National Defence Committee on March 18th, 2010

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

I can tell you that the ones that have been used in Afghanistan have saved lives; they are the most combat-capable protective equipment in the theatre. So do I think it was a good purchase? Yes, I do.

The way in which we were able to effectively trade up with the Germans allowed us to get those tanks--

[Louis Plamondon, Bloc, Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour, QC]

The tanks we are using in Afghanistan are the ones you borrowed from Germany.

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

If you will let me finish, sir--

[Louis Plamondon, Bloc, Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour, QC]

But you don't understand my question. You speak about--

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

I think I do.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Mr. Plamondon, the minister is going to answer your question.

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

We were able to work out an arrangement with the Germans that allowed us to receive tanks that were already upgraded, that had protective equipment, that made those tanks able to go into a theatre of operation. In exchange, we gave the Germans tanks that required further upgrades. We took tanks back to Canada--40 in total--that will be used for training and that will also require some investment to improve them because they have been sitting for some time.

This was done in a way that expedited our ability to get that equipment into theatre. It was obviously complex in that it involved three countries and it involved moving this equipment to Canada. Some of those tanks went directly into Afghanistan from Germany, and then we took some from Holland to replace the tanks the Germans had given us.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you, Mr. Minister. I now give the floor to Mr. Davies for 10 minutes.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I may be splitting my time with Mr. Harris, if he returns from the House. I don't know that he will.

Minister, the analysts for this committee, and the estimates, indicate that the planned spending for the Department of National Defence has been cut by $2.5 billion over the next three years, and defence spending, at about $20 billion, will slow in two fiscal years.

I want to specifically direct your attention to Canada's search and rescue capabilities and ask for your confirmation that none of those budgetary slowdowns will affect Canada's search and rescue expenditures or our need to actually expand search and rescue capabilities.

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

We have no plans to cut search and rescue. We actually have plans, as you know, to replace an aging fleet of Buffalo aircraft on the west coast. We hopefully will be entering into a process in the near future to do just that. So that will involve further investment in search and rescue.

We have very capable SAR techs. I referred earlier to how the Canadian Forces are in some ways like our Olympian athletes. Well, the SAR techs are like gold medallists. They perform at a very high rate of efficiency and training. They perform heroic feats literally daily in their efforts to rescue people in extremely dire circumstances, whether that be in avalanches or ships at sea, in areas where we know there are volatile weather and environmental conditions.

To answer your question directly, there are no plans whatsoever to do anything more than invest in the area of search and rescue.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you, Minister.

You may have anticipated where I'm going next, which is on the $3-billion search aircraft project. As you know, there have been allegations, actually, that the air force.... And these are not my words; these are words that have been used. The air force was accused of rigging the specifications for the $3-billion project to favour the Italian-built C-27J aircraft. As a result, your government brought in the National Research Council to examine the specifications and make recommendations. That study is now out, and it found that most of the requirements for the military's new search and rescue aircraft are unacceptable.

I would like your comments on that study.

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

I would disagree with your assessment that most of the requirements were deemed unacceptable. In fact in some cases, requirements like a rear door on an aircraft, for example, which the Department of National Defence, and the air force in particular, had deemed as desirable, the National Research Council reinforced as being not only desirable but also absolutely critical and necessary.

In fact in some instances this report reinforced the minimal standards that the air force would require to perform the type of search and rescue--landing on gravel runways as another example; the type of radar onboard certain aircrafts; the window, visibility within the cockpit of the aircraft. These were the minimal standards we had asked for collectively, and the Department of National Defence, Public Works, and Industry sought an independent view of what those minimal standards should be.

Yesterday I spoke with my colleagues Minister Ambrose and Minister Clement about the need now to take that report and move forward with recommendations and proceed with a procurement plan. This is what we sought as far as verifying the minimal standards you mentioned.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Minister, I take it you would agree with me that we're not talking only about minor requirements like the sizes of windows. I believe the study found that things like range were unacceptable. Now surely you wouldn't say that the range of an aircraft involved in search and rescue is a minor consideration, would you?

