Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
National Security and Defence
Issue 5 - Evidence - Meeting of April 23, 2012
OTTAWA, Monday, April 23, 2012
The Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence met this day at 4 p.m. to examine and report on Canada's national security and defence policies, practices, circumstances and capabilities.
Senator Roméo Antonius Dallaire (Deputy Chair) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Deputy Chair: Honourable senators, ladies and gentlemen, I call this meeting to order. We are going to have three sessions and each may be an hour long. Our study is still on the evolution of the Canadian Forces' capacity to prepare for and meet Canada's security needs. This is a wide-ranging topic.
Before the budget, we heard from the three senior officers in command of the three services that need the troops. They gave us their perspective.
We are now moving to the stage where we meet with those who use the troops and have command responsibility for the use of those troops in Canada and overseas.
We are going to start with Lieutenant-General Semianiw, Walter to his friends. His career has taken him overseas. You can see the campaigns he has been involved in from the medals he wears. I would like to draw your attention to one of them; it dates from three years ago when he was Chief of Military Personnel. In that capacity, he brought about huge reforms in individual care, in medical allowances, and in the concern for members' needs and those of their families. Those reforms are still in effect and result in the high level of morale in the Canadian Forces. Our congratulations.
You are here as the commander of Canada Command, and we would like to hear your opening presentation. Afterwards, there will be some time for questions. Please go ahead, general.
Lieutenant-General Walter Semianiw, Commander, Canada Command, National Defence: Thank you, general; sorry, Mr. Chair. And thank you for this opportunity to speak to the committee today. Let me begin by saying a few words about the responsibilities of Canada Command.
Within Canada, North America and the Western Hemisphere, Canada Command's mandate is to defend against threats and hazards and, when requested, to support civilian authorities to enhance the safety, security and stability of Canadians — anywhere and at any time in Canada.
[English]
As you know, the work of Canadian Forces is guided by the Canada First Defence Strategy, or the CFDS. Of the six CFDS missions, Canada Command has a lead role in four of these missions: conduct daily domestic and continental operations, support major international events held in Canada, respond to a major terrorist attack and, finally, support civilian authorities during a domestic crisis such as a national disaster.
In 2010 alone, Canada Command had to fulfill three of these four missions simultaneously, done by ensuring that we prepared and were ready to respond for Canadians when they needed us. We provided assistance to the RCMP security operations at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver; we helped restore damaged infrastructure in Newfoundland after Hurricane Igor; and we conducted our daily routine operations, including maritime sovereignty operation patrols.
It is also our mandate to oversee routine and contingency operations in Canada and continental North America. As part of these activities, Canada Command is responsible for surveillance and sovereignty patrols, air and maritime search and rescue, assisting civil authorities during disasters or other emergencies, and, when authorized, supporting law enforcement agencies. In essence, Canada Command is responsible for the home game, and the home game is a no- fail mission. It is non-discretionary; we must succeed at home.
In addition, Canada Command is responsible for bilateral relations with its equivalent organizations south of the border, both in the United States Northern Command and the United States Southern Command. Moreover, we collaborate closely with the North American Aerospace Defense Command, NORAD, the binational Canada-United States treaty organization responsible for monitoring and defending North America's skies.
We work comprehensively with these organizations each and every day. Through embedded personnel, joint training and operational and strategic level dialogue we consistently strengthen the vital relationship between the two militaries.
[Translation]
Canada Command's national and regional staffs total more than 300 personnel and are supported by thousands of navy, army, air force and special operations forces personnel who stand ready to deploy when and where they are needed. During serious crises, all available Canadian Forces personnel support Canada Command's resources.
[English]
The most essential assets Canada Command has under its operational command are its six regional joints task forces, or RJTFs. The RJTFs all have assigned regional responsibilities for domestic operations and work closely with provincial and territorial authorities. The RJTFs provide regional situational awareness which they feed into Canada Command, and provide all domain awareness across the full spectrum of operational activities under the headings of safety, security and defence.
Commanders of the six regional joints task forces are responsible for military planning and response in their geographic areas of responsibility. During emergencies, working closely with the federal, provincial and territorial authorities, RJTF commanders can task all available Canadian Forces resources within their regions, be it Pacific, West, Central, East, Atlantic and finally, the North. On any given day the Canadian Forces have some 10,000 personnel on standby enabling the command to be ready to defend Canadian sovereignty, to assist Canadians in need, or to help our neighbours to the south. To put the scope of our domestic activities into perspective, the domestic area of operations is almost 10 million kilometres squared; that is twice the size of Europe.
However, in its short history Canada Command has delivered strategic effect at home with each and every one of its operations, and every time with strategic and positive outcomes.
[Translation]
Let me conclude by saying that the successes achieved by Canada Command could not be done without the men and women of the Canadian Forces who stand at the ready across the nation to support our civilian partners and help Canadians in need. Thank you, General, Mr. Chair.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you, General. Thank you for providing us with that overview and for being so concise. We now move to the question period. On my list, I have Senators Lang, Nolin, Stewart Olsen and Robichaud.
[English]
Senator Lang: Thank you. To begin, I would like to thank our witness. On behalf of Senator Wallin I also want to convey her regrets that she could not be here today. Unfortunately, she had some personal family matters that she has to deal with and so therefore she is absent.
I would like to begin with an overall question. It is in reference to the deficit reduction action plan process that all the military has been going through — for almost a year now for planning and putting into effect — especially in view of the decisions that have been taken in Afghanistan and in respect of the transformation that the military is going forward with. Perhaps you could elaborate on how you see the deficit reduction action plan affecting your ability to do the job you and your people have been asked to do looking forward, and the reorganization that you have done or will be doing in respect of meeting the deficit reduction action plan, while at the same time meeting your obligations.
[Translation]
Lt.-Gen. Semianiw: Thank you for the question.
[English]
To answer in two parts, Canada Command was part of the deficit reduction action plan process over the last year. We went through what we wanted to look at, what we wanted to reduce, while at the same time safeguarding core competencies and capabilities, which was at the centre of all our activity and our work.
Having now had a chance to look at the results of that work and what its impact would be on Canada Command, a short answer, based on what we have now seen, is that it will have little if any impact on delivering strategic effect for Canadians at home or south of the border. First, my first mandate, right at the top of the list, is search and rescue. That is not being reduced in any way as part of either strategic review or the DRAP process. The resources, equipment and people we have in place will be there, so that is not affected. Second, if there are crises across Canada over the next number of years, I will still have the same number of men and women in uniform for the navy, army, air force and special forces and their equipment to be able to respond to those crises.
In short, I do not see any impact on the home game in being able to deliver that strategic effect, given it is non- discretionary and has to be a success.
The second part of the question talks about the reorganization. We are looking at a number of different models and different ways perhaps that we can reorganize to be more efficient while at the same time ensuring that we still deliver that effectiveness. This cannot be an exercise in efficiencies; we want to ensure, particularly in the home game, that we continue to deliver that strategic effect. Canadians expect and demand no less. We have to deliver that.
Therefore, we are looking at a number of models moving ahead. At the appropriate time in the future, the minister and the Chief of the Defence Staff will be in a position to announce what that change will be from a structural point of view. However, as we see, there are a number of levels of change that would have to happen, be they changes at the strategic, operational, or tactical levels; changes in how we operate and how we work the cultural change; and the organizational change.
A lot of change is happening that we are looking at with a number of models, but at some point in the future they will be able to answer which of those is best and which way we will be heading to ensure we are not only more efficient but also an even more effective and more agile organization in the future.
Senator Lang: I would like to go a little further in respect of the changes you are looking at into the future and the efficiencies that you are perhaps considering while at the same time meeting those obligations that you outlined.
I will turn your attention to the question of aerospace and the question of satellites. Looking ahead, we have RADARSAT-1, and we are looking at RADARSAT-2 and the possibility of PolarSat for the Arctic. I represent the North and the Yukon, and that is of direct interest to us, obviously.
Where in your planning has the question of the updating of our satellite systems come into play? How have they have affected your efficiencies? There is no question that, for example, if PolarSat goes ahead, your ability to communicate will be obviously strengthened. In fact, it is almost non-existent presently without PolarSat. With the demands on our air force, if RADARSAT-2 and PolarSat go ahead, what will that do with the air force and that responsibility in view of the fact that we have the satellite systems to do a lot of reconnaissance and work that would be done by that part of the armed forces?
Lt.-Gen. Semianiw: It is a great question. It is one that we look at each day within Canada Command because the organization is very much focused on the "sense function." As the Prime Minister said last year in Resolute Bay, there are not enough men and women — let alone citizens — in Canada to cover the entire North to be on the ground. Therefore, we have to first know what is happening in the North to have that sense, and then ensure that we queue and get our forces where they need to be to deliver effect for Canadians in the North.
As part of that discussion, satellites are a central capability to achieve that. It is not only satellites but very much a layered approach with satellites, the use of UAVs and the use of aircraft and the like to provide a layered, sensing approach.
On the satellite piece, you are right: We have been using RADARSAT. Canada Command is actually on the priority list for the use of RADARSAT. Right now, we have it focused on the Northwest Passage to ensure we know what is happening in and along Canada's North. You are right that we are moving towards RCM, which is the RADARSAT Constellation Mission, the expansion, hopefully, from two to five satellites across the North, which will give you more real-time data and down-feed.
That is where we need to move, because satellites are clearly a critical enabler for us achieving what we need to in the North, along with the other pieces: the UAVs, surveillance aircraft in the North, and Rangers on the ground. Those all fit together into a framework.
Regardless, satellites are critical to the way ahead. We have been using them. We need to continue to use them and use them more in the future, not just for knowing but for weather and for communications. It must be all three. If you look at the communications aspect, having the communications weather satellites are important as it is not just knowing what is on the ground and seeing.
Senator Lang: I have to agree; the question of our satellites and utilization of them, generally — not just for our armed forces — will play an important part in the development of the North in the years to come because it provides all that information in a minimum span of time, and we can utilize the information from that context.
I want to move into another area. You mentioned search and rescue in your comments. That is obviously of grave concern, coast to coast to coast, in terms of just exactly where we are headed and what we will do in that particular area. I think concerns have been expressed almost every year about the search and rescue and what the long-term objectives are. I noticed that in November you spoke about the meeting that had been held in Whitehorse with the Arctic Council and the search and rescue cooperation between — I believe — eight northern countries in respect of working together, given the limited fleets we have and the ability to cope with the vast expanses that we all are confronted with due to the largeness of our countries.
Where are we in respect of coming up with a firm understanding of how the various jurisdictions will be able to work together and meet the demands being placed on them?
Lt.-Gen. Semianiw: If I can trail back regarding the North to close out the issue, I will throw back to you a comment I picked up talking to northerners. It was thrown at me by a northerner, and it speaks volumes. A footprint in the North lasts 40 years, which is very different than in the south of Canada. What that means for folks in the North, as was explained to me, is that we need to think very deeply about what we might do in the North before we do anything, because it will have a long-lasting and long-enduring impact. Therefore, think it through before we do anything. We are looking at that, not just from a satellite point of view but from what we are doing across the North in so many areas from a Canadian Forces perspective.
Regarding search and rescue, we have developed trend lines where each of the events that can occur from a search and rescue point of view have been mapped out and we have them. I can provide them to the committee if they wish; I can put them forward to you, at some time. They lay out where each of the search and rescue events happen that we respond to, let alone the number that we receive. We receive thousands upon thousands that do not turn into a search and rescue event because they either stop before we are actioned or something transpires.
We take all of those and map them and then determine where resources need to be allocated from a search and rescue point of view. When you look at the number of activities or events, most are on the western shores followed by the East. Very few are in and across the North. As such, we have deployed the Canadian Forces search and rescue resources commensurate with where they will be used and employed. There are also some in Central Canada.
As we move ahead, we know, as is known in the North, that we will have to do more public-private partnerships. That is the key to the North, as well. For example, there are 60 airfields in the North not owned by the military where we know we can land a Hercules. Therefore, instead of building our own, why not use them? There are 17 or 18 that can take a C-17. Again, we need to move ahead with that idea, not just in the South but in the North.
Coming back to the South with the provinces and territories, we are working with the National Search and Rescue Secretariat on an ongoing basis to ensure that we connect municipal, territorial, provincial and federal partners as part of search and rescue. We do that because ground search and rescue is the responsibility of provinces and territories. They have their own emergency management organizations that act on those requests. From a Canadian Forces point of view, on behalf of the Minister of National Defence, Minister MacKay is the lead minister for maritime and air search and rescue, so that is what we manage on his behalf. Ground SAR is done by local emergency management organizations across the provinces, which speaks to the need to be integrated and coordinated with them as we move ahead. More of that is actually happening.
There is the most recent announcement in last couple of days about additional funds, about $8 million, I believe, that speaks to providing funds at a local, regional and territorial level to build on those relationships from a search and rescue point of view.
The Deputy Chair: The Rangers in the North do land search and rescue, so do you hand them over to the territories to do that?
Lt.-Gen. Semianiw: If there is a search and rescue in the North, the Rangers are sent over to work with the territories if it falls within what they can and cannot do. The Rangers are not fully equipped like the men and women in uniform in the Canadian Forces, so they have a certain mandate. If it is in that mandate, which in most cases it is, they go out and conduct search and rescue and ground search and rescue with territorial partners to try to address any issues that arise in the North.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Nolin: Good afternoon, general. We are pleased that you accepted our invitation. You briefly mentioned that you have drones available to you in your arsenal.
