National Defence Committee on March 8th, 2012

[Jill Sinclair]

There is always room for more training, of course. Within our capabilities to deliver training we're doing a fabulous job, and we do it as a whole-of-government team.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Great.

Regarding sanctions, we are depending for diplomatic pressure on the sanctions regime, perhaps more now than ever in Syria, Iran, and many other places. There are long-standing sanctions regimes for the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and the sanctions committee in New York is, I think, busier than ever. Do you think enough has been done to bring the sanctions tool into the modern era to reflect fully what's happening in a globalized economy and so forth? Or should that be an area of focus for us in the future? That's with a view to our conversation about readiness, because military readiness, and all of the military deployments we've had, have gone with a sanctions regime recently.

[Kerry Buck]

There are different sources for sanctions. I believe—firmly believe—that if you add the panoply of UN sanctions that can be implemented pursuant to chapter VII, plus sanctions done in coordination with like-minded states, then you can address some of the security concerns you have by using these sanctions.

Can you address them completely? It depends on the situation, to be frank. Sanctions have to be targeted at the source of the instability. For instance, regarding Iran's sanctions, Canada has been an absolute leader in this regard. We fully implemented the UN sanctions based on six Security Council resolutions. We brought them in. But in addition, we've done a number of other things to make sure that none of the component parts of Iran's nuclear program come from Canada.

So you add a whole host of measures brought in under the Special Economic Measures Act to those sanctions that are mandated by the Security Council to give you a big menu. But at the same time, we're working with partners to broaden the support for those sanctions and to deepen them, so pressuring on an oil embargo and moving to make sure that sanctions are outside of the small group of western states in order to make them broader. So a sanctions regime, yes—

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

So we have been innovating in that area.

One quick last question.

There was a report yesterday from the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London noting that this year for the first time military spending in Asia will outstrip military spending by European countries. We've talked in this committee about Obama's pivot to Asia, and some witnesses have suggested that there's an arms race in Asia under way. Are we ready for that?

[Jill Sinclair]

Yes, some academics have said that there's an arms race in Asia. Is there arms spending? Absolutely. Is it part of a modernization point? Yes, absolutely. Is it driven by certain players in the region who are modernizing and who always said they were going to do this modernization? Yes, China. But are we ready for an arms race? Let's look at the other side of the ledger, Chris.

There's the ASEAN Regional Forum, the work that's going on among the countries, which is actually quite unprecedented for a region that never sat around multilateral tables. There's also the ASEAN Defence Ministers' Meeting. So there's a lot more dialogue and engagement. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't be concerned about increased military spending, but militaries are all about having a capability. It's the intent of the governments to use that capability that really worries you, and that's where the analysis has to be.

[Kerry Buck]

If I may add, I know there's a lot of talk about a strategic pivot to Asia. We've always been a Pacific nation as well as an Atlantic nation. There's no one NATO for Asia, but we do have a number of things—not just the ASEAN Regional Forum—but a whole array of political-military and military-military dialogues with key Asian partners: Japan, South Korea, India, etc.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you. Time has expired.

Before we go to the third round, I have a couple of questions I want to interject with.

The whole time that we've been dealing with readiness, we've been talking about lessons learned, about the whole-of-government approach that we always deploy in an international coalition. The one thing that I believe Canada has done extremely well is deal with the issue of cultural sensitivities. Unfortunately, we have just experienced in Afghanistan some asinine decisions that were made in destroying holy books, and there's been significant fallout.

How has that situation evolved over the last couple of weeks? I'd like to know that. And I'd like to know what we're doing as a country to reach out to our international partners to ensure that they undertake correct cultural training so that these types of circumstances don't arise.

[Jill Sinclair]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

In terms of reaching out to the international partners, I think I said, in response to an earlier question, that Canada's mission in Afghanistan, the way in which we have engaged with local communities and the way in which we prepared our folks before they went out, is the gold standard. I can tell you that around the NATO and ISAF table, countries come to us for our lessons learned, for our practitioning practices, and for how we prepare people. We have a lot of delegations that come through and learn from us, because we have managed to do this, and it's through good training and good preparation. These are volatile situations, and people have to be aware of all of the many sensitivities that exist within these societies.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

We're in this situation today because of decisions that were taken by our coalition partners. It has undermined our ability on the ground in the whole areas of training and stabilization. It's not only affecting our soldiers who are doing that training, but also our diplomats and departmental officials who are part of that reconstruction team. When we're talking about whole of government and working with our international partners, what types of discussions are we having with our coalition partners, with the ISAF?

[Kerry Buck]

Within ISAF in Brussels—a bit at NATO headquarters, but more importantly in the field—there has been intense discussion through the chain of command, but with the civilian side as well, about the appropriate response to the Koran burning incident. They are assessing if there were any gaps in decision-making and the cause of that particular incident, but they're also looking at damage mitigation with the Afghan population—a communications strategy to the Afghan population to clearly explain that this was a serious mistake and no disrespect to Islam was meant.

At the same time we are talking to some Muslim states through diplomatic channels to reiterate sincere regret that something like this would happen, but also to make it clear that this was not a message from ISAF. It was not a message from ISAF allies or partners in any way. Mistakes happen, and this was a mistake. I think NATO has been very clear in how it's communicating that mistake. We've talked to folks like the new government in Libya, etc., to say, “How can we help you, and how can you help us manage any fallout from this incident?”

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

As we move forward talking about readiness when we're working with our coalition partners, what are we articulating here?

[Kerry Buck]

It's part of an overall approach that we have been taking, but there are always mistakes—and we'll continue to take cultural sensitivity training—when you deploy missions to a region and there are cultural gaps from the people deployed to the country into which you're deploying.

