National Defence Committee on April 10th, 2014

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Evelyn Lukyniuk]

Honourable members of the committee,

I see a quorum.

I must inform members of the committee that the clerk can only receive motions for the election of the chair. The clerk cannot receive other types of motions, cannot entertain points of order nor participate in debate.

We can now proceed to the election of the chair, pursuant to Standing Order 106(2). The chair must be a member of the government party.

I am ready to receive motions for the chair.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

I'd like to nominate Mr. Rick Norlock as chair, please.

[The Clerk]

It has been moved by Mr. Williamson that Mr. Norlock be elected chair of the committee.

Are there any further motions?

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

I was offering to nominate Mr. Joe Daniel. I'm not sure he's prepared to accept, though.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Clerk]

Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?

(Motion agreed to)

I declare the motion carried and Mr. Norlock duly elected chair of the committee.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Norlock]

Thank you very much.

I'll call the meeting back to order.

Thank you very much for your support and for your faith in my ability to assist in the guidance of this committee as we continue on an important study.

In the interest of making sure we get as much evidence as possible before the committee from our two distinguished witnesses, we'll start with the introductions.

Members, we have before us today Mr. Ferry de Kerckhove, the executive vice-president and co-author of “The Strategic Outlook for Canada 2014: The Search for Leadership”. Our second witness is George Petrolekas, the director of the board of directors and the co-author of “The Strategic Outlook for Canada 2014: The Search for Leadership”.

Thank you very much for appearing before us, gentlemen.

In the interest of time and to get as much evidence as possible, we'll begin with the questioning from—

Sorry. We want to hear from our witnesses first, before we start with the questioning. I'm just so anxious for questioning.

Witnesses, as usual you have about 10 minutes.

Please start, Mr. de Kerckhove.

[Ferry de Kerckhove, Executive Vice-President, Co-author, Strategic Outlook for Canada 2014: A Search for Leadership, Conference of Defence Associations Institute]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

My name is Ferry de Kerckhove. I am the executive vice-president of the Conference of Defence Associations and the co-author, with my great colleague George Petrolekas, of that institute document I carried on my shoulder coming in. Hence, I have a bit of sweat and am falling apart. That was issued on February 20 on the occasion of the Ottawa Conference on Defence and Security.

I wish to add that George and I have had very diversified careers and various experience in more than 75 countries. I've had 38 years in the foreign service, including some 20 years in nations abroad that do not qualify as Club Med destinations—Iran, Russia, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Egypt, among others.

I will provide a brief overview of Canada on the international stage. My co-author will focus more specifically on Canada's defence requirements, and also whatever his imagination, very fertile, will produce for you.

I would like to start with a few broad trends we identified in the international system that have very significant implications for Canada.

One is a growing realization that unipolarity is coming to an end and is accompanied by a profoundly counterintuitive partial retrenchment on the part of the United States, except possibly in its cautious rebalancing towards Asia.

Second is a pervasive atmosphere of quasi-neoisolation in the west, with an even more pronounced desire to avoid any further engagement overseas.

Third is a dearth of leadership and absence of strategies. The Ukraine is but one example of the latter even more than the former.

Another is that China will to continue to incrementally test international resolve.

Another is an increased pressure to deal with cybersecurity, but with an unclear perspective on how to go about it. I think Revenue Canada is aware of that.

As well, Ukraine notwithstanding, there is an increasing risk of NATO becoming a two-tiered and somewhat regional alliance, threatening solidarity of the alliance.

The backtracking we are seeing on all commitments is causing greater insecurity. Here are just a few examples of it, but there are many others.

The west has experienced a series of serious failures in its recent commitments or attempts to manage crises. This is true for Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria, despite the protests against those decisions. None of the countries or regions where the interventions and diplomatic efforts took place have come out in a better state than before the involvement. Perhaps that is difficult to admit, given the human lives that were sacrificed and the money that was spent, but the reality is indisputable.

Iraq is slowly but surely returning to a dictatorship, not to mention that it is the country with the most terrorist acts in the world.

