National Defence Committee on Feb. 25th, 2015

[RAdm John Newton]

All right, I'm going to have to be quick, right?

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

You have two minutes.

[RAdm John Newton]

The navy, I think, led the decision making on the retirement of our aging classes of ships. We saw what our fixed-budget envelopes are. We saw the very aging infrastructure of those platforms that were built in another era with different damage control systems, engine configurations, and automation. When the fire occurred in Protecteur, of course the admirals circled the wagons, looked each other in the eye, took our 35 years of naval experience, and made a decision that it's not good use of Canadian taxpayers' money to fire good money after bad on a ship that we can no longer pour enough money in to keep going. That's not a political discussion. That was very much the navy admirals knowing we couldn't take our budget dollars and put them there when they should have been used somewhere else. It was a never-ending pouring of money into the aging class. It comes at the end of a class's life when the investment rises very high in maintenance.

The second question is—

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

So it was in operations rather than personnel cuts, is what you just said.

[RAdm John Newton]

They were very operational-minded decisions. There were no personnel issues. In fact, I've disappointed a lot of sailors.

On Cyclones, all I'll say, ma'am, is that one is flying from the back of a Royal Canadian Navy ship now. We're thrilled with what we see. Things accelerate very quickly once you start working with the project and the live aircraft or the live ship, whether it's the modernization, whether it's the AOPS, or whether it's going to be the Cyclone. Put it in the sailors' or the airmen's hands, and the project will accelerate quickly. We're starting to see that. I would say that the Sea King in the interim period has never let us down. Okay? It's a 50-year Sikorsky helicopter. I had one break on operations, and the air force used the C-17 to bring a new one in literally days, so capabilities cannot be isolated from the whole picture. The C-17 married with the old aircraft of the helicopter actually allowed us to bridge from a defect into operations right away.

The third question was, there's a lot of technology shifting going on as we modernize platforms. I tried to explain this previously. On the Block III Aurora, I can't get into the number of aircraft, but when we fly a Block III Aurora, it generates far more acoustic pictures of the ocean to far higher fidelity. So do I have to fly three aircraft, or do I fly one?

Going back to that comment I made about smart defence, we work as teams with our allies. The P-8 American aircraft flies side by side with the modernized Aurora Block III. We get a lot of ocean area covered in these modern aircraft capabilities.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Ms. Murray, the time has almost expired. Please give the admiral his final—

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

You make do with what you have and find innovative ways to—

[RAdm John Newton]

Yes, ma'am. We try to bridge any defects or deficiencies we come across with capabilities.

The final answer—I think it's about using shared services—is that it has not impacted our relationships with allies. The Royal Canadian Navy wants to be a partner to enable shared services to execute their leadership of the information management and information technology domain, especially with the big unclassified networks. We are trying to enable them to success.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Thank you very much, Admiral, for your time with us today.

Colleagues, when we return on Monday, March 9, we have two witnesses: Lieutenant-General Parent, Royal Canadian Air Force, who is the deputy commander, NORAD; and the deputy commander of Canadian Special Operations Forces Command, CANSOFCOM.

This meeting is adjourn—

Oh, is there a point of order?

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

Yes, a point of order, Mr. Chair.

I find that things are slipping right now. The members opposite are increasingly using obstruction to take away the speaking time from one of the members of this committee. Sometimes they knowingly raise points of order that are not. I don't know which Standing Order applies here, but I think each committee member has a right to express himself or herself.

If they want to argue, they can do so when it is their turn to speak. In addition, it is insulting to the witnesses we receive here. It is disrespectful to them. That is why I think you should take action and call to order the members playing this game. This gives a bad impression of how this committee works. It was not the case when I was a member in 2011. This obstruction technique was not used then. I urge you to take control of the situation, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Thank you, Mr. Brahmi.

There were in fact today no points of order. This committee—I say this having sat on a number of committees—is generally among the better behaved all around.

I saw your hand in the air, Mr Bezan.

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

To that point of order, I wouldn't say there is anything here that was done in obstruction or in disrespect to Admiral Newton and the excellent testimony that he gave today.

There may have been a few moans and groans coming from our side when Ms. Murray was asking her questions. We just ask that when we're talking about smart defence we have intelligent questions coming forward as well.

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Thank you very much.

I think the admiral acquitted himself exceptionally well and is capable of responding to questions from all perspectives.

This meeting is adjourned.