National Defence Committee on Dec. 6th, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Good morning, everyone. We're going to continue with our meetings for our study on readiness in the Canadian Armed Forces.

Joining us this morning is Vice-Admiral Paul Maddison, the commander of the Royal Canadian Navy, along with Chief Petty Officer 1st Class Claude Laurendeau, who is accompanying the commander this morning. I want to welcome you both to the committee and we're looking forward to your opening remarks.

You have the floor, Admiral.

[Vice-Admiral Paul Maddison, Commander, Royal Canadian Navy, Department of National Defence]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, it is a great privilege for the Navy Command Chief Petty Officer Claude Laurendeau and I to appear before your committee today.

I would like to leave the committee with three key messages today. First, your navy's readiness is above all about protecting Canada's maritime interests at home. Second, those same interests require the navy to be ready to operate globally. And third, naval readiness is all about empowering the great Canadians who choose to serve their country at sea with the tools they need to get the job done.

Mr. Chairman, no single word personifies the navy more than readiness. It is at the very core of our service culture in our motto, “Ready. Aye. Ready.”

In French, it's "Toujours là, toujours prêt."

In January 2010, two warships departed Halifax for Haiti, which only days before had been struck by an earthquake that left tens of thousands dead.

Their departure occurred within hours of a government decision to respond in Haiti. Over the ensuing weeks, as part of a larger Canadian Forces relief operation, the ships and their crews performed a wide variety of tasks to help Haitians restore a semblance of order and hope to their ruptured lives.

Mr. Chair, my job is to generate combat-capable maritime forces by translating the resources that I have been allotted into readiness. As the Chief of the Defence Staff has stated, readiness is about getting the right assets to the right place at the right time to achieve the right effect, from saving lives at sea to controlling maritime events through the actual or latent use of force. I will address how we approach readiness.

But first, allow me to describe what it means in a domestic context.

We maintain a "ready duty ship" in both Halifax and Esquimalt, with which Canada Command may respond quickly to events year round in our Pacific and Atlantic ocean approaches.

However, a major disaster at sea or ashore would require more than a ready duty ship. In 1998, for example, one of Canada's worst disasters at sea occurred when Swiss Air 111 crashed into St. Margaret's Bay. As that mission evolved from an urgent search and rescue effort into a major salvage operation, it encompassed eight warships, including one submarine, several fleet auxiliaries, and a range of maritime patrol aircraft and helicopters. In a similar vein, the navy's response earlier this year to Hurricane Igor, while smaller in scope, nonetheless involved the dynamic retasking of ships at sea to a mission of rapidly unfolding and urgent need in Newfoundland.

This year's flooding in Quebec and in the Prairies demonstrated another important facet of readiness, the employment of the naval reserve's part-time citizen-sailors from across the country in an important public safety role.

Mr. Chair, domestic maritime readiness requires an awareness of events unfolding in Canada's three oceans, a region roughly three-quarters the size of Canada itself, encompassing the activities of thousands of vessels at sea off of our coastline—the world's longest. Achieving awareness in our home waters is among our most complex information challenges. But that is exactly what we are doing, along with our federal partners in our coastal marine security operation centres. Considered among the best examples in the world of how to organize for collaborative information-sharing and coordinated whole-of-government action at sea, these centres permit the fleet to be at the right place at the right time.

That "right place" is sometimes found at great distance from Canada. For example, we help keep cocaine off Canadian streets through the counter-narcotic patrols we conduct in the Caribbean Basin and in the eastern Pacific. Among the more recent Canadian participants in this ongoing effort was the Victoria-class submarine HMCS Corner Brook.

Mr. Chair, the oceans no longer isolate Canadians from far-distant events the way they once did. That is why HMCS Vancouver is deployed today in the Mediterranean, the result of a government decision to keep her in a region of strategic interest to Canada. She recently completed a highly successful mission off Libya, a mission that saw her and the Charlottetown, the frigate she replaced, enforce a maritime embargo; conduct maritime intelligence and surveillance; escort and defend NATO mine hunters operating to keep ports open for re-supply; conduct littoral combat operations; and most importantly, defend civilians ashore through activities that enabled precision targeting of NATO air strikes against the pro-Gadhafi forces.

The Vancouver's current mission required no additional training. As a high-readiness frigate, she is prepared to undertake missions across the entire spectrum of operations, from non-combat evacuation, on the one hand, to naval combat on the other.