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

Absolutely not. In fact, we've maintained all along that we have to have at a minimum the equivalent of what the current Buffalo and Hercules aircraft and Cormorant fleet have. We have a combined fleet, just to be clear. Now we're operating three different types of aircraft. In an ideal world, we are hoping to craft a procurement strategy that will allow us to purchase aircraft and ensure they will meet those minimal standards.

Some of the recommendations, in an ideal world, would involve building more bases, but obviously there are financial commitments that have to be made with respect to the equipment. There's also the maintenance of the fleet. Obviously, there are also considerations about where they will be flying and if we will be able to refuel them. The refuelling capacity is another consideration.

When we talk about minimal standards, it's not to minimize the importance of them, it's to simply say they have to meet that threshold at a minimum, or exceed it, which would be the preferred option. If money were not an option, we could build bases in many parts of the country and use different equipment.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thanks, Minister.

One of the findings of the NRC study was that the timetable of when the new aircraft should be delivered was unacceptable. I note that in December 2008 you announced that you planned to move quickly on the search and rescue acquisition, indicating you wanted to procure aircraft in early 2009. That never happened, and I'm just wondering, now that it is over a year later, if you can explain whether being in 2010 and still not having even an acceptable procurement practice at this point complies with your indication that you planned to move quickly.

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

You know, I heard similar statements made about the replacement of the Sea King program, which as you know is still awaiting the final delivery of aircraft. It has a lot to do with industry's ability to respond and manufacture these aircraft. You can't go out and get helicopters or ships at the local Canadian Tire store.

As you know, these contracts are very complex. The on-board equipment has actually changed in some instances between the time the procurement process has begun and the time of the delivery. We have numerous examples of procurement strategies that have taken an exponential amount of time.

In an ideal world I'd love to be able to go out to buy these aircraft and get them quickly. I think we need them. I will express to you my personal frustration that the process has been sidelined at times.

We've also faced the reality that this involves more than just one department, as you can appreciate. DND does not go out and negotiate the contract for equipment. That is left to the Department of Public Works. Industry Canada, obviously, has the most direct interface with the industries that are involved in the building of fixed-wing search and rescue aircraft.

There's always the backdrop that we want to maximize the benefits to Canadian industry and the very complex but important element of industrial regional benefits. That is to say that when a large contract is awarded, if it is not to a Canadian company, we must consider how we spread the wealth, if you will, to benefit all regions of the country in the procurement, construction, building, and delivery of contracts.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Minister, having said before that you hoped to procure aircraft in early 2009, can you tell us, sitting here today, when Canadians might expect the procurement of new search and rescue aircraft?

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

I'd hope it would be in the near future, but we could very well be back here in a year or two, and you could be asking me that same question. I hope, now that we have received this recommendation with independent views on what those minimal standards are, that will accelerate the process. I hope that will bring greater clarity to the type of search and rescue aircraft we need.

Certainly all of the departments are now focused on the urgency. In the meantime, we've indicated quite clearly that this is a priority for everyone. I know that the air force has other projects it wants to see, including the joint strike fighter. In my view, this particular project has to proceed quickly.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

Minister, I know you're aware that domestic and even some foreign aerospace firms have raised concerns that the air force wanted the C-27J, and of course we have Viking Air in Victoria, B.C., which has argued it could build the new Buffalo aircraft at assembly lines in British Columbia and Alberta. Company officials have questioned why your government would want to award search and rescue contracts to a foreign firm when we could have this aircraft built in Canada. Can you comment on that?

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

Well, you're assuming somehow that I have a bias in all of this. What I want to see is the best aircraft able to cover a country that has the largest coastline in the world and has extreme weather conditions, and an aircraft that has the capability to service the north, which is a massive part of our country. These aircraft, as you can appreciate, spend a great deal of time over water. They spend a great deal of time flying in conditions like valleys in the mountainous regions, in places that pose serious threats to pilots because of the complexity in the terrain.

