National Defence Committee on March 25th, 2014

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Good morning, colleagues.

As you know, through a notice from the clerk, we are returning to the study of the defence of North America, a study that began a year ago but has been on the back burner while we conducted the study of the care of the ill and injured. We have two witnesses before us today, and I thank them for appearing on short notice.

We are hearing from Philippe Lagassé, Associate Professor of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa,

and Elinor Sloan, professor in the Department of Political Science at Carleton University.

As is our practice, we will open with statements, maximum 10 minutes, from each of our witnesses and then proceed with questions.

Mr. Lagassé, go ahead please.

[Dr. Philippe Lagassé, Associate Professor, Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank you for inviting me to appear today. My presentation is about the future of NORAD and continental defence relations between Canada and the United States.

The idea underlying my comments is that the time has come to expand NORAD's role and deepen continental defence cooperation. With the end of the war in Afghanistan and the operational pause for the Canadian Forces in the coming years, it is time to become more involved in North American defence.

In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks the United States approached Canada about the possibility of expanding NORAD into a full-fledged continental defence command. The idea was rejected by Ottawa.

In 2005, the Canadian government also rejected a role for Canada in North American ballistic missile defence. Although much was done to strengthen our continental defence cooperation thereafter, notably in the area of military assistance to law enforcement and consequence management, the time is right to reverse these two previous refusals.

Specifically, as Canada undertakes a review of its defence policy, and as both Canada and the United States consider how best to spend their tighter defence budgets, it is an opportune moment to consider an expansion of NORAD to include a veritable binational approach to the defence of North America, on land, at sea, in the cyber-realm, and in the Arctic.

An expanded NORAD would arguably be more efficient and cost-effective than the current bilateral approach to continental defence cooperation in these areas. As well, an enlarged NORAD would be better prepared to address potential threats to the continent, particularly in the cyber-realm and in the Arctic.

An enlarged NORAD, moreover, would accord well with the government's commitment to the perimeter approach to continental security proposed in the beyond the border initiative. Since the early 1960s, NORAD has provided integrated tactical warning and attack assessment of ballistic missile launches against North America. It is this function that makes NORAD an aerospace defence command, rather than merely an air defence command.

As part of an August 2004 agreement between Canada and the United States, NORAD's ITWAA function has been allowed to assist the United States' missile defence system, despite the fact that the Canadian government has declined a role in that system.

In 2010, NATO issued its latest strategic concept. Included in the document was a commitment by the alliance to the ballistic missile defence of Europe and the United States. As a member of NATO, Canada has therefore endorsed missile defence for its allies, yet the Canadian government does not support an extension of those defences to Canada.

Canada's inconsistency on ballistic missile defence makes sense politically. There is no pressure to take part, and any government that requested a formal role in the system would face critiques. Yet Canada's current abstention acts as an obstacle toward closer cooperation within the existing NORAD construct, it restricts Canada's access to information and technologies that arguably serve the national interest, and it could make Canada more vulnerable in future decades as ballistic missiles proliferate.

The time has come to examine whether political expediency should continue to prevent Canada from taking part in this aspect of North America's aerospace defence and from joining its fellow allies in fully accepting the logic of maintaining BMDs.

In sum, continental defence relations between Canada and the United States are in good shape, but they could be better. With a review of the Canadian defence policy underway, the time is right to take a greater interest in this issue.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Merci, Monsieur Lagassé.

We'll go now to Ms. Sloan, please.

[Dr. Elinor Sloan, Professor, Department of Political Science, Carleton University, As an Individual]

It is my pleasure to give this short statement on priorities for the defence of North America. As I understand it, this committee is trying to define the parameters for its next study and round of testimony. We've been asked to look at the defence of North America from two lenses: defending Canadian territory, and defending the North American continent in cooperation with the United States.

I see two important areas of concern for the defence of North America: the Arctic and cyber. Both have repercussions for and overlap with Canada-U.S. defence relations and the joint defence of North America, so I'll just quickly touch on these two things.

Every indication is that the Arctic is opening up much more quickly than was projected even a few short years ago. There is growing activity in the region in the summer months, not just in the Arctic countries but from major powers like China.