[English]
I would like first to explore with you the extent to which you are using drones, UAVs, in your command.
Lt.-Gen. Semianiw: We consider UAVs, drones, to be an integral part of the way ahead when it comes to clearly understanding what is happening on the ground and across the skies, for a number of reasons from the point of view of effectiveness and efficiency. For example, last summer, as part of Operation NANOOK, we brought a drone into the North, more of an operational tactical level drone. We tested it as part of Operation NANOOK, gave it a number of tasks, asked it to go out over the water to check for icebergs for the Coast Guard, which was successful, and to do other territorial kinds of oversight and overview. We proved the concept last year in the colder weather; it was not in the middle of the winter but in the colder weather. We know we need to use them, and the Canadian Forces from a capability point of view are moving ahead to ensure there is domestic capability as part of its UAV program in the future.
We need it. It will be part of the program. We know we need to use it; however, I would throw out for the committee that when you use drones, particularly in an urban area, there are strict laws that bind their use. Aside from airspace control issues, there are certain security laws that limit their use over urban areas, and as such, we have to respect those, but in the North we find it extremely useful in the open areas to ensure that we have more eyes and ears in the North.
Senator Nolin: Do I understand that exercises have been done with drones in the North, in the Arctic, and that that is the only use you have made of drones on Canadian territory?
Lt.-Gen. Semianiw: Regarding what we have done within Canada Command, the first use was in the Arctic in Resolute. Resolute is very high in the Arctic, the second most northern community in the world, probably, next to Grise Fiord. We did it there because it is the most complex and toughest on the equipment, so that was the first last summer. Our intent is to take it one step further this year a little further south because we will be in the areas of Inuvik and Churchill, so it will bring its own challenges and complexities with legalities and airspace control. You cannot just throw drones up and have them fly wherever you want. There are other things going on in the air, but we will try those, see how they work a little further south and see where that actually can go. Clearly, it has proven to be a success for us in the North, and then it all depends on the type of drone you are talking about. There are high-altitude drones and medium-altitude ones, but, overall, drones are UAVs and need to be part of our way ahead when it comes to understanding and knowing what is happening on the ground.
Senator Nolin: I understand you are mainly using them for ISR. Is the plan to use them as armed platforms?
Lt.-Gen. Semianiw: Right now, we are using them for ISR. I have not been in any discussion where any type of issues come up that they are said to be armed at any time. It is purely for ISR. You must remember that, in Canada, within the domestic construct, I do not have the right to be able to apply lethal force in Canada. That is the responsibility of the police. The question would be perhaps in the future whether we could work with the police forces to assist them by providing UAVs. It is something we have to work together on, but, clearly, not armed drones in North America at all. That would not be allowed.
Senator Nolin: You just mentioned North America. Does it mean that your American counterparts are also not using armed drones in North America?
Lt.-Gen. Semianiw: It is a question you have to pose to my representative.
Senator Nolin: It is not a court. Hearsay is not exactly a problem here, so you can tell us if you have such information.
Lt.-Gen. Semianiw: It is a question you would have to pose to either the commander of NORAD or the head of their air service, but I have not seen or heard of the use of any armed drones in or across North America.
Senator Nolin: In the discussions with your American counterparts when you are discussing the future plan of both of your commands, is the use of armed drones a possibility or an option?
Lt.-Gen. Semianiw: It is not a possibility or an option. It is not discussed at all. Again, the intent is that it is an ISR platform that provides eyes and ears, and the ability to take action on the ground is done by the police, not by the military.
Senator Stewart Olsen: This is very informative for me. I want to go back to the domestic operations and the integration of all the regions, especially with your different RJTFs. If you needed to have some kind of response to a domestic situation, I would like to hear the process by which it would come and then how it would be decided and come back to the actual regional operation.
Lt.-Gen. Semianiw: I will answer the question using some examples from recent operations. We can look at the situation of flooding in Quebec as an example, and then I will look at the situation in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
In both cases, you will have the crisis starting. The first principle is that the federal government, federal agencies and departments will not come into provincial or territorial areas unless invited by the provinces and territories. That is the underlying theme in everything that we do. As such, I need permission to move ahead.
From a procedural point of view, if you look at Winnipeg, and if you look at what happened in Manitoba and Quebec, both of the premiers spoke to their counterparts, spoke to the Prime Minister at the time and to others to signal their need for help or assistance federally in the crises that were occurring in those regions.
Then their respective ministers would contact the Minister of Public Safety. That is critical now in the new framework, the domestic framework, where the Minister of Public Safety has the responsibility to coordinate and integrate federal assets, either departments or agencies, in supporting the provinces.
Across each of the provinces and territories, the minister and Department of Public Safety have representatives in each of those areas. That is new. They have senior representatives in each of those areas that coordinate with the provincial or territorial emergency management office.
By that time, everyone is talking. The ministers would speak, a letter would come, and that is a formality of it, and if there is not enough time, it is done by word of mouth and the letter catches up because we will not wait for bureaucracy to do the right thing. I am not saying bureaucracy does not prevent you from doing the right thing. However, once the letter comes in that process, it is looked at by the Department of Public Safety. They then determine what federal assets could be provided by whom and speak to the different departments.
I know this sounds linear, but it is happening concurrently, and usually we are looking at this and identifying it long before. I will come back to the situation in Quebec in particular.
It comes to our minister, Minister MacKay, who would then look at it, write back and say, yes, we will be providing the support; and then through the Chief of the Defence Staff, Canada Command is given the executive authority to move ahead to act. We have already done the planning at this point in time. Throughout the year we work with the territorial and provincial partners. Right now, I can say I am monitoring the flood situation, and I can provide you with an update on that, across the country in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu. We are watching it to ensure sure we are prepared and ready to respond. In the situation in Manitoba, that is the way it followed out. The Minister of Public Safety got a call from the province, who got a hold of us. We were nearby at that time. The Second Battalion of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry was only hours away. It immediately deployed into the affected area to work for the province — not for ourselves, but for the province — in providing support.
In Quebec, there has been a change over the last number of years where Quebec now has a provincial emergency management organization. That is very different than during the ice storm. During the ice storm, we were working directly for mayors and small-town officials. We called a week before and said we were ready to go. They said they did not need us right then, so we stayed where we were.
We got a call on a particular night and we were there in eight hours. Then we deployed our different assets, our men and women in uniform with their capabilities, out to where the provincial emergency management wanted them deployed. On a day-by-day basis, that emergency management organization provided us with where they wanted us to go to support whatever areas, which was very different than during the ice storm. It was more centrally coordinated by the province, as it was in Manitoba, than it had been in the past, which proved to be a success.
The domestic operations are tough to get out of and easy to get into. We have a number of lessons we have all learned doing this. Canadians need us. We would tell you they need us within the first 24 hours. That is when you have to have that strategic effect on the ground in both of those cases, which we did. Once the job is done, which it was done, it was time to get back, and then the last part of the process is to turn it back over to the province where the province would get a hold of civilian contractors to continue the work.
Our job is to save lives. The Canadian Forces' mandate, from an emergency management point of view, is to save lives. It is not really focused on property. It is about saving lives. There is a crisis period, it kind of starts going down and at a certain point in time when the province says "thank you," we take a step back, redeploy and get ready for that next activity. There is a process in place.
If it is a crisis with very little time for the bureaucracy to catch up, it is all done by phone. We have conference calls and we immediately deploy.
I come back to the last part of your question. The RJTFs, the regional joint task forces, are located in Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Edmonton, out on the West Coast covering Vancouver but located in Victoria, and in the North in Yellowknife. They have that day-to-day, week-to-week, hour-by-hour relationship building. As we all know in our business and at home, it is all about relationships built on trust and respect. That is what it leads to. We develop those relationships and we know whom to call, so when the time comes it can be done quickly and easily, as quickly as it can to support Canadians.
In the last year, it has been different in Canada Command. It is the first time that every one of our RJTFs was involved in a major domestic operation. I will tell you things are happening geographically, weather-wise, around the world, more than they have in the past, so we have to sit up and take notice and be prepared as we are today.
Senator Stewart Olsen: I think this is an evolving process, just based on what you have said; for instance, Quebec learned from the flood situation that they needed a centralized emergency response.
One thing I find in committees and with very good witnesses like you is that you often have ideas of how communications and operations could be better integrated. I would suggest that you use this committee as a tool and perhaps forward some suggestions, if you have any, of perhaps our next steps, just to make it better. Let us all work together and smooth it out. Thank you very much for that. I would love to see your suggestions, if you have any.
The Deputy Chair: Attawapiskat was federal. Could you have responded within 24 hours, and who would have called you?
Lt.-Gen. Semianiw: Yes, we could have. It would have been the minister who went directly to the Chief of the Defence Staff to deploy assets and capabilities in Attawapiskat. We were watching the situation closely, as we watch all events in Canada.
Within Canada Command headquarters, we have update briefings every morning at nine o'clock. You might be shocked to hear that we go through the weather across Canada. We have weathermen and weatherwomen who go through the national weather with us so we know exactly what is going on from a disastrous weather point of view. We talk about events that have happened across the country, what is going on with solar flares or important communications, UHF and the like. We watch all of that, including events like Attawapiskat that emerged, to keep track just in case we are called to ensure that we are ready. It would have come through the minister to the Chief of the Defence Staff and then to Canada Command.
[Translation]
Senator Robichaud: No one called you about Attawapiskat?
[English]
Lt.-Gen. Semianiw: No, we were not called, but we were watching it very closely. From what I remember, it was another federal department that responded to the demands played out and asked for at Attawapiskat, not the Department of National Defence.
Senator Plett: First, I am from Manitoba, so thank you very much for the work you have done there. We appreciated it, and we are very happy that we will not be using your services this spring; it is 22 degrees there and the river is low, so we are happy about that.
When you were there, you said you were working for the province. We were told in the recent budget that flood costs were $300 million. When you work for the province, does that mean the province also pays for you to work there, or is that all out of federal coffers? Perhaps that is not something you would be able to answer.
Lt.-Gen. Semianiw: It is something you would want to direct to other officials in the department, the issue of cost recovery. It is determined issue by issue and case by case. You would probably want to raise that with the Assistant Deputy Minister of Finance and Corporate Services. They would be better situated to address that question.
Senator Day: General, I think it would be helpful if we could analyze the difference between your role in operations and the role of the various elements, the environments of the army, navy and the air force in training. As I understand your presentation, with all the various types of operations that you oversee, participate in and command, you have to draw on the resources of the army, navy, air force and expeditionary force for your personnel.
I do not want to restrict your answer to a crisis situation but other types of activities, like the North. That sounds to me like it is a training exercise, but it was described as being under your command. Can you talk about that relationship?
Lt.-Gen. Semianiw: About six years ago a decision was made from a structural point of view in the Canadian Forces to reorganize the Canadian Forces along the lines of force generators and force employers. Right now, there is the Royal Canadian Navy, the army, the Royal Canadian Air Force, special forces and others who actually provide forces to force employers. First force employer is behind me, Lieutenant-General Beare, who looks after expeditionary forces, and he will be up here for an hour after me to address how he plans and prepares for operations within his purview, and then myself for Canada, be it the United States and Mexico, as well as in the south if there is an operation.
That construct was put in place, and it ensures that the commanders of the army, navy, air force and special forces are focused on ensuring their men and women in uniform are trained and equipment is ready to go. Then what happens at the appropriate time, either on a pre-planned or crisis basis, we will be at proportion and provided with forces, both Lieutenant-General Beare and myself, for the particular task at hand. We will sit down and look at the problem set and identify what type of forces we need.
Our job is to deliver joint forces. What we know is that joint forces, the army, navy, air force or special forces being brought together, actually deliver more enduring effects than a single service. Services do their training and we deliver joint forces as part of operation, which he can address.
What I also see is that the comprehensive approach — bringing in other federal and territorial partners — leads to even more enduring effects. We do some training and tabletop exercises, as we did in the North as part of the Arctic Council Search and Rescue Table Top Exercise, to ensure that, as a team, we are ready to go. They provide us with those forces. We use them, and then once we are done with them, on a certain date, we give them back to the navy, army, air force, or special forces command, and they get them ready again.
I have never been involved in a situation where there has been an either-or. We have always had forces to be able to deal with the expeditionary and the Canadian command. We have been able to do both. A good example was doing the Olympics while at the same time doing Afghanistan. It was a heavy demand on the Canadian Forces, but they delivered. Last year, we had almost over 3,000 men and women in uniform deployed for flood fighting and forest fires in Canada. Again, it is not an either-or that we are stuck in the middle of. It works out quite well. We have sufficient forces to do the expeditionary piece and the at-home piece.
Senator Day: The operation in the North — you want to call it an operation so that it fits under your command — really was a training exercise, but it was a joint training exercise. Anytime there is a joint training exercise, does that become an operation even though it is training and preparing?
