National Defence Committee on Oct. 30th, 2014

[Brian Bow]

Well, the Americans are fully prepared to go ahead and build their own system on their own with little or no Canadian participation, and if they do, then it will be run through USNORTHCOM and other related commands. From their point of view on whether it has to be done through NATO, I would think the answer would be no, but I would think to the extent that we want to be involved in it, then I'm not sure I would see the rationale if I were starting from anywhere other than NORAD.

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

So you think it's just logical, regardless of what the Americans think.

[Brian Bow]

Well, we already are involved, more or less directly, in a lot of the tracking part of what BMD will be about, through NORAD, and it seems odd that we would think about participating in coordination on a response through something other than the institution that manages the actual tracking that would inform that response.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Thank you, Doctor.

Mr. Miller, please.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Gentlemen, thanks for being here.

I'm going to start off with a question on the Arctic region. I think we all know it's inevitable that the north is going to be developed. There's a pretty big mineral project that's taking place right now and it is going to be shipping a lot more material out of the north end of Baffin Island. There's going to be more of that kind of thing in years to come, as well as oil and gas.

I look at a comment by NORAD spokeswoman, Captain Jennifer Stadnyk, who stated:

Additionally, the ever-increasing numbers of vessels transiting Arctic waters emphasize the need for Norad to observe, share and act on activity in that domain. This will be studied during the Norad Next analysis.

In light of all the development up there, is NORAD ready for that increased traffic? Can you comment on that? Are they going to have to change or adapt in any way?

[LGen George Macdonald]

I suspect it's an evolving requirement. The maritime warning mission I think was originally established to address coastal approaches to the east and west coasts of North America, and was only recognized in the course of events to be effective in the north as well. That's a responsibility that is of concern to both the United States and Canada. The maritime warning mission can cooperate there.

Obviously, to prosecute a maritime target, you need something, a ship or some capability to manoeuvre on water, that gives you the ability to do that. We talked briefly about the coast guard. There's the offshore patrol ship project that will ultimately produce vessels that will have some capability in that regard as well.

The real question, from the point of view of actually prosecuting a target, is how more willing are we to increase our ability for surface combatants or for surface ships to do that? From a NORAD perspective, it's the surveillance that matters, be it surveillance from fighters or maritime patrol aircraft that input information into it, or from space-based assets like the RADARSAT constellation mission when it's fielded.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

You touched a little on the coast guard. That was going to be my next question.

I wasn't here, but Professor Elinor Sloan appeared before this committee on this study, and basically indicated that an armed coast guard is something the Government of Canada should consider in the defence of North America.

To get back to my first question, on the enforcement, patrol, etc., what should be done at the coast guard level to be prepared for that kind of thing? Basically, I'm asking that statement. Is that one you agree or disagree with?

[Brian Bow]

I think it depends.

You began your question by asking about an increase in activity in the Arctic. I think most of that activity is not something that calls for an armed coast guard. It's mostly about keeping track of what is actually there, and trying to figure out when there's something that's not quite right there, and being able to respond to that.

The first challenge is going to be the surveillance part and being able to communicate among the different participants in that information collecting process. The second part is going to be being physically capable of responding appropriately.

I don't know enough about the legal questions that are involved in setting out the mandate for the coast guard to be able to comment on whether that's a good idea or not, but certainly there will be some times when appropriate responses in the north call for some kind of armed police force. Whether that's the RCMP or some other agency, I can't say.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

I appreciate that.

I'm going to move south of there.

My question is for you, Mr. Bow. You're taken as an expert on Canada-U.S. relations. I want to talk about energy security here. I want to hear some of your comments about it. If the Keystone XL pipeline goes ahead, which I think most people will agree it will in time or could in time, I'd like to hear some comments in the time left on what we need to do in terms of looking after that. That's going to create an issue as well.

[Brian Bow]

Do you mean, to make them say yes?

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Brian Bow]

Is that what you mean?

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

No, no. I wish you could, personally, but I mean that as far as security is concerned, anytime you have access points—

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

A very brief answer, please.

[Brian Bow]

I guess my brief answer is that there is no necessary connection there. There's nothing we can do on the security front that will influence how the energy relationship goes.

