National Defence Committee on June 20th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

I call the meeting to order and welcome Major General Stuart Beare. I understand you're the Commander of Land Force Doctrine and Training System, a very auspicious title. I'm sure you do a good job of that.

I'm sure you're very aware of the way we structure the committee meetings, and I see you have some able-bodied support behind you. You might want to introduce them as we get started, but we'll give you time to make your presentation and then go into rounds of questions in the very structured manner the committee has set forward. At quarter after five, we'd like to adjourn to some other committee business.

We hope we have allocated enough time to give you the opportunity to fill us in on what we need to know. The floor is yours, sir.

[MGen Stuart Beare, Commander , Land Force Doctrine and Training System, Department of National Defence]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will start by introducing the team that is with me today. I have my Regimental Sergeant Major, Chief Warrant Officer Wayne Ford, and my personal assistant, Captain Mike Duggan, who have travelled with me from Kingston to join me here today.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I am truly pleased to speak with you this afternoon on the subject of preparing our forces for success in land operations, be they missions at home or missions abroad, and today in particular in Afghanistan.

My duties as Commander, Land Force Doctrine and Training, as well as experience over the last decade-plus, permit me to provide you with some insights into the philosophy as well as the reality of our training design and our training delivery. In the end, I hope to leave you with the view that we Canadians continue to produce world-class results with a world-class team of military professionals, alongside valued and dedicated civilian and international partners. We achieve these results through a lifetime of investment in the quality of each military professional, regular and reserve force, and through a progressive and regulated journey of team building, from teams of two to teams of over 2,000, to produce the confidence and competence that allow our people to succeed.

The mission of the Canadian Forces is to defend Canada and Canadians and to promote peace and security abroad. Our land forces, as an entity of the Canadian Forces, must generate and support multi-faceted combat-ready land forces capable of delivering results on the ground in both peace and wartime, here and abroad, today or tomorrow.

Every day, the Canadian Forces soldiers who are not deployed in operations are involved in four main activities: maintaining a strong foundation for the generation of forces; producing forces that are ready to be deployed; transformation and growth. I would now like to focus on the preparatory work we do for our forces that are ready to participate in operations.

The Government of Canada has tasked the Canadian Forces to maintain, amongst other commitments, the capability to provide, one, high-readiness brigade headquarters, and, two, land task forces for expeditionary operations on an enduring basis. The two task-force-level lines of operation represent the main output of the force's management readiness plan for land operations.

The chart behind me illustrates how we have, in the army, earmarked lead units for each of these land task forces from now to 2010.

Allow me to walk you briefly through the chart. In terms of a brigade lead, on the top you will see the three brigade group headquarters of the Canadian Army earmarked for high readiness or mission deployment in any particular 12-month to 18-month period. Below them, we have earmarked the land task forces based on an elite army unit that will deploy in operations or be earmarked for high readiness if they have no mission assigned.

Line of Ops 1, as we call it, is committed until 2009 to Afghanistan, and Line of Ops 2 is a reserve capability available to the Government of Canada for other missions and tasks. Given the level of our effort in Afghanistan, the Line of Ops 2 task forces are smaller, by necessity, than those in Line of Ops 1.

Let us now talk about what we need to do in order to prepare for our operations. Many months or, in some cases, a few years before being operationally ready, our soldiers receive individual instruction and professional training in order to develop general personal skills, skills specific to their area of expertise or combat readiness.

This applies to all ranks, whether we are talking about officers or junior officers. We maintain a very high calibre professional training program. This program is required in order to train our professional leaders and soldiers throughout their career.

Courses and professional development activities lead to advancement in rank, new skills and knowledge, and new responsibilities and authorities for our men and women. Armed with these, we form our teams at the most basic levels and progressively upwards, to the point that we achieve competence in trade in such areas as logistics and signals. That then allows us to group our all-arms team together; that is, our infantry, armour, artillery, engineers, signals, and our service support, such as supply, transport, maintenance, medical, military police, and the like.

These all-arms teams, which constitute the main element of our task forces, participate in steadily increasing levels of collective training, both computer-based and field. Their months of collective training culminate now in an army-directed exercise in our new collective training centre, the Canadian Manoeuvre Training Centre in Wainwright, Alberta, where they join the final additions of the Canadian Forces' team, such as air forces, special forces, and intelligence forces, as well as our whole-of-government partners and, where possible, multinational partners. Here in Wainwright, they experience over a period of four weeks the full replication of the environment they will live in operations before they are declared ready to deploy.

