National Defence Committee on June 20th, 2006

[MGen Stuart Beare]

Who lives, who dies, and if you said you went left but you actually went right...all these sorts of things. You don't get to lie to the weapon effects simulation system.

Wainwright is just a culminating point for the journey of training. These simulators will be found in our garrisons, so people can use them before they get there, and in our schoolhouses so they can use them there before they get there as well. They're complemented by the computer systems where you train without necessarily going to the field--computer-assisted training.

So within the land force, we're modernizing at a rapid rate. Within the Canadian Forces, we're working to integrate land, sea, and air so that you can actually fight in Wainwright with real troops, and you're connected to a brigade headquarters that has a virtual multinational partner and you can connect to maritime forces off British Columbia and make them look like they're actually providing you support from the sea, without actually having to be there.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

I'm just going to put words in your mouth here--we're going to visit Afghanistan, probably in October. Would you suggest a good follow-up to that visit would be a visit to the training centre in Wainwright, just to see how the training centre emulates Afghanistan?

[MGen Stuart Beare]

I would highly recommend it, if you're interested, to see what they do in the theatre. To see the culminating point of their training journey in Wainwright, at our Manoeuvre Training Centre, would be very enlightening. It's enlightening for me when I do it. I see them in theatre, I come back and shape change, or reshape how we're actually producing that culminating training event at the Manoeuvre Training Centre.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

How quickly can you take a lesson learned in Afghanistan and turn that into a training event in Wainwright?

[MGen Stuart Beare]

The time it takes to click “send” on an e-mail. The IED, the improvised explosive device, has been an attention grabber for everybody, for a lot of obvious reasons. With initial reports coming out of Kandahar, we're able to apply those lessons and observations to our materiel procurement here in Ottawa, to our training design at our army training headquarters, to putting scenarios into our training schoolhouses so that people are being presented with the same type of problem; and ultimately, to train our opposing force, those who are replicating the bad guys in our Manoeuvre Training Centre in Wainwright. They'll now adapt to replicate what the bad guys are doing overseas and pull it right into the training centre.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

So there's an R and D component capability there as well for developing the tactics in Wainwright, and you can turn around and go back to Afghanistan with them.

[MGen Stuart Beare]

We do that as well, yes. One of my out-stations is the army's lessons learned centre. I have an army lessons learned team living in Kandahar right now. They connect right back to me as frequently as necessary to institutionalize necessary changes.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Is that happening daily, weekly?

[MGen Stuart Beare]

It's daily contact among the staff, and when it's a barnburner--in other words, something that gets everybody's attention--and I have one of those no less than once a month, it results in a direction to change from the army.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Without detail--

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Mr. Hawn, I'm going to have to cut you off, I'm afraid. We'll come back on the second round.

We have Mr. Steckle, and then we'll go Conservative--the government--the Bloc, back to Conservative, back to the Liberals.

Mr. Steckle, you're on.

[Paul Steckle, Liberal, Huron—Bruce, ON]

General Beare, thank you for coming. I'm not a regular on this committee, but I have an interest in that part of the world because I've had a family member in that part of the world for a good many years.

When they make the attempt to bring these insurgents into the line of fire so they get rid of these guys, we're talking about a border issue, where these people have cell groups in Pakistan. Is there anything we can do, or is there cooperation between the Afghani and Pakistani governments in terms of working and having these people exposed, making the job for you people a lot easier? You're trying to dig these guys out of holes, and you really don't know who the enemy is. This is a theatre of combat; this is not peacekeeping. We may as well call it the way it is.

We might say there is, but I'm just wondering, is there truly cooperation between the Pakistani and the Afghani government leadership in trying to drive the Taliban out of these areas?

[MGen Stuart Beare]

I regret I can't be an authority on answering that question. When we spoke eight weeks ago, I can tell you the brigade commander, Brigadier-General David Fraser, was engaged with his chain of command, who are actively engaged in that cross-border issue. So it's not being ignored by anybody. How effective that is, I can't speak to, sir.

[Paul Steckle, Liberal, Huron—Bruce, ON]

When you need further assistance in certain command operations, who gives the orders? Canada has 2,000 people, or however many we have there; other countries have their people there. Obviously, we're not all doing the same job. There are so many command operations. Who puts the call out for the type of people we need? Who makes that call? Is it NATO that does it? Does the United States do that? Who does that?

[MGen Stuart Beare]

I can't speak to the specifics on who, as in persons, or what, as in institutions.

