National Defence Committee on May 27th, 2010

[Elissa Golberg]

There's a complex set of processes that are undertaken to determine our priorities in terms of which tools we pull out of the Canadian tool kit to allocate to which international crisis that requires the Canadian engagement. In terms of police, we determine our police deployments in a variety of ways. One is depending on requests from the UN. If there are particular UN missions where the UN is looking for specialized Canadian expertise, we have a process by which we discuss it interdepartmentally. It's a tripartite discussion that takes place between Foreign Affairs, Public Safety, and the RCMP in order to determine whether there's a good fit in terms of the skills being sought in our deployments.

We also provide police in support of other international missions. EU missions, for instance, are areas we might provide police as well, in order to partner together in support of international efforts.

The priority setting is consistent with what our priorities would be more broadly in terms of foreign policy engagement. The Americas, for instance, have certainly been identified as a foreign policy area of focus. We do have a significant number of police officers as well as correctional officers deployed to the UN mission in Haiti, but it's not the only place we would deploy. It would depend on whether there is a strong international requirement for Canadian expertise and how it matches with our own interests and resources that are available.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you very much.

Now I will give the floor to Mr. Hawn for seven minutes.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

And thank you to our witnesses.

I'll start with the first question, and then I have to run out and I'll pass it to Mr. Braid.

My question is following up on Mr. Harris' suggestion that because we don't have masses of Canadian Forces on UN peacekeeping anymore that somehow we have shirked our duty. I believe that may reflect a misunderstanding about how UN missions have evolved and how Canadian participation has evolved.

I believe we're on 16 UN missions around the world right now. I would like a comment from Ambassador McNee, and maybe Ms. Golberg as well, about the evolution of Canadian participation. We've talked about whole of government. It's much more now than just the Canadian Forces; it is diplomats at CIDA, police... It's a whole bunch more than that. The Canadian Forces contribution will tend to be more specialized in the areas we can be strong enablers instead of simply infantry and boots on the ground.

Would you care to comment, Ambassador McNee, and then Ms. Golberg, please.

[John McNee]

I think you're dead right, Mr. Hawn, that's it a more complex picture than peacekeeping was 40 years ago maybe. It reflects the needs in these environments for why police, corrections officers, civilian experts of many sorts are required. Those are skills we have in Canada. They're respected internationally. We need to bring all those people to bear.

You have to look at the broader picture, as you say. At the same time, I think there's a very clear recognition in the international community that the Canadian Forces have a very major commitment in Afghanistan, that they are doing extremely important work there, and that there are only so many of them. That commitment is a major one of the government. I share your thinking on this.

[Elissa Golberg]

The only thing I would add is that our contributions to the UN are multi-faceted. They're financial and operational, but they're also policy- and innovation-related. We continue to make important and significant contributions, whether they're in relation to peacekeeping or mediation. We've been contributing quite significantly to the UN mediation support unit.

Just to underscore what Ambassador McNee was saying, we have seen this shift over the last 10 years in how these missions are undertaken. They require this multifaceted set of skills in order to grapple with the underlying causes of why these peace operations were deployed in the first place. Canada provides value, in addition to specialized Canadian Forces expertise, through our corrections officers, police officers, justice and rule of law experts, as well as other specific areas where we can bring particular added value to bear.

In peace negotiations, for instance, we have experience in how to mediate dealing with natural resources in a country. How do you make sure there's equity in distributing those kinds of assets? They will turn to Canada to provide that kind of expertise. That's an equally important contribution to these international efforts.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Mr. Braid.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much, Ms. Golberg and Ambassador McNee, for being with us this afternoon.

Ms. Golberg, in your presentation you referred to the whole-of-government approach. As we know, this is a somewhat new approach. It's been successful thus far for Canada.

From your previous position as our representative for Canada in Kandahar, and more recently in Haiti, can you outline what lessons we've learned from the whole-of-government approach, and how we might apply and refine those lessons moving forward?

[Elissa Golberg]

That's a great question.

There are a couple of core things for me, based on my takeaways from my experience. First, whole of government is the new normal. It has to be the way we approach these kinds of international engagements. You can no longer have these siloed approaches, where individual departments might share information with each other, but they're not actually developing an integrated approach to priority setting, planning, and contextual analysis. We absolutely have to come to this, understanding that these things require an integrated response.

But whole of government is really hard. Some people overestimate how difficult it is to pursue whole-of-government approaches. It's not because they genuinely don't want to, but the way our systems are designed, they don't always encourage horizontal engagement. A lot of our systems are established for vertical engagement. So you really have to make sure you're changing the culture across departments to encourage that shared strategic vision: the application of agreed criteria for engagement in circumstances, for instance; flexible staffing and governance. Procurement arrangements is another key takeaway, and the ability to rapidly have those capacities when we're in the field. There's comfort with delegation of authority to folks who are in the field so they can quickly respond to opportunities that arise, but also react to challenges and obstacles when we're faced with them.

We've been reflecting quite carefully within my bureau on some of these key takeaways. We are now trying to institutionalize some changes in our whole-of-government approach so that it doesn't depend on any individual who happens to be in a particular job. We're putting in place systems that encourage whole-of-government efforts. That's something I hope we can come back to in the future and elaborate on what we've been doing.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Thank you very much.

Ambassador McNee, you mentioned in your presentation that the UN has a greater reliance on working in partnership with regional organizations around the world.

Could you elaborate on why that phenomenon has occurred and what the advantages and disadvantages are of the UN working in partnership with regional organizations?