I said earlier that we're trying to make sure that the global south...the pool of troop-contributing counties is larger. This isn't just about burden sharing; it's about political messaging and suitability of troops when they deploy. One of the reasons Canada has been omnipresent in Haiti—and there are many Haiti deployments to MINUSTAH and its security sector reform, etc.—is because of our bilingual nature. We have a civil code background and we can be more interoperable with the Haitian forces, for instance, the Haitian police, than perhaps other nations.

Cultural awareness training is integrated into all of the training we do for troops we deploy. We do it and continue to do more. It's a matter of choosing the right troops to deploy so that you minimize the cultural gap. That is a push that we have all been putting on over the last decade, and will continue to do so.

Mistakes happen. This is a very unfortunate one, but we're working to mitigate damage with our NATO partners.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

I have a quick follow-up.

Have operations today in Kabul returned back to normal levels by our troops and training?

[Jill Sinclair]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

They don't feel there is a threat there any longer.

[Jill Sinclair]

We think there's—

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

There's always a threat, I understand that, but the elevated circumstances we're under....

[Jill Sinclair]

It's back to the normal operating situation.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

My final question is to DFAIT.

Talking about the Canada First defence strategy, one of the key components is our Arctic sovereignty. What role is DFAIT playing in supporting the Canada First defence strategy in relation to our role in the Arctic?

[Kerry Buck]

I'll start on that, but Jill will likely have more details to add. She was doing this, and at the time I was not directly on the file.

I'll give you an example. The Arctic search and rescue agreement is a good example of the close cooperation between our two departments on Arctic matters. It was negotiated under the auspices of the Arctic Council that we sit on in DFAIT. The Canadian delegation was led by the Department of Defence under the leadership of Lieutenant-General Lawson, with support from us and the Canadian Coast Guard. This is a microcosm of how we hold government coordination on the Arctic.

I think I'll leave it at that.

[Jill Sinclair]

I would just add quickly—and Kerry and Marie can jump in—that the northern foreign policy, the government's overall approach to the Arctic, provides the broad framework within which CFDS and the Canadian Forces play out our part on Arctic sovereignty. There's a very close linkage here: the work that Foreign Affairs does on the Arctic Council, for example. We stay in very, very close contact to make sure our Arctic sovereignty mandate and mission is reinforced by what's going on from Foreign Affairs. It's a very close partnership between the two departments.

Also, Foreign Affairs—and here you guys can jump in—has a hub in Oslo that is actually focused on Arctic issues. The situational awareness we get from the work that Foreign Affairs officers do from that hub in Oslo helps inform what we are doing with regard to fulfilling our mandate on Arctic sovereignty.

Obviously we do our own work, too, from a strictly military perspective, but it's a very close relationship there.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you.

Madame Moore, third round.

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

I would like to discuss slightly different issues in order to take advantage of Ms. Vidricaire and Ms. Sinclair being here.

In terms of the Canadian Forces' history, you could say that the Disaster Assistance Response Team is a relatively new unit. We had the opportunity to talk to the commanding officer. He explained to us that the members of that unit were not all at the same location and that the team made sure they were available for deployment. Do you feel that is the best solution, in terms of readiness, or should the members be at the same location instead?

In addition, I quickly read that, on one occasion, a team was ready to respond to a requirement, but since no aircraft was available to transport the machine for water transformation, the operation had to be postponed a bit. Do you think that unit should have aircraft and a crew available on site so that its needs are met and it can respond more quickly in the case of a natural disaster? What's your assessment of that unit?

[Marie Gervais-Vidricaire]

Based on my own experience in the deployment of the Disaster Assistance Response Team, or DART, I would say that the response was very satisfactory. The team was ready to assess the needs very quickly. A survey party was very quickly sent to talk about how DART should be deployed, but it took some time for DART itself to set up on site with all its equipment.

In the case of Sri Lanka, for instance, the first step consisted in arriving on site and talking to the local authorities to ensure that they agreed with the deployment. We cannot go ahead with a deployment without that agreement. We had to figure out where assistance was most needed. So some diplomacy, of sorts, and survey work were needed. I was amazed at how quickly that could be done. In a day and a half, we succeeded in obtaining a recommendation for the prime minister, specifying where we could deploy. Afterwards, it took about two weeks to deliver all that was necessary.

There is always room for improvement, but I think the way we are currently organized is well-suited to the new needs.

[Jill Sinclair]

Thanks. I'll just add to what Marie said. I share her assessment of the effectiveness of the DART.

Your question was whether it is better to have a unit there all the time ready to go or to do it the way we're doing it. I think successive operations have shown that by doing it the way we're doing it we can respond quickly. The fact is, we need to have everybody available for certain contingencies all the time. The key is to make sure we have folks on maximum readiness who can be brought to a crisis very quickly if they're needed, and we have been able to do that successfully.

As Marie also said, an important part of the DART process is this assessment team that goes out. Often what we find from the assessment teams, which are usually led by Foreign Affairs, is that it will be, “You know what? There are actually quicker commercial means available. There's actually food available in the country. We don't need you to fly stuff from Canada or from somewhere else.” That assessment part of it, before you actually deploy the pointed end of the DART, has been proven to be a very good methodology of responding quickly, effectively, and appropriately to crises.

With regard to equipment—and again, here I will defer to my military colleagues—I would simply say that since we've had the C-17s there's no question that our ability to get strategic airlift, to move stuff out quickly, to be places on the other side of the world, has vastly, vastly improved. That is a really important new instrument in our ability to respond quickly and effectively.