National Defence Committee on Feb. 16th, 2015

[MGen D.L.R. Wheeler]

That is very much a strategic question. It is not something that we do here at the operational or tactical levels.

What I can say is that our search and rescue folks are extremely professional and conduct search and rescue on a daily basis. For 365 days a year they are on standby in three regions, and have done a great job there on the front line of saving Canadians, and we're very proud of them. I'm not saying that at the end of the day we're not going to need to replace resources. Obviously, it's just equipment, so we will need to do that, but the equipment that we have currently is certainly capable of doing the job.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

It is the same story with the Canadian multi-mission aircraft, where it was claimed that the Auroras would be replaced because it was a core equipment fleet. Seven years later, it's still in the preliminary definition stage. Does this kind of uncertainty about equipment replacement impact the morale of the people who are working with the aging equipment?

[MGen D.L.R. Wheeler]

Well you know, if the individual is actually working on the equipment I would suggest that he or she is very much.... I don't want to say in love with what they're doing, but they put their hearts and souls into sustaining that equipment, improving that equipment, and making sure that equipment is able to conduct operations.

When you look at the Aurora, you're right that the Aurora was not the original planned upgrade, but currently it is one of the top intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance aircraft in the world. It has been quite a success story, although I agree that wasn't the original plan for it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

That's the end of your time, Ms. Murray.

Mr. Opitz, you will begin the second round of questioning. You have five minutes.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and through you first to Colonel Ménard, I can't allow the air force to have the upper hand with Latin, so non nobis sed patriae, not for ourselves but for our country, which was my regimental motto.

I take some exception to what Ms. Murray said, in terms of characterizing certain things as cartoons. I served from 1978 to 2011 and lived through the decade of darkness. I had bad equipment, went from private to lieutenant-colonel, was driving the equipment, maintaining the equipment, and General, you're absolutely right: it's equipment and it wears out. We're very robust. The only thing I'm grateful to the Liberals for is that we learned to do a lot with nothing. Even today we're still 26% higher in budget than they ever were.

The Aurora, as you rightly pointed out, is one of the best aircraft going right now, in terms of surveillance and doing the job that it's doing, in the theatre it's in. We're very proud of all that, and the air force has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of our government in terms of the J-class Hercs and of course the C-17 Globemasters. We're very, very happy about a lot of those. And the Chinooks of course, have been an absolute godsend in particular to the infantry. We're very, very proud of the equipment and the record that we had.

But General, you're absolutely right. Things do wear out; they do need to change. We're in a lot of theatres of war, and I know from talking to many of my allies with whom I'm still very close that the name of Canada on the world stage amongst our military allies sits very high and very proud.

I thank you and Colonel Ménard for the work you have done in making sure Canada stays foremost in the minds of our allies. Thank you for that.

General, just given the developing air threats and the current operating environment that we have, what do you see as something that may be most threatening to us in North American airspace?

[MGen D.L.R. Wheeler]

Well, with regard to North American airspace, really what we see from a NORAD perspective are two types of threats. One would be the Operation Noble Eagle type of threat, which is a similar one to 9/11, where you have terrorists who have taken over some sort of civilian aircraft. The other would be the Russian aviation threat that is prevalent throughout the world, as we mentioned before, but for us specifically up north.

The one thing I would say about the Russians, although there is probably a low threat that they are going to conduct any sort of attack on North America, is that they do train to do that on a regular basis. They have improved their equipment, and their weapons are much more stealthy than they ever used to be. We need to stay in tune with technology.

With regard to the Operation Noble Eagle threat, we practise this on a regular basis, as we do to counter any Russian incursions into Canadian airspace, so we're very comfortable with the practice and procedures we put in place, the techniques we use, and the interoperability we have with the Americans.

From a world perspective we're quite happy here in North America that we have a pretty good solid program in place. I would suggest that it is much more dangerous outside of North America than it is inside.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Of course a lot of your colleagues are doing that over the Baltic right now and seeing that first-hand. In particular, Russia is building its air force and has its own stealth fighters that are coming onto line.

