National Defence Committee on Oct. 18th, 2006

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Yes, I'm sharing my time with Mr. Hawn.

I think back to the safety of soldiers, as best we can, given the theatre of operations. Given that tanks are a defensive platform to protect our soldiers in Afghanistan, what must Canada do to ensure that we have sufficiently trained personnel in order to man the tanks?

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

I'm going to hand that over to General Hillier.

[Gen R.J. Hillier]

Ms. Gallant, I would be banned from the Armoured Corps--I am a cavalry officer--if I said the tanks were only a defensive weapon. They're there to help us achieve success in the mission of helping Afghans get enough security so they can rebuild their nation, and at the same time, to have that very valuable characteristic of lending greater protection in some of the very specific missions to the great Canadian soldiers who man them. They're on the ground now. We have certain workups to do before we'll actually employ them in the region, but we'll have that capability ready for them within several days, to be used by the commander in theatre as he deems fit.

We've actually got the process down. We've focused all the tanks in Canada in one unit in western Canada. That has resulted in the great synergy of being able to do training more efficiently and more effectively and generate the tank crews and the tank troops and the tank squadron necessary to go on a mission like this, rather than have it spread across the nation in three different units. We have focused the initial crew training on tanks out in western Canada, using the great training area at Wainwright, Alberta, in which we sank a lot of money to make a world-class training area that can actually replicate the kinds of situations such as Afghanistan, so we can prepare our soldiers to go in and do their job there. In fact, we're executing all of that right now. The tank crews were ready to go. We wanted to give them mission-specific training before we did send them in. That was the only reason we had about two or three weeks after the announcements were made and the approval had been given to us to go ahead with the mission. We started moving the tanks right away.

The training part--to deliver those crews to match them up with the vehicles that have had the latest modifications and upgrades done to them--was all done before they went in and has actually worked very smoothly in this case and was something that we were prepared to do.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Mr. Hawn.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, gentlemen, for joining us.

My first question is for the minister.

Minister, there has been a lot of talk in Parliament and other places about balance, or a perceived lack of balance, in Canada's position in this mission. I'm going to make a statement or suggestion and ask for your comment. We're part of a coalition of 36 or 37 countries that as a group, as a coalition, is carrying out defence, development, and diplomacy. Is it fair to say that because of where we're geographically situated in the country and the particular capability of the force that we have there, we are providing more of the defence than the development and the diplomacy, but that the mission is balanced in terms of the overall coalition? After all, it's the overall coalition that's going to accomplish the aim.

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

I agree it's the overall coalition that's going achieve the aim. For instance, when it comes to drugs or the poppy trade, Canadians as such have little involvement in it. It's the responsibility of the U.K. and some other countries. In the south in Kandahar province we have responsibilities, and we are involved in all three--security, development, and governance. But you might not forget our effort in Kabul. We have the strategic advisory team of 15 officers in Kabul who work for the President and provide the President and his government organizations advice on how to organize--how to solve problems, how to get instructions from ministers to people in the field. They're helping to building a governance model there.

In the Kandahar area, similarly, our PRT is there. In the PRT we have people from Foreign Affairs and CIDA, and RCMP and military personnel, who are working on development and in governance in the Kandahar area. They're helping the Governor of Kandahar. Of course the main organization we hear about and see on TV is the battle group, because the battle group is out there offering security. It's not only offering security to our development efforts. You must remember that the United States has aid development programs going on there. The Afghan government has programs going on there. Then we ourselves have programs, as do CIDA and Foreign Affairs. Our battle group is trying to provide security along, with the Afghan police and the army, to the whole of the Kandahar province to keep all this development going.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

So the mission of the coalition is balanced?

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

Yes.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

One of the parts of that, of course, is to train the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police. I'd like to ask for both the minister's perspective and the CDS's perspective, because they're perhaps closer to what's happening on the ground. There are different challenges in training the Afghan army and the Afghan police. What are some of the most difficult challenges there, what are we doing to meet them, what are our expectations of success, and when do we expect to achieve success?

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

I'll start with the army. One of the challenges is that even though a nation has been given primary responsibility for it, there are three or four other countries involved at different stages. Even Canada is involved in training Afghan soldiers into company groups in the Kabul area. One of the challenges is that the three or four countries involved may have different ways of operating. It's a challenge for the Afghan army to make sure that from top to bottom they have a common doctrine and common procedures.

I think the United States is ultimately responsible for the training of the army, so they have to be talking to us, the French, and some other countries working with the Afghan army to make sure it stays with one doctrine.

The other challenge for the Afghan army is equipment. They use old Soviet-style equipment. Some of their weapons and vehicles are decades old. NATO is moving quickly right now to provide them with more recent weapons of the old Soviet style. As the former Warsaw Pact members who have joined NATO are getting rid of all their weapons, they're going to migrate them to the Afghans.

