National Defence Committee on May 4th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Good day everyone and welcome to the 14th meeting of the Standing Committee on National Defence. In accordance with Standing Order 108(2), we continue our study of the role of Canadian soldiers in international peace operations after 2011.

We are pleased to welcome two witnesses to the committee: Dr. Philippe Lagassé, an assistant professor with the Graduate School of Public And International Affairs at the University of Ottawa, and retired Colonel Michel Drapeau, an adjunct professor with the University of Ottawa's Faculty of Law.

Gentlemen, you will each have between five and seven minutes to make your presentations, following which we will go to questions from committee members and have a discussion .

You may proceed.

[Col, Retired) Michel Drapeau (Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the committee members for this opportunity to talk about a subject that is near and dear to me.

When the clerk of the committee phoned last week, I was already in the process of putting together the final touches on the document that has been circulated to you. It should be before you now. The document is titled, “Post Afghanistan - Whither Canada First Defence Policy”. Although plain reading of the paper indicates that the return to international peace operations is and should continue to be a priority role for the Canadian Forces post-2011, I am of the view that before we accept the commitment in that regard, we should give soldiers and their families a welcome pause from operational deployment.

Indeed, as I made clear in the paper, the repatriation of Canadian troops in 2011 would provide the Canadian Forces with a welcome opportunity to attend to several pressing issues. These include the reconfiguration of the Canadian Forces, particularly the army, which is coming off a prolonged, war-fighting mission, and a critical examination of our headquarters system, which consumes much of our limited resources. But there is much more, ranging from the civilianization of the Defence oversight committee, the restructuring of the Canadian Forces grievance system, and a provision, perhaps, of a degree-granting charter to the Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean so that this national institution can once again commission French-speaking officers for the three services. I am of course open to questions concerning any of these proposals or the one contained in the paper.

As you know, over the weekend the Minister of National Defence announced that Lieutenant-General Andrew Leslie will be assuming the role of the chief of transformation this coming June. It's not only a good thing, it is also an unmistakeable statement of requirement on the part of the defence department that, post-Afghanistan, the Canadian Forces will be required to undergo a transformation of sorts in order to meet the future needs and challenges of the nation. In my opinion, over the coming months this committee should be prepared to participate, if not lead, in the transformation process, as many of what I certainly perceive as critical or urgent requirements for change should be done under the general guidance and support of this committee. I therefore urge members of this committee to take a proactive role in this matter, both in this general application and in specific areas that require modification, changes, and improvements.

Also, as noted before, save and accept a real emergency on redeployment, the Canadian Forces should be provided with a respite from assignment on international missions. Such a respite will permit the Canadian Forces to make the applicable and necessary changes to their structures, their configuration, and their governance.

Before getting into a discussion with you about the need for such a transformation and its impact on the Canadian Forces' ability to deploy, in the short term, on international peace operations, please permit me to make a couple of additional suggestions before I close.

First, given the current situation in Haiti and the fact that full rehabilitation of that nation will be a huge effort of almost Marshall Plan duplication, it might be advantageous for both nations, in the fullness of time, for Canada to establish a garrison within Haiti to assist, to train, and to give aid to the civil authorities.

Second, while it may be a point to the obvious, the world, post-Afghanistan, is still a very dangerous place. Hence, I believe it would be a grave error to put the Canadian Forces into a peacekeeping only configuration. It remains a truism that forces capable of combat operation, however limited, can equally conduct so-called peacekeeping operations. The reverse, though, is not true.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the time you've taken to listen to the issues and concerns, and I would be happy to entertain any questions you may have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you.

[Dr. Philippe Lagassé, Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual]

Mr. Chair, members of the committee, I want to thank you, as well as the clerk, for the opportunity to appear before you.

The issues before your committee are very important to the Canadian Forces and to Canada's international policy. The governments of Paul Martin and Stephen Harper have invested several billion dollars in national defence and in our Canadian Forces. The Harper government has also made a commitment to increase military spending by more than 2% per year.

