National Defence Committee on Nov. 29th, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you.

Mr. McKay.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

The Americans, for reasons best known to themselves, run drones along our border. Do we have access to any information that's generated from those drones?

[LGen Walter Semianiw]

I don't have access to that information. I really don't need that information either. That's clearly a police issue. It's a question you probably want to raise either with the Department of Public Safety Canada or the RCMP. I don't have that information, nor do I need to have it.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Is it in fact simply limited to police information? If Canada Command is involved in situations involving terrorism, maybe drug interventions and things of that nature, surely to goodness the information going south is as important as the information going north.

[LGen Walter Semianiw]

But that information would be with the police, and if the police need us, they would then come to us. There is always a concern about jeopardizing any investigation. So who needs to know needs to know it.

If the Canadian Forces' capabilities are required, then it quickly comes to us. We have standing memorandums of understanding between organizations whereby we can quickly pick up the phone if they need that support, but again, through the Department of Public Safety and through other....

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

So basically it's on a need-to-know basis.

When I was in Greenwood I was rather stunned and impressed by the SAR techs, watching them being winched onto Canadian Coast Guard vessels from helicopters and jumping out of the rear ends of Hercules and things of that nature.

You had to be a pretty special person to be a SAR tech, from what I could see, both physically and psychologically. I could see how the physical limitation basically runs out at, I don't know, 35--pick a year. It's pretty tough work.

What are your challenges with respect to recruiting and retaining and training SAR techs?

[LGen Walter Semianiw]

Again, I haven't seen any. It's a question to be posed to the Commander of the Royal Canadian Air Force, because he looks after the SAR techs from a force generation point of view--training, looking after them, and providing them to me. I've had SAR techs whenever I've required them.

I would like to broaden out the question. A lot of times we forget that the SAR techs are in an aircraft with technicians in the back who are in as dangerous a situation. So it's really the whole package. It's those aircraft commanders, their technicians backing the SAR techs, who come together. And those SAR techs do find themselves in the most perilous situations, which is why so many have been awarded medals of bravery for their heroic actions.

Again, as we saw in the most tragic incident up in the north where a SAR tech lost his life, they are prepared to do what they need to do to help Canadians.

But I go back to the issue of do we have enough? It's a question you have to pose to the Commander of the Royal Canadian Air Force. I haven't seen it.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

But from your standpoint of the Canada Command, your supply is adequate for you.

[LGen Walter Semianiw]

It's adequate, yes, sir.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Okay.

The final question is with respect to the difficulties the Cormorant has had. Are you impacted at all with respect to delays with respect to the Cormorant?

[LGen Walter Semianiw]

No, not all. If you look at our readiness statistics and our ongoing readiness requirements, what I need are aircraft to provide a capability, and I get those every day, every hour, every minute from the Royal Canadian Air Force. So it has not impacted Canada Command or our ability to provide search and rescue in any way. We watch this very closely, and it has not.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you.

Mr. Chisu.

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

General, training exercises are important, as we all know, to keep up readiness. In your training exercise operations, how do you incorporate the involvement of all three environments to ensure enhanced interoperability? Are there any specific training operations that you can name off the top of your head where there has been joint participation?

[LGen Walter Semianiw]

From a Canada Command perspective, for example, we just completed a major exercise called Exercise Vigilant Shield. That exercise focused on activities, hazards, threats across Canada that involved all the navy, army, and air force and all of the headquarters.

Operation Nanook is a joint exercise. It includes navy, army, air force, special forces personnel, civilians, military, regular and reserve. It happens every year.

We are always conducting what we call joint exercises, because we believe that if you want the real effect, you need to have the joint team there, all of the different four environments known.

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

When are these exercises conducted? At which period of the year?

[LGen Walter Semianiw]

What we do is every fall we conduct our Exercise Vigilant Shield and bring our teams together at different headquarters. As well, if you had the opportunity to speak to our regional joint task force commanders, you'd find they also conduct joint exercises at their levels.

So we do it here, and they do as well. For example, in the province of Quebec, commander of Quebec region actually took his troops into the northern part of the province last year, and it was a joint exercise; there was air force and army. So that happens throughout the year, depending on when the commander wants to put it together. We have a domestic training plan that clearly shows when all the activities take place, and they are in most cases joint activities.

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

So for example Maple Guardian—

[LGen Walter Semianiw]

It could be Maple Guardian. It all depends on the scenario. Maple Guardian is another example. We are looking at whether we could use Maple Guardian in the domestic context and have a domestic scenario. So it's an example of what we could do.

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

And going to the international, let's say the defence of North America, in your area of activity, have there been any combined exercises with our American counterparts? We know very well that we have also other NATO countries in proximity, such as Denmark, Greenland, and Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, in proximity to Newfoundland. Do they have some cooperation or coordination in this area, common exercises, or do you envisage something in the future?

[LGen Walter Semianiw]

We already conduct exercises with my counterpart south of the border, with U.S. NORTHCOM, and will in the future with Southern Command. It has already been happening for three years, maybe even four years, where we conduct exercises. As I mentioned, Exercise Vigilant Shield was part of a broader exercise where we worked with Northern Command and NORAD at a broader complex issue. So we already do conduct exercises, and not just exercises; we do operations with multinational partners in the Caribbean and the Pacific already. So we do more and more with our partners. In particular, Canada Command is very closely linked to its partner south of the border in exercises it's already in.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

General, I think most Canadians always see the role of Canada Command. They may not know what Canada Command is, but they see that as being the primary mission of the Canadian armed forces, which is, as you said, the no-fail mission of Canadian sovereignty, of being there in times of need, whether it's a natural disaster or otherwise. So the burden you must carry and the responsibility you and your staff have in coordinating all the assets of the Canadian Forces for defence of country and support of civilians is incredible. I really thank you for that.

In your training and, as Mr. Chisu was just saying, working with our North American partners before Canada Command was even set up—Hurricane Katrina, 9/11 in New York and Washington—you have the whole issue of training and keeping all the forces ready in case we have a terrorist attack like that, a major civilian situation where we have hundreds of people hurt or killed. It's rapid deployability. How do you actually prepare for something like that?

[LGen Walter Semianiw]

The first thing is to have awareness of what's going on across the country. Second, we have to clearly understand what the likely scenarios are. So we do those. We have those across government. The Government of Canada across different departments is using a common threat and hazard scenario framework, so we understand that.

The next step is training for those. For example, in the north, in 2010, we picked a scenario. A likely scenario in the north could be a fuel spill. So we practised it. What could we do if there were a fuel spill? The Canadian Forces, Department of Public Safety, and the Canadian Coast Guard came together to work on that.

What then happens is we actually have a Government of Canada training program where all departments join in for three or four exercises a year. We ensure we have a whole-of-government approach. That then allows each of the departments and agencies to conduct their own activities. As we've seen, we've gone through and practised scenarios for the pandemic, post and prior, to ensure we're ready.

So it's situational awareness, very much having policy, process, and machinery in place. We've got the policy in place through what's called the federal emergency response plan. It's a plan that brings all the departments together. We've got the committee that talks to these scenarios, stays connected, talks about them, talks through them, and has plans ready to go, contingency plans. So when something does happen, we can very quickly come together to be able to act in the best interest of Canadians.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

General, you referenced a couple of maps earlier. Are they in both official languages?

[LGen Walter Semianiw]

I will get them in both official languages and bring them back to the committee.