This flexibility makes warships among our government's most agile instruments of national power and influence. The Vancouver is deployed forward not just to allow NATO to prosecute a counter-terrorism mission, but the mission also demonstrates Canada's strategic interests, reassures our allies, and helps to prevent conflict in a region where the political change agenda is white-hot. It contributes to the safety of ocean commerce upon which, in this globalized era, our prosperity as a trading nation vitally depends.

Finally, she provides a “Swiss-army-knife” set of potential response options to unfolding events.

Both HMCS Vancouver and HMSC Charlottetown are part of Canada's high readiness task group, which is our principal maritime asset for major contingencies at home or abroad. The task group consists of: one air defence destroyer, which also acts as the command platform for an embarked commander; two or three general-purpose frigates; one underway replenishment ship; their embarked helicopters; and, when dictated by the mission, one submarine.

The task group is the vehicle through which Canada projects leadership abroad at sea, as we did most recently in 2009 when a Canadian commodore exercised command of an international counter-terrorism mission in the Indian Ocean. His ability to do so was based on two things: first, the task group's readiness to operate independently against an organized adversary, which permitted other nations to entrust national assets to Canadian tactical command; second, trust by our allies in Canadian naval competence built over decades with our closest partners.

Mr. Chair, every vessel in the fleet follows an operational cycle that takes an individual ship or submarine and her crew from intensive maintenance periods and refits, through a progressive set of technical trials, team training, and warfare certifications to a state of high readiness. For every ship at high readiness, there are several others at different points in this operational cycle, much as a hockey coach has three lines on the bench in support of the line out on the ice.

The operational cycle moves ships and submarines in and out of Canadian industry as well as through the navy's materiel, technical, and training systems. Readiness at the fleet level is orchestrated through a 10-year fleet plan, which we use to integrate individual ship operational cycles with major fleet-wide activities such as the ongoing Halifax-class frigate modernizations, as well as the phased transition from today's fleet to the fleet of tomorrow.

Mr. Chairman, the Canadian Forces invests heavily in its people, and the navy is no exception. As mariners, our sailors are required to perfect their skills in the daunting waters of the north Atlantic and northeast Pacific, and increasingly in the high Arctic.

As warfighters, they are second to none. As ambassadors, they represent Canada not by their words but rather by their deeds.

Our sailors are the foundation of readiness, much of which, like warfare itself, comes down to intangibles, including their sense of purpose, their belief that they are making a difference, and the trust they hold in their leaders to attend to their welfare and that of their families for the often dangerous and always difficult work they do. We may operate among the most complex machines on the planet--these modern warships and submarines--but sailors are always first at the core of your navy's readiness.

Mr. Chairman, you will recall that I stated at the outset my three key points about the navy's readiness. We must be prepared to act in the national interest first at home and then abroad, and at the heart of this capability is the Canadian sailor.

Chief Petty Officer Laurendeau and I are driven by these priorities every day, because we believe that the demand signal for the Royal Canadian Navy to act in the national interest will continue to grow over the next several years.

We look forward to your questions today, but we also encourage the committee to visit the fleet at your earliest opportunity to witness first-hand how we proudly live by our motto, “Ready. Aye. Ready.“

or "Toujours là, toujours prêt."

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you, Admiral. We appreciate those opening comments.

On behalf of the committee, I would like to express our gratitude and congratulations on a great mission in Libya and the hard work of all the sailors of the Royal Canadian Navy. It definitely made a difference in what's happening in Libya today. I know that HMCS Vancouver is still deployed in the Mediterranean and will be there for a few more months. We're looking forward to their safe return.

With that, we'll open it up to questions. Seven minutes to you, Mr. Christopherson.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair, and thank you very much, Commander, for being here.

First, on behalf of the whole House and the official opposition, as opposed to anything partisan, we extend our congratulations on an excellent mission. We're very proud and very pleased to have our folks back.

I'll also mention that my riding is downtown Hamilton. I have the HMCS Haida as a focal point of our pride and joy down on our waterfront. In fact, recently we celebrated 100 years of Parks Canada and Canada Day at the Haida. It's an important part of our community and reflects the respect and tradition that my community has in the armed forces, particularly with the navy.

My first question, I'm sure, is not going to come as any kind of a surprise at all, Commander. With regard to your 10-year fleet plan, I'd like to hear how the current and future plans for the subs fit into that overall. We'll start with that and then move on to the Arctic from there.