Lt.-Gen. Semianiw: No. We specifically chose to call the three exercises in the North operations, be it NANOOK, NUNAKPUT or NUNALIVUT. I will ask you to try those three. Those three names mean something in the language, and they speak to what they actually deliver. Given the importance placed on the North by Canadians, the Canadian Forces, and the department of the government, the question was how we could put a little more attitude into and emphasis on these activities, so we call them operations, as in Operation NANOOK. They have continued to be called operations, but they are joint training exercises in the truest sense. In other cases, there are joint training exercises left of that, but we chose to call them Operations NANOOK, NUNAKPUT and NUNALIVUT to ensure that we get more out of it by calling them operations. It has worked; it has raised the profile, the attention, and the focus. Many Canadians know about Operation NANOOK, the number of times it is in the paper, and the great work done by men and women in uniform.
Senator Day: I am not objecting to the fact that you did this. What I am trying to get an understanding of is the division between the force providers and the users of the force — the generators and the users. It seems to me that that area is a little fuzzy.
I would like you to talk a bit about your relationship with the army, navy, and air force, in terms of ensuring that they are training their personnel for what you see as possible crises in the future. There may be places where you want to employ those personnel but they may not be trained the way you want them to be. What relationship do you have, and how does the reserve element play into this?
Lt.-Gen. Semianiw: On the fuzzy issue, as I say to my people, to be able to effectively work at the strategic level you have to be able to work in the grey. It may not be exactly here and here, but it does work extremely well; they understand the boundaries. If you look at Operation NANOOK or the others, Canada Command organizes that training. The navy, army, air force, and special forces come to our planning meetings and provide forces for the training in the future. We move on to plan it in that sense. It works out extremely well, even though it may seem a little fuzzy to call them operations. By and large, exercises in training are the purview of the individual services. As you bring them together into the joint realm, there is a greater role played by the operational commanders, like Lieutenant- General Beare and myself, who have a greater impact on what should be going on.
We do that, in many cases, through a lessons-learned process, where we have teams that watch how the operations unfold. After the operations or training are conducted, we sit down and analyze how it went and what we could have done better, not in running the training but in doing the training and exercises. Then we take those lessons and institutionalize them by trying to bring them back into the navy, army, air force, and special forces and changing what needs to be changed, be it the people, the equipment, the process, or the training itself.
A good example would be two key events, the Olympics and the G8 and G20. Following those two events, we put together a larger lessons-learned symposium for all representatives from across town and from the provinces and municipalities. We brought them into Ottawa. We call these events "special security events," so we sat down and figured out what went well in conducting these two special security events and what could have been done better. Then we went back to the navy, army, air force, and special forces and said, "Here is what we need to have ready in the future because it is going to happen again; we will have more of these types of activities." We have a voice as part of how they organize, equip, and train themselves in the future. We have "a" voice; "the" voice remains with them as they have force development looking into the future.
Senator Day: That would include what reserve forces might be necessary and where a reservist may be able to do the job a bit better than a regular force person.
Lt.-Gen. Semianiw: Agreed. In part, that is why you saw the development or establishment of the domestic reserve companies that we have put in place across the country. They were used in Manitoba. We actually brought reservists out because we found that what provides the best effect is to have Manitobans in uniform supporting Manitobans. We did the same in the operation after Igor, where we had the Newfoundlanders on the ground as much as possible supporting them. As we move ahead, we have made a conscious effort to ensure that we have reservists as much in that mix as possible because we know that it is even better having Manitobans or Quebecers on the ground supporting Manitobans and Quebecers.
Senator Day: What you are saying is that the operation commander would dialogue with the trainers of the army, navy, air force, or special forces to say, "In the future, we may want some of these. Could you please ensure they are in your training mix?"
Lt.-Gen. Semianiw: We are doing that right now for the North. We are actually sitting down with the environmental chiefs to say, "Here is what we need in the North — the capabilities, from a training point of view, that you have to be prepared to do. You are seeing that with the army and the air force right now, as they go into the North to do more training. They will then come together as part of a joint activity or joint operation with the operational commands, either at home or abroad.
The Deputy Chair: Operation NANOOK was a training exercise, but it was also operational in the sense of demonstrating Canada's presence in the North. In that context, did your command pay for the exercise, or did the three environmental chiefs pay for it?
Lt.-Gen. Semianiw: Canada Command paid for the exercise. We budgeted the exercise upfront. Last year was our largest Operation NANOOK, so we got additional funds to deliver that joint activity, in Resolute, focused on search and rescue. What we were going to do was exercise our new search and rescue plan, which we had written the September prior. We had everyone ready to go, and then we had the tragic accident happen up in Resolute. We were there; we went out and were able to help to save three lives at that time.
The Deputy Chair: Well done.
[Translation]
Senator Robichaud: I have a lot of respect for the members of the Coast Guard. My neighbour's son was a helicopter pilot and he often had to go out on quite dangerous missions. Those people put their lives on the line each time they go out in all kinds of difficult weather conditions. There was one incident in Newfoundland and Labrador where your services were called on for a little boy and — correct me if I am wrong — it seems that a Cormorant helicopter was not able to get to the location whereas a helicopter from a private company was able to do a little searching. What happened during that particular incident?
Lt.-Gen. Semianiw: Thank you for the question.
[English]
Firstly, the Canadian Forces is not responsible for ground search and rescue. That is the responsibility of the province, in this case the province of Newfoundland and Labrador.
[Translation]
That is a key fact and it is very important to be aware of it.
[English]
After that, all provinces across the country, and I will come back to a similar incident that happened in the West, organize their own airlift and their own search and rescue not connected to the Canadian Forces. You will find that the province at the time has a standing memorandum of understanding with Universal Helicopters Newfoundland Limited. It is not that they called us and we could not come so they then went to a civilian helicopter or agency. It is a civilian agency that is mandated to provide that support through its obligations to the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Only when civilian agencies cannot provide that support are the Canadian Forces and ground search and rescue protocols called.
The province's emergency management organization called its organization first — Universal Helicopters — which provided a helicopter. We were then asked and we could not provide the helicopter at that time. Universal had responded because it is part of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador's search and rescue for ground framework, not the Canadian Forces.
Look at what just happened in Alberta: A helicopter crashed, the pilot was tragically killed, and there were a number of British visitors or tourists on board. I do not know if you remember reading about that in the paper. The Department of National Defence for search and rescue was not called because the provinces and territories have their own organizations that they go to from a ground air search and rescue point of view. If they cannot get or use those organizations, then they would come to the Canadian Forces for ground search and rescues.
It transpired that the young boy in Makkovik was lost on the Sunday. The Canadian Forces received a call early on Monday morning. At that time, we could not respond and we carried on doing what we were doing. We also knew that the helicopter from Universal Helicopters was in location. We got a call back from the Makkovik ground search and rescue team at the time a day and a half later. It was not throughout the entire process but a day and a half later, at which time we were prepared to respond.
Senator Robichaud: Why were you not in a position to respond when they first called?
Lt.-Gen. Semianiw: The decision was made given there was only one Cormorant helicopter; it would take the helicopter away from the task of providing support throughout the entire region. The decision was made that perhaps that helicopter needed to stay there in case another emergency may have happened. We were told on the phone at the time from the ground search and rescue team that this young boy had been out there and was lost and that they had a helicopter on the ground or were getting a civilian helicopter to support them.
In the end, it was there to be able to address a maritime and aeronautical search and rescue challenge that may have come up.
Senator Robichaud: There was a life in danger; there was a life in question. I cannot understand why you would hold back the helicopter in case another situation happened when one was happening at the moment.
Lt.-Gen. Semianiw: If you take a look at the logs, which a number of people have looked at, you can see that it was a decision made by the commanders on the ground, given the case and given the situation. We do get these calls on a routine basis across Canada. In some cases we cannot provide. No one knows what the outcome would be. I would say that no one can look into the future and crystal gaze at the point. People are of the opinion and thought, based on the telephone calls, and I have looked at the logs, that a young boy had been lost, people were out looking for him and that a civilian helicopter would be on the ground to help. The call did not come until almost 15 to 16 hours afterwards on Monday morning. It was not on Sunday. The second call did not come until a day and a half after that, at which time the sense of urgency that you portray and we were able to get the helicopters on the ground to support.
[Translation]
Senator Robichaud: Let us talk about establishing Canadian Forces bases in Canada's North. This is something that the navy is involved in. Some years ago, there were announcements to that effect involving a small community whose name escapes me. In Iqaluit, you have people with almost no unloading docks to serve the community.
When you have to establish a base in the north, do you consider the needs of local communities? You could kill two birds with one stone by considering their needs.
[English]
Lt.-Gen. Semianiw: That is a great point, which is why if you take a look the way ahead, you will see that everything we are doing in the North speaks to working with people in the North to ensure that they have the voice in what is happening.
I think you are speaking about Nanisivik, where the deepwater port is being developed. You want to raise that with the Chief of the Maritime Staff, Royal Canadian Navy, who is responsible for that. This was announced a number of years ago. What is needed, which we know from an operational perspective, is a deepwater port in the North. A decision was made that it would be best located in Nanisivik for a number of reasons that you would have to pose to him.
[Translation]
Senator Robichaud: In order to work with the people, you surely have to have a presence near existing communities, like the Rangers do, for example, in order to serve the people. They are the people who prove that the North has always been inhabited. Their presence there supports the notion of our sovereignty in the North.
Lt.-Gen. Semianiw: Yes, that is true.
[English]
Sovereignty is expressed in many different ways. One is through governance, by establishing communities in the North; another is having our Rangers across the North; and a third is the military's activities across the North. It also speaks to finding the right location to be able to do what you need do, which is why that choice was made in the area of Nanisivik.
[Translation]
Senator Dawson: First of all, I would like to join my colleagues in congratulating you for your work in Saint-Jean- sur-Richelieu last year. It was quite exceptional. Given the temperature in Manitoba, unfortunately, we do not yet know if we will be able to count on your services once more this year. That was a great success. Perhaps the only problem was with communications. People were expecting you to do the cleanup after those events. There was a lot of criticism about it. You are quite right to say that it was not your mandate and it must never be. But in communications terms, you have to make sure to tell people, in crises like that, that your mandate is about people's safety and survival, not about providing cheap labour for municipal and regional needs.
My second question will be along similar lines to Senator Nolin's; it has to do with drones. Again in the spirit of killing two birds with one stone, as Senator Robichaud put it, could drones not be tried as a way of securing the border between Canada and the United States?
In my opinion, it is not actually a problem. However, since the Americans claim that the border between Canada and the United States does pose a problem, could we not put their minds at ease by being part of a joint mission, maybe as an experiment, to see if drones could be used to check whether there is a real problem?
[English]
Lt.-Gen. Semianiw: On the issue of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, we are tracking it closely. Right now the situation is good. Remember that it is not only about water but also about waves. The waves on Lac Champlain started much of the crisis there. You are right in that the key is to ensure that the message is out there. It was made very clear to the province right at beginning that we were not there to clean up. The Canadian Forces is not cheap labour. There are a couple of issues. One is that by doing it, you end up competing with local contractors who want and deserve that type of work. The focus was on coming in to save lives. We stayed long, but what we did do was have an action plan to come in force. We came in big and quickly to ensure that we minimized the loss of lives, and there were none at the time.
On the Quebec piece, you are right. We must ensure that we communicate to the province and that the province communicates the message that we are here to save lives. In the end we will be leaving once this piece is done, because the Canadian Forces is not cheap labour. Men and women in uniform will do what they are asked to do, that is not an issue. However, in the end they are valued to a much higher degree, in our eyes.
On the issue of drones, they can be used to assist control. If you look at the concepts of control, they cannot provide control; they can be used to assist control. Control, particularly when it comes to borders, is provided with people on the ground. As we have looked at, it has been used to provide the eyes and ears to see what is happening, to be able to bring forces where they need to be. In that respect it is a great tool. It is something that a number of countries already use. As I said, last year we trialed the use of UAVs across the North. Again, it is early days for us of where else could we use them across Canada within the domestic environment.
The Deputy Chair: If you do not mind, we will take a moment for a second round.
Senator Lang: I want to follow up about the North and some comments you made in November of 2011 to the House of Commons Standing Committee on National Defence. You were talking about putting infrastructure up in the North and also getting people involved in the North. I quote you on the following point:
Building on that, in the last number of years we have actually put a detachment in Whitehorse and a detachment in Iqaluit to build on an even deeper relationship.
Then you said:
. . . we are building a northern Arctic training centre in Resolute . . .
Could you update us on the detachments in Whitehorse and Yellowknife and whether you are supporting the organization of reservist units in those areas? Second, a quick update on Resolute and where you are with the Arctic training centre.
Lt.-Gen. Semianiw: On the detachments, in Iqaluit and Whitehorse they were put into place for a couple of reasons, most importantly to ensure they establish strong and deep relationships with the territorial partners in the Yukon and Nunavut. They are under command of the commander, Joint Task Force (North) who is in Yellowknife; they respond to him. They are in place and have real-time communications. They ensure that the relationship and dialogue between men and women in uniform in the North and the territorial governments are there and that when we are needed we can be called upon. They are firmly in place.
The Arctic training centre in the North will be up and running fully next summer, which is one reason we are not going back to Resolute to do Operation NANOOK. We will come further south so they can complete the activities in Resolute. We used the Arctic training centre last year. It is a state of the art facility that provides command and control, accommodation, housing, fuel, whatever you need to be able to support men and women on the ground. It is great to hear from those working on the project that it will be at full operational capability next summer. After that we will see it being used even more by the navy, army, air force and others as part of their training programs.
