National Defence Committee on March 2nd, 2009

[VAdm D. McFadden]

Sir, as to the overall extent of the whole of government's budget, I could offer you nothing more than what has already been said. I certainly could provide more information with respect to the departmental budget, the Canadian Forces contribution to that. Our budget has been identified as $212 million. That $212 million is to be able to provide the types of unique capabilities the RCMP will have requested. I think that request was formally made in August of 2007, as I said. The budgetary requirements based upon that request were $212 million as soon as it was assessed. It has remained $212 million through the intervening period, so we are on track to deliver the capabilities for the cost we said we would.

On the point I'd made about that being a scalable response, the intent is to ensure that the resources drawn upon to be able to provide that effect can both be reduced or augmented without there being a substantial increase in additional resources. But you have to pick a point where you say that's what we believe a reasonable planning activity rate is; those are the resources we would commit to that. If we were substantively wrong, because of a major crisis or if intelligence information were to identify there was a very substantively greater threat than we had anticipated, I have no doubt we would do what was necessary to ensure the games were safe. For the budget allocations we have at the moment, I can give you more details with respect to the $212 million, but as to what contingency is built in for the whole of government, there are better folks than I who would be able to answer that.

Your other question was about the cost of participation in things like Exercise Gold. The means by which we are preparing for the games are included in what we have identified as being the cost for Canadian Forces participation. So the exercise cycle to get us ready is a cost that we've already accounted for.

On your question with respect to whether the Canadian Forces are engaged in the World Police and Fire Games, there has not been a formal request for Canadian Forces participation, which would leave me to believe that local police services believe they have the capabilities and do not need to call upon unique capabilities, except for the elements we have as a matter of course: standing forces that contribute, for example, the national response team for chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear response. We contribute to that team all the time, so that's a standing commitment. But apart from that, to my knowledge, there has not been a request for additional support.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Okay. Thank you very much for those answers.

I'll put my second and third group together to give you a chance to answer those questions.

There was an agreement signed between the Canada Command and the U.S. Northern Command, as you know, on February 14 last year, that provides for the deployment of U.S. troops in Canada in certain cases. I'm wondering if there are any scenarios around the Olympic games where you would foresee American troops coming into Canada or the use of American naval vessels inside Canadian waters.

My last question concerns resources and Afghanistan. You talked about those two priorities. With regard to military personnel, will we have to increasingly rely on reservists? Do you need more equipment for the coming year in order to reach the objectives which are both a priority: Afghanistan and the Olympic Games?

[VAdm D. McFadden]

Thank you, sir.

I will respond to your first question first, which concerns planning between the United States and Canada.

You're referring to a document that was a plan signed into place in February. It's called the Civil Assistance Plan. It's not the means by which American forces could operate on our side of the border; it is a plan to allow effective coordination if there were a requirement established by the government for one or the other to draw upon aid.

The Civil Assistance Plan really brought together many of the arrangements that already existed into one more efficient mechanism by which collaboration could occur. It's not an agreement and it doesn't allow the movement of forces. It's a plan. The movement of forces occurs when the governments decide that's what they want and they request and an answer is given. The Civil Assistance Plan simply puts in place a more efficient means by which we can execute that order.

As I said at the start, there is no doubt that we are engaged in very deep conversations with the United States to understand what capabilities they will put in place and to ensure they understand what capabilities we have in place. I envision no circumstance at the moment that would see dramatic movement across the border one way or the other, but, sir, you're asking me to predict the future, and we're all notoriously bad at that. What that plan puts in place is an efficient means by which military-to-military cooperation could occur were a decision made by the governments to do that.

I would make the point that it's perhaps surprising that we've gone south of the border more frequently than we've seen it happen the other way around. In fact, the first exercise of the Civil Assistance Plan, based upon a request made by the United States government to Canada, was us going into the United States in anticipation of Hurricane Gustav. We deployed a C-17 aircraft and took patients who were medically at risk out of New Orleans and flew them to Little Rock, Arkansas.

That was a request of the American government, approved by the Canadian government, but the mechanism of the CAP, the Civil Assistance Plan, allowed the effect to be brought to bear within two hours of the request having been made.

The formalized mechanism happens because governments decide. What the Civil Assistance Plan puts in place are many of the things that had been there before. I took a task group into the Gulf of Mexico many years ago as a result of the devastation from Hurricane Katrina. The Civil Assistance Plan establishes the mechanism by which, once the approvals are in place, coordination can happen more efficiently.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you, sir.