Certainly there would be some people in Congress, for example, whose votes on a question like this would be formed in part based on their perception of Canada more generally. How our defence relationship with them evolves may play into that to some degree, but we should not be thinking about how best to manage our energy relationship with them in terms of changing our defence policy.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Thank you.

Mr. Nicholls, please, for five minutes.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

My first question is for you, Mr. Bow. I'm concerned about regional security cooperation in the Arctic. I'm wondering about our partnership with Arctic nations other than Russia, in places like Finland, Norway, and Denmark. I know that General Macdonald served in Norway, so he could probably add to this as well.

One, are they contemplating missile defence, since there are renewed concerns about Russia vis-à-vis Ukraine?

Two, I haven't been following this, but Nordic prime ministers met in Iceland in May of this year. I don't know if there was a Canadian presence there. I'm wondering whether there should be, according to you. Should there have been the presence of Canadian defence officials as well at that high-level meeting about the high Arctic? Perhaps you could discuss our cooperation with countries like Norway, Finland, Denmark, and Sweden in dealing with security in the high Arctic.

[Brian Bow]

I actually don't know anything about the Scandinavian countries' plans when it comes to missile defence cooperation. I literally know nothing about that, so I can't contribute anything.

I can say more generally that when it comes to defence issues in the Arctic, we have a similar kind of relationship with most of those countries that we have with the United States. There are a few issues where we have diplomatic tensions over specific questions with them, but for the most part we tend to work around that and focus on the things where we can cooperate. There are clearly a number of issues where defence or defence-related cooperation with all of those countries could be expanded from what it is.

Certainly we could have much more cooperation with them in the Arctic context on such things as search and rescue, joint patrols, coordination of surveillance, and showing-the-flag patrols. For sure there's more room there.

[LGen George Macdonald]

Our missile defence point of view has to be influenced by the fact that we're connected to the United States. It's quite different from that of other countries.

Even having said that, those countries that belong to NATO, as we do, have all endorsed missile defence for Europe. It's actively being deployed. We're in a situation where we agree that NATO should be defended, but not necessarily Canada with the United States, or Canada cooperating with the United States.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

When you state that they've accepted European missile defence, who would be the lead player in that?

[LGen George Macdonald]

Well, the United States is clearly the lead in providing the technology or the capability, but at the Chicago conference, NATO itself endorsed missile defence for NATO.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

My next question is for you, General Macdonald.

Mr. Norlock stated that the government has made a commitment to renew the forces. I wouldn't disagree with that. You mentioned that when procurement decisions are made, there have to be people to operate the new acquisitions and also to maintain and support. There's a balance.

In terms of Canada's strengths and weaknesses in that balance, where would you say its strength would be in terms of procurement, operations, maintenance, and support, and where would be the weakness in that balance?

[LGen George Macdonald]

Canada has adopted capability-based planning, which addresses all of those issues in terms of developing a capability.

Our current defence policy clearly supports the procurement of the capital projects that are listed in the Canada first defence strategy, and has broken down into the four pillars of equipment, personnel, infrastructure, and readiness how that money should be distributed.

The capital funding has been protected throughout the course of the last six or eight years, but the defence budget cuts that have been experienced as a result of striving to get to a balanced budget have largely impinged upon operations and maintenance issues: personnel, reserve personnel mostly, the training capability for the force, and I think all national procurement, which is maintenance, repair and overhaul, and spares essentially.

You can empty your bins for a while, but eventually you get to a point where you have to accept that you have reduced readiness if you haven't been able to invest in the necessary spares and logistics and maintenance that should have been done throughout the course of maintaining a particular capability.

I would say that our strength is in the people we have, the training we provide, and certainly the capital equipment. A number of the very positive projects were mentioned, but right now I would say that we are thin on the ground, from the point of view of being able to sustain them to the level that they should be.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Thank you, General.

That is your time, Mr. Nicholls.

Mr. Bezan.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Mr. Chair, in light that the NDP has three rounds of questions, and Mr. Harris used two of them without sharing one of his rounds with Mr. Larose, who is the other regular member for the NDP, I will give my time to Mr. Larose.