It is clear from our national defence strategy that the Canadian Forces will continue to play an active role in the world without this having an adverse effect on the defence of Canada or the continent. It is critically important to analyze where our forces should be deployed in the future, with whom they should be allied and under which international command. It is equally important, however, to analyze the number, duration and scope of these future operations.

Canadian Forces have supplied troops for virtually every UN or NATO operation since the end of the Cold War. Furthermore, after Canada began taking part in NATO expeditionary operations some 15 years ago, following the failure of UN peacekeeping operations, the length and intensity of CF deployments increased sooner than expected. The mission in Kandahar, Afghanistan, illustrates this reality quite well. Canadian Forces find themselves involved in a mission that has already laster longer, has cost more and has proven to be deadlier than any other mission since the Korean War.

As we try and draw some lessons from this mission, we need to ask ourselves the following questions. First, is it in the best interests of the Canadian military to take part in the future in counter-insurgency and combat operations along with other NATO members? Second, are these types of missions critically important in terms of meeting Canadian foreign policy and security objectives? Third, will Canada's military have the capability to participate in the future in new operations of similar duration and intensity without CF members becoming exhausted and planned budgets being overspent?

My answer to each of these questions is no. Canada's military should engage in combat and counter-insurgency operations only as a last resort. These operations should not be preferred CF missions. Moreover, such missions are rarely of critical importance in terms of meeting Canadian foreign policy objectives, such as international peace and stability, global influence and the promotion of Canadian values. Participating in these kinds of missions could exhaust our Canadian Forces in the long run and impede their efforts to carry out their operations and resupply efforts without going over the budget set by the government. What options do we have then?

Canada should continue to deploy the CF on expeditionary operations, whether in cooperation with its NATO allies or preferably as part of a United Nations-led mission. But future Canadian deployments must also exercise more discrimination in choosing where and when to deploy the CF. This higher degree of discretion is necessary to avoid overstretching the armed forces, to protect the military's ability to meet its homeland and continental defence commitments, and, perhaps more importantly, to achieve the government's foreign policy objectives in a realistic and affordable manner.

Indeed, I propose that future Canadian governments should adopt the following criteria when choosing to deploy the CF on expeditionary operations.

First, the government should only deploy forces when they are not needed to enforce Canadian sovereignty or to provide sufficient aid to the civil authority or power. Protecting Canada and Canadians must be the CF's real, rather than rhetorical, top priority.

Second, the government should deploy the CF selectively. In practice, this would mean not accepting more than one land force commitment, one maritime force commitment, and one air force commitment, or a single integrated mission at a time.

Third, the government must avoid missions where success is unlikely. This includes missions where local or regional dynamics impede the attainment of objectives, missions where Canada’s largest partners are lacking in their commitments to the attainment of objectives, and missions whose objectives are grandiose, unattainable, or detached from realities on the ground.

Fourth, the government must avoid missions that involve long-term, open-ended commitments. Every CF deployment must have a firm end date, and the services should be prepared to take an operational pause if continuously deployed for more than three years.

Fifth, in all cases, the government must assess whether military intervention is the most efficient and cost-effective means of achieving an objective. If it is not, alternative forms of intervention should be considered.

Sixth, DND's capital expenditures should represent between 25% and 30% of the entire defence budget. The government should avoid deploying the CF on any operation that threatens to reduce this percentage.

And finally, expeditionary operations should only take place when they enjoy a clear, popular mandate. National unity is a fundamental survival interest of the Canadian state. Special care should be taken to avoid military deployments that threaten it.

I look forward to hearing and answering your questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you, gentlemen.

I will now turn the floor over to Mr. Wilfert.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Gentlemen, welcome.

I'll first ask, who was this paper circulated to in government?

[Col (Retired) Michel Drapeau]

To members of this committee.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

It was not beyond this?

[Col (Retired) Michel Drapeau]

No.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

I want to congratulate you on the paper, particularly on areas dealing with national interest. I really would like to explore that a little bit. Obviously, all countries are governed by national interest. What is our national interest as we go forward?

