force troops.
We are now going through an intensive period of activity which is also quite exciting. We have started this period with a new vision for the Canadian Forces, a vision which has put front and centre our interests as Canadians, anywhere in the world. We have transformed the Canadian Forces so that they can work together strategically for Canada.
[English]
Before I carry on, let me say that the other times I had the opportunity to work with this committee and the valuable work you do for our country — and in particular the part of our country represented by men and women in uniform who work for me — I always had the pleasure of working with Senator Forrestall. It is a great loss that he is not here today. I pass on condolences from the men and women in uniform and me. Some of us did not even know about it, but that does not mean his work was not appreciated — the commitment he had to making the lives better of those people in uniform, men and women, not fleshless robots, and just as important, as we learn and rediscover everyday, the lives of their families. We appreciated what he did. He will have a special place in our memories in uniform. I know that you and the committee will have words to say about him later in the Senate and I would be pleased to be present while that occurs. We held him in high esteem and will remember him.
The Chairman: On behalf of the committee, thank you very much. We miss him greatly. We appreciate your words.
Gen. Hillier: This is an exciting time in the Canadian Forces. It really is. Your men and women in uniform, your sons and daughters, husbands and wives, neighbours from down the street, colleagues or acquaintances are at a period unique to the history of our country. The headline in the Winnipeg Free Press last year summed up where we are: The forces are back in fashion. There is a new spirit of confidence, a new excitement in the men and women in the Canadian Forces. There is a new feeling of value across our country. As we progress to do all the things we are engaged with, to change to be more effective in the future and to get on with the new missions which will come our way, no matter what they may be, the men and women who execute those missions for you are walking taller with their backs straighter and with a new pride and energy in that step.
That is a dramatic difference from what you would have seen or heard me say if I had been in this position a decade or 12 years ago. As we come out of that decade of darkness, I think we are on the cusp of building a Canadian Forces that is going to be the pride of our country and the envy of our allies around the world. We will be able, for the first time in 50 or 60 years, to have that kind of effect for Canada. Domestically when Canadians are at risk or need help, continentally when we need to participate with our great friends to the south, the United States, to do things for both populations, or around the world when people are having the worst days of their lives, this Canadian Forces that we are building, and will build going forward, is going to be something of which we will be proud.
Your work in this respect has been important and we appreciate that and will continue to work with you in every way we possibly can. I make that commitment as Chief of the Defence Staff in uniform. They want to do that. We will facilitate that.
We started a year and a half ago with a vision focused on changing, most importantly, our mindset and culture in the Canadian Forces about working together. Before that, we had a situation where the Canadian Forces truly was an "emperor without any clothes." We had a Canadian Forces nomenclature; we had an army, navy and air force which worked independently, arranged themselves incidentally, and had a greater capability to work with the United States Army, the Royal Navy or the British Air Force than they had to work with each other.
Given our size and the effect we needed across the world for Canada, that was not what we wanted for the future. We wanted to give you and Canada a Canadian Forces that could operate as an integrated force. When Canadians or people around the world needed help, we wanted to give the greatest of help, the most profile we could bring, the most substantial visibility for Canada to have leading roles, to defend our interest and to shape regions in accordance with our values.
Transforming that mindset and culture has proven to be the greatest challenge we face. Based on 50 or 60 years of tradition and the structure set up to defend that tradition, no matter how stupid some of it may seem at times, it has been a significant challenge over this past year and a half and one that all of us in uniform have tackled.
Second, we have transformed to allow us to focus on the contemporary operating environment threats. Chaos, internationally, always occurs in the centres of population. Our structures, training, education, equipment and leadership in the past were focused on avoiding centres of population. If you will, pick it and bypass was our terminology. Now we find everything we do is focused in a centre of population.
It does not matter if that is domestically, when there is a crisis in the City of Toronto or in the City of Ottawa during an ice storm, or in the middle of Kandahar or Kabul in Afghanistan itself. We had to transform what we were able to deliver and do, to be able to operate while we lived inside those centres of population.
Third, we started to change our command structure to allow us to treat Canada as an operational theatre, something that had never been done in our history, and to allow us to focus on what we needed to be able to deliver — not as first or second responders but as world-class third responders — to support Canadians at home when they most needed support from the Canadian Forces. Treating Canada as an operational theatre led us to set up the Canadian command, which has one commander, with a small but appropriate staff, and, most importantly, with the authorities, responsibilities and accountability to successfully conduct operations in Canada to support governments and other authorities, such as the RCMP, as well as Canadians when they need it.
We carried on with that changing of our command structure to allow us to have effective command, planning and shaping of the regions in which we go during the conduct of international operations. We stood up the Canadian Expeditionary Forces command with one commander with an appropriate staff to have the responsibilities, accountabilities and authorities to do what I just said.
I know that many of you had the opportunity to go out and visit Canada Command and get a bit of a flavour of what it could offer to us. I put a warning on that that two hours on the ground just gives you the opportunity to scratch the surface of what those commanders with their staffs and authorities can bring to us, but at least it was an opportunity to engage a little bit.
Last, we started on the implementation of plans to equip and expand the Canadian Forces. Whatever the criticism I have had personally of the way we approached recruiting in the past, we have had some success. We got many things wrong with the process. Those have all been clearly identified, both by us and in a report by the Auditor General of Canada, which has recently been released. We have changed many of those things and are in the process of changing more.
We are reducing the process times to get people into the service. I gave orders to the chief of military personnel that I want 30 per cent of those who apply enrolled in the Canadian Forces within a week. I want 50 per cent more enrolled within a month. I want one enrolment into the Canadian Forces, not an enrolment into the reserve community or the regular force community, which then makes the challenge of changing components back and forth terrible. I want one enrolment into the Canadian Forces so that when we do component transfers, we can do it within a week based on a posting message.
We have started to roll out a variety of those things to ensure not that we are going after huge numbers each year, but that we actually get the right Canadians in uniform to do the kind of jobs we ask them to do. If I could put it this way, in the military performance factors of three to 10, three is the lowest level when we do an analysis of an individual we would accept and a 10 would be a rocket scientist with a personality. We want to move the bell curve slightly up to the right and attract the very best into the Canadian Forces.
We are expanding, even with some of the dinosaur methods we had for recruiting. Last year, our goal was to increase the Canadian Forces by just over 600 individuals in uniform; we were 106-per-cent successful at meeting the attrition of 5,000 and meeting the increase of over 600. We know we will be successful in our increased goal this coming year.
