Foreign Affairs Committee on Nov. 19th, 2013

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

—where you are doing joint operations—

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

It is not—

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

—with another country and you are party to the use of those weapons, it does mean—

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Party...? Define—

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

—yes, you are ultimately.

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

In fairness, define “party to the use of”.

Let me talk about one general who gained a lot of experience being the number two commander of a unit with 60,000 soldiers. If he is number two and those weapons are used in that conflict—he neither recommends their use, nor does he use them—but nonetheless, he is number two in that unit. If we're going to say that our senior military leaders could not attain that leadership development and practical first-hand experience, I think it would be a disadvantage to realizing the full excellence that our military leadership currently holds.

Let me say another thing. These are not exclusively in conflict. If the United States, for example, were to.... If we were to follow your example—and in a perfect world it would be great if we could do so—would we have to say to the United States, “We will not allow overflights of Canada if you have these types of weapons in your possession”? Would we have to inspect, would we have requirements, would we refuse to refuel types of aircraft that might contain these types of things that may or may not ever be used in the future?

As far as Canada goes, we look at—yes, is it 100%? No. But it's 99.99999%, indefinite. If you look at this five years after this bill becomes law, I would be stunned if you see a single example where this has been used.

The Chief of the Defence Staff will come out with a very clear directive. I'm very happy to have that directive deposited with this committee. Having said that, I have looked at this aggressively. I have exercised a robust challenge function with both our lawyers and senior military leadership to ensure that this exemption, as contemplated specifically in the convention, is used as minimally as possible.

I would love nothing more than for our future Canadian government to be able to come back and say that we have negotiated the exclusion of Article 21 from this convention, and we can do it from Canadian law, but we must not let perfection be the obstacle of practical, forward-looking interventions.

When I was in Laos I very proudly congratulated Lloyd Axworthy on his leadership with respect to the Ottawa treaty to ban landmines. I'm told, though, that during those discussions that if we had been willing to make an exception for the demilitarized zone in Korea, the United States might have been able to sign on. But seeking perfection prevented getting the United States on board.

Well, you know, my job every day is to get up and try to move the ball forward and to do as much as we possibly can. If we were to wait for 100% perfection on every public policy file, precious little would move forward.

I'm always prepared to hear concerns. After this testimony, I hope you'll take time to listen to the other members of the Canadian Forces who will talk about their needs.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Minister Baird.

That completes our first round.

We'll start our second round, which will be five minutes for questions and answers.

Mr. Anderson, the floor is yours.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I actually want to follow up on that because I would like to question the experts at the table.

We haven't used these weapons and this ordnance in the past and we don't intend to use them. I wonder what would be the impact if we made it a condition, as Mr. Garneau has asked, that we won't participate in joint operations with non-signatories unless they give us some sort of guarantee that they won't be using them. What would be the impact on our ability to participate in those things?

My second question would be, how in the world would we ever guarantee such a thing?

I'm simply interested in what the impact on us would be in terms of our ability to participate with them.

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

I'll take the first comment and then I'll ask General Lamarre.

We have some NATO allies that have refused to sign on to this. Turkey is one, and Poland is another. These are NATO allies. We are bound to come to their protection if they're invaded. When we say that we would basically have to pull out of NATO if some of the amendments that are contemplated by the committee.... If others coming to their aid would not swear off these munitions, it would be practically very difficult.

I think what we can do is exercise leadership and show that Canada will legally pledge not to use these armaments and will eradicate the stockpiles that were built up in the past decades. We can help lead the way.

As a matter of policy, Canada could develop nuclear weapons very easily. We have the technology. We have the know-how. We have the military delivery mechanisms. We have chosen not to do that. We still work with other countries: France, the United Kingdom, the United States.

Could I ask the General to maybe—

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

I'll just interrupt for a second and then let him answer.

Do you see our position, then, as a platform towards encouraging non-signatories to sign?

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

That was part of my opening statement. We want to advocate and actively encourage other non-state parties to become state parties.

I mentioned Laos. They can't sign on to this because they can't rid their country of these unexploded ordinances. We want to help them. I've committed $10 million over the next 18 months to help them become a signatory to the convention. DND is prepared to spend the money to get rid of our stockpiles.

[BGen Charles Lamarre]

I could also add on the issue of how we deal with allies and coalitions in joint operations. I made the point of looking up the participation in the NATO-sanctioned mission, ISAF, in Afghanistan. We had 51 different countries that participated in that specific operation, 21 of which were NSPs, non-signatory parties. Similarly, when we did the operation in Libya, we had 17 countries participating and 7 NSPs. Many of the names, the minister just mentioned.

From a practical aspect as well, the defence of North America is governed under NORAD. We have had that agreement for 55 years now to participate with our American colleagues to make sure we have secure defence in North America.

Everywhere we go we participate in coalition operations. As we're providing assistance in the Philippines right now, it's a similar thing. As nations arrive, coordination centres pop up and we work together with allies, exchange liaison officers, and exchange capabilities for coordination.

All of that, of course, does not exclude us from having to respect the law of armed conflict. In no way can we participate in any sort of indiscriminate attack. We must respect the law of armed conflict. That's exactly what the CDS mandates us to do, but we do that as a matter of course in our operations.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Thank you.

You don't see this as a loophole, then; you see it as reasonable protection for our troops.

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

It's contemplated in the convention, and my forecast would be that we're dealing with, in terms of Canadian forces, potentially zero. The worst-case scenario would be that an infinitesimal percentage of Canadian Forces might be involved in a leadership development initiative with a non-signatory party. Hopefully we can get lots of the countries that have committed to ratify the treaty to become state parties to it. We can encourage others.

We made a decision many years ago not to have nuclear weapons. I was in Kazakhstan, and they got rid of their nuclear weapons 20 years ago. We've helped to get rid of a lot of the nuclear weapons from the former Soviet Union in terms of the nuclear components being transferred from military to civilian use. I think the last shipment happened this week, in St. Petersburg.

I think there is a value in moral leadership.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much, Mr. Anderson and Mr. Baird.

We're going to turn it back over to Mr. Dewar, for five minutes.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I'm going to share what time I have left with my colleagues.

I want to correct something. Laos has signed and ratified, and that's important.

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

They told me they hadn't.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

They have. Whatever.

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

I was there, and they told me they hadn't.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Well, they've been busy. You convinced them.

Let's get back to the issue....

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Give, give, give Dewar.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Yes, I try.

Article 21 on interoperability, we have it there. I understand why. What we're getting at though is the legislation and clause 11. I think you're opening up to amendments. I want to pause at the following. If in fact we've had the Ottawa protocol in the case of Afghanistan, in the case even of the general who will be in front of us soon, who was, I think, in Iraq. It proves the point that this has been tried and true, and so if we have that legislation, that works. I guess what we're trying to say is why not here?

Let me finish with this and I'll turn it over to my colleague. We're not talking about a situation that I believe you're putting on the table, wherein someone under the command of someone calls in an air strike, and if you're not saying air strike with clusters, you're okay. We've seen that with the landmines. I think that's an important piece. In other words—I know someone is nodding otherwise—the fact is that we have lived under that regime under the Ottawa treaty, and I believe you will find that our allies have done the same. They have put in safety measures so that interoperability is not going to be an impediment. They made it very clear that they are able to do this. I think we're just asking to have the same done. I think you're there. We just have to figure out what the language is.

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

I appreciate where you're coming from and I don't mean this to be a political—

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

It shouldn't be.

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

—retort. I'm saying which country is planting landmines in 2013?