National Defence Committee on April 3rd, 2014

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

—and we believe this is very important.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

My understanding is that there's not a specific commemoration budget for this in national defence, this will be coming out of operations and maintenance.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

No.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

If that's correct, I'd like to know what the department would otherwise be using those scarce resources for if it were not to be spending it on commemoration ceremonies.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

You may disagree with spending it on commemoration services, but the armed forces will be fully operational, they will be supported, we will continue with our procurement. But, again, this will also be a part of what we are doing, which is to commemorate those individuals who fought and served in World War I and World War II, and so we will continue along that line.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

I have been on record saying commemorations are important—

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Good, I'm glad.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

—but not at the expense of ill and injured soldiers and their families.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

It certainly is not the case. We will continue to support the ill and injured, we will continue to support our procurement, but this will be one more part of it.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Minister, could you answer the question, please? Is this coming out of operations and maintenance budget? If so, what other things would that funding possibly have been spent on? Could it have been spent on programs for ill and injured soldiers and training and maintenance?

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Again, the budget for supporting those who are ill and injured is a completely separate budget. It has increased under this government. It has become a priority, and we're going to continue. We're going to continue to hire more people in there. That budget will get larger. Any commemoration for the war in Afghanistan is not coming out of that. I hope that's as clear can be.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Thank you for that.

Now we are also advised, through an access to information request, that your director of mental health, Colonel Scott McLeod, a year ago begged for what he considered to be crucial expertise to assist with PTSD, both prevention and treatment, and that's a uniformed licensed psychologist. There has been no response and not a single uniformed licensed psychologist has been hired by the armed forces.

I have to ask: do you consider it more important to commemorate, for example, the War of 1812, than to hire licensed psychologists who are, by your own mental health director, so badly needed? Is that a greater priority for you?

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

It's not an either/or, Ms. Murray. Again, yes, on the staff there are clinical psychiatrists. For those individuals who have needed psychological help, what we have done—

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Excuse me, correction, psychologists.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

—what we have done is make sure that within the private sector those individuals get that kind of help. It's not just a question. You may not like the War of 1812, but that, too, was extremely important for the history of this country, Mr. Chairman. Again, it's not either/or.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Thank you, Minister.

Time has expired, Ms. Murray.

Moving on to the second round of questioning, five-minute segments, Ms. Gallant, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Through you to the minister, first of all, I hope you pardon the member who just spoke previously. We continuously hear this kind of hypocrisy, on the one hand demanding details of the payments to the families who have lost loved ones during the Afghan conflict to have our Day of Honour versus complaining about money that is spent on commemorating those who have fallen in other conflicts.

First of all, Minister, you stated that among the emerging threats the Canadian Armed Forces is preparing for is cyber-warfare. The world has not yet witnessed the first incidence of cyber-terrorism. Does Canada have its own centre, such as the Americans have—they have a cyber-command—in order to centralize command of operations related to cyberspace, organizing existing cyber-resources and synchronized defence of Canadian military networks at this time?

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Mr. Forster, I know, wants to make a comment on that, but you quite correctly pointed out that the threat of cyber-security is huge right now in the world. Our expectation is that these will become a greater challenge, rather than a lesser challenge in the coming years. The defence portfolio plays a key role to protect us from cyber-threats. Mr. Forster I'm sure would like to comment, and I'll give him that opportunity. CSEC does play an important role in protecting Canada and trying to head off some of these activities.

That being said, though, I want you to know that we work with our other allies as well. We're not alone in this. A threat to the United Kingdom is a threat to Canada and a threat to Australia and the United States. These other countries are direct threats, we feel, on this country as well. We're not in this alone, in terms of working to protect ourselves from that, but, again, CSEC does play an important role.

Mr. Forster, if you would like to make any comments....

[John Forster]

No I think, Minister, you've covered it very well.

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

Minister, our unique, bilateral relationship, the North American aerospace defence command, NORAD, is the envy of other countries. You had just mentioned that we work in conjunction with our allies on cyber-defence. In the same way that we have combined forces for surveillance in defence of North American aerospace and the maritime component, do we have a similar combined defence for cyber-defence?

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Again, we share our concerns in this area with our allies, our close allies and we work very closely with them. It's not just the United States. We have others. As you pointed out, one of the important components of the protection of this country is our cooperation with the United States. It's NORAD. It's been in effect since, I believe, 1958, and we've had a very strong relationship of cooperation and protecting Canadian airspace from all types of attacks. Again, that threat as you can imagine, has evolved since the late 1950s but, nonetheless, NORAD itself has evolved in that sense of protecting us from all the types of threats that can come onto this continent.

You know something, you made a very good point as well that I wanted to pick up on. This is really a model for anyone in the world to see that kind of level of cooperation, that understanding, that kind of commitment between two countries that exists between the United States and Canada. This has been a great success story. Again, when I'm elsewhere at NATO meetings and these cooperative efforts come up, I'm always reminded of how well it works in North America for our defence and our cooperation with the United States. It's been a great success story.

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

Now this may be for either you, Minister, or Mr. Forster.

Is there a continuous input from the private cyber-security companies on viruses, viral incidents or incidents themselves, hacking incidents, to provide the Canadian Armed Forces with real-time situational awareness of what's going on in cyberspace?

[John Forster]

I think one of the roles that CSE plays...and we're very closely integrated with the Canadian Armed Forces and we have people inside each other's organizations in cyberspace. The minister indicated we share cyber-threat information very closely amongst the Five Eyes allies and provide information to them on cyber-threats to their information networks and computer systems. So, it's a very close partnership we have with our Five Eyes and then, in turn, what we do with Canadian Forces to defend and protect their networks and systems....

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Forster.

Mr. Harris.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I guess either the minister or Mr. Forster can answer this. You said that the mandate of the CSE, under the National Defence Act, is to acquire and use information from the global information infrastructure, as you pointed out. That's a very broad definition. Of course, what's included in that, is there in the act; it includes anything that deals with electronic communications. Why, if that's all you're doing, do you need the authorizations such as those that were brought in, in 2005 and 2011, to collect metadata?