National Defence Committee on Dec. 15th, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Time expired a couple of minutes ago, but we'll keep on going.

We're going to go to the five-minute round.

Mr. Norlock, you have the floor.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Through you to our witness, thank you for coming today.

My background is in uniform also, but more in a civilian capacity.

[VAdm Bruce Donaldson]

It's just as important, sir.

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

Yes, well, we all complement each other.

One of the managerial techniques we utilized was management by results. This has to do with measuring.

As Vice Chief of the Defence Staff, how do you ensure that the Canadian Forces are able to fulfill the six core missions as outlined in the Canada First defence strategy?

There are three parts to the question. The second part is how you decide how to allocate resources. Presumably you allocate them where levels are lower. But how do you measure readiness, and what's the measuring capacity? What metrics do you use to determine the readiness?

Finally—and I think this is probably what we are most interested in or focused on—you have to compare. Part of measuring is comparing. So what is the current state of readiness in the Canadian Forces compared to what it was a year ago? And then could you compare that to what it was 10 years ago, so this committee can have a good idea as to our readiness measurement ability?

[VAdm Bruce Donaldson]

Well, sir, first of all, how do I measure readiness? This has been a fairly challenging aspect of managing Canadian defence for some time. We have historically left it to the heads of the army, navy, and air force to measure their levels of readiness and to confirm that to the centre.

Readiness is measured in terms of the capacity to survive and succeed in missions at a very high risk and a high level of complexity, the capacity to survive and achieve mission success in a lower level of risk and complexity, and the number of units that are not at either of those two levels of readiness and are in fact generating towards or have just cycled out of those two levels of readiness.

We have established that common metric across the Canadian Forces, notwithstanding that if you're talking about an army unit, it's really quite a different thing to measure than a navy ship, or an aircraft, or a squadron in the air force. But those are the basic and strategic levels of readiness that we have focused on.

We have typically asked the heads of the army, navy, and air force to produce as much readiness as they can with the resources they've historically had—that we either bump up a little bit or take down a little bit each year—and to tell us what is the effect of fewer resources or what effect they can achieve with more resources. So we're really managing that kind of 10% band.

We're doing a fundamental review now of the readiness requirements of the Canadian Forces so that we can establish 100% of the ready forces we need in order to be able to conduct those six missions concurrently, and so that we can take to government what are the types of trade-offs we're facing in a resource-constrained environment moving forward.

I would say that we always hold a number of ships, a number of aircraft, and a number of army units at high readiness, that is, they are ready to deploy into high-intensity operations and fight and win for Canada at home or abroad. I can say that the number at that high readiness is consistent with our commitments to NATO and consistent with our view of the threats. As things change, we can cycle more units into high readiness with the right amount of notice. As resources become more constrained, we can shift readiness out of one service or one type of platform and invest it in another so that we can compensate for it. But that's how we go about measuring it.

We do it in two domains. The first is current readiness. We track current readiness now against our expectations in those domains: high readiness, standard readiness. We do that weekly. Generally speaking, the service commanders report that. We also track it in the future domain. This is when I say we're doing the work to establish that readiness baseline for the future so that we can do resource planning around it, and we can make sure we have committed future resources against the cost of readiness in the future, moving there.

You ask about resource allocation. Historically, we have allocated resources based on what we used to do and have asked people to produce as much readiness as they could. Now we've become more prescriptive and far more specific. We will be continuing to develop ways of measuring degrees of readiness that relate not so much to the basic judgment of commanders as specific criteria that will have been met; this, however, is a complex business, and particularly with the introduction of new platforms and that sort of thing, it will be an evolving business moving forward.

Finally—and it has taken a while for me to get to the question you say everyone is most interested in—how are we doing compared to a year ago and how are we doing compared to 10 years ago? One year ago we were generating 3,000 Canadian Forces members to deploy to Afghanistan about every six months, between six months and a year. It depended on the rotations. We had a road to war where, with those 3,000 deployed, we saw another 3,000 who were getting ready to deploy and a further 3,000 who were being identified and being given the basic components of readiness so they could start on that road to war. There are quite a lot of people engaged in that readiness stream.

So I would say the Canadian Forces, between that requirement and the other challenges in 2010 that required us to raise our level of readiness, to hone it, and to be prepared, were at the highest level of readiness and the highest level of operational capability we've been at since probably after the Second World War, if not during the Second World War. But as I said in my opening remarks, that was a bit of an artificial benchmark.

My view is that we are less ready today because we are reconstituting and we are shifting into a more realistic steady state of readiness for the Canadian Forces, which will be affordable over the long term.

We're looking at some adjustments as well. I would put the Canadian Forces today against any other military in the world. I'd say that 10 years ago I would not have been able to say that.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you. Your time has expired.

Ms. Moore, you have five minutes.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

First, I thank you for being here today. We appreciate your being here. I was a member of the Canadian Forces for a little over three and a half years. I would like to wish you happy holidays and I would very much appreciate it if you could pass those wishes along to your colleagues.

