National Defence Committee on Oct. 20th, 2011

[MGen Steve Bowes]

The situation has improved. Gains are always tenuous, because every day brings you a new challenge.

We have equipment. Without being able to quantify where we were at in 2001 and where we're at now, what I should really do is to emphasize that we're trying to recover all the equipment from Afghanistan--the mission transition task force is doing that--and bringing it back, refurbishing it as required, doing the checks, and getting that equipment ready to go. That's going to take us about a year. It's a process, in the military parlance, of reloading the army, getting it ready to go again. So we're working that piece.

At the same time, readiness to us is an ongoing issue, because every day there may be an officer or an NCO who is retiring, somebody else who going needs to be promoted, or somebody else who has to be trained to take their place. It's a continuous process for which we have coined the term “perpetual training”.

So as you move across the army and you look at all the various brigades, not everybody is training at the same high level on a daily basis. We have good equipment now. We have soldiers and we're intensely proud of what they have achieved, but we're only as good as today when we start again.

Frankly, we can be informed and proud of our past, but we have to face the challenges that we have. And we have significant readiness and training challenges to move forward to adapt the army to whatever reset the government wants us to do in the future.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Your time has expired.

Mr. Cleary, you have the floor.

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I enjoyed the presentation. Thank you very much, Major-General. I have a few questions.

You mentioned that the military has made huge strides in building mutual respect between the regular and reserve army. That leads me to believe there wasn't always that mutual respect there.

Can you expand on that?

[MGen Steve Bowes]

Sure. Absolutely.

It was not common 5 to 10 years ago for the regular and reserve components to train together. So when you don't train together and you don't work together, you don't know each other.

So it's not a question of respect in the sense of there being something opposite, but when you eventually work with somebody, regardless of whatever walk of life they are from, you gain respect for the skills they bring to the table. In many cases, you did not know that individual. You did not know what they were capable of, and so that's where the army really was.

Afghanistan has provided that context through the last five to seven years, where a significant number of reservists came out in support of the operation and performed brilliantly. We have a level of integration now and a level of respect that needs to be maintained, because it makes the army more efficient, more effective, but it also connects us as a base to Canadians.

I like to use this analogy. We have our three regular brigades, and we're very proud of them, but they work in three locations across the country with some smaller detached units. But the reserves are in every major community across the country. They are connected to Canadians in a way that makes it difficult for us working in those larger bases and being more isolated.

There are strengths that the reserves bring to the table that we clearly recognize we do not want to lose. And I think that's where that respect is today, as opposed to not working together, which is where we were 5 to 10 years ago.

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

I have to ask this question. You mentioned the reservists in Newfoundland, which is where I'm from. How big are the reserves in Newfoundland?

[MGen Steve Bowes]

There are about 800 reservists there.

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

You mentioned, as well, that for our soldiers there is a risk they might want to seek other challenges if we don't keep them engaged. Did you mean they might leave the military?

[MGen Steve Bowes]

That's correct.

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Do you have any projections of the size of the force you could lose if you don't have those challenges available?

[MGen Steve Bowes]

I have no indication. That's really something in the field of the Chief Military Personnel command, which does that kind of analysis based on questionnaires and the like. So we have some military personnel analysis for that. We run through a process called the annual military occupation review, which projects what those rates are going to be.

But to me, it's more intuitive than that. It's just common sense. If you provide people value, if you give them a reason to smile and to say, I'm happy to put on my boots today, I'm going to be challenged....

I think of my own reasons for joining. I did not go to military college, but joined a little bit later. The things that drive me to put on my uniform every day are the things we continue to want to replicate, because then we will have strength in the team so that it's both more efficient and more effective.

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

When you talk about “train to excite”, with more emphasis on training in the Arctic and jungle operations, I'm interested specifically in the Arctic. Why the training in Arctic operations?

[MGen Steve Bowes]

It's because the Arctic environment. We would often say that we train for winter warfare.

I served for a few years in Valcartier. We used to go out in the back forty, and it would be -40. Now -40 in Valcartier and -40 in the Arctic are not the same things. Until you go to the Arctic, you don't realize that survival brings on a whole new consideration. And you need to get soldiers up there to be able to work in that environment, to be able to move, to adapt, to understand the things they need to do and not do. Working too hard and working up a sweat can threaten your life in the north. So there are things, depending on the environment, that we want to be able to expose our soldiers to and test our equipment in, so that we're able to do that. You can't replicate that down east.