[VAdm Paul Maddison]

Thank you very much for the question.

I'd like to start by saying thank you very much for your comments on the mission in Libya. I had the privilege of being in the Senate gallery a couple of weeks ago when the Government of Canada—in fact, I would say all parliamentarians on behalf of Canadians—recognized what our sailors, men and women, achieved in that mission. As someone who's been in uniform for over 36 years, that was unprecedented. It was extremely powerful and spoke to that re-energized bond between Canadians and their men and women who choose to serve in uniform.

For many of the young sailors sitting in the Senate who had sailed with HMCS Charlottetown, many of whom, as the chief will tell you, had not anticipated what was coming when they were invited to come to Ottawa, that was a life-changing event. I would submit that some of those sailors who were considering what their future might hold will probably, 30 years from now, be talking about that day as the day they chose to remain in uniform for a full career. I would like to thank all of you for that.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

That's good to hear. Thank you, Commander.

[VAdm Paul Maddison]

Thank you very much for the question on submarines.

We are at the end of a long beginning. In fact, I can tell you proudly that HMCS Victoria sailed out of Esquimalt Harbour yesterday as planned, to commence a very deliberate series of workups, trials at sea, aimed at bringing that submarine and her crew to a state of high readiness early in 2012. These will include diving operations and full weaponization, meaning the firing and certification of that submarine on the Mark 48 heavyweight torpedo. This is great news.

Later in 2012, on the east coast, HMCS Windsor, six months after Victoria, will follow her in that path, such that by the end of 2012 we will have two high-readiness submarines operating on both coasts—which has always been intended.

HMCS Chicoutimi, currently in deep maintenance—the first submarine in deep maintenance through the Victoria in-service support contract on the west coast with the Canadian Submarine Management Group—will complete her deep maintenance in early 2013. She will ramp up to high readiness, so that we will achieve a steady state in 2013, which we have been working so hard towards for several years. We will continue to maintain one high-readiness submarine on either coast, a third submarine at a lesser degree of readiness but available for operations nonetheless, and a fourth submarine always in that deep maintenance, as the contract stipulates with the Canadian Submarine Management Group. We will run that cycle, sir, through to the end of class for that submarine. Those submarines will be available for operations first and foremost in our three ocean approaches, but they'll also be available for missions continentally.

For example, the Corner Brook was transiting around to the west coast earlier this year and participated in the Canada narcotics mission in the Caribbean basin and the east Pacific, and actually played a key role detecting and tracking what the adversaries had been able to bring to that illegal activity, that is, fully submersible self-propelled vessels carrying tonnes of cocaine. The Corner Brook was able to play an effective role in the east Pacific as she transited up. This is the sort of mission she will be able to participate in, as well as being ready to be deployed anywhere for Canada.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

To go little further on that, is four an optimal number for infrastructure purposes in maximizing the benefit? Do you need more? Do you see us acquiring more? Can you speak to that a bit? Four doesn't seem like an awful lot, given all the infrastructure that needs to be provided to maintain them, the training and so on. It's a lot of attention and money for four vessels.

[VAdm Paul Maddison]

Yes, sir. Thank you very much for the question.

I would say that four is the minimum. It follows from the previous class of submarines. This is the second class of submarine that the Royal Canadian Navy is operating. Previously, we also ran for Oberon class submarines. We have taken the establishment that we had to man, train, and operate four submarines and projected that forward with the Victoria class.

Given the Canada First defence strategy, given the investment plan that underpins it, given the fiscal environment we find ourselves in, I would not advocate for more submarines. However, I am very comfortable with the four we have. I'm very, very excited to see that we're at that end of the long beginning.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I'm sure there'll be further questions. I don't have a lot of time. I've been to the high Arctic. I've been to the Northwest Passage, stayed in Resolute, so I have at least some sense of the terrain and what we're dealing with. Can you tell us what you see happening in terms, again, of the investment in infrastructure the government has talked about, on building up our presence there but without it providing a lot of details on that. Can you put some details into that, please?

[VAdm Paul Maddison]

Yes, sir, certainly. Thank you very much for the question.