My question is similar to Mr. Kellway's. I would like to know whether you think the readiness of the Canadian Forces includes some of the weakest aspects.

[VAdm Bruce Donaldson]

With regard to the level of readiness, I think we have areas that we need to continue to work on in the Canadian Forces. I think we're doing a good job of looking after ill and injured, but I think we can continue to improve with regard to looking after families.

On the level of readiness, I'll start with the navy. I'll say two things.

The first is that the destroyers and the replenishment ships are old and difficult to keep at a level of readiness consistent with our expectations. They're also very expensive to keep at that level of readiness. So as quickly as possible we are advancing the shipbuilding replacement program so that the air defence capability and the command and control capability for deployed maritime forces can be made more robust. I think managing that gap in replenishment and in command and control and air defence ships for the navy will be an area of challenge over the next five to ten years.

We have had a challenging period with the submarines in the navy, but I'm confident that we are emerging from what the navy commander calls a “long beginning” to bring those submarines that will be exceptionally powerful components of the Canadian Forces back into a level of full weaponized operational service that will return value for Canada.

On the air side, I would say the challenge lies in the number of new platforms being introduced. There are a lot of very capable platforms being brought into the air force all at the same time. They're introducing more new platforms at the same time than we have ever introduced before. We're working that area very carefully, and the commander of the air force is watching that very carefully, particularly on the people side, to make sure we don't introduce weakness that draws away from the level of readiness we need in the air force.

On the army side, as I have said, we have redeployed from a long mission in Afghanistan, and a lot of the army's equipment and a number of the army's vehicles are being refurbished, because the conditions in Afghanistan were difficult. The equipment needs to be brought back up, not to perfect condition but to a usable condition, so we have the right number of vehicles and weapons systems for the army ready to deploy on the level of notice we expect.

That is an area the army is working through, and I think it will take about a year and a half until we are over most of that whole reconstitution bubble and back in steady state for the army. It doesn't mean we can't respond with the army, but it does mean that the number of concurrent missions would be limited right now because of that.

Does that answer your question?

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Yes. I had the opportunity to speak to General Natynczyk. That is all I had to ask the leadership of the Canadian Forces. That is more than enough for me. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you.

We'll continue on.

I have Mr. Strahl.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Vice-Admiral.

In your presentation, the portion that caught my attention, of course, was the part where you said you couldn't promise that over the next few years the Canadian Forces would be able to sustain all six core missions simultaneously, as happened last year. Looking at the six core missions, we would certainly think being able to deliver on some of those—doing domestic operations, responding to major terrorist attacks, supporting civilian authorities in a time of natural disaster—is not optional.

In your planning, obviously you've looked ahead and said that you might not be able to do what you did last year. Do we no longer have six core capabilities to start with in the planning stage? Do we take them as they come and then say we can't do any more? How do you plan for that when certainly we would anticipate that there's a priority in those six core missions?

[VAdm Bruce Donaldson]

Thank you very much for the question.

In my opening remarks I actually said that we can't guarantee that we could respond to all six to the same extent we did in 2010. In fact, to prepare us to respond the way we did in 2010 took about two years of preparation. We stood up the operational commands—Expeditionary Force Command, Canada Command, and Operational Support Command—so as to be able to manage that period of vulnerability and to make sure that, as we were doing some of those six missions, we could still retain the capacity to do the others.

If you look at a major security event, for example, the presumption is that you would have at least six months, if not a year or two, to prepare security support for the police for an event like that. But my view is that without that type of notice, and a short notice major security event...if we were committed to another major operation abroad, if we were doing another humanitarian mission, and if we were responding to a terrorist attack as well as a floods and fires, we might tell the government that there was not an awful lot left to be providing security support to the police without more notice. That's really what I'm getting at: how quickly do you want to respond to these things?

This is fundamental to the structure of readiness for a force. With six core missions—and I agree with you, sir, that there is not one of those for which I would say, “Oh well, we just don't have to do that”—if you decide to respond to one with everything you have, you can't respond to the others. So the question is, how much do you want to have ready to hold against each of those six, and how much do you want to risk-manage against those?

Let's be clear: we don't risk-manage security of Canadians at home. We don't risk-manage day-to-day operations. These are fundamental to how we're structured and how we're ready to respond. But for some of the other responses—for example, to a humanitarian disaster, or even for a second, or a first, major international operation—we might have to decide just what level of forces we wished to commit to that operation in order to make sure we retained sufficient forces to be able to respond to others.

In modelling the future force in a resource-constrained environment, these are the types of issues that we would take to government, so that the options for shaping a force within the available envelope would be understood.

Does that answer your question?

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

It does. It leads to maybe more questions, such as what it would take for you to be able to promise that over the next few years you would be able to meet those six core missions as you have previously.

[VAdm Bruce Donaldson]

What I could say is that if I could not promise that I could meet each of those six, then I would make that clear to government, because that's my job.

