Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
National Security and Defence
Issue No. 4, Evidence - Meeting of May 30, 2016
OTTAWA, Monday, May 30, 2016
The Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence met this day at 1:03 p.m. for the consideration of Bill S-205, An Act to amend the Canada Border Services Agency Act (Inspector General of the Canada Border Services Agency) and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, and study on issues related to the Defence Policy Review presently being undertaken by the government.
Senator Daniel Lang (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Welcome to this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence for Monday, May 30, 2016. Before we begin, I would like to introduce the people around the table. My name is Dan Lang, senator for Yukon. On my immediate left is the clerk of the committee, Adam Thompson. I would now like to invite the senators to introduce themselves and state the region they represent, starting with our deputy chair.
Senator Jaffer: My name is Mobina Jaffer, and I'm from British Columbia.
Senator Kenny: Colin Kenny, Ontario.
[Translation]
Senator Dagenais: Senator Jean-Guy Dagenais from Quebec.
[Translation]
Senator Oh: Victor Oh, Ontario.
Senator Moore: Minister, welcome. Wilfred Moore from Nova Scotia.
Senator White: Vernon White, Ontario.
[Translation]
Senator Carignan: Senator Claude Carignan from Quebec. Good afternoon, minister.
[Translation]
The Chair: Colleagues, we will be meeting for four hours today. On our first panel, we will be continuing our study of Bill S-205, sponsored by Senator Wilfred Moore of Nova Scotia. Bill S-205 seeks to amend the Canada Border Services Agency Act (Inspector General of the Canada Border Services Agency) and to make consequential amendments to other acts. The intent of the bill is to increase oversight and accountability for the Canada Border Services Agency by establishing an office of the inspector general. The bill also provides for the inspector general to review complaints from the public and for the courts to offer remedies to complainants.
The bill falls under the ministerial mandate of the minister responsible for the Canada Border Services Agency, the Honourable Ralph Goodale, Minister of Public Safety.
Colleagues, it's indeed a positive sign that the minister responsible expressed his interest in appearing before the committee to speak to this bill.
Minister, this is your first appearance before the committee. I'd like to extend to you a special welcome, and I understand that you have an opening statement.
Hon. Ralph Goodale, P.C., M.P., Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness: Yes, I do, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for the invitation to be here. I am very glad to have this discussion, especially on the topic that has been presented to the Senate by my friend Senator Moore.
I am very pleased to appear today with respect to Bill S-205. As you say, Mr. Chairman, it seeks to amend the Canada Border Services Agency Act to create an independent review body for the CBSA that would be headed by an inspector general.
[Translation]
The Canada Border Services Agency is a critical organization when it comes to protecting the security of Canadians. While carrying out its mandate, it is, quite literally, on the very front lines, working to ensure Canada's security each and every day.
[English]
Let me give you a sense of what the work of the CBSA entails and what it means in terms of outcomes for Canadians. I think it is an agency that is, quite frankly, not very well known.
In 2015, CBSA's front line processed approximately 95 million travellers to Canada. That means they were processing people arriving in this country at the rate of something more than 260,000 every day. More than 13 million commercial transactions were processed in 2015, and more than 32 million courier shipments. Each day CBSA staff help move goods across the longest international border at a rate of over $1 million per minute. The CBSA also collected about $29 billion in duties and taxes, which accounts for about 10 per cent of all of the revenues of the Government of Canada.
On the enforcement side, CBSA officers made more than 8,000 drug seizures in 2015 and close to 3,000 seizures of prohibited weapons.
The agency carries out the mammoth task of securing our national borders while, at the same time, supporting the economic prosperity of all Canadians, and it does so with considerable success. That said, Mr. Chair, given the powers and the authorities vested in this organization, ensuring an effective system of review and scrutiny is absolutely essential.
Currently, there are several review mechanisms in place to address traveller complaints, as well as internal and external processes for immigration and customs review. For example, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act provides a broad range of remedies, for both ministerial review and independent review by the quasi-judicial Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, as well, ultimately, as the Federal Court.
The CBSA, however, does not have independent review of officer conduct, and that is a gap that definitely needs to be addressed, as Senator Moore intends in his bill.
Mr. Chair, while I agree absolutely with the spirit behind Bill S-205, I cannot support its detail at this time for two reasons: First, the bill has some technical defects in the way that it is drafted; and second, the government is launching, almost immediately, a public consultation process on our national security framework that will touch directly on the subject matter of this bill, and I need that consultation before I can commit to specific legislation.
On the technical issues, let me begin first with the use of the word "monitor'' in the legislation that's proposed in the mandate for the inspector general. In my view, that term is not sufficiently clear. Does it mean real-time supervision or oversight of day-to-day activities or an after-the-fact review? I think that needs to be specified and verified.
It's also unclear whether the mandate of the inspector general would cover the monitoring of all the CBSA's activities, including operational, administrative and managerial activities.
Further, the bill does not establish whether or how the inspector general would interact with the review processes which already exist within or outside of CBSA, including independent, quasi-judicial bodies, such as the IRB, the Canadian International Trade Tribunal, the Canada Agricultural Review Tribunal, and those other review processes provided for in other legislation and through the courts.
This could result in duplication of review activities, possible confusion, some contradiction between different processes, and the risk of conflicting outcomes. All of this needs to be very carefully thought through because we want a review mechanism which works effectively for Canadians.
[Translation]
In addition, the bill would authorize the inspector general to have access to any information under CBSA's control, including cabinet confidences. As a point of comparison, I would note that the Security Intelligence Review Committee, which reviews the activities of CSIS, does not have access to this type of information.
[Translation]
Mr. Chair, for reasons like these, I cannot support Bill S-205 as it stands, but that is not to say that I oppose the intent behind the bill. Quite to the contrary, I support that intent, and I congratulate Senator Moore for bringing this issue into the public domain, as he has done before.
Our government has been very clear about the need to strengthen review and accountability in our entire national security framework, and that must include review for the CBSA. We are, in fact, taking the steps needed to make evidence-based decisions related to review mechanisms for CBSA activities.
The government has committed to establish a committee of parliamentarians, including senators, to review and scrutinize the security and intelligence activities of all departments and agencies of the Government of Canada, including the CBSA. It's very much the intention of the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Mr. Leblanc, to present legislation in that regard before the summer. So that would be a brand new element of review in our architecture of national security in this country. This has been a topic raised for the past 12 years. The Auditor General raised it as a gap in our system of review and scrutiny for security and intelligence.
A piece of legislation was presented to the House of Commons in about 2004 or 2005. It did not proceed to be passed at that time, but the idea has been around for quite some time. Canada is the anomaly in the Western world when it comes to not having a parliamentary vehicle for providing this review of security and intelligence. We propose to remedy that anomaly. We will present legislation before the house adjourns later on in the month of June.
In addition, we will soon be launching a very thorough public consultation about our national security framework, one that I hope this committee will consider contributing to, because you will certainly be invited to participate in that process. We have simply gone too long in Canada without having a serious discussion about how to achieve two critical, simultaneous imperatives very much needed in the public interest. Number one, are we being as effective as we can possibly be in keeping Canadians safe? Two, are we safeguarding the values, the rights and freedoms of Canadians, and the generous, open, inclusive, diverse character of our country? We need to accomplish those two things in lockstep together.
One part of that consultation will examine how well existing oversight and review bodies function. In addition, it will seek to answer what sort of independent review is needed for security agencies which do not currently have one, such as the CBSA.
The result of this consultation could lead to a finding that CBSA should have an inspector general function similar to the one that's found in Senator Moore's bill. I feel very strongly, however, that the results of that consultation should come before we proceed with the creation of such an office. There may well be other alternatives to provide the review mechanism.
Finally, in the interest of providing greater transparency and accountability, I have directed the Department of Public Safety to undertake a broad internal assessment of all of the review functions which exist within the public safety portfolio with respect to the RCMP, with respect to CSIS, with respect to all the other activities of the department. The objective of this review would be to identify gaps and best practices to ensure that review bodies have the capacity and the capability to effectively and efficiently carry out their respective mandates.
The findings stemming from all these initiatives will be relevant to the discussion about the future review mechanism for the CBSA.
To conclude, Mr. Chair, I simply want to assure all members of this committee that as Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness I am committed to ensuring that our border services are world class and that they are worthy of the trust of Canadians. In order to accomplish those two things, a review agency of some nature is required, and we intend to proceed with that once we have our consultation concluded.
I look forward to working very constructively with both houses of Parliament to achieve these goals.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Minister. I'm very impressed with your opening statement. It's brought a lot of information here, but of course it brings a lot of questions with it as well. I'm going to start questioning with Senator Carignan because he's going to have to leave very shortly, and then I'm going to go to Senator Moore as he's the sponsor of the bill. Senator Carignan, if you would begin.
[Translation]
Senator Carignan: Minister, I have listened to your presentation. On the one hand, you say that there are technical defects in the bill's wording and that there is an issue with passing it now, before having conducted public consultations on our national security framework, which could have an impact on the bill.
On the other hand, in the same presentation, you say that you intend to introduce a bill that would create a committee of parliamentarians composed of MPs and senators whose mandate would be to review the activities of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
How is it somehow acceptable to introduce a bill on the oversight of CSIS activities, without waiting for the results of a public consultation process, but inappropriate to move forward with Senator Moore's bill now? Unless part of the national consultation itself involves the creation of the parliamentary committee, notwithstanding the bill's introduction before the summer recess.
Would you be able to provide us with some clarification on that point?
[English]
Mr. Goodale: Senator, thank you. During the election campaign, we made a very specific commitment about the establishment of a committee of parliamentarians. It was an explicit undertaking to Canadians as a part of a total governmental response to the fallout from Bill C-51. One of the strongest criticisms of Bill C-51 was that new powers were conferred by that legislation without providing any new elements of review, oversight or scrutiny. During the course of the election, we undertook to Canadians that we would remedy that defect.
As I mentioned in my remarks, a good deal of work has been done on this topic historically by the Auditor General, by previous Parliaments. It didn't result at those previous stages in actually producing legislation that was passed by Parliament, but a great deal of homework has been done. In addition to that, I have listened very carefully to what Canadian members of Parliament have been saying in the public domain since the election about these issues, the follow-up with respect to Bill C-51.
I've also had the opportunity to consult our Five Eyes allies in New Zealand, Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom. I've personally undertaken some detailed examination of the approaches to these issues in the U.K., as well as in France. We have, I think, a very well-developed proposal for the committee of parliamentarians, and our commitment was to get that into the public domain as rapidly as possible.
It is a measure under the sponsorship of the government house leader because it affects both the parliamentary and the executive architecture of government. The substance of the security work that needs to be done tends to fall primarily within my department and portfolio, but not exclusively. There are, in fact, 17 different departments and agencies of the Government of Canada that have some kind of security or intelligence role.
So we feel that we're very well advanced and well positioned to bring forward the legislation to the committee of parliamentarians.
But that's just one element of the response to Bill C-51 that is required. There will be other elements. The new office on community outreach and counter-radicalization will be part of the response. A more detailed response on cybersecurity will be part of what we bring forward. Specific amendments to Canada's anti-terrorism legislation will be part of the response, and we detailed some of those proposals in the campaign platform.
As we've done all of this work over the course of the last six months or so, it has become clear that there are, within the existing architecture, gaps in the review and scrutiny procedures that a committee of parliamentarians will not totally solve. It will add a new level of activity, but it won't necessarily solve the gaps in the architecture beneath that level of activity. One of those is with respect to the CBSA. We agree very much with the principle of what Senator Moore is proposing, but we need a little more time, and we want to go through the consultation with Canadians on exactly the right way to do it.
It may be an expansion of an organization like the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP, or it might be a stand-alone version of that that applies exclusively to CBSA. It could be the concept of a super-SIRC that some people, like Professor Forcese, for example, have proposed. There are different permutations and combinations that we want to consider in detail. We are going to fill that gap. The question is how to do it properly.
Senator Moore has put forward one useful idea. We want to consider all of them and make sure that we put forward the very best proposal.
[Translation]
Senator Carignan: You seem reluctant to provide the inspector general with the kind of authority that Senator Moore is proposing and to provide access to cabinet confidences.
Am I to understand that this reluctance may extend to the committee of parliamentarians, which would mean that you would not want to give access to cabinet confidences to this committee of parliamentarians tasked with overseeing CSIS?
[English]
Mr. Goodale: The detail will be put forward in the legislation. As I said, Minister LeBlanc is anxious to present that legislation very quickly so that it can be in the public domain and Canadians can consider it.
The objective, though, is to provide members of Parliament who will have the appropriate security clearance with respect to confidentiality and will have extraordinary access to privileged and confidential information so that they can perform an effective review and scrutiny function. The exact detail of how that architecture will fit together will be laid out in the legislation, and it will be forthcoming soon.
Senator Moore: Thank you, minister, for being here.
Arising out of your comments, I'm encouraged to hear you say that you support the spirit of the bill, that you have not discarded the idea of an inspector general or some sort of office to fill that function.
Mr. Goodale: It is, indeed, Senator Moore, one of the active options.
Senator Moore: Thank you for that. Towards the end you say you are committed to ensuring that our border services are world class and worthy of the trust of Canadians. That is paramount.
Mr. Goodale: It is.
Senator Moore: Right now, let me suggest that that does not exist by reason of the fact that you have to look at the review process. Well, there's none. It's internal. I don't think that visitors to our country have a sense of comfort that they're going to have a fair and full hearing and treatment when it's all done internally. That's why I think the importance of the inspector general as an independent arbiter is very important to this whole process, whether it's through what you may come through with or whether it's the bill that's before this committee.
You are talking about bringing your bill before the summer recess.
Mr. Goodale: That's the bill on the parliamentarians.
The Chair: Oversight.
Senator Moore: That's the bill on providing an oversight committee.
Mr. Goodale: It will create by legislation a committee of parliamentarians with a mandate to examine all departments and agencies of the Government of Canada that have an intelligence or security function.
Senator Moore: So the bill comes in in June but probably won't get debated until fall, I expect.
Mr. Goodale: My goodness, you're a pessimist.
The Chair: He's a realist.
Senator Moore: I'm just aware of how long this has been going on. This is my second try at this, minister.
Mr. Goodale: I know. You're persistent, and that's good, Senator Moore.
Senator Moore: Anyway, so we have a bill, and then we're going to have the consultation flowing out of the bill. You'll table the bill, and then they are going to seek consultation from the public at large — Canadians. I'm just trying to get a handle on the timing of that and when this proposed bill might get to a point of being voted upon and becoming law. We need something here, minister.
Mr. Goodale: Our goal is to conclude our consultation within six months. There is a very large appetite among Canadians to be consulted on national security issues. There was a rather unique moment that we all recall in October and in the weeks following October of 2014 when there was rather an extraordinary coming together of Canadians, and I think a common will to look at our security apparatus, improve that apparatus and make sure that we are doing those two things that I mentioned in my opening remarks: being effective in keeping Canadians safe and safeguarding our values, our rights and our freedoms.
The government I think unfortunately chose to move in a different way at that time, more unilaterally in its production of Bill C-51, and a great many Canadians have found that legislation to be problematic, to say the least.
So as we come forward with our proposals for improving the architecture, we want to provide Canadians now with the opportunity to be heard.
Senator Moore: When are you thinking of commencing the consultation?
Mr. Goodale: Over the summer. It will start with a discussion paper that will lay out the history and describe, roughly, the last decade of events as security issues have mounted in the public mind. It will describe where we're at now, enumerate the changes that we propose to make and then ask Canadians what else they want to see done.
The Chair: Senator Moore, I'm giving you a lot of leeway, so go ahead.
Senator Moore: Thank you, chair.
You should know, minister, and I'm sure you do, that this committee recommended that such an oversight body be put in place in its report last June.
Mr. Goodale: Yes, indeed.
Senator Moore: My sense of it is that CBSA officers have more powers than the police. All they have to have is a suspicion, just a suspicion, and they can take action. I don't think that type of structure endears the officers and the agency to Canadians and the trust that they should have. I think if you have some kind of an oversight, it would be helpful.
Mr. Goodale: It's all a matter of transparency and accountability.
Senator Moore: Totally. What motivated me to pursue this effort was a lady by the name of Lucia Vega Jimenez who died in a detention cell in Vancouver. She was coming to Canada, had immigration issues and was put in a cell. No legal or medical help was allowed. With the threat of deporting her, she was quite despondent, and there was the fear of going back to the relationship she was in. She thought she might suffer death. She hung herself in the cell.
The CBSA operates four prisons and has relationships with other provinces to use their facilities, and the senators, judges and you don't have access because they're common detention centres.
So I hope that whatever you're doing, minister, in terms of your proposed legislation, that you address those issues, get down into the weeds and provide a complaint system independent of the agency itself so that people feel they will have a fair hearing and that the rule of law and natural justice will prevail in Canada.
Mr. Goodale: That's a strong and compelling appeal, Senator Moore.
Let me just say that I personally visited that detention centre last week and asked questions about that particular case. Obviously, as you know, as a minister I'm not allowed to comment on those things when they relate to an individual.
We are working now on a number of very important revisions to issues related to detention in our immigration and border system. I hope to put those proposals forward later on this year. I would be more than happy to come back and discuss them with this committee when they're in the public domain.
Agencies like the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees have given Canada pretty high marks, but I want to ensure that we are doing the very best we can humanly do.
Senator Moore: We've got some gaps, minister. You know what they are.
Mr. Goodale: We've got some gaps. I'm determined to fix them, and I think your bill is a useful contribution to the discussion.
The Chair: Before we go to Senator Jaffer, I would like some clarification on a number of issues being discussed. One is with respect to the parliamentary committee oversight, hopefully of both houses, when it's put in place.
Mr. Goodale: Yes, it is.
The Chair: This relates strictly to the bill in question.
My question, and I'm going to put you on the spot here, is if the bill doesn't go ahead, what's the time frame from your perspective to have legislation before the House of Commons and the Senate to establish oversight for the Canada Border Services Agency?
Mr. Goodale: I would want to move on that as quickly as I possibly can after the consultation is concluded. I hope to wrap up that consultation before the end of this year, so my goal would be in the early part of 2017.
The Chair: Okay. I think that's fairly definitive.
Senator Jaffer: Minister, thank you very much for your presence. You have a tough job, but knowing you for many years, there couldn't be a better person doing it.
I want to follow up on what Senator Moore has been saying. You also said in your statement that there's no independent review of officer conduct, and there's a gap that needs to be addressed.
Minister, you know that I come from B.C., and you were just there and saw where Jimenez hanged herself in a B.C. immigration centre below the Vancouver Airport. She may have overstayed, but this woman wasn't a criminal. I don't know her personal circumstances, but she wasn't a criminal and was in a detention centre.
A year ago Abdurahman Hassan died in CBSA custody. The details of his death are still a mystery. I've tried to find out how he died, and it's still a mystery. On March 7, Melkioro Gahungu from Burundi also killed himself in a detention centre.
Minister, I know you've said, and I absolutely believe you, that you will have something world-class in place. But could we get a commitment from you today that we will not detain young people?
In February, under your watch, a 16-year-old minor and a refugee known only as Mohamed was kept in isolated confinement for three weeks. This is my information, and I may be wrong. This is against the UN Convention against Torture.
Minister, I heard you. You said you're working on oversight. These are important things. I respect that. But could we get a commitment from you today that we will not detain minors, especially not put them in confinement?
Mr. Goodale: Senator, I very much appreciate your point. I wish I could give an absolute, ironclad undertaking on that point. My response is that I need to make some changes in the system, including in the physical capacity of the system, in order to make such an unequivocal undertaking.
I want to get to that point. I've discussed this with the UNHCR, with the organizations in Canada who represent refugees and the lawyers who represent refugees and many other interest groups, including the BC Civil Liberties Association in British Columbia and so forth.
There are problems in the system that go beyond simply changing procedures. Physical capacity is an issue. We need to make some changes there in order to accommodate alternatives.
You may have noticed about a week ago that CBSA issued a request for proposals about alternatives to detention. Some people have said, for example, that some form of electronic monitoring would be appropriate in a good many cases. That brings with it civil liberties issues, but it is perhaps an alternative to be considered in some cases.
In Toronto there is an initiative called the Toronto Bail Project, which presents alternatives to detention. I have asked my officials to work on all of these alternatives, together with any issues around resources or budget that may be necessary, to make sure that detention is used only in the cases where it is absolutely essential and there are no alternatives, that the facilities are upgraded and that we seek to avoid detention of children altogether. When that involves separating parents and children, it's again a delicate issue.
So it's not quite as simple as it seems, but my objective is certainly in line with yours.
Senator Jaffer: Minister, I absolutely believe you will do a good job on this, but may I ask you to look at two things? One is to study the system they have in France. I have personally visited places where, when they detain young people, they don't detain them in detention centres; they put them in a boarding school and start an education. It's an amazing system that they have in France.
Second, if you could look at gender guidelines, especially in the case of women. We have guidelines in the refugee system. If a woman has suffered violence and things like that, if you could implement gender guidelines in the work you are doing. Those are my suggestions.
You may not be able to answer my question fully, but are you looking at a separate oversight for CBSA? I would imagine there's a whole oversight, and then there will be parts of it where Senator Moore's inspector general idea can be integrated into what you're looking at.
Mr. Goodale: I will certainly follow the leads you've suggested. On your last question, it's a complex question of the design of the system, but in principle, yes, that's what we're seeking to do.
[Translation]
Senator Dagenais: Minister, thank you for your presentation.
Bill S-205 proposes that the Inspector General of the Canada Border Services Agency submit a public interest report and submit a report to you as well.
How much weight would you give to that report and, if applicable, to any recommendations contained in the report?
[English]
Mr. Goodale: I suppose, senator, that the reaction to such reports might be different among different ministers, but from my point of view, those reports will be absolutely critical. I will look at them as an independent assessment of what's working and what's not. If the people who are doing the analysis and writing the reports say to me, as the minister of the day, "This is wrong and you've got to fix it,'' I would do my very best to respond to their advice. I will treat them seriously, and I hope any minister in this job would.
Senator Dagenais: Do you see merit in the fact that the bill proposes that both the Senate and the Commons are consulted in the appointment and removal of the inspector general? I would like to have your opinion on this.
Mr. Goodale: From a technical, procedural point of view, I don't have any problem with that principle. When you're choosing a person to do this kind of a job, you want somebody who, by their very nature, is credible so that the work they do will have stature and impact. In making the choices, if we go with the particular kind of structure that Senator Moore has proposed, I would look for the broadest input for good people who could do these kinds of jobs.
Beyond the credibility of the leader of the organization, however, you also need strong staff people who can do the research work that is necessary to make sure that whatever the ultimate review authority is, that person or group of people will have solid information upon which to base their reports.
Senator Kenny: Welcome, minister. Before we go too far, I wanted to congratulate you on the work you did at Fort Mac and how effectively your department addressed that issue.
Mr. Goodale: Sadly, senator, that fire isn't out yet, but I think all Canadians have responded amazingly well to that. We will do everything necessary to make sure the people of Fort Mac can get back to their lives as quickly and successfully as possible.
Senator Kenny: This committee liked Senator Moore's approach in principle, and that's why it got support. However, I can understand that the government is looking at a broader approach. I'm concerned about the timelines you've organized. The idea that you're going to come forward with legislation for parliamentary review before the results of your departmental review have been made public I think is problematic. As a parliamentarian, I would want to know in what context we were creating a parliamentary review first; then I could judge the value of the legislation after that.
You're asking us to go ahead and create a committee with certain powers and authorities without knowing how the rest of the organization is fitting in, and that's a very difficult question. I'd ask you to consider that seriously and perhaps reorder the way you contemplate doing this.
Mr. Goodale: Well, I hear your concern. We are anxious to move these files forward as rapidly as we can. The clearest and most definitive piece is the establishment of the committee of parliamentarians. Much of the rest of the architecture interconnects or relates to that foundation piece. With the way events are unfolding here, the consultation will be moving ahead while the legislation is in the public domain, so in many ways Parliament will have the opportunity to determine how rapidly the one moves in comparison to the other. So this may turn out to be a simultaneous process, which could help to inform both sides.
Senator Kenny: You've talked about 17 organizations. This weekend, Mr. LeBlanc was talking about 19 organizations. That's a whole lot of organizations for a parliamentary committee to deal with and to review adequately.
Mr. Goodale: It is.
Senator Kenny: I had the experience of being the vice-chair on a committee of parliamentarians that looked at this issue the last time the government of the day was interested in it. We visited all of the Five Eyes countries. With the exception of the United States, nobody did oversight; everyone did review. I assume that's the path you're going to be pursuing now.
But the very idea of seeing a parliamentary committee — unless you had a very large one and broke it down into subcommittees — dealing with 19 different organizations when you have a couple of meetings a week, and that's for 35 or 37 weeks a year, there wouldn't be much opportunity to have the time to do much that's useful. If we look at SIRC right now, that really only looks at such a small part of their mandate each time; it doesn't constitute review. Unless you make them a full-time organization, we're going to be perpetuating a myth that we have review.
Can you explain to us how a committee giving oversight to 19 organizations can actually do a reasonable job and provide the oversight that people are going to expect?
Mr. Goodale: As a matter of principle, Senator Kenny, I think it is important that the committee of parliamentarians have complete scope so that they can go to any part of the government that they think they ought to look at. I think it would be problematic if the legislation in any way said, "They can look at CSIS, but they can't look at CSEC,'' for example. It's got to be comprehensive. That does, by definition, mean that those people chosen to serve on that committee are going to have a heavy workload. They'll need to be supported by adequate resources and research staff to be able to do the job we're asking of them.
The other important thing that gets to the discussion of this bill and the overall architecture is that there's nothing really to be gained by having two or three different review bodies looking at the same issues in the same agency over and over again unless there's some egregious problem that needs to be scoped out.
A strong effort will need to be made among a committee of parliamentarians and all of the other review agencies — SIRC, CRCC and the new arrangements that we make with respect to CBSA and the commissioner that looks at CSEC — to make sure that we're not reinventing the wheel every time and we're not overlapping and duplicating. That is, we're being comprehensive but we're not tripping over each other. You can do part of that by how you design it, but it's going to be based on a bit of experience, too, in terms of how these agencies relate to each other in an efficient way. We want to be comprehensive but not duplicative. It's going to be a big job for all of them.
The Chair: Please be brief with preamble. I know time has passed us.
Senator White: Thank you very much for being here, minister. I'm reading a document from 2014 where the amount of work conducted between the RCMP and CBSA is such a great amount, understandably, that they actually had to form a joint border strategy, which I know you know about and are familiar with. I appreciated the fact that you offered up as one option the RCMP Civilian Review and Complaints Commission.
Have you given consideration to an interim measure, where the public would have access to the RCMP Civilian Review and Complaints Commission now, pending the outcome of your review? I, like Senator Jaffer, am concerned about what's happening today. Arguably, the second-largest police service in the country has no oversight. Their powers in the last decade have not just doubled but tripled, and the number of people directly impacted has tripled as well. I understand it may be a few months before this happens, but in that few months a lot of things can happen. We heard from the head of the RCMP Civilian Review and Complaints Commission that he could take on that role. Even an interim measure would allow us some level of breathing room so that we can say the right things are going to be done — and I'm not suggesting they won't be done.
Mr. Goodale: I will certainly take that suggestion under advisement, Senator White. My impression is that would entail significant ramp-up on the part of the CRCC in terms of both preparing them to have the background and the information necessary to examine a CBSA function as well as an RCMP function and then just the physical time to do it. If there is some interim step that makes sense, I'm happy to look at it because I agree; I'm anxious to find a solution here that works.
Senator White: Thank you for that, minister. The reality is that today they're working together so closely that a complainant hopes the RCMP is who they deal with because they have someone to call. If the CBSA agent is the one they deal with, they have no one to call.
I think, actually, this Way Forward Together document does allow for that to occur. Having seen that agency add resources and remove resources over the past decade that I've been engaged with them, I know they have the ability to ramp up and to reduce by bringing in extra support staff.
Mr. Goodale: You're referring to the CRCC?
Senator White: Yes. A number of their support staff already are former RCMP officers. I think they can deal with that easier from a CBSA perspective than if they had to bring in more people from an RCMP perspective. Thank you very much for your comments.
Senator Oh: Thank you, minister, for being here. Proposed section 15.20 establishes the penalty of obstruction as a fine of $1,000. Do you believe this penalty should be strengthened and perhaps brought in line with the penalty of obstruction under the RCMP Act?
Mr. Goodale: Do you mean obstructing an investigation?
Senator Oh: Yes, section 15.20.
Mr. Goodale: I can't comment on the detail, Senator Oh, but maybe I will make this point. When you have a review body, it's there for a purpose. Canadians need to feel legitimately that they have access to it and there aren't impediments being thrown in the way to subvert the purpose of the review. If there is behaviour or conduct that interferes with a person's ability to enjoy the benefits of review and scrutiny, then that should be dealt with seriously and severely.
The Chair: Colleagues, we're coming to an end here. I do have a direct question for the minister, if I may. I'm hoping he will take this as an undertaking.
In the last Parliament, we passed a report on reviewing the Canada Border Services Agency, and you do have a copy of that report.
Mr. Goodale: This is this one, June 2015?
The Chair: Yes. I would ask you, Mr. Minister, if you would make the undertaking to have your department review the recommendations in this report and respond to this committee with their position on the recommendations.
Mr. Goodale: Senator, I will be happy to raise this with the department. I haven't had the opportunity to review the recommendations yet in detail, but I certainly will. I will ask for a response to be prepared.
The Chair: Colleagues, time has come to an end. I'd like to thank the minister for being so well prepared and also very concerned about the file we're dealing with. I appreciate your responses to the questions that have been put. I would like to excuse the minister. Thank you once again for coming.
Joining now for our second panel us is the Honourable Harjit Singh Sajjan, Minister of National Defence.
On April 21, 2016, the Senate authorized this committee to study the issues related to the defence policy review initiated by the government and to report no later than December 16, 2016. In a letter to the committee dated March 22, 2016, the minister expressed the belief that the committee can play a direct role in supporting the defence policy review and requested that our committee review how National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces can contribute to renewing Canada's commitment to United Nations peace support operations.
I do note that while the committee will examine the United Nations peace support operations, we also seek evidence relating to broader defence policy issues as part of our study.
Mr. Sajjan, as this is your first appearance at the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, on behalf of all members, I wish you a very warm welcome. We are pleased that you are able to join us in kicking off the study of the defence policy review. I understand that you have a few opening remarks, and I would invite you to begin.
Hon. Harjit Singh Sajjan, P.C., M.P., Minister of National Defence: Senator Lang and committee members, thank you for inviting me to speak with you here today. Even though this is my first time here at the committee, as you know, I spoke in the Senate Chamber some time ago for about an hour. It was quite a privilege to be there and to answer your questions in a much more open setting where I believe we had a good dialogue as well. Thank you.
I would like to express a particular gratitude to the committee for its positive response to the letter I sent Senator Lang back in March of this year. I had requested that you share your views on how National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces can contribute to renewing Canada's commitment to peace support operations, and I am so pleased that you have agreed to offer your expertise.
As you know, the Prime Minister has been explicit in his commitment to revitalizing Canada's engagement in peacekeeping missions. The mandate letter he sent to me and to the Minister of Foreign Affairs following our appointments placed this objective among the most significant deliverables for our time in office. It turns out that this goal set by the Prime Minister accurately reflects the ambitions of our citizens. In my department's most recent study tracking Canadians' opinion about the role of the Canadian Armed Forces, 80 per cent agreed or strongly agreed that Canada should participate in peace support operations.
Canada has a rich history of peacekeeping, and we know through public opinion research and analytical evidence that a solid majority of Canadians support our continued engagement in this important work. So we will look to the policy review process to help us refine the details of how and where we should engage in peacekeeping, as well as how best to equip our service members to execute these missions.
Let me turn now to the topic at hand, which is the defence policy review. There has not been a comprehensive review of defence policy, even approaching this magnitude, since 1994, and our most recent policy was drafted in 2008.
The world has changed greatly since then, so we need our defence policy to reflect this. I do not need to spend too much time describing the challenges we face in our current security environment. Of all people, you know what those challenges are. Traditional threats to Canada and its interests persist, while new challenges such as cyberwarfare have emerged. We must be able to defend against all these threats.
The key roles of our military to defend Canada and North America, as well as to contribute to international peace and security, will endure. But the strategic context in which the Canadian Armed Forces operates has shifted, so we must take a broad look at what we can accomplish.
Our government is pursuing three lines of effort in the process to gather feedback from Canadians: one for citizens in general, one for parliamentarians across the spectrum and one from defence experts.
We launched the first line of effort last month on April 6, when we launched a public consultation paper and invited all Canadians to provide their ideas and feedback to us through our online forums. So far, Canadians have enthusiastically engaged with this consultation. Over 50,000 Canadians have visited our policy review web page, and over 1,700 have engaged with the consultation page to provide feedback on a variety of defence-related issues.
On the parliamentary front, we have provided comprehensive information packages to house members from all parties, as well as to senators. We have asked them to hold discussions and round-table events in their own ridings and regions and then submit their recommendations back to us. I am encouraged to see that some are already doing so, and more are yet to come.
I have also reached out to the Defence Committee of the house and to you on the Senate Defence Committee to request that you consider topics of interest toward the defence portfolio. I am grateful that both requests were accepted, as your expertise on issues of national importance is critical to meeting our objectives.
Finally, with our consultations with defence and security experts on another facet of this review, we are committed to a credible, realistic and evidence-based review of defence policy. That is why we have hosted and will continue to host a series of round-table discussions with individuals who have a variety of expertise in fields related to the work done by the Canadian Armed Forces.
Last month I launched the first expert round-table discussion in Vancouver, and I was pleased with the calibre of expertise and advice we were able to gather from participants at that discussion. Other round tables have been held in Toronto and, most recently, in Yellowknife, while more are planned for Edmonton, Montreal and Halifax. I just recently announced that we will be doing an industry round table, and the date and the details of that will follow.
As an aside, in addition to our three lines of effort, I should add that I have and will continue to consult my counterparts around the world regarding their expertise with their own reviews. Our friends in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand have all recently undertaken similar policy processes. I have spoken to them about their processes, about the tools they used, the questions they asked and the lessons they learned along the way.
I have also spoken with my American counterpart, Ash Carter, as the feedback of our closest ally to the south is naturally of interest to all of us given our close relationship.
Once the task of collecting feedback from Canadians is complete, we will need to make sense of all that information. To assist me in this important work, I have appointed four distinguished Canadians to an advisory panel that will review the feedback and make recommendations towards the defence policy based on their findings and directly to me.
The panel members will certainly not be strangers to any of you: former Supreme Court Justice and United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour; former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of National Defence, the Honourable Bill Graham; retired Canadian Armed Forces General Ray Henault, who served as the senior military adviser to NATO for three years as well; and Margaret Purdy, whose nearly 30 years of service to Canada has included positions as Associate Deputy Minister of National Defence and Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet on security and intelligence issues, and she is a profound security expert.
I'm truly honoured to be receiving support from these esteemed individuals and am proud of their continued dedication to Canada.
As mentioned, this consultation phase began in early April and will run until the end of July. Following that, the department will consider these submissions and conduct its analysis. I expect a formal review to be concluded by the end of 2016, and a formal policy document to be published thereafter.
I am grateful for this opportunity to address the committee here today and would be pleased to take any of your questions.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Minister. I will start with the first question. It has to do with the committee and the responsibility of our committee.
As you know, we committed ourselves to reviewing the specific area that you spoke about, the United Nations peace support operations. We have put together a tentative schedule that will have to be approved by the committee, and also are looking at various options of what could be possible for us to examine over the course of our study. I know there have been some preliminary discussions with your department, your staff, as well as our staff, in respect to looking at what options and what could be made available from your department to help and assist us.
When do you think you would be in a position to let us know just what exactly you can do for us in order for us to be able to do the job you're asking us to do?
Mr. Sajjan: Senator, it all really depends. I haven't seen the request personally, so it would be difficult for me to give you a timeline on that. I will have my department look at the proposals and provide any assistance that's required.
I haven't seen the actual plan, so I can't really comment on that just yet.
The Chair: Thank you. We'll continue to work with the department. I just wanted to flag it to let you know this has been under way. I know you have a lot of responsibilities, but we want to start moving on this file if we can.
Mr. Sajjan: Absolutely.
Senator Dagenais: Thank you, Mr. Minister, for your presentation. Your letter to the committee referenced specifically how National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces can contribute to the United Nations peace support operations.
Canada has not had good experiences with the United Nations peace support operations, such as in Rwanda or in the former Yugoslavia. Mali today is one of the most dangerous missions in the world.
Mr. Minister, can you provide us specific examples of the United Nations peace support operations you are considering?
Mr. Sajjan: Senator, it's not about what we're considering. It's about understanding, first of all, what we can contribute and how we're going to contribute.
The defence review will provide some greater guidance on that, because the situation has changed, and peace stability operations have to be conducted within the time frame and the current threat of the day. I don't want to prejudge the outcome of the defence review. That's why it's so important to make sure that we have a thorough consultation on this.
I'm interested not only in we look at the current threat but also in how we prevent conflict from happening. There are nations that we can describe right now that could be at the tipping point or slightly less. Could peace stability operations work in that area where capacity building early on can have an impact? Can stability operations under the United Nations potentially work well with other organizations that are already doing great work, potentially from international organizations, the African Union, and potentially later on even NATO operations? Those are the questions that I have right now.
Exactly where we're going to go it's too early to tell, because we haven't done a thorough analysis of exactly where. There's the transnational fight, when it comes to the counterterrorism side of things, then there's stability operations, and then there's conflict prevention.
All of those, they are not working in silos; they work together. We need to make sure that when we do this, we look at it through a lens of understanding conflict first and then looking as nations and through multilateral organizations at what is the best tool to apply that can bring about the outcome.
We had, for example, the challenges that you posed about Yugoslavia and even in Rwanda. What we should be doing is learning from those lessons. That's an opportunity for us to see where things did not work well. But if you look at how we transition into a NATO operation, I think we can say that there has been tremendous success. Look at Croatia now, at Bosnia and the hard lessons of Rwanda. We will all never forget that, and we cannot allow that to be repeated. But those are the things we need to bring back in the defence review and hope that with the work that you do, you can bring that back in for some additional guidance.
Senator Dagenais: Mr. Minister, why are United Nations peace support operations a priority for your government ahead of NATO, especially, or U.S. alliance peace support operations?
Mr. Sajjan: It's actually not ahead of it at all. Getting involved with multilateral organizations like the United Nations served a function, just like NATO served a function. We have tremendous experience with that in Afghanistan.
We worked even with an independent organization, like the MFO mission that's happening in Egypt right now. It's a multilateral organization which did have an impact in the past. It has been ignored.
We have steadily reduced our support for the United Nations. It would be irresponsible for us to realize that every multilateral organization is important. What we need to look at is how we utilize and work within the multilateral organizations to have an impact. The first discussion regarding peace support operations, or any conflict, is we need to start understanding conflict better, and not just within borders. We need to go beyond that. We need to look at how the radical or organized crime groups define borders. Everything is linked. Every organization has an impact as well. The United Nations works also very well with NGOs and international organizations.
We need to work far more seamlessly. That word is used far too often, but we need to do this. We don't have enough resources, even with NATO, to deal with all the conflict. NATO is not suited to deal with all sorts of issues. We need to look at all the multilateral organizations. The United Nations, even with its faults, it's the only place where every nation has a voice. It's very important that we engage with all multilateral organizations, especially the United Nations, to make it more relevant. By making the operations more relevant, we can get into conflict prevention. There's a significant amount of conflict out there. If it continues, we will run out of resources with all the nations who are contributing right now.
Senator Dagenais: Thank you, Mr. Minister.
Senator Jaffer: Minister, thank you for coming. I appreciate your presence here. I'm very proud because you're from my province. It gives me additional pride to have you here.
Minister, what is the defence review? Who is our defence force? When I travel across the country, people talk about how Canada is a multicultural nation, but we don't see that in the defence force. While you were serving it has changed. I would like to hear from you what we are doing to make it more open and available. People should be encouraged to serve our country. I would like to hear from you on that.
I'm very encouraged with you being the minister. I just came back from moderating a conference on radicalization at LSC. You spoke about preventing conflict. The women from Iraq were saying to me that there were early warnings about ISIS, and no one was listening. The radicalization policy will have to have the communities involved in our country as part of the defence force as well as women. When you go overseas how do you prevent conflict? How do we involve women?
You are probably the expert in the country on these matters when you were negotiating with the Taliban. You know how to reach out. How do we involve women? How do we reach out for early warning signs around the world and involve women?
Mr. Sajjan: Senator, those are very good questions. As with any organization, when it comes to diversity in the Canadian Armed Forces, we need to reflect Canada. It's really that simple. A lot of work has been done, and a lot of work is being done right now. For example, the Chief of the Defence Staff has stated that he wants an increase, especially for women, of 1 per cent per year, so we can get up to 25 per cent. When it comes to the diversity makeup, we need to do more.
If you don't mind, speaking from a personal perspective as well, I went through those challenges. Canada has evolved so quickly to become a very inclusive nation. If you think about it, it was only 25 years ago that some people would drive in fear of who's going to swear at you, maybe throw something at you. I'm giving you real examples here. So because we have moved so fast, it's difficult for some of those perceptions to change from those communities.
There used to be a question: How will I be treated? The question was asked even though the Canadian Armed Forces is very accepting. I'm the example of that, many others as well. We need to make sure that we communicate this out; the Canadian Armed Forces is an accepting organization.
When it comes to any type of harassment, we know the challenge the Canadian Armed Forces is facing and has faced. We are committed to making it a harassment-free environment open to all Canadians. People will be accepted by their performance. So we are working towards that. We will continue to do that.
Regarding your question about women in the Canadian Armed Forces or women being utilized to prevent conflict, this may be accomplished by just having women in key positions within the military. That alone has that impact. Whether you're an NCO or an officer, or higher ranks like generals, we need to demonstrate this by leading by example. When a commander shows up, and everybody who's below them looks to that commander, who happens to be female, that sends a very powerful message as well.
Then within the context of conflict itself, you must understand the cultural aspects, for example in Afghanistan or Iraq, where the cultural sensitivity does not allow for a man to be able to communicate. There have been special cases where women have been brought in to make sure that they have that rapport. I completely agree with you. There is a need and a necessity for this. The Canadian Armed Forces is leading on this topic, and every mission that we do keeps that in mind.
Senator White: Thank you very much, minister, for being here. I appreciate the review being done. I'm just trying to get my head around how you are engaging internally with people who have been in the organization for decades. Is what we're being told externally actually connecting to what the people inside the organization believe they're doing for us as Canadians? Is there a strategy around that internal discussion or dialogue beyond the external engagement and then bringing it back in? Are we having the same discussion inside right now?
Mr. Sajjan: Absolutely. In fact, I had the discussion with the Chief of the Defence Staff. He gave direction on how it should be done because the military is very well suited for this. We have a chain of command function. Through the chain of command, you can submit the information, especially when it provides extra credibility when you sign off, through your chain of command of X who is in a certain position. It provides even greater legitimacy for that topic because you're in that role. So there's a mechanism obviously through the chain of command.
Also, through the public consultations, even though you might be a serving member, you have the ability to go to the public consultation process. If you don't use your rank and just submit your name, you have the ability to submit papers as well. We also have our colleges, our schools, and through those papers are written every single year. So we have a great opportunity for that research, which is already being conducted every single year to be inputted into this. So the Chief of the Defence Staff has given direction so that we can capture the right information from within as well.
Senator White: Thanks for that. Most reviews done like this in most of the other countries that you discussed follow with a white paper which speaks to the future of the military. I think our military have been so engaged since 2001. It's been difficult at times to actually get to a point where there is a long-term, strategic white paper that looks at the military today and going forward over the next decade, or even longer.
Is that your expectation here? At the end of the review, will a white paper be prepared or developed over the next couple of years that will map out the future beyond just the review? I'm always concerned the review tells us what we did and how we did it. I want to make sure there's actually a path forward as well.
Mr. Sajjan: This review is actually about the future. I have clearly stated that what we're looking at is not only making sure we have the right tools for today, but we also need to look at the tools we need 10 to 20 years from now. This includes from our procurement, the capabilities that we need. Do we have the right force structure in place to be able to be responsive to the needs of the future? Also, are we making sure that we look after our personnel in a modern way as well? At the end of the day, our number one capability is our people. They're the ones who utilize everything we give them. If they're not doing well, the force does not function well. This includes their family as well. We're taking a broad, comprehensive review to make sure we are well suited not just for today but also for the future.
Senator White: Do you see this as resulting in a white paper that we can step back from afterwards and say, "Okay, now we know where we're going over the next couple of decades''?
Mr. Sajjan: Yes, once we decide on the capability. What I don't want to do out of this is say we need this number of this and this number of that. What we need is capability, because the capability we might be talking about is 10 to 20 years from now. There are certain things we might need right away that are already there, but we need to develop this capability.
I want this to be so broad so that when we talk to the industry, we can give them a potential blueprint of what we're looking at so that they can decide to invest in this, and we can give it to the premiers as well so that the provinces get involved. It allows Canadian industry to look at it and be competitive as part of the procurement process for the Canadian Armed Forces down the road.
Senator Oh: Welcome, minister. Last week you noted that Canada needs to move forward with replacing our fighter jets. Can you tell us about what other capability gaps Canada needs to fill in the short term to meet new international commitments as a vision to your government?
Mr. Sajjan: Senator, I don't like to get partisan, but unfortunately we have inherited capability gaps. The biggest one you saw is with our supply ships where we had to put a contract out for an interim refueller. We are in this situation, and I am trying to work aggressively to fill these capability gaps. For the fighters, that capability gap is fast approaching.
I've been able to deal with other gaps quite rapidly because they're not in the wider scale of where it comes to procurement, just internal decisions. One that we have looked at is revitalizing our anti-armour capability, which gives us great portable flexibility around the world, which is needed. We've already started on that. That was when I visited the mission in Iraq.
There are certain aspects to our special forces. I want to say capability gap, but we have a tier one special force. When we talk about SEAL Team 6 or Delta Force, our JTF 2 is at that level. I want to make sure they have all the right tools to be able to fulfill their missions. Regrettably, I can't talk much more about what they do and what capabilities we're looking at for them, but they're a tremendous resource. I want to make sure they're properly equipped so that we can deal with any potential threat, whether in Canada or abroad.
Senator Oh: What about the navy? Is anything new coming up on the navy side?
Mr. Sajjan: For the navy, that's the one thing we're already moving on. The National Shipbuilding Strategy, for all its difficulty, is moving along. Minister Foote and I have been working aggressively, even having joint briefings together trying to reduce the timeline. As we are more successful with reducing the timeline for getting more ships developed, we will make that more public. We are trying to streamline things to make sure that we have our joint supply ships that Seaspan is building, our AOPS that Irving is working on and then the replacement of the frigates as well. Things are going well, but I want to make sure they continue to go well because that's a capability gap we cannot allow to be created.
Senator Dagenais: Thank you. I have two questions, Mr. Minister. First, what military doctrine should Canada have in place before we deploy the united lead missions, especially missions that are high risk and where possibly death and PTSD are going to be high?
Mr. Sajjan: Senator, if I could just clarify your question, are you asking if there are missions where the PTSD would be high and what we are doing to mitigate that?
Senator Dagenais: Yes.
Mr. Sajjan: I think we have learned quite a bit from the Afghanistan experience. Even throughout my missions from 2006 things have improved.
For example, there's training that's done beforehand. There's post-deployment decompression, and there's follow- up work that's also done. We have the immediate, but one thing the Canadian Armed Forces has also learned is that PTSD doesn't always kick in immediately. Sometimes it's one, two or five years after the fact as well. It's not that we get ready for the PTSD to kick in. What we need to do is to make sure we prevent it from happening. That gives us the window to make sure we have the proper resilience and all the mechanisms in place so that somebody doesn't get into that situation. But in case they do, we want to make sure that they are well taken care of.
So as part of this, there's a thorough look internally within the department. A lot of work has already been done on this, but I don't want to talk about it prematurely until the department is ready to do so.
Absolutely, senator, regardless of the mission that we send them on, PTSD can kick in. It doesn't have to be what we consider a difficult mission. It can even happen in what we consider not difficult missions, so we have to be ready for that.
Senator Dagenais: Will you commit to implementing the recommendations of this study, or is this just a public relations exercise you are asking us to participate in?
Mr. Sajjan: Which study, senator?
Senator Dagenais: The study of this committee.
Mr. Sajjan: Sorry, the study of this?
Senator Dagenais: Yes, the recommendations of this study, or is it just public relations? How do you commit to implementing the recommendations of this study?
Mr. Sajjan: For the peacekeeping?
Senator Dagenais: Yes.
Mr. Sajjan: I can't stress enough. It's up to you how credible you want to make your study, everything that you provide. In the letter that I gave, I sincerely meant that we would need a wide variety of expertise. That's why I gave my recommendations, not telling them what to do, even to you. It's a request where I think because of your experience where you've seen different missions evolve and you've talked about some, what can we learn from those? For example, I always ask, what is a new way of peacekeeping? I throw in my viewpoint, which is capacity building. We have tremendous experience on that. Instead of having formed units that go and do traditional peacekeeping as we have done in the past, can we do mentorship within the units? Not only are you doing the job, but you're mentoring, training and professionalizing at the same time. It also allows greater accountability because of the sexual assault allegations with peacekeeping troops that we've heard about in the past. That's a question I have.
I'm hoping through your studies you will look at a wide variety of things, especially with the United Nations. I know they are looking at new ways of peacekeeping, and if you could engage in that. Instead of me telling you what to do, I look forward to hearing from your expertise at whichever angle it may take you.
Rest assured, your findings will be taken very seriously and will be discussed together.
The Chair: I'm just going to follow up, Mr. Minister, if I could on that question of capacity building, which is, in part, I understand, our commitment to Kurdistan and the conflict in the Middle East at the present time. I'd like to hear your thoughts on this, since you're obviously directly involved. Update us exactly on how it is proceeding, our commitment, exactly what we're doing there. How do you see that in the long term relating to any commitments being made to the United Nations? I don't think they're that far apart, from what you just said.
Mr. Sajjan: I'll give you a quick update. A couple of weeks ago I was at the counter-ISIL meeting with 11 of the largest contributing nations, and the deputy commander of the coalition was there. He's a British officer. He was ecstatic — I'm not trying to exaggerate in any way — with the amount of support we provided, not just the intelligence capability but the type that we provided. Also, when it came to the capacity-building training, it's not that we just tripled the capacity building, it's who we're actually training.
I'm sure you understand the challenges of what caused the problem in the first place, the Shia and Sunni issues, and it will take too long to get into that. So retaking some of those cities will require the same level of sophistication to make sure that the right group is part of the force that does it.
When you look at the entire country, we have responsibility for a portion of the north. What we are doing is training the right type of group for the right period. We're looking at the current state with the Peshmerga and then with the Zeravani commando forces we're starting up a training force for it, which is going to be needed in the future. We're going to do some work that for security reasons I cannot speak about. It's the type of capacity building we're doing that's meeting the current threat and also the potential operations that are going to occur that the coalition is planning.
It's very well received because that's the level of sophistication that we've put into it. The Chief of the Defence Staff did some good work on that.
With the capacity building, we have great experience, but we always need to understand the conflict of the area. This is where we will run into problems if we think one solution in one area could work in another.
I think we need to learn the lessons from the area, but we need to understand the conflict. This is not strictly about the enemy. When it comes to the enemy, we have a good way of figuring that out.
The difficulty is in any area that I've worked in or studied it's all linked together and it is understanding the social fabric of that society. Where does organized crime link in with the radical groups? Why did this radical group get so big? Who was in charge to motivate these people? For example, how is ISIL able to motivate youth with the evil atrocities that they are committing?
Those are the types of questions that we need to be able to answer. How does the economy fit into this? What is the youth bulge in Africa that we're having? Some folks may not take this seriously, but climate change and droughts in certain areas, where does that push some family members, and what situation is that creating on the ground?
We need to understand all of that. In any area we look into, we will be doing a thorough analysis, and then we will decide what types of tools will be necessary. Plus we should also look at, when we analyze it together with the coalition partners and allies, if another nation has greater expertise, they should take the lead. When it's Canada, we should take the lead. We shouldn't get into a situation where everybody gets into one area.
We need to get far more sophisticated with this. I'm happy to report that's the kind of conversation we're having now, and we are moving towards that when we look at the transnational conflict, especially when it comes to radical groups. ISIL is trying to create a network around the world. It's up to us to prevent that. We need to disrupt that network from being created.
The Chair: Perhaps you can update us on our commitment so far to the United Nations and into the area of peacekeeping.
Mr. Sajjan: Senator, right now it's very minimal because we've reduced it over the years. I have some numbers from a previous article. For example, right now we have only about 31 Canadian Armed Forces personnel on UN missions. We have four people in Israel, in Lebanon, one person in Cyprus, some people in the Congo, Sudan and Haiti as well. It could be staff officers, UN observers. This is not a UN peacekeeping mission.
When we look at having a contribution, we need to work in discussions with the UN, with other multilateral partners, with NATO as well when we look at a mission, and what type of impact we can have, not just impact for a nation but regionally.
I'll give you a quick example, and this is in no way how we're leaning. I'll give you two examples.
You have ISIL that's trying to create a network around the world, if you took the extreme example. You have pressures in the Sinai and greater resources in Libya. Who's fuelling the fighters into Libya for ISIL? We have Boko Haram and ISIL and their networks with Al-Shabaab in East Africa.
When we look at the conflict within those areas, it's where can we have the biggest impact to prevent these networks from being created? Groups like ISIL, Boko Haram, all of them require recruitment. And the lessons in Afghanistan and in other places, if you want to fight the enemy, you have to fight them, which we are, but you need to turn off the recruitment and figure out how they recruit.
I'll give you an example of Afghanistan. When we hit the recruitment of the Taliban — I won't give the year of it — when we lined our quick-action projects for development, we timed those at the time when we figured out when the Taliban used to recruit.
We didn't know at that time how many people we'd actually hire. We out-hired the Taliban at that time. Those young males chose to work for these irrigation projects, which paid well, and they chose to take those rather than actually fight for the Taliban.
We need to find innovative ways of turning off the tap of recruitment. I just gave you an example of what worked in a small area of Kandahar province. In other areas it might work differently.
Sometimes the solution for turning off recruitment is not strictly fighting; it's about understanding what's happening in the society. This is where working with partners, whether it's the United Nations with good links with a lot of other organizations, and we cannot forget that NGOs have a significant impact on security.
When they make people's lives better, why would they choose to go fight for a radical organization? Radical organizations are looking for poverty and strife and power vacuums to fill. They will come in and say, "No one else is helping you. We will.'' This is a similar theme to what Mullah Omar in Afghanistan and every other radical organization out there is using as well.
Senator Jaffer: Minister, I'm encouraged that you are talking about working with different groups like the AU and the UN and many multilateral groups. I am also encouraged that you spoke about the AU because we encouraged the AU to lead in Darfur.
Minister, I also want to share with you — you talked about Kurdistan — that I just spent time with women from that region. I would encourage you to consider this: What the women in that region are doing is, one child at a time, interpreting the Quran and bringing out the fighters. Basically, what they're doing is with the help of the men and women who work for you. I'm very pleased with what you are doing in that region, but I would ask you to please look at ways in which you involve the women in the region as well.
For example, in Peshawar, I work with the mothers of terrorists. You put your finger on it. When we provided a small income to the mothers of terrorists, they became economically empowered to be able to get their sons out of trouble.
So I ask you to look at Resolution 1325 and make that an integral part of your policies to encourage women in the Armed Forces. I know I go on about women, but it's about women in the social fabric and also part of the defence force.
I'd like your thoughts. I know you said that having women in important places is important, but it's also to have more women in the forces. I'd like to hear from you as to how you're going to go about doing that, to encourage more women in Canada to become part of the Armed Forces.
Mr. Sajjan: Senator, I couldn't agree with you more. I've seen the value of this. I can give you countless examples of that. There's great work already being done now. I can't make it any clearer: The Canadian Armed Forces needs to reflect Canadian society. The Canadian Armed Forces should be 50 per cent women.
There's a lot of work to be done. We need to make sure that women would want to join the Canadian Armed Forces and that they can see the stream of progression. I would even go so far as making sure there are no stumbling blocks in place, so that women can feel empowered to continue on and know they have the opportunity to be the Chief of the Defence Staff of the Canadian Armed Forces.
I can assure you that this is not one lens. This is something we take extremely seriously. I've personally seen the value of the work in these areas. I've seen special forces take advantage of this type of work as well, but a lot more work needs to be done. The Canadian Armed Forces needs to do a lot more. Even with our efforts, it will take time. I know the chain of command is behind this and working extremely hard to make sure the Canadian Armed Forces is a true reflection of society.
Senator Jaffer: Thank you. Minister, I have a quick request of you. I've been here for a number of years. I spent a week in Kananaskis with the Canadian army. We used to have a parliamentary program where parliamentarians could look first-hand at how the Armed Forces or the navy worked. That program has been discontinued. I would encourage you to look at reinstating it, because it gives us real insight into what challenges you face.
Mr. Sajjan: Senator, you'll be happy to know I've already reinstated it. Nothing has been set yet, but there will be three events per year — something with the army, navy and air force — so that senators and parliamentarians can have more organized access.
Before, a minister's approval was required for any politician to visit any military establishment. I have now given direction that the commanding officer on the ground has the authority to allow this to happen. They don't need permission from me. The Canadian Armed Forces belongs to the Canadian people, and all parliamentarians — and you, as senators — have access to that.
