Evidence of meeting #80 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 national.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
I don't want to quibble with you, but the difference between this year and last year in terms of our engagement is not substantial, certainly not on the maritime front, on the aerospace front, and certainly not on the joint and common front.
If I take the number of $1.8 billion as your drop number and take out $844 million of readiness, I'm down to $1 billion in other savings.
Is that somewhere close to correct?
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
Can you point to me how this would tie into General Leslie's report?
Conservative
Peter MacKay Conservative Central Nova, NS
General Leslie's report is one of many reports we have in the Department of National Defence that we've considered. That report is some three or four years old now, I believe.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
General Leslie's core point is more tooth, less tail. It seems to me, certainly on the readiness front, that tooth has taken about half the hit here.
Conservative
Peter MacKay Conservative Central Nova, NS
Not at all. You're completely incorrect, Mr. McKay.
We've in fact taken steps that I would suggest have certainly supported our effort to be more operationally capable. Because of the numerous investments that we've just discussed in terms of equipment, we've become a more capable, more ready, and certainly more deployable Canadian Forces.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
Your next number is on continental peace, stability and security. Is that NORAD?
Conservative
Peter MacKay Conservative Central Nova, NS
Continental peace and security.
Where are you reading this from?
Liberal
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
So that would be NORAD.
Again, if I'm reading it right, between 2011-12 and 2013-14, we're dropping about $22 million on NORAD.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
What is it that we're not doing at NORAD that we were doing at NORAD?
Conservative
Peter MacKay Conservative Central Nova, NS
I would suggest that we're doing the same at NORAD, but we're perhaps not dedicating the same number of personnel.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
So it's fewer personnel.
Are there any other contributions that we're not making to NORAD that we were in previous years?
Conservative
Peter MacKay Conservative Central Nova, NS
I'm going to let the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff, Mr. Donaldson, respond.
VAdm Bruce Donaldson Vice Chief of the Defence Staff, Department of National Defence
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. McKay.
It relates to how we're managing some of the maintenance and repair on the north warning system. It relates to a couple of the other financial obligations we have with NORAD and how we're phasing them. It's part of the strategic review divestment. Some of the other comments that you've been discussing on readiness are related to the strategic review divestments as well. These are activities that are low performing and low priority that we actually identified for this—
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
Are we slotting readiness into NORAD, or is NORAD a discrete component here?
Vice Chief of the Defence Staff, Department of National Defence
If I may, the way the numbers are allocated here is against activities. A lot of it is captured under those broad activities of readiness.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
Therefore, it wouldn't include taking down radar sites or putting up radar sites.
Vice Chief of the Defence Staff, Department of National Defence
No.
It doesn't represent a significant change in—
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
So can I assume that if you're down $22 million, you're down $22 million in personnel allocation?
Vice Chief of the Defence Staff, Department of National Defence
That is $22 million in cost of maintenance operations by changing the maintenance schedule and maintenance techniques. Particularly in the north, it's actually very expensive to do that work, and we're trying to be smarter about doing that.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
Yes.
You show a drop in defence team personnel support under the category of “Care and Support to the Canadian Forces and Contribution to Canadian Society”.
As you know, Minister, we are doing a study on care of personnel. It drops from $1 billion to $690 million, so just a touch over $1 billion to just a touch under $700 million. That seems like a pretty significant drop in defence team personnel support.
Can you explain what that means?