It's over to the government side, with Mr. Boughen.

[Ray Boughen, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

First of all, early congratulations, gentlemen, for your work on the Olympics. From what I've been able to understand, it's going very well, and your two exercises, Exercise Bronze and Exercise Silver, went very well.

Can you characterize at this time, from the Canadian Forces perspective, how the exercises have helped you prepare as a team to go to work on the security that's needed at the games? Are you confident that you have everything in place that needs to be in place for the optimizing of the security procedures as we know them?

[VAdm D. McFadden]

Sir, perhaps I could start answering that question by explaining some of the culture of the Canadian Forces. What do we mean by a good exercise? A good exercise to us is one where we turned over lots of rocks, identified lots of things that we wanted to make better so that we learned lessons from them. They could be observed; we could put a process in place to actually be able to implement those lessons learned. From the perspective of the Canadian Forces, with any exercise that occurs, if you get to the end of it and it all went very well, there are two things: you either didn't make a tough enough exercise, or you weren't tough enough on yourselves in figuring out how you do it. I should say that is, to some degree, a culture of the Canadian Forces. We want to wring every last drop of benefit that we can out of exercising.

Those three major exercises that I talked about—Bronze, Silver, and Gold—are the whole-of-government exercises. They are the big ones in the calendar where a great many agencies are brought together—there's a tabletop exercise, a live exercise—so that the problem in all its complexity can be addressed. Those aren't the only exercises being done. The Canadian Forces have numerous exercises that we will do, both in preparation for and subsequent to those major ones, and the same is true of the RCMP. The integrated security unit in Vancouver will do far more training cycles than those major events that are pulled together.

Both Bronze and Silver went well, in that, for example, in Silver, we had over 1,000 people actually participating in the exercise. In excess of 100 different agencies, departments, or organizations--a little over 50 operations centres--actually stood up in being exercised during that week. I've no doubt that was a very busy week for a great many people. There are lots of things that we will have identified with respect to the plans that are in place to allow us to respond to an incident, a security concern, and there are bits now that we will improve upon, not just within the Canadian Forces but in many other departments that will do the same thing. What we are involved in this week, in fact, is in bringing together the lessons learned that we have observed within the military organization to support the RCMP and within the RCMP's integrated security organization, so that we both see the world the same way with respect to where we go from here. That series of out-briefs will occur later this week. We've already gathered the lessons out of an exercise in the middle of February. We're pushing that timeline very rapidly, because what we want to do is make sure that when we get to Gold, it is a validation exercise. That's not the time for us to figure out there are more things that we need to do.

We were undeniably brutal during Silver. That's what we intended; that's what was advertised by Mr. Elcock, who is the coordinator for security requirements of the games and also for the G-8. His office was the one that put the exercise program together. We set very high targets. The level of cooperation that we've seen during that exercise has never, to my knowledge, been achieved before in an exercise. That's success as far as we're concerned. There's lots of stuff that we will now take for action to make changes. That's a good thing.

[Ray Boughen, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

You have a couple of minutes left. Do you want another question?

[Ray Boughen, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Could you elaborate a little bit on the number of agencies that are involved? I know all the exercises, as you've said, include a whole lot of folks. Are they all Canadian agencies? I know there are some from the U.S., but are there agencies from other parts of the world, or is it pretty much Canada and the U.S.?

[VAdm D. McFadden]

The exercise play is predominantly Canadian and American. But just as we—by “we” I mean many agencies and federal departments—engaged with those who had conducted Olympics in the past, in Salt Lake City and Beijing, we connected with those who had recently conducted Olympic games to ensure that we had the same sort of process in the culture of the exercise. What are the lessons they learned, not in the exercise but in the conduct of the games? We have had discussions already with folks from London, in the U.K., who will conduct the next summer games. The level of observation that I think is appropriate I think we will see more of. I anticipate seeing more observers at the Gold exercise. We would encourage that to the degree we can for subsequent activities.

Engagement in the planning and in the conduct of it has undeniably been predominantly led by Canadian agencies. Almost all the departments, in fact all those I can think of, have established and are maintaining contact with their counterparts south of the border so that they understand what capabilities the United States intends to have at the ready and how the United States is organized within its own streams. I'm talking about Health Canada, the Canada Border Services Agency, and so on. It is not just military to military.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you very much.

That ends our opening round. We'll start on the five-minute round with Mr. Coderre, and then we'll come over to the government.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Vice-Admiral, it's a pleasure to have you here.