Equipping the Canadian Forces has been an equal challenge for us. When I refer to the decade of darkness that we are starting to move out of, there was a decade where equipment and equipment suites across the Canadian Forces had started to rot and rust to a level where our ability to conduct operations in support of any of the missions given to us over the next few years would be held in significant question.
We have launched on a re-equipment of land forces, initially focused on the mission in Afghanistan, to ensure we set up the right conditions for men and women to be successful there and, while they are conducting the operation, reduce the risk to them. However, right across the forces, we are re-equipping to be able to give us the lift to project ourselves around our country and around the world when we are in those theatres of operations — the kind of lift we would need to be able to move around in those theatres of operations and provide that lifeline to the men and women on the ground.
We need the kind of rotary wing transport capabilities to be able to move around in a theatre and dominate it tactically if it is an international operation, and dominate it to the benefit of Canadians directly if we do it at home. Air, land and sea lift provide the spine of everything we do, no matter the mission — from humanitarian support right through to full operations in Afghanistan right now. Air, land and sea lift are demanded in all those instances and we have identified clearly the requirements for those. We believe we have the support across the Government of Canada and the Canadian population in general to allow us to get that equipment and enable the men and women in uniform.
Actions speak loudly would be my message to you. We have had lots of talk. Actions to invest in those capabilities are going to be highly appreciated by men and women in uniform, no matter where they are.
I will close by saying we have done all those things, and many more besides, while helping a government transition from one party to another, which is no small feat, and by building up and commencing the conduct of operations and having the first signs of success in Afghanistan. We are in a complex environment with a vast plethora of multinational friends and allies. We are there to help Afghans rebuild their lives, communities, country and, hopefully, build a state that is part of increased stability in the region and therefore of direct benefit to Canada and Canadians.
I will stop there. I am delighted to take questions on any of the points I mentioned or any of the points you might want to focus on that are different from that.
Senator Meighen: Eight or nine of my colleagues here want to ask questions and my math tells me that is not even seven minutes each so I will try to keep my questions short. We all appreciate your words about Senator Forrestall. The men and women that you command held a very special place in his heart and nothing was more important to him than their welfare. Thank you for that.
Speaking of the men and women in uniform, I am concerned with the men and women who are not in uniform yet — that is, the ones you are trying to recruit. When you were last here, you told us the recruiting system was broken and had to be fixed. We are all pleased to hear of your progress in that regard.
However, I think we are trying to get 13,000 regulars and 10,000 reservists in, are we not? You mentioned a figure of 600 last year. It will take a long time if that does not double, triple and quadruple soon. I would like you to give us some indication of how quickly that can ramp up.
I happen to have personal knowledge of someone that is seeking to join the naval reserves who has an M.A. I can assure you that person has not been enrolled in 30 days; in fact, it has been months.
Could you amplify your remarks concerning the remedies you are bringing to the recruiting situation, which has been a real thorn in everyone's side for a long time?
Gen. Hillier: Let me comment first on the second part of your question about the individual you know who is trying to enrol. Right across the country, we will still find the little horror stories that will make us shudder in frustration about things that are not working the way we want. We will always have those. It does not matter what we do to the organization and how much leadership and transformation we provide, those will always occur.
We find that when you peel back the layers of the onion on those cases, there almost always is a reason behind why the delays occur. They are not always laid at the doorstep of the recruiting organization we have in the Canadian Forces. That is not an excuse. I get frustrated also whenever I hear about those stories. In fact, I make sure I get my fair share of them to use as levers against how we do business ourselves.
To get back to the first part of your question, we want to expand the Canadian Forces intelligently. It is a combination of when money is available — clearly, we will not recruit men and women until we have the extra money coming into our budget to pay for them. That is a layered process, which takes us through five years to bring us up to about 70,000 people and then step from that to 75,000.
With our ability to logically bring them in, to not end up with a large bulge of people all recruited at the same time, which results in many coming to the end of their first engagement at the same time and all needing to be trained at the same time throughout their careers, we think we have a very logical common-sense approach that will allow us over the next five years to increase the Canadian Forces to 70,000 members. We will focus initially on those low-density, high demand specialties that we have not fixed in the past but will fix with the first 2,000 recruits. We will target specific areas such as electrical generating systems technicians. We have 124 such specialists and plan to double that military occupation code, or MOC, because we rely on them to start every single mission, whether in Canada or internationally. We will recruit them as the money becomes available. We have helped to shape the flow of money so that we will do it intelligently and not destroy the training system or our ability to conduct operations at home, continentally and internationally. In particular, we will not destroy our ability to conduct at least one large-scale operation outside Canada, while potentially assisting in a second operation at home.
We are very happy in uniform. We learned that the ability to absorb large numbers quickly can have unforeseen implications at times. We have walked through as many of those as we could predict and think we have it right. If you are asking the Chief of the Defence Staff whether I am happy with the flow of dollars for recruiting and with our abilities to absorb them in a coherent way, I would say, yes. We will end up with a product that will respect the common-sense approach. We have a great deal of work to do.
Senator Meighen: General, you alluded to the current lack of electrical engineers and the process of doubling the numbers. There are other stress trades that are not in the forces that require significant remedial action. How long do you think it will be before those stress trades are up to an acceptable level?
Gen. Hillier: An acceptable level is different from what we have had as our manning levels. Our primary manning level, the PML for the EGS test to which I referred, is 124 and we are at that. The intention had not been to change that. However, as we look at what we are doing, 124 does not nearly meet the demands so we are changing that. We are using commander's intent to know we need a significantly higher number of that trade. We will double that MOC.
There are other stressed MOCs, some of which are right at their levels, ones that need increased capacity such as medical specialties, in particular doctors with a specialty. Not many line up to join the forces and many that do join us, serve their basic engagements and leave. Medical specialties are big for us and are absolutely critical for the conduct of operations anywhere, in particular in deployed operations. Some logistic specialties, fire control technicians, military police and, in particular, intelligence specialists are also areas where the levels need to be increased. The demand for intelligence services has skyrocketed since we moved to what we call "intelligence-driven operations." We need intelligence specialists who are trained and educated, and who possess the ability to support us in those operations. It will take five years to produce the numbers and capabilities that we want. In the shorter term, by using a variety of methodologies we will be able to increase the capacities so that we can offer a second line of operations. This is not a short fix. We have to recruit, educate and train these people, which takes time. By the time we have the levels we want, we will be five years out.