The post-Karzai era in Afghanistan does not inspire confidence in terms of its future stability. It remains to be seen whether the new president will even agree to sign an agreement with the United States to allow American forces to remain in the country.

The situation in Libya is a disaster, which could end up breaking up the country.

Syria is hell on earth and the Arab Spring has led to even more instability in the region. No real, substantial and lasting progress will be seen for at least a decade.

Sadly, Egypt seems to be backsliding from its progress toward democracy and inclusion, even if the next man in power is strong and can bring a degree of stability, which will unfortunately be undermined by terrorist acts.

In Africa, the commendable referendum and peaceful separation of South Sudan from its neighbour to the north was followed by conflict in South Sudan and in the neighbouring Central African Republic.

The Israeli-Palestinian peace process is at a stalemate, despite John Kerry's efforts to free the United States from the mess in that region in order to be able to focus on Asia.

China, which, from every point of view, should be a partner of choice, is seen at best as a potential threat, despite its unifying trade ties around the world. That being said, China is not making things easier with its behaviour, particularly in the South China Sea and the East China Sea.

The domestic political deadlock in the United States is adding to the indecision of the U.S. executive branch, thereby diminishing American power in the eyes of many countries. We can see that Japan is already worried about the indolence of the Obama administration with respect to Ukraine.

Europe is a great and tremendous economic power, but remains a political dwarf.

As we can see in Ukraine, Putin's Russia is taking advantage of western weakness and is correcting Nikita Khrouchtchev's 1954 mistake with a power grab, without shedding a drop of blood. A new version of the cold war is being created, and the whole thing is far from being over.

North Korea continues to be dangerous and unpredictable. And if the agreement being negotiated with Iran is signed, we would not feel any less anxious about it, far from it. In addition, there is always the risk of an Israeli strike.

In the meantime, multilateral institutions are being ignored and weakened while threats without borders are spreading all over the world: climate change, pollution, resource depletion, and so on.

So where is Canada in all this, and is it even a player?

Well, despite the appearance of an energetic pursuit of clearly defined foreign policy objectives, the government has failed to articulate a broad vision for Canada on the international stage, and as a consequence, Canada's credibility in the world has suffered.

In the post-Afghanistan amnesia, there is an ad hoc and often adversarial approach to international issues, particularly toward multilateral diplomacy, which often makes Canada a non-player in times of crisis, yet, as we have just seen, there is no shortage of crises, and each one of these would or might call for an engagement on the part of Canada. The government, in the Speech from the Throne, puts the security of Israel as a top priority and hammers unendingly the slogan “We don't go along to get along”, which seems to be slightly out of touch with most of the real issues of the world. Deploring and condemning is not a substitute for policies.

We contend that absent an articulated vision of its role in the world and the provision of the right means to achieve it, Canada risks doing little and mattering less in world affairs, which might compromise fundamental interests. As George will demonstrate, absent a better financial structure, the Canadian Armed Forces risks becoming limited to continental defence with reduced, if not non-existent, expeditionary capacity.

Canada has major security interests internationally, starting with its unique relationship with the United States in continental perimeter defence and ballistic missiles, which I addressed two months ago at a Senate hearing, and cybersecurity, etc. Canada has a stake in the fight against drugs in Latin America. It has a crucial interest in stability in the Asia-Pacific region, as its trade with the region is expanding, and a broad interest in peace and development in the Middle East and North Africa beyond the security of Israel.

The same applies to Africa as a whole, inasmuch as multilateral efforts to limit crises in various regions of Africa are consonant with Canada’s growing investment in that continent.

This government has never undertaken a full foreign policy that includes trade and development, nor a defence review pursued across government in order to present a unified vision of Canada’s role in the world and of its means to exercise it if it wishes to face its multi-faceted challenges.

What all this means, very simply, is that a real whole-of-government approach is required to ensure a seamless analysis of the risks faced by Canada, the extent to which our interests are affected, the response or range of possible responses required, and the options and capabilities available to allow our political masters to take the best possible decisions in the circumstances.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Norlock]

Thank you very much, sir.

Go ahead, Mr. Petrolekas.