My concern is that Canada does not have the necessary assets to exert surveillance and control over the Arctic maritime region. For surveillance from a solely Canadian perspective, we are dependent on flights by Aurora long-range patrol aircraft, and satellite coverage from RADARSAT, which has a Polar Epsilon component for defence. That's what it's called. There are search and rescue assets, which are also satellite based. The north warning system, which is part of NORAD, provides radar coverage, and there are also some fixed surveillance assets along the most travelled straits.

But the important asset we were missing is unmanned aerial vehicles that can conduct surveillance in Arctic conditions. Examples include America's Predator or Global Hawk UAV. These are platforms that can provide continuous near real-time coverage of what's happening on the water. Canada's unmanned aerial vehicle program, which has a long acronym that I won't spell out, has not moved forward. This is within National Defence. Ideally we would also have a replacement for our long-range patrol aircraft.

That's the surveillance side.

On the control side, we have only our diesel submarines, which can operate to a limited degree under ice-covered waters.

In my view, the control issue we will have in the Arctic in the coming years and decades will not be primarily a warfare one. The threat will be largely emergency management in nature, perhaps an oil spill, a cruise ship or container ship that gets caught in the ice, or a terrorist or criminal smuggling situation demanding a law enforcement response.

It will be a situation brought on by the combination of two factors. First, the ice has melted enough for countries and companies to risk going through the Arctic. Secondly, the Arctic will remain treacherous with quickly changing or unpredictable weather conditions.

Keeping these two things in mind, it's critical that we move forward with a new polar class icebreaker, first promised by the Mulroney government in the mid-1980s. The threat will also be one that challenges Canada to assert our sovereignty over this vast region. But in a world of resource trade-offs, I'm of mixed mind as to whether or not we should proceed with the Arctic/offshore patrol ships. Investing in and arming coast guard vessels may be the more cost-effective approach.

Canada should begin now to actively consult with the United States to find ways of working together to conduct the surveillance and control of Arctic maritime regions. To date we have not done so, at least not that I am aware of. The focus has been on maritime boundary disputes on the Northwest Passage, etc.

With the changes in global power dynamics with the relative decline of the U.S. and the rise of other countries around the world and the declining U.S. defence budget, the U.S. may be more amenable to cooperative measures with Canada in the north, and such measures should respond to the sorts of emergency management issues I've mentioned. They could be organized around the two themes of surveillance and control. NORAD could figure into the surveillance aspect and we know that maritime surveillance information from the east and west coasts is already fed into NORAD. That was the change that was made in May 2006.

As for the control aspect, and this was referred to by Professor Lagassé, dispatching ships as part of a coordinated effort to respond to a crisis or even regular patrolling and having that aspect done through NORAD is something that was examined in 2006 by the Bi-National Planning Group. The report was in 2006. They looked at it from about 2004 onwards. I believe it was one of their recommendations and that the U.S. and Canada decided not to go so far at that time. So you've answered that question.

Since then, Arctic melting has accelerated.

I understand that the Canadian Armed Forces now use a more formalized maritime component command approach such as information from National Defence, which was different than in 2006. So this may have some inconsistencies with the NORAD-centric approach. In other words it might not work through NORAD.

The degree to which NORAD could be involved in the control aspect would have to be examined. I recommend Senate committee hearings and testimony and a report on the topic of how Canada and the United States can jointly conduct the surveillance and control of Arctic waters. The committee would want to invite Americans to testify.

In addition, Canada will need to consider how it will deal with challengers to our self-declared domestic waters in the Arctic by those who view these same areas as international waterways. A factor to keep in mind is that it is not possible for Canada to build one force for continental missions and one force for missions abroad. The armed forces consider operations in the Arctic as deployed operations with a similar level of complexity and self-sufficiency required as on an international operation. Therefore, when we look at what assets to invest in for the Arctic we need to keep other missions in mind.

One platform that is suited to the Arctic with some limitations and to international security is diesel-electric submarines.

A growing area of international security focus is the Asia-Pacific. Tensions there are rising and Canada has a strong economic interest in stability in the region. Submarines are well-suited to operations like maintaining open-sea lines of communication. Canada's Victoria-class submarines and Australia's Collins-class submarines are about the same age and need replacing next decade. Canada might want to consider a collaborative procurement.

Apart from the focus on the Arctic, a key priority area of examination should be the National Defence role in the cyber-security of the country. There appears to be an asymmetry in approach between Canada and the United States when it comes to cyber-defence. The U.S. military has created a separate cyber-command that has been given specific responsibilities in the defence of U.S. critical infrastructure and of the homeland. By contrast Canada's 2010 cyber-security strategy assigns Public Safety as the lead agency.