Senator Meighen: Another way to deal with the problem is to stop the outflow of personnel. Will you adopt any measures to encourage people to stay in the forces, particularly in this era of constant deployment and, perhaps, fatigue on the part of the men and women who have been overseas any number of times?
Gen. Hillier: We have adopted many initiatives to keep men and women in uniform to the extent that our attrition rate is at a comfortable level. The most important thing is the pride that people feel about being in uniform. Folks talk to me often about taking their release or retirement to go elsewhere for another career but then they decided to stay. We had a significant ceremony a few weeks ago at the Canadian War Museum where 224 mostly young Canadians were enrolled into the Canadian Forces. Some of those folks were re-enrolling in the Canadian Forces and were excited by what they have seen and by what is occurring. They wanted to return. One individual was a former helicopter driver who said, "Sir, I know helicopters and that your intention is to get heavy-lift helicopters. I want to be part of that solution." We have done a lot and are the most competitive across this country of any corporation or institution or business for salaries, benefits and non-paid benefits, such as our physical fitness facilities on bases, and for family support, chance to travel, to be part of a unique family, and to be part of something bigger than yourself.
We have found that Canadian kids want to do that and have a chance to serve their country. We do not talk about that much but we hear it from the young men and women who finish school and show up at our recruiting centres. That brings people in at a rate we have not seen in recent years who want to stay at a level that we are comfortable with, and it brings people back after they have been out for awhile. We do not rest on our laurels so we have lots to do and lots to learn to change every one of them. We go after individuals with those low-density high-demand specialties. When we hear that Sergeant Meighen, who is such a specialist, wants to retire after 21 years of service, we talk to him or her about why.
Senator Meighen: Is that new?
Gen. Hillier: It surely is new. We did that on occasion in the past but now this is a standard approach.
Senator Atkins: For the new recruits coming in, do you have the infrastructure to work them through the basic and advanced basic without any delays or difficulties?
Gen. Hillier: No, I am not telling you that whatsoever. There will be significant difficulties but we will overcome them. The first thing I would tell you is that, of those numbers we bring in, the first 5,000 will be used to flush out existing units. Infrastructure — barracks, headquarters, maintenance facilities, vehicles and major equipment sweeps — is in place already for those units. They will simply take a spot that has been empty. Once you go past that, then you have to equip them in a major way.
On the training side, we are training in a novel way. Basic training and combat arms training are done at various establishments using the field units on bases across Canada. We move the recruits quickly without significant wait times, and in most cases soon without any wasted time from enrolment to basic, infantry, armoured or engineering training by using those capabilities. On the technical trades, we are seeing how much we can utilize the college system of Canada, an enormous education establishment that we only tapped into lightly before, to deliver the technical education and training that we do not necessarily have to do ourselves. We want to build with that on the successful footprint of Memorial University in Newfoundland, just as the College of the North Atlantic has been doing with the navy for the past three to five years. Close to 200 maritime engineers were recruited, had basic training and go on to the College of the North Atlantic for two years where they receive all the technical training required to do their jobs as maritime engineers. They finish off with specialty training for the navy and that process works superbly. We want to build on that across the country and have started down that road. We will then be able to move greater numbers through with less demand internally and more demand on the money to do that so our great civilian infrastructure for education can give us a return in uniform.
Senator Atkins: What about instructors? The committee has been given the impression that there is much shuffling of the deck because you are short of instructors to deal with the training process.
Gen. Hillier: There are two ways to come at that. We are always short of instructors. We are always short of non- commissioned officers, or NCOs, or officers that we want to lead companies, command ships, run training establishments or train individuals.
First, we have to tone down what we want a sergeant or a major to be able to do. After several decades of stalemate with regard to ranks and promotions, we have sergeants who have spent 15 to 20 years in the Canadian Forces by the time they reached that rank. They can do everything. That is not what we need. We need a sergeant coming into his or her rank with six or eight years in the Canadian Forces who is at the culmination of fitness, energy, imagination, desire and experience. We have to look at it through a different lens.
We must also use the people we currently have much more effectively. We have started putting the numbers into the training establishments and taking more risk in the operational units by relying on the younger generation. In the past year, we have utilized several hundred people to put those establishments at a level where the tasking demands on the operational units, which drag people away from home during peak periods of family time, such as the summer, is reduced to a manageable level. Although we have the capacity to get there and have started down that road, we are not yet fully there.
I know about this from personal experience and anecdotally from the NCOs and officers to whom I talk every day across the air, land and sea forces. We are after the right balance. We do not want to overload training establishments at the expense of field units. We do not want some of them unemployed part of the year because we surge our training based on other things. We want to rebuild those training establishments after a decade of taking them apart when we had no recruiting and very little training.
I cannot do all of that in one, two or three years, but we have already launched and have made significant progress.
Senator Meighen: I want to leave you with one thought in terms of recruitment, specifically with the reserves. It seems to me that the whole structure of the reserves is designed for university students. We have heard that these people stay in for three or four years and then are gone. The system does not seem to be designed to accommodate those in the workforce, because it is difficult to take 12 weeks off work without an enlightened employer.
I believe it would be useful to introduce a greater degree of flexibility into the reserve system to accommodate those who are not in university.
Senator Campbell: As an officer in the Duke of Connaught's Own Regiment in British Columbia, I can confirm that, at that level, there is a sense of pride and a sense a corner has been turned. From the point of view of the militia, the respect and the training they are getting is so intensely different from what they were used to. Your comments certainly struck true; there is a new sense.
I asked the Minister of Foreign Affairs if we are at war. Some people thought I was asking that to embarrass or put someone on the spot. I most certainly was not doing that.
I will ask you that same question. There is an uncertainty in the community of exactly what we are doing. Is this a peacekeeping mission or are we at war? There needs to be a definitive statement made on that.
Gen. Hillier: In response to your comment on the reserves, the reserves, and specifically the militia, the land reserve, have earned that respect. They have earned it doing the missions we assign them professionally, superbly and without fail. They are engaged domestically, continentally and internationally.
The young men and women who come from the reserve component have done yeoman's service for our country. They have earned that respect; we have not handed it to them gratuitously. We want to articulate that because it was not always seen in exactly that way.
