Evidence of meeting #29 for National Defence in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was forces.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

James Fergusson  Director, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, University of Manitoba

12:30 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative James Bezan

Thank you.

The last question is for Mr. Opitz.

12:30 p.m.

Conservative

Ted Opitz Conservative Etobicoke Centre, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

In your conversation with Mr. Alexander, I think we agreed that nation building is problematic for military forces. However, what about cases where failed states lack the security forces to exercise their own sovereignty and to enforce the rule of law? Can you comment on whether we should be ready for NATO or other multinational training missions?

12:30 p.m.

Director, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, University of Manitoba

Dr. James Fergusson

Let me be clear. I do not see training missions—training the armed forces of a state coming out of civil war or trying to redevelop or restructure itself—as problematic. In fact, I think they're very important. That extends not only to training their militaries, but also, if you take the model of NATO's Partnership for Peace, of training defence departments and those people. That's where the expertise of the military and civilian defence officials is vitally important. But that does not extend to the military getting involved in those things outside of its ambit and its expertise, notwithstanding that I have always been very skeptical that we should be in the nation-building business at all.

12:35 p.m.

Conservative

Ted Opitz Conservative Etobicoke Centre, ON

I just want to get back to the F-35 purchase. You almost finished a thought on expense and expense versus, for example, survivability, expense versus multiple platforms over time, and expense over time versus the depreciation of technology. For example, you buy a fourth-generation fighter. Right now we're very close to having had one for close to 40 years. You're basically buying an updated version of that. You can expect it to go another 30 or 40 years. What would be your comment on buying that versus the F-35?

You talked about some of the capabilities. And you're right, it's not just stealth. It's doing for the pilots a lot of the things done right now in the cockpit by the pilots. By not being distracted by doing those things, by automating those systems that currently are not automated, the pilot can keep his head up and fly this airplane more effectively than other versions or more obsolete versions. Can you comment, sir?

12:35 p.m.

Director, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, University of Manitoba

Dr. James Fergusson

It's tough to comment on it. From my perspective, in the world I live in, we have to sort through all the academic and published government and company reports and studies to try to get a feel for what capabilities are really embedded in it. These are so advanced and sophisticated we won't know until we see them actually come into operation what they can and can't do. Even then, we have difficulty trying to make judgments about them.

I think of it this way, and maybe this is the best way to answer. If we bought a fourth-generation fighter, or a four-and-a-half-generation fighter, whatever they want to call these things, instead of the F-35, how soon would you have to begin modernizing it and replacing key parts to make the platform interoperable and most effective? At least with the F-35, in this sense, you have a state-of-the-art, as we know it today, platform being deployed. That should give some assurances. And it should be structured better, given that engineers are thinking down the road about how we are going to pull parts out and put new technology in. If you go with something older that has older technologies, you start to get into a situation of potentially having to start replacing those technologies much earlier. The next thing you know, instead of looking at a mid-life update to an F-35 in 15 or 20 years, you're doing a mid-life update to the other platform in five years, after you've spent a lot of money on it.

There are no guarantees one way or the other, of course, because we just don't know how technology is going to advance. One of the key capabilities I think the F-35 will possess, which a lot of the others don't have, and you talked about one of them—think in terms of modern American thinking about net-centric warfare—is being able to integrate disparate platforms so that all the parts have common operating pictures. They can provide what they call a systems-to-systems approach. My understanding and my view of the F-35, because it integrates marine, air force, and navy capabilities.... They're on different platforms. But if these are going to be structured so that they can all be engaged in a common operating picture—receiving it, transmitting to it—it will be more effective for the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the delivery of force wherever you want to deliver it.

I think that's a thing people don't really want to talk about. Rather than looking at how this is going to fit into a much broader set of systems and military thinking about what we used to call our revolution in military affairs in the future, they get obsessed with sharpening things.

12:35 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative James Bezan

Thank you.

I have a couple of questions for you, Dr. Fergusson. I've really enjoyed your presentation and your answers to the questions that have been put forward by committee members.

In one of the exchanges, you mentioned that the greatest challenge for the Canadian Forces, and the greatest threat to Canada, is the aerospace threat. What is that threat you're alluding to? And why is it so important that we have that capability to defend the Canadian interest?