The Canadian Forces presently in Afghanistan include much more than the manoeuvre forces that perform the operations on a daily basis. This diagram provides the details on all of the components of our team currently in Afghanistan.

In Kabul, we have a strategic advisory team as well as an Afghan national training team. In Canada, we have a National Command Element and a National Support Element. There is also the HQ Command, the Multi-National Brigade in charge of the south regional command and the designated tactical group in the province of Kandahar. This group is based on 1 PPCLI. The provincial construction team as well as other officers are located in the city of Kandahar.

In preparation for the replacement of most of these groups occurring this summer and autumn, we have provided the required training and developed some esprit de corps in the group that will replace them.

In the end we guarantee our people that they deploy well-equipped, well-trained, and well-led. This is demonstrated and confirmed through our whole range of training activities, including chain-of-command-led confirmation exercises.

In closing, I should clarify where our staff come from.

This diagram illustrates only the major bases where we generate the land force units and support elements. However, it does not include the bases and the navy and air force executives who make up the rest of the team and who are truly crucial to our success.

In order to illustrate the level of complexity involved in developing a well-trained team, I would like to show you where we are getting the troops who will be participating in the next three operational forces designated for Afghanistan.

In the summer of 2006, the 1 PPCLI Battle Group will be replaced by 1 RCR Battle Group, originating from Petawawa, Ontario. They will be supported by an infantry company from Shilo, Manitoba, with the balance of their forces, service support, and specialists from across the Canadian Forces. Their unmanned aerial vehicle unit will come from 408 Squadron based in Edmonton, Alberta, and soldiers will be provided by 5 Brigade in Valcartier.

Most of their training has taken place in Petawawa and Gagetown, New Brunswick, and was completed in May of this year in Wainwright, Alberta.

They'll be succeeded in February of 2007 by the 2 RCR Battle Group, originating from Gagetown, New Brunswick, and an infantry company will join them from Edmonton, Alberta, and their artillery engineer and service support will come from Petawawa, Ontario. They will train mostly in Gagetown, New Brunswick, and their last training event will be at the Canadian Manoeuvre Training Centre in Wainwright, Alberta.

Finally, the 3rd Battalion of the 22nd Regiment will be deployed in the fall of 2007 and will be originating from Valcartier. The Company of the 3rd Battalion is based in Valcartier, as well as most of the mission elements provided by the Valcartier brigade.

Here, other mission neighbours will originate from across the CF. Training will take place for them in Valcartier and in Gagetown and will culminate again at the Manoeuvre Training Centre in Wainwright.

So in the end, we strive to ensure that our men and women, soldiers all, have the training and conditioning to enable them to perform the mission that Canada has presented them, effectively as a team, with the best possible chances for success, and in a way that allows their experiences and lessons to be passed to those who follow behind. We work to regulate the load on the balance of our army and the Canadian Forces to ensure that we can do missions like Afghanistan, or wherever else conditions require us to go, well into the future.

Thank you. I will now entertain any questions you may have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you very much.

Who wants to start? From the Liberal Party, is there anybody?

Mr. Dosanjh.

[Ujjal Dosanjh, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

Thank you.

Obviously you've given us an overview of how things are done. Not being a military person, I'm assuming from what you've told us that when you go into a new mission, you train people well in advance to deal with any eventualities that might occur. In particular, missions such as in Afghanistan are different from force-on-force battles in conventional warfare. I'm not suggesting this is war or anything, but you're essentially dealing with a guerrilla situation.

Can you tell me how intensive that training is? For instance, if I were a soldier trained in conventional battles and I were to go into Afghanistan today, how long would it take for you to take me out of the situation I was in and then train me and send me on my way?

[MGen Stuart Beare]

Yes, sir.

[Ujjal Dosanjh, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

That's the first question. I have a couple more I may ask.

[MGen Stuart Beare]

I'm going to speak just to land operations.

