National Defence Committee on Feb. 16th, 2015

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

In fact...

[MGen D.L.R. Wheeler]

Hopefully that answers your question.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Thank you.

The business plan we are talking about was prepared before Canada's involvement in Iraq. Since we are talking about air strikes, this certainly has an impact on the Royal Canadian Air Force. In your opinion, what is the impact of Canada's involvement in Iraq on your operational capacity overall, in Canada?

[MGen D.L.R. Wheeler]

From a specific hourly perspective we get additional hours to participate in Iraq. It benefits in that manner.

From our operations in Canada we make sure that we have the capability to sustain our NORAD mission first. It's our number one mission and it will always be supported. From there we can determine how many aircraft crews, the entire team, we can deploy overseas. We provide that to the Chief of the Defence Staff. The CDS determines what level we should be providing to the government, so the effort in Iraq and the effort that we have in Reassurance in Europe do not impact the missions we are conducting in Canada.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Colonel Ménard, did you want to add something?

[Col Sylvain Ménard]

Thank you, Ms. Michaud.

I believe that Major-General Wheeler covered this.

Thank you.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Thank you very much.

How much time do I have left, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

You have about one minute left.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Do cost increases, for instance in the cost of fuel, or other such expenses, have repercussions on your operational capacity?

[MGen D.L.R. Wheeler]

Of course they can. The more we pay for fuel, the less money we have to put towards other events. The fuel costs, especially overseas in some places, are higher than they are in Canada or in the United States.

But interestingly enough, the fuel prices have dipped so much that we actually have more money this year to put towards operations. It's been very beneficial from the air force's perspective.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Norlock, seven minutes.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and through you to the witnesses, thank you for attending today.

Major-General Wheeler, in light of recent investments made by this government to modernize and expand the RCAF's fleets of CF-18s, C-17s, and 130Js, can you please comment on the state of readiness of these aircraft and their effectiveness in carrying out operations within North America?

[MGen D.L.R. Wheeler]

Absolutely. I would suggest that it's not necessarily the state of readiness of the aircraft, but the state of readiness of the capability that uses the aircraft. It's a combination of personnel, aircraft, and other resources that puts together that capability.

Obviously, with the addition of the C-17—we never really did have a strategic air mobility aircraft before, and the old Hercs used to do that role—this has been a great investment and certainly supported our operations throughout the world, whether it be humanitarian assistance or support to our troops conducting operations in Kuwait. It's been very beneficial. The C-130Js, which are more of a tactical airlifter, have allowed us to do the work within the more confined spaces and not be committed to those strategic types of missions. Therefore, we now have a more complete and more flexible platform, with both aircraft very serviceable, doing what we need them to do.

With regard to the CF-18, we bought that aircraft in 1982, so it's not what you'd call a new aircraft. It's more like a K-car that's been converted. We've certainly added a lot of capability to it. When we bought it, it was top of the line. Obviously, over the years it tended to not necessarily follow technology. When we added that mid-life upgrade, it brought that aircraft back into comparison with the rest of the front-line aircraft, interoperable with our main allies and certainly extremely capable. We're very happy with that.

Of course, at the end of the day, like any other machine, it will need to be replaced, but right now, we're very comfortable with where we sit with the capabilities that the Hornet provides.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

I suggest very strongly that you and I would agree that we need a fifth-generation stealth fighter and we both have our wants in that area, but we have somebody beyond my pay grade who has to make a decision. I'm confident that you would agree with me that the fifth-generation stealth fighter would be what we need.

But my question really is, again General Wheeler, speaking from your experience as chief of staff and deputy commanding officer of the Canadian Forces Northern Area, can you explain to this committee the role that the CF plays in surveillance and protection of the Canadian Arctic?

I think you spoke about this before, but I just wondered if you had anything to add to your previous comments.

[MGen D.L.R. Wheeler]

The only thing I'd like to add is that the air force is not there alone. We support our joint colleagues, the army and the navy, out there as well.

I think that we'll become more involved in the north and I think we're getting better at it. The one thing that I would add, that has certainly extended our capability or will extend our capability up there, is the new Chinook helicopter with the fat tanks that it has. It will provide tremendous support to everything that's going on up there once we hit the final operation capability, which won't be for a little bit. But we certainly took it all the way to Alert and back this year.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you.

Colonel Ménard, can you explain to this committee the various squadrons that operate out of CFB Bagotville and how they contribute to the readiness of 3 Wing?

[Col Sylvain Ménard]

What's important to understand is that, while we often think of Bagotville for its 27 F-18s and 425 Tactical Fighter Squadron, which is the F-18 squadron, really we have a huge area of units, subunits, and divisions that support that. In fact, we have close to 1,700 folks supporting 27 F-18s, and just more than 30 pilots who are combat-ready for the mission. Really, we have an operational division, a logistics division, and an admin division.