Senator Lang: Could you respond to the question of the organization of reserve units in Iqaluit, Whitehorse or Yellowknife?
Lt.-Gen. Semianiw: I was in Yellowknife not long ago and asked that question. In some cases, they are parading as high as 32 men and women in uniform. That is actually great. The intent was to build that as much as possible into a company, but it is part of the Loyal Edmonton Regiment; it is connected to it. It is another company, so the recruiting is going extremely well. They are parading monthly and actually conducting training. It is moving ahead as planned.
Senator Lang: In Whitehorse? I hate to pursue this, but is there some thought for a reserve unit there as well?
Lt.-Gen. Semianiw: I have not heard any discussion yet about a reserve unit in Whitehorse or Iqaluit.
The Deputy Chair: We are over time. Do you have any influence on the capital acquisition equipment that you need to do your job, and what is your major deficiency now?
Lt.-Gen. Semianiw: That is a direct question and I will give you a 10-second answer. I have no role in major acquisition as the force employer when it comes to when equipment comes out the end and the requirements. As we are moving forward, you will see in the next number of years the force employer will have more of the voice because that only makes sense. In the force requirements as we move ahead — both for Lieutenant-General. Beare and myself because we conduct a lessons-learned process and feed that back to the navy, army, air force and special forces — we have a voice in defining and helping define what some of those requirements could be and should be. Capital equipment acquisition is a question to ask of the service chiefs, whom you have already had here.
The Deputy Chair: You have answered my question. Thank you very much.
[Translation]
Honourable senators, if I may, we are going to continue with our next witness, Lieutenant-General Beare, an artilleryman, an officer who also served overseas in Afghanistan and in other operations. He is currently responsible for all overseas operations. In this context, thanks to his vast experience, he will be able to answer our questions on the matter. Do you have any opening comments?
Lieutenant-General Stuart Beare, Commander, Canadian Expeditionary Force Command, National Defence: If I may. Mr. Chair, I am pleased to be here this afternoon.
[English]
I am happy to be back today to provide an update on current operations and to give you my perspective, as Commander of Canadian Expeditionary Force Command, on the future and our preparedness for future operations.
On behalf of the Chief of the Defence Staff, CEFCOM's mission is to anticipate and conduct global full-spectrum operations, with national and international partners, in support of Canada's national interests.
[Translation]
Let me start with the "conduct" portion of CEFCOM's mandate. The Canadian Forces conduct operations around the world and CEFCOM is the operational command that plans, commands and sustains all operations outside North America.
We currently have 1,300 Canadian Forces personnel deployed to 17 international missions. We maintain task forces in every corner of the globe — from Haiti, to the Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, Europe and Asia, and at sea. We work in the UN and NATO, and as part of coalition operations.
[English]
These operations all have one thing in common: The Canadian Forces are working alongside partners and allies in complex missions across the spectrum of operations. Let me give you a few examples.
Today in the South Sudan, we have 15 Canadian Forces members and Canadian civilian police deployed to the UN mission, working alongside 5,400 other international police and military forces from 64 countries. They are working there to bring peace and stability to a country that has been plagued by decades of conflict. Closer to home, we have five CF members deployed as part of the UN mission in Haiti, where they work alongside 1,100 military and police partners from 56 other countries.
Finally, in Afghanistan, we have 908 Canadian Forces members deployed today to the NATO Training Mission — Afghanistan where they work with some 3,000 other international partners, military and police from 38 allied and partner countries who are part of the 110,000 ISAF forces who work alongside the 336,000 Afghanistan security forces, a number that continues to grow, in the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police as they pursue enduring peace and security in that region.
Our men and women are engaged in small and large numbers around the globe. With mission partners, they are having a direct and meaningful impact on the ground, at sea and in the air.
[Translation]
When it comes to conducting operations, CEFCOM is involved at every stage. In the "pre-deployment" phase, CEFCOM sets the conditions for mission success. This means understanding the problem space, Canada's strategic objective in deploying, and the interests and priorities of our allies and our adversaries. Once launched, CEFCOM provides direct guidance, administrative and operational support to our personnel in theatre so that they can concentrate on the task at hand.
We also provide support to the strategic level and ensure that the Canadian Forces and the Department of National Defence leadership have a clear understanding of the missions and the context within which our men and women are operating.
Finally, when the time comes, we are responsible for bringing our people home safely, taking stock, and ensuring lessons learned are captured, shared, and inform current and future operations.
[English]
That is the current operations side of CEFCOM. Let me turn now to the second part of our mandate, which is to anticipate operations. To be effective at that core task, first and foremost we need to understand the global security environment and our national interests in this context. Briefly put, this means understanding the where, when, why, how and with whom we might need to operate. This is an ambitious task, and we accomplish it by engaging domestically with government partners, interdepartmental partners and internationally with our allies. Through these engagements, we seek to establish a common understanding of the problem, share information with our government and domestic partners, and work to support decision makers and decision making.
We also work to strengthen our relationships with traditional and new military partners around the world and to decide in advance the necessary frameworks for command and control, for intelligence and for support that, when the time comes, enable and accelerate deployment and enhance effectiveness in operations. It is through this process — this investment in preparedness — that we set the conditions for success and ensure that the CF are effective when deployed in operations.
What does the future hold for Canadian Forces in expeditionary operations and the CF at home, more broadly? I can tell you this: Unpredictability is up. Volatility is up, and uncertainty is up. This means that we must continue to invest in preparedness so that the CF are an agile, flexible force postured to respond to violence and instability or a natural disaster quickly and effectively anywhere they are directed to go by the Government of Canada, and at any time.
The army, navy and air force focus on readiness, ensuring that individuals, units and the tactical forces of the Canadian Forces are ready for deployment.
At CEFCOM, my team is working with our partners to advance our preparedness by continuing to improve our understanding of the global security environment, enhancing our relationships and supporting decision makers. Together, readiness and preparedness ensure effective, timely CF response and effectiveness in operations, both those currently under way and those we may be called upon to undertake next on behalf of the government and the people of Canada.
Thank you for the invitation. I am prepared to take your questions.
Senator Stewart Olsen: I have a very quick question. I am wondering about the roles of the people we have deployed. For instance, in South Sudan we have 15 CF members. When we deploy our people like this, I am assuming it is because we were asked for assistance. What would be the types of roles that our forces are deployed for in some of these areas?
Lt.-Gen. Beare: Thank you for the question. Each contribution of Canadian Forces to an international mission is a result of a Government of Canada decision to deploy to and to participate in operations. In the case of the 17 missions deployed today, all of them are actually manifested in terms of the mission intent through the framework of a UN mandate, a NATO or alliance mission, or partnership. The purpose for the intervention, or for being present, is manifested in a United Nations mission statement, a NATO mission statement or a partner mission statement. That is why we are there. Government decided, in the first instance, to participate and then, through the Chief of the Defence Staff, they have formulated how they would participate with military forces as a part of that effort.
The consequence of the mission is a consequence of the numbers we provide, the effect they have on their mission partners and the result of the mission at large. We are seeing that today in all 17 missions. In the South Sudan, the United Nations mandate there is to assist the government of South Sudan to establish order within its own borders, to help the South Sudanese government to provide safety and security to its own population, and to develop their own institutions so that they can become enduring over time. That is what the forces on the ground are doing, both police and military.
The specific jobs of the 15 are in headquarters and in the field. They are contributing to that partnered effort with their UN and police partners. Each one of them has a peculiar effect, contingent on the job they actually do.
Where we can, we always seek to provide as part of our contribution a Canadian leader within that multinational context who is able to provide us an understanding of the mission at large, in addition to those specific men and women who are doing special tasks.
The Congo today, as an example, has a Canadian colonel as the chief of staff, who is able to provide us a Canadian lens into not just what the nine Canadians in the Congo are doing but what the 17,000 forces there are doing from a UN perspective, and how it is progressing.
Senator Stewart Olsen: For our people there, you would have direct oversight; in other words, I know that we are working with NATO and the UN, but CEFCOM would have the direct oversight of our people; would it not?
Lt.-Gen. Beare: That is correct. There are two command and control models playing out at the same time. One is the mission, the United Nations or NATO, exercising the design and delivery of the operation at large, the sum of all the parts. At the same time, there is the national command that is ensuring the effective provision of support to Canadians and is ultimately responsible, as we are in law, for the support and the administration of our own people. On top of that, by being in the right places, we have a view into the entire mission at large as we enjoy today in Afghanistan, for example, through the office of Major-General Mike Day whose unique appointment allows us to see the entire campaign, which goes beyond what the 900 Canadians are doing within that mission.
[Translation]
Senator Robichaud: We have military personnel who work in parallel. You mentioned 5,484 police officers and military personnel. Is your mission to help NGOs ensure that humanitarian aid sent to those countries really gets to those who need it? Is that part of your mission?
Lt.-Gen. Beare: No, Senator. That falls under the responsibility of the organizations running the mission, namely, the UN and NATO.
Senator Robichaud: But you are part of the group, are you not?
You are part of the UN?
Lt.-Gen. Beare: Yes, our people who wear the blue beret are part of the UN. The chain of operational command that makes these decisions is a UN chain of command.
Senator Robichaud: Yes, I understand. But back to my first question: does humanitarian aid really get to the people who need it?
Lt.-Gen. Beare: The UN and the people deployed are aware of the needs. The aid gets to those who really need it. The UN works on the ground with the NGOs. We have the opportunity to better understand the decisions that they make because our people are deployed to give us that information. Decisions are made on the ground every day.
The Deputy Chair: A mission may be responsible for providing protection to the NGOs, but the delivery remains entirely on the civilian side of the mission and not the military side.
Senator Robichaud: It involves ensuring the security of the people who need to send the humanitarian aid.
The Deputy Chair: This is the case where protection is needed?
Lt.-Gen. Beare: If it is requested, yes.
Senator Robichaud: Are you asked to do this?
Lt.-Gen. Beare: Sometimes the deployed forces are asked to do it. And in that context, the forces are not solely Canadian.
Senator Robichaud: I fully understand. Thank you.
[English]
Senator Plett: Senator Stewart Olsen asked the exact question I was going to ask, so it has been answered.
Senator Lang: I would like to welcome our guest. I think most Canadians would agree that the way the Armed Forces have been organized and trained has met all the challenges that we have asked you to do, and you have done it pretty well.
We are going through changes, and you probably know better than others — or should know better than others — that with the transformation and moving out of the theatre in Afghanistan, our international obligations are changing dramatically, and subsequently our financial commitments are becoming less in some cases.
Perhaps you could tell us what is being done in the area of transformation and what we can look to in the future. I think you stated in your comments that, looking into the future, unpredictability is up, volatility is up and uncertainty is up. How will we meet the challenges of those changes and transformation? Will we be doing it differently, from your perspective, with the utilization of drones, satellite and other technological advances that we have experienced in the last number of years?
The Deputy Chair: If I may add, ambiguity is in.
Lt.-Gen. Beare: Are you referring to the environment, senator, or my answer?
The Deputy Chair: We will judge that soon enough.
Lt.-Gen. Beare: If I could, I can speak to some drivers for change. I think we all know there is a resource driver for change. Clearly, we need to make the best use of the resources available now and that we foresee being available in the future. There is another driver for change. We are familiar with the Canadian Forces transformation team report tabled last year. Some of its observations were that you could pursue efficiency while retaining effect, and that is a matter of public record and that is known to decision makers.
There is the change in the tempo of the deployed force. I would not say that the tempo of the world is not down per se, but the tempo of our commitment of our deployed forces is down. There is an opportunity to look at change in that context.
There is also sustainment, and any change I know that is being contemplated is committed to sustaining certain things. The first one is the guarantee at home, namely, the effective command and control of Canadian Forces and operations at home. There is also real partnership, an effective demonstration of partnership in the continental security with our U.S. partners and an ambition to sustain our capacity and capability to demonstrate leadership abroad as we continue to do today but in different numbers to a different effect. Those three things are definitely sustained.
There is no doubt some change is coming, but it is up to ministers and the chief to pronounce when those decisions are finally taken and when that way ahead is meant to be shared. We can anticipate at some point in the future that if change is coming, it will come from them and we will carry on with that change agenda with those drivers and outcomes still in mind.
In terms of our posture and how you deal with this, the language of preparedness is not a term which is used a lot. Readiness is a term we are very familiar with because it speaks to kinetic energy, if I can call it that. It is the capacity of the force to commit to an action and what is on the bench, and it costs money, time and energy to raise, train and sustain readiness.
Preparedness, if you will, is understanding how the security environment is evolving, who your partners are today or might be in the future, how you may need to operate with those partners depending on contingency and doing the homework in advance of a commitment to deploy for employment that accelerates the decision making. You have a better understanding of what is going on and you accelerate planning. You have a relationship with which you can plan to interoperate in any theatre of operations, like Libya, for example, and the tools you need to get a force there, to allow it to do its business on the ground, in the air or at sea. Command and control and intelligence and sustainment are predetermined. They may not pre-exist, but the plans are predetermined, and all that accelerates our understanding, informs decision making and when decisions are taken and accelerates the deployment for employment more effectively of the force with the partners along whose side it may operate.
