National Defence Committee on April 26th, 2012

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

No “final final” question? How about a penultimate final question?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

No. You're 20 seconds over now, so thank you.

Mr. Alexander.

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

Thank you very much, Chair.

I think another way of responding to John's concern is simply to note that, even if there's, as you were saying, downward pressure on the U.S. defence budget, it's not at all clear that they would fail to prioritize NATO. They are talking and acting more and more as if their reliance on allies and multilateral frameworks is going to stay the same or even increase in some ways.

On the whole question of the party circuit, though, I do need to mention that you don't know what it's about unless you've seen Mr. Storseth after a hockey game on one of those rare occasions when his team has won.

[Voices]

Oh, oh.

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

I had to retaliate.

I have one final observation. We're absolutely right to have a debate around this table and in Canada about the relevance of NATO today. There are some detractors. but I think our sense on our side is that there are a lot of supporters, proponents, people who believe in NATO in different ways for different reasons. Canadians generally believe in collective security. The missions we've been involved in, in the last decade, have at one point or another been resoundingly popular—in Afghanistan in the early days, in Libya last year. I just wanted that observation to be part of our discussion today.

Thank you, Jill Sinclair, for mentioning the U.N. Canada's security concerns beyond Afghanistan are concentrated, and there are also political concerns in a few countries in the Middle East—Iran, Syria. They're in the headlines and on our minds. We all see from a strategic concept that NATO's Mediterranean dialogue and Istanbul cooperation initiative, as well as some contact countries, are important elements of the collective security vocation of NATO. Could you tell us a bit more about what those groups do for NATO and with NATO?

[Jill Sinclair]

Thanks very much.

The Mediterranean dialogue—which encompasses Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia—was elevated to partnership status in 2004. The Istanbul cooperation initiative was designed to reach out to other countries, principally the Gulf countries. I think what we saw, interestingly, in the Libya operation, for example, was that something that started as a bit of a place where the UAE and Qatar and Bahrain and Kuwait could have a chat with NATO, turned into a basis for real operational cooperation. We saw that in Libya. It was quite extraordinary.

In the Mediterranean dialogue, we have all sorts of training, consultation. We have discussions about cyber-threats, about maritime security issues. This is an effort by NATO to get the countries of the Mediterranean speaking to each other, which is a little bit unusual because some of those countries don't talk to each other and don't recognize the existence of certain countries, like Israel. So it's NATO's effort to foster dialogue, even between and amongst difficult partners, and then to say what we can do to practically cooperate, for example, in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, things that all countries can identify with. So that's what it is. These are not aspirants for membership; they are partners. Libya has shown just how useful that dialogue can be because it can lead to practical cooperation.

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

Thank you.

Earlier, the country of Estonia was mentioned. I understand it doesn't have an air force, but NATO plays a role in that and as a consequence, Estonia is able to make contributions to NATO in other ways. Could you please describe that to us?

[Jill Sinclair]

Brian, do you want to talk about the air policing initiative?

[Col Brian Irwin]

Very quickly, certainly NATO has an air policing program in which allies participate. Allies serve a six-month rotation in providing not only policing but being able to deploy aircraft to their region, so being able to fly that top cover in the Baltics.

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

Estonia didn't have to put money into the infrastructure and setting up an entire air force, but instead was able to deploy people, for example to Afghanistan, and make a contribution that way.

[Col Brian Irwin]

I'm not sure how that is connected.

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

Are there any other such sharing arrangements with different countries?

[Col Brian Irwin]

I think there are some with logistics. As part of the NATO program, a group of allies offer up a C-17 capability as another example.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you, the time has expired.

To follow on that vein, Iceland has the same type of air defence proposal with NATO. That's my understanding. Canada actually had a squadron of CF-18s in Iceland.

[Col Brian Irwin]

That's correct.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

I have one question before we shut down questions.

As you can see, the committee is quite concerned about a number of things happening with the strategic concept, especially on the issue of NATO transformation and capacity of our allies within NATO because of deficit reduction in all the countries. Some of them are fairly significant in some of our allies.

