Canada-China Relations Committee on Nov. 27th, 2023

[Newton Shortliffe]

That I cannot speak to in detail in an open forum.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Can you just tell us whether—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

I'm sorry, Mr. Chong. You are out of time for now.

We'll go to Mr. Casey for six minutes or less.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to start with Major-General Smith.

You weren't able to finish your opening statement. Go ahead and do that now.

[MGen Gregory Smith]

Thank you very much, Chair.

In sum, the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces are on the right path to deliver a meaningful and multifaceted regional presence for Canada, from which we can promote peace and stability in support of our international interests and values. Our commitment to peace, security and resilience in the Indo-Pacific region necessarily involves dialogue with China. We therefore remain committed to the approach described in Canada's Indo-Pacific strategy.

Canada will challenge China where our views differ, and we will co-operate with China where it is in our interest to do so, to find solutions to global issues. As we operate in the Indo-Pacific, the Canadian Armed Forces will always respect international rules and engage responsibly, and we expect others to do the same.

I look forward to your questions.

Thank you, Chair.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Thank you.

There has been some discussion, both from Ambassador McKay and in response to questions from Mr. Chong, with respect to the frigates that have been deployed and the fact that there are now three. The ambassador also mentioned a supply ship and RCAF planes. My question would be about the reaction of the People's Republic of China to this increased presence. Can you speak to that?

[MGen Gregory Smith]

Mr. Chair, I'll start, and then perhaps my operational colleague would like to go beyond that.

We have an extensive presence via both navy and air force, and special forces and army assets throughout, so we're engaged throughout. At times, we have engagements near China, and the vast majority are safe and professional. Occasionally, they're not, and maybe at that point I'll hand this off to my operational colleague.

[BGen Cayle Oberwarth]

Thank you.

As you will have seen in the media, in the last few months there were a number of—I will say a few—incidents where there were some unsafe and unprofessional engagements by the Chinese with some of our air forces operating in the region. These are a very small percentage of the number of engagements. In fact, in most cases they are very safe and very professional.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

In your statement, you talked about next year and the deployment of three warships. Is that the same three that are there now, or is there a plan to augment our presence next year?

[MGen Gregory Smith]

Chair, I don't know exactly which ships. It's the same number of ships, but the particular ones I can't speak to.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Okay.

You spoke to China's reaction to this presence. What about other stakeholders in the maritime hot spots, like the South China Sea and the East China Sea? I think I heard you talk about some passages through the Taiwan Strait as well. What has been the perception of other players in those areas?

[MGen Gregory Smith]

Chair, I'll go for this one.

Again, China is obviously the key country. Both from an air and a maritime perspective, we've had interactions. They're the main ones. Otherwise, we're largely co-operating in exercises in capacity building throughout the region.

[BGen Cayle Oberwarth]

Mr. Chair, if I may add, in fact most of the interactions we have in the region are very good. A lot of the partners and allies we're working with in the region are very happy to see us. This is a great opportunity in a space where there isn't a defence organization like NATO, where Canada can contribute and do partnership work with a lot of other countries in the region. It helps to give them a level of comfort that Canada is paying attention and that we're looking to have some skin in the game as well.

This is a great opportunity for us, and it's a good-news story to have so many Canadians operating in the region as we coalesce around this Indo-Pacific strategy.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

I'd like to get you to talk a bit about RIMPAC. It's something where Canada has had a long-standing presence. China was a participant there for a short period of time, from 2014 to 2018. Can you speak to the circumstances of China being uninvited to those exercises and how their exclusion has affected the exercises?

[MGen Gregory Smith]

Mr. Chair, I'm talking to my colleague over here. I actually don't know the details of that. We could take that on notice, or there might be a subsequent witness who can do better with that one.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

If subsequently you do have information that you could supply to us in writing, that would be helpful. Thank you.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

This is probably for CSIS. I know you'll be limited in what you can say, but I would be most interested in your comments and whatever details you can provide in terms of the state of cybersecurity as it relates to the strategy. What are our strengths and where are the opportunities associated with the strategy?

