National Defence Committee on Dec. 1st, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

I guess, as Mr. Valeriote has pointed out, and as is noted in on page 870 of chapter 18 in O'Brien and Bosc, because dealing with vote 1 in the supplementary estimates (B), sometimes questions can be fairly wide-ranging.

Again, I can't censor anyone at this table, and I leave it to the discretion of the ministers whether or not they wish to answer these questions. I definitely excuse them if they feel it's not relevant to the topic before them, but I'll turn it back to Minister Fantino.

[Julian Fantino, Conservative, Associate Minister of National Defence]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Without getting into too much depth and detail, I wish to assure the members that our program for the purchase of the F-35s remains on track. So far we have seen nothing that would indicate any significant issues.

I think what the member needs to know, Mr. Chair, is that we're talking about apples and oranges. Each country has its own separate and distinct formula for what it requires from the manufacturer, and that is factored into the purchase price, which is then factored into budgeting. Our situation includes not only the cost of the aircraft but also the associated weapons systems, supporting infrastructure, initial spares, training simulators, and contingency funds.

Regarding the weapons system issue, I too spoke with the Secretary of Defence of Norway. In Europe they are in a different world and they require different armaments, and so forth, compared to what we are looking at. There are all these disparities, so it's very difficult to make a dollar-for-dollar comparison, but at some point in time we'll be able to articulate all these issues more fully, Mr. Chair.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

All right. Thank you, Minister Fantino.

We will move on to recruitment. Under the explanation of funds available for vote 5, the $9,348,151 available within the vote, can you confirm whether the reprofiling of $3,348,151 is a movement of funds from the advertising budget of the Canadian Forces? And if it is a movement from that budget, and is in conjunction with the reprofiling of $6 billion from the Canadian Forces training centre, does this indicate a roll-back of recruitment to the Canadian Forces?

I spent some time on HMCS St. John's. I spent five days out west, and I have to tell you how excited and thrilled I was and how disappointed I am that I didn't spend time early in my life in the forces, as Mr. Strahl did. I just didn't do it. But I do come from a town in which the first admiral of the Canadian Navy was born, Charles Kingsmill. In fact, I have the privilege of living in his home.

But, regrettably, upon my return from those two trips I was trying to get people from the forces linked up with our career education council, because I think we all see the value of the social skills, the life skills, and employment skills that are learned even by those who have not spent a lifetime in the forces, but I couldn't get people out to Guelph to talk to our kids about the value of joining up.

So has there been a cutback in recruitment? Are we looking at downsizing our forces, and if there's been a cutback in recruitment, why is that?

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Valeriote, I am going to allow the vice-chief, Admiral Donaldson, to respond to that.

But I very much appreciate what you've said about your own experience within the parliamentary program. I think Canadians might be surprised to know the number of parliamentarians who, while not having formally served in the Canadian Forces, have taken part in this unique program where members of Parliament, like you, literally put on a uniform and take part in the daily lives and experience of the Canadian Forces.

With regard to recruitment, before I turn over the floor to Vice-Admiral Donaldson, we have in fact exceeded our numbers in recent years as far as recruiting is concerned. Much of that is because of the high profile, and I would express my bias in suggesting the brilliant performance, of members of the Canadian Forces in recent years, which has increased the desire Canadians to associate themselves with the Canadian Forces. In my estimation, they are now the most respected institution we have in the country.

Having said that, we have exceeded our numbers and, therefore, we are trying to keep a balance in what is laid out in the Canada First defence strategy and all the pillars of our defence department. These include our personnel; our equipment; our infrastructure, which means the bases and the housing allotment; and the key piece, our readiness or ability to respond to various missions, whether in our long-term planning or in missions like those to Haiti that just appear.

I'm going to let Admiral Donaldson respond to the specific question about recruitment, and I'll come back to your other question.

[Vice-Admiral Bruce Donaldson, Vice-Chief of the Defence Staff, Department of National Defence]

Thank you, Minister.

And thank you, Chair.

And sir, thank you for your question.

I will look into any hesitation there was in charging down to Guelph to talk to Canada's youth about the Canadian Forces, because it's certainly important to us that the people understand the opportunities, and we definitely have a role to play in improving Canadians' understanding of the Canadian Forces. So I apologize if people appeared to be dragging their feet.

As the minister has said, in the growth of the Canadian Forces at the moment, we have programmed numbers for the regular force. At present we sit just above the programmed level of 68,000 that has been established for us at this point in CF growth. In fact, we were more than 1,000 above that when I came in a year ago and we've put some measures in place to get us back to that mandated number, because paying for more people than you have money for takes money away from other things.

We're just above 68,000 now and in very healthy shape. But we have reduced the amount of recruiting over the last year to make sure that we are able to manage that throughput. Our attrition is down, too, strangely enough, I guess because the economy is a bit down. But the Canadian Forces are certainly up and people are excited about what they're doing.