We have had peacekeeping operations as diverse as Cypress, to parts of Africa, in Haiti, etc. How do you see us looking at our national interest in terms of being able to utilize the forces in a more efficient manner, given the fact that you talked about—and I agree with you—the transformation issue? I do believe very strongly that this committee should be at the forefront, which is part of the reason I asked who this was circulated to. Obviously, those in government—that is, the ministers, etc.—really need to get a good grasp of what it is you're laying out here.

[Col (Retired) Michel Drapeau]

The document that is before you I thought in fact had just been circulated to everybody now. I was working on it just as the clerk called. I was putting the finishing touches to it. It's a publication, yet basically it's for the future.

My point is, the forces, whether they want it or not, are going through a philosophical, structural reconfiguration. That's a given. The appointment of a three-star chief of the army, which is unprecedented in the past 40 years, to head this transformation indicates in fact that the Canadian Forces themselves recognize that they need to go back to basics and somehow strike a balance between an army that has, for almost the previous 40 years, been employed, trained, and dedicated almost exclusively to peacekeeping missions, particularly after we left Germany in 1993 or so, to an army now in a full war, and the first time in our history.... I shouldn't say full war; it's a counter-insurgency type of mission. Our army has become, in many respects, Afghan-centric. We have bought tanks and airplanes, and we have a fighting capability that is, despite its very small numbers, quite significant and probably, pound for pound, man for man, among the best.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

So we don't want to lose that tempo.

[Col (Retired) Michel Drapeau]

We don't want to lose it, and we've acquired it at very high cost. We lost a sailor again over the past few hours.

We've acquired this fighting capability, an officer corps, a non-commissioned officer corps, that now is battle-tested, with many veterans. When we come back, I think the last thing we want to do, in response to anything except the most urgent emergency, is re-badge our soldiers and send them on peacekeeping missions.

Until we decide, we need to ask whether the armed forces we have, particularly its very heavy-laden headquarters structure, and the training and the equipment we have is what we need. In that ought to be, what do we do in the issue of national interest? I've raised a couple of issues, such as aboriginals being underrepresented, for instance. We also know that visible minorities are underrepresented in the Canadian Forces, and we know the current recruiting and retention problems in the Canadian Forces will grow. We have to pause; we have to look at it and restructure.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

But all of this is in the context of what is going to be—and obviously the government will have to signal that—our key foreign policy objectives and what kind of armed forces do we need in order to achieve those objectives.

[Col (Retired) Michel Drapeau]

I think we need, first and foremost, to define what the mission of the forces is and what the role of the forces is. From my perspective, they're fundamentally of two types. First and foremost is the defence of Canada—air, sea, and land masses—and whatever this entails. We have to keep a residual forces capable to deploy, capable in fact to act singly or in concert with allies to do that.

Second is to continue to work within NATO and within the UN concerning our major approaches—air and sea and space even—because it is our foreign policy and also our tradition to work within alliances. Therefore, we must accept our share of international missions, whether something like Afghanistan or something unlike it, or truly United Nations peacekeeping missions. We do so because we are using the fighting ability and structures of armed forces. We don't tell them to serve in NATO and UN forces; we tell them first and foremost to respond to our national security requirements.

Part of that is to look at the national interest, which includes, and I specifically alluded to it, an ability to recruit and to train. At the moment, francophone officers are sparse. We have in fact a capability deficiency in there. I'm suggesting to you, if we were to reopen the college, we may be able to address this in part. That is part of the process—not in the short term but in the long term.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

I certainly would concur with your last comment there about the college, but in terms of this transformation issue, it's difficult to deal with the transformation if you're not sure what the objectives are going to be. This, to me, means that we not only have to deal with the forces, but also look at the overall objectives of Canadian foreign policy and be able to mesh the two together, at the same time recognizing that you don't want to lose that operational tempo.

At the same time, the forces are going to go through a period of adjustment, and maybe we need to be consolidating where we are in the world. Maybe we need to have more of a focus. The Australians clearly decided to focus on one area of the world, and it made sense for them to do so. Maybe ours is hemispheric or in Asia or wherever, but we need to have a clear signal. Clearly we can't do this in a vacuum.

One of the items you pointed out that I thought was quite interesting was whether we will continue to emphasize operations through the United Nations, or will it be NATO? You put some points clearly on that.