[Newton Shortliffe]

Thank you for the question.

Cyber is one of the most persistent and difficult issues that we deal with at this time. It's a tool that is used by adversaries, including our intelligence adversaries, to gain advantage over Canada. We have a robust response. We work with our colleagues in CSE and the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, and with other government departments, in an effort to identify what cyber-threat actors are engaged, what their targets are in Canada and how they go about doing their attacks, so we can identify mechanisms to defeat those attacks. CSIS's role in that, as much as anything, is in part to help understand why and what targets cyber-actors may be going after.

Where we are seeking to expand our energy and our efforts is to find ways to provide more information to Canadians—beyond the federal government, if possible—which will assist Canadians in being able to protect themselves, whether that be in the private sector or other levels of government. Every level of government is attacked by cyber. The private sector is attacked by cyber. This is a major threat that Canadians face across the spectrum.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Thank you for that. I appreciate it.

Mr. Casey's time is over.

We'll go now to Mr. Bergeron, for six minutes or less.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to our witnesses for being with us to inform our examination of Canada's Indo-Pacific strategy.

In the strategy, the Canadian government asserts its desire to establish an enhanced military presence, including through Operation Horizon, in which Canada intends to maintain a persistent and more complete presence by the Canadian Armed Forces in the Indo-Pacific region.

In your opinion, gentlemen, does what you have been talking about, in terms of a naval and air presence in the region, meet that objective, or do more resources still need to be deployed in order to achieve the objective of augmenting our military presence in the region?

In which case, given that the commitment to Latvia is already calling for significant resources from the armed forces, at a time when there is a labour shortage that is making recruiting difficult, and with chronic personnel retention problems, how is it thought that the military presence in the region can be augmented beyond what has already been done?

[MGen Gregory Smith]

Thank you for the question.

I am going to start to answer, and my colleague may want to continue. Operation Horizon is the operational expression of our strategy for the Indo-Pacific region. So the five pillars, the five lines of effort, are progressing well after one year. We have more things to do. We are going to continue sending ships. We are going to conduct exercises, but we have to build relationships in order to do more in the region.

With respect to rebuilding the workforce, or our capacity to make these efforts, the military part of Canada's Indo-Pacific strategy was designed with the idea of rebuilding the workforce. We have personnel shortages and shortages of certain resources, but these five lines of effort were established with this in mind.

[BGen Cayle Oberwarth]

I would like to add a few words, particularly as regards personnel retention. For several years, we have spent a lot of time in the NATO regions, in Europe, so our young soldiers and sailors are going to like being deployed in the Pacific and seeing something different.

That gives us an opportunity to work not just in a new region, but also with new allies and partners. So I think that highlighting the Indo-Pacific strategy is really going to help us maintain or increase interest in the forces.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

The air and naval operations in the Taiwan Strait led to incidents with the People's Republic of China armed forces.

How would you describe those acts of intimidation against our pilots, for example? In addition, to what extent did those operations endanger the lives of our personnel and also peace and security in the region?

[BGen Cayle Oberwarth]

We always need to remind ourselves that our forces are extremely professional. We have tactics, techniques and procedures that we follow to help us manage situations like these, in which Chinese air force pilots engage in dangerous manoeuvres. As a result, every time we have an event of this type, we learn, we learn from it, and we talk to one another to make sure that, in the future, we will be able to reduce the threat that these manoeuvres by the Chinese armed forces pose for us.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

I now have questions for the CSIS representatives.

Your director, David Vigneault, has spoken to us about the necessity, or at least the wisdom, of modernizing the Canadian Security Intelligence Act. How would modernizing that act make CSIS more effective in the mission it has in connection with our Indo-Pacific strategy, which is to safeguard Canada's security?