We are not at war, but that term has no meaning in the contemporary operating environment. In Afghanistan we are supporting the United Nations Security Council resolution to help Afghans rebuild their lives and their country. We are supporting that resolution with 35 or 37 other countries that have contributed military forces to meet that honourable objective.
We are conducting a full spectrum of operations every day. We are helping keep people alive by delivering medical care to them, by facilitating non-governmental and international organizations in delivering that kind of care. We are getting food and clean water to communities that have never seen clean water in their entire existence.
We are doing those things while helping the Governor of Kandahar build a public service for that province so they can effectively govern their province to make life better for the residents by increasing their stability and security, perhaps even enough that little girls can go to school without fear of their teachers being murdered for teaching them.
While we do that humanitarian and nation-building work, we are also conducting full operations to confront the Taliban, who would stop all that progress, to constrain their attempts to neutralize the efforts of the international community and the Afghan government as well as the desires of the people who live in that part of the country. If that means that we must shoot at them, we will do so.
Some people refuse to be convinced by logic, debate or the ballot box and persist in using violence. They must be constrained. The population of Afghanistan currently has precious few institutions or organizations to do that by themselves and they need our assistance in that regard.
No, we are not at war. We are conducting the operations necessary to help a people who desperately need help in conjunction with a vast international mission.
Further, we are there at their invitation. I have met thousands of Afghans. We are like a little candle flickering at the end of a long, dark tunnel. They see us as their only hope and we do not want to let them down. Our government has said that we will not do that.
Senator Campbell: What is the desired military end state?
Gen. Hillier: The desire military end state is that we will no longer need to be there. The desire is to build capacity in the Afghan government, that is to say, build the Afghan national army and the Afghan national police forces to a level where they can handle any threats to their country, internal or external, so that every time a bomb explodes in Kandahar or Kabul no one is worried about the government falling. We are not yet at that level.
There are two approaches to that. The first approach is to help them recruit, train, equip and professionalize each Afghan national army battalion as it comes off the recruiting line. They have a different recruiting problem from ours, but they do have challenges. We help to build that army. The U.S. has taken the lead on that and has done a phenomenal job. However, as we discovered ourselves, just changing an armed force takes years let alone building an army from the ground up. They have done outstanding work but there is still much to be done.
Starting in August, as an Afghan national army battalion comes into the city of Kandahar, we will engage directly with it.
You build those security forces in all the ways you can. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police are there, building the police force in Kandahar with us to do the same things. At the same time, we start helping reduce the threat. As the threat is reduced, the Taliban can be constrained and, ideally, brought over to the side of the ballot box as the way to proceed, as happened with Mullah Ibrahim last week. If you bring one leader across, you might be able to bring more with him. If they do not agree to do that, you have to conduct direct actions to ensure that they cannot stop. Reduce the threat posed by the Taliban and build up the Afghan security forces themselves until we reach a crossover point.
Most people believe that the logical crossover point will be two to five years from now. However, that is not a thing you can measure with that kind of precision.
Senator Campbell: Those are all of my questions. Thank you for answering them.
Gen. Hillier: Thank you for that question and for the opportunity to get on my soapbox.
The Chairman: As a follow-up, we have heard from both the previous ambassador, who said he thought it would be five generations, and General Leslie who thought it would be 20 years. We know you rank General Leslie but do you not see it in the context of a long period of time?
Gen. Hillier: I have no control over the ambassador, but General Leslie will have a new answer tomorrow.
To build a country, senator, takes a long time. I am not sure how many members sitting here have been to Afghanistan, but you have been there and you know that 25 years of destruction and brutality have taken a country from what was actually in the early and mid-1970s, a progressive country, certainly in that region, with a significant government and stability and a fairly well-developed infrastructure and an education system that, if not perfect, was at least educating boys and girls for the future. After 25 years of brutality, they have killed two million people, driven eight million people out of their homes, caused an internal displacement of millions inside the country and destroyed every piece of infrastructure possible, planted mines all over the country, and turned brother against brother, family against family, and ejected the international community in a huge way, destabilizing parts of the border with their neighbours. Changing that back to a positive dynamic is a long-term process in every sense of the word.
You have to build all things at the same time with the security part being a little bit out in front of the other things. Reaching that crossover point I believe is a short-term goal, two to five years, where instead of us doing security operations supported by them, if I can put it that way although it is not exactly that way, they can start doing security operations supported by us. That allows an acceleration of building an economy, rebuilding schools, getting roads in that generate more economic activity, and that takes place over a much longer term.
This is not a short process and I would not want you to think that I considered it to be such, but there are some shorter-term goals, two to five years being short term, that can help step up that process more rapidly.
The Chairman: On the subject of short-term goals, the committee is very concerned about seeing triple D — diplomacy, defence and development — take place. We are receiving reports that the aid and development part of it cannot happen yet in Kandahar. The circumstances are not secure enough for people to operate there.
How soon do you anticipate they will be? First, will you confirm that they are not operating at the level they should be because it is not sufficiently secure? Second, how soon do you expect that it will be secure enough for them to function?
Gen. Hillier: First, I will confirm the opposite of what you said in the first point. We are operating but I would think of it in this way — defence, development, diplomacy as a concept. It is pointless for us with a gradually building economy from the Afghan government's perspective and a gradually professionalizing police force to conduct security operations without development at large being carried on in parallel. If we are not showing the population in Afghanistan, particularly in the south, that their lives will be changed in a positive sense by all this happening, we will conduct security operations until the cows come home and, when we leave, nothing will have changed. Development must occur while the security operations and the defence part are carrying on, and diplomatically we have to shape the government of the Afghanistan people from Kabul, the national government, and the ability of the governors at the provincial level to effectively for good govern their provinces and the population.
You ask why they cannot do that. First, the public service in Afghanistan does not exist. It is either dead or living in the West after 25 years of brutality. All the things we in Canada have built over 50 years — and some things in the acquisition process I wish we had not built — they are trying to build in three to five years.
Conceptually, defence, development and diplomacy are functioning there. It functions well in some cases, perhaps not as quickly in others. From Canada's perspective, we have been working superbly with the Canadian International Development Agency, or CIDA, the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, somewhat with Correctional Services Canada which supports CIDA in certain ways, our security forces and Canadian Forces on the ground, to provide sufficient security to allow a group of communities in and around Kandahar to seize on to a confidence and governance initiative launched by Foreign Affairs Canada and CIDA together, to allow them to take ownership of their tiny region — I believe it is seven or eight communities — and say, "Here is what we want developed. We will take ownership of it." As a result of that, if anybody shows up to try to destroy it, we will be, first, in their face, and second, right with you letting you know this has occurred. Those initiatives have started in a significant way in southern Afghanistan.