[John McNee]

I would say that this trend has occurred for a couple of reasons. There is a recognition that the United Nations can't do everything and is not necessarily best placed to do everything; that regional organizations have a depth of understanding of situations on the ground--the African Union in Africa, for one--that can be extraordinarily valuable and can complement what the United Nations organization brings to a given situation.

I think we're evolving to a more partnership kind of approach, whereby the UN seeks to work with the strengths of regional organizations. I think that is a good trend that we applaud and encourage, because you can draw on the strengths of both the global organization--the UN--and the regional expertise of a regional organization.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. We still have 10 minutes, so we'll do a second round. I will give one and a half or two minutes to each member. That way it will be fair.

I will start with Mr. Wilfert.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Chair, I notice the clerk has three clocks. I think they're Pacific, mountain, and eastern. I'll take Pacific, so I'll get a little more time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Okay. You're wise.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

I have two questions for you, and then we'll solicit some answers. Following up on my last comment, if Canada were to provide the UN missions with substantial military capability in the future, would the Canadian Forces, in your view, be able to secure their own conditions for the mission—in other words, their terms with regard to armaments, mission mandate, and rules of engagement? Would we have more clout given the international situation and the reluctance of many developed countries to be involved in peacekeeping?

Second, particularly for Asia, I hear a lot of comments about the Japanese and others being interested in being more engaged in the peacekeeping role, particularly because of the Japanese experience in the Golan. Could we maybe focus our efforts more on training at home, rather than on active missions abroad—or on a combination of both—but in fact on doing far more training, particularly for some countries that have traditionally not been involved in the peacekeeping operations in the past?

Through you, Mr. Chair, I open that up. With the four minutes I have left, I figure that would be helpful.

[John McNee]

Mr. Chair, I have been thinking about Mr. Wilfert's question. The decision-making for a UN peacekeeping operation rests with the Security Council, but not in isolation. Canada has encouraged the Security Council to consult with the troop contributors. If Canada were considering a major commitment to an operation, we would meet with the major contributors before decisions were made to get a sense from them of what was possible and what was desirable.

I think consulting the troop contributors is something the Security Council has recognized and is doing better at, but I would have to say that it falls short of enabling us to write our own conditions, unless we are going to be the only country to provide troops for a mission. That's not how things work, of course. It's always a partnership. I think it is a very important point that the major troop contributors should be consulted and their input should be factored into the decision-making.

The training question is another very good one. The Canadian Forces have done a lot of that--training military forces in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa, and have helped them be more effective. We are seeing that in Haiti, for instance, with some of the Latin American deployments there. We have the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre, which is very active. I think in the long term, Canada and the Canadian Forces can make a hugely important contribution, which is to help others up their skills, capacities, and understanding of what peacekeeping takes.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Ambassador.

And thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your indulgence.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you very much.

Now we'll give the floor to Mr. Boughen for two minutes.

[Ray Boughen, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Let me add my voice to those of my colleagues in welcoming the three of you. Thank you for taking time out of your busy day to be with us.

Ms. Golberg, you mentioned something, and I think the colonel and the ambassador alluded to it a little bit in some of their discussion on the questions. How do you see a mesh occurring between Canada and the allies when we talk about the whole-of-government approach? I know there may not be time to answer the whole question, but perhaps we could have a thumbnail sketch from the three of you as to how you see that happening, because that approach is definitely different from what we've seen in the past with warring nations, one fighting against the other.

[Elissa Golberg]

I would say that Canada was out front on the whole-of-government approach in many respects, but we're not the only ones pursuing it. Increasingly, more and more of our allies are adopting a similar approach, in part because we're all building on similar experiences.

I would say that my American, U.K., and Dutch colleagues, the Danes, the Germans, and the Swedes are all looking hard at how we can enhance this whole-of-government approach in international operations. A number of them have started to create, for instance, stabilization and reconstruction units like ours, specifically to try to put in place some of these more systematized approaches to whole-of-government efforts.

The UN has also been thinking hard about what we refer to as whole of government, which they obviously refer to more as whole of system. The UN has been advocating for what we call integrated approaches for a long time. So there's a lot of learning going back and forth between us as individual countries and also feeding up to the international system as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

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

[Robert Bouchard, Bloc, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses for joining us this morning. My first question is for Colonel Simonds.

The main focus of the military mission to Afghanistan is Kandahar province. I have often read in the newspapers that this is the most volatile region of the country and a region where our soldiers are most at risk of being attacked by the enemy or even of being killed.

How was it decided that Canada would occupy the Kandahar region instead of another area? Did Canada decide to go into this region on its own, or were our troops sent there by NATO? How did the decision come about?

[Col C.G. Simonds, Military Advisor, Permanent Mission of Canada to the United Nations, Department of National Defence]

I believe the decision came about as a result of a collaborative effort at the time between the Government of Canada and our NATO allies.

Based on advice received from the Minister of Foreign Affairs and from the military—more specifically, from the Chief of the Defence Staff and from the Minister of National Defence—we in turn advised the Prime Minister. We consulted with our allies to arrive at a decision as to where Canadian Forces could make the greatest contribution to NATO's efforts.

[Robert Bouchard, Bloc, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

I have a quick question. Given that this is a very volatile region in which combat operations are difficult and where there is considerable adversity, could Canada have opted not to send troops into Kandahar province and chosen another region of Afghanistan instead?

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you.

Please keep your response brief.