It's not clear what role defence will play in response to a cyber-event in Canada beyond the fact that it is responsible for defending its own networks. Scenarios need to be examined and responsibilities assigned before a real-life crisis takes place. Defence could have a role through assistance of civil authority in consequence management should a cyber-attack result in a loss of critical infrastructure and pose a threat to life, or indeed have a loss of life as a result of that threat to the critical infrastructure. Defence would need to remain capable of operating under such a scenario and its own cyber-infrastructure must be resilient.

Many countries consider cyber as a potential domain of conflict. This is another aspect to it, the overseas aspect if you like. Some have gone quite far in exploiting it for espionage purposes or to militarize it.

I recommend Senate committee hearings and testimony and a report on the subject of the rule of defence in the cyber-defence of Canada's critical infrastructure. Given the often seamless nature of critical infrastructure between the United States and Canada this analysis would have to take into account the U.S. approach. We also need to ask and examine what role defence may play in a future security environment if cyber—in other words, cyber-army, navy, air force, cyberspace—becomes a separate domain of conflict, and what capabilities our Canadian Forces would need. Building capacity in this area would take time.

Honourable Senators, these are just a few notes I have put together on Canadian and continental defence priorities for the future and I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Thank you, Ms. Sloan. Just a point of information, this is the House committee on national defence, so members of Parliament surround you today.

[Dr. Elinor Sloan]

I apologize.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

We will proceed now to the first round of questions.

We'll begin with Mr. Williamson, please. You have seven minutes.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Thank you, Chair.

Those were both very interesting, very informative presentations.

Mr. Lagassé, I liked your style as well—short and sweet, and you dropped two interesting points.

Could you maybe provide a little more analysis in terms of what an expanded NORAD might look like? How far south would you consider, or what are you suggesting in terms of possible membership makeup?

[Dr. Philippe Lagassé]

I would keep it restricted to Canada and the United States. It would not be a tri-national command. Part of the difficulty in dealing with Mexico at this particular moment in time is that we simply don't have that level of tradition of working with them that closely. Similarly, it's unclear to me at this point if the United States would be willing to go down that road even if we were, and I'm not even sure we would.

At this point, in terms of how we coordinate the forces, it would simply be to move beyond a bilateral approach, to move beyond a command structure, such that you have Canadian Joint Operations Command working with Northern Command and then have NORAD there almost in an odd position. It's gotten a little bit better now that Canada Command has been folded back into a larger operational command. Nonetheless, NORAD has a good deal of potential in terms of simply coordinating how we ensure that land forces, when they are needed, are available; similarly, that the oceans and the coasts are protected in such a way that it is as efficient as it possibly can be. Increasingly, as Professor Sloan mentioned with respect to the Arctic, it is clear to me....

Perhaps this is not what's out in the public perception, but at the end of the day, when we look at Canadian defence spending levels and our level of ambition even for the defence of North America, it makes sense to try to work closely with our partner where we have shared interests, and to allow diplomacy to work out any boundary disputes we have. This is simply a question of making the best use of the dollars available.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Very good. Thank you.

As well, with regard to your point on ballistic missile defence, where do you think this debate or this discussion on BMD is going? I'm not talking about it in terms of the domestic ramifications. Is this something that the U.S. is actually looking at within North America? If so, at what speed are they moving? What is the impact on Canada's participation—or non-participation, for that matter?

[Dr. Philippe Lagassé]

Currently the United States has installed two land-based systems already in North America. There are systems being developed for Europe. The most effective systems are Aegis missile defence destroyers.

Within that current construct, what concerns me is to what degree, as part of the planning and implementation of the system, if we do see a ballistic missile accidental launch or anything else that comes towards North America, there is active consideration of the trade-offs that might be made in terms of how you launch to protect as many cities as possible.

We simply don't know if the United States, at this point, would be willing to sacrifice certain defensive launches in order to maximize the protection of American cities, or if they would spread it in such a way that any potential Canadian cities would also be protected. Whether or not we choose to join the system ultimately, it would be good for us to at least have an understanding of what the planning is at that level so that we can truly say that in the aerospace realm, where we already provide data to a system that's meant to protect North America, we are an active participant in it.

Again, we endorsed this for Europe and for the United States, and it seems odd, to my mind at the very least, that if we were willing to endorse it for our allies we wouldn't be willing to at least consider it for ourselves.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Very good. Thank you.