[George Petrolekas, Director of the Board of Directors, Co-author, Strategic Outlook for Canada 2014: A Search for Leadership, Conference of Defence Associations Institute]

Thank you.

I'll follow through with a couple of points. Ferry didn't go to Club Meds; neither did I. I did tours in Cypress and Bosnia in NATO and made several trips into Afghanistan over the last decade, as well as dealing with a number of business interests, particularly in South America and Indonesia. I did serve as an adviser to General Rick Hillier for pretty much most of his time as both commander of ISAF and Chief of the Defence Staff.

Ferry has outlined a number of things that are trends, and I want to focus over the next four minutes on those things.

One of the critical influencers of policy right now on the global stage—and this is not just for Canada, but for other nations in the alliance—is literally a war-weariness of the last 10 years.

Part of it has been a great questioning by our public. Was it worth it, and to what end, and what did we deliver in a number of engagements? In the United States, it was specifically about Iraq, and then Afghanistan, for most of the western alliance. There was Libya, which I would argue has been left in worse shape post-Gadhafi than it was pre-Gadhafi. At least at that point, as Ferry often says, we had an enemy we could trust.

This has led to policy applications that are led by one consideration: that of having no boots on the ground, which therefore limits the flexibility of leaders and of nations to react to crisis.

The second thing is the fiscal crisis of 2008. Certainly deficits are a national security problem, and nations should not live in deficit. Therefore, reducing deficit is one of the prime functions of government, for certain. However, that also has to be balanced with enormous cuts made to the armed forces that reduce capability, and that's exactly what is happening now in almost every single nation in NATO.

There are deep cuts also in the United States, which are a combination of budget cuts and the effects of sequestration. They have a tremendous effect on the operational readiness of forces, so when we come to issues such as Ukraine, we start scrambling for solutions because we just don't have forces that are ready to go.

The combination of the two—weariness and the fiscal crisis—have also led to a bit of a reshaping in the interpretation of what is the national interest. I would say to you that for most nations, it has now become the primacy of economic interest, and therefore issues dealing with the security of the world order and the safety and security of its citizens are not necessarily based on projection of values and creating a value-based global system but on protecting national economic interest.

Those trends, as a policy effect, result in the desire to contain and to almost reflect through problems, as opposed to acting. To quote the Prime Minister in his speech in Calgary during the Conservative Party convention, we will “...deal with problems as they arise”. That's not unique to Canada. It's a trend we're seeing throughout the rest of the alliance as well.

That really becomes a fundamental problem of what we divine as the search for leadership, particularly as led by the United States. I will use a more proximate example, which is the western reaction to the takeover of Crimea in which NATO, the European Union, and the transatlantic link to that alliance are scrambling to find pertinent responses to the Russian move into Crimea.

The problem, not just from a military standpoint but also in Foreign Affairs and in CIDA and in all agencies of government that are involved internationally, is that it creates a particular problem because there is a lack of vision and we're not particularly certain of the ground we're occupying.

For the military, the problem then becomes knowing what kind of forces you need. The answer can only come from a vision that says what you wish Canada to do. It is not difficult to design forces. It is not difficult to design levels of readiness, the types of airplanes, the types of ships, but tell me what it is you want me to do.

Do you want to concentrate on continental defence, or does Canada have a role throughout the world? Are there emerging areas of the world that are more important than others with respect to Canadian interests? Those decisions and that guidance affect the shape of the tool that we create.

Is it a Pacific focus? Do we focus on full-spectrum warfare or primarily on peacekeeping? How large will the forces be? What are the no-fail priority missions here in Canada?

The answer to each one of those questions relates not only to structure but also to the procurement of equipment and capital expenditures for the forces. If your number one no-fail mission is search and rescue in Canada, fixed-wing search and rescue aircraft would not still be waiting 10 years for an acquisition.

With the emergence of the northern gateway pipeline and almost 300 supertankers per year visiting the coast of British Columbia and with Vancouver being the fourth-largest port in North America, our trade patterns are shifting, and security follows trade. Therefore, the types of ships and things we would wish to acquire have to dovetail with where Canada's emerging trade and therefore security interests lie. That's not to mention the demographic changes in the country, which are led by Asian immigration.

