National Defence Committee on Dec. 1st, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you. I will now give the floor to Mr. Harris.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, General Mariage and Colonel Belleau, for coming. I really do want to thank you for enlightening me, at least on this problem. In our province of Newfoundland and Labrador, we of course have the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, which started as a militia over 200 years ago and served as a unit in World War I. It is a very well-respected organization.

Can I ask you whether you think what has happened to the place of the reserves is deliberate, in the sense that this is a philosophical change that has been implemented without anyone really taking up the whole question of whether we need citizen soldiers as such, and remaining as such, or was it born out of necessity?

We know what General Leslie has said and what is perhaps, in our view, the over-ambition and overreaching of the Canadian Forces, particularly in Afghanistan. Is it out of necessity that this happened, or was it deliberate? Does it require a philosophical change and perhaps an examination of what you're talking about here?

Could you comment on that?

[MGen Frédéric Mariage]

That's a personal observation. I think it's a combination of both. Yes, there's necessity, but within the department there is also a philosophy that says that we don't need the system, that it's too costly, that it's ineffective. Also, the people who make the decision have spent most of their careers serving with the U.S. Army, which is a completely different system from the Canadian. That is a personal observation.

To answer your question, it's a combination of both. There have been, and still are, studies of shrinking down the reserve and doing unit amalgamations. Some people would say that's not the case, but we've seen documents that are studying this kind of thing.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

If I may say so as a comment, I don't think this has been put before the Canadian people as a philosophical choice. I certainly wasn't aware of this philosophical change taking place. I thank you both for coming in and telling us about it.

Colonel, would you comment?

[Col Marcel Belleau]

If I may add something, we are not against the fact that reservists serve full time, because it is one of the missions, one of the purposes of militia or reserve to be a reserve for the regular force. I am not against that. It is quite normal that some reservists go into external operations or serve here in Canada full time, but it is a matter of proportion and a matter of length.

In the matter of proportion, if you have too many reservists who are full time, those outside of their units.... They do not come to the unit, they are outside. We have an example of a unit that has on its strength 24 officers. If you look at the strength of the unit, it has 24 officers. Well, that's good, what do you have to complain about? But 14 of those officers are out of the unit, so it only has 10. This is what we are claiming, that the proportion is too high.

Sometimes the duration is too long, as well, because if you have someone who is, say, a captain or a sergeant or something, and he is full time during two, three, four, five, or ten years, he will have a great difficulty getting a civilian job when his contract is finished or to go back to school, because he has received $65,000, $70,000, $80,000 a year. How will he live as a simple student after that?

So it is a matter of proportion and a matter of duration.

[MGen Frédéric Mariage]

And when his contract is finished, the chances are he won't return to the unit. He won't return to his unit of service as a class A on a part-time basis, because he has been on a full-time basis. He is considered mostly as a full-time individual.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

I'm assuming my time is up.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

You still have one minute.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Good, I have one more.

In the command structure, the previous structure involved the reservists being commanded by a general from the reserves, and now it's under Land Force Command or under Canada command or.... Can you tell me?

[Col Marcel Belleau]

In the former structure there was, if you remember, something called Mobile Command. As a matter of fact, that was the equivalent of Land Force Command now. The country was divided into sectors, and those sectors were commanded by a brigadier from the reserves. He had a permanent staff and things like that.

Now everything is under Land Force Command, and that is okay, but there is no more reservist structure above the brigade. That's it. For example, in a province like Quebec--this is secteur de l'Est--there is a brigadier-general who is responsible for all the army forces in that area, regular and reserves. This not a big difficulty as such, but it keeps the reserves away from the area structure.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you very much.

I will give the floor to Mr. Hawn.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, gentlemen, for coming. I would appreciate fairly brief answers, if you could. I have some ground to cover.

Nobody would ever question the importance of the militia and the reserves in Canada's military history. That's clear. During World War II, as you mentioned, we had an army, navy, air force of a million.

Would it be fair to say it would be a little easier in an army of a million to have stand-alone reserve units than it would be in the Canadian Forces of 65,000?

[MGen Frédéric Mariage]

The logic to me is that you need more militia than you need regular service people.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Yes, in an army of a million people. Clearly.

Now, there were a number of issues. You mentioned that in World War II the militia and reserves served as a basis for service in wartime. Canada is at war right now. Why would now be different from World War II?

[MGen Frédéric Mariage]

During the Second World War there was mobilization, and Canadians were mobilized to be sent abroad and to prepare for eventually the invasion and so forth. Today we are asking for individual replacement, not to be deployed as a unit, as it was during--

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

In Bosnia we deployed individuals from reserve units to regular forces as well. Now we've evolved from an army of a million to an army of 65,000. We've evolved from conflicts on the scale of those in World War II to conflicts the size of those in Bosnia and Afghanistan. I'd suggest to you that there's quite a difference in scale and relativity there.

Would you say that the experience gained by reservists in Afghanistan or Bosnia or anywhere else, for those who do come back to the unit, is a valuable benefit to the reserve unit they return to?

[MGen Frédéric Mariage]

It is, but most of them don't return to the unit.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Well, I don't know what the numbers are and whether you have specific numbers on that or not. We talk about the citizen soldier becoming a soldier citizen. I suggest to you that in time of war, that is not an unusual situation, because we are taking people from units, especially with a much smaller force, who, of necessity, are becoming soldiers more than citizens, for those people in that circumstance. Is that a fair statement or not?

[Col Marcel Belleau]

In principle, yes, but, with all due respect, I would remind you that our Armed Forces are at war, but that the people of Canada are not. Consequently, the reasoning that applied in the case of the Second World War, a war of massive proportions, is hardly applicable to the present situation.

As I was saying earlier, and as you too have stated, the experience acquired by reservists who participate in external operations is very precious. It is indeed a good thing that a certain number of them participate in such missions. The problem is that at the end of their contract, very few of them reintegrate their unit. There is also a problem of proportion, because the people who leave their unit are not replaced. The unit therefore loses its strength. And it is generally the most qualified individuals who participate in these operations.

You therefore wind up depriving yourself of instructors.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

The Canadian Forces, I'd suggest, are having the same challenge, and that's the challenge of recruiting and retention. There are some differences, but in general it's no different for the reserves than it is for the regular.

[Col Marcel Belleau]

You have to look at that for the complete system.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Where should the regular force get personnel to augment and serve in the regular army for a mission like Afghanistan? Where would we get them if we didn't get them from the reserves?

[MGen Frédéric Mariage]

Why don't you increase the size of the regular armed forces and battalions?

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Sir, that's easy to say, but we can't go to Wal-Mart and pick soldiers off the shelf. They have to be trained. Would you agree that whether someone's a reservist or a regular force member, if he or she is going to be doing a mission like Afghanistan, he or she needs the same level of training?

[MGen Frédéric Mariage]

I agree with you, but then they have to spend the time to be trained for that before deployment. So you take a militia man and you have him under contract for 18 months. For seven or eight months you train him. So if you have a recruit at St-Jean-sur-Richelieu who is ready to join the regular force, he can do that also.

What I'm saying is that--