National Defence Committee on Feb. 15th, 2007

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

You're so clear, colonel, that I think we'll continue together.

I have an e-mail here from Colonel Burt—that's you—which was sent Monday, May 1, 2006, at 9:50 a.m., 10 minutes before the meeting with General O'Connor, to General Martin. Isn't he your immediate boss in the chain of command?

[Col D. C. Burt]

At that time.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

At that time, right.

Because you're the man—and everybody said so—you're saying clearly here: “I recommend we not incl the complexity of the ADATS in the Strat HLMC”. You go on to say, “As discussed”, so you were expecting something that had happened. You also say, “certification and delivery time are expected to be the key discriminators”, meaning that at the end of the day, there won't be any competition; it's going to be between Boeing and itself, so Boeing will have the deal.

I have a few questions, but to finish that one, I want to know what happened with Minister O'Connor. When your department met with him on May 1, something happened. For all those years we stuck to 43,000 pounds. In a few days we changed it.

General Lucas, are you ready to deposit all the e-mails between May 1 and June 14, so we can have—because as I said, perception is reality—a clear way of knowing what happened at that time?

Regarding the other question, you said that the C-17 has to carry two combat-ready LAV III vehicles. Why does the requirement for the C-130Js not include the capability to carry one combat-ready LAV III? General Ross said that the 130J was a 90% solution. So I guess the LAV III is the 10% that's missing.

Anyway, let's talk first about the e-mails. What happened with the minister? What did the minister tell you?

Also if we have time, I'd like to hear from Public Works, because you're supposed to know how much money you have to spend. I fear the issue of the $188 million per plane for the C-130Js. If the Brits and the Australians have a better deal, why can't we have the same price?

So go for it.

[LGen J. S. Lucas]

With respect to the e-mails, mine are open to access, so I certainly can make those—

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Including Colonel Burt and the chain of command, you're ready to make them public?

[LGen J. S. Lucas]

Absolutely.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Okay.

What happened with the minister?

[LGen J. S. Lucas]

Number one, my recollection of a specific date is not.... We met with the minister a number of times, and I don't actually recall a question by the minister on the number of vehicles that either of these aircraft would carry.

The minister's questions were largely, is the program going to be affordable? What is the right mix between strategic and tactical?

We certainly talked about that with the minister. But the minister was not interested in which vehicle would win the competition.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

General, you are a big fan of the C-17. Everybody knows that, and it's okay.

During their election campaign, the Conservatives said that they wanted to have a strategic air transport capacity. General Hillier wanted to replace his Hercules aircraft but did not necessarily want strategic air transport capacity at that time.

You wanted strategic airlift; that's not the issue. I want to know, did the minister say, I want it now; I want that payload, so it means I want to go for the C-17?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Go ahead. I think you've answered that question.

[LGen J. S. Lucas]

Right.

The minister was not specific about which aircraft it was going to be. The minister said, yes, strategic lift, without doubt; it was in the platform.

But that was a good thing, from my perspective, because at the end of the day, I believe strategic and tactical are both required to do the job.

I won't admit to being unhappy when—

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

No, you were happy, I know.

Let's talk about the 90% solution. Their capability is a 90% solution, but that doesn't include the LAV III. Is that the remaining 10%?

[LGen J. S. Lucas]

We have tried to put a combat-ready LAV III in a C-130. It's a very tight squeeze, and I don't think we can really do that. But I'm not quite sure what your question is with respect of that versus...?

The concept right now with strategic lift is to be able to lift two of these into a theatre of operations, which I think is a capability the army very much wants. Once again, on the tactical side we're looking for flexibility and the ability to lift as much as we can. The fact that it can't quite lift a combat-ready LAV III is problematic, but it would not be a reason to exclude that aircraft from the competition.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

That brings an end to the second round. Now we're going to have time to get into the third round. It starts with the official opposition.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

On a point of order, I don't have the answer on the $188 million. You can send me a written answer on that, because this is clearly an issue.

Can I have a written answer on that, please?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Just a minute.

I think the officials who are here and the people from DND have been very open with us. I'm sure if there's any material that could be provided to help clarify the issue, they will provide it. However, if a contract hasn't been issued, I don't know where that would come from. We'll leave that up to them. If they have something they can contribute, if it does exist, I'm sure they will.

Mr. Williston, do you have a comment?

[Terry Williston]

Perhaps there's clarification required. There's a difference between program costs, project costs, and contract costs. They're not all the same. For example, the C-17 program is $3.4 billion. The acquisition phase is $1.8 billion. Our contract is for $870 million. So you can't necessarily divide four aircraft into the program cost to determine the cost per aircraft.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

I think that really helps.

Mr. Martin, are you ready? You have five minutes.

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

General Lucas, Colonel Burt, Mr. Williston, thank you very much for being here. General Lucas and Colonel Burt, thank you for the service to our country that you do. We really appreciate it.

I have three questions, gentlemen.

The first concerns the Auroras. In my province of British Columbia, the Auroras are going to be mothballed and replaced with drones. The range of the two is very different. Could you explain to us how the drones are going to meet the capabilities of the Auroras, particularly since we've put a very large amount of money into upgrading the Auroras?

