National Defence Committee on Oct. 28th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Bachand, you have five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to come back to the comments made earlier by Lieutenant-General Deschamps.

I consulted my team, Lieutenant-General. And I never said that I didn't have confidence in you. What is important to me is to do my job as MP as effectively as possible. I want to make sure that taxpayers are getting fair value for their dollars and that they have the best aircraft. That is the issue. You said that, if I was given the job, I wouldn't know what to do. That's probably true. I probably wouldn't have access to National Defence computers. Furthermore, I certainly don't have the knowledge of a general with 25 or 30 years' experience.

However, General, you need to understand that we have a specific role. In this case, we need to ensure that citizens and taxpayers get fair value for their money and get the best planes. That is why I will keep at it at the risk of making you uncomfortable.

Colonel Burt, you said earlier that there are only a few people in the world with access to this level of classification. I would like to know whether you, Colonel, or you, Lieutenant-General, have that access.

[LGen J.P.A. Deschamps]

People at National Defence, including myself, have access to a high level of classification.

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

Were we to propose that you appear before the committee again in camera, without journalists or the public present, would that be acceptable, in your way of thinking?

[LGen J.P.A. Deschamps]

I do not set the program security requirements. Unfortunately, we must respect the agreement that was reached between the nine partners. We must respect the program security standards. The program is extremely sensitive, Mr. Bachand. This technology does not exist anywhere else in the world.

We must respect what has been established as the international standard by the partners. This standard is very rigorously enforced by the United States. Otherwise, the partners would lose confidence and would no longer want to work with us. My goal is not to refuse to provide you with more details, but, in order for us to move forward as a coalition, we must respect the terms of the agreement we have reached with our nine partners.

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

The MPs of the eight other nations subject to the protocol of understanding are then probably in the same situation we are.

[LGen J.P.A. Deschamps]

I cannot say, Mr. Bachand. Within the American administration, some committees have access to higher levels of authorization and can obtain more detailed information. I cannot tell you what the situation in other countries is. All I can tell you is that we must respect the program security standards.

There is one thing that I find somewhat troubling, and perhaps that is why I reacted a little strongly. Given the media and exchanges that have taken place in Ottawa, there is a rumour that the Canadian Forces, for one reason or another, are trying to spend more money and purchase less. This greatly troubles me. First, it makes us look like we are incompetent, and second, I wonder why I would want to reduce our capacity. That is why I do not find the conversation logical.

You need to accept that the Canadian Forces do not have a lot of funds with which to carry out all our programs. So, we try to get the most with the funds we have. You can rest assured of that, Mr. Bachand.

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

Okay. I want to say again that this is not about a lack of confidence. I am simply trying to do my job as an MP as best I can. Sometimes, it is a bit frustrating for us to run up against classifications. Furthermore, I have already experienced this situation with regard to the Afghan detainees. Nevertheless, I think that we are in agreement now.

Mr. Burt, you mentioned the chart earlier. I congratulate you for having it in hand when Mr. Hawn asked his question. I think he was reassured. It was lucky that you brought the chart. Can we get it? Yes.

Are we not changing the doctrine and the mission of the Canadian air force by further developing air-to-ground? This stealth fighter will allow much more significant surgical strikes. If a CF-18 heads towards a target and is seen coming, it is possible to take the necessary defensive measures to avoid being attacked. Can you confirm for me that missions will change and, as a result, you will be able to make more surgical and, consequently, perhaps more powerful strikes.

[LGen J.P.A. Deschamps]

Mr. Chair, I can answer that question.

Your reading is accurate. It is exactly as you said. The aircraft will enable us to accept highly difficult and highly dangerous missions and ensure maximum survivability and success. If we go on a mission, but we are not successful, we are wasting our time. In addition, we have to bring our people and our equipment back.

With current technology, considerable lateral support would be required to attack a well-defended target. Some aircraft block electromagnetic waves, and others are equipped with cruise missiles to try and eliminate the enemy.

This aircraft does not require all of that support. It is capable of operating more independently, which means that we have greater flexibility during missions. That is the advantage.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bachand.

Mr. Boughen, you have the floor.

You have the floor for five minutes.

[Ray Boughen, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

Welcome, gentlemen. It's good of you to spend some time with us. We appreciate your information and your knowledge on the F-35.

General, you talked about a number of aircraft for Canada at 65. That seems to be the critical mass for aircraft. Could you elaborate a little bit on that for us?

[LGen J.P.A. Deschamps]

How did we arrive at 65? Well, we had to do a bit of analysis of what our missions are, again both at home and abroad, what are our commitments to our NATO partnerships, and then try to determine, given the new technology involved in the F-35, what would be a suitable and sustainable number of aircraft that would help us meet the domestic roles and the international roles.

We're going to go from 80 airplanes—or actually 78, because we've lost a couple of F-18s in the last few years—to 65 aircraft. So how do we get the same amount of fire power, if you will, with fewer airplanes? The answer is the F-35, because of the changes in the way maintenance is done and the reliability of the systems, is far more available than our current F-18s, which tend to have an availability rating in the 50% to 60% range, whereas these new airplanes will be at the 80%-plus range of availability.

The way it works for us is generating hours to fly. The number of airplanes tells you how much flying you can do and therefore how many people you can maintain and train and how many deployments you can do. With 65 F-35s we can do an equivalent amount of flying that we currently do with 80 CF-18s.

So that's how we got to 65.