Finally, having that particular vision enunciated—having a clear, strategic view of Canada's national interests and in what regions of the world they reside—helps us in times of fiscal austerity. Then we can actually decide where we're cutting, as opposed to simply shaving ice cubes, which I think is the situation we find ourselves in now.

Ferry and I have almost jokingly called it “cuts by stealth”. Cuts are happening because of budget reductions, since we can no longer afford certain things that we wish to do or maintain things that we have, but we're not cutting those things based on clear strategic direction and a vision for the country going forward.

With that, unless Ferry wants to add something else, I think we're open to questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Norlock]

Thank you very much for your introduction.

The first questioner will be Ms. Gallant.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. de Kerckhove, with the global economic downturn, NATO's Secretary General has warned that members must not let a financial crisis become a security crisis. Do you see the boldness of the Russians' flagrant disregard for international law and its treaty obligations as a function of the west's reduction in defence spending?

[Ferry de Kerckhove]

Thank you for that.

The answer could be a very flat “yes” and we could move to the next question, but I think it deserves a bit more than that. With what we are talking about, I think retrenchment doesn't enhance security; it's quite to the contrary.

I think George put it very well. If you're doing just an across-the-board shaving of defence expenditure without having a sense of your priorities, you're debilitating your capacity even more than if you were doing a very strategic assessment of where you want to cut and where not. The British Chief of the Defence Staff said that he could have a smaller armed force that is much more effective than the one he has now.

I think that's part of the problem that you've identified so well. The focus on the finance side and not on the strategic requirement of the nation and of the west is partly responsible for the boldness of Mr. Putin.

[George Petrolekas]

If I could add, that's also an example of leadership. You can look at it in their reactions. I wonder whether Margaret Thatcher or Ronald Reagan would have responded in the same way. We're sitting here debating whether we put sanctions on 21 oligarchs in order to put pressure on Putin that way, but there's nothing that has made President Putin blink or think twice.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Thank you.

There has been criticism of NATO for not engaging when the invasion of Crimea was imminent. We have learned that there had been quite an anti-NATO campaign going on for some time in Ukraine on the part of the Yanukovych government, and it was felt that it would cause more bloodshed to invite NATO at that time. In addition to NATO on the European continent, the EU that has its own stand-up force. I'm interested in your opinion on whether it would have been more appropriate to engage that institution or command, if any.

[Ferry de Kerckhove]

It's interesting, because I was posted to NATO from 1981 to 1985, and they were already talking about the European stand-up force and all of that. Unfortunately, it has been much more a paper exercise than anything else. That's why I called the European Union a political dwarf, which was how we labelled Germany in the past. Now it's extended to the whole of the European Union.

It's very unfortunate, because, as we said, NATO has been debilitated of its capacity, and at the same time the EU has absolutely not picked up the role it should. Look, for instance, at the weakness of the EU's support for French efforts in the Sahara, where just recently it took the Secretary-General of the United Nations going to central Africa to try to bolster, in the face of the crisis, the international community's role in supporting what the French have done single-handedly. There are still a few powers in Europe that are prepared to make an effort, but unfortunately they have a very hard time getting their colleagues to chime in.

I'm sorry to say it, but the EU is not a major player on the military side, on the defence side. However, it has a major role on the political side, although I don't think it has come up to what we would be expecting in terms of leadership.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

You mentioned the very topical issue of Heartbleed and its impact. NATO parliamentarians were advised during their briefings that there are two kinds of computer users or online users: those who've been hacked and those who know they've been hacked.

With that in mind, you said that in terms of cybersecurity, the west seems unsure of how to deal with it. I know that in Europe, Estonia has its centre of excellence. The United States has its Cyber Command. Canada has Public Safety as its lead agency. What would you envision in terms of a coordinated, if not integrated, defence or offence? I'm interested in hearing your position on whether or not we should be offensive in terms of cybersecurity.