We have not been there in the past years and it has taken us a while to catch up. Two to four years of that kind of development have been missed in the south.
There are some bright spots. Yes, we have had negative things occur where money has been moved elsewhere because the security situation was unpredictable. We have had other countries come in and approach us, approach Canada and our missions — us, CIDA and Foreign Affairs together — and say that they would like to blister on to us. They are willing to bring a pipeline here that will shovel millions of dollars in the short term and do wells in communities. You cannot overemphasize the importance of clean water in a community that has never had it, and to put in some roads, rebuild and start up schools, and deliver basic preventive medical care that has never existed previously.
There are bright spots. Is it good enough? Never. However, there are significant bright spots and we are learning as we go, along with the Canadian partners of that three-D concept.
The Chairman: I am encouraged to hear you say that, but the committee is not getting what we consider to be satisfactory answers in terms of what CIDA has to say. The figures we see coming from CIDA are low. We have the impression that it will require a more secure situation before they can move forward with the sort of development they have funding for.
We are concerned because if we see a situation where the development is not coming along, then the troops will be seen as occupiers rather than liberators.
Gen. Hillier: We have seen that situation where the development was not coming along. When we first moved to the south last year, we started to see the results since 9/11 and what the early actions against the Taliban had led to. We saw a bit of a void and vacuum. We are changing that. I have facts and figures at the tip of my tongue, but I do not have CIDA's annual expenditures. Around $100 million a year has been allocated. However, that figure is a relatively small percentage of what will be required to help the provinces in the south rebuild.
As part of this three-D concept, we are tapping into and working to support all the other international and non- governmental organizations in the south with us that have huge bucks. USAID, the United States Agency for International Development, is there with significant dollars. We have a great working relationship with them. USAID has one permanent representative right in our provincial reconstruction team who acts as that pipeline outlet for the monies to flow to get various jobs done. U.K. DFIT works in the south with us. We work with a variety of countries and international organizations that bring huge amounts of money to commence that development.
In recent weeks, you have perhaps heard of Operation Mountain Thrust which has been launched. For the first time that we have seen complements of a huge amount of work by many people, but particular Brigadier-General David Fraser and Lieutenant-Colonel Ian Hope representing us in the south and doing that command, we have coupled the actions necessary to confront the Taliban and support Afghan national army units and soldiers who had a chance to meet a couple of weeks ago on those operations and their police in actions against the Taliban. For the first time we have coupled them with a huge developmental process that flows behind us into those areas. As we are going in and doing those direct actions against the Taliban, with our Afghan partners and in support of them, there are wells being dug, roads being built and the occasional school being rebuilt and opened. That flow is picking up. The amount of money being dedicated to that for this short period of time is significant.
There are some bright spots. It is not perfect or without significant risk because the entire operation is complex and dangerous.
Senator Banks: I will selfishly tell you that I am glad to hear that your short-term prospect of transfer to the Afghan national army, or ANA, for security is a couple of years out. We are planning on travelling to Afghanistan this September and we would rather be protected by your guys than by anyone else, with all respect.
Gen. Hillier: The ANA have a recruiting challenge. You might be very welcome there indeed if you stay outside the wire.
Senator Banks: You have talked before, as you have this time, too, about transformation of the Canadian Forces. You have already alluded to that in some ways. Would you please tell the committee the ways in which you have succeeded in changing the Canadian Forces, how those changes will make the forces more effective and how they will work to the benefit of Canadians?
Gen. Hillier: Last year, we started with the CDS principles for transformation to guide the men and women in uniform in what we do as we transform the Canadian Forces. In just using those principles as a guide, we have had success in some areas, although not always as anticipated in each area. In some areas it has been more, while in others less.
The first principle was a focus on the Canadian Forces. Yes, be proud that you are a sailor, an airman, airwoman or a soldier, but not to the extent of being stupid so that you regard the navy, if you are a soldier, as more of an enemy than you regard the Taliban. We have been at such loggerheads in the past. Our focus has been on how we will best work together to give the maximum effect for any given investment in a mission and to give the greatest visibility and profile to Canada. The men and women in uniform have taken that up.
When I was in Afghanistan in March, I went up to the Gumbad platoon house and spent about 24 hours. This is a very beau geste mud fort up in the mountains where the temperature is 45 degrees during the day, although it felt like minus 45 degrees at night, although obviously it was not. I sat around on a little wall with a bunch of young soldiers who were there. First, they complained about everything, which soldiers, sailors, airmen and airwomen are wont to do. One kid would say, "Sir, these are the worst boots I have ever had on in my life," and the next kid to him would say, "Sir, these are the best boots I have ever had on in my life." In that way, I got the balance.
Four of those young soldiers out of about 20 at separate times asked me the question: "Sir, you have to get us going in the right direction," and that is how they prefaced it. We are focused on being Canadian first, wearing the Maple Leaf and working together for maximum effect. They would say to me, "How are you going to ensure that continues past your term as Chief of the Defence Staff?" I said to myself, when I have the youngest soldier in the Canadian Forces in the middle of an operational theatre asking me that question in Taliban country, I knew we were starting to make headway. That thought process alone is worth more than its weight in gold. We saw the implications of it during Katrina, when we had the navy, the air force and the army come together seamlessly under one commander in a short period of time over a long weekend. We packaged 1,200 men and women with an enormous amount of capability and headed them off through a tropical storm to help friends and allies to the south who were in desperate need of help.
We have a command-centric approach. Last July, I said that we were not the public service of Canada in uniform. I used words like scoundrels, scallywags and perhaps another S-word. Many of us in uniform felt that operations primacy had been slipping out of the forefront of our vision all the time. Much of what we were focused on and around the Canadian Forces, and much of what we were doing on a daily basis, could not tie a direct line to our raison d'être which is to successfully conduct operations on behalf of Canada.
We have set up a command structure focused on Canada that has immeasurably increased our capacity to respond when Canadians might need the help that only the Canadian Forces can provide. We can respond effectively and with the right capabilities with that help. We do not have them all yet but we have made progress there.