12:35 p.m.

Director, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, University of Manitoba

Dr. James Fergusson

Fundamentally, it's a function of that thing we never talk about anymore: geography. We live in a very nice part of the world. We can only be touched from a distance, and the way technology has moved and military technologies have moved, the threats to Canada over the past 50 to 60 years have increasingly emerged from an age before World War II, where we really had no military threats to Canada. These have emerged because technology has enabled distance and more distant actors to be able to come and touch us.

These have all been through the development of the airplane, of ballistic missiles, and now, increasingly, space-based assets—satellites, whatever you want to call them.

If you look increasingly at how those in turn—if you think of air and space in that way, how those assets also have become more integrated within a global economy, they are fundamental to the space sector and in particular are fundamental to a modern, advanced economy like Canada's.

We are a big country. We have to talk to people along the way. We need advanced telecommunications systems and all these things. If you look at the core, in my view—if you think in traditional military terms—of how these threats are going to be manifested to Canada, the answer is they are going to come through the airspace and the electronic waves out there. That, to me, is where essentially the central focus is; that's where the forces and the government and National Defence need to concentrate their efforts, if we prioritize National Defence and defence of Canada as truly our number one priority.

That's why I think aerospace is the key element and will be for the time being.

12:40 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative James Bezan

I appreciate that.

The other comment that you briefly made in your opening statement and is somewhat alluded to in General Leslie's report on transformation is the change in our reserve force to part-time positions, moving them back into citizen soldiers, and backfilling those positions with regular forces within the operations of the Canadian Forces.

You mentioned that's going to be an issue for readiness, overall operational capability. As we are now in a system of lower activity, why is that such a concern?

12:40 p.m.

Director, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, University of Manitoba

Dr. James Fergusson

I'm sure many members of the committee are aware, and I'm sure that people from the reserves have been here—I would hope some of them have been here to talk about these issues—there has been a long-standing set of issues and tensions between regular forces and reserve forces, if you go back to the 1950s and 1960s and issues about what to do.

When you look at what happens in eras of constrained fiscal resources and investments, the initial target is always the reserves, the citizen soldiers, if you wish, the militia. We have to be very careful because the army reserves are not the navy reserves and they're not the air force reserves. As I alluded to in my report, you can't have one solution here for the reserves, or for any of them, because they are are somewhat different beasts, notwithstanding the jointness idea.

The target is always to protect the regular forces, or what I call the first responders. To protect their readiness, where are we going to then turn and cut or deal with...? The vulnerability ends up being the reserves. At best, in my view, if you go back to pre-Afghanistan and look at what the reserves were doing, and then as Afghanistan geared up and that became the focus of attention, particularly for the army, but for the whole forces, which started to pull personnel away, what happened? The reserves started to backfill, started to go overseas. They became vital to the long-term sustainment of Afghan and Canadian defence.

The idea, at least in my mind, is if you want to be immediately ready in the future, then reserves can be put on the back burner, because what they will end up for us—if we go overseas again with a major commitment, we hope we will have time to backfill them and to train them, equip them to sustain the existing forces.

The problem is, however, to make sure that some of those backfilled roles aren't entirely eliminated. It's a bit of a catch-22. My understanding is a lot of the reserves are full time in training and education establishments. You have to keep those positions because they're vital for readiness, and if you lose them and you don't replace them, then you have a problem down the road. You start to eat away your tail, and the next thing you know, you disappear. That's my view.

I'm not an expert on the reserves, but I think the reserves are an important issue with regard to understanding how the Department of National Defence and the military should deal with the readiness problem in the future.

12:45 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative James Bezan

Thank you, Doctor. Your input today has been very valuable.

Before we adjourn, I want to inform committee members that we are making a scheduling change. As you know, the supplementary estimates (C) for 2011-12 and the main estimates for 2012-13 have been referred to us. Minister Fantino and Minister MacKay have agreed to appear before the committee on March 13. That was originally scheduled for a steering committee meeting. So on March 15, where we have only one witness available, we'll do one hour with that witness, Dr. Rob Huebert from the University of Calgary. The second hour will be a steering committee.

With that, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn.

12:45 p.m.

An hon. member

So moved.

12:45 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative James Bezan

The meeting is adjourned.