Evidence of meeting #29 for National Defence in the 41st Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was forces.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Director, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, University of Manitoba
We have a presence, and we are developing surveillance capabilities.
Conservative
NDP
Christine Moore NDP Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
I read what you published. You explain that choosing a fighter jet is a policy and strategic decision. Choosing a latest generation high performance aircraft, for example, makes it possible to make policy decisions based on what we want to do rather than on our limits. It is really all about capabilities. In the case of the F-35s, there is also the issue of the associated cost overruns.
When does this investment designed to give us capabilities stop being advantageous for the country, for example, if it interferes with something else and compromises other things, from the budgetary perspective?
Director, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, University of Manitoba
It's a very good question, and one that almost has no answer. You're talking about opportunity costs. What is lost by continuing to invest in this if prices rise on this relative to existing alternatives and capabilities that different platforms provide you, relative to political and strategic considerations, and relative to the economic, industrial, and technology considerations that are all involved here?
I don't think anyone knows. This is one of the first times Canada has ever gone down the development path. Historically, Canadian investments for new platforms have largely been based on the principle that we won't buy them until they're mature and someone else has them flying. That provides some degree of guarantee of relative security about costs and capability. There are a lot of examples where we started down the path and then pulled out of it early on.
On this model of the JSF or F-35, the consortium we bought into early on looked like it was going to play out then. Unfortunately, the future never fits our past, and it should have been recognized as a gamble. But once you start to add political, strategic, and other considerations, you essentially get trapped and can't escape.
NDP
Christine Moore NDP Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
All right.
If, regardless of how we consider the budget, we simply do not have the financial capability to purchase 65 F-35 aircraft, would it be preferable to buy 65 good fighter jets other than the F-35s, or to buy fewer F-35s? In other words, from a strategic perspective, would it be better to buy 35 F-35 aircraft, or 65 other fighter jets?
Director, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, University of Manitoba
It's probably better to buy fewer F-35s. We've seen the allies who are involved in the program all starting to cut back their buys for budgetary reasons. But every time you cut one aircraft, the distribution of per unit cost will go up for everyone. The actual amount of savings you're going to accrue by reducing it is questionable down the road.
Why would anyone be surprised if the costs of any major military development program run over? They always do. No matter what you do, it will happen. It's very predictable. The question is how much and to what extent it gets to be too much. But strategically there is no other alternative for us.
You can look economically at the question of the alternatives. If Canada still wants to have a significant role in this strategic world, the aerospace world, it has no alternative but this platform. It cannot go down to a Super Hornet. It cannot go down to a SAAB Gripen. It can't go down to old technology Eurofighters or Rafaels. We're not going to buy Russian. We're not going to buy Chinese, of course. This is it. If we don't want to do this any more—and that's a political decision—everything in terms of working in coalitions with our allies will disappear, because this is the way our allies are going.
Conservative
Conservative
Rick Norlock Conservative Northumberland—Quinte West, ON
Thank you very much, and through you, Mr. Chair, to our witness, thank you for appearing today.
I'd like to deal with something that you said you felt you were an expert on, and that's the aerospace world.
Dr. Fergusson, in June of 2007, in a report titled Canada, National Security and Outer Space, which you prepared for the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute, you wrote, and I quote:
Space has been a national security issue for Canada for fifty years, but this matter's complexity and critical importance has never been greater than they are now.
I have two questions, maybe three, but two principal ones. What advancements have been made in the past five years in terms of the Department of National Defence and outer space? As a follow-up to that question regarding national security in outer space, what current threats does Canada face from outer space, and are there any weapons currently deployed on orbit that could attack Canada without us having advanced knowledge or threat?
Director, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, University of Manitoba
Thank you for that question. I know I go on. Academics, you should realize, always yak too long.
Conservative
Director, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, University of Manitoba
Okay. I'll be brief about the advancements. National Defence, after a 20-year very slow and torturous process, has made great advances in engaging Canada and National Defence in outer space. There's Project Polar Epsilon and the ability to receive the current RADARSAT data, analyze it, and spread it as needed, and what it will be able to do, once the RADARSAT constellation is expanded to a global constellation, will have great overseas value for the Canadian Forces and our allies. There's the development or access into U.S. secure, advance high-frequency communications, and there's the development of—I can't remember the name of the project off the top of my head—a system for ground forces to have space awareness, which will affect their operations. All of those things have been major steps forward.
My concern is whether they will continue down the path.
What are the current threats from outer space? To anyone's knowledge, there are no weapons deployed on orbit in outer space. We've seen recently, over the past several years, increasing concerns about Chinese anti-satellite capabilities, but let me emphasize where that point partially comes from. Any satellite on orbit in outer space, orbiting over Canada, whether in a polar orbit or some other orbit around the earth, under direction and proper guidance, can be dropped on anything you want. You can drop it on a city if you have the sophisticated guidance systems, and a chunk of a satellite coming down at rapid speed onto a city is a weapon that can be used.
We have no idea how countries like China, Russia, or Iran, which has now started to enter.... That's one of the major things that has changed over the past five years, the number of nations that are now entering...not just by placing satellites in orbit, but by developing launch capabilities. Once you get in there, you have significant strategic problems. If I had more time, I could go into the issues there.