I just want to see the best aircraft. I take advice from the Chief of the Air Staff, from technicians, from individuals with specific knowledge of the limits to which those aircraft can fly. We also have real concerns about and a consideration of the ability of SAR techs themselves--that is, the men and women who jump out of those aircraft, often with a great deal of equipment on their backs, with medical supplies, and with the ability to get into an emergency situation very quickly.

So all of those important considerations go into this complex factor and grid of how we get the best plane. Canadian aerospace will be the beneficiaries; to what extent and what company will build this plane, that will be determined through this process.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Well, we look forward to you cooperating with the committee as we study that.

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

By all means, and thank you for the question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you.

You don't have enough time, Mr. Davies.

Mr. Payne, you have the floor for 10 minutes.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Minister, Admiral Rouleau, and officials for coming here today. It's an important opportunity for this committee to get some further understanding in regard to the supplementary estimates.

First of all, I just want to touch a bit on Haiti, Minister. In particular, I want to tell everybody here how proud I was as a Canadian in terms of our response to the devastating earthquake in Haiti. I'd like to thank our Canadian Forces and you, Minister, for that.

In terms of that, there certainly is a fairly large expenditure of some $62 million in response to the Haiti earthquake. I'm wondering if you can outline where those funds went. Certainly, if Admiral Rouleau wants to add anything, that would be quite fine.

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

Thank you very much, Mr. Payne.

Like you, I felt an extreme surge of pride when I saw the work that was being done. I had the extreme pleasure of visiting Haiti just two weeks ago, and saw first-hand the type of extraordinary work that the men and women in uniform are doing there. They're doing it, as you know, in conjunction with other departments—with CIDA, of course, and Foreign Affairs—but the enablers in this mission, let's be clear, were the Canadian Forces. They arrived there within 20 hours and there was a reconnaissance team on the ground.

I can't be any more stark than to say that they saved lives. The medical staff who were there set up a hospital. They treated in the past month over 20,000 people, some of them for grievous injuries. They delivered babies. They continue to treat injured people in the aftermath of that terribly devastating earthquake.

They also took part in other life-saving activities. They provided close to three million litres of water during the time they were there. That's more than an Olympic-sized swimming pool of water--clean, potable water.

Obviously in the early days they helped to pull people from the wreckage and to locate people who were under crushed buildings. What struck me when travelling around places such as Jacmel, Leogane, and the capital, Port-au-Prince, was that it was as if a giant had stepped on those communities. The buildings were crushed. They were pancaked because of the inadequacy of the cement and the structural durability of many of those buildings. Some grievous injuries resulted.

Canadian Forces were able to get there quickly, in large part because of the C-17 aircraft that our government purchased. The utility of that aircraft was on full display. We were able to move in equipment and personnel very quickly to have maximum effect.

With the able assistance of personnel aboard the HMCS Halifax and HMCS Athabaskan, we were able to be there quickly to provide life-saving equipment and life-saving personnel to that country at its most dire time.

We have a long-standing history and we'll be there for a long time into the future, but the Canadian Forces, in my view, performed brilliantly, in record time. While we're drawing down now, as I mentioned, we are handing off and transitioning to other agencies, including CIDA, but non-governmental agencies as well.

The other extraordinary part of this story is the interoperability that was demonstrated, our ability to work with the international community. We had a small number of personnel in Haiti prior to this disaster, through MINUSTAH, the UN mission to Haiti. We've doubled our complement there. That will remain as a permanent fixture. We'll have more Canadian Forces personnel in the aftermath of this disaster.

But your point is well made. They rolled out very quickly, and they had an immediate impact. As well, because of their language skills and their cultural understanding of Haiti, as many had been there before—many of the members of the Royal 22e Régiment from CFB Valcartier had previous experience—they interacted in a way that was compassionate, that was polite. They asked first how they could help. That went a long way.

We worked closely with the needs as identified by the Haitian government, and I think the Prime Minister and the President of Haiti...in my discussions with them and with other officials there, have nothing but admiration, respect, and gratitude for what Canada was able to contribute in this whole-of-government mission.

Perhaps I'll just ask the admiral to speak briefly to the role of the navy, because the navy really, in my view, was one of the biggest moving parts in our ability to respond to Haiti.