There are physically fewer airplanes, so there are limits, at some point, that you reach if you have to geographically disperse and do international deployment. Those would have to be managed, because at some point you do reach the limit of geography and number of platforms. But 65 lets us meet all our defence needs at this time. As I said previously, should the future defence needs change, we have the option of going back and increasing that fleet, should that be the decision of the government at the time.

[Ray Boughen, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Thank you.

I have just one other question. Do I have a couple of minutes? Thanks, Chair.

Perhaps you could explain some of the difficulties Canada experienced in Bosnia with the CF-18s. And will flying that same platform as NATO partners prevent these issues from happening in the future because our platforms will be the F-35?

[LGen J.P.A. Deschamps]

I think I'll let Colonel Burt answer that, since he was there.

[Col Dave Burt]

Thank you for the question.

Indeed we did have a fairly significant challenge in the Kosovo campaign in that we had a type of radio that was not interoperable with the radios that were available from the other coalition partners. We lacked the Have Quick II capability. Unfortunately, whenever our aircraft were in the coalition package, we could not use that capability. What that capability does is it's a frequency agile radio and it improves the security of the transmissions. While it did not have any significant impact on the operations, it certainly had a significant impact on us.

At the time, I was the project director of CF-18 modernization, and I made a commitment to myself and to all the fighter pilots who followed me that if I had any power in this process, I would have them fully interoperable and operationally relevant for their lifetime. That has been a goal of our process, and it is certainly one of the statements in the objective for the next-generation fighter capability project.

[Ray Boughen, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Thank you, Colonel.

Thanks, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

You still have a minute left.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Through you, Mr. Chair, to Colonel Burt, there seems to be a misunderstanding that somehow we're changing the mission, we're changing the roles. The CF-18 was a multi-role, air-to-air and air-to-ground, very complex airplane for its day. The F-35 is a very complex, multi-role, air-to-air and air-to-ground aircraft.

So just to confirm, it's not that we're changing the missions and the roles; we're just doing it against a threat that is going to be much more sophisticated over the next 30 to 40 years. It's going to be the same type of mission, just in a much higher threat environment, where the capabilities of a fifth-generation aircraft like the F-35 will allow us to continue to do those jobs that we did with the CF-18, but in fact do them better and do them in a more survivable fashion than we would be able to do with a CF-18.

[Col Dave Burt]

Mr. Chair, that's absolutely correct.

The challenge we have is that while our roles will continue in both air-to-air and air-to-ground, the adversary and the capabilities of the adversary continue to evolve. What we need to do is put ourselves in a situation where we can evolve our capability to stay ahead of the adversary, and what we have determined is that only the F-35 gives us that opportunity to stay ahead, such that our men and women who fly these aircraft will survive the mission, perform the mission exactly correctly, and be able to conduct another mission the next day.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Dryden, you have the floor.

[Ken Dryden, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Thank you, and thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today.

I have two very different questions. The first one has to do with the Auditor General's report, and as disturbing as cost overruns are—unless I understand what her report says incorrectly—I think what she is saying is that in terms of the Chinook, there is a certain basic model of the Chinook, a certain cost of that basic model, and this was the cost that was made known publicly and also to Parliament. The report says that at the same time it was also known that this is not what we were going to be purchasing. We were going to be wanting upgrades to the Chinook, not just the basic model, and Defence officials knew that the cost of those upgrades was going to be increased, so the cost was going to be that much more, even though the cost that was made known to the public was less.

How could that be? Why should we feel more comfortable this time?

[LGen J.P.A. Deschamps]

Thank you for the question.

The question might be better directed to the procurement side of the department. What I can tell you, though, is that part of the challenge in expressing how this works is that procurement is a complicated business. There is preliminary project approval, which is approval from government to move ahead and expend some funds to do project definitions, to say, yes, we are going to procure something that looks like this, and go and do some detailed analysis and come back for final project approval.

Where I think a fair amount of confusion has arisen is between that initial phase with the Chinook, which was that preliminary project approval, to the final project approval, where the definition work was done--from the first approval to the fact that when we got to the last piece of approval for the department, we had then a fuller understanding of the mission sets and the requirements for Canada, and therefore some additional requirements were needed for the airplane to be fully usable in our domestic geographical area.

[Ken Dryden, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Sir, I understand that, but is this also not the point at which then what is made public is that these changes are necessary and the cost is going to be that much greater?

[LGen J.P.A. Deschamps]

I can't tell you, sir, when that process occurs. Normally, for us, we go to Treasury Board when we do these initials and finals, and all those issues are tabled with Treasury Board.

[Ken Dryden, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

I'm assuming that in the process of your determination on the F-35 you know the nature of the challenges in the world. You know what other countries are doing; you try to anticipate the future as best you can. And it's your job, from an air perspective, to try to deliver to those best-anticipated needs. That's your job, and to make that known to National Defence.

I assume it's up to National Defence then to decide that it's their job to try to work on the safety and security of Canada and on the safety, security, and effectiveness of our military, and to take that into consideration knowing that choices have to be made. Money goes to the air force, or to the navy, or to the army, or it goes to certain other ways in which one works on the security and safety of the country.

Is that the process you went through? Knowing that you're not determining it—and even National Defence is not determining it, but Foreign Affairs would be determining what they would imagine—how would we, in the position that we're in, determine the best direction in which to go on the purchase of an F-35 if it was not in the context of all the rest that I'm speaking about?