The second question relates to the C-17s. When we were in government, our proposal was to buy the tactical airlift, lease the strategic airlift, have the C-17s in Canada--have six of them, which we determined was the minimum amount to meet the requirements of the air force--and in doing that, we would save the taxpayer over $400 million. The Americans were in favour of this. We were in favour of this. It seemed like a wonderful partnership, good for the taxpayer, good for our Canadian Forces. I don't understand why the significant departure in moving in the direction we have.

My last question relates to the fixed-wing replacement for the Buffalo. It's my understanding that the minimum flight speed has been elevated to 140 knots. For our SAR techs to do contour surveillance in the mountains of British Columbia, the minimum flight speed is between 70 knots and 120 knots. So if the stall speed of the SOR is going to be above the flight speed required to do a visual search in the mountains, it seems to me we're opening the situation up to one that would put the lives of our SAR techs in danger. If it's true that the SOR for the minimum flight speed was raised, why was it raised?

Thank you.

[LGen J. S. Lucas]

I'll very briefly answer number one and number three, and then I need a little bit more explanation on number two.

Regarding the Aurora, it is our intent here to have an ISR--an intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capability in the future. The UAVs or drones, as you refer to them, are complementary to a manned system. They are not to replace the manned system. They will do certain things for us, and they do them very well, but they do not complete the range.

Among the options for Aurora that we're examining right now is a replacement aircraft with people on board, which will perform many of the functions the Aurora is performing right now. So just to relieve your thought that we're going to simply leave the job entirely to UAVs, that's not the case. UAV will be a complementary capability rather than a replacement capability.

With respect to fixed-wing search and rescue, first of all, we don't have an SOR out on the street yet. So that's one issue. The second thing is I don't believe that even in the draft or the version of the SOR that exists right now there is a minimum speed specified. I believe the document talks about the existing capability, and I believe there was a statement in there that did say up to 130 knots. After we examined that, we recognized that in fact it was referring to existing technology. The existing technology, the C-130, under certain weights actually can't fly at 130 knots. It has to fly a little faster, at 140 knots.

So in fact it wasn't a future specification; it was an explanation about what we have now, and it's strictly factual. One hundred and forty knots is in fact what the current aircraft is required to fly at under very heavy weights, but it's not a specification or a limitation. And, by the way, that SOR is not in, say, the C-17 or the Chinook or the C-130J, because we have yet to take it to a finalized state at this point in time.

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

To clarify my question on the C-17s, the plan we had, which seemed to be the fairest one for our forces and the taxpayer, was to buy the tactical airlift, for many reasons--you know better than I do--and to lease the C-17s. The C-17s would be on Canadian soil; they'd be in Trenton. By doing so, we would save the taxpayer $400 million and avoid the problem of trying to find strategic airlift in times of emergency. The number of planes we would have would be six, not four. Four is actually below the minimum required to meet the needs of the air force.

[LGen J. S. Lucas]

Okay. First of all, I must admit that during my time as Chief of the Air Staff, I was not aware of a plan that exactly looked like that. Certainly the concept of leasing versus ownership.... The Brits in fact leased their aircraft, the C-17s, and have subsequently discovered that that probably wasn't the best thing for them. I think they actually believe that ultimately ownership, probably right from the beginning, would have served them better.

There are always advantages to leasing versus ownership. I think we've examined it and looked at ownership as probably being the preferred option at this point in time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you very much.

We'll go to Mr. Blaney, and then back to Mr. Bachand.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

Thank you. You've talked about tactical and strategic aircraft. We're talking about four strategic C-17s and possibly tactical aircraft, the C-130Js.

I would like to know what you think are the most pressing needs in terms of aircraft. We've talked about search and rescue aircraft and reconnaissance aircraft. Could you give us an idea of the needs of the Canadian Forces?

[LGen J. S. Lucas]

Talking just about mobility, which would include strategic, tactical, and fixed-wing search and rescue, the most pressing need right now is in fact to replace the aging C-130s.

Now, that said, it is going to take us a number of years. Regardless of what occurs, the Lockheed factory, once under contract.... If in fact PWGSC goes through the process and is able to come to a reasonable conclusion that it's to the benefit of Canadian taxpayers, there will still be probably a two-year period, if not three-year, before these aircraft begin to arrive. So even though our need is great, there is going to be a period of time before those first aircraft can arrive.

With respect to strategic lift, through the good graces of the United States Air Force, who essentially allowed us to jump the queue and in fact gain access to aircraft that were initially identified to go south of the border, we've been able to accelerate that. And this makes sense to us. Even though the requirement for the C-130 is greater, this actually will be an enabler for us. This will allow us to make the transition from the old C-130s to the new C-130s in a much better way than we would have otherwise. This will allow us to pick up that requirement. We'll be able to do some of the missions into Afghanistan, for instance, with that aircraft. It's really going to be very helpful to us in meeting the need that exists right now as the older C-130s fall off-line.

So even though it looks a little funny, the fact that the C-17 is able to become available to us earlier in fact helps us with the problem we have of the older C-130.

Fixed-wing search and rescue is a priority for us, but there are mitigation measures there. There are still a number of hours left in the newer C-130s we have. And the Buffalo aircraft is still a very capable platform, but it does require some investment in it if we choose to go down that path.

We have a couple of options available to us. Once again, that comes down to a prioritization issue, but without doubt, the older C-130s are getting older faster. Two years ago we learned that instead of five years, we in fact only had about two and a half years to address the problem. Some information came late to us at that point in time, and that caused us to focus our attention on that particular problem.