Evidence of meeting #14 for National Defence in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was forces.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
LaVar Payne Conservative Medicine Hat, AB
I'll make this really short then.
How do you see the current evolution of international humanitarian law affecting peace operations, or peacemaking or peacekeeping?
12:05 p.m.
Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
It is going to become extremely difficult to mount even these types of operations in the future, as we're seeing--and as you are all living--with the current detainee issue. The fact remains that the options Canada had going into Afghanistan and dealing with those detainees were very limited. You could either attempt to build your own prison, which would be very costly, which would be an easy target, and which we simply didn't have the resources to have. You could give those prisoners to the United States, which was already politically unacceptable in Canada, starting in 2002, or you could give them to the country that you are operating in, with their permission. That is also now, for a variety of reasons, becoming unacceptable--at least in the minds of certain critics.
Now, in the future we may be in a situation where the host country is clearly committed to human rights, is clearly committed to these types of norms that we can rely on to deal with prisoners and detainees. That may not be the case in every operation. We should be very careful and be aware going in that this may be the case and that we will have severe limitations on what we can do with prisoners. International humanitarian law also raises--and hopefully somebody else will bring this up in questions--precisely who we treat as a combatant and who is not. But I believe the current policy of treating everybody under the Geneva Convention is the right one.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Maxime Bernier
Merci. Thank you very much.
We'll now give the floor to Mr. Bagnell for five minutes.
12:05 p.m.
Liberal
Larry Bagnell Liberal Yukon, YT
Thank you.
I actually only have one question that I'd like each of you to answer.
As you know, there's a major NGO initiative in Canada to create a department of peace. I'm sure you have been e-mailed on it. I wonder what your comments are on that concept. Could each of you reply?
12:05 p.m.
Col (Retired) Michel Drapeau
I'm neither against it nor for it. I think that as a peace-loving people, our entire government is certainly a department of peace through its foreign policy and its national policies. As to whether or not we need to have such a thing, I'm for less government, not more government.
12:05 p.m.
Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
I believe an agency would most likely be the better way to go, an agency that could really ensure entire government cooperation amongst CIDA, certain elements of the Canadian Forces, DFAIT, Public Safety, and the RCMP. It would be something I would be in favour of.
However, to have an entire ministry devoted to that task...it's unclear to me what its responsibilities would be and how it would be held accountable for the types of actions it would undertake.
An agency under the Department of Foreign Affairs would seem more appropriate, in my mind. It's what we have with START, the nascent idea we had for dealing with failed and fragile states. I could see elevating that particular element of the department.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Maxime Bernier
Merci. Thank you very much.
I'll now give the floor to Ms. Gallant.
May 4th, 2010 / 12:10 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Through you to Dr. Lagassé, do you not think that pre-announcing a formal end date to an expeditionary deployment affords certain planning advantages to the belligerents?
The reason I ask is that you said in your opening statement that before Canada deploys its military, we should have a definite idea of the mission and know when we're coming back.
12:10 p.m.
Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
If Canada deployed independently on major combat operations, I would accept the point. We, however, do not. Since the Second World War, we have always deployed as part of a larger coalition. We know the larger coalition is going to be led by, and the vast majority of the troops and the cost of the mission will be harboured by, one of our greater power allies, be it the United States, Britain, and so forth.
There's no suggestion that the entire alliance or the entire mission would declare an end date. It's simply to say that knowing the size of its forces and the limitations of its contribution, Canada should make clear to its larger allies how much we're willing to give and for what period of time, before we have to come back to pause and get our forces back for perhaps a later deployment.
I don't think it's beyond the realm of possibility. I don't think it would signal anything to an opponent more than our willingness to actually engage over the long haul. We're really trying to signal to our allies that we can deploy for a certain amount of time, but we also expect them to backfill for us while we're resting, recuperating, and getting ready for future deployments.
