No problem.
Evidence of meeting #10 for National Defence in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was forces.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #10 for National Defence in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was forces.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
If you could provide that information later, I'd appreciate it.
We'll continue on.
Mr. Brahmi, you have the floor.
November 1st, 2011 / 9:50 a.m.
NDP
Tarik Brahmi NDP Saint-Jean, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank the Major-General for his explanations.
I have here a document from the American army entitled Army Logistic Readiness and Sustainability. It is a fairly detailed document, 139 pages long, that examines all the aspects related to the readiness of the American army. Do the Canadian Forces have a similar document?
9:50 a.m.
Director of Staff, Strategic Joint Staff, Department of National Defence
Yes, we have documents for each function of the Canadian Forces. We also have documents for the tactical group, aircraft group, etc. Yes, we undertake planning and we have documents attesting to our readiness and the process that led to that readiness.
9:50 a.m.
Director of Staff, Strategic Joint Staff, Department of National Defence
It varies. We don't have a cycle of readiness across the forces, in terms of document preparation, and I don't think the U.S. Army does either. We have an annual process that allocates resources and demands that those who receive those resources report on their ability to use those resources. So broadly speaking, it's an annual process whereby resources are turned into outputs and are reported on.
Specifically, I think the army works logistics preparation through that annual process. You could certainly ask the command of the army if there is any documentation he can produce on cyclical army logistics. I don't know of any specific documentation.
9:50 a.m.
NDP
Tarik Brahmi NDP Saint-Jean, QC
Are these classified or declassified documents? I am referring to explanatory documents on the availability and readiness of the Canadian Forces.
9:50 a.m.
Director of Staff, Strategic Joint Staff, Department of National Defence
Some documents are classified.
As for the broad, non-classified documentation, I'm unsure of the classification of the report on plans and priorities that reports to Parliament on what has occurred with the funds assigned to the CF, in terms of their achieving the forces' mandate—which covers as well the preparation of forces.
We do have classified documentation that describes the specific state of readiness, or any challenges to achieving that readiness, of various aspects of the armed forces.
9:50 a.m.
NDP
Tarik Brahmi NDP Saint-Jean, QC
We are also talking about a concept, meaning that of the operational readiness of equipment. We are talking in particular about 90% or 75% of aircraft. How do the Canadian Forces compare in this regard?
9:50 a.m.
Director of Staff, Strategic Joint Staff, Department of National Defence
In terms of availability?
Are you talking about the readiness of the forces?
9:50 a.m.
NDP
9:50 a.m.
Director of Staff, Strategic Joint Staff, Department of National Defence
I understand.
The short answer to the question is that I don't know.
I have not done any comparative analyses with allied countries in this regard.
I would say, just anecdotally, that we do pretty well. For example, we were able to maintain our Chinook aircraft in Afghanistan at an incredibly high rate of availability for use, compared to the industry norms for that type and age of aircraft. I would suggest that it is probably similar across the equipment that we use, but I am not certain how it stacks up internationally.
9:50 a.m.
NDP
Tarik Brahmi NDP Saint-Jean, QC
Are statistics collected systematically, after the fact, on the use made of each piece of equipment, meaning the operational readiness of a piece of equipment over a certain period of time?
9:55 a.m.
Director of Staff, Strategic Joint Staff, Department of National Defence
Yes, of course.
We have our Assistant Deputy Minister of Materiel, Mr. Dan Ross. There is a Vice-Chief of the Defence Staff who always analyzes the availability and readiness or our equipment. There are statistics describing our level of operational readiness, the ratings and everything related to equipment.
9:55 a.m.
Director of Staff, Strategic Joint Staff, Department of National Defence
I don't know.
9:55 a.m.
Director of Staff, Strategic Joint Staff, Department of National Defence
I imagine that part of the information is classified, but I am not certain.
9:55 a.m.
Conservative
Rick Norlock Conservative Northumberland—Quinte West, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and through you to the witness, thank you for coming this morning.
I want to talk about your duties as director of the strategic joint staff. You're charged with the responsibility of coordinating with our allies and international partners in training exercises and operations.
Can you give us some examples of international considerations that come to play when determining CF readiness?
9:55 a.m.
Director of Staff, Strategic Joint Staff, Department of National Defence
Certainly. Thank you for the question.
I can give you an example in the case of training. It is becoming increasingly important that we exercise our forces within coalition or alliance constructs to ensure that we have the degree of understanding about how our allies and coalitions work, how all the parts come together, and how the technology binds it and brings things together. Something as simple as being able to pass a live, streaming image from one part of a coalition to another becomes increasingly important if you're concerned about precision, if you're concerned about intelligence gathering, if timeliness is of importance, and so on.
One of the things I do to support the CDS--and I'm not alone in this--is in helping design the Canadian participation in international exercises, where we bring together army, navy, air force, and other enablers on international exercises, either of our making or of international bodies' making, or other countries' making. We participate in that and ultimately manage the lessons-learned process that accrues as a result, which then could affect the way we operate or some of the equipment we have, and the decision-making about that. It might be something as simple as a software upgrade, through to needing to look at something completely different. So exercising is experiential.
We all collaborate—my staff, the assistant deputy minister of policy, and others—internationally in terms of mounting responses to crises. That's a given. There's lots of deconfliction that occurs both in terms of mission and scope refinement as we approach any mission.
In terms of readiness, we really do rely on the experiential pillar and exercises, and feedback from other nations as to what they've learned. We have a great insight right now into how our allies in Afghanistan functioned and what they learned in operations at Kandahar and Helmand, and so on. We try to incorporate those to the best of our ability.
We operate internationally--and it's not just my staff's responsibility. For example, I head to Washington later this month to participate with seven nations on a Multinational Interoperability Council, which is sort of a NATO-minus group that consists of seven nations interested in sharing information about how we can operate better together. That proved invaluable as we mounted operations into Libya, because these same nations were represented.
9:55 a.m.
Conservative
Rick Norlock Conservative Northumberland—Quinte West, ON
Thank you very much.
Since we are involved with NATO in particular—but, of course, we also have the United Nations and other organizations that we belong to—are there certain international standards? Every nation has preparedness. Is there a general standard that we should maintain or do maintain, and are we meeting those standards?
10 a.m.
Director of Staff, Strategic Joint Staff, Department of National Defence
I'm not aware of an international standard of readiness or preparedness that obliges nations to be ready. Absolutely, within NATO and other alliances Canada has signed up to, NATO being the principal one, there are expectations in terms of the readiness of forces, and we meet those expectations. Those are for chapter-5 operations that would involved defence of yourself or others that are under direct attack. Each nation is allowed to determine what it will do, as you say, but there is an attempt to set some standards or some targets to achieve in terms of the standards. I don't know if that's at all helpful to you.
We do what we think we need to do, so our policy is not governed by an alliance demand upon us. But we certainly would try to maintain participation within all of the standardization working groups that go on—be they for equipment, materiel, or otherwise—and also for the cumulative effect of that. In other words, are you ready to be able to respond? NORAD is a great case in point. NORAD would demand that we have aircraft able to respond to incursions into Canadian airspace. That is prescriptive, but it's because the government has agreed to that policy and has in fact made the policy.
10 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
Thank you. The time has expired.
You mentioned the seven nations conference that you're going to. Which countries are part of that?
10 a.m.
Director of Staff, Strategic Joint Staff, Department of National Defence
In the Multinational Interoperability Council there's Canada, the United States, Great Britain, Australia, France, Germany, and Italy.