Government Operations Committee on April 1st, 2022

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. Thank you so much to the witnesses. This has been an incredible conversation and discussion.

Most of my questions have actually been answered, so I don't want to belabour the point on some of those questions, but National Defence recognizes that climate change is a threat multiplier. I know this is kind of a knuckleball question here for you, but since we've got you here I wanted to maybe pose it because I think it's something that the report we're going to be publishing should at least touch upon in some way.

We've seen over the last number of years the CAF focusing a lot of resources, a lot of time and energy, on domestic emergency operations. Obviously, that takes away from and challenges expeditionary missions and roles and whatnot.

I wanted to ask, in your opinion, how climate change is changing how we think about defence procurement and specifically the national shipbuilding strategy, and how it should factor into that conversation.

I'm not sure if you've given that a lot of thought, but I'm just wondering if you might be able to guide us a bit in that thinking.

[Dr. Jeffrey Collins]

Is that for me?

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

It's an open question. Either of you can jump in.

[Dr. Jeffrey Collins]

I'll give a short answer, for sure. It's a two-parter. There's aid to civil authority, which is what the CAF have been doing on national disaster response, and on COVID by going into nursing homes, and there's a whole other side conversation about whether this is really the role for the armed forces to be doing.

I know that's for another time, but on climate change, for sure, you see it with the view of the Arctic. It's hard to disassociate the focus on having Arctic capabilities in general, whether it's at sea or in the air, without understanding the attention that's going on up there. Maybe in the future, down the road, it could be navigable if the insurance rates panned out and so on. It is certainly factoring into the types of capabilities we're looking at for the marine side, and it's something we'll probably have to give serious consideration to in looking at submarines as well.

[Peter Kasurak]

Since you mentioned humanitarian and disaster relief, it is one of the six top-level goals in “Strong, Secure, Engaged”, and regrettably the CAF have not really organized themselves to do much with it. It does tend to interfere with what they see their main job as. I'll just leave it at that. It is a discussion for another day.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Thank you for that.

Since I've got just a little more time here.... I know we want to finish off on time as well, and not keep you too much past the three o'clock hour.

Professor Collins, just going back to my original questions about off-the-shelf designs, can you talk about off-the-shelf designs for warships? Is there a role for off-the-shelf for warships, for example, in the NSS?

[Dr. Jeffrey Collins]

We're dealing with the Berlin class. It's a German design. It's at the heart of the joint support ships being built in Vancouver. The Canadian surface combatant is based on a still-being-modified version of the type 26 that originates in the U.K. There was a conscious decision over a decade ago to move down that route and to not have a localized, Canadian-made design. It's one of those great what-ifs. Had we done that, would it have been easier to think long term about how the yard should be built? Would we have a made-to-Canadian design, as opposed to building a yard and then getting a design and modifying it? These are complicated questions.

I will say again that at the end of the day, countries that have domestic industrial capabilities and who are building ships are building primarily for themselves, so if you want to get the advantage of an Italian- or French-made ship, you will pay a premium to get in line to build that, and you will have to modify that design. The French design does not focus heavily on anti-submarine warfare. That is a goal that we have historically had in this country for decades. What are the trade-offs? That's what it comes back to.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you very much.

With that, we've come to the end of our questioning.

Mr. Collins and Mr. Kasurak, I want to thank you for your testimony today. Thank you very much for being with us.

I would also like to say thank you to the interpreters for their interpretation today, to the technicians, to all the staff who are here, and to the analysts and clerk.

With that said, I declare the meeting adjourned.