National Defence Committee on May 1st, 2014

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you, Chair, and yes, I do want to confirm that I'll share half my time with my colleague Mr. Warawa.

Defence takes many dimensions, whether for economic benefit, for geographic or border protection, for acquisition of more geography, or for protection of trade routes.

I'm interested in your comment that Canada's defence policy should follow or enforce our foreign policy. This is in light of the fact that most of the European countries you talk about in NATO have their own defence capability to manufacture some of those assets, and they in fact use that. Britain, France, and Germany use that as part of their economic policy. Canada's a middle power, and we don't have that capability to be an arms producer.

Going back to post-World War II, our foreign policy was one of peacekeeping, which has evolved over time to peacemaking and peacebuilding. In those three successive models, I'd like to hear how we can move forward in the 21st century to maintain that foreign policy and still maintain a modest defence capability, considering the fact that we will not be manufacturing that in Canada because we simply don't have that capability.

[Dr. Alexander Moens]

Thank you.

To clarify, what I said in my comments was that defence policy and foreign policy and other domains of policy, of course, