National Defence Committee on Oct. 4th, 2006

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

I see.

And do you and Gen Gauthier have the same rank? Is he also a Major General?

[MGen Daniel Benjamin]

No, Jean Gauthier is a Lieutenant-General. It is one rank higher than mine.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

He is one rank higher than you. So, he can order you to provide him with what he needs.

[MGen Daniel Benjamin]

Yes.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

I understand. However, special operations forces have a different way of doing things. As I see it, they have a colonel acting as commander of these special forces. As a matter of fact, I'm having trouble understanding why a colonel would be responsible for all special forces.

Can he call and tell you not to reveal any state secrets? We know that their movements and location are secret information. If he says that they have arrived at a certain spot in Afghanistan and that they need this or that, can he ask you directly to provide him with what he needs?

[MGen Daniel Benjamin]

On the basis of our new force and command structure, all operations come under the authority of the Canadian Operational Support Command or the command structure at the expeditionary level.

Special forces report to those two commands, except in very rare cases where the commander reports directly to the Chief of the Defence Staff. In fact, it is in those rare cases that I will deal directly with him to provide support.

As a general rule, everything involved in it is top secret, and only some people are aware of the type of support being provided.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Several years ago, there was a whole debate on privatizing the supply chain, but to my knowledge, it is still under the full authority of the Department of National Defence, is it not?

[MGen Daniel Benjamin]

Yes, it is.

That is a fundamental component and I'm really very happy that it is still within our purview, especially since it is now under my command and the lessons learned directly in Afghanistan clearly show that that is essential.

Indeed, these people are required to provide operational support at all times, day and night, just as our people do in theatre. If ammunition is needed, I have civilian employees in my organization who will work overtime to ensure that ammunition gets to theatre within the appropriate timeframe.

That is what operational requirements demand, and I'm very pleased we were able to prevent that from being privatized, because I don't think contracting it out to the private sector would have allowed us to provide the proper response for a request of this type.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Absolutely.

Now, having been in a theatre of operations a couple of times, I also know that the military often relies on private companies. ATCO Frontec comes to mind.

Is it the same thing in Afghanistan at the present time? It was the case in Bosnia-Herzegovina. In other words, are we using the services of private firms? And when we ask a private firm to do something, is that firm given a turnkey contract whereby it has to get its own supplies, or do you supply the private firm in theatre?

[MGen Daniel Benjamin]

We have the major CANCAP contract, which was awarded to SNC-Lavallin, and some people are currently working in Afghanistan.

That is the case when a theatre of operations becomes more and more mature, such as at the military air base at Kandahar Airport. The Americans have Kellogg, Brown and Root, which is sort of the equivalent of CANCAP. They can take on certain duties that our military personnel carried out previously, thus freeing up the necessary military personnel to support our missions over the long term. The more mature it is, the more we try to rely on these people.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

You try to use private companies to a greater extent?

[MGen Daniel Benjamin]

We support them and they are part of our operations. We are also there to protect them. It's a whole package. We treat them as one of our own.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

But in that case, are they only supplying the manpower? If you need lumber to build buildings, for example, are you the ones that provide that to them, or do they have a contract and arrange to supply the materials themselves?

[MGen Daniel Benjamin]

There is an acquisition process for all kinds of materiel, whether it's water, oil, or lumber. It's really fairly complex, because it's sometimes a multinational effort, whereas in other cases, it may be only a national requirement. For example, when we need lumber, it's often a national requirement. In that case, we will deal with Koblenz, where there is a detachment from Public Works and Government Services Canada. That is often where we get construction materials that Kellogg, Brown and Root cannot provide within the necessary timeframe.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

What percentage of procurement in Kandahar comes from Canada? Is it possible to purchase certain services or goods directly in theatre, in the country where the operations are being conducted? In Kandahar, it must be a special situation. There must not be many Mercedes-Benz dealers there, if the commander needs to get from one place to the other. Local companies can't provide those vehicles. Are you the ones providing everything in theatre?