So it's a very tough machine to manage, but we have not stopped recruiting. In fact, we continue to recruit because you need a throughput just to keep the machine oiled and to keep new blood coming in, but fewer than before.

There are a couple of areas where we're putting a lot of effort. One is in our stressed trades, particularly technical trades, where we don't have enough people coming into the Canadian Forces with the skill set to feed our requirements in key areas. So we do put a lot of effort and energy into attracting people into those occupations, and we track the attrition from those occupations very carefully because they tend to be quite valuable people in other sectors of the Canadian economy.

We are also focused on opportunities for members of our reserve force who have served in Afghanistan, who have spent some time on full-time service, and who wish to transfer to the regular force. We do give them pride of place at the start of the recruiting year, so that those who do want to shift over to regular force service have the opportunity to do so where possible. I think you would agree with me that those who have served their country in this way have earned the right to first refusal, and it is certainly a great way to avoid excess costs to bring in proven folks who are already trained to a certain level, and fold them into the regular force.

For all of those reasons, we are recruiting fewer people than we were over the last number of years as we were growing our force, and we'll continue to adjust the level of recruitment to be able to manage that force level at those mandated levels as we move forward.

I hope that addresses your question.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you.

The time has expired.

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Chair, if I may respond very briefly to the second part of the question with respect to the reprofiling of $4 million, that was money initially earmarked for the ongoing campaign with respect to recruitment. An internal decision was made to cease some of that advertising.

Essentially, we were victims of our own success. The numbers were coming in through recruiting stations and other means, so we took that money and reprofiled it for other purposes, for the other pressures within the department, including the contaminated sites issue and the establishment of a new CSE headquarters. So it was simply money that was reprofiled for another use, which explains the transfer of that particular amount of money. A $4 million amount and a $10 million amount were reprofiled within the department.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you. We'll go to our five-minute round, and I'll ask witnesses to keep their responses concise.

Madam Gallant.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and through you to our ministers here today.

It has been explained to us that when Canada decides to deploy our troops, there's supposed to be an additional allocation to cover the difference between what it's already costing to employ the troops, be it through training or at home, and the cost to get them to theatre. For the recent deployments to Afghanistan, Libya, and Haiti, has the Department of National Defence been fully reimbursed for the costs of those deployments?

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

No, we have not.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Okay. Let's start with Afghanistan, then. By how much are we short in terms of full reimbursement for that deployment?

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

Well, it varies from year to year, but as you've outlined, there are incremental costs associated with a deployment, particularly one the size and scope of Afghanistan. So in certain calendar years it ranges upwards of $300 million. Those are costs that are not recovered or reimbursed, if you will, to the Department of National Defence. They're costs that come out of our base budget.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

So the $300 million for Afghanistan came out of our base budget?

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

Annually.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Annually.

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

Correct.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Times the number of years we were in Afghanistan.

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

Well, I can only speak of 2006 onward. As you know, that was the time of the redeployment into Kandahar province, and that's where the operational tempo went up. There was the deployment of new capabilities, tanks, the air detachment. In every rotation we were putting somewhere in the range of 2,000-plus soldiers on the ground and, yes, it was a very, very expensive deployment for which, at the time, we believed there would be incremental funding that would come back to the department. That was not the case.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

What about Haiti? Has that one been fully reimbursed?

No, it has not?

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

No. That again is funded out of the budget of the Department of National Defence. I referred earlier to missions that just appear, and the one in Haiti was a classic case of a response by the Canadian Forces to a natural disaster, where the decision was made in conjunction with other departments, most notably Foreign Affairs, that the humanitarian crisis was such that the Canadian Forces could play an active role, and they did. They responded literally within 24 hours. The navy on the east coast was spooled up. A frigate and a supply ship were deployed into the region, and within 48 hours of the decision we had ships en route. We also deployed aircraft with emergency supplies. We eventually set up a Role 3 hospital, so medical personnel were also present, and I can say with great confidence that we saved lives and made an enormous difference in Haiti. But those are funds that are essentially absorbed from the budget of the department.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Thank you. My next question is directed more to Mr. Fantino.

For a major procurement, let's say the Sikorsky helicopters, when delivery is not actually made and money has been allocated for the payment required, what happens to the money that was budgeted for that? Does it go back into general revenue, or does it stay in DND for the future delivery?

[Julian Fantino, Conservative, Vaughan, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, the simple answer is that the money does go back into the central funding mechanism of government. It's not kept within the department and, of course, in subsequent years when those assets are in fact delivered, we get a double hit, if you will.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

The money is given back to the central fund, and then you have to dig into your budget, whatever it is at that time, to find the additional payment?

[Julian Fantino, Conservative, Vaughan, ON]

That's correct.

That is an issue that compounds itself time and again. If those funds are not fenced in and suppliers can't deliver the products on time, it becomes a huge issue for us to be able to finance those same assets when the funding is basically absorbed out of our budget.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you. The time has expired.

Ms. Moore, the floor is yours.