As we're going into Chicago at the end of the month, you have capabilities, or that's something that's going to be talked about. When talking about capacity, we know that some of our allies will not have the same asset base that they've had in the past. Someone raised the point that there may be revenue shortfalls experienced by NATO if some members, because of deficit reduction, aren't able to pay their entire share. Does that mean we may be looking, from a political standpoint and a military standpoint, at bringing in new members?

I know that Ukraine and Georgia, among others, have expressed NATO interest and possible membership. Would that be a way to enhance capabilities as well as fund opportunities?

[Jill Sinclair]

Mr. Chair, I probably didn't give enough emphasis to this, but I can't tell you the seriousness with which NATO allies are discussing the impact of the global economic situation. The impact on defence budgets is serious. A lot of this work around smart defence and smarter defence and wringing every cent out of one's defence dollar is what's compelling the discussions around NATO. I assume this will happen at the level of leaders in an even more intense way in Chicago.

So far, no allies have indicated that they won't be able to pay their assessed contribution, the price of membership, their share. In fact, it's interesting to see the commitment of allies to NATO is so strong, particularly with the smaller countries, which as I say Poland and others, Greece, Portugal, you name it, are in pretty difficult situations. They are committed to staying within NATO because it collectively brings them something they can't get singularly. We haven't seen any indication at all, and I really don't think we will, that people won't be able to pay their basic share in the alliance.

On the question of new members, it's never been looked at in terms of a financial contribution to the alliance. As you will recall, in 2008 we agreed that one day Ukraine and Georgia would become members, but they have to actually determine that they want to be in the alliance. Ukraine has gone back and forth, as we know. They also have to meet our standards frankly, our democratic standards, our professional standards, our governance standards, our civil-military relations standards. There's a bit of work to be done there. I don't think we would ever look at expansion within NATO as a means to kind of grab people, but that's where the partnership piece comes in.

What's interesting about Afghanistan and Libya is that NATO has become a focal point for countries that want to do stuff with us. We were able to leverage and expand NATO core assets and capability in Libya because we had the U.A.E., Kuwait, and all the other partners who were playing along with us, similar to what the Australians and others are bringing into ISAF. That's NATO at its very best. It brings the core capability and lets others join in with it. It finds a space for that political dialogue to happen, then it lets us all operate together in a single space.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you very much. I appreciate that, especially your comments on Ukraine. I'm of Ukrainian heritage and have been following the unravelling of democracy within Ukraine over a number of years and I've expressed quite a bit of concern over things that have happened, especially in just the past week.

I want to thank you again, Jill Sinclair, the assistant deputy minister for policy within the Department of National Defence, for your insight and for taking the time out of your schedule to always come and brief us and be quite candid in your responses with us. I really do appreciate that.

Colonel Brian Irwin, again it's a pleasure to have you here as a witness today.

I understand a couple of points have been raised that want to be discussed here briefly, so I have Mr. Alexander and then Ms. Moore.

Witnesses, you're free to go. Thank you very much.

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

Thanks, Chair.

Thanks indeed to the witnesses.

As discussed among some of us, I hope we will have the support of all committee members, in the spirit of building the right witness base for our report, in proposing to invite the defence minister of Lithuania to appear before the committee for one hour on the 17th of May. This is an opportunity for us, because she will be in Canada on her way to the Chicago conference summit, and this is one of the kinds of opportunities that we agreed to look at. I can confirm that she is available in principle. If the committee agrees, we would have to formalize the invitation.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

You have comments on that point, Mr. McKay.

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

My only comment is, if others are going through, it would be nice to get them here to talk about the very issues we've just been talking about: why do they see NATO as important?

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

Yes, and to have that session televised.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

We've already done some quick work here, Room 207C is available that day, and we will confirm her availability. She is in Canada from the 16th to the 18th before she goes on to Chicago, and has made herself available to us. So I see concurrence in that. We'll move ahead.

Madame Moore.

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

I would just like you to check something. Several members of this committee are also members of the Canadian NATO Parliamentary Association. We are just getting the preliminary itinerary for an upcoming trip to Estonia. Those going to Estonia will not be back in time for the committee meeting on May 29. So it would be useful to check how many members of the committee will be away that day. If it is lots, maybe we should think about whether the meeting should be held or not, because, with just substitutes, it will not be as meaningful. We should just check.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

So you are talking about the 29th of May?