If I had to demonstrate how we are investing in that today with today's resources, there are liaison officers. Every U.S. combatant command has a Canadian liaison officer, in NORAD, with Canada Command, SOCOM, Pacific Command, Central Command and Africa Command. We have our person, if you will, inside their lines to see how they see the world and what they may be anticipating.
It is also through the defence attachés, who are in multiple countries around the world and who can tell us what host nations are thinking and how they see the world evolve.
Then, here at home, it is about contingency planning, and we have three extant contingency plans. The first is for the humanitarian response based on the Disaster Assistance Response Team, the DART, with 250 Canadians at high readiness to go anywhere in the world, as we have seen in the past, to respond to humanitarian crises. It comes with a capacity to plan for evacuation of Canadian nationals in parts of the world where that evacuation may be required. We assisted in repatriating Canadians from Libya last year before the conflict started there, for example.
Then we have the contingency to deploy the necessary command and control to whatever Canadian Forces may be required in any unanticipated crisis and to ensure that we are able to deploy not just the tactical force, but the national command and control that must be there to enable it, the intelligence system that must be there to inform it and the support services that will allow them to operate a long way from home.
The best illustration of preparedness today in support terms is the support hubs, and we have announced and are putting a support hub into Europe. Kuwait has agreed to host a support hub for Canada, and other regions are engaging and we are putting support hubs into place. We anticipate we will need them if we are sending people a long way from home. All of that leads to better understanding, solid decision making and, ideally, a quicker response of Canadian Forces to operations when the call to be a long way from home comes.
Senator Lang: Could you clarify exactly what a support hub is?
Lt.-Gen. Beare: It has to be more than support, but you need to be able to call home, which is command, control and communications. We need to be able to understand the security and the threat environment to which we are sending our people, which is intelligence. We need to be able to get them there. We need to be able to fly them in, so our version of Air Canada. We need to be able to sustain them in terms of materiel, our Walmart. We need to be able to feed them, so our favourite grocery store, you get to pick. We need to put in place the provisions for the effective support for our people when they are in a region.
Logistics is a national responsibility that is never surrendered. We do not rely on our partners to ensure our people are fed, fuelled or otherwise. We deliver that as a national responsibility to our women and men down range.
The support hub is cold-storage capacity that you can turn on quickly. You have a port and/or airport through which you can operate, and you have anticipated the contracting or the support services that you would envisage for a region to enable operations. Today, Kuwait is providing us that hub for Afghanistan, for example.
The Deputy Chair: Long-range strategic planning of the Canadian Forces is not your purview; that is the purview of the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff. However, you are looking into the future based on lessons learned and anticipated contingency. Is that correct?
Lt.-Gen. Beare: That is correct. The vice is looking at the optimized form of the Canadian Forces in the future, given a range of possibilities informed by government policy. I am looking at the where, when, why and potentially with whom we may need to operate. That then drives us to where we are with contingencies, relationships and this IDM preparedness.
Senator Day: Thank you, general. Welcome. I would like to get a little clarification on the support hub that you have just discussed. Could I assume that it is an initiative under the command of the Canadian Operational Support Command, or CANOSCOM?
Lt.-Gen. Beare: Yes, senator. I know General Mark McQuillan very well, and he would love to come tell you the story. This is a smart move that fits as part of our anticipation of being around the world with Canadian Forces present in a range of contingencies. It is the logistics of being able to get there and sustain us while we are there.
Senator Day: You say there is a support hub now in Kuwait for Afghanistan. Does the Canadian Operational Support Command continue its role from the support hub into the operations theatre as well?
Lt.-Gen. Beare: It does. It uses the strategic lines of communication enabled by air and maritime forces, be they commercial or Canadian Forces. They deliver it, if you will, to the back door of our force deployed. Our task force commanders in the theatre of operations take it from there.
Senator Day: I am trying to give you the opportunity to illustrate that there are not silos here but roles to play that functionally work best through this command structure that has been created.
Lt.-Gen. Beare: Again, the principles are that we will be excellent at home, we will be responsible partners with their American partners, we will project leadership abroad and all of that will be sustained. Command of sustainment will persist in whatever model we pursue in the future.
Senator Day: You seem to have anticipated the question I asked earlier in relation to developing you as a commander of Canadian Expeditionary Force Command, developing the know-how and the need for the future, knowing what you need from the army, navy and air force. You state that the army, navy and air force focus on readiness, ensuring that the individual units and the tactical joint forces are ready for employment by you for your particular roles.
Then you say your team is "working with our partners to advance our preparedness by continuing to improve our understanding of what is necessary." Within your team, in developing a knowledge of what will likely happen and what you will need from the army, navy and air force in terms of the mixture of talent and that kind of thing, do they participate? Do the army, navy and air force have liaison officers with your team so they participate? Or is this something you develop and you communicate to them?
Lt.-Gen. Beare: I will explain it between two types of missions, the ones we are doing and the ones we anticipate.
In terms of the missions we are performing today, the connection between the force generator and the employer is very intimate. The needs for the force in the operations of today — Afghanistan is the best illustration of that — are mutually shared and understood by the employer and the generator.
If you will, I set the ambition for what that deployed force will do, and I table to the chief what I hope that force composition could or should look like. He will decide what it will be and he will direct what it will do. With that, the force generator will train and educate, inform the team to be good at that particular task.
The cycling of the lessons learned and observations from rotation to rotation is a combination of work that we do from the deployed theatre, our headquarters and the headquarters of all the force generators who are completely intertwined.
If you think about the adaptations that have occurred over the course of five years in southern Afghanistan, there is incredible adaptation driven by an operational need theatre, an expression of the requirement here, a decision by a chief and others to fill it, and then the training, education and capabilities that go down range to actually do it.
The air wing is probably a great example, bringing Chinooks and other things online. It was an incredibly agile response to a new operational requirement that involved everybody. The operations day to day are very intimate and highly connected.
In terms of the ones we anticipate, what we need to understand is there is a constraint to what the Canadian Forces will be capable of today and next year. There is already an appreciation of what our limits are, such as how far you can go, how long you will be there, what capabilities you can bring. We do not own everything, and we would not have enough to take on all 18 missions with all those UN and international forces. We have our contribution.
What we do is try to anticipate, given the nature of the security environment in the world today and the areas of interest today, given the potential requirement for a Canadian Forces response to respond to a national disaster, humanitarian crisis or a contingency; we seek to understand what our partners are thinking and how they are seeing that operational space, such as the U.S., the U.K., the French and other international partners. What are they seeing and anticipating?
We then deliberate amongst ourselves what that means for improving our liaison footprint, our intelligence architecture, shaping and accelerating our support hubs if you think you might need it before we put any burden on the force generators to task-tailor a force. We cannot decide for government what it would commit in a contingency or crisis beyond the known contingencies, like the DART, should a crisis emerge.
We are enhancing our understanding, our planning and preparedness. We are not putting a new burden on the army, navy and air force other than to note what their capabilities are now and what they foresee next year. Of course, we shape the influence of that based on what you might anticipate.
The qualities that the army, navy and air force bring are not limited to the platforms they own; it is about the people who actually do the business. What they are doing to generate jointness among the land, sea and air and joint and special forces is all good. It generates their agility, flexibility and adaptability. Where they are doing leader development and trainer education is good because it provides that human agility, agility of the mind, if you will, to deal with the complexity of what is going on today and where they might find themselves.
The force generators maintain relationships with international partners: air force to air force, army to army and navy to navy, which is good. That provides an acceleration of partnering should you find yourselves in other parts of the world. We are not designing the future of the Canadian Forces based on today's or tomorrow's anticipation of operations alone. We are using that to inform our preparedness, as well as to engage with the army, navy, and air force when we know or are told what government may want of them specific to particular places.
Senator Day: One last question, or do you want me to go onto the next round?
The Deputy Chair: I would appreciate next round. We will do that.
Senator Day: Yes, if we could.
[Translation]
Senator Robichaud: You spoke about establishing supply and service hubs. Do you have an idea of the cost that establishing these kinds of hubs would cost the armed forces? It involves a lot of equipment, everything you need, does it not?
Lt.-Gen. Beare: I recommend that you invite Major General McCullen to explain the concept and the facts concerning support operations. Support operations are not a pre-deployment of equipment or a pre-deployment of materials. It involves finding a location for deploying the equipment and resources when we start a new mission.
Senator Robichaud: That still means that you need facilities to receive or store equipment if the situation arises, right?
Lt.-Gen. Beare: Yes, for a short period of time. We do not keep equipment on site. For example, we are anticipating about a dozen requests from the Canadian Forces deployed to Kuwait. That involves very little equipment, aside from what is needed to do the changeover of equipment from one aircraft to another. We do not keep materials or equipment on site.
[English]
It is a flow through not a storage exercise.
[Translation]
Senator Robichaud: Before going to Kuwait, we were elsewhere in that part of the world, were we not?
Lt.-Gen. Beare: Yes.
Senator Robichaud: So my question was: how much does the move cost?
Lt.-Gen. Beare: Deployment costs money.
Senator Robichaud: The question needs to be put to someone else. Okay.
Lt.-Gen. Beare: But the capacity gives us a flexibility that we would not have had.
Senator Robichaud: I have no doubt about that.
There are five Canadian Forces members in Haiti. How many members did you start with to end up with five?
Lt.-Gen. Beare: I would have to get you the figures.
Senator Robichaud: Roughly?
Lt.-Gen. Beare: Roughly, a dozen.
Senator Robichaud: Just a dozen.
Lt.-Gen. Beare: Yes, absolutely. After responding to the humanitarian needs two or three years ago, we scaled back the military presence in Haiti very quickly to a few members of the mission staff, even in key positions. Currently, the mission's chief of staff is a Canadian colonel. He is at the core of the UN command for the Brazilian commander.
[English]
We are not present in numbers in Haiti. Other nations are, but the influence we have in the positions we are in today — bringing a Canadian flag, if you will, to a multinational effort — and the transparency we enjoy in where the mission is, where it is going, and how it is performing, by virtue of that positioning, is very powerful for us. It serves a need of the mission itself, which does not lack for boots on the ground. I have not heard a call for boots on the ground in Haiti, but I do continue to hear calls for another staff officer or specialist because it is that qualitative uplift of the mission at large that they are looking for and that we have been providing. This is an approach that we take for every mission, which is why I said, early on, that it is not the numbers alone that tell the story. It is where they are and what influence they bring to the mission and, ultimately, what lens they provide to us back in Canada that is really valuable.
[Translation]
Senator Robichaud: Are you satisfied with the progress in Haiti and are we going to have to stay there longer still? Do you have some idea? Is there a time frame?
Lt.-Gen. Beare: It is a UN mandate. It is created by the United Nations. From year to year, there is a review process to determine whether the mandate is still good, whether we are providing our own troops, or whether we have the means to cover the mission or not. I cannot say with certainty how they see the future.
[English]
I could offer that there is no doubt that the men and women we have deployed are delivering on the current mandate very effectively. However, they would also foresee that beyond the maintenance of stability, which is their core mandate today, an effort is required to continue to capacity-build in Haiti. Is that a military mission or not? Should other actors be doing that or not? That is for not for me to say, but there is no question that capacity development is required alongside the maintenance of the stability and security that is being provided by a combination of Haitian and international forces.
[Translation]
Senator Robichaud: So, you are satisfied with the security that you are providing to the people of Haiti so that they can prepare for local governance?
Lt.-Gen. Beare: The security forces are providing security. Yes, I am pleased they are carrying out their mission. There are all kinds of challenges, which I am sure you are aware of, but in the end, they are providing security.
[English]
Haiti, of course, needs that plus other development efforts.
The Deputy Chair: You have Task Force Freetown that is building capacity in Sierra Leone, and we are also doing so in Afghanistan. Do things like MTAP, the Military Training Assistance Program, capacity building in countries, the African Standby Force, and stuff like that fall within your area of responsibility also? Do you influence that or does that come from somewhere else?
Lt.-Gen. Beare: The IMAT mission is U.K.-led in a multinational partnership. Four nations are involved — Canada, the U.S., the U.K., and one other that escapes me right now. That is a capacity-building mission. One of the provisions under which we agreed to participate, with the U.K. leading, was that the result they are pursuing is Sierra Leone's capacity, both operational and institutional. That is being realized in some ways. At the front end, if you will, of the agreement to participate comes government-to-government engagement on why we are there and what results we are achieving. Governments agreed that that is a result we want to pursue together. Militaries then provide advice to government on the form of the military contribution they could make based on the constraints they agreed to. Every six months, I am paying particular attention to how it is going, with a view to that informing future decision making on adjustments to the mission and/or our contribution to it should that be required.
Today, there is an ambition for the Sierra Leoneans to deploy a battalion into Somalia. We have a multinational, small, military effort investing in the capacity building of a western African state, whose ambition — and they are working on it with the African Union and others — is to lift a battalion and put it into Somalia as part of an AU-UN framework. These are the kinds of results that are really heartwarming to see when you have been investing in capacity building and see it actually manifested.