[Ferry de Kerckhove]

I'll ask George to go a bit further into that one.

What we have recommended in the strategic outlook is that some kind of code of conduct be established in terms of cybersecurity. I'm intrigued to see that Chuck Hagel has started a discussion with the Chinese on that one. It's going to take quite a long while.

George, do you want add a bit on some of the substantive stuff that we've covered?

[George Petrolekas]

You mentioned particularly some of the Baltic states and some of the cybersecurity issues. What became a problem at that time was whether that was considered an attack on the state. In NATO, during that particular time, there was an enormous discussion on whether that constituted an attack and whether that would trigger article 5 for defence of Lithuania at the time.

The United States, first of all, is far ahead of us in terms of thinking that through from a policy standpoint. Certainly President Obama has spoken about it. It recognizes the cyberworld as one of five domains of warfare, meaning that if air is a domain of warfare, if land is a domain of warfare, if sea is a domain of warfare, then so is space and so is cyberspace. The Americans are becoming quite clear that there is a certain amplitude of a state-sponsored attack—as opposed to a criminal attack or as opposed to hacking, which are different things—that could potentially affect either the economic or energy infrastructure of the United States. Those things are also cyber-controlled, and that would be a considered an attack against the state.

Really, that's the genesis of where Ferry and I started to speak about codes of conduct. We have Geneva conventions to govern warfare and other domains and we have limitations on what we do, or at least understandings between nation states, but that has not yet emerged in cyberspace.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Norlock]

Thank you, sir.

We have to head on to another round of questioning.

Mr. Harris is next.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you, Chair, and congratulations on your election as chair. I look forward to working with you.

Thank you to our witnesses. Thank you for your presentation and your report. I would actually love to have you back to talk about that in some greater detail, particularly the world involvement. I agree with you in terms of the articulation of a vision and your recommendation that there should be an overarching white paper to talk about all these strategic issues. I think it's overdue. However, we're doing the defence of North America, and if I may, I'll focus on some issues associated with that aspect.

Part of the overriding criticism of Canada in terms of defence policy is that we're spending a lot of money. It may be the right amount, it may be too little, it may be too much, but we're spending a lot of money. The question is this: what are we getting for it, and are we spending the money on so many different things that it's not clear whether we have our priorities right?

We had Assistant Deputy Minister Jill Sinclair tell us that as far as she was concerned from the departmental policy point of view, Canada faces no current state threats. The DG of the Department of Foreign Affairs for intelligence security told us the same thing. That leaves some of the other ones—terrorism, narcotics, etc.

First of all, do you agree with that first statement? Second, if we're going to focus on, say, Canada's defence needs within that context, where would you focus? Do you think there are four or five areas we should take as a priority and make sure we get done first?

[Ferry de Kerckhove]

That's an interesting question. We cannot get caught in definition. There is no state threat, of course, because of our neighbour to the south. Today we don't face any threat from the United States; maybe 20 years later, when they'll be short of water, we will face a threat, but let's focus on the immediate.

Of course you have Russia on the north. I don't think there will be a war with Russia, but this doesn't mean that we should not consider that there is a threat coming from Russia, given the present circumstance, given who we are and what we are within NATO in terms of article 5 and article 2.

I think it's a bit diminutive to just say that we don't face a state threat. In this day and age, the threats are really from ills and evils that know no frontier. They also relate much more to insurgent threats that can come up in another region and make it very dangerous for us. We have been immune from terrorist attack in Canada out of luck and out of good work from our intelligence service.

I'm not sure, if there was an al-Nusra from Syria coming to Canada.... I don't care whether it's state or not state. What I know is that we have to be ready to face those kinds of threats, and it does involve cooperation with other states. It involves a much more complex and difficult network of cooperation than we had when it was just state threats.

I know where Jill Sinclair is coming from in terms of the DND perspective, but in fact it does call on all of us to look much more globally at the threats out there. If there is an attack, for instance, if there is something happening in Iraq—

Sorry.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Okay. The wording is one thing, but what we do about it is another.

[Ferry de Kerckhove]

Yes.