[Translation]
Senator Dagenais: I would like to go back to the army's theatre of operations in Haiti. You mentioned that we have a number of military personnel in Haiti. You know that there are several police forces in Haiti as part of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, MINUSTAH, including the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. When I was a police officer with the Sûreté du Québec, I went to Haiti twice.
Do you know whether the Haitian army works in collaboration with MINUSTAH or whether it does training work? I know there is a police academy in in Haiti where police officers train Haitian police. Does the role of the army in Haiti include training Haitian soldiers, or is it simply an intervention role? I would like to hear your views on the subject.
[English]
Mr. Sajjan: Senator, I don't have the exact details for our handful of personnel: their exact roles, what they're doing there. But in terms of the police, capacity building is extremely important. It doesn't come under my responsibility; it's under Public Safety and also the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
However, we actually work very closely on this. When we talk about understanding conflict, it shouldn't be strictly a defence issue, if you understand the conflict and look at what needs to be added.
Police capacity building, in my opinion, is probably one of the most important steps that's needed. One mistake that was made in Afghanistan was that the police were not mentored at the same time as the Afghan National Army was. We should have done it at the same time. When it was realized, a lot of emphasis went into this. It's the police who interact with the population. It's the police who provide that justice, that confidence. So capacity building for police is very important. I've seen the impact of this.
How does the military fit into this? We will provide any support. We do a considerable amount of training around the world, temporarily and on a regular basis. Right now it's in the Ukraine. We also do training exercises together in Poland and other parts of Europe.
When we look at capacity building, it should be looked at with a much wider lens. I would go even further to ask this: How do we build the civil bureaucracy? Providing good governance is not easy, so we need to be able to provide that as well.
If you recall, as part of the mission in Iraq right now, we're putting in ministerial liaison teams — the coalition lead is a Canadian general — whether we work with the Ministry of Defence or the Ministry of the Interior. While we look at capacity building on the ground, we have to make sure the bureaucracy is going to be able to support that.
I completely agree with you. In terms of capacity building, I'm looking at it with a much wider lens than that. We have a great opportunity here in Canada.
When we talk about the new form of peacekeeping, if you want to prevent a nation from going into conflict and going past the tipping point, we need to look at it through a much wider lens — capacity building at the bureaucratic level — without upsetting the sensitivities of a nation, of course.
When I briefed the Minister of Defence of Iraq about the ministerial liaison teams, that's one piece he was extremely happy about. When people thought, why would they take our advice on something, he welcomed it. In fact, this is one thing he smiled about and said three times to me, "Thank you very much for that.''
Senator White: Just a short response as a result of your commentary, if I may. Mr. Minister, of the three groups that are going overseas in Afghanistan — the military, the RCMP, and municipal and provincial police agencies in Canada —
Mr. Sajjan: Did you say Afghanistan?
Senator White: Anywhere, including Afghanistan, where we have the three organizations — the Department of National Defence, the RCMP and municipal or provincial police agencies — the only group there that does not receive Veterans Affairs benefits are the municipal and provincial police. This is more of an information piece, because I'm sure you will have a chance to speak to somebody about it. They are the left-out group right now. We have been having discussions with the Minister of Public Safety and the Minister of Veterans Affairs about levelling that playing field so that anyone going into theatre — from a UN peacekeeper to support to military, and we know how important that is — actually has the opportunity to access all the same benefits when they return home.
Mr. Sajjan: I think there are additional challenges from other aspects as well. I know what you're talking about, as a former municipal police officer.
Senator White: That's why I mentioned it.
Mr. Sajjan: Thank you.
The Chair: We're coming to a conclusion, but I have a couple of questions, if I could. One is the question of financial capabilities and resources for the national defence file if we're going to expand our interest as a country.
We've had the Auditor General's report that is less than complementary in respect to the financial support for the Defence Department and a lot of their responsibilities.
When we look at this new initiative in respect to the United Nations, from your perspective, is that going to be a new financial commitment by the Government of Canada over and above what our other commitments are within the Department of National Defence? Or are we going to have to find that money from within the Defence Department?
Mr. Sajjan: Senator, the Canadian Armed Forces, when we have the budget, is not designed for all the missions that we talk about. When a mission is approved, we will have to make a request for the cost of that.
The Chair: Over and above?
Mr. Sajjan: Yes, over and above that. When we look at whether it's a new mission similar to what we did for Iraq, it comes with a cost, and that's the analysis that we will conduct. The nice thing about how we did the Iraq mission is we will take any further mission very similarly from a whole-of-government perspective, working collaboratively with Minister Dion and with Minister Bibeau as well.
The Chair: It's an addition. That's what I wanted to get clarified.
Mr. Sajjan: There are certain costs that we can, but it's negligible, because at the end of the day there are other missions that we still have to conduct as well.
The Chair: The other area I would like to go to, colleagues, is a totally different area, but I want to bring it to your attention. You may be aware of it, but the Department of National Defence Ombudsman noted that one in six reservists do not have medical records on file. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe what occurs is if a reservist goes into theatre without a medical record and there is some mishap of some kind in respect to him or her when they perform their duty, they don't necessarily get covered because they don't have that initial medical record on file that should have been done at the beginning when they signed up.
The numbers could be as high as 6,000 of these particular Canadians that have committed themselves as reservists but yet still don't have this medical in order to ensure that they are adequately protected and get full benefits if something were to happen. Are you aware of that? If you are, what steps are being taken?
Mr. Sajjan: Senator, with the medical records, I think I can speak to the reserves far better than most people. I have way too much experience with this.
When it comes to the medical files when somebody is recruited, all the files are created. I can't comment as to why some of the files have not been created, but to your direct concern about deploying, when it comes to deployment, it's a different system that kicks in. It's called being DAG Green. You cannot go on pre-deployment training unless you go through and get signed off on all the different aspects, for example, immunization, which obviously goes into your medical record. You have to get a medical done, see a doctor, before you are signed off to go. There's a laundry list of things to be done. Once that's done and then signed off the chain of command, you're DAG Green for operations. Anybody that does deploy will have to have a medical record and all the right paperwork for domestic or international deployments.
The Chair: Let's go backwards, if I may. I want to key in on this because my understanding is that there is a certain segment of the reserves that do not have medical records. If that's the case with deployment, then I'll accept that. But if they're in Canada when they have a mishap and they haven't got their medical record, that's going to be a problem for that particular individual. Perhaps my question should be are you aware that there is a problem out there presently and that it should be addressed to make sure that these individuals do get their medicals?
Mr. Sajjan: Absolutely. Everybody should have a medical record. Part of it is we're coming from a transition period. I remember when we had to write everything out, a system of what goes from Class A, to Class B, and then Class C. Imagine the complexity of moving from one system to another. As part of the defence review, we are looking at the wider perspective, not just the medical records but the entire structure for the reserves of how they are administered. It needs to be much easier and simpler. I think it would be far more cost-effective if we just had a simpler system because with the reserve units, when you get hired and sworn in, you should have all the right file ready to go with you. I've seen my medical file, for example, because I've had to go for different deployment to different units. That medical file has to go to the other unit. It has to be signed off to go with you.
I am a little surprised why some of the members may not have medical files; nonetheless, it's still unacceptable.
The Chair: We're going to come to a conclusion, so I'm going to take that as an undertaking that you will check to ensure that for those who don't have it, the necessary medicals are done.
Sir, thank you very much for attending here today. We very much appreciate you taking the time. I will now excuse our witness.
Mr. Sajjan: Great. Thank you for having me.
The Chair: Thank you.
Welcome to the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence. Joining us, as we examine issues related to the defence policy review initiated by the government, is Mr. Mark Gwozdecky, Assistant Deputy Minister, International Security and Political Affairs from Global Affairs.
Mr. Gwozdecky, welcome to the committee. I understand you have an opening statement. Please begin.
Mark Gwozdecky, Assistant Deputy Minister, International Security and Political Affairs, Global Affairs Canada: Thank you very much, chairman, for the opportunity to appear before the committee today to discuss Canada's contribution to peace operations in the context of the defence policy review.
I will focus my remarks on the issue of increasing Canada's support for UN peace operations and its mediation, conflict prevention and post-conflict reconstruction efforts, which is the full commitment contained in Minister Dion and Minister Sajjan's mandate letters.
Allow me to say at the outset that our government has not yet completed its deliberation on a new peace operations strategy; therefore, I'm not in a position today to speak about that. What I would like to discuss, however, is how peace operations have changed, what lessons we've learned and the kind of thinking that will inform our new strategy.
All of us have driven past the national peacekeeping memorial here in the nation's capital, which was erected in 1992, to honour our men and women who served in peacekeeping over the years. That monument depicts three peacekeepers standing on two sharp knife-like edges of stone cutting through the rubble and debris of war and converging at a high point, which symbolizes the resolution of conflict. There is a single weapon amongst all those three characters, no vehicle or any sophisticated equipment. That monument symbolizes what most people think of as peacekeeping, where peacekeeping forces are deployed between two opposing parties to quietly monitor an agreed truce or peace deal.
To say the least, the reality of modern peace operations is radically different.
[Translation]
As the Prime Minister said yesterday in his statement on the International Day of UN Peacekeepers:
Peacekeeping has a deep connection to Canadian values and leadership. The first UN peacekeeping mission came about in large part due to the efforts of Lester B. Pearson, our fourteenth Prime Minister, and the leadership of UN Forces Commander E.L.M. "Tommy'' Burns. Together, their actions during the Suez Crisis of 1956 marked the beginning of Canada's identity as a peacekeeping country. Since then, UN peace operations have evolved from separating belligerents and monitoring cease fires to protecting vulnerable populations and working to establish the conditions for durable peace. As conflicts have grown in intensity and complexity, so too have the risks for UN peacekeepers who put their lives on the line for the safety of others.
For 60 years, Canadian peacekeepers have proudly contributed to promote peace, democracy, human rights and the rule of law around the world through our participation in UN operations.
Over 120,000 Canadians have served in UN peace operations. This is a proud tradition. And our government has clearly expressed its intention to play an important part going forward.
The features of modern peace operations are the following. There is often no clear peace accord to be monitored. Violence frequently occurs in intra-state conflicts, many of which spill over to neighbouring countries, creating deep regional strains. Armed parties are frequently non-state actors that act without regard for international law and are seldom held accountable for their actions. Combatants rarely represent formal armies of recognized states and operate without regard for international norms. Actors and alliances frequently shift. Civilians are routinely targeted. Children and rape are often used as weapons of war. It is common for some parties to refuse to accept political processes and/or ceasefires and, in other cases, for state actors to refuse to accord recognition to their non-state opponents.
[English]
These days, modern peacekeeping missions are mandated to perform a wide variety of demanding tasks in response to these challenges. This includes helping to maintain security, restoring law and order, monitoring human rights situations, building sustainable institutions of governance, coordinating elections, reforming the security sector, and disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of former combatants.
Missions often operate in regions threatened by transnational violent extremist groups, where troops must be trained and equipped for asymmetrical warfare. Peacekeeping missions also have a role in protecting civilians from sexual and gender-based violence and other atrocities. As civilians and UN personnel are regularly targeted, the use of force beyond self-defence is increasingly authorized by the UN Security Council. Broader mandates require a multi- dimensional approach that includes a focus on prevention and mediation as opposed to crisis management, and one that melds civilian and police with military contributions. This is the new peace operations reality.
Canada has a deep national security interest in mitigating state fragility and preventing, containing and resolving armed conflict. States or regions affected by armed conflict destabilize neighbours; they provide opportunities for insurgencies, violent extremism and crime to take root; they generate destabilizing flows of refugees and internally displaced persons; they cause years of economic growth to be lost and development wiped out in a moment; and the conflicts have a devastating impact on civilian populations, including their direct targeting.
Outside the UN, there are others in the peace operations business, such as the European Union or their member states. The Security Council also authorizes missions conducted by other parties, such as the African Union, in some cases, or NATO.
For Canada, addressing these challenges through UN-led or UN-sanctioned structures presents a number of advantages. Working collectively through the UN endows legitimacy to our actions. It also facilitates burden sharing. It diffuses risks and allows Canada and other countries to contribute based on their particular strengths and capabilities for collective benefit.
UN peace operations have faced many challenges. Budget and response mechanisms are overstretched. While conflict prevention and peacebuilding are core tasks of the Security Council, they are chronically under-prioritized and under-resourced. Crisis response has become a main focus of UN peace operations, drawing resources away from conflict prevention and peacebuilding activities. For example, while the current peacekeeping budget hovers between US$8 billion and US$9 billion, humanitarian and crisis response costs hover around $25 billion per year.
Also, the top troop contributors to UN peacekeeping have changed markedly. The top five troop- and police- contributing countries are now Ethiopia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Rwanda.
Different considerations are at play for different countries, as we each determine the size and type of our contribution. It is clear that we all benefit from broadening the base of those who are investing in sustaining peace, whether that is through conflict prevention, conflict response — civilian and military — and in re-establishing the rule of law and peace building more generally.
[Translation]
In recognition of the many challenges it faces in responding to current crises and heightened expectations, the UN sponsored three major reviews in 2015 and is completing a fourth.
They converge in recognizing that solutions to this new generation of conflicts must be fundamentally political, and that political processes must drive the design and deployment of peace operations.
The reviews emphasize the imperative of creating a UN Secretariat that is more agile and flexible in supporting field missions, and in ensuring peace operations are centred on the people they serve.
Although the UN and its member states have made much progress in recent years to improve the way we manage and contribute to peacekeeping missions, more must be done to ensure that those responsible for the implementation of the mandates of UN missions have the knowledge, the appropriate resources and training needed to effectively fulfill their roles.
[English]
Canada's current contribution is significant, although the nature of our contribution has evolved over time. Canada is the ninth-largest financial contributor to the UN peacekeeping budget, contributing approximately $290 million each year. However, consistent with the G7 and other peers, the number of troops and police that we contribute has been reduced. Currently Canada has 115 Canadians serving in UN peacekeeping operations. However, that number is greater when contributions to conflict prevention and resolution outside of the UN system are taken into account. We are examining the question of what is the optimum level of troop contributions, and if there are other contributions we can make, for example, with enabling technologies like transportation, medical or engineering support and intelligence capabilities, that will have an even greater impact.
Canada offers a number of strengths in this regard, such as our experienced professional and well-trained military, police and civilian experts, our bilingualism and our absence of a colonial legacy.
As I mentioned earlier, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of National Defence have been mandated by the Prime Minister to work jointly on this important endeavour. We're working to prepare a strategy in consultation with the UN and our close allies, as well as with diverse global partners and Canadian civil society. Our approach will build on Canada's strengths, for example, our bilingualism; our long-standing commitment to women, peace and security; and the high quality of our personnel.