We have set up the international command. That has brought to the mission in Afghanistan, but also to other small missions, effective command, shaping of the environments in which we work in a whole variety of ways and development. This returns to Senator Kenny's point on 3-D. We now have development of a whole government team to support that mission, something which we never had in the past. We now have a planning ability to look further out than who is next to go on that mission. We try to shape how we deliver that and consider what capabilities we want there.
We have used the headquarters with that operational focus to deliver about a third of a billion dollars, possibly more, in equipment to those men and women who went into that high-risk mission in Afghanistan. I do not believe we would have been successful without that focus of ops primacy.
I have spoken to the command-centric part. I said here before that I am a greedy Chief of the Defence Staff. I want to be able to explain to subordinate commanders and all the way down, "Here is what we are trying to achieve." It is not a question of how to do it. We have invested a great deal in selecting, educating and training these young people over years. I now want a return on that investment. We have started to see the results of that across the Canadian Forces.
I can go on for two hours on things we have done. I would then underscore that by saying we have merely scratched the surface.
Senator Banks: When you first talked about that today, you compared the integrated command nature of the forces now — army working with the navy for instance — with the fact that, prior to that, our air force could work best with the Royal Air Force, the U.S. Air Force and the same with the navy. However, that interoperability among our allies and ourselves is still important. Has any of the integration happened at the expense of interoperability?
Gen. Hillier: Not at all. We have given a new focus to those countries with similar values, interest and armed forces, at least in terms of how we do business, and we have said, "Here is how we want to focus our efforts."
For example, we are developing a significant relationship with a country we have not had a relationship with militarily. I am talking about the Netherlands. As the division commander in Bosnia, I had the great fortune to have Dutch battle groups, Dutch officers and soldiers on command. A Dutch division commander replaced me and he had Canadians under his command. We had the beginnings of that but now we are working significantly with the Netherlands armed forces in Afghanistan.
Senator Banks: Are their terms of engagement about the same as ours so that we can work together?
Gen. Hillier: Yes, they are. We will be able to work together. All of our terms of engagement have been shaped by NATO. As you know, part of the reason for us going in there this year was to help set conditions so that NATO could expand into the area.
We are developing a relationship with the Dutch armed forces. It will enable both our countries to be more effective in places where we choose to commit when we work together or, perhaps, even shape places where we can work together more effectively to get the right effect when we are there.
The Dutch chief of defence staff was here two weeks ago. He spent two days with us. We gave him a frank and complete download on lessons we had learned in operations and our transformation and training piece for Afghanistan. He went to Petawawa to see the training and preparation of the next contingent out and came back in awe of the steps we had taken. He is sending a detailed reconnaissance team over here to extract something from that. He has come back with some proposals to do some things together that will make both our lives more effective and perhaps even safer in Afghanistan itself.
It is not at the expense of interoperability. We must ensure we focus it on those countries and military forces with whom we will most probably work in tight constraints.
Senator Banks: What is the date on which NATO will take over? Will that mark the end of the U.S. Operation Enduring Freedom? Will it also mark the end of the Canadian Forces serving under other commands as opposed to NATO commands?
Gen. Hillier: NATO has said it will do the stage three expansion, which means taking over the southern five provinces of Afghanistan in which we are now working this summer. We expect in all likelihood that by August 31 of this year, by the end of summer at least, that NATO will be running the southern provinces.
I know the Supreme Allied Commander of Europe, whose responsibility it is to tell the North Atlantic Council that all the conditions have been met to do that, was in Kandahar last week and was visiting with Brigadier-General Fraser and Lieutenant-Colonel Hope who laid down in detail what the conditions and the context are there now. He is doing his assessment on that.
As I mentioned earlier, part of our rationale for commitment in this mission initially was to help NATO, of which we are a founding member, set conditions for success for what it said it would do. We believe that will occur this summer.
There is a remaining portion of the country, called "stage four" in NATO terms, which is the eastern part of Afghanistan, Jalalabad, and the area goes to Nangarhar province itself and borders on Pakistan, which by the end of this summer, will still remain under Operation Enduring Freedom. We will still do that and the intent in NATO headquarters is that the British commander there now commanding the International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, will command ISAF stages one, two and three. The American two-star, who commands the forces in the east, will function as his deputy commander. You will have one guy who will command forces operationally for operational business in the NATO part, but he is an American who is also on the forces in the east.
The question is how quickly NATO moves to stage four. We think there is a good case to do that quickly. You do not want an artificial boundary. We want to make sure that the Unites States' forces that stay are enablers, so that the unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, and other things are there for the use of the entire NATO force, not just constrained or constricted to that eastern portion. It just makes life much simpler when you can look at the country as one complete operation.
At the end of this, Operation Enduring Freedom will still exist in a much-changed mandate because they will conduct, I believe, a counter-terrorist fight where they go after those high-ranking terrorists who prosecute their operations worldwide or attempt to, whereas NATO is involved in a counter-insurgency where you are helping the government control its own territory from elements within the population that do not want that control to occur. I think Operation Enduring Freedom will occur, particularly with respect to training and building the Afghan national army. We will continue to have some people in Operation Enduring Freedom, including training teams in that mission. That team, for example, is made up of 15 men right now — I met them all — there are no women there. They are running the national training center for the Afghan national army, and they run every battalion that comes out of their training system through a training validation process for three weeks, so they get the chance to put their uniquely Canadian professional military stamp on those battalions. They are having a hell of a time doing it, plus they are having a great effect. I had a chance to talk to them and said, "If you think your mission is not important, the greatest need is more well-trained battalions and, therefore, effective in the south part of Afghanistan. The better you do your job, the easier it is for our soldiers down there to do the job. Your mission is paramount to that." People like that will still be with Operation Enduring Freedom.
Senator Day: Could you tell us where stage 2 is? I assume stage 1 is in Kabul.
Gen. Hillier: No, it is not. I guess you could call Kabul stage zero. I do not think we ever called it a stage.
NATO went through significant trials and tribulations of discussion to make a decision to expand the mission outside of Kabul. Stage one took the northeast part of the country, namely, Kondoz and Baghlan and off towards Badakhshan. That was completed on December 15, 2003. I know that General Leslie was still in the house as deputy commander. When I took over command on February 9, 2004, we had stage one effectively under my command.
They did stage two that summer while I was commander. We did it on July 1. We orchestrated to do it on Canada Day. We took over stage two, which is the center and northwest part of the country, going from Mazar-e Sharif out to Iran.