Colonel Ménard, you mentioned the e-warfare environment. Can you elaborate on that a little more and describe what that means to NORAD?

[Col Sylvain Ménard]

The electronic warfare environment is the use of the electromagnetic spectrum for one's advantage. What we're trying to do, or what different nations will try to do, is negate the use of the electromagnetic spectrum to other countries so they retain sole use of it. That's the game of electronic warfare.

With our fighters, it's something we need to train for. In layman's terms, when we fly and we look at the radar, the radar is a clean picture, and it's really easy to get the targets we need to see, if there's no electromagnetic jamming. A jamming environment obviously creates a level of complexity for the pilots that they have to work through.

So 414 Squadron helps us, the Royal Canadian Air Force, to train in that environment. They don't do that only for the Royal Canadian Air Force. They support the army and the Royal Canadian Navy as well with their capability to help them train.

I'm happy to say that with our CF-18 and the mid-life upgrade we have, we have a great defensive electronic warfare suite. Our fighter continues to be relevant today on the world scene. But that is a cat-and-mouse game, and we need to stay on top of it. As General Wheeler said, the world is rapidly evolving, and we need to stay ahead.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Thank you, Colonel.

That's your time, Mr. Opitz.

Mr. Brahmi, you have the floor. You have seven minutes.

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question is for Colonel Ménard.

I am trying to gain some understanding of the impact the deployment of forces in Iraq may have on NORAD and operations in Bagotville, for instance. You mentioned that you have 27 operational CF-18s that are stationed there permanently. Is that correct?

[Col Sylvain Ménard]

Yes, sir. There are 27 CF-18s in Bagotville.

We use the fighters. We control all the Canadian fighters in one large pool. When required, it doesn't matter which wing is tasked to go overseas. We work together. We work as a great team to make sure that we fulfill—

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

It has been said that six Cold Lake CF-18s were deployed in Kuwait for the intervention in Iraq, but in fact, it was a group of 27 CF-18s. They did not come from one specific base. Is that correct?

[Col Sylvain Ménard]

No, sir.

In the case of the Iraq jets, right now they are Cold Lake CF-18s. I'm saying that back home here, if need be, we can centrally manage the pool of CF-18s we have in Canada. Should the mission go long, if we need to rotate the jets—because as you know, the CF-18 is a highly technical piece of equipment that requires a lot of maintenance for every flight hour—we could potentially switch them with a Cold Lake jet or a Bagotville jet, and it would be totally transparent to all Canadians.

The fighter force in Canada is not a large entity. We work together to make sure we fulfill our missions abroad and domestically on the NORAD front, and to make sure we minimize the impact on both fighter wings of any deployments.

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

Let's talk about the number of hours or the number of sorties, as I do not know how you calculate this.

Do you count the number of sorties per week or the number of flight hours per week? Does the fact that part of the CF-18s are deployed in Iraq reduce the number of weekly flight hours in NORAD? Do you have any figures and an order of magnitude to give us?

[Col Sylvain Ménard]

No. I'm sorry, but I don't have the hours offhand. I would have to get back to you.

As General Wheeler highlighted numerous times, NORAD is our first and primary mission. We secure the NORAD mission, make sure we keep everything we need for the NORAD front, and then after that we reallocate and prioritize to fulfill our expeditionary capabilities, like the one we have in Iraq.

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

In the context of the Impact operation, are there types of interventions where the CF-18 is actually limited? Are there limits that would justify the fact, for instance, of using an F-35 because another aircraft could not do the same things? Have you up till now had to deal with interventions that were limited by the fact that you had CF-18s instead of stealth fighter aircraft, for example?

[MGen D.L.R. Wheeler]

How about if I jump in on that one and answer it?