[Translation]
Senator Nolin: Good afternoon, general. I am pleased to see you again. It is not uncommon to see countries rising to the challenge. For example, countries such as Bangladesh — I am looking at the deputy chair, who certainly knows more about this than I do — provide several military personnel to the United Nations intervention forces. The case is not unique to Sierra Leone. There is a sort of ripple effect in a number of these countries, when the United Nations decides to use military force, to raise their hands and do the job.
I am trying to understand your figures, Lieutenant-General. Let us say that I am an average Canadian, and I am trying to understand how many Canadian military personnel are deployed abroad.
In your statement, you mentioned 1,300. I do not think that includes everyone. You mentioned support hubs. I do not think that the support hubs are included in that 1,300.
Lt.-Gen. Beare: Yes.
Senator Nolin: Okay. I will cross them off one by one. Are all the logistics included in the 1,300?
Lt.-Gen. Beare: Yes.
Senator Nolin: That does not include the navy?
Lt.-Gen. Beare: Yes. We have 250 deployed —
Senator Nolin: Some just left today.
Lt.-Gen. Beare: Yes, Charlottetown. There were 250 deployed.
Senator Nolin: Is that number included in the 1,300?
Lt.-Gen. Beare: Absolutely.
Senator Nolin: But that does not add up. I am thinking about Canadians who are listening to us and hearing us say that we have 1,300 military personnel and that that includes everyone. And I have not asked you about the special forces.
Lt.-Gen. Beare: Or about the forces deployed in North America.
Senator Nolin: No, I understand. We just talked about North America. This is really abroad. This 1,300 includes logistics, the navy, military attachés in embassies?
Lt.-Gen.Beare: No.
Senator Nolin: How many military attachés are there?
Lt.-Gen. Beare: I would have to get you the numbers.
The Deputy Chair: That has been massively reduced.
Senator Nolin: But I am trying to understand how many Canadian military personnel there are and how much it is costing to support those military personnel. And the personnel who are there to ensure that the 1,300 Canadian military personnel do a good job are not counted in that. Civilians are included in that, is it just military personnel who are supporting the work?
Lt.-Gen. Beare: You are right, but the numbers are not high.
Senator Nolin: That is what I am trying to figure out.
Lt.-Gen. Beare: There are 1,300 military personnel in uniform in operation abroad.
Senator Nolin: So, in other words, there are more than 1,300.
Lt.-Gen. Beare: Yes, but they are not being employed nor deployed in operations. They are in the system for training abroad. They are in the NATO Airborne Warning and Control System. They are abroad but not on any mission with a specific name like Operation X.
Senator Nolin: And that does not come under your command?
Lt.-Gen. Beare: Exactly. If there is a mission or an intervention abroad that has a specific operational need, that falls under the responsibility of the expeditionary force.
Senator Nolin: I would like a more specific picture of the range of Canadian Forces who are deployed on mission. I want to know how many Canadians are deployed abroad.
The Deputy Chair: Determining the scope of the deployment of Canadian Forces members, which also includes the civil members of National Defence, is the responsibility of the Vice Chief of Defence. This includes various organizations. Military strategy is a part of an entity that falls under his responsibility. Officers are seconded to various institutions in several countries and they report to the chief of military training. Some people are in liaison posts with various armies throughout the world. Military leaders, or the Chief of Defence Staff, decided to send them into these places.
Those figures exist, but we are not talking about thousands of people, but rather, hundreds.
Senator Nolin: Where I am going with this is that after the budget was tabled a few weeks ago, we discovered that the Department of National Defence made large cuts. We heard the previous witness tell us that his operations had not been affected by that.
I would like to know if General Beare's operations are being affected by the cuts. That is the point of my question. I see that the cuts have already been made. People are already working with bare bones, and are trying to leverage the work of all of these people. I would like to know how the defence cuts have affected these operations.
The Deputy Chair: It is a more direct question.
Lt.-Gen. Beare: Insofar as current missions are concerned, there has been no effect.
Senator Nolin: No effects?
Lt.-Gen. Beare: No effect on today's missions.
Senator Nolin: The Minister of Finance is going to regret not having asked you to make cuts previously.
Lt.-Gen. Beare: One thousand three hundred members of the Canadian Forces are deployed in 16 missions.
[English]
We will take no risk in their command and control, no risk in their support and no risk in their intelligence. In terms of future missions, the capacity of the force to respond in speed, quantity and concurrency could be affected, but those determinations would need to be made by those who are generating the force as to how much air power, how much sea power, how much land power, how fast, how big and for how long. Those are strategic calculations, as the chair described, that the vice chief and others manage in the face of a long-term funding view. I want to assure you, I guess not so much about the effect of the budget but about the determination to not take any risk in what we have deployed today.
Senator Nolin: I am convinced of that, and I heard your predecessor. I and, I am sure, my colleagues are convinced of that; but we are trying to understand where those famous cuts will happen. We are talking about monies spent being no more — spending now but no longer. It means that cuts will happen somewhere; and it is not you and not the other command.
[Translation]
Mr. Chair, we will be happy to find that out.
The Deputy Chair: We must not forget that the force generators are responsible for the decisions involving the cuts that are made, to a large extent. That is to say, how many people there will be, how much training will be done, how much ammunition will be used, what type of equipment they will have for their training. The cuts will be made there, but the missions that are ongoing have not been subject to cuts. So we have to keep up the pace in the future. In the future, will they be able to keep 1,300? Will it be 1,000? Or will they be able to increase it to 2,000? The vice chief will make that decision.
If we want to know more, we will have to invite the vice chief so that he can give us that post-budget perspective. He would probably be an interesting witness who could provide you with answers.
Senator Nolin: Are the military personnel who are posted abroad — I am thinking of military attachés, among others, and also of those who are in Brussels, or New York, or Norfolk — included in the 1,300?
The Deputy Chair: No. And they are subject to cuts. In 1994, when I was the army deputy commander, we had to make massive cuts to military attachés. Among others, we eliminated the one in Pakistan because we felt we would never be present there.
Lt.-Gen. Beare: And he was replaced.
Senator Nolin: We sent three!
The Deputy Chair: Ten years later, we realized that we had to do that. These are decisions that fall under another authority. We can probably get back to this at a meeting of the steering committee.
Senator Dawson: I have a very brief question. In your comments and in your text, you used the expression "with our new military partners" several times. Can you tell me who you include in that definition of new military partners, as opposed to the Americans, the British, the French, et cetera?
Lt.-Gen. Beare: Our experience in Libya introduced us to new partners, partners from Qatar or the United Arab Emirates. We found ourselves in combat operations with countries we had not expected to be deployed abroad with some two years ago.
[English]
For us to consider where we might find ourselves in this changing world with non-traditional partners does not mean they are not partners, but they are non-traditional. They are not partners that we have treaties with or exist in a coalition or alliance with; but they are in the world, and we need to be prepared to understand them, engage with them and potentially, if the call comes, operate with them.
The preparedness language, if I may return to that, is about understanding that in advance. Through the vehicle's pre- warning, before a mission is conceived, is to have a relationship — our embassies, our attachés and our vehicles amongst others for those relationships — and to have the military command and control nexus through the U.S. combatant commands, British Permanent Joint Headquarters, the French CPCO, who command and control their militaries in the world, to understand how they are engaging with them. That is an acceleration of our ability to understand them and operate them with these non-traditional partners should those come. Clearly we are a partner today with Kuwait with the support hub, and we were a partner with the Emirates for many years on Camp Mirage, and we could see ourselves partnered with others in the future.
Senator Dawson: Thank you for that. That is another issue. I think that is part of our mandate. We are looking toward the future; in a changing world we will have different partners in the future, and I wanted to clarify. I had a strong feeling that would be part of the answer, but as you know some people are listening to us and they like to get a little more information. That term, "partner," was being used a few times and I wanted to define we are in a changing world and will be partnering with different people in the future.
Senator Day: For the record, China is operating on the piracy mission off the coast of Somalia, and that is a non- traditional type partner. That is one reason NATO visited China with some of our parliamentary groups, and I think it was important to put that on the record. That is another interesting development.
My question flows from, first of all, the NATO training mission under your command. We understand the policing aspect has not gone as rapidly, to be kind, as the military aspect of this. Can we meaningfully participate in the policing side with our police? Italy has a paramilitary type of police, and you mentioned you have had some police in the sub Sudan as well. Could you comment on that for us?
Lt.-Gen. Beare: I am modestly biased to the Afghan policing challenge, having been the deputy commander for police there for a year. I can say these matters of fact: There was no universally shared approach to, or international collaboration on, the police development agenda in Afghanistan until 2010. There were a variety of international actors, and every nation brought its own flavour and did its own work. The approach to police development in Afghanistan is about five years behind the army development effort when you start the clock from when the American training of the army started versus when the police effort was unified.
Within that police effort there are dozens of international police forces committed today in the NTM-A effort as well as in a European Union police effort, which are complementary versus competitive. They used to be competitive. The progress being made there is being informed by military leadership on the institution-development agenda — logistics, communications, budgeting — and by police professionals and trainers in the training of the police officers and the professionalization agenda to include Canadian civilian police members. As the Canadian civilian police mission today is in the NATO mission as well as in the UN mission there is more coherence now than ever before, but the challenges are huge. They are not being fought by police, military or Canadians alone. Dozens of nations are involved. It is much more coherent, but they have a long way to go to create a credible national police service, and they are on it.
As much as possible when government deploys its resources into a theatre or mission area, it is looking to achieve an effect for Canada. That includes military contributions, police contribution, aid developmental effort, diplomatic and trade efforts. The framework of our mission in the Sudan is not just the 15 Canadians there. It is the Canadian military mission with the police mission with the diplomatic mission with the developmental effort, which locally — through the mission lead in the embassy — seeks to provide the best value for Canada, but ultimately by ensuring our contributions to the UN effort in this case are the right ones for the UN mission at large. It is fundamentally the sum of the UN mission parts — civil, military, police — that will achieve the outcome that they are pursuing. It is good to go as a team Canada, but does not mean you need to be inside the same fence.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you. We will be discussing the possibility of doing a review on the lessons learned from Afghanistan in a separate study. Because of the time, I did not want to pursue the whole-of-government concept of readiness and preparedness that exists in DND and what exists in the other departments to meet these multidisciplinary missions that are now in existence. We will save that for when we look at the lessons learned and how the rest of the government is actually moving in, if not similar, at least attempting to move at the readiness and preparedness level that DND is doing.
Thank you very much and we wish you well. To the troops overseas and their families, nothing but our highest regard.
Lt.-Gen. Beare: Thank you.
[Translation]
The Deputy Chair: The last part of our hearing this afternoon will bear on the analysis of fundamental defence policies used in determining the use of the armed forces, and the level of preparation and investment necessary from our country in national defence.
In that context, we have had the opportunity of reading the documents prepared by various think tanks, in particular the Conference of Defence Associations, which Mr. Chapin, the director of research, produced with Colonel Petrolekas; I had the document distributed to you. It discusses Canada's strategic perspectives in 2012. We welcome him here to hear a short introductory statement, and afterwards we will open the discussion on the strategy underlying our defence policy.
[English]
Please proceed, Mr. Chapin; the floor is yours.
Paul Chapin, Director of Research, Conference of Defence Associations Institute, as an individual: Thank you, Mr. Chair and honourable senators. It is a privilege to be invited before this committee, and we thank you for allowing us to do so. We have been asked to speak to the report that our institute, the CDA Institute, released about two months ago. The Conference of Defence Associations is to be distinguished from the Conference of Defence Associations Institute; the institute is an independent, non-partisan, educational organization whose function is to illuminate issues related to national security and defence.
The paper we have prepared is a new venture for the institute. It endeavours to be the first of what we hope will be many annual assessments of the outlook for the year ahead. Let me say that we obviously cannot know the future, but simply because we cannot know the future does not mean we do not know anything about the future. We have a pretty good idea, for instance, of international meetings that had been planned long ago that will be held this year. We can speculate on the outcome of certain kinds of general elections in various countries. Therefore, the international year ahead is not the complete black box that one might assume. In addition, there are events and trends today that will clearly impact tomorrow.
Therefore, we tried in this report to take idle speculation and to narrow it into a few themes to try to get people to think about the future, maybe in a little more of a systematic way. It is a big, confused picture out there. We do not have the capacity institute to copy the procedures of the RAND Corporation and so on. Our capacities are limited enough that we need to focus on what we think are the most important things.
What were the findings of our study? I will say there were basically four points, and I will ask my colleague Mr. Petrolekas to cover a couple of them. The first was that the world is not becoming a more dangerous place. We may be downgrading our involvement in Afghanistan, but that says nothing about the general dangers that we will be faced with — we, Canada, but also the world in general.
We note in our report that there are four conflict situations that could burst into war in the course of this year. If they do not do so this year, I think there is a fair prospect that at some point or other we will see serious trouble related to those. The first is the one we are all aware of, which is in the headlines all the time: Syria. For the time being, Syria is a civil war, but it is beginning to spill over into the neighbourhood. The neighbours are a very large group — there are five or six countries, including Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon and Israel. You can imagine what might occur if these countries somehow become directly involved in the Syrian situation.
The second is the potential for problems in the Arabian Gulf. The Iranian pursuit of a nuclear weapon, however controversial it is and however murky our understanding of what their intentions are and what their timetable may be, might not be murky enough for some of the players in the region to stand down and wait to see what happens.