So we don't know, but as far as evidence tells us right now in the public domain, no one has publicly said they have deployed a dedicated weapon on orbit.
Conservative
Rick Norlock Conservative Northumberland—Quinte West, ON
So if you're a rogue state—we won't mention which one, but you mentioned Iran, and we do know that what terrorists like to do is demoralize and destabilize—you could easily demoralize and destabilize, because we know that there are countries who will provide a platform to get your satellite up into space, and they don't particularly care who provides that satellite or that piece of equipment.
Are you saying that satellites could potentially be used by rogue nations in a terrorist type of scenario to destabilize and terrorize?
Director, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, University of Manitoba
Theoretically, yes.
One of the major American concerns in the early 1960s after the launch of Sputnik was that the Soviet Union would deploy nuclear weapons on orbit and the United States would not know, and they would be able to strike at American targets in less than a minute with no advance warning whatsoever. There was a reason why the Americans and the Soviet Union didn't go down that path, for strategic stability purposes.
Today, that can happen. Theoretically, that can happen. Its probability is low right now, but we have to look down the road to see, potentially, how they will think. We never thought anyone would fly an airplane into the World Trade Center. No one thinks someone might drop a satellite onto a city.
Conservative
Rick Norlock Conservative Northumberland—Quinte West, ON
What kind of damage could that cause? That would be the next logical question.
Director, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, University of Manitoba
I can't answer that question.
Conservative
Rick Norlock Conservative Northumberland—Quinte West, ON
If it's insignificant, then why worry about it?
Director, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, University of Manitoba
In a terrorist world, it's not so much the damage as the symbolic impact of the event.
Conservative
Rick Norlock Conservative Northumberland—Quinte West, ON
So it's destabilization and demoralization.
Conservative
NDP
Matthew Kellway NDP Beaches—East York, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Through you, Professor Fergusson, thanks for coming today.
You described dealing with the unpredictable as the real readiness challenge. I guess Mr. Norlock's question and your response just heightened those kinds of concerns, but I'm wondering if at least part of the solution is policy and whether policy is helpful in determining this issue of readiness, i.e., in assessing whether you're ready but also in establishing readiness. Do you have any thoughts on that?
Director, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, University of Manitoba
You're getting into the world of “what do we understand policy to be?” By and large, policy, at least public policy—that which is communicated to the public or that which I get to look at—is generally drafted in a relatively vague and ambiguous enough manner to be able to cover all potential contingencies and allow for activities to go on without specifying what they're going to be.
I think what you're really talking about is not the policy world, but, in the military world, the doctrine world, the development of specific doctrines. For the military, of course, doctrine is like the bible: how to do things. We have a long degree of experience of doctrinal development and doctrinal advancements and changes over time, largely, unfortunately, taking place after the fact, after we've entered into a conflict and found that existing doctrine has not worked.
NDP
Matthew Kellway NDP Beaches—East York, ON
Let me suggest to you that it's not doctrine that I'm talking about. We've had a lot of military folks here talking about doctrine in this context of readiness, and I think it has limited ability to help us, frankly, with this study.
David Bercuson was here the other day, as you no doubt know, and he mentioned this issue of policy or what he called a set of principles. I guess what I'm asking for is a very clear understanding of what our national interests are for military purposes in terms that others have talked about. How far does Canada project its borders, for example?
One of the troubling things, I think, is that in a lot of the conversations we end up in on this issue, we slip beyond defence broadly into discussions about a kind of economically integrated world. We look at the world as being entirely integrated in terms of national security issues, and therefore we essentially need to project our borders right around the world, which doesn't end up helping us. It gets us back into the trap or challenge you talked about, that we then have to be ready for the unpredictable.
Let me get a comment on this briefly. To me, the issue seems to be that we need a very clear statement about what our national interests are from a military perspective or a foreign affairs perspective, and it's only on that basis that we can intelligibly discuss readiness.
Director, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, University of Manitoba
That's a point I've heard a lot from the military—that they wish they had more policy guidance. The problem is, you can't get any more policy guidance. The fundamental principles of Canadian defence policy have been in place since the end of World War II—the defence of Canada, the defence of North America in conjunction with the United States, and contributions to international peace and security. As to the specific missions, consider the Canada First defence strategy, the 1994 white paper, and “Challenge and Commitment” in 1987. You can go back to all the white papers you want to look at this. If you look in detail at them, what are the missions of the Canadian Forces? With minor changes, they haven't changed at all.
Translating these missions into specific guidance is politically problematic. One of the lessons was the 1987 white paper “Challenge and Commitment”. The government specified how it was going to translate the missions—here's the guidance, this is what our forces are going to do. But in two years, the economy went down the toilet, the budget went out the window, and the challenge and commitment, despite what National Defence officials said, was thrown out the door. There was a lesson learned by government and policy drafters: you just can't do that; it's politically problematic because the future is unseen.
I think you're right. The problem is, how do you translate general policy guidance, our national interests, which are not apt to vary in my lifetime, into specific guidance for military development and military doctrine? That's always ended up as something for the military to decide. I don't see any change in that. I don't think you will get very far by going down that path.
Conservative
Mark Strahl Conservative Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I have to say, after my controversial weather report from British Columbia earlier this week, there was wet snow there yesterday, so everyone can feel better.