[MGen Daniel Benjamin]

Supplies come from all across the world, and it's based on the different types of materials, commodities, and so on. Every item is managed differently.

I can give you an example. Food is currently being provided by the Americans, through Kellogg, Brown and Root, which has a contract with the US Defense Logistics Agency. That company provides fresh food in Kandahar to everyone.

It's truly a multinational system. We can serve everyone operating in the same camp and create synergies, rather than every group having an individual contract for its own kitchens. So, all the commodities are looked at one by one. Things are evolving now in the sense that the Americans are currently in charge of support at the base in Kandahar. That will migrate to NATO starting next summer. As a result, there will be major changes in terms of contractual suppliers and we are trying to manage that in a comprehensive fashion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

I'm sorry, Claude, you're time's up. You're a little bit overtime, but thanks for the quick response.

Mr. Christopherson.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, General and Colonel, for an excellent presentation.

I'd like to start with sort of an open-ended question. Right now, what's the single biggest challenge you face in providing for the Afghanistan theatre?

[MGen Daniel Benjamin]

My single biggest challenge is the length of the line of communications. It is 11,000 kilometres, so it's quite a challenge to sustain such an operation at the current level from Canada, especially on the types of items that can only be found in Canada, such as spare parts to our vehicles, and so on.

This is quite a challenge, especially when we don't have our own strategic lift. So we are really learning a lot from this, and hopefully we'll do things much better in the future in this regard. But it is a very long line of communication between those two countries.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Given the current supply chain, are you confident that you can supply adequately until the end of the current or the renewed mission, which would be February 2009?

[MGen Daniel Benjamin]

Yes, definitely, we can truly sustain this mission. There's no problem there.

I would say that we are the envy of most countries dealing in Afghanistan, in the sense that our supply chain, our end-to-end process, is de facto purple. It caters to army, navy, and air force needs, so it's great. It's one person dealing with it, which countries such as the U.S. and U.K. don't have. They have this inefficiency of the air force bringing their own thing, the army bringing their own thing, and having three different distribution systems for the same goods.

So we are the envy of many for having a single chain that's purple, and this is due to the integration we had back in the 1968-72 timeframe.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Okay, thank you.

If you receive an order this evening when you leave here that you are to open up a supply chain into Darfur, because we are part of a UN mission going there, would you be able to respond to that mission right now with what you have?

[MGen Daniel Benjamin]

Yes. We've already been asked similar questions in different theatres, and there are some support trades right now that could not go into a different theatre of operation. We can reinforce Afghanistan, but we cannot go into any other theatre of operation.

A key one is health services. In terms of our capabilities in health services, all we have is what we call role two, an advanced surgical capacity—and only one. We have taken a lead role in Afghanistan in this regard, and we are stretching this capability to its maximum. We can sustain it, but we are stretching it. So if we are to go into a different theatre of operation, then the government will have to manage the rest. Do we send our soldiers without guaranteed medical support? That is a very difficult decision to take.

My recommendation is, I cannot do it. Are you sure that you want to do it? Or is another country going to come in and cough up? Maybe if another country comes in, you could do that. But health service is clearly a showstopper at this point in time. This is why I'm briefing the Chief of the Defence Staff very soon on the capability shortfall we have and have to address on the support side, so that we can de facto support our lines.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you.

I'm new to subbing on this committee, so forgive me for asking rather naive questions. But I'll ask anyway.

My understanding is that normally when the U.S does their planning, they can do at least two, maybe even three, major fronts, if necessary. It seems you just basically said that we can't go anywhere else. How healthy is it that a nation would commit itself so far that it has no latitude to go anywhere else under any other circumstances? I realize that's a little out of your.... Still, from where you sit, how much do we leave ourselves shorthanded as a nation, in terms of our ability to do anything beyond this one mission?

[MGen Daniel Benjamin]

We are recovering from several cuts to the support capabilities in the Canadian Forces, so—