Let me share with you some of the priorities that have emerged from the various high-level UN reviews that I mentioned that will inform our approach to peacekeeping policy reform.
For example, these reviews called for a renewed focus on preventative action and conflict prevention. They called for the development of clear and more robust mandates backed by appropriate financial and personnel resources ahead of deployment, as well as political support by key stakeholders. The reports recommended that we continue to prioritize the protection of civilians. They called on member states to support measures to improve the operational capabilities of troop and police contributors, and to improve UN readiness and planning. They recommended that we work to empower women to meaningfully contribute to conflict prevention and resolution and to increase the participation of women in peacekeeping.
Canada will look to support UN measures to strengthen its zero-tolerance policy on sexual exploitation and abuse.
Honourable members of the committee, the representatives of the Department of National Defence are best placed to speak to the UN peace operations strategy in the context of the defence policy review. However, we are working jointly in designing this strategy, and we are basing our approach on renewing our commitment to the UN and playing a greater role in support of UN peace operations in the future, including addressing the challenges that fragile and conflict-affected states present. It's clear that the government's stated objective to renew its engagement in UN peace operations will play a role and influence the outcomes of that review.
Thank you very much, and I look forward to your questions.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Senator Oh: Thank you very much for being here. Can you discuss the UN mission in Mali, Congo and Sinai and elaborate on how UN peacekeeping support operations have evolved in the last 10 years, and how does that relate to the global terrorism threat that we are facing?
Mr. Gwozdecky: I'm not in a position to give you a detailed breakdown of each of those missions.
Senator Oh: Whatever you can give.
Mr. Gwozdecky: I'll try to frame my answer by talking about how extremism and peacekeeping are related in the sense that peace operations are in demand in those places where governance is failing and where state fragility has taken over, creating space for criminal or terrorist insurgencies. It's obviously in places of greatest state fragility where we find the greatest need for peace operations.
You mentioned Mali.
Senator Oh: Congo.
Mr. Gwozdecky: Mali is probably the deadliest UN peace operation currently in play. I believe upwards of 50 peacekeepers have been killed in the context of that operation. That is a UN-led operation. I would contrast that with a non-UN-led peace mission in the Sinai, which is, unfortunately, almost as dangerous an environment where we have not had many casualties to date, but the threats are very, very prevalent, primarily from the Sinai-based extremists who have, from time to time, attacked the MFO, the Multinational Force & Observers.
That is not a UN-led operation, but rather sprang from the peace agreement between Egypt and Israel, and it has the support of those countries; but it has not been based on a UN mandate for historical reasons related to the sensitivities of the parties to that agreement, in particular Egypt and Israel.
There is an example of a non-UN operation that is very important in terms of maintaining the integrity of that peace agreement, but it is also in an extremely dangerous environment.
It is one of the places where Canada has the highest number of our peacekeepers, if you will. We have 71 military officers engaged, including the force commander of that mission, so it represents currently one of our biggest contributions to peace operations.
[Translation]
Senator Dagenais: Thank you, Mr. Gwozdecky. Earlier, you mentioned MINUSTAH's work in Haiti. When I was an officer with the Sûreté du Québec, I went to Haiti twice. I had an opportunity to see the work carried out by MINUSTAH with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, various police forces, and so forth. Obviously, it is not easy to make all of this work, especially with the UN. However, I truly believe that it brought more peace to Haiti. I think those people are still over there, for that matter.
How does support for international peacekeeping operations serve Canada's national interest? Does it contribute to promoting Canadian values?
[English]
Mr. Gwozdecky: Very good, senator. Thank you for that question.
Let me begin by giving you a little description of the contribution that we're currently making in Haiti. We have a total of 80 personnel assigned to that mission, 75 of whom are from various police forces, particularly the RCMP. Five come from the military.
In terms of the police contribution, we participate in specialized teams. This has been identified over the years as being very important. It's not enough just to contribute police forces. There are requirements for supporting states in a specialized way, and what we are doing in Haiti supports this question of building their capacity to do community policing. I'll come to that in a moment. It helps their ability to deal with serious and organized crime. It helps their ability to deal with sexual and gender-based violence, as well as supporting their cadre of middle management.
I'll come back to community policing because that's a very important matter. Very often when people look at peacekeeping, they think predominantly of military contributions when, in fact, what is very often most needed in countries where communities are newly liberated is not a military mindset but a police mindset. It's not enough just to expel the bad guys. You need to have police to stabilize a community to make it a safe place for people to operate, and police are best placed to offer that kind of support as opposed to militaries.
So that's the kind of thing we're doing in Haiti in conjunction with others. We are in particular helping to build the police force in Haiti. I think our target is 15,000 appropriately trained police officers to support their development, and I think it is in support of our values. Our values are that all people deserve safe communities and all people should have security institutions that they can trust, whether you are male or female. In this regard, I would point out that females and children experience conflict differently. Too often in places of fragility, it's women and children who are the most vulnerable, so their security institutions need to be not only institutions that can be trusted but also institutions that can protect the most vulnerable.
I hope that's answered your question.
[Translation]
Senator Dagenais: By the way, when I was in Haiti, I noted that Canada's efforts are much appreciated by the Haitian people.
Would you be able to tell me whether Canada is able to renew its support for UN peacekeeping operations, while ensuring its own national defence as well as that of North America? It's always a question of budgets, of course, but is Canada capable of providing support, perhaps not permanently, but at least sustained support for a certain amount of time?
[English]
Mr. Gwozdecky: I think that's a very important question, senator, and certainly it is one that will be deliberated very strenuously.
I would say, however, that in the past our country has been able to serve both of those goals that you mentioned — UN peacekeeping as well as our national defence objectives. In the mid-1990s, we had over 3,000 individuals committed to various peace operations around the world. That was probably the high point in terms of Canadian personnel committed to peace operations, and I think we were also during that period of time able to have resources available to secure our national security.
But I think the question that you've put is one of the central questions that will need to be addressed appropriately in terms of balancing both of those objectives.
Senator Jaffer: Thank you very much, Mr. Gwozdecky. I first want to acknowledge all the help you've given to many Senate committees and I want to thank you for the assistance you've given.
Minister Sajjan has provided us with a letter, and he has asked us how National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces can contribute to renewing Canada's commitment to UN peacekeeping forces.
With that said and with the nature of peace operations quickly changing, as we all know, what do you think of adopting a whole-of-government approach to Canada's assistance for peacekeeping efforts using the resources of various departments?
I know you provide a lot of assistance around peacekeeping operations, but could other departments be involved in this as well?
Mr. Gwozdecky: That's an excellent question, and I think you have put your finger on one of the key elements in terms of Canada having the greatest impact.
As an analogy, I would point to the government's announcement in February of its new strategy for the Middle East, in particular, for the counter-ISIL contribution that the government is making. That strategy drew on all the assets of the Canadian government, not only the support of the military but also our development, humanitarian, stabilization and police resources. All of those are brought together in that strategy to support an overall objective, and undoubtedly we will seek to do the same thing when we produce our peace operations strategy because state fragility can't be solved with one easy intervention. It requires a full spectrum approach, and when we look around the world, we see states at different points and stages in terms of their fragility, and different interventions are required, but, most important, we need to bring a comprehensive tool box to these situations so that we don't solve one problem but lose the mission because we failed to address another aspect of that problem.
It's one thing to end the conflict, but it's also important to give states the support they require to develop, to have the stability that will allow them not to relapse back into conflict or fragility.
"Whole-of-government'' sounds like a motto or a slogan, but it's very much what we try to achieve so that we get the biggest impact for what we're doing.
Senator Jaffer: I was very pleased to see in your remarks that you talked about empowering women to meaningfully contribute to conflict prevention and resolution. Everywhere women are talking about needing to be involved in conflict prevention.
Do we have a national action plan around Resolution 1325? Earlier on in your remarks you spoke about women, peace and security. Do we now, after all these years, have a proper national action plan? Are you working on it? How are we going to be using the women, peace and security agenda? What is our blueprint?
Mr. Gwozdecky: Thank you, senator. Let me start by referring back to what I mentioned earlier, which is that women are among the most vulnerable and they're the most likely to suffer in situations of conflict. They are also a vital resource in terms of taking a state and helping it to rebuild itself post-conflict, so it's very important that we support women and support their empowerment. Indeed, Canada does have a national action plan in place to support Resolution 1325. We are updating that plan as we speak, trying to give it real meaning — not that it wasn't already having a positive effect — to modernize it, to make sure that it is going to make a difference in places where women are so badly needed and so vulnerable.
In places like Iraq, which is a part of the world that I know better than others, there are unique circumstances that impact women. For the most part, what is happening is you have communities where there are forced displacements of individuals. In the Iraq context, these are typically Sunni communities, and the individuals have been forced to relocate into Sunni-dominated communities where you have a culture that is much more conservative. So you have women-led households suddenly, from rather progressive or shall we say less conservative leanings, living in very conservative communities without the male of the household present. So there are particular vulnerabilities that result from that.
We need to find ways to support women in that context. Canada has been providing a good deal of support in the Syria peace process to help train Syrian negotiators who are women to better contribute to that.
There are a number of very strong females on the High Negotiations Committee for the Syria peace process. We'd like to see more of them involved, bringing their special experience to bear.
These are just a couple of the things we need to do more of and will be doing more of when we complete this review.
Senator White: Thank you for being here. I appreciate you taking the time. You're saying we only have 115 Canadians currently in UN peacekeeping, including the police?
Mr. Gwozdecky: Yes. In UN peacekeeping we have a total of approximately 115. As I mentioned, there are a number of non-UN peacekeeping missions, EU or NATO, and there we have another 100 or more Canadian personnel involved.
The Chair: Could you provide us a breakdown of that, whether it's UN-led or NATO-led, so that we have a full understanding of which theatres and operations we're involved in, and a breakdown of how many Canadian personnel are involved?
Senator White: Since Namibia, when the police first started doing this type of work in Canada, at least formally started representing Canada in this type of format, we've seen growth and at times a bit of a lapse, but certainly since 9/ 11 we've seen Canadian police officers engaged in more and more places around the world. In fact, I think the demand has always been high. Other countries — Australia, New Zealand, some others, Scandinavian countries — have had the same demands as we have.
Instead of financially flowing from the federal government to the RCMP to manage such a system, has any consideration been given to the RCMP no longer being the majority number attending overseas missions? The majority now are actually municipal and provincial. Has any consideration been given to its being managed by someone other than the RCMP, whether it's through Global Affairs or DND, perhaps making it a permanent entity in another agency or department?
Mr. Gwozdecky: What I can tell you, senator, is that the government recently endorsed an extension to the Canadian Police Arrangement. Under that arrangement, the responsibility for police deployments is shared between the Department of Global Affairs and the Department of Public Safety, in which the RCMP is a component. So there's joint responsibility for that.
Under that arrangement, there are resources for 150 police personnel to be deployed abroad per year. As you mentioned — I don't have the numbers in front of me — a good deal of those are coming from municipal and provincial, non-RCMP homes. The arrangement that we have, whereby Global Affairs and the RCMP are co- managing it, seems to be a relatively successful one, and we have a solid resource commitment now for that going forward.
Senator White: I think it is successful as well from an operational perspective. We just had this discussion with the minister a few minutes ago, and we had this discussion with Minister Goodale and the Minister for Veterans Affairs. The challenge we have is that they're not treated equally, so that the RCMP employees are absolutely treated as they should be, yet we have provincial and municipal employees who return home and do not have access to those same benefits that the RCMP officers have access to.
They don't have access to Veterans Affairs, the medical program, to the PTSD and OSI programs available to RCMP employees and military employees. I think operationally they provide a spectacular service. My concern, though, is that when they return home, we treat them totally differently. Not only do they not have access to National Defence but they don't have access to the people they work shoulder to shoulder with in those locations. That's my concern. It's less about the operational piece and more about whether we're treating them equally and fairly, and I don't think we are.
Mr. Gwozdecky: I pledge to you to bring that message to my colleagues at Public Safety and the RCMP.
Senator White: I've done that already. I appreciate you being here.
[Translation]
Senator Dagenais: I would like to come back to what Senator White was talking about. In the case of Haiti, Sûreté du Québec police officers were withdrawn from operations because of post-traumatic shock. They were not able to receive the same care as veterans. They were returned to their organization, which was responsible for helping them through their employee benefits plan.
Going back to what Senator White was saying, I want to talk about the need to centralize or unify their rehabilitation. When Haiti was hit by the earthquake, RCMP officers died and Sûreté du Québec officers were injured. When they returned, each organization was responsible for ensuring their medical treatment and follow-up. I think that was what Senator White was talking about?
[English]
Mr. Gwozdecky: Thank you for bringing that to my attention. I'm not in a position to react to it. I would like to have an opportunity to go and consult with the RCMP. Undoubtedly, they'll have some information that we can pass on to you to explain what the arrangement is and what is being done, hopefully to address the concerns that you have.
Senator White: Thank you very much for that. There is a solution, if I may suggest.
Police officers can be sworn in under section 7 of the RCMP Act as a supernumerary special constable, which gives them access to the exact benefits RCMP officers have when they return.
In fact, I think they're probably sworn in under some level so that they can act on behalf of Canada in a foreign nation because their police authority is provincial in this country. So they're getting the ability to act; what they're not getting is the coverage. That's really our concern.
It wasn't an issue back in Namibia. The very first contingent was all police officers. I don't think people realize the impact on police agencies and police leaders who are questioning why they are sending people over and when they come back we treat them like second-class soldiers.
Thanks again for being here today.
The Chair: Colleagues, I'd like to return to the question of the UN peacekeeping operations and the budget. You stated in your address here that Canada is contributing approximately $290 million each year. Do you have with you a breakdown of that $290 million from a broad-brush point of view?
Mr. Gwozdecky: That $290 million represents the so-called assessed contribution for Canada. In other words, I think our share, our annual contribution to the UN, is in the vicinity of 3 per cent of its total budget. Basically, we're contributing 3 per cent of the overall budget. That would include all aspects of the UN's peace operations' budget.
The Chair: So that's our contribution to the United Nations, $290 million?
Mr. Gwozdecky: Yes. That's the obligation that we have and that all member states have to contribute to the UN.
What we're talking about in terms of the government's new strategy would be what we would do above and beyond that in terms of, let's say, a voluntary commitment to various peace operations' activities.
The Chair: I'm trying to follow this through in order to ascertain exactly what Canada's commitment is around the world. We talked about Kurdistan with the Minister of Defence earlier today. That's fairly substantial and it does, in some ways, dovetail or can be taken in the context of a peacekeeping mission in the fact that we are actually providing training and other tools for the people in Kurdistan at this time.