A third potential area of conflict is one that has been relatively out of sight and out of mind for 30 years, and that is the border between Israel and Egypt. It was effectively demilitarized and sanitized by an Egyptian military withdrawal from the Sinai, beginning in 1979 as a result of the non-aggression treaty that was negotiated between Israel and Egypt at the time. If Islamic radicals come back into power, or take power in Cairo, their expressed intention is to undo that deal. One does not know how that will work out, but it is clearly an area to be watched.
The fourth situation is the one on the Korean peninsula. We have seen small evidence already in the last several weeks of how volatile that situation can be and how many other countries are engaged in some of the stunts that the North Koreans have been pulling over the last several years. We have to worry that the situation there will unravel without everyone involved necessarily intending it to do so.
Those are four very dangerous situations I think we face at the moment.
Colonel George Petrolekas, Telecommunications Executive, as an individual: I will not belabour Afghanistan, which is the next item in the text, because I think General Beare certainly covered it. That said, it is worth recalling Secretary Gates's comments from the Munich Security Conference about three years ago in that we are still just running to catch up. An awful lot of time has been wasted and the outcome still remains in doubt.
Before I get to talk about China and the economy, many of the things that Mr. Chapin mentioned are punctual and almost tactical things; they are things we must concern ourselves with over the next year to two years. What is the net effect of those things? What happens if there is a radical shift in government in Egypt? What happens if Iran eventually develops a nuclear weapon? What happens with the American's strategic pivot to the Pacific?
Those are long-term strategic issues, and those are the things that we figured Canada really had not thought about and that Canada was not really prepared for.
It leads us into a discussion about China. As the Americans noted in their strategic guidance of this year, January 2012, there is a lot of obscurity with respect to what Chinese intentions are. What are their intentions in the near term in the South China Sea with maritime domain disputes? What are their intentions with countries that are, frankly, among our largest trading partners? The trading partners around the South China Sea and north into the East China Sea eclipse all our trade with any other region in the world. It is greater than the rest of the Americas, save for the United States, and greater than all of Europe.
Our strategic interests are shifting to the Pacific, yet we do not really see any evidence of thinking as to what Canada will do and how it will be implicated in that area.
When we were looking at our particular paper, we looked at three domains, if you will, and not in a linear fashion and not sequentially either, but in parallel. It is the effect of fiscal constraints on most of the alliance, the shifting of interest driven by economic interest, and also a sharpening of what the interpretation of national interest is based on our experience over the last 10 years, whether it be the American experience in Iraq, Canadian experience in Afghanistan, and in a general malaise or a weariness in the public to engage in very long-term engagements that you would euphemistically call "nation building."
The hierarchy, if you will, of national interest seems to have been sharpened to, first, the security and the sovereignty of nations; second, national economic interest; third, stability of the world order but more as it applies to economic interests as opposed to anything else; and fourth, not that we have abandoned it but certainly not placing the same attention to it that we did 10 years ago, is notions of rule of law, democracy and the propagation of all that through various programs.
If there is a shift driven by economy, if there is a refinement of national interest and, at the same time fiscal demands that increase pressures on us and on our allies, it requires some decisions to be made. The strategic landscape that you lay out does set out what your nation will do, how it will be represented, where it will go to pay attention, how it will equip its forces and what it will ask its forces to do.
However, it also shapes alliances, so I would suggest to you that one of the major changes in all this is that our holding of NATO, for example, as one of the pre-eminent pillars of Canadian collective security policy is now not as important as it once was. There will be a requirement, and I think Lieutenant-General Beare suggested it to you and you certainly questioned him about that towards the end of your questioning, about what are non-traditional partners. What are the other nations that we need to engage with, given the fact that our interests are shifting?
Based on that is why we came to the conclusion that there must be a comprehensive national security strategy being developed for Canada.
Mr. Chapin: That is Recommendation No. 1 in our report for a very good reason. One can have clever responses to particular situations, but at some point, you have to match your intentions with your capabilities. There is not a sense in Canada I think anymore, the way there might have been 10 or 20 years ago, that we all understand what the priorities are and we all know what we should be doing, even if there are times when we worry about capabilities and unity of effort and so on. I think we are now at the point where the conditions in Europe are such that we find ourselves too focused on their concerns and not sufficiently focused on our concerns. We are saying in the document that if there are some big international trends here — the Europeans are now 500 million people, and they have a European Union that has aspirations for a geographically larger and stronger European community — the rationale for Canada being involved in European security and defence is certainly not what it used to be. They remain our closest friends and allies. We have all of the historical and cultural ties, but that does not mean that is where we should be putting our effort. We are not proposing in this report that we abandon our effort in Europe or our relations with Europe or get out of NATO. However, we are saying the time has come when you are looking at developments in the Arctic, developments in the Americas and, particularly, developments in Asia-Pacific. The time has come to match your security structures and institutions to your broader national interests. If they have shifted somewhat geographically and functionally as well, maybe it is the time for a large review of our security architecture and what we need to be doing more broadly than in the Euro-Atlantic area — hence the need for some kind of a national security strategy that identifies principles and objectives and unifies the national effort.
We also think it is important that the role of the Canadian Forces be explained in that context. One of our fears, and it is because we have very close relations, obviously, with people in uniform, is that Canadians' expectations for what the Canadian Forces can do for Canadians may be disappointed if we are not planning properly. You cannot reduce the budget of the Canadian Forces, hence their capabilities, and expect them to be everything you want them to do. At some point there needs to be a conversation about what we want the Canadian Forces to do, and that explains and informs budgets and so on.
Finally, I think because we see the world as still a very dangerous place, we make a variety of recommendations to government and others about making sure they are on top of things and that they are involved in proper contingency planning. That goes not just for the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Forces, but also, as General Beare said, for the Department of Foreign Affairs, CIDA and the other institutions of government that we count on for our security.
The Deputy Chair: I have one small technical point, if I may, and it is addressed as no rebuke at all to the Conference of Defence Associations Institute. Am I correct in saying that your study was published in English only?
Mr. Chapin: Some parts of it are in French, but that is true, yes. This particular study is in English only.
The Deputy Chair: It creates an interesting scenario because we cannot distribute it officially as a document to the committee unless it is in both languages, so for the committee members who have read it, it was on their own cuff to do so, and I do hope that the institute in the future might consider producing things in both languages, not only for us but, in fact, for your wider readership.
Col. Petrolekas: Normally, we produce things in both languages. We ran out of time with our printer and got into a logistics problem, which was poor planning on our part.
The Deputy Chair: We are getting used to French texts later, but we cannot go by that now after 35 years of the law.
With that said, I have Senators Lang, Dawson and Nolin, and the chair will also have a comment or two.
Senator Lang: I would like to thank you for coming, and I appreciate the time and the effort that you put in to produce a document like this, and it does cause the public debate to continue to look forward, to try to see into the future and be prepared when events do take place.
One area that seems to me to be somewhat ignored in the premise of your report is the question of security and trade, namely, the importance of trade and how it affects our need for security both here and abroad. I was wondering why that was not included as part of your study to justify what Canada should be doing in the future.
If I could go back a bit, in respect to resources, you cannot ask the government to do everything if you are not prepared to pay for it. Right now, in this document, I do not see any thought given to how we will raise the revenues if we are going to expand our largesse and our presence in the various areas around the world.
That brings me to the area that I think is very important to our country, and I think it crosses the aisle in some cases. That is the question of our oil and our energy supplies and what it may mean to the rest world if we have access to purchasers other than the one purchaser we have now, which is the United States.
Most Canadians do not realize that because we have one buyer, in some cases we are depending on the marketplace. We are getting paid as little as maybe $25 to $30 per barrel less than the market will bear because we have one buyer, which is the United States.
As you know, there is a controversy going on across this country over the Northern Gateway pipeline. It would seem to me that an organization such as yours would see it of national significance to comment on something like that because, first of all, it gets our energy suppliers to another avenue, more purchasers, and at the same time, when you have more purchasers, they are somewhat dependent on you, which perhaps brings down the threat to some degree because there is a mutual interest in day-to-day living. Perhaps you would like to comment on that.
Mr. Chapin: Let me preface what Colonel Petrolekas will say on that subject. The paper has its limitations, partly because the institution that produced it has its limitations. It is a very small organization, and this is the first crack at a strategic outlook. If you indulge us, we hope that next year's will be better and the one after that will be better still.
For all of that, I think we did touch in some respects on the issues of the commercial interests and trade, but I will let Colonel Petrolekas speak to that issue more.
Col. Petrolekas: Not to apologize for it, but this is a series of papers that will be released during the course of the year. There is a paper four days away from release, which is on lessons learned from the Libya conflict. We are about three weeks away from a cybersecurity paper, which at the end of the day will serve as an adjunct to this. We did a paper about a year ago on the strategic impact of energy dependency.
In this particular case, what we really wanted to do was draw attention to the fact that there had not been much thinking. We mention, for example, in Southeast Asia the constricts of the Strait of Malacca, the percentage of maritime sea-borne traffic that travels through the South China Sea and the high percentage of liquid natural gas, about 70 per cent of the world's traffic, that flows north of the Taiwan Strait to feed Japanese and Chinese energy needs. At that point, it had still not been clear as we were writing this about Canadian moves toward the Northern Gateway pipeline and the impact, save for us to say that it was obviously an area of growing interest. It was going to increase maritime traffic and trade links and it was going to alter the equations with respect to energy dependency, energy flows and energy trade that at that point we had not found a way to flow through.
There is another paper as well that unfortunately we have not been able to share with you but were asked by Foreign Affairs to write in preparation for the NATO summit in terms of developing policy options, but I think I can safely share some of the things in there now.
We were asked to look at the NATO strategic concept and the implementation of it. One large section of the concept actually deals with oil communications lanes and the preservation of those lanes because of the direct impact on trade and the economic well-being of alliance states. Again, here is the disconnect between action and strategy.
In this latest round of budget cuts, Canada announced that it would no longer participate in the NATO AWACS program and it would no longer participate in the Alliance Ground Surveillance program, both cornerstones of what NATO would call smart defence and both cornerstones of NATO's capability in preserving or keeping an eye on exactly some of the things you mentioned in your multi-part question.
The decision was made strictly from an economic standpoint. There was political repercussion from cutting something to do with NATO. There was no thought given to it; it was a low-hanging piece of fruit and it was cut. We were trying to allude to the fact that you cannot just make cuts based on fiscal constraint without actually understanding why you are making those cuts and whether they fit within a foundation or a template of what your strategic thinking is. That is the evidence that we had not seen and that we were trying to bring to the attention of policy-makers. I hope I answered your question.
Senator Lang: I think it is important that we follow it up. Looking at a strategic paper for Canada, I do not think you can leave trade out and talk about security by itself. I think the two are interlinked, and that is the point I am making. I will take you to task to some degree because if something has been eliminated through the budgetary process, I am sure that whoever made those decisions would have done some soul-searching and it would be thought out to the best of their ability. It is not a case of going in and making a cut for the sake of cutting, no matter how justified.
I want to go further. I would ask you as an organization, in your next round of doing papers, which you referred to earlier, will you be looking at that aspect of it and seeing what Canada should be doing in that way? I think it is really important that we look at items of that kind because, as I said earlier, and I think you agreed, they are interlinked.
Col. Petrolekas: Absolutely.
Senator Lang: If we agree to that, I am hoping we can find something that brings all those aspects together and see whether there are strategic areas or options that Canada could look very seriously at in respect to the future.
Mr. Chapin: We have two other papers in the works, which I think will help illuminate the situation. One is an analysis of the defence budget. We expect that to come out as soon as the government documentation is available to the people who work on that for us. That will probably be about another week or month or so.
We have another paper coming out on CF transformation, which we expect to see sometime toward the end of summer or early fall on the first-year anniversary of the Andrew Leslie report. We are conscious that we need to get into these areas in a more systematic way.
The Deputy Chair: If I may intervene with the following: Inasmuch as we have and are looking into the posture of the Canadian Forces and its future employment and have been going through the different internal DND structures trying to respond to that, this is one of the first times we are getting an outside strategic analysis to go into whatever possible defence policy should look like.
Senator Lang's question and the response leads me to the point that maybe in the steering committee we might want to look at expanding this side of the look we are doing now in regard to other dimensions, looking at the future strategic focus of Canada. Right now, we are just working with the Canada First paper but not something on a grander scale.
I think we will take that under advisement in the steering committee. Thank you for raising that.
Senator Day: As a supplementary, Mr. Chair and Senator Lang, there was an indication that a paper will be coming out in another couple of weeks, and that is on the impact of the budget on DND. That seems to me to be critical to what we are doing now. It might be a good idea to put that on the list and invite our witnesses back once that paper is prepared.
The Deputy Chair: We will have to, in committee, agree to get the paper in English only. If that is acceptable, we will do that.
Senator Day: Will the next report be in both official languages?
[Translation]
Col Petrolekas: I have learned my lesson, and I will ensure in future that texts are submitted in both official languages.
[English]
The Deputy Chair: As Senator Lang mentioned, there is a different dimension to what we are looking at that must be brought in comprehensively. That is interesting, and we will certainly monitor it.