The Arctic is assuming a greater and greater strategic interest for Canada and, certainly, from a sovereignty surveillance or patrol and presence perspective, the government sees the Canadian Forces sustaining a greater and more persistent presence there. From a naval perspective then, through the Canada First defence strategy, and ignited by the national shipbuilding and procurement strategy announced by the government earlier this year, we will see the Arctic offshore patrol ship 628 being built on the east coast soon, with the first ship being delivered in 2015 and one every year thereafter. That will increase substantively our ability to operate in the high Arctic through the navigable season, including in and through first-year ice and what we call old-ice occlusion. That project also includes the Nanisivik naval facility at the high end of Baffin Island, which will see a refuelling facility that will help to sustain our deployed presence there.

I would say to you that when ships deploy from Halifax to go to the Arctic, it's about the same as deploying across the Atlantic to the English Channel; and equally from the west coast, it's about the same distance as deploying to Japan. When we deploy ships domestically out of Halifax and Esquimalt into the Arctic, it is a major operation. Therefore, the infrastructure that will be developed in Nanisivik will certainly aid that.

We are also working very closely with our whole-of-government partners here. With all federal departments that have maritime jurisdiction, we are working together in the Arctic to be able to respond collaboratively across a whole number of events, tasks, challenges. That's what we do every summer, as you are aware, as we deploy for Operation Nanook.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you. The time has expired.

Mr. Norlock.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you very, Chair. Through you, to the witnesses, thank you for coming this morning.

I just have to put a plug in for my navy league and HMCS Skeena and the group of young folks there. It's heresy in my riding to say this because we're basically an air force riding, but those young people can really put on a good show when they're graduating in other areas.

My questions are about recruiting. I guess before you can do all the good things that you've said you've been able to do, and what you'd like to do, you need people to do them. You used a hockey analogy, so I'll use one too: you don't go where the puck is, but you go where you think the puck is going to be. Using that analogy, I do recall reading a little bit of history about this—and, of course, last year was the 100th anniversary of the navy. During the Second World War there were often a lot of folks from the Prairies who joined the navy. We seemed to attract a lot of people from places where you wouldn't normally think people would consider a maritime or navy career. So I wonder if you could talk about what challenges you have today with regard to recruiting.

I notice from our readiness studies that there is a great need in the RCN for specific trades, because upon them lies your ability to do many of the things you want to do. I wonder if you would want to talk about the group of people who you traditionally draw upon, and where you think the future lies or the groups of people, the type of people, whom you like to draw on, and specifically the challenges that you're facing with regard to recruiting the people you want.

[VAdm Paul Maddison]

Thank you, Mr. Norlock, for that excellent question, and thank you for your comment on the navy league. I would like to say to you and your colleagues that I know that all of you in your constituencies support the navy, air, and army cadet events. I thank you for that on behalf of all of us. I believe that these are the finest youth development programs in Canada. They are jewels. If all Canadian parents were aware of these opportunities for their children, this program would be even more popular.

Your comments about the Second World War are germane. We had 1,800 sailors in the Canadian Navy in 1939; we had 100,000 in 1945. The two areas in the country that attracted the most young men into the navy were Winnipeg and Calgary, and I'm not sure why that was. It could be that the wheat looked like the sea, as it were, but just a different colour.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[VAdm Paul Maddison]

Maybe folks just wanted to get as far from the farm as they could.

It's interesting to note that from 2004 to the present, while the Canadian Forces grew mainly in the land combat trades to enable the success of the mission in Afghanistan, the Royal Canadian Navy actually became smaller. That was not good. It was understood that it was where the recruiting focus had to go. We reached a point two or three years ago where we had to raise the flag and realize that if we did not give the navy a greater recruiting priority, we would not be able to sustain the readiness we needed to put the ships to sea to meet the six core CFDS missions. The Chief of Defence Staff tasked the Chief of Military Personnel, who runs the recruiting group in the Canadian Forces, to make the navy the priority. In the recruiting centres across Canada, we took in more and more sailors, and this was very good. It allowed us to get on track to recovery, and I'm pleased with where we are.

The challenge the chief and I have today is that 20% of our sailors are going through their basic training to get to their first operational functional point. This puts stress on our schools and our fleets, but it's the right kind of stress to have. The trends are all positive. The distressed trades, especially the marine systems technical trades and the naval electronics technical trades, will recover by about 2017, which is fine. The key is to continue to sustain that attraction.

What's important for me is to maintain an institution that is well led and has a clear vision, that treats people with respect and supports their families, and that attracts people to the service of their country at sea. That's where I put a lot of effort. When I visit our ships, when I talk to our sailors, as the chief and I did last week when we visited the Vancouver the Mediterranean, I see people who are happy, professional, switched on, trained, enjoying what they're doing, and feeding on the respect and recognition they get from Canadians. With that kind of environment, we will have no problem continuing to attract the finest Canadians.