The reason I'm asking this question is I want to get a sense of exactly what the Canadian taxpayer is actually contributing around the world for those types of missions that we're talking about. We spoke about Egypt and the Gaza Strip. We have a significant contribution there.
Do you have a breakdown, as per your responsibilities in Global Affairs, to say this is what Canada is spending in terms of all the various decisions taken and commitments made?
Mr. Gwozdecky: The answer to your question, senator, is that I'm not aware of a global figure to cover all of those costs. What I mentioned in my statement is the fact that "peace operations'' is a concept that covers a full spectrum of interventions that a country might take. Peacekeeping is only one part of that. Peace operations can involve sending a mediator into a situation to help support a peace process, or sending conflict resolution specialists. The UN has upwards of 4,000 individuals involved in just those kinds of things. They call them political missions around the world. They are involved in Syria, for example, with teams on the ground trying to support the peace process in place.
Peace operations are much more than having Blue Berets on the ground. They are more and more likely to involve civilians supporting peace processes, mediation processes, resolution processes or peace-building processes. Then there are all the other elements I've mentioned: the humanitarian support we provide, typically in places where there is fragility, and development assistance. We don't typically roll those up into one budget because they are separate activities. But what we try to do in a peace operations context is to pull all those tools together to support an outcome.
The Chair: I'm just trying to get a sense of what the overall financial commitment is in a general sense with respect to the various areas we're involved in. I thought your department would have a sense of that to be able to say that in Kurdistan we're spending this much and in Gaza we're spending this much — to give context in terms of how Canadians are participating in events as they unfold around the world.
Mr. Gwozdecky: It's a perfectly reasonable question. The question, however, is how do you distinguish, because what is sometimes something you would do in a peace operations context would also be in place to support some other objective. For example, the government has an international assistance envelope of over $5 billion for all manner of international assistance activities that we do abroad.
The Chair: Is that every year?
Mr. Gwozdecky: That's every year. The majority of that is development assistance, which includes humanitarian interventions wherever there are conflict situations or humanitarian needs. Not all of that money is directly associated with a peace operation, but very often it can be applied to that peace operation.
Then you have the assets of the Department of National Defence or the RCMP or Public Safety. Their resources are often deployed abroad in a peace operations context, but those resources are also used domestically in Canada or elsewhere for non-peace operations activities.
I guess what I'm saying is that a new peace strategy may involve new resources from the taxpayer, but it's as likely to involve a bringing together of the existing resources that we have across the government in any of these various agencies to be applied in a coordinated way to a problem.
The Chair: If I could, colleagues, for the purpose of our study on the question of our involvement in respect of the Defence Department, and the question of the United Nations and their future involvement, I'm trying to get a sense of how this is working.
From what I can read here — tell me if I'm wrong — it seems that the government has made or is making the decision to, as you say, bring everything together. Am I reading this correctly that Global Affairs will basically be taking the lead role in ensuring that those commitments we make vis-à-vis peacekeeping and other areas, along with the Department of National Defence, but Global Affairs will be taking the lead role with respect to overseeing and making sure those things are done in a manner so that you have that combination and collective gathering of resources and information? Is that correct?
Mr. Gwozdecky: I think in general terms it's correct. The Department of Global Affairs has the mandate for coordinating Canada's actions abroad.
In the case of this peace operations strategy, it will be a decision that will be co-led by the Minister of National Defence and the Minister of Global Affairs. Both of them, in their mandate letters, were given that joint responsibility. The two of them will come forward to cabinet with this strategy. But in general terms, Canada's involvement abroad is generally coordinated by the Department of Global Affairs.
The Chair: Colleagues, could you just bear with me?
We've been charged with looking at a specific area, as you know, and of course that's in part why you're here today. I notice on page 8 of your presentation — which, quite frankly, I thought was very well presented — you have clearly outlined what Canada is going to do once the policy reforms have been taken into account: We're going to advocate for the development of clear and robust mandates, we'll continue to prioritize the protection of civilians, we will support measures to improve the operation and capabilities of troops and police contributors, and to improve UN readiness. There are a number of others. I'm not going to go through it again.
It seems to me that the decision has already been made as to how Canada is going to participate. The only thing you're asking of us is operational, how would we do that. Would we fly in with an airplane or would we drive in with a truck? I hate to put it in those simple terms, but I'm trying to get a sense of what exactly is being asked of us.
Mr. Gwozdecky: Senator, there's a slight change to the written text you were provided and what I delivered. Not to be too cute about it, but what I did say in my delivered remarks is that those points you mentioned were the outcomes of various UN high-level reviews. Those are the recommendations that came out of those reviews that we, as Canadians and the Canadian government, will take into account when we develop our strategy.
I didn't mean to mislead you or to suggest that that is our blueprint and it's already done, but I wanted to make it clear that these important reviews came up with a number of recommendations, some of which are I think fairly obvious and would be uncontestable. However, I can't say today that they represent the framework for our new strategy because the government hasn't had an opportunity to have its deliberation.
The Chair: It's obviously an area that we're going to have to give serious scrutiny to as we move forward from the point of view of the committee.
[Translation]
Senator Dagenais: UN missions can be hindered by a number of shortcomings. I would like to hear your views on Canada's capabilities and expertise and how they can be used to address these shortcomings. Although the UN clearly does excellent work, the fact remains that Canadian assistance must serve to overcome these challenges. I would therefore like to know what kinds of capabilities and expertise Canada has that could help the UN address its shortcomings, if any are found, of course.
[English]
Mr. Gwozdecky: In my statement, I refer to some of the unique capacities that Canada has that are in demand in a UN context. One is obviously our francophone capacity. That is a persistent gap in the UN context. They're generally in need of francophone personnel to serve overseas, and obviously Canada has that.
We are also a country with no colonial history. In many places around the world, we are better situated to put our people in place because there isn't an existing tension between Canada and that country as there is in many of our allies' cases.
Another thing has changed about peace operations. I referred to the fact that the top five contributors to UN peace operations are developing countries: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Rwanda and Ethiopia. This is consistent with developed countries moving away from providing the raw numbers in terms of boots on the ground. Other countries are able to provide the big numbers, but what Canada and other developed countries can't provide are things others don't have, what we call enabling capacities: air transport, medical support, intelligence capacity, engineering capacity, rapid moving capacity. In a dynamic peace operations context, you need to be able to respond and move your people around. These are the kinds of things that developed countries have that developing countries don't have that may be a value added, where we could have greater impact on the result without deploying large numbers of Canadians.
I should also mention that we have many Canadians who are experts in things like conflict mediation and conflict resolution. We want to develop our civilian capacity to deploy people in these peace missions so that they can hopefully prevent conflict before it happens because obviously it's vastly cheaper and vastly less costly in humanitarian terms to prevent a conflict before it has taken place.
Senator Jaffer: What you just said leads to my question. When Minister Sajjan was here he talked about preventing conflicts and working before the conflicts. If you can't share that, I understand. Are you working in any countries where Global Affairs is working to try to prevent conflicts? You've talked about conflict resolution. You're right; you do a great job in that. What countries are we working with to try to prevent conflicts?
Mr. Gwozdecky: Senator, I mentioned the support that we're providing in the Syrian context to some of the —
Senator Jaffer: Yes, but that's a conflict already. We're not preventing it.
Mr. Gwozdecky: Indeed. We're also trying to prevent a relapse of conflict, but I take your point.
We have provided support in any number of places. Colombia comes to mind. It's not so much a conflict situation, but there's a peace deal in process where we have provided support to the government on its request as it tried to negotiate this very complex peace agreement with the opposition. We've been active there.
Senator Jaffer: How about Kurdistan?
Mr. Gwozdecky: Kurdistan is an active conflict zone.
Senator Jaffer: Yes, it is an active conflict zone, I agree, but there are also internal issues within the communities.
Mr. Gwozdecky: We are providing support to the Government of Iraq in terms of, for example, providing some of the lessons we've learned in Canada on how to apply federalism. The Government of Iraq has been very interested in our model because they have a similar scenario in their country with one region that is autonomous in their orientation but also it is a federalist system where if they could find a way to share power and resources, it might be an outcome that would be positive in their case.
We have supported, through some local Canadian organizations, providing that capacity and those lessons learned to the Government of Iraq. That would be an investment in the future stability of Iraq as opposed to a strictly speaking conflict resolution. A similar outcome is what we're looking for.
Senator Jaffer: You were talking about providing conflict resolution, but one of the challenges has been, for example in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, that we removed a difficult leader — not "we'' as Canada, but generally — and there hasn't been a plan B. I'm wondering, especially in Libya and in Egypt, are we helping civil society try to resolve their disputes?
Mr. Gwozdecky: Yes. I can't speak in detail of the various kinds of support we have in those countries, but I go back to the point I made earlier, which is to say it's not enough to support a country in winning the battle against whatever adversary they're facing. We have to be ready to come in after we've won the battle to provide the support for good governance, for development and for ongoing economic prosperity. It's only with all of those things in place that a country will emerge from conflict and not relapse back into it. That's why we make sure our development programs and our various kinds of assistance are brought together in a coordinated, integrated way. That's what we seek every time we make new investments abroad.
The Chair: Colleagues, we've only got a couple of minutes, but I'd like to go back to the question that Senator White and Senator Dagenais raised with respect to the policing contributions we make to various parts of the world and the difference between the municipality, the provinces and the RCMP.
How does it work if they are actually officers of different organizations with different unions, different representation, and they go overseas? How does Global Affairs operate, for example, if there are allegations of sexual misconduct or that type of things? How are rules applied if they belong to different organizations?
Mr. Gwozdecky: We have one common approach in that regard. We start with our policy, which is zero tolerance for this. Every officer assigned abroad, whether police, military or civilian, has to sign an undertaking code of conduct, a non-fraternization commitment. All are bound by that same commitment.
As you mentioned, many of our people will come from different home organizations, so if there is a question of sexual exploitation or abuse, the disciplinary undertaking falls to that home organization.
By and large I think it's safe to say that Canadian law enforcement institutions have very robust systems in place to deal with sexual misconduct, and we rely on those protocols to ensure that the right thing is done, that we address every situation.
The Chair: So they are addressed, if it does occur?
Mr. Gwozdecky: They are addressed, yes.
The Chair: We very much appreciate the information that you've provided.
Welcome to the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence as we continue our examination into the government's defence policy review. The minister has requested that the committee look specifically at how National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces can contribute to renewing Canada's commitment to United Nations peace support operations Canada.
Joining us for our fourth panel is Hervé Ladsous, Head of Department in the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations. Mr. Ladsous, we are pleased that you are able to join us today, especially in view of the holiday in the United States. I understand you have an opening statement.
[Translation]
Hervé Ladsous, Head of Department, United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations: It is a great honour for me to have this opportunity to meet with you via video conference on this holiday, as you say. It is important to meet with members of the National Security and Defence Committee of the Canadian Senate.
My message, Mr. Chair, will be a very simple one. I am aware that your country is in the midst of reviewing and re- examining its defence policy and that one of the parameters of that policy is the possibility of Canada returning, in the words of your Prime Minister, Mr. Trudeau, to what was part of its DNA, in other words, a close association with the United Nations and, in particular, with peacekeeping.
It is true that there was a brief period in which, if I may say so, Canada was not among our key partners, but there is an opportunity now — and the needs are certainly there — for Canada to once again become an important contributor of troops and police forces, as it historically was for many years.
This is not limited to providing troops and police officers, but also includes Canada's institutional role, here in New York. You are surely aware that your country's permanent mission has chaired, for a good number of years, what we call the C-34, that is, the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations, which is the body that oversees, obviously after the Security Council, everything we do. From that perspective, we have always enjoyed extremely close and positive cooperation with Canadian diplomats.
Now, let's talk statistics. Peacekeeping at the United Nations today employs some 125,000 people spread out across 16 missions. It has a budget of about $8.2 billion for the upcoming year. These are some of the most delicate and complex theatres of operations on the planet today. I think of Mali, where, as you have seen, 48 hours ago we lost another five Togolese soldiers in a terrorist ambush carried out by a relatively new group calling itself the Macina Liberation Front, made up of Fulanis, but Fulanis who, it would appear, are associated with al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
Ten days ago, it was another attack on Chadians, this time in Tessalit, in the northernmost part of Mali. There were more dead and injured. So you can see that, while UN peacekeepers used to be respected — even revered — this is no longer the case with the intervention of all these armed groups affiliated with jihadist terrorist movements and drug traffickers.
It is obviously very important for us to be able to count on countries that are well prepared, equipped and trained to deal with this very difficult situation.
Furthermore, we also have to deal with the problem of host governments that are less than cooperative, particularly Sudan, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. These are countries that love us, that adore us. However, when things go bad, that isn't quite the case. But once the crisis is over, they thank us and send us on our way.
Our primary mission is to protect civilians. Within the framework of a political process — and we are just a tool to facilitate the political process — we have to protect civilians using every means at our disposal. That involves rules of engagement, which have hardened over the past few years as a result of the Security Council's influence, and the UN's use of the latest technology. In reality, it means taking advantage of technologies that are often already being used in the private sector. It means developing — and we are working on it — an intelligence policy that is worthy of the name. Indeed, it means fulfilling our mission.
It's not easy. We are faced with almost every conceivable kind of problem, including, unfortunately, at the professional performance level. From now on, the policy is quite clear: when a contingent or unit fails to meet our performance criteria, it is sent home for professional misconduct. You are surely aware that we've recently had serious issues involving sexual misconduct, such as in the Central African Republic and the Congo. Now more than ever, we are adopting a zero tolerance policy, and the target we are working towards is "zero instances.'' Unfortunately, we are the United Nations, and member states have not provided us with the means to launch investigations and legal proceedings. All of this remains in the hands of member states who, with the UN's help, work to ensure that such questionable, regrettable and disheartening situations do not happen again.
So, Mr. Chair, you undoubtedly want to know what we expect from Canada. In my view, in returning to its roots and DNA, Canada can contribute much. First, troops, uniformed personnel, including police officers — individuals who are extremely well trained, equipped, competent and committed — and people who can speak French. At the moment, about half of our personnel on deployment are in francophone countries. Given the current situation in the Central African Republic, Mali and the Congo, we realize that having francophone personnel is vital to meeting our needs, namely, medical and engineering units, staff and intelligence officers, and police officers — especially female police officers. We always need more women, and we know that Canada has one of the strongest policies in that regard.
I think I will leave it at that, Mr. Chair.
[English]
Let me say again we really count on Canada to resume its historic role in UN peacekeeping.