The fundamental competency of our people to perform land operations is based on our capacity to do ground combat. From that capacity we adapt to perform the missions and tasks required for a mission. If that includes training and educating ourselves in counter-insurgency, we do that. As a matter of fact, counter-insurgency is part of our professional curriculum for understanding conflict in general. So we train to be proficient in combat operations, somewhat in the context of a cold war--but not fully in the model of a cold war--to create a baseline of adaptability from which we can adapt to whatever scenarios we're presented, and then we close the gap between our baseline and what a specific mission requirement demands of us.

So our competence comes from our capacity to do combat. With a specific mission like the counter-insurgency mission in Afghanistan, we look at that and we close the gap--the professional knowledge gap, the professional skill gap, and the team-building gap--to make sure we then enter that theatre ready for that specific task.

We are doing that now for Afghanistan by transforming our training institutions to actually present the Afghan scenario to our training audience. So if you were to see the Manoeuvre Training Centre at Wainwright today preparing our forces for Afghanistan, you would see Afghanistan in Alberta. You would see Afghanis in our training area. They look an awful lot like Canadians hired to role-play Afghanis, but they are role-playing Afghanis. They will represent the full range of threats our people will see, like improvised explosive devices and terrorist extremists. They will represent the non-combatants on that battle space. They'll represent the international actors that we'll interact with in theatre.

So we replicate the operating environment to the best of our ability before our people go, so that they actually play it out here before they live it out there.

[Ujjal Dosanjh, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

Thank you.

I have one other question. I don't know whether you're equipped to answer this. It's on the issue of the porous Afghan-Pakistan border.

Would you be able to shed any light on how difficult it is, and why it is difficult? What are the conditions that prevail around that border between Afghanistan and Pakistan?

[MGen Stuart Beare]

You're right, sir, I'm not well informed in terms of the specifics of that. But again, I can assure you that a cross-border problem is one of those problems we present to our people in their training environment. So in their computer exercises and in their field training, they know they're dealing not with an isolated population set here but with porous and fluid populations--combatant and non-combatant, national and international.

[Ujjal Dosanjh, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

I may have missed this because I was out when you started, but have you been to Afghanistan?

[MGen Stuart Beare]

I've visited, yes, sir. I've not served there yet, but I've visited three times.

[Ujjal Dosanjh, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

When was the last time you were there?

[MGen Stuart Beare]

I was there in April, eight weeks ago.

[Ujjal Dosanjh, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

If I may ask a question to follow up on that, occasionally in the news stories that you hear...we understand the good work that our forces are doing--the reconstruction, the humanitarian work--and we also understand the counter-insurgency issue that you're dealing with, which is very difficult.

Sometimes when you read between the lines in the news stories...and there was one, in fact, on the front page of the New York Times about 10 days ago--not Sunday last, but the previous Sunday--and it appears from that commentary, that article and several others, that we may be losing the PR war on the ground.

Do you have any sense, from April when you were there, as to how we're doing?

[MGen Stuart Beare]

I had no opportunity to interact with Afghanis, to see their perspective. But I can represent the orientation of the force on the ground as being one that is...people use the expression “hearts and minds”, but you're not necessarily trying to win hearts and minds here. That's a pretty tall order. You're trying to create tolerance of the international forces, to assist them, and create in them intolerance for the folks who are standing between them and progress. So clearly, that battle of the mind is going on.

Our command teams, in our engagement with all forces in Afghanistan, be they civil or military, are trying to create intolerance for the insurgency and tolerance for a future that will be a better future for the people of Afghanistan. We're providing tools for our people to help them do that, including printing capabilities, broadcast capabilities, and other things, to communicate to Afghanis and stakeholders beyond Afghanis in that area.

[Ujjal Dosanjh, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Good. Right on time. Thank you very much.

Mr. Bachand.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

You'll need your translation device.

[MGen Stuart Beare]

If you speak slowly, sir, I will understand.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Okay, I will speak slowly.

[MGen Stuart Beare]

I used to go to your military college.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

I believe I only have five or seven minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

We'll be generous.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

All right.

First of all, I find it a bit difficult to understand the diagrams. I should have looked at them before hand, but I must confess that I did not have enough time to do so. Are the reserves included in each of the units that you describe as far as the 18-month training is concerned? Do they start and finish along with everyone else?

[MGen Stuart Beare]

The reservists are always given individual and collective training within the land forces. Those who decide to join an operational force for deployment have a higher level of training. They can therefore join the tactical group for the rest of the trip, so that they can be deployed.