National Defence Committee on Nov. 17th, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

I also said there is an undertaking within the department to answer that question in writing. When we get that, we'll have it.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

When was that undertaking given, if you could refresh my memory?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

I believe you asked that question at a previous meeting, and I believe one of the—

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Even I don't remember what questions I ask.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

General, please answer the questions you're comfortable with that are in your area of responsibility and that'll be fine.

You have four minutes left, Mr. McKay.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Thank you for that guidance, Chair.

You had to move the operation out of Camp Mirage. Part of it went off to Cyprus for some of the troop decompression, for want of a better term, and the rest went off to Kuwait. Presumably, the setting up of the Kuwait operation, which was not necessarily anticipated, fell within your jurisdiction. What was involved in that, and what was the cost of it?

[MGen Mark McQuillan]

Thank you for the question. For clarification, I can perhaps put in sequence what we did.

At the time we were required to close Camp Mirage, we did so. Post that, of course, we had to continue conducting operations in support of the Afghan mission. I inferred that we had a hub in Spangdahlem that was there with a very modest capability. Initially, we ended up moving the bulk of the sustainment activity and a relief-in-place activity to Spangdahlem, and we operated there for a period of time. That took us up until approximately June of this past year.

Spangdahlem is a great host, a great operative, but there are a few limiting factors at Spangdahlem in terms of 24/7 operations at an airfield. We did transition the bulk of activities as we started retrograde operations from Afghanistan in and around the June timeframe of this past year, when we moved out to Cyprus. Cyprus is a great host and offered us the opportunity for retrograde operations to include third location decompression, to conduct operations there, and we did that for a period of three months.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

What does Kuwait, though, add to your difficulties when withdrawing from Afghanistan? On a map, it looks like it's further away. I don't know how to compare the Mirage facilities with the Kuwait facilities. What do you gain and what do you lose with the move?

[MGen Mark McQuillan]

Moving to Kuwait from Cyprus—we did that in September. It's close. The simple principle is the less time in the air, the better my costs are in terms of shipping, and the quicker I can get things onboard a sea vessel.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

So that I understand, is it your argument that Kuwait actually may save you some costs?

[MGen Mark McQuillan]

Correct.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Do you have a figure as to what those costs might be?

[MGen Mark McQuillan]

The figure I have used, and I think the minister has, when I discussed it with him, was in the order of just above $20 million. But again, we're at the closure time. There is an awful lot more...because we won't finish that operation until February. To be very candid, that figure I gave was probably about six months old at the initial planning, before we did anything.

We will save just by moving from Cyprus to Kuwait. In shortening the distance for the air to sea, we will economize.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Is that cost primarily in fuel savings?

[MGen Mark McQuillan]

That is fuel savings. I can put a lot more on a ship, and it's cheaper to rent a sea ship versus flying everything in terms of distance.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

It makes perfectly good sense.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you. The time has expired.

Moving on, we have Mr. Chisu for five minutes, please.

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Thank you very much, General. I will keep my questions at the strategic level.

In your capacity as the commander of CANOSCOM, what role does your organization play in the planning and execution of missions in which the Canadian Forces are an active participant? Especially what are your relations with environmental commands, like the Royal Air Force, the army, and the Royal Navy?

[MGen Mark McQuillan]

Sir, thank you for that question. I believe this is one of the key pieces that I was trying to underscore. I think one of the advantages of Operational Support Command is that we end up being a very good planning coordination entity.

There are two primary commands that I end up supporting. When a mission is tasked or we're responding to an operation, the two primary commands I am supporting are normally Expeditionary Force Command, for international operations, and Canada Command, for domestic operations. We will assist them or we'll get into part of their planning cycle to understand the scope of operations and then complement their staff as we develop the support package.

Where we reach into the environmental level ones—of course, I would call army, navy, and air force primary force generators—they in essence have a lot of the functional capabilities, mostly based at the tactical level. Then we will essentially work with them as we try to fill...and then go back to that table of organization and equipment as we understand what functional capabilities we need in terms of what sizes of organizations with what skill sets. We will then reach back into those organizations to help build that overall structure that will end up being a task force that deploys.

It is a coordination function specifically, and logistics, as we build the overall concept. Again, the responsibility for that is the support command. Expeditionary Force or Canada Command drives that process. We complement that process and then we overlay the general support capabilities on whatever operation is under consideration.

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Thank you very much, General.

What is the command relationship in theatre? For example, the CEFCOM probably needs some other equipment and so on. Are you part of this process, and how is this working in the theatre operations?

[MGen Mark McQuillan]

In terms of day-to-day operations, CEFCOM is responsible for the conduct of the operations to include support within what I would call a joint operating area. Where we have a mission or an operation happening, they will control all aspects of activity, both operations and support within that area of responsibility.

Where we end up working is on a day-to-day basis in support of the staff. What I end up providing to augment.... Again, I talked about sustainment. Once we help with the initial set-up we might provide capabilities such as additional contracting capability. We might provide bed-down capability in terms of expertise. We might provide supply expertise as we end up moving account structures around to support a main mission.

Once we get into the sustainment piece, we're very interactive on a daily basis, managing the flow based on demands that are coming from the system everywhere, from movement requirements to personnel requirements to material requirements. We work with the command staff, Expeditionary Force Command and/or Canada Command, to ensure we're enabling that task force commander who is working for those two commands.

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

I have another question. You were speaking about the hubs. When you are closing down an operation you probably have an intermediary staging base to repatriate the equipment.

Can you elaborate, for example, on the closure of the base in Bosnia? Now we're in the closing stage of the base in Kandahar, so can you elaborate regarding how you are repatriating the equipment? Are there a lot of procedures in place to be able to repatriate equipment? It is probably a staging base for a limited period of time and probably part of the hub, correct?

[MGen Mark McQuillan]

Sir, thank you for that question.

In principle, since this past summer, when we ceased combat operations, Expeditionary Force Command's mission has been the retrograde of the transition operations. That has been the focal point of the present mission transition task force under General Lamarre. He went in and replaced the outgoing task force in July. He had an advance party in place in June.

Prior to June, of course, there was a lot of planning that went on. That's the planning that CANOSCOM would have done with CEFCOM. You talk about how things move with the determination. With that planning, essentially, we went through an understanding of being in the theatre for over ten years, plus there's a lot of material there. The first determination is, what is moving, what is the priority of moving, what does an operational commander need on the ground until when, and what time can we get access? In simple terms, what can you thin out and then what are the priorities for material that is going to move? Added to that is, based on the time and distance, what are the requirements in terms of salvage, disposal, and donation? All those aspects were taken into consideration in advance with enough detail that we were able to put out what we call a material infrastructure directive. This essentially provides enough detailed process so that as the mission transition task force got in place they had the guidelines in terms of how they would conduct business.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you.

Mr. Kellway, you have the floor.

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Through you to the General, thank you for being with us today.

Like many of my colleagues, I'm kind of fascinated by the operational hub concept. General, could you play that out a bit for us? I appreciate your comments that it is at this point just a concept, but I presume that underlying it there is a plan or a desired state of affairs for this operational hub concept.

What will it look like when the concept is fully implemented?