I think the needs are there. I think the capacity to respond to the needs is absolutely outstanding. Realizing that you are reviewing your defence policy, that doesn't happen overnight, obviously, but in due course I would hope that your country can proudly step forward and help us in our endeavours for international peace and security. Thank you very much.
The Chair: Thank you very much, sir.
Senator Jaffer: Thank you very much for your very interesting presentation. As you know, the United Nations has a big women, peace and security agenda. How are you integrating Resolution 1325 and all the other resolutions that have come since then into your peace operations?
Mr. Ladsous: It is, indeed, a crucial question. Resolution 1325 has been a landmark resolution and one that we are integrating fully into the way we work. It's recognizing the role of women in peace processes. It's making sure that that agenda perspective is fully integrated. It's about doing concrete things.
Obviously in the military, the Blue Helmets, we can hardly do better than most armies in the world. The world armies still have a limited number of women.
I do have, for the first time in UN history, a lady major general who is commanding personnel in Cyprus. To take another example, we are developing everywhere we can — in Haiti, in Liberia, in DRC — all-female police units to take care of the sad reality that women and children are the first who suffer in conflict.
When you see the dramatic situation in South Sudan, where possibly tens of thousands of women have been raped, where rape has been used as a tool of war, we really need to integrate this fully into our work. It takes many work streams and initiatives, but we are doing all we can to work on this issue in a rigorous and effective way.
Senator Jaffer: The report on the UN's High-level Independent Panel on Peace Operations identifies several strategies, but it also says that uniting strengths for peace, politics, partnership and people, and the panel states that the UN has been slow in implementing many of its policy commitments, such as a merit-based selection of mission leaders and the inclusion of women in the senior leadership positions.
Can we be sure that these commitments will be honoured, contributing up to your push for peace operations that reflect the modern context?
Mr. Ladsous: Senator Jaffer, if you look at the practice of the several past years you will see this has been a very strong policy by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to make it so more woman are brought into leadership positions. Right now we have seven heads of missions, special representatives of the Secretary-General, who are women. In Côte d'Ivoire, in Liberia and Haiti we are doing this because it is the way it should be.
And you mentioned the high-level panel on the study of peace operations. We have arranged it so that the review of peace operations and the review on women, peace and security, as well as yet another third review, which was about peace building, were brought together and were synergized so that we can make the best decisions to make it happen.
Senator Jaffer: Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Dagenais: Thank you for your presentation, Mr. Ladsous. I would like to hear your thoughts on conflict prevention in the context of peacekeeping operations. What kinds of resources does the UN need in order to be in a better position to assess emerging crises?
Mr. Ladsous: I would say prevention. Everyone agrees on this point.
[Translation]
That's great, when it works. The only thing is, you see, I've got 16 peacekeeping operations in my portfolio, and they are all prevention-based initiatives that didn't work. Therein lies the problem.
The secretary general introduced a policy two and a half years ago, called Human Rights Up Front, that consists of acting on a certain number of early warning indicators such as human rights violations, acts of violence, and all sorts of things that point to a problem or a developing situation that requires action.
Take the example of Burundi, where, during the past year, God knows we've seen the number of disappearances, acts of torture and illegal detentions multiply. It is clear that everything that can be done to prevent a conflict from erupting must be done; but, at the same time, the Security Council, which is responsible for assessing these types of situations, has yet to make any compelling decisions on the issue.
Since last summer, I have been looking into whether we could temporarily move some of our regiments out of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I know they are different countries, but the international community would not understand, if, say, a situation were to suddenly arise in Burundi, why we — the United Nations — have 20,000 peacekeepers in the Congo, but nobody 30 kilometres away from there in Bujumbura. I had therefore begun quietly studying the situation and setting up contingency plans, but it has remained on the table.
In December, when the Security Council asked what I was doing in the way of contingency plans, I replied: "Tell me what you want. Do you want prevention? Do you want reaction? Do you want action with the agreement of the Burundi government? Without the agreement of the Burundi government?'' For the time being, the Security Council decided on a police presence.
Now, what kind of police presence? Are we talking about executive policing, which requires 2,000 or 3,000 police officers? That kind of presence can't be mobilized overnight. Or would we be doing human rights monitoring at police stations? In prisons? The matter is still being debated by the Security Council.
So I think you are entirely right, prevention is always infinitely preferable to reaction, but once again we need the resources and a vision of what we are really looking for.
Senator Dagenais: Correct me if I am wrong, we are talking about reform of the security sector, but what impact will these reforms have on UN peacekeeping operations and on countries such as Canada, which provide troops?
Mr. Ladsous: In my opinion, security sector reforms are clearly needed in many crisis or post-crisis situations. What does that mean? I like to think in practical terms, not abstract ones. So when people mention security reform in one country or another, I want a sheet with the key figures. How many forces will have to be demobilized and reassigned? How big is the army? How big should the army be? How big are the local police, the gendarmerie, or both? What budgets are available?
Once you have that information, things become clearer. Look at the situation in Mali right now. The Algiers Agreement was signed a year ago and there are thousands of veterans, mostly Touaregs who were in the armed forces in the north, who have to be reassigned. The question is how many personnel can be taken from the army or the police or some other body that could be created, and how much will that cost?
I was in Mali three weeks ago. The challenge there was to get the armed forces, the coordination and the platform, as they call it, to give us their list of personnel so we can start quartering them at the cantonment camps we have created. Three are operational, others are being set up, and we will try to move forward on this. Otherwise, we can't imagine that these people would be able to take up arms and go on the offensive again.
The situation is the same in the Democratic Republic of Congo. We did a good job, I would say, in defeating the rebel group called the M23. For two years, though, half of these people have been in Uganda and half in Rwanda, without any clear prospects. So we must absolutely find a way for them to resume a more normal life.
It's the same thing in the Central African Republic. No one takes exception to the Central African Republic wanting to keep an army; they have about 7,000 personnel. The army has to be trained, of course. The European Union has made a lot of progress in this regard in the past year with their military assistance mission and has set the parameters of what the Central African army should be. This military assistance mission will become a training mission, like the European Union had before in Mali. This will make the army professional and respectful of democratic values and human rights.
This kind of thing can't be operational from one day to the next, but this is clearly a priority for our countries that contribute resources and troops, because this is how we can prevent new hostilities and further painful episodes.
Senator Dagenais: You mentioned countries that contribute troops. What can UN member states do to deploy troops in a timely manner? Can UN member states serve as facilitators to offer engineers, physicians, planes, special equipment, et cetera, to enable a rapid deployment of troops?
Mr. Ladsous: Speed of deployment is crucial. A few years ago when I started in my position, we had a stand-by system, but it didn't work. Under that old system, it took six to nine months to deploy a unit where needed.
That all changed last year with help from the United States. President Obama became personally involved. We held a peacekeeping summit at our general assembly in September, and 50 or so countries offered about 50,000 troops that could be available quickly and with a variety of equipment and skills.
Since then, we have been working to implement the Peacekeeping Capability Readiness System, which by the end of the year will have about 15,000 men and women available for deployment within 30 to 60 days. This will enable us to quickly launch a moderately-sized peacekeeping operation with all the technical abilities required.
We are short of equipment such as helicopters, especially attack helicopters. We started using drone surveillance three years ago, and it has become essential. We need capacity in intelligence, engineering units and — in the case of Canada, this is a special request — French-speaking personnel.
In the Central African Republic, we have units that are barely operational. Three years ago, I discussed this problem with the Bangladeshi army chief. He said he intended to create a French-language instruction branch in the Bangladeshi army, and he has done this. Since then, I have met a number of young Bangladeshi captains in Bangui who speak French. But that is not enough. Having French-speaking members of the RCMP and of the Canadian Armed Forces could make a big difference. There is a need. Canada must take part in the Peacekeeping Capability Readiness System so we can make progress. I suggested this to the Canadian ambassador last week in New York. I told him we need a French-speaking major-general in the Democratic Republic of Congo for MONUSCO, our largest mission, which has more than 20,000 soldiers. I hope Canada will contribute.
Senator Dagenais: You don't need French-speaking senators?
Mr. Ladsous: In France, senators were once called advisors of the Republic. That was a very wise approach.
[English]
You might say it's apple pie and motherhood.
The Chair: I want to follow up on a couple of aspects of what we're discussing here. In your opening statement, you said there were 125,000 personnel involved in peacekeeping around the world in one manner or another. Is that correct?
Mr. Ladsous: That is correct, sir.
The Chair: Secondly, you just updated us on a commitment that was made for an additional 15,000 personnel, so would that be a total of 140,000 personnel?
Mr. Ladsous: Not exactly, sir. These 15,000 are people on standby. They are registered as being totally ready technically with equipment, with training to deploy the minute their government decides to participate in a peacekeeping operation. It means that at the end of this year, if the Security Council were to decide on a new peacekeeping operation, I can say, "I'm ready to deploy up to 15,000 people within 30 to 60 days.''
The Chair: But just to follow-up, it's 125,000 plus an additional 15,000 if they're used?
Mr. Ladsous: No, 15,000 if required, sir, if there is a new operation or a surge in an existing operation decided by the Security Council.
The Chair: I'm trying to get a sense of exactly what commitments are being made. You mentioned there were 16 missions where there were peacekeeping operations under way. Is that correct?
Mr. Ladsous: That is correct. By the way, two or three of those will be closing shortly. The mission in Côte d'Ivoire will be closing next spring; the mission in Liberia probably in the following year; and, we hope, if local politics allow, the mission in Haiti, MINUSTAH, also in a comparable time frame.
The Chair: I want to get a comparison in time. Five years ago, there were 16 missions around the world, or has that been fairly consistent?
Mr. Ladsous: No, five years ago it would have been 13 missions, since we created the mission in Abyei, between the two Sudans, the mission in South Sudan, the mission in Mali and the mission in Central African Republic.
The Chair: So the numbers of missions have increased?
Mr. Ladsous: Yes, definitely.
The Chair: If I could go to another area here to get a sense of the type of expertise that Canada could provide, some concerns have been expressed that in some cases where the men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces were to become involved in the United Nations operations, particularly in Africa, having the necessary immunities to withstand some of the tropical diseases there that we don't have here on an ongoing basis is of concern. Perhaps you would want to comment on that.
Mr. Ladsous: Of course the safety and personal security of our people is an utmost priority. So in the case of public health, it is of course very important that we have appropriate medical facilities to help our people survive these threats. With threats of disease, we have worked a lot on the logistics. You would imagine that in a country like the Central African Republic, which is far from the sea, in a place like Mali, which is also very much removed inside the African continent, it is a huge challenge, but we do our best to provide duty of care to our people.
The Chair: I'm not doubting that at all. The point I'm making is that we who are raised in the northern hemisphere don't necessarily have the same immunities as one raised in the tropics to withstand on an ongoing basis some of the illnesses that can happen.
Mr. Ladsous: I can only say, senator, that the country I know best, France, is not either a country that is accustomed to those viruses and diseases in Africa, yet we do our best to do the job. Of course, it requires a lot of medical support to make sure that our people don't suffer excessive danger, but you can never, of course, think that zero danger exists.
The Chair: Pursuing another area, the question of the financial commitments and capabilities that Canada could provide, has Canada provided you or have you requested from Canada any financial commitments for the forthcoming three to five years? Have there been any negotiations in that sense?
Mr. Ladsous: Financial commitments, Mr. Chairman, are dealt with by the General Assembly. There is a scale of assessment which apportions the costs of peacekeeping operations against member states. I should have checked the share of Canada in that scale of assessment. It's there. It's adjusted regularly, and there is nothing there to really negotiate. It's a decision by the General Assembly of the United Nations.
Of course, we always welcome voluntary contributions from a country like yours. Your country has helped us on gender issues, adding additional capabilities, and I welcome that.
The Chair: The commitment that we presently are making, the way I understand it, on an annual basis to peacekeeping is $290 million. That's our proportion.
What I was looking at was any requests over and above that amount being requested of Canada or other countries, whether voluntary or otherwise.
Mr. Ladsous: I don't have the exact figure in my mind, but it's about 2.5 per cent of the overall budget of peacekeeping, and that is adjudicated by the General Assembly of the United Nations.
On top of that, of course, as a troop contributor, as a police contributor, you can provide us with people, with equipment, for which we have standard procedures of reimbursement. Certainly, if your country was able to offer us helicopters, in particular attack helicopters, subject to reimbursement, that would be very much appreciated.
The Chair: If I could go on to the question of training of peacekeepers. I'm sure it takes a certain amount of expertise for those involved in peacekeeping to know exactly what their responsibilities and authorities are. Is that an area that Canada could become involved in, as an agency that actually becomes well accredited in the ability to train peacekeepers pre- and post-deployment, so that it's an area we can perhaps get expertise in?
Mr. Ladsous: Very much so. I think a country like Canada can help us a lot in training into issues that are quintessential to our job, such as protection of civilians, human rights, protection of children in conflict, dealing with the consequences of warfare.
I know you have been very engaged in repressing sexual harassment in the army and the police. We certainly have to continue to do a better job in this area, even though the main responsibility for training lies with the police- contributing country. We've discovered countless times that we have to step in after deployment when, despite a lot of checking, the training was not quite up to standard. It's one thing to listen to a country showing their military parading and behaving and saying all the right things, but when you are in operational circumstances, sometimes you discover it's not quite the case. That is something that needs to be addressed, and certainly a country with your wealth of experience would be very helpful there.
The Chair: I want to refer back to Africa because you've raised it a number of times. You pointed out a number of countries that are now a predominant membership for the UN peacekeeping forces. I'd like to clarify for the record. If a country sends in a thousand troops into, say, the Belgian Congo, do they get paid so much per troop? Is that how it works? Would that work for Canada as well? If we send in troops from Canada, do we get paid per member that we send in?
Mr. Ladsous: Absolutely, senator. There is a standard rate of reimbursement. That is a flat rate not dependent on the country contributing. I can tell you right now the reimbursement is in the rate of $1,363, I believe, per person per month, which of course may not amount to the actual cost in the case of a country like yours, which of course may mean a lot to poorer countries, but that was a decision of the General Assembly.
Similarly, we have rates for the reimbursement of armoured personnel carriers, helicopters and aircraft and so on. This is a very standardized system, and that's the way it has been for many years.
The Chair: Colleagues, are there any more questions for the witness?
Sir, I'm going to thank you very much for taking time out of your schedule. It's very much appreciated. We may ask you to come forward again at another time as we continue the study into the question of the possibility of our participation in the United Nations peacekeeping operations.
We appreciate the expertise you brought to the table. I will now excuse you, and you can go about your evening.
I'll say to my colleagues, we are hereby adjourned.
(The committee adjourned.)