I would say to you, without any bias whatsoever, that when I talk to other heads of navies, they always comment on the quality, the education, the self-confidence, the enthusiasm, of our young sailors, and they ask how we're able to do this. I think it's across the three services. We should be very proud in Canada that we continue to attract our finest men and women into uniform.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

You have 30 seconds.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Oh, dear. So I'll go really fast

The oil sands would be developed a lot further if they were not about 1,000 people short in the trades. I've been telling young folks who don't have a skilled job such as welding or plumbing to take a look at the Canadian Armed Forces. They can learn a trade in five to ten years, and they might find that they'd like to stay. Or they'd be ready to move into civilian life. Do you recommend those sorts of encouragements? If so, how do your recruiters address high school students, or even post-secondary students, to get the people you want?

[VAdm Paul Maddison]

Thank you for the question. We have a very active dialogue with the Association of Canadian Community Colleges, so we deal with the folks who attract people into community colleges. We do outsourcing with some community colleges--like the marine institute in Newfoundland, affiliated with Memorial University--to do some of our training.

The recruiters are in the schools and community colleges. We talk to educators when we can at the political level and at the public service level, and to university and college presidents and guidance counsellors. It's all about communication, in my view. There continue to be some negative biases about what it means to choose to serve in uniform, even in 2011. I think it's very important to continue to have that very active, positive, dynamic dialogue with those who influence our children.

It certainly would help to see those who are responsible for the curricula in the provinces review from time to time whether they are giving the right messages about service and how important the sacrifices of our men and women in uniform have been in building and ensuring the freedom we take for granted today, and just giving the young men and women the tools they need to make the right choices when they become adults.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you.

Mr. McKay you have the last of this seven-minute round.

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

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Vice-Admiral, for your contributions. On behalf of my party I would add our congratulations on a job well done.

There was an article in The Globe and Mail recently about Chinese businessmen wanting to purchase a golf course. There are some deep military suspicions that maybe the golf course isn't the only intention of the purchase of this, I think, 0.3% of the country. It's only a golf course, but it may have been in some respects a stalking horse for Chinese ambitions in the Arctic. Military officials suspect it's part of a Chinese plan to position strategic assets to be converted to ports and staging facilities.

It seems to be a bit of a game changer as far as threat assessment is concerned, but also sovereignty assessment—your ultimate tasking. While I appreciate that you may or may not be prepared to comment specifically on a golf course that might become a water hazard, I'd be interested in how you see those challenges in the near Arctic at least--and in the far Arctic--changing things and really affecting your ability to be ready to meet those challenges.

[VAdm Paul Maddison]

Thank you, Mr. McKay, for the excellent question.

I'll start off by saying that I think it's all about activity in the Arctic. It's all about increasing human activity in the Arctic. That is the challenge that is being presented to us and to all polar nations: how do you deal with the increased human activity from a maritime shipping perspective, and with the increased activities in the Arctic from increasing seabed resource extraction activities—enabled by technologies that just weren't available until recently—and with the effects of climate change and its impact upon our first nations? How do we deal with all of these pressures?

For me, the Arctic is like a parable in the 21st century of the kinds of pressures that are beginning to make themselves known upon the world's oceans, which have a direct bearing on Canadian national interests and the fact that the globalized economy floats. It needs to be kept open and rules-based, following the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Wherever there are illicit activities or trends that challenge the rules-based international order, I think we as Canadians need to be paying attention.

A few years ago it was brought to my attention that those who design ships for transoceanic commerce—the Maersks and the Daewoos of the world—had drawn up designs for ships that would be Arctic-capable in the 2020s and 2030s. What this signalled to me was that the shipping coming out of Singapore bound for Europe, instead of going west across the Indian Ocean, would go northeast of Japan, over the transpolar route, and into Europe that way. Why? It's because it's shorter and would save money.

What that tells me is that we as Canadians, from a naval perspective, need to continue to focus our priority on the Arctic and be able to develop a persistent “maritime domain awareness”, as we call it, a recognized maritime picture of what is happening in the Arctic, and to do so through a combination of deployed ships, space-based and other surveillance assets, working with our federal partners, the RCMP—

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

Does this mean that you're likely to be putting a port up there sooner rather than later?