Different types of operations take place. The Middle East is not a sophisticated environment. The folks on the ground there, ISIL and other belligerents, don't necessarily have great capabilities with regard to surface-to-air munitions. However, there are certainly countries out there that are much more sophisticated, where we would certainly be put to task to a much greater extent than we are currently within the Iraq environment.

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you.

I imagine the same things apply to radar. Does enemy radar constitute another parameter?

[MGen D.L.R. Wheeler]

The entire aircraft works in concert and needs to be interoperable with other aircraft, but you need to fight your way in and fight your way out of some wars. That's not the case in Iraq, as we tend to use altitude to secure a peaceful environment for us to conduct operations.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Thank you, General. Thank you, Mr. Chisu.

Mr. Bezan, you have five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank our witnesses for being here today and also for indulging us while we had to go for votes. I know your time is precious, and we appreciate all that you and the members under your command do for Canada, both at home and abroad.

General Wheeler, it's always great to see you and I know that we had a chance to visit through the winter a couple of times, but I did want to go back to one comment that was made by Ms. Murray regarding the Auroras and trying to diminish the capabilities that are there.

Could you talk about what the Aurora capability means to us right now, not just from an air force standpoint, but what it's doing in Operation IMPACT in Iraq today? Also, General Wheeler, you did mention how it is one of the best aerial surveillance capabilities in the world. Could you talk to how it performed in RIMPAC not that many months ago, and the great job it pulled off there?

[MGen D.L.R. Wheeler]

The Aurora is the same vintage as the CF-18. We bought it just prior to that, so it's not necessarily a young aircraft. We initially bought it for anti-submarine warfare capability. After the Cold War, anti-submarine warfare tended to trickle out a little, and so at that point we made it a multi-role aircraft and we used it for a secondary SAR mission plus for some intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance-type sorties.

Since that time, the anti-submarine warfare role has come back with great vigour, especially from the Pacific countries, and so there is a real threat out there that requires Canada to have this type of capability. But with all the new changes that have come through from the Block program and the investments we have made in mid-life upgrades to the Aurora, it is now our most capable ISR platform and that's what we're using it for over in Operation IMPACT in Kuwait right now.

It flies, we have two of them over there. We have a Block III and a Block II because we're continuing with that mid-life upgrade right now. They are tasked to fly over Iraq and gather intelligence on behalf of the coalition. It doesn't just gather information for Canadians, it provides it for the entire coalition and in many different ways. It is not just one type of intelligence-gathering platform. It gathers multiple types at the same time and that's what makes it so special. A lot of airplanes are used for that role but have one type of capability alone. This, as I said, has multiple capabilities. I would suggest that it has been extremely beneficial to have the Aurora go through that mid-life upgrade, and we plan to use it with vigour for a number of years to come.

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

Thank you.

From a committee standpoint, we talk about our CF-18s, and they've been stationed at CFB Bagotville and CFB Cold Lake. How do you determine which squadron pursues threats from a NORAD standpoint, west coast, Arctic, even up into Alaska, and then you have that whole High Arctic area, and to the east?

[MGen D.L.R. Wheeler]

We divide the country and we use Bagotville to support the east portion and Cold Lake to support the west portion. We have a number of deployed operating bases and forward operating locations that we can go to if we get information that this is where we need to concentrate our effort, and we'll certainly do that.

As Colonel Ménard mentioned before, though, we are one fighter force, even though we have two wings within that fighter force. If we do need to concentrate more on one side or the other, then Cold Lake will support Bagotville, Bagotville will support Cold Lake.

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

A final question is this. When we're looking at our relationship within NORAD, and the role you play at 1 CAD in Winnipeg—you're the commander on three different levels there, with 1 CAD and NORAD north division—when we are looking at the future and the equipment you have available to you, the maritime responsibilities that are now tied in with airspace, do we have, especially in the Arctic Archipelago, enough eyes up there or does our RADARSAT system provide us with the type of surveillance that's required?