Professor Sloan, your comments seemed to be a little more.... If we heard “macro” comments from Professor Lagassé, I'd characterize yours as perhaps more “micro” in the Arctic region. I think you gave a good description of some of the challenges faced by the Canadian Armed Forces in deploying troops to our north.

You mentioned cyberwarfare. You talked about perhaps the challenge in the north being with respect to accidents, oil and so on. But with I guess the evolving Russia, or maybe it's Russia going back to its historical roots, how do you see Russia interplaying with our interests in the north versus their interests in the north? They've taken what I will call some provocative steps in the past—dropping their flag on the north pole, questioning our shoreline. Even today NORAD apparently scrambled fighters out of Alaska to counter a Russian incursion into the border of American airspace.

What's the impact of Russia in terms of Canada's long-term planning in the north, do you think?

[Dr. Elinor Sloan]

I think it's something that Canada needs to think about in terms of what Russia is doing. It started in 2007 with the bomber patrols over the north and it seemed to be a return to the Cold War. It's difficult to make a distinction between what's bluster and domestic politics, and what is real. I've seen two interpretations. One is that it is going to lead to a militarized north, and the other being that Russia is going to be looking at UNCLOS and going by UN standards to divide up the region.

I lean toward the latter perspective, that it's going to be more of an emergency management issue for states to deal with, with treks in the north, and that the UNCLOS procedure, the UN Law of the Sea, will be busy looking at that ridge and who gets that ridge and that kind of thing. The process seems to be going forward and in my estimation, eventually the lines will be legally drawn up as to which maritime areas belong to whom. In essence, the biggest issue is going to be how to deal with those emergency situations whereby commercial traffic simply is not going to want to avoid going through the Arctic because of the shorter transit distances. As it becomes more and more viable, there's going to be more and more traffic. These are the kinds of things that Canada is going to have to deal with.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

That's very good, thank you.

Your comments remind me a little of that 1980s political commercial where everyone could agree there was a bear out there, we just didn't know the intentions of the bear. Of course the answer was that we needed to be at least as strong as the bear in dealing with Russia's capabilities versus the capabilities of Canada and the U.S. in terms of the north.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Thank you, Mr. Williamson.

Mr. Harris, please, it's your turn.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you both for your presentations.

This talk of Cold War seems to me rather premature given the fact that we just dealt with an incident in Crimea, but I want to talk about that in the context of IBM, Professor Lagassé. Some members of the committee were at NORAD recently. The only suggestion of potential need for an IBM was the possibility that North Korea would somehow or other get its act together and send some missiles toward North America. Is there really a credible threat that we need to worry about that can't be dealt with in other ways, or are we forced to get into another arms race over IBMs with potential rogue states?

Are there other ways of dealing with these kinds of potential threats other than the suggestion we need another arms race? You know consistency is not always the best director of foreign policy, as we've seen many times.

[Dr. Philippe Lagassé]

Thank you.

I'll certainly admit that consistency is often a luxury that academics have, which politicians might not, so I fully accept that. I do accept that there are other considerations than purely what we take to be the strategic situation in the world.

I'll first tackle your question about other means of dealing with the problem. I fully agree there are certainly many other means we can take to try to slow proliferation of ballistic missiles and other types of technologies. We do so diplomatically. We've done so in many other ways. Getting back to the Cold War for a second. As part of its Cold War commitments Canada was actively engaged in supporting the American nuclear deterrent via NORAD, yet at the same time was attempting to push forward nuclear disarmament and arms control.

So we've done this quite a bit in the past when we supported an existing system that might have provided us with a degree of defence, but we also actively engaged in efforts to defend ourselves should the need ever arise.

So my suggestion is simply that going back to Prime Minister Martin's conditions with respect to whether or not Canada should take part, he made it clear that in his view, Canada should only take part if there was no cost to Canada and if no systems were installed in space that would encourage a greater arms race. I would still support those basic conditions in the sense that if Canada joined knowing there would be no cost to Canada and that it would not lead, or having as a condition that it would not lead, to the installation of greater weapons in space, then we could at least have this two-track approach whereby we accept the need for diplomacy. We accept the need that it has to contain an arms race, but at the same time, we need to recognize that the system is already in place in Europe. Anything we do at this point would not slow any arms race reaction that it might breed. The only cost to us would be to have greater defences.