I once saw the tongue from a forklift snap in -40 degree weather, and I thought that was instructive.

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

I have a last question on “train to excite”, which stands out as a term. But is there a danger there? When a soldier is trained to excite, when you excite a soldier, then when that soldier leaves the military is there a danger? How do soldiers deal with that once they leave?

[MGen Steve Bowes]

I don't think so, because the soldier is never alone. We work in a team. There are leaders at every level--master corporals, sergeants, who are all part of a team. So when you're talking about training the soldier to excite, that is to give the soldier a reason for putting on boots in the morning and going to work.

I'm actually very understanding of what that statement means to the young people. It's no different from being an entrepreneur in any industry. If you don't properly compensate people, give them pride in what they do, and give them a reason for coming to you, they're going to go to somebody else. And that's the reality we face.

We have a younger generation with a different value set from the generation on the other side of age 45 or 50. So we need to recognize that it's not about us; it's about the young men and women who are going to go out the door to represent Canada in various operations around the world. We need to motivate them. We need to keep their skill sets, which we have spent a great deal of money on, in the Canadian Forces. It allows us to have that kind of flexibility, that pride in what they do.

So that part of the excitement is not something that concerns me, sir.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you.

Mr. Norlock.

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

Thank you very much. And through you, Mr. Chair, to the witness, thank you very much for the exposure we had earlier this week to some of the training that our men and women go through.

I want to change the focus a little bit, sticking with the theme of the preparedness of our Canadian armed forces and going more towards the humanitarian side.

Of course, I have the 8 Wing in my riding. We have purchased the tactical and strategic lift aircraft. A lot of people think it is pretty expensive hardware, using their hard-earned tax dollars to go to foreign places and do things.

But what many of us don't realize is that it affords us another capability, and I'm referring specifically to Haiti. Of course, you can relate what I'm about to say to some domestic things, such as floods, and forest fires, etc.

I'd like you to relate how you prepare and train for missions like the one to Haiti and how these differ from traditional military missions, because of the training involved and, specifically—because of our capabilities now—how our experience with Sri Lanka compares with that in Haiti, in terms of the timeliness of our arrival at the scene of a terrible catastrophe.

I'd like you to talk a little bit about the training there, because it's not the traditional military mission of protect, repel, and then neutralize, but about humanitarian efforts. So could you expand on that, please.

[MGen Steve Bowes]

The reality is that in many of the environments we go to, including the examples you've cited—and not assuming the more traditional peace support missions we've been on in Haiti—a response to a significant crisis within a country happens on such short notice. Where our capability and our preparedness allow us to react, we can then turn to the units that are at a high level of readiness and used to working together, and we can react on short notice.

I'd like to remind people that because I have received two taskings to go overseas on relatively short notice, I still have my kit packed at home. Other than needing a lawyer to sign a power of attorney in a matter of hours, I can be on a plane to go anywhere in the world. That's something we try to inculcate in the culture of our soldiers: to be adaptive and react to any situation.

The reality for soldiers, though, is that many of the situations they may go into can be benign but there can also be criminal organizations there that can represent a threat, or there may be insurgent activity occurring in the midst of a humanitarian calamity. The soldiers need to be able, first and foremost, to defend themselves and then to work that process through. The fundamental piece of that is working as a team.

The C-17, for example, and the new Hercules aircraft that we're buying provide tremendous capability for us to express Canadian values in a time of great need anywhere in the world. We're just a part of that. So we work with the air force and a variety of organizations beyond the army. It's important to recognize that this is a higher level Canadian Forces piece.

But in terms of training our soldiers, we try to train them with that mentality in mind. They have to be ready to go anywhere anytime and respond with a skill set obtained through a level of training that allows them to react to the greatest range of tasks they could possibly confront.

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

Thank you very much.

I guess I'm relating to the experience we had. It was in a highly volatile situation not unlike something that could happen in a place like Haiti.

But my primary question referred to the type of training that goes into time elements, because we know in disasters that how quickly we get there means something. Perhaps you could relate, number one, to our the ability to get there. You did refer to the C-17 in its ability versus having to getting in line to rent an Antonov to go somewhere, and having to get in line for that rental.