Stage three was the five provinces in the south, and, finally, stage four is the eastern part from Jalalabad to Nangarhar province. NATO now owns two stages plus Kabul and, by the end of the summer, they will do stage three. We believe that will occur.
Senator Day: With respect to the two to four or five years' activity in which we have already been involved in Afghanistan in our capacity through NATO- and UN-sanctioned activity for a good number of years, this committee understands it takes several years to achieve results. We have worked for the last five years trying to help move things ahead with respect to the Canadian Armed Forces. We were very pleased in 2005 when the defence policy statement came out. We took satisfaction in that, and even more satisfaction in the work you have done since with respect to transformation.
You have talked quite a bit about the transformation and what has occurred since. One of your comments was the work that you had to do, the adjustments — I have forgotten the precise wording you used with respect to change of government. Two other terms have come forward since the change of government. One is the expression "Canada First" that we hear being used frequently. The other is our understanding that there is a new defence capability plan being developed.
With respect to those last two items, the "Canada First" and the ongoing defence capability plan, could you explain how that will impact on the overall planning, transformation and the defence policy statement that you felt your transformation flowed from?
Gen. Hillier: On the "Canada First" perspective, for a period of time we have been using in uniform "Canada First" but not as a political slogan. I think it has been accurately said that I am not a politician.
We use "Canada First" both as a means of getting to that focus of CF focus versus army/navy focus. Let us focus on the fact that we are Canadians in uniform, so everything we do is designed to help our country and the 33 million Canadians who live here, have the best life, the best country and the best society that we believe exists now. We have used "Canada First" from that patriotic perspective.
We believe it flows naturally from the government's use of the term. "Canada First" is designed from our perspective on our responsibility to protect Canadians, and our mission is to defend Canadian interests, protect Canadians and project Canadian values. I believe that fits in that you cannot defend only at home. You have to deploy internationally, help bring stability to places that are unstable; otherwise, that instability starts to come here to Canada. There is an international dimension to that "Canada First" policy.
There is a continental dimension to it in that we are part of an enormous continent, and that dimension has been shown with the recent renewal of the NORAD agreement on May 12. There is, in fact, a slight expansion of that agreement to say we are going to engage continentally in a greater way, perhaps, than we have done before. However, we also had to apply a greater emphasis, focus and precision on protecting Canadians where they live and work at home here in Canada. We think there is a tremendous synergy here because we had already been launched on some of those roles, the entire reason for treating Canada as an operational theatre, establishing Canada Command, sorting out our command and control system down to each joint region headquarters, and showing that we had the authorities to use all of our resources and then developing the capabilities and the responsiveness so we could actually do something when we responded to it. All of that fit perfectly with that.
Our government has clearly come in with significant initiatives, some of which are fixated on the domestic piece. Whether it's upgrading the ability of the reserve component to be able to respond domestically, we are fully engaged in making that come through in a variety of ways, and working with our minister to deliver real effect for Canadians here at home, while also supporting that international dynamic and doing our business in Afghanistan that we are committed to and are doing so well. I will say from the heart that "Canada First" flows fantastically.
Regarding the development of the defence capability plan, you will recall back in the defence policy statement a line that said we will deliver a defence capability plan which takes this rather strategic document and says how we will implement it — in other words, what we will need in the way of command and control structure, infrastructure, training, equipping, expansion and numbers of people.
We started on that work immediately at that time, while we were still developing and working with the Government of Canada to develop the defence policy strategy.
We were well advanced but the transition of government required us to step back. Therefore, we had to determine how to incorporate the new government's direction on initiatives and strategy based on its direction to us. We have been busy with that over the last months. By the fall, I hope to bring a developed defence capability plan to the minister that shows how we will transform the Canadian Forces and what it will require in command, control, infrastructure, equipment, education, training and people to meet the "Canada First" objective, which we believe is right.
Senator Day: Do I understand you to say that this is a primarily Canadian-Forces-driven exercise as opposed to a departmental-political document?
Gen. Hillier: We have a team that works well, beginning with the deputy minister. He and I have had a great relationship over the last 18 months. We have worked together on this because the Canadian Forces cannot do it alone. We can talk about the military capabilities but the department has to be fully involved in putting the pieces together to enable the capabilities. We do this to ensure that the department can do its part and that our part supports and enables it, when possible. It will be the deputy minister and I going forward.
Senator Moore: I want to follow up on Senator Day's questions. In the new defence capability plan versus the plan that you were working on, I expect there will be tough choices to make. We have seen the government back away from the proposed armed icebreakers and, I believe, the proposed deepwater port in Iqaluit. Will you be forced to cut your vision for the Canadian Forces? You mentioned in your opening remarks that your land and sea lift provide the spine for all that the forces does. I am concerned that this new defence capability plan might impact on your preferences and that cuts might have to be made to what you were hoping to achieve.
Gen. Hillier: The reality of life is that regardless of a defence capability plan, we will have to balance a whole number of demands that are huge against an investment that is significant but will never be enough. Whether we articulate that under the defence capability plan, that reality will face us.
We have all underestimated what this last decade and a half of benign neglect and darkness that I talked about has done to the Canadian Forces. We are not thinking five years out; that is not our mandate from the Canadian Forces strategic perspective. We are thinking 10 to 25 years. The investment required to ensure that we have a Canadian Forces that is capable of doing what Canadians will need it to do in the environment 15 and 25 years from now will be significant.
I cannot tell you now what those dynamics will be going forward. I am not trying to avoid your question. We simply do not have that level of detail yet. Without question, we will have to make tough calls and offer tough options to our political masters, the Government of Canada. It is always a question of whether we can cut capability, which we cannot. Perhaps you can say what is the probability of use and, if it is low, then you ask what the risk is if you do not have it. If the risk is very low, then maybe you can find capabilities that you want to cut.
We constantly depend on this committee to keep the money initiative moving forward. Can you balance the two? The third option is always there. You will have to shave and reallocate and move people from what are high-density low-demand specialties to low-density high-demand specialties, and move dollars that way. We are walking through it and by the fall I might be able to give precise answers. Will the investment required be significant? The work this committee has done has said that it will be absolutely huge.
Senator Moore: The NORAD mission has been expanded to include maritime efforts as well. Being from Nova Scotia, the whole eastern seaboard coast is of interest to me. Do you see in your thinking the possibility that the Victoria-class submarines might be mothballed? Might any of our tribal class destroyers be laid up? Might there be an impact on our Aurora patrol aircraft fleet?