I think that at the end of the day, if we want to have greater input into the system, if we want to ensure that it doesn't go beyond a minimum defence against accidental launches or any type of intimidation by certain states, at the very least we take part and we try to have that voice and that perspective heard.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you.

Professor Sloan, I'm very interested in your comments on the Arctic.

I have in front of me, the “United States Coast Guard Arctic Strategy” of May 2013. It's a very elaborate document. There is also a “National Strategy for the Arctic Region”, issued by the President of the United States, also in May 2013, and a document called “Implementation Plan for The National Strategy for the Arctic Region”. All three of them are talking about what the Americans plan and hope for in the Arctic.

Canada barely gets a mention, except as a member of the Arctic Council. They don't seem to think this is the way forward for them, aside from our multilateral involvement through the Arctic Council. They do talk about getting involved with the UNCLOS, the law of the sea, and part of their ongoing process is the settlement of the Beaufort Sea, with Canada, through UNCLOS and through negotiations.

However, in terms of working together, I don't see anything there. They are also on record, and we've been told, that they are not in favour of the militarization of the Arctic. They have an interest in domain awareness and other things like that, which I think we're interested in as well. They are also concerned about freedom of the seas, and serious icebreaking capabilities by 2017. We seem to be behind the eight ball on that, in terms of icebreaking capabilities and procurement.

Also, I'd like to hear more about your suggestion that AOPS as a priority for the Canadian government may not be the right way to go.

Could you comment on what we need to do to be more robust ourselves, and maybe not expect the Americans to be anxious to do all these things with us?

[Dr. Elinor Sloan]

I had many thoughts as I listened to you. I'm going to try to remember all the different components.

First off, I think the fact that Canada is not mentioned in any of these documents is not surprising. We tend to be the overlooked ally. It would be something that we would have to initiate to try to engage in cooperative measures.

I think this is something that the committee could usefully do. It's about engaging the United States and trying to think forward as to how we can cooperate in the north. Start with the threat assessment on whether Russia really is a threat. What is the threat? I've given you my sense of what the threat is. Get an assessment and then talk about how we can work together: “You patrol this side and we'll patrol that side.”

I think we need at this stage to move beyond where we've been for many years, which is competition in the north with the United States due to maritime boundaries, due to to their submarines being in our waters throughout the Cold War, and a difference of opinion on the Northwest Passage. I think we need to actively move beyond that to cooperative measures in the north. All of this is really driven by melting ice. That's why it's important.

On your specific question, I did look up the numbers yesterday. I was peripherally aware that the United States doesn't really have any icebreaking capabilities. If the numbers I saw yesterday are correct, it has two icebreakers; Canada has 18. South Korea has more icebreakers, I believe, than the United States, so they have a lot of catching up to do in that area.

I'm not surprised that it's in the national strategy of May 2013, that they need to build vessels. However, I would be surprised if they have a lot of icebreakers by 2017.

The United States has some advantages on the surveillance aspect because of their space-based assets, which we are not privy to because we said no to the BMD decision. They can bring those things to the table, and we could bring icebreaking capabilities to the table. It could perhaps be a bit of a trade-off thing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Thank you.

[Dr. Elinor Sloan]

On the AOPS, the reason why—

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Professor Sloan, I'm afraid we've run out of time for addressing these others areas—

[Dr. Elinor Sloan]

I apologize.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Subsequent questioners may well bring this up, but thank you.

Mr. Norlock, please, you have seven minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Through you to the witnesses, thank you for appearing today.

My questions will be basically to Ms. Sloan. I was particularly interested in your comments with regard to the Arctic/offshore patrol ships, that we are intending to enhance our country's ability to exercise our sovereignty over the Arctic.

You said we were the overlooked ally. Sometimes that's done on purpose because of certain aspirations concerning the Arctic, mostly by our friends. There are those of us who believe that in order to exercise our sovereignty we should have patrol ships that are capable of patrolling the very waters that we claim are within our jurisdiction.

So would you not agree that the threats...? When I talk about threats, I suspect the threat could be one of respect. When we talk about threats, I would say threat/respect in terms of what our ships may be confronting when they are on patrol. Could you comment on that?

When we speak about North America globally, what sorts of threats do you believe Canada and North America as a whole face in the Arctic, at the same time as threatening/respecting the jurisdiction of Canada and the United States. That is an area of our mutual concern.