Specifically could you talk a little bit about how we get DART from Kingston to Trenton. Are folks continually trained on how to assemble and disassemble water purification and those types of things?

[MGen Steve Bowes]

The short answer is that they are trained on those things. That level is above me in terms of training, because it becomes an operational piece. It's actually the commander of 1 Canadian Division who has DART and the non-combatant evacuation task, as an example. But we do train our people. We maintain them at a higher level of readiness. In one of my organizations, which is in Trenton as well, the Land Advanced Warfare Centre, we have parachutists who are tasked with being ready. Their kit is checked daily, and they are prepared to go in response to a major airline disaster, as an example. So there are various organizations involved. And this is all based on a task set that works from the Government of Canada back down through the chain of command. We do exercise those on a continuous basis.

There's an irony in regard to Newfoundland, where I was once planning an exercise for the soldiers at the very time the unit was deployed out of Gagetown and linked up with the reservists. At the time, I was planning an exercise for them that was very similar to the deployment. The fact that I told them to go, they knew that they were going to get something coming down the road.

This has to be part of our culture.

Hopefully I'm answering that question.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

It seems that five minutes are flying by quickly.

Last in our second round is Mr. Alexander.

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

Thanks, Chair.

General Bowes, thank you again for the experience earlier this week. It was really impressive for all of us.

Tell us about how our readiness and the training investment that has to stand behind readiness stack up against our major allies, the ones that have the high tempos of deployment as we do. I know it's very difficult to quantify in dollars and cents and with hard statistics how much we invest in training and readiness, but where do we stand compared to the United States, the U.K., France, the Netherlands, and other highly deployed allies?

[MGen Steve Bowes]

Thank you, sir. That is a very hard question.

It's comparable to our allies, as one would expect, but each nation has unique characteristics. The U.S. Army is so large in its services that quantity has a quality all its own. So they're able to specialize to a far greater degree. We don't, so we have to be more generalist in nature. We have a smaller base and we ask our people to do more. We train subordinates, for example, to be able to step up at a moment's notice to take the responsibility of the boss. That provides us with that institutional flexibility.

Training costs money. Maintaining an army, regular and reserve, costs money. We try to move through a system of graduated readiness. So we're not like we were back in the days of the Cold War, when a huge number of soldiers were always ready to go to face that set. We try to move through a system to make it predictable, to mitigate the tempo, to balance the individual courses and career courses that are necessary, and to balance the professional military education. But that means that the army is continuously engaged in a training cycle, and it's managed by brigades, units, and sub-units, all the way down right across the army.

I would say, trying to put it in the American context, that we're more comparable perhaps to the Dutch. On the equation with the British, right at the moment it's very difficult for me to say, because I haven't been exposed to them and they're undergoing some profound changes. So we need to understand that we stack up on a pretty good basis, but it comes at a cost. It truly does.

Perhaps there's a more specific piece you'd like me to answer.

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

No, your general response was good enough.

What we saw at Wainwright was collective training as part of your foundation training. Obviously some units will go on to high readiness training this year and next year for a mission that hasn't necessarily been defined, unlike those cases of successive rotations to Afghanistan, or even to Libya.

We saw in Wainwright a kind of hybrid scenario, with some elements of it perhaps being familiar to those soldiers who had been in Haiti. Some elements recalled Libya, particularly the air component. Some hearkened back to Afghanistan.

What kind of high readiness mission is a battle group being prepared for in the Canadian army in 2011-12?

[MGen Steve Bowes]

We're trying to prepare a battle group for medium-intensity combat across the full spectrum of operations. In one area they could be conducting humanitarian assistance of some kind for a local population, all the way across the spectrum literally ti combat operations of that medium intensity with tanks, armour, and artillery. So that's the broadest range. We try to give them the generics, so we expose them to need and cultural awareness without necessarily exposing them to a particular culture or area of operation. In other words, it adds something they need to think about.

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

We still have the battle group at the core of our doctrine. We saw from the United States, certainly in Afghanistan and Iraq, and also more and more from European allies, that the brigade combat team is the dominant unit of measurement for readiness and our contribution. Obviously the Canadian army is smaller, but we do train to command brigades. Should we be moving toward at least some level of focus on the readiness of brigade combat teams?