Gen. Hillier: Yes, to all of the above. It is simply a matter of when. Those Tribal class ships are already long in the tooth. Eventually, they will run out of efficiency and effectiveness for us. I am not at that level of detail yet. We have not considered those options in the grosso modo theme yet. We are now engaged in determining the options we could offer as tradeoffs. Eventually, we will get rid of the Aurora. Whether that is next year or 20 years from now is in question.
Senator Moore: I understand that as part of a phased replacement of equipment. I am thinking about it in terms of the impact this plan might have and the cuts you might have to make that you did not anticipate.
Gen. Hillier: I would not make the cuts. That is not my mandate or responsibility. Mine is to say what capability we have, what we need to do the missions that the Government of Canada has offered us and the options to reduce the gap. The government can then make the significant decisions beyond that. As I mentioned, we are not there yet and I would not try to answer because of that.
[Translation]
Senator Nolin: General Hillier, I was very touched by your kind words about Senator Forrestall, and I thank you for them.
First, I should like to get back to the question put to you by my colleague, Senator Banks, regarding the international interoperability. As you know, towards the end of next November, the NATO Chiefs of State will meet in Riga, and the major theme of that meeting will be NATO transformation. Obviously, interoperability will be the focus of those discussions.
As Chief of Defence Staff of our Canadian armed forces, what are your expectations as the result of that meeting of the heads of state of the 26 nations which constitute NATO? I could have asked you what you have recommended to the Prime Minister to say but I prefer to ask you the question directly. Therefore what do you expect to come out of that meeting? It is a first.
[English]
Gen. Hillier: As the Chief of the Defence Staff and as a soldier representing Canadian soldiers and sailors, airmen and airwomen, what I would love to see from such a summit is a commitment by NATO to true and radical transformation. The Secretary-General of NATO, who was visiting last week is frustrated — at least that was my assessment — by his inability to move things rapidly enough, far enough and not always in the right direction. We have seen too much of a legacy in the institution from the Cold War era and an inability to shape truly to be effective in the kind of operating environment that I described we are transforming to get to.
I have not yet had discussions with the Prime Minister on what I would like to see come out of the summit and it is still a ways off. NATO Headquarters and Foreign Affairs are still shaping a way ahead for that summit. I would like to see a commitment by 26 nations to a real transformation from a command structure, from the capabilities that are needed for the operating environment in which NATO finds itself now. NATO says that the operation in Afghanistan is its number one priority and, clearly, that is true. The capabilities to conduct that mission do not necessarily all exist within the alliance in the ways they should. A true commitment to transformation would be a powerful thing to get out of that. We would like reaffirmation that the Secretary-General's efforts will be pushed and supported by the nations and not have one nation walk out the door at the end, refusing to provide consensus, as that would mean shutting down a headquarters which is redundant but happens to be in that country, therefore causing the loss of a few jobs.
I have been highly critical of NATO, just as I have been highly critical of our own organizations and myself for my inability to get certain things done. However, I believe that, perhaps more than any of the 26 countries engaged, we need that institution. If it is not working right, our efforts must be solid and energetic to ensure that it does.
I articulated that when the minister and I sat down with the Secretary-General last week. It was an opportunity to reaffirm that that institution is the go-to organization for us in conducting business internationally. We need to make it stronger and help it to transform. We have been engaged in that over the past years in a way equal to every other nation, if not more than most.
[Translation]
Senator Nolin: My second question deals with your mission in Afghanistan. Your enthusiasm is contagious and I think you have definitively communicated that feeling of excitement to the people under your command.
On the other hand, some of my colleagues have visited Canadian bases and it is hard not to think of the parents, the families of our soldiers who are more or less excited by the mission. They are rather fearful. What can you say to these parents who have to be for you a major source of concern? You hire their children, their wives, their brothers and their sisters. It might be important to use our services to send them a message, attempting to communicate to them the sympathy and excitement that you manage to bring to your troops.
Gen. Hillier: We are always thinking of the families and this is the most fundamental change in the Canadian Forces. We are always thinking about it here in Canada and in foreign military action. In our missions around the world, support to the families is always a concern.
[English]
The commander in Petawawa said that soldiers are excited, families are scared. I understand how those families feel. It is completely normal and expected. They must understand that they are not alone in this, although sometimes families feel they are. They are perhaps a little afraid or nervous about articulating that.
Of 37 military contingents from 37 countries in Afghanistan, our young men and women are the best trained, they have the best structure, the best leadership and the best equipment to do the job we ask them to do. Our contingent is the envy of the other countries' contributing forces operating in the southern part of Afghanistan.
We have the best boots, the best combat uniform — which is the most comfortable I have ever worn — the best knee pads, which save your knees from razor-sharp rocks, and a personal role radio that connects soldiers with their colleagues, which is the most important thing. When it is dark and something goes wrong, you want to know where your friends are more than you want to know where the enemy is.
We have the best ballistic glasses, which have saved the eyes of several soldiers already. Our Kevlar helmet is the best in the world. Our flak vest is the best technology can give us. We have a hydration system called the Camelbak. Soldiers can have water on their back and drink without being distracted from what they are doing.
Every soldier has night-vision glasses and their weapons have night sights. Our LAV3 vehicles are the best in the world. They have saved lives and allowed us to be successful.
Our soldiers, going into a high-risk environment, have the best chance of success that can possibly be given to them. We have reduced the risk to the lowest level possible. We continue to learn every lesson possible and to reduce the risk every day with changes in tactics, changes in equipment, changes in command and control, and changes in structure.
Have confidence that they are working as part of a team. Everything possible that could be done to set conditions for success and to reduce risk is being done. Families will see their loved ones back at home.
The Chairman: General, on behalf of the committee, I want to thank you very much for appearing before us today.
I would like you to tell the troops, on behalf of the committee and the entire Senate of Canada, how immensely proud we are of the work they are doing and how much we respect their courage, fortitude and tenacity. We understand they are working in a very difficult environment. Canadians applaud and support them and are very grateful that they are there.
We would appreciate if you would convey that message to them on our behalf.
Gen. Hillier: Thank you, senator. I will.
The Chairman: On behalf of the committee, I would like to present you with a small token.
It reads in both official languages: "Presented to General Rick Hillier with the gratitude and respect of SCONSAD, June 21, 2006."
Gen. Hillier: Thank you. It has been my pleasure to be here today.
The committee adjourned.