I want to thank you for both coming, gentlemen.

I am not as optimistic as you with regard to equipment. In fact, we know that, given the climate in Afghanistan, much of this equipment will be outdated and likely unusable for the Olympic Games. So, with regard to resources, we will need to reinforce our capacities. Unless government tanks can be sent to Vancouver, I don't think we have the necessary capacity to respond to everything. That's why I hope that we will have a plan B. The condition of the equipment being used in Afghanistan and that could be sent back to Canada concerns me somewhat. I think that we need some reassurance here.

I'd like to talk to you about tactical control radar. That is an issue in itself.

As you know, there are two units right now, and their principal mission is to train the CF-18. They're coming in support of the different radar lines. First of all, there was a notice of proposed procurement on MERX on November 17, 2008. That was for kind of a mobile system that's more helpful for providing a better view for the CF-18. If they don't have that kind of capacity, it might have an impact on security during the next Olympics. Those systems date from 1993, and it's impossible right now to even get parts for some of the components. Do you have faith that we will be able to have that kind of equipment? What capacity will we need to really be assured that we'll be okay for the security of the Olympics?

[VAdm D. McFadden]

Thank you, sir.

The first question was with respect to the capacity required and the impact of operations in Afghanistan. I would make the point, sir, really, to set the scene, that what we are talking about are two extremely different types of operation. We are operating in equipment in Afghanistan intended for employment in a war zone. Therefore, the type of equipment we have, the training of the soldiers who go there, and the employment of the aircraft there are predominantly meant for a hostile environment. They are intended to enable people to survive the violence of the enemy.

The situation we perceive in Vancouver will not be a hostile environment with respect to the rate of usage of equipment. Your question to me is whether I am confident that we have sufficient capacity to address both the international mission and a major domestic mission--the Olympics--at the same time. My answer to that is yes. I have no doubt that we are being very tough on the equipment in Afghanistan, because that's the environment in which it's being used. I'm not really the fellow to give you an answer as to the rates. But I do not, at the moment, perceive there to be a difficulty with respect to usage rates in Afghanistan and how that will affect the availability of resources for supporting the operation in Vancouver, even for the Griffon helicopters. Sir, the Griffon helicopters we have deployed are specifically planned and tailored to deal with combat missions. Those are not the Griffon helicopters we will be using in Vancouver, where they have a surveillance mission.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Regarding the tactical control radar?

[VAdm D. McFadden]

Sir, I don't mean to say I'm not the guy to answer that question, but specifically you are asking about how we would do aerospace surveillance. It is a NORAD mission, ongoing today and during the Olympics, to be able to provide aerospace surveillance. A means of doing that is with ground-based tactical control radar. There are other means by which that can be done by airborne-based radar.

I have no doubt, from what I have heard thus far in the concept of operations, that there is not a degree of concern with respect to our ability to be able to establish effective airborne surveillance.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

With all due respect, Vice-Admiral, experts are saying that without this new equipment, we are going to lose part of our vision. As you know they give a much better image than a plain radar system does. It's all fine and well that there is NORAD and all the rest, but without that equipment, how can we guarantee our own fighter aircraft that they'll have the tools they need to do their jobs properly?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

You'll have to come back to that, if you don't mind. Your time is up.

We'll go over to the government, then back to the Bloc, and then back to the government.

Mr. Hawn.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, gentlemen, for coming.

I need to pick up on a couple of things Mr. Coderre addressed. The first one is helicopters in Afghanistan. We've got eight Griffons in Afghanistan. We have approximately 125 helicopters in the Canadian Forces. So is it fair to say eight will not unduly jeopardize helicopter resources for the Vancouver mission?

[VAdm D. McFadden]

I have no concern that we have sufficient capability to be able to address the mission set.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

With respect to CAP, is it correct to say that the command and control of the U.S. forces when they come to Canada will be exercised by Canadians?

[VAdm D. McFadden]

Sir, as you are aware, the NORAD organization is a completely integrated binational organization. The intent for the Olympics is to use the Canadian NORAD region to effect the control of all assets, and that would be out of Winnipeg, Manitoba.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

I'm not just talking about air assets, but ground forces of some kind. They would be under Canadian command and control in Canada?

[VAdm D. McFadden]

That's correct.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Just as we would be under U.S. command and control if we were in the U.S.

[VAdm D. McFadden]

That is correct, sir.