Col. Petrolekas: To add one thing, aside from trade, we could overload people. When we mentioned that trade interests in Asia eclipse those of Europe, we were trying to point to larger trends. I could go into deeper numbers for you. The number one tourist destination for Canadians, aside from the United States, is Mexico. Yet, 153 Canadians have died there over the last five or six years. There are 1,500 people who die there every year through a drug war that influences things in our own neighbourhood, whether it be routing drugs through the Caribbean crescent, Jamaican gangs in Toronto, Mexican gangs in Vancouver, and so forth. We are absolutely conscious of the interrelationship of all these things. To come back to a lack of a national security strategy, certainly the government has issued an Americas strategy, but there is not enough detail, from our point of view, to inform practitioners, whether it be members of the Canadian Forces, Foreign Affairs, CIDA, or all of the other interlocutors that play in the international space, to clearly articulate what Canada wishes to achieve in those areas. Your point is extremely well taken, and our thinking very much parallels yours.
The Deputy Chair: The chair does not want to impose, but your paper does speak of the natural resources extraction industry in Africa, the alignment of that with CIDA development, and the risks that we have of states imploding where natural resources are of significant interest to us. What we do about Africa has an angle. It was alluded to in the paper, but it could go further.
Senator Dawson: You are going to be presenting a paper on cyberthreats, I think, in the next few weeks. I hope that would also be si c'est possible. Canada does not have a digital policy. We do not encourage digital literacy. This is not this government; it is governments over the last 20 years. We have been avoiding it because, politically speaking, there is no strong advantage to it. My children are cybercitizens; they are digital citizens. I consider myself a digital immigrant. I have learned to work in the digital world. We see that governments, including this government, are like digital tourists. We play with the digital world when it interests us, but some of the cuts mentioned are all in the realm of new technology. If we are not keeping up with the cyberthreats that exist around the world, even though we have all kinds of nice defence, we are not keeping up.
Mr. Chair, you are the one who brings us back to the fact that we have to be looking not at next year but at the next 10 years. We have to get a digital policy for Canada so that Canadian citizens understand that every time we get into the digital world — opening a website, you are buying a computer from a foreign country — we are in the situation where we do not know how much of that digital world is being invaded. I am asking a question, but I will be waiting for your paper. It is not only defence but a whole government policy of recognizing that we are in a digital world and basically playing tourist right now.
There was a case in Estonia. Estonia is quite fragile because they are a digital society. They do not have cheques in Estonia; they do everything through technology. They pay their parking meters by cellphone. Their cabinet sits with computers. They were attacked, a few years ago, by someone who has not been mentioned, but the reality is that we need to be sure that we are not putting our citizens at risk. We are lagging behind in a digital society. We need to catch up, not only for economic or health purposes but also for our own security. We are vulnerable because we are not an astute cybersociety, and we have to become one.
Col. Petrolekas: There are societal issues that you talked about that are important, but, from a security and a policy standpoint, here is the difficult thing: There has been no policy discussion here. For that matter, there has been very little policy discussion across the West on this particular subject, except possibly in the United States. President Obama has talked about it.
The United States is starting to look at cyberspace as a domain similar to air, land, sea and space. It is a domain in its own right. If your nation is attacked in that cyberspace domain, what triggers a reaction? What triggers Article 5 for NATO? What triggers collective defence? There are certainly policy considerations in the type of security that you have and the protection of the electrons that flow but also in the protection of the physical infrastructure that supports the movement of electrons through this digital economy.
I could point you to buildings in New York City where every single carrier in the United States meets in this big 18- storey building in downtown New York. That is where all traffic is interchanged. When Bell Canada hands over to Verizon, who then hands over to Bell South, who takes it across the pond on one of the fibres to British Telecom, all those interconnections happen in one building in New York. One building in Los Angeles, One Wilshire, is a similar building.
Senator Dawson: Do not give the address.
Col. Petrolekas: They are very well known. They are known by all telecom operators.
There are the electrons and the physical infrastructure, but, from a policy standpoint, how does the security apparatus of the nation state respond to what can be clearly traced as an attack on your physical infrastructure through a cyberspace domain? Is it any different than an attack on you on the sea or in the air?
The Americans are starting to think that way, and President Obama has come out clearly and said, about three months ago, that they would consider an attack on the infrastructure of the United States, through cyberspace, as a physical attack on the United States, which therefore triggers a number of policy considerations. We do not think that level of thinking has been done in Canada yet.
The Deputy Chair: Matthew Fisher, on November 14 last year, wrote an article, "Canada puts up $477-million to foil cyber attacks," which was on the Wideband Global SATCOM Program with the Americans, so there is a certain realization of that. However, no one is touching on what happens if Google goes rogue and if Google's replacement goes rogue, which is an even grander scale problem.
[Translation]
Senator Dawson: We will have to ask the witness to come back.
Colonel Petrolekas, insofar as possible, if we could have a French version, this would make our work much easier. There is a digital culture, and there is a related digital English-French issue in Canada. As for the telecommunications issue, we will not be threatened because we have not made great strides there yet.
Senator Nolin: Thank you for having accepted our invitation. I did not read your report, but I looked at it briefly when I received a copy of it. It would appear that you have given Canada's security needs some very deep thought.
I believe you state in your document that the fact that Canada signed a collective defence agreement with European countries and our American neighbours over 60 years ago has served Canada's security well. You conclude that Canada must turn to the west, look at its interests in the west, and reflect on a long-term defence policy.
My first question is the following: do you believe that Canada should consider a type of agreement similar to the one it developed over the past 60 years, at first with 8 North American and European partners — and now with partners from the Asia-Pacific region?
Mr. Chapin: I think the answer is yes.
Senator Nolin: So how do we go about doing that now?
[English]
Mr. Chapin: That is the question, and there are at least two avenues that can be taken.
The first is the avenue that NATO has adopted, which is to learn from this experience in Afghanistan where 28 members of NATO were fighting and another 15 or 20 countries were fighting alongside to build on that base, as the alliance has done, and to develop firmer partnerships with like-minded countries who can work with NATO on common causes. You could see the potential down the road for development of that institutionally and more mechanistically with greater sharing of intelligence and information and greater participation in meetings. Many of those sorts of things are happening at a fairly low level.
The question is: Do you think you can take some of the smaller European members with you into a more formal set of obligations that take them way out of their comfort zone? We do not have any problems with the British, French and maybe the Spanish, Dutch and Italians understanding that they have global interests that need to be protected. However, can you take all of NATO with you as an organization?
My personal view, because the institute has many views not one view because we are not an advocacy organization, is that we need at least to begin a parallel process of building structural relationships with like-minded countries in the Asia-Pacific region. NATO already has identified some of these as potential partners. We think we need to fast-track that process with Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and maybe Singapore; and there are other countries in the region. Indeed, the Americans have pivoted towards the Asia-Pacific and are re-establishing their military relationships with countries that, in some respects, took their distance from the United States some years ago, such as the Philippines and Vietnam, and are putting a small marine unit into Australia. Those are indicators that something down the road is going to happen in terms of U.S. relationships, whether it is simply hardening of bilateral relationships or the beginning of some multilateral arrangement. If it is to go multilateral, we need to be involved in that.
Through the 4 Eyes — Australia, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom — arrangement, we already have quite good ties with the Australians. My sense is to push NATO hard to put substance to its partnership policies and to work in parallel on tightening your relationship with people who are already in the region.
[Translation]
Senator Nolin: Personally, I think that there are more European countries that share your opinion, but that is almost a detail.
[English]
Mr. Chapin: At meetings of the ASEAN Regional Forum, for instance, there are a lot of countries already involved in Asia who are there by invitation of ASEAN, and showing their interest in the security of the region. There is an institutional base to work from.
[Translation]
Senator Nolin: I would like to come back to this partnership. The structure, not only the military one, but the human infrastructure that NATO has developed over the past 60 years has cost a great deal of money; it was very expensive, including the errors that were made over the years.
If Canada is to convince its partners to build a new structure, I would like to hear from you why we should not attempt to use the NATO model and extend it to Asia-Pacific? Would that be the solution, to take the NATO model and expand it? What about the United Nations, then? I am already hearing certain Canadians say to us: We have the United Nations, are you attempting to destroy the multilateral operations of the United Nations in order to set up a collective defence organization? Do you see the dilemma Canadian politicians will face?
Mr. Chapin: To be frank, I see that as the United Nations' problem, not ours.
Senator Nolin: No, I understand. By the way, I appreciate your first finding, which I read.
[English]
Mr. Chapin: As an historic note, when NATO began, it began as a promise; it was a treaty.
Senator Nolin: It was a one-pager.
Mr. Chapin: Yes. We agree to help each other if attacked. It was only with the beginning of the Korean War that people realized they needed to put some structures and forces in place to give credibility to the warning that we were all in this together and would defend ourselves together. You could see maybe a treaty or alliance arrangement developing in Asia and being gradually supplemented with military capabilities.
Senator Nolin: Having a treaty, we can convince other countries, given the common security interests. My concern is the structure. Will we reinvent what took us 60 years to build? We have a model. Will we create another one or expand the one we already have?
[Translation]
Col Petrolekas: In our opening remarks, we mentioned that we were not advocating turning our backs on NATO.
Senator Nolin: I understand that.
Col Petrolekas: What we have built with NATO over the past 60 years is the very thing that makes coalitions of the willing possible. These kinds of coalitions would not have been possible without the NATO structure and all the discussions around standardization and such. If we look at NATO countries that are more internationally minded, we are talking about the British, certainly the French, definitely the Dutch, the Americans, a few others and us.
Senator Nolin: Do you mean in the beginning?
Col Petrolekas: No, I mean now. Our first choice was to tell NATO it should expand its horizons. NATO, itself, even mentioned that in its strategic plan for 2010, indicating that it needed to invite partners to participate in Afghanistan and to enter into a formal relationship with Australia, for instance, not just militarily, but also politically — perhaps not as a member, though.
The other thing we pointed out to the foreign affairs service is that the NATO border does not extend to the western coast of France, but to the western coast of North America, so it already included the Pacific. The first choice, then, is to expand NATO's horizons and those NATO itself mentioned a number of times when setting up the NATO Response Force. In terms of carrying out the concept, NATO also talked about global communication channels, not communication channels across Europe.
So I think it is our responsibility to say to NATO: "You are the ones who told us this. Let us push our allies towards a more global-minded vision." If that does not work, we still have agreements within NATO, including Four Eyes, Five Eyes and the French.
Senator Nolin: All of us will be keeping a very close eye on what happens in Chicago in May.
The Deputy Chair: Indeed. I am going to hand the floor over to Senator Robichaud, but I would like to make a comment first.
[English]
Remember that NATO had a threat, and when it lost its threat in 1989 and 1990, it was trying to figure out where it was going. It did not want to go out of area, so it went to Yugoslavia but not to Africa. It has been learning that over the last 20 years. The UN, which is not mentioned in your paper, was carrying the can. I still do not see NATO going south of the Sahara, so there is a whole area that the paper maybe has taken a decision on.
Col. Petrolekas: There are two missions just off the coast of Somalia at the moment: the EU mission and the NATO mission. There are NATO flags flying elsewhere.
[Translation]
Senator Nolin: Mr. Chair, to round out your question, I want to say a little something. Remember that the Africa- NATO issue is a two-way street. The Africans may not have wanted to see the NATO countries.
The Deputy Chair: We will come back to this later.
Senator Robichaud: You talked about areas of conflict such as Syria, Iran, Israel, Egypt and Korea. How important would you say Canadian diplomacy is in terms of any possible action? Have we lost too much of our influence in that area to do any good? Are we still an important player?
Mr. Chapin: Diplomacy has to be paramount. I used to be a diplomat, so I am very aware of what diplomacy can do.
[English]
My problem, though, is that our diplomacy has declined over quite a long period of time. Diplomacy needs to be armed, not just with military forces but with development assistance, technical assistance, energy, imagination and with a certain measure of entrepreneurship. We have not had that kind of diplomacy. We have had individual departmental efforts, sometimes very noble, sometimes quite successful in individual engagements. However, in my view Canadian diplomacy has declined quite dramatically over the last 20, 30 years. It is time to once again to come back to our proposal for a national security strategy. That is a strategy that explains what we are trying to do together and mobilizes all of the resources of the state, of which diplomacy should be a principal one.
An example of the inadequacy of our current diplomacy: If any threat is posed to Canada more severe than the potential of a North Korean missile armed with nuclear weapons I do not know what it is, but we are not part of the six-party talks with North Korea. We are more engaged now in the Middle East than we used to be, but Canada does not have a Middle East strategy. We are not involved much in the Iranian discussions. We have become more involved over the last year or so, but for a very long time we let other people worry about Iran.
I am saying there is a very large role for diplomacy, but you do not leave diplomacy to your diplomats. Your best diplomats are your national leaders, your ministers engaging with the leaders in other countries to try to solve some of these issues. I am a strong fan of diplomacy, but it must be focused and energetic, and it has to be resourced.
The Deputy Chair: Gentlemen, thank you very much. There are other questions of course — like the responsibility to protect that we did bring in and where does that fit into the exercise — which I did not read much in your paper. However, I look forward to future papers and opening up this strategic dimension of our study. Thank you for doing that.
Mr. Chapin: Thank you for having us.
The Deputy Chair: This session is now over.
(The committee adjourned.)