It's quite clear: we have those six missions and we must be able to respond to them. But there is a difference between responding to major security support with 1,200 people and with 4,500 people. There is a difference between responding to a natural disaster in Canada with 1,000 people and with 10,000 people. There's a difference between the response to an international humanitarian crisis, for example, with two ships and 2,000 people, or with five ships, eight aircraft, and 15,000 people. So the question is, what types of response packages do you want to have available, and at what level of readiness would you hold them?

We are always conscious that when we commit forces—for example, in the recent operation in Libya—we have to immediately start thinking about who will replace those forces if this mission continues, because we can't keep them there forever, and what other forces are available that remain to respond to the other requirements? In many cases, we will identify forces to come up to a higher level of readiness because we have deployed forces to a mission.

But it gets back, again, to managing readiness in the force. If you are holding forces that can be brought up to a level of readiness in about 30 days, that's very different from forces that will take six months to come up to that level of readiness. So in managing the whole machine, that is what readiness—that portion, that pillar of the Canadian Forces—is all about: managing that whole force within limited resources.

I would say that at the core of this is an understanding that if all six of them happened at once, what is sufficient in each of those areas to respond to the expectations of government...? That's a policy decision of government.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you.

Mr. Brahmi, you have the floor.

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Chair, I do not have any other questions to ask. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Merci.

Moving right along, we'll go to Ms. Gallant.

You have the floor.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Through you to our witness, Mr. Chairman, my question has partly to do with the NATO response force. Originally, it was supposed to be a rapid response force, but I understand from what we've been told that the next regiment with the highest state of readiness would be deployed as part of this international force. They must first train together and then become available for a six-month period. But for rapid deployment, the training together would take some time, so we really don't have that rapid element in terms of an entire regiment.

So what I'm wondering is, within the Canadian Forces, do we have a tactical regiment that is self-sustaining, an all-arms light brigade tasked with rapid reinforcement of NATO forces, one that has a signals squadron element, an infantry field artillery, field engineers, service support, and a mechanized element? Is there something of that nature in place right now?

[VAdm Bruce Donaldson]

Thank you for the question.

Yes, there is, although I wouldn't characterize it as a regiment. I would characterize it as a battle group, which is a flexible instrument that is structured to respond to the specific conditions on the ground. It is the army commander's responsibility to maintain forces at that level of capability.

But I would say that we do not hold them at a level of capability that would see us deploy them in two days as a force that big; it would be hugely expensive to hold them at that level of readiness. So we tend to hold them at a level of readiness that is sufficient, within the warning time we think we will have, to be able to bring them up to that very short notice level of readiness so they can deploy on time when we need them.

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

Which group is this? Which unit is this?

[VAdm Bruce Donaldson]

Well, I can't tell you exactly what unit it is. I can take that on notice, if I can share that information, and pass that on.

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

Okay.

What I'm describing is different from any special forces, CSOR, or anything like that. I'm talking about a ready battle group.

The capability that I'm looking to find out whether or not we still have is what we had in capability with the airborne. They were originally stood up for the defence of Canada, operations against small-scale enemy incursions into the north and the provision of short-notice response to United Nations requests for peace operations, including patrolling, winter operations, domestic operations, and to help in response to civil authorities.

Now northern sovereignty and the defence of the north are our government's priorities. While the main threat may have changed, there are still threats that have been expressed to this committee—threats involving human trafficking, the smuggling of drugs and people, environmental threats, and the protection of our natural resources. So at a time when this is our government's priority—and we all agree that we can't be every place at the same time when it comes to the vast expanse of our north—what you're telling me is that we don't have a really rapid response capability of that nature to respond to whatever threats could befall us.

[VAdm Bruce Donaldson]

No. What I'm saying is that in terms of an immediate reaction to a large-scale military attack in the north, it needs to be held at a level of readiness that's consistent with our view of the threat.

Now as you've pointed out, there are threats in many other areas that require a much more agile and rapid response capability. We have immediate reaction units at a high level of readiness across the country, in three different locations, that very quickly can be deployed to deal with a requirement for a Canadian Forces reaction to natural disasters, to low-level requirements for presence, and to manage those types of situations, particularly in conjunction with other government departments.

We have a joint task force in the north with headquarters in the north. It has very close relationships with the territorial governments, so that we can position the Canadian Forces to respond immediately to security requirements in the north that require a Canadian Forces response. And we have ongoing relationships with the federal agencies responsible for those responses as well, to coordinate them.

We have special reserve companies that are trained in Arctic operations, so that they are able to be deployed into those conditions and have a level of understanding of the operating conditions so that they can work very quickly and capably in the north, and we continue to develop that capability.

Finally, we have the Canadian Rangers, who live in the north, understand the north, and are available to respond in the north on a daily and hourly basis. In fact, they are the eyes and ears of the north for the Canadian Forces. They do amazing work in bringing problems to our attention, being the first military responders on the ground to understand a situation, and helping us coordinate a response with the territorial governments and the federal government.

In terms of a major battle group ready to deploy into the north, that is not a posture that we keep at a very high level of readiness at the moment.

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

The ones you describe, do they train together?

[VAdm Bruce Donaldson]

Yes, they do.