I accept the point that the entire mission shouldn't declare an end date. As for Canada's contribution, on the other hand, given that we are a secondary power within most of these operations, to my mind, it would be a prudent and wise decision and would allow our allies to prepare to replace us in a prudent and efficient manner.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
You don't think that progress should be a contributing factor to the point at which Parliament collectively decides to end a deployment.
Would this still have applied, for example, in the situation of World War II? Canada had not been threatened at that time. Would it have been feasible or credible for Canada to go in at that stage and tell our allies that we only have so many soldiers, we want them to rest after x number of months of deployment, and this is when we're coming, ready or not, like it or not?
12:10 p.m.
Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Well, first, Canada declared war on Germany on the 9th of September 1939. It's erroneous to say Canada wasn't threatened. Canada was directly threatened.
There's a second point that I believe is important to make. Parliament does not decide. It's a prerogative of the crown. You may advise the crown on when to deploy forces, but the decision to deploy troops remains with the crown and the executive. That needs to be clear.
Even when using the Second World War as an example, it was an Allied effort and there were certain missions where Canada clearly said we would not contribute. We were not a major player in the Pacific. It was an entirely legitimate point for us to make that we would not engage in that particular theatre of operations after Hong Kong. It's okay for an ally such as Canada to delineate what it will do and how it will contribute. We're going to see something very similar in future conflicts.
At no point has Canada declared that Afghanistan must end at a certain date. It is simply saying the Canadian contribution to the larger NATO mission must have limits. You otherwise open yourself up to a great deal of abuse on the part of your allies. They would simply assume you would be willing to bear an extraordinary amount of cost, because you haven't signaled that you're leaving or you have limitations. For a smaller power like Canada, it's entirely rational for it to declare that it can only do so much and it expects to be supported.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
My next question touches on what Laurie Hawn had referred to earlier with respect to national interest to Canadians and where we fight the battles. For example, the Afghan mission was not just fulfilling NATO obligations; the objective was to keep the fight at the source of the threat, and Canada was one of the named countries that retaliation would be sought after.
In your opinion, what should Canada's response be to an incident, should it have occurred in Canada, such as one that happened on the weekend in Times Square? Should we sit back and ruminate about it or wait until NATO comes to some kind of conclusion? Do we determine whether or not there's a greater threat, an immediate threat? What should we do, according to what your initial statements were, in light of a possible deployment?
12:15 p.m.
Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Let us assume for a moment that we did not retain some kind of capability in Canada to deal with the threat and the bomb had actually exploded. My initial reaction would have been that we should have a sufficient number of soldiers to deal with the consequences of that attack. That would be my first point.
My second point is, from what we've understood thus far, one of the alleged perpetrators is of Pakistani origin or a Pakistani citizen, and I do not believe Canada would be in a position to undertake a regime change in Pakistan, or would want to do so, simply because a citizen of that country has mounted an attack on Canadian soil.
We would have to mount a coordinated, multi-faceted effort to improve our homeland security, to improve our civilian agency's capability of dealing with that threat initially, and perhaps if we could clearly identify through those channels of intelligence that this individual was trained in certain camps, we could mount limited operations against those camps or against certain other facilitators of that operation. It is something altogether different, though, to say that Canada should then commit to a large-scale, nation-transforming exercise in a certain part of the world that we know very little about.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Maxime Bernier
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Dr. Lagassé.
Now I will give the floor to Mr. Hawn for five minutes.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We've talked about the UN a little bit, but obviously, Professor Lagassé, when people think of peacekeeping, most people automatically think of the UN, the blue berets, and all that kind of stuff. We know, of course, how that is transitioned.
The UN is a wonderful concept that, in my personal view, has been pretty much an abject failure when it comes to dealing with situations around the world. Can you comment on the future of the UN in peace operations, sort of writ large?
They have no capacity in their own right to do anything. They're always going to have to do it through member nations. Can you comment on that?
12:15 p.m.
Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
UN missions, and UN peacekeeping operations in particular, work best when the belligerents have already come to some agreement that they're exhausted, that they need a third party to come in and intervene and simply act as a neutral party to separate them. Missions of that type, first-generation, interpositional missions where the combatants have already agreed to lay down their arms and arrive at some negotiation, can succeed.
The problem we have today is that those conflicts don't really seem to exist anymore. Most of the conflicts that were going to end of their own accord have ended. What we're left with are a number of conflicts that seem perpetual, in which case, the United Nations is really not in a position to provide very much support.
As the point you're making, the United Nations does not have the capacity to enforce peace. It does not have the capacity to create peace. It can encourage peace, it can facilitate peace, and Canada should only commit to UN operations that are of a first-generation nature—that is, where some peace has already been arrived at and we're simply there to facilitate negotiation.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
Following on from that, because the UN has no capacity for calling on member states, if there's a non-classical blue beret operation such as Afghanistan, they can talk and they can pass resolutions, but they're going to have to turn to somebody like NATO if they want an instrument to do that.
Obviously, it's hard to say what's coming down the road, but with respect to the “responsibility to protect” doctrine, which the UN adopted—it was a Canadian initiative, and so on, and that's all great—how does that interact with traditional peacekeeping, and where do we go from here?
Where does the UN go from here? Do they have to accept the reality that two-thirds of their member states are dictatorships? Probably the way the UN has operated in the past hasn't worked, and where do they go from here? It impacts Canada, obviously.
12:15 p.m.
Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
There are two points. Responsibility to protect and the UN charter are at loggerheads and are deeply in contradiction. That is a major point that needs to be taken into consideration and realized: responsibility to protect, which ultimately denies the full sovereignty of states if they abuse their citizens, and the charter, which has sovereignty as its pillar.
So let us be clear that responsibility to protect and the UN do not go well together. Responsibility to protect, if it is to be conducted, and if Canadian Forces are to be part of it, will be under the auspices of either an American-led or a NATO operation. We should be fully cognizant of that, that if we embrace responsibility to protect, we are embracing peace enforcement, chapter VII operations, under NATO or under the United States.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
I'll ask this again. Where do you see the UN going on this, to resolve that conflict or just to accept it and say, actually, we really have no role to play?
12:20 p.m.
Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
The UN will attempt, as it always does, to balance very contradictory principles within its founding document and within its aspirations. We should perhaps continue to encourage that idea and encourage them to reconcile the idea, while on the other hand recognizing that the UN ultimately will not be the principal tool and first responsibility to protect.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
My last question relates to specifying end dates and so on for our own commitment, and you make some valid points. Is another consideration, though, the impact of that on other small allies, because we are all facing the same sort of thing? There is only one big ally in that operation, and obviously it is the Americans, and there are 39 or so other small allies. If a respected, credible, strongly contributing small ally like Canada puts a limit on it, does that start a bit of a domino effect with other folks?
12:20 p.m.
Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
It would start a good domino effect, where we would signal to other small allies that we will commit for a certain amount of time and that we would perhaps expect another small ally to come in for three years after us, and then three years later we can maybe replace them. It would put in place a mechanism whereby small allies would not necessarily feel that an initial commitment will get them stuck in a situation that nobody else is willing to replace them in. If all smaller allies make it very clear that they are involved in time-bounded operations and that they expect the alliance to find somebody else to replace them after a certain amount of time, it may actually encourage smaller allies to commit to very dangerous regions knowing that they have an out. The current problem we have is that the smaller allies are really not aware of or have no guarantee that another state will come in and relieve them when they are overstretched and overburdened.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
I agree that is a possibility. The other side of that is also a possibility, where everybody just says “not me”. That is what we are fighting right now.
12:20 p.m.
Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Yes, but we have to, at the very least, try to set up these reputation effects. That's how the alliance works. The alliance has to work on some sense that everybody is doing their part, and if smaller states feel that they are being abused, such as some people in Canada would feel, then that simply encourages all smaller allies to never contribute anything without a firm end date or without some kind of guarantee.