The challenge with the police is really serious. The army gets paid on a regular basis, so the soldiers get paid, but the method for paying the police goes through the various provinces, and it's intermittent. Some police get paid on a regular basis and some don't, and that causes a challenge. If police don't get paid, they have to get paid some way or other, so sometimes the police are not.... People don't necessarily run to the police for help in some areas. That's a challenge.

The other thing is that the police don't have much in the way of equipment. You see them running around in Toyota trucks in ribbons. But they're brave, I have to tell you. The soldiers and the police are very brave individuals. They go into firefights with basically next to no protection. They do a very fine job.

I'll hand it over to the CDS.

[Gen R.J. Hillier]

Minister, thank you.

Mr. Hawn, I would say that the Afghan National Army commencement and development is a story that we now want to repeat with the Afghan National Police commencement and development.

I know how difficult it is simply to change a small thing in an army or the Canadian Forces, let alone build something from a basic white paper. In three and a half, almost four years, they have accomplished a miracle.

The United States has been the lead on that. Nobody else could have done it. We are engaged now in the southern part ourselves specifically with several kandaks that have just arrived in Kandahar province, and what we want to do is to help train and develop and support them so that they become the most capable kandaks or battalions in Afghanistan itself.

At the four-year mark, they have accomplished miracles with about 30,000 soldiers. The challenges that they have are immense.

One, there's a 60% illiteracy rate in the country, and so taking a young man and training him to be a soldier in a complex operation when he is illiterate is a difficult thing to do.

Two, they want that army to reflect Afghanistan, so they're recruiting from all the tribes and bringing them into multi-ethnic or multi-tribal battalions. When they move those battalions around the country, that now becomes a challenge for those whose families are in another part of Afghanistan. Given that their mass transportation system is essentially non-existent and their ability to get pay to those families is non-existent, you get an attrition from that.

Thirdly, they've been in constant operations for three years, ever since they've been built, the first battalions, and of course that has caused an attrition in numbers, as people are tired of being away from their families. Some of the wounded and killed and the losses that they've taken have been significant, and so they have now, in the short term, reached a small plateau where they really need to rebuild the present units they have and then carry on upwards in the development of the army.

But despite all the challenges, including the equipment one that the minister mentioned, this is an incredible story. Hats off to the United States of America on how they've done it, and hats off to the Afghans for the way they're doing it.

As to the Afghan National Police, in my view, right now we are in development with the police across Afghanistan where we were two and a half years ago with the Afghan National Army. Now I think the recognition is clearly there that all of us have to pull together to make the Afghan National Police the kind of sustainable security force that a country needs as part of a long-term development.

Huge money is being invested by the United States. In this last month, I think $1.2 billion was committed. We have a significant role in the southern part ourselves in helping train the police in Kandahar province for all the great reasons we need to do this, helping equip the police and helping mentor the police. We expect, actually, to take more action in that area as they bring more police in.

The last part I would say, going back to the Afghan National Army, is that we had this last year a small but important contribution that has had a great effect. We have a training team of 15 of our officers and NCOs and young soldiers who run the national training centre for the Afghan National Army. After the various countries have helped them bring together a battalion of trained individuals--officers, NCOs and soldiers--our team takes them for about three or four weeks and runs them through a complete battalion exercise, starting at section level of 10 men, live fire, all the way through to battalion exercise, and validates them before they go out into the field anywhere in Afghanistan. That effect has been incredible, and we have received nothing but praise for the great work of some young majors, sergeant-majors, and NCOs and officers who have been doing it for us.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you, Mr. Hawn.

That concludes our first round. Now we start a five-minute round with Mr. McGuire, and then back over to Mr. Calkins.

Mr. McGuire.

[Joe McGuire, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, I would like to iterate our support for Mr. Bachand's request for you to reconsider the motion. I don't know how that could have been misconstrued, because we're just asking for the same courtesy that past governments gave to past defence committees so we can do our job. So I'm glad that you have agreed to look at that again. Hopefully we can have our regular briefings, and as you say, we'll be able to be more informed and be able to do our job in a better way.

I have two questions. One has to do with the deployments.

We have, I think, six-month deployments, and you yourself, Mr. Minister, said we're probably going to be there for quite some time. Given the small numbers that we have in our armed forces, how fair is it to send our troops back five or six times, which is probably going to happen? If the past teaches us anything about that part of the world, it's going to take quite a while to get to the position where the local government and the local armed forces and police can actually take over.

It must be terribly hard for anybody to be in that situation that often. I know our guys are tough and they're doing a great job, but there has to be an end to this. How are you going to address that particular problem in our commitments to NATO, given our small numbers in the armed forces?

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

I'll try to answer this in part, and then I'll pass it over to General Hillier.

At the moment, our commitment is to the end of February 2009. We've made no judgment beyond that. As a country, we have that commitment to NATO. We may be longer—who knows?—but I think government will make that decision somewhere in 2008.

Regarding the commitment we have right now to the end of February 2009, we are trying as best as possible—given that we're trying to increase the military at the same time—to ensure that most people don't go back to Afghanistan, to the combat area, within that timeframe. That is, for those who started in early 2006, we should have enough people—there are exceptions in some support trades—if we do our recruiting right and reassign people in the armed forces, to get us through to the end of February 2009 without committing large numbers of troops back in that zone again. I don't anticipate anybody being there five or six times. There could be some exceptional person, but I don't think that's very likely.

I'll hand over to CDS.

[Gen R.J. Hillier]

Sir, after having worked in Ottawa for the last two years, I'd volunteer to go back to Afghanistan anytime. It's less complex and less intense, and I'd probably enjoy it a whole bunch more. I'll tell you that truthfully.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Gen R.J. Hillier]

Let me say something, sir. First, our deployments are moving to condition-based, not strictly time-based, and we're doing a lot of work to make sure we get this right. Some of the deployments may be slightly longer. With those in senior command appointments, such as General Fraser, you simply cannot have a rapidly changing face. If you're going to develop a relationship with the governors of the provinces of Kandahar, Helmand, Zabul, Oruzgan, and all the folks engaged there, you've got to have a bit more time. So condition-based is where we're going on our deployments.

Some of the more intense deployments may be less than six months. We'll judge that as we go through this, and we'll be prepared to respond and shape it for the best effect out the door. So condition-based is one part there.

Secondly, we have to grow the force. Many of our units are hollow units. We need to be able to proceed with the recruiting with the necessary financial resources to be able to pay for all that, and grow the force and get those units—particularly right now, the combat units, the infantry, but not just—grown to their capacity back here in Canada.

What happens now is this. Let's say we have a requirement in the battle group that goes out with three infantry companies. In order to get three infantry companies—because they're not manned at the 140 or so that we need them manned at, they're manned at 90 or 95—we actually have to squash together four, five, or even six companies to build three of the right capability to go out the door. We have to grow the force, and we're turning our attention to that in a very precise way.

Sir, we have to use all of the Canadian Forces to do the missions. Over this past 10 years, all of us have been busy, but deployed operations have been the most intense and most demanding on people. I don't have the exact numbers, but I believe in my heart that for 100% of the deployed operations, which we have run over this last 12, 13, 14, or 15 years, we have used 40% to 45% of the Canadian Forces to do them.

I'll give you an example of how a decision made 10 years ago impacts us now, and we only see the implications of it. We received some huge financial cuts back in 1994-95. Part of the way we saved money, as we slashed the Canadian Forces, and slashed our equipment and our people—have I beaten on that enough?—was to take it out of posting budgets.

So we took what was $500 million to $600 million—where we move people around the country for the best blend of training, experience, and balance in what they're doing—out of operational units into a training establishment where perhaps life would be more predictable. We took a huge amount of that money away. We locked people into units, which we thought was a great thing, because stability is important. It is important, unless you're locked into a combat unit that's going back on operations every 18 to 24 months. So that signaller in there, that young engineer, is the same person doing all the missions, and the ones in the infrastructure in the training system.... Because we didn't have the money to put them back in those units, we ended up with some guys and gals with medals out to their elbow and some with none.

So we have to balance and better use that one. We are going to make sure we put the focus on where the most intensity is for the specialties and have as many of those...so we rotate people through as little as possible. My ideal is that for each person going to Afghanistan, between now and the end of the mission in February 2009, it will be for the first time. We know that's not going to be possible, but we aim to do so as much as we can.

We will re-role people who are in the training system right now, designed to be something else. We'll say for the next two or three years, you're going to be infantry, and then you'll go back to your primary MOC. We're going to go out to the reserves and see how many people we can attract to do component transfers for a longer-term period, or else for longer contracts with us, and give them all the training and work them up. In fact, we'll use every single asset we have.

Most importantly, we'll look after the people we have doing the job with a whole variety of measures, including fixing the allowance discrepancy that was talked about earlier. And equally important, sir, we're going to look after their families in a whole variety of ways that we have never done in this past decade and a half.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you, General.

I allowed that to run over a little bit, because it was a very important intervention, but time is up.

It's over to Mr. Calkins, and then back to Mr. Bouchard.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'd like to thank you, Mr. Minister, and the Chief of the Defence Staff, for appearing here today. Mr. Minister, I think your responding so quickly in getting back to this committee is a testament to you, and the fact that you've now appeared twice on this same topic. I'd like to thank you for it.