Can you elaborate a little? Somalia was not peacekeeping, but peacemaking. Anybody who saw the equipment go over there knew it was peacemaking. I have constituents today who think it's peacekeeping in Afghanistan. Can you briefly talk about that?

[Col (Retired) Michel Drapeau]

Peacekeeping is on a continuum that goes from being a basic constabulary type of mission--and Cyprus would be a good case in point for most of the 40 years that we were there--to Somalia, a robust peace-enforcing, peacemaking type of mission. You could say that the early stage of our deployment in Afghanistan also had some colour of peacekeeping.

A well-trained, well-armed, well-led command and control force, a combat-capable force, can do the whole range of peacekeeping, peace-enforcing, and peacemaking missions. The aim of it, I think, stemmed from our national character. We've never had territorial ambitions, and we want, as a middle power, to try to use our forces as an extension of our diplomacy and of our internal policy to try to make peace whenever we can help.

Our missions and the deployment of forces that we ought to have, save and except for one general failure--I'm alluding to Rwanda--have been pretty well tempered. We deploy in sufficient numbers with a sufficient mission and within a respected mandate. I'm alluding to Bosnia. Nevertheless, we did make a significant difference in bringing peace and stability to these particular countries.

Did we have enough? Could we do enough? The answer to that is, “Never enough”, but prior to Afghanistan, we inherited almost a peacekeeping constabulary force in terms of our equipment, our training, and our philosophy. We had an entire generation, or two generations, of officers who did nothing else. That became even more accentuated after we withdrew from Germany in 1992.

I think that was wrong, because ultimately the type of soldier we are looking for to deploy and to enforce peace has to be combat-trained and combat-led as the first thing; otherwise, he's going to fail in his task.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you very much, and thank you for your patience, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you, Colonel Drapeau.

Go ahead, Mr. Bachand.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank our two witnesses for their excellent presentations. This is a very positive start to our discussions. I won't deny that we have discussed this issue at some length. Are we talking about peace making, or peace building? To my mind, peace building means building the peace, whereas peacekeeping refers to traditional peacekeeping missions.

Your presentations touched on many areas. Mr. Wilfert mentioned several of them: national interests and the importance of breaks, because our soldiers may be a little tired. I also appreciated that Mr. Wilfert expressed some regret over the demise of the Collège militaire royal du Canada. I think that history will show that this was a mistake. I see that the Liberal Party is somewhat inclined now to correct this grave injustice. So then, I view your comment in a very positive light. It is a very apropos topic for the committee chair.

Your submission mentions one thing that you haven't talked about yet, namely the importance of Parliament exercising some control. This is somewhat of a hot topic these days. Speaking of transformation, I'm wondering perhaps if it's high time to do a major cleanup, as we get ready to pull out of Afghanistan. I'm talking about a major cleanup. I don't think the Conservative Party took appropriate action when it came to power. Wouldn't you say it's time to rethink our foreign policy? We need a policy that would allow Canada to clearly state what it wants to do in the world and outline the national interests that it wants to defend. Once this foreign policy has been formulated, we can move on to formulating a defence policy, an important foreign policy component. What does the future hold for Canada's military? I think it's time we asked ourselves these questions. It's also time for an equipment acquisition plan. The Bloc Québécois has consistently supported this logical approach. The first step is to define our foreign policy, then move on to our defence policy, and finally, establish an equipment acquisition plan to meet our objectives.

Do you think the time has come to follow this course of action? You've touched on many areas, but if we could possibly accomplish these three steps in this order, I think we could achieve our objectives. I'd like to hear you views on this matter.

[Col (Retired) Michel Drapeau]

Mr. Bachand, theoretically, foreign and defence policies are interconnected, but in a linear way. I don't really believe that. Most of the time, countries respond to crises and to emergencies. Since the start of the 20th century in particular, Canada has sent troops into battle when the need arose. That's what Canada does. Initially, when our military members were deployed to Kabul, they did not have the proper uniforms or armoured vehicles. We did not have aircraft or tanks. Our forces were equipped on the fly. That's what happens more often than not. Countries do their best and mobilize on the fly.