[Paul Steckle, Liberal, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Where does the order of command come from?

[MGen Stuart Beare]

At the end of the day, an appeal for Canadian Forces contribution in terms of military capacity would be managed by National Defence Headquarters, Chief of the Defence Staff, and the Canadian Expeditionary Forces Command.

In terms of a decision to go or not to go, and with what, to do what, is clearly a Government of Canada decision. The dialogue between the commander of the Canadian Forces, the CDF, and the government on that is ongoing. So we're responsive to, first and always, the Government of Canada.

When we get into a theatre we adapt to the local command-and-control climate to ensure that we are unified in purpose with the folks we're working with, and we're always loyal to the raison d'être that sent us there from the Government of Canada through National Defence to our troops in the field at the same time.

[Paul Steckle, Liberal, Huron—Bruce, ON]

So someone would have a catalogue of the equipment that Canada has and the equipment that Britain would have available. If you needed more armoured vehicles, they would know where to go to get those.

[MGen Stuart Beare]

They'd never have anything that precise, sir. They'd have an idea, and they certainly know what qualities they're looking for, but the intent is not for them to ask, and in our doctrine that we train on with our NATO partners, we train so that in force-providing, in mission requirements, you don't ask for tanks, you ask for capability. You don't ask for airplanes, you ask for capability.

The capability required for this mission is this: to project power across this space, to do these types of operational activities in this climate. And they allow military forces to then recommend force packages, which are then decided by military commanders on advice to governments.

[Paul Steckle, Liberal, Huron—Bruce, ON]

The minister has certain goals set for increasing the military personnel. Where are we at in terms of recruitment? Is the recruitment going according to plan, or is there a need to put extra effort into encouraging...? What's happening on that front?

[MGen Stuart Beare]

I believe the Chief of Defence has said that next to operations, recruiting is job one. We don't take recruiting for granted. We are always attracting our successors. As a matter of fact, I think our professional obligation is to create our successors so that the defence of Canada mission can be performed by people younger than us when we get older.

So recruiting is job one beyond delivering operations. We met our 2005-06 targets, I'm led to believe based on former expansion numbers, and we're working like crazy to make sure we get not just the numbers to maintain our strength this year, but to grow. As a trainer, we are actually creating more capacity to train more recruits, and that capacity is already starting to be used. We are actually running two more basic recruit courses as an army on top of what St. Jean does as a recruit school, because they're already above their capacity, and that's going on in Valcartier right now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you, Mr. Steckle.

Mr. Calkins.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Thank you. And thank you, General, for being here.

I'm just going to continue on in that vein of questioning. There has been progress made, I know, with recruitment, but the Auditor General came out and basically said in a statement here that plans to expand the forces are at risk. Her May 16 report showed that only about 4,700 recruits make it through the process every year. I'm wondering what's being done in order to sustain our commitment in Afghanistan and fulfill other obligations.

How many recruits would we need? Is that 4,700 enough, or do we need to increase that? It's not just growing the forces, it's replacing people who are retiring as well, so is that number enough? You said you met your targets. Maybe that question has already been answered, but are we meeting the long-term targets or do we need to have higher numbers on an annual basis?

[MGen Stuart Beare]

Last year we met the targets for maintaining our number and for the expansion we committed to last year, so it was an expansion target last year. This year, that expansion target is growing by virtue of a new declaration to grow by even more than we had been ordered to a year ago. So we're adapting to a larger growth target.

The number of years it will take is going to be the number of years it will take, frankly, and I can't give you a hard number on that. But the Chief of Defence took all of his leadership, general officers and flag officers, for a two-day session and caused us to look at ourselves to ask ourselves the question, if Canadians aren't coming to us, why not? If we're losing them between the time we attract them and the time we try to enroll them, why? If we're losing them in the first three to five months of their training, why? The last thing we want to do is lose someone who wants to be part of us.

So the amount of introspection that's going on in terms of how we attract and how we recruit, and then how we train and retain our people, is at the highest I've ever seen it. The Chief of Military Personnel, who is the fellow charged with managing the human resources of the Canadian Forces, is working very hard.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

The report goes on to say that “National Defence needs to improve its recruiting efforts to attract candidates who have not traditionally considered careers in the military”. That's what we've just been talking about. I want you to elaborate on that a little more, if you don't mind.

There are a number of programs for aboriginal youth, and one successful program called Bold Eagle that comes out of my riding in a community near Wetaskiwin. I was wondering if you could elaborate on whether there are any special efforts to recruit aboriginal Canadians.