We did talk briefly about 12 Radar Squadron and 439 Combat Support Squadron, as I alluded to in my comments at the beginning. We have the 3 Air Maintenance Squadron, which is in charge of all the maintenance of the CF-18s. We have 414 Electronic Warfare Support Squadron, which is a unit that is there to help train our fighter pilots in a challenging electronic warfare environment. We have the 10 FTTS, the Fighter Technical Training Squadron detachment, that trains our armourers and all the technical trades to better support the CF-18 fleet.

Obviously we have a reserves flight that takes care of our reservists who support all the divisions and units I just mentioned. We have one dental unit detachment at a hospital, a military police detachment, and a comptroller section, to name only a few. Aside from that, obviously from a support perspective I have the personnel support program, the Military Family Resource Centre, the deployment support centre, etc., and I could go on and on.

It's a huge business for everybody, though. Here in Bagotville the primary mission for 3 Wing is NORAD first. All these folks understand the key role they play to support the NORAD mission, which is really a priority here at 3 Wing.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you.

Colonel Ménard, in 2012, the 1 Canadian Air Division, the operational arm of RCAF, developed a managed readiness plan. I understand that this year 3 Wing Bagotville along with 14 Wing Greenwood will be participating in this program. Can you comment on the success of the managed readiness plan to date and how you expect the troops at 3 Wing to benefit?

[Col Sylvain Ménard]

The managed readiness plan is key to our force generation capability, for us to train our folks before they are ready to answer the government's call to deploy anywhere in Canada or the world, either as part of NATO or, as we see right now, in Iraq. Really, it consists of 3 Wing being the main force-generating wing for the air task force 1501 and 1502; we have about 250 folks that we train. We give them all their basic soldier skills training. As well, we spend a huge amount of time training them to deploy.

They are aware of the lessons learned from the latest missions we conducted around the world, so they have the best information and learn from all lessons learned that we have to go forward. This allows us to have a force that is ready and already pre-trained to deploy at the government's will to answer any crisis or mission the government wants us to participate in. The benefit to our personnel is that they have on-time readiness training. When they are trained, they are on the hook for one year to deploy and to be ready to deploy anywhere around the world or in Canada. Also, after their mandate they have a pause period—I guess a downtime—when they can continue working in their specific professions on their specific technical skills. It's a bit of a downtime at home.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Thank you, Colonel.

Your time is up, Mr. Norlock.

Ms. Murray, you have seven minutes, please.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Thank you for being here to brief us.

I have enormous respect for what the people in your command and the leaders in your organization accomplish, and even more so because of the budgeting uncertainties that you face. We've got a situation where there are cuts to operating funding that affect the amount of training that can be done. Even the cost of de-icing eats into other things, because you've been squeezed.

Could you let the committee know the planning time frame that you employ? I'm from the business world, and we plan for three and five years out. What is it in your organization?

[MGen D.L.R. Wheeler]

We don't necessarily follow the business planning model completely, but we do planning in periods like that as well with various horizons. We will look at five years, ten years, out to 20 years, but then of course we will look at next year as well. We do try to be proactive in all of those areas, but again like with any plan we need to keep flexible, with on-ramps and off-ramps, because no plan is going to come out exactly as originally thought.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Right, so you have some contingencies you have to build in.

I'm just looking at the Conference of Defence Associations Institute's June 2014 report, the Vimy Paper. The gap between the expectations that were created for you and the organization and then what has actually been delivered since 2007-08 is stunning. It turns out that reprofiling and cuts have reduced the department's budget below 2007 levels when adjusted for inflation, so today you have less available to spend than in 2007, yet the expectations that were created in 2007 and 2008 were very different from that.

I'm trying to understand. When there is also reprofiling of some $6.68 billion past 2016-17, how do you manage the lapses in funding and the unavailability of funding for capital?

[MGen D.L.R. Wheeler]

We're very used to getting either less funds or more funds on a regular basis. This is where, as I said, we build contingencies into our plans. We call them off-ramps and on-ramps. In there, we will always bracket a certain amount of training that we need to do to ensure that we remain safe and effective.

At that point in time we then ensure that we hit the primary portion of the Canada First defence strategy, which is our mission at home. It is the no-fail missions that we might have at home such as NORAD and search and rescue, and then we will go from there. We have high readiness and low readiness units that we ensure mix so that is never a—

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Okay, thank you.

I'd like to take this to a specific example. There are on-ramps and off-ramps. You're told one thing one year and then there are budget freezes and cuts and lapses, off-ramps. Would that explain why a critical part of what you're talking about with regard to the defence of North America, which is search and rescue.... How does that relate to the failure to deliver fixed-wing search and rescue whereas it was a commitment in December 5, 2005, by the Conservative government, a high-priority commitment apparently in 2006-07 and one that was in this CFDS in 2008, and today there is still no official RFP? When I read the list, it just seems like a cartoon with the number of on-ramps, off-ramps. Is this the result that is due to those uncertainties of funding of the capital budget? Is that what has affected the fixed-wing search and rescue, or are there other elements to explain why we still don't have that project happening?