You may recall, Mr. Minister, that the very first time you appeared before this committee I asked you a question about the Nyala vehicle, because it was something fairly new to me. Now that we've had an opportunity to evaluate the Nyala vehicle in its operational theatre, I would like to know what the assessment has been of the use of the Nyala vehicle, and whether the Canadian Forces plan to continue to use this vehicle in operation--and not only in Afghanistan. Is it going to be a significant piece of kit in the future? I am hoping you can elaborate on the efficiency of the Nyala and how its operational effectiveness has been so far.

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

Again I'm going to make just a few comments and then hand it over to General Hillier, who has more details about the Nyala than I have.

The Nyala is a superb vehicle for the roles we have it in now in Afghanistan. The Nyala was built to, where possible, defeat mines. It certainly can defeat a single mine. Sometimes the Taliban pack three or four mines in a row, and so you could have a four-mine explosion. But we've only had one incident so far with the Nyalas where we had a soldier killed, and in fact we're investigating that now, because it was a very odd circumstance.

They have been very good vehicles. As you know, there was a second buy of Nyalas, and most of them will be streaming into Afghanistan as soon as possible for the troops.

I'll hand it over to the CDS.

[Gen R.J. Hillier]

Sir, I would say we're delighted with the Nyala vehicle. There are Canadians who are alive today who would not be if we did not have that vehicle. It's not a perfect vehicle, but no vehicle ever is. You always balance the advantages and the disadvantages for it.

We have bought a sufficient number; we have more being delivered now. It is exceptionally good in convoy use on trails and flat terrain, if not in the really rugged, deep-trenches kind of terrain. It's not really built for that.

So it's exceptional in that area. It is functional in extremely rough terrain, but not the kind of vehicle you would want in that rough terrain all the time. We bought it to provide more protection from the improvised explosive devices and the suicide bombers we encounter. It has been marvellous in that role.

We did have one young soldier, Trooper Wilson from the Royal Canadian Dragoons, killed on the Nyala. We've already taken steps—I would not say what they are, because we have some operational security concerns on it—that we believe would prevent in the future that kind of death, or reduce its probability. You can never be sure 100%. We continually evaluate the vehicle to see whether we can make some improvements to it that can just make it an even better vehicle.

I think by the end of this month we'll have close to 100 Nyala vehicles. They're going to be with us in the mission in Afghanistan, and obviously, if we go elsewhere around the world or out of Afghanistan, we would use those we have until they run out. We're walking through options now to come forward to our minister with to say whether it is a vehicle we want to get a lot more of, or whether we need another type of vehicle. We'd like to be at the cutting edge of technology on those vehicles that defeat explosive devices, defeat suicide bombers, and still do cross-country manoeuvre, and still allow us to dismount in a hurry when we have to do it.

I had a chance to drive the vehicle, to try it at the remote weapons station, to be a passenger in it on the 50° days across country. It's not very comfortable when you have eight troops crammed into the back of it and it's 50° outside, but it's something people put up with, because it is a good vehicle and they have confidence in it.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Thank you very much. That's good to hear.

I've always considered the troops' safety as very important. When the troops were initially deployed up in the Kabul region and we lost the soldiers early in the operation when they were operating Iltis jeeps, I was absolutely horrified that we didn't have equipment like this. It's good to see, and I'm very happy that we're moving forward with getting better equipment for the soldiers there.

Keeping with the same line of questioning, then, with the deployment of the Leopard tanks over there to add to the kit that's there—the Nyala vehicles, the LAV IIIs, the G-Wagons—is there any other piece of kit on the ground right now that the CF could use on the ground and that they're asking for and we should be examining?

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

Every time there's an incident over in Afghanistan, the Canadian Forces quickly evaluate the conditions to see what caused the incident and in what ways we can ameliorate that kind of condition in the future. That includes looking at every vehicle we use over there and modifying them to improve their safety. It also means we look at any of the fleets of vehicles we have back here to see whether they could also be employed.

We have been doing destructive testing of a number of vehicles. We simulate suicide bombers and things like that on our various vehicles to see which vehicles and what types of machines withstand these attacks better than others.

I don't know that I want to go any further than that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you very much.

We're going to go over to Mr. Bouchard, then back to Mr. Hiebert, and then over to Mr. Cannis.

Mr. Bouchard is next, for five minutes.

[Robert Bouchard, Bloc, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Also, thank you, Mr. Minister, for being with us this afternoon, in the company of the general and deputy minister of National Defence.

Before I ask my question, I must tell you that I was very happy to hear you say that you are prepared to reconsider your decision to inform the committee regarding progress of the mission in Afghanistan. We are very interested in following this progress. As an MP, I am often stopped and asked by my fellow citizens about what is happening in Afghanistan.

So here is my question, Mr. Minister.

Is Canada going to deploy its F-18 fighter planes in operations with NATO countries or with the Americans? We know that in Canada we have two bases with F-18s, which are combat, fighter planes, namely Bagotville and Cold Lake. Is there a preparedness plan, should the F-18s be called on to take part in operations?