National Defence Committee on Feb. 9th, 2012

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

You have about 45 seconds.

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

Okay.

Because of the significant cuts to spending that you're advocating, which of the six core missions of the CFDS would you eliminate?

[Steven Staples]

In terms of defence strategy, there are always three key missions for the Canadian Forces: the first is defence of Canada; the second is contribution to the defence of North America; and the third is international contributions. In our view, we can do all three, and we should be primarily focused on them in that order.

Certainly providing a service to Canadians and an aid to civil order right here in Canada, which would comprise defending our sovereignty, is a key capability that we need to maintain. Search and rescue is also part of that mandate, and that has been sorely lacking in terms of replacements of the Buffalos. Fixed-wing search and rescue on the west coast has been gone for years, yet we've gone out and acquired Leopard tanks and C-17s, and everything else seems to jump the queue over needs for our military right here at home.

I hope there's been more discussion about the search and rescue technician who unfortunately perished waiting for four hours for a helicopter to come and pick him up in the Arctic late last year. I think that exposed a significant gap and oversight within our domestic search and rescue capability. I think we should definitely focus on that.

We are contributing to the defence of North America. We are part of NORAD. I think that will continue. I'm happy, though, that Canada did not join ballistic missile defence and the mid-course ground-based missile defence system. I think that was a wise decision, and I support that.

Contribution to international missions, where it makes sense.... As I mentioned, I think we need to contribute more to UN peacekeeping operations. I would also say that I'm relieved this government has brought missions to votes in Parliament. I think that's an important change and something that Canadians welcome. I hope the government will continue with that.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you.

Mr. Kellway.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

To our guests, thanks for coming today.

I'd like to continue on in the same vein as Mr. Staples was responding to that question. One of my frustrations with this study so far has been that we seem to be talking past each other on this issue of readiness. We started off with a long lineup of senior military folks coming to talk to us about readiness. At some point on the definition of readiness, the response was, “We're always ready. Irrespective, in a sense, of the state of our armed forces, we're always ready.” I appreciate very much that attitude, but at some point it doesn't help advance the study.

Then we get this response from the folks who were here earlier today saying we have to be ready for the unexpected, which is to say that we have to be ready for anything. That, too, isn't all that helpful.

Chris suggests that spending has this correlation with readiness. As John pointed out, the more you spend, the more ready you are. Then Mark said, well, the soldier's life is priceless. Agreed, but where does that take us, because we spend—I don't know what we end up spending.

Yet we also heard from the Norwegians when they came here that they actually made a lot of spending cuts in their defence and came to the conclusion and told us here that they came out of that process with more effective defence forces. We've been reading the same from the Americans with their recent cuts as well.

Somewhere in all of this there has to be a definition of readiness that isn't correlated entirely with the money you spend, that isn't just equated with “We've got to protect every soldier's life because they're priceless”. I don't know where that takes us. One obvious response is to take them out of combat if we're putting them in danger.

You made the hawk, dove, and owl reference earlier, which I like very much. What does the owl say about a definition of readiness that's useful for us here, that we can actually use to assess if we're ready? What does it even mean? Could you comment on all of that and relieve my frustration somewhat?

[Steven Staples]

It's difficult. As I say, you could say yes, we are ready, everything's fine, and just carry on. Or you could say no, we're not ready, as some of the previous presentations said, and the answer is a 9% to 10% increase in defence spending year after year, continuing into the future, which I don't think is realistic either.

I think the question, as I said, is being ready for what? It's defining our core capabilities. I think we owe it to our military services to say, as Canadians--we should involve the public in defining this as well--that this is what we see as the threats to our country that we need to defend ourselves against.

We also want to make contributions internationally. I think we're fundamentally internationalist people who support the United Nations. These are the missions and capabilities we want to do. If we can make that make sense within a fiscal framework, we should do that and make sure that our men and women in the armed forces have the equipment to accomplish those missions carefully. We should make sure that we choose those missions and those deployments very carefully as well.

I grew up in New Brunswick. A lot of my friends went into the military. A lot of the military folks are drawn from the Maritimes. That's where I'm from. They volunteered their lives. I have a lot of respect for that. They did that knowing that they would carry out their orders. But they had to be assured that the missions they were asked to carry out were absolutely necessary, essential, and that they were not the first resort but the last resort. That's the kind of social contract we have with soldiers. I think we need to bear that out.

If we don't have a clear definition of what we want our forces to do.... There are bound to be gaps that emerge as various special interests within the military establishment and elsewhere want to get their pieces of the pie funded. In the end, you just end up not doing anything very well. You're spread over too many capabilities.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you. Your time has expired.

Mr. Lobb, you have the last question of the day.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Thanks for coming today, Mr. Staples.

Does your institute submit a pre-budget submission to either Minister MacKay or Minister Flaherty?

[Steven Staples]

Yes, we do.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

What was your spending advice this year for defence? What was the number for the 2012-13 budget?

[Steven Staples]

You may have a number, as well, in the alternative federal budget....

At that point we look mostly at trends overall. We did put a pre-budgetary submission in. We outlined some of these concerns. We said that over the next five years or more, we should be returning to pre-9/11 levels.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

What was your trend for this year?

[Steven Staples]

I think that if you're looking at 5% to 10%, and you're considering that defence has grown one and a half times what the government has had, that should be a factor. Maybe we should be looking at a 7% to 15% reduction in defence spending this year and phased in over time. I think you can't look at it in one year.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

What's the number five years from now? We're at $21 billion or $22 billion. What would it look like five years out? Do you have a number? Is it $15 billion, $10 billion? What's the number?

[Steven Staples]

I'll ask David to respond.

[David Macdonald]

I think your submission to the alternative federal budget this year was a goal of approximately $15 billion.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Five years from now it would be $15 billion.

[David Macdonald]

That's right.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

What kinds of things are you proposing to cut? We're interested in hearing what specific things you're planning to cut.

[Steven Staples]

I mentioned a number of equipment acquisitions and some projects that I think could go. Submarines, number one, should be gone tomorrow. They should be the first thing retired.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Okay.

[Steven Staples]

Then there are new acquisitions coming online: close combat vehicles--gone; F-35s--shelved. Go back to a competition on that.

The shipbuilding strategy I'm worried about. I don't know what's in that basket. It's a very big figure. A lot of people are excited about it, but I don't think it's very clear what the various missions of these ships are going to be. I think all of that needs to be reviewed.

The Canada First defence strategy needs to come under review.

I think we could look at troop levels as well, and whether we need to maintain them. Certainly personnel costs eat up a very large proportion of our defence spending.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Fair enough. That's your position, and those are your suggestions and submissions for the next five years. So we're cutting 35% or 40% at least—close to 50% with your numbers there—I guess probably 40%.

That being said, is it your position that Canada can still be an effective member of NATO?

[Steven Staples]

Certainly. I think we can be a very effective member of NATO. Canada will always be welcome around the NATO table.

The good thing about NATO is that it's a coalition of countries, and we shouldn't all be trying to do the same thing.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

I think there's a distinction, though, between being an effective member of NATO and being welcome at the table. There's a distinction there. We shouldn't mix our words with the specific issues.

Do you feel that Canada, moving forward, should be involved in missions such as we were in Libya? In the future—who knows what will happen with the geopolitical climate in the Middle East with Syria—do you feel that Canada should participate in those missions, or should we sit on the sidelines? What is your position?