Very rarely does a country return after a war has ended as the victor, with its head held high, with a clear sense of the lessons to be drawn from the conflict or with a relatively clear picture of the future. We know that the future will be equally dangerous. Afghanistan merely gave us a glimpse of what the future holds in store. Canada not only has an opportunity, but a duty, to prepare for the future, not just for the next Afghanistan, but perhaps even for the next 100 years, by increasing the size of its military, by structuring its forces and by equipping them. It may well take a year, two years or three years to get there. It has nothing to do with partisanship. Our common interest is our national security and we need the very best forces we can have. We already know that we are going to have some problems maintaining our current levels, because the recruitment process is difficult. There is much competition, either from the business world or from elsewhere. There are limits on what we will be able to buy in terms of equipment, because equipment is very expensive. It is no secret that our ships need to be replaced, as do our fighter aircraft. We need to pause and consider the situation before starting over again. This won't happen overnight, because we must constantly be on the alert. If an emergency is declared, or if some catastrophic event occurs, our forces will be deployed immediately with whatever resources are available. We need to take a bit of a break right now before sending our forces abroad on a new mission.

We need to pause and examine what you've talked about, namely the issue of equipment acquisitions, the structure of our forces, recruitment, training and the focus of our military. At this point in time, our army is a combat army, but that's not the case with our other components. All of these issues need to be reviewed and I sincerely believe, as someone who believes in democracy, that this committee is the forum in which political, diplomatic, military and other interests should first be debated.

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

I'd like to hear your thoughts on the subject, Dr. Lagassé.

[Dr. Philippe Lagassé]

In theory, yes, the government should come out with a foreign policy before it announces its defence policy. That said, I would like to make two points.

First, a defence policy is not solely the by-product of a foreign policy. More importantly, it is also the reflection of a country's national security policy. We need to acknowledge that Canada's defence is just as important as its foreign policy objectives.

As I see it, we also need to acknowledge that foreign policy changes fairly quickly. The most important thing is to have a flexible military and to begin the acquisition process as quickly as possible. So then, theoretically, I agree with you, but I also think that the strategy already unveiled by the Conservative government is good enough for the time being to give us some indication of what we need to purchase and of whether we have the budget for it. This strategy has already been unveiled.

In theory, the nature of our military will not really change. It will remain flexible, and will continue to participate in combat operations, to defend Canada and to help defend the continent as well. From where I stand, the most important thing at this point in time is to support this strategy and the acquisition process.

As for your other question concerning Parliament's control, it is not the role of the members of the committee to control government policy. Your role is to advise the government. The government is responsible for setting out defence policies. When the committee is critical of a defence policy, it is not playing the role that it was assigned to play, namely to advise the government.

In my opinion, the only way to keep the government responsible and accountable for its policies is to give it the latitude to set out its policies. I appreciate that everyone is an advocate for democracy, but we must nevertheless acknowledge our parliamentary system. Your role is to advise, not to attempt to control the responsibilities of the executive.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you, Dr. Lagassé.

I will now turn the floor over to Mr. Harris.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Monsieur Lagassé, there seems to be a bit of a disagreement here, with one suggestion that we be more proactive in terms of offering that advice or that we wait until government devises policy and then offer criticism. I think I like the idea of our having a bit more of a proactive approach, particularly when it comes to something like peacekeeping or peace operations, which is a bit more of a nation-defining activity than some of the other aspects of defence.

Colonel Drapeau, I was interested in your comments, and perhaps you'd elaborate on them a little bit. I can't consider myself any expert in counter-insurgency, but I do know from history that these types of operations demand an enormous number of personnel and have very limited success. Those who have studied counter-insurgency wars over the years give it a very low success rate. Is that the kind of operation that Canada can effectively engage in?

My own understanding is that we'd really only be bit players in somebody else's operation. Is that the kind of thing that Canada should devote major resources to--and I don't mean specialize in--or can we go in another direction in being combat-ready? And I agree, for the defence of Canada, we have to have a combat-ready force, but if we're going to specialize in terms of other aspects of our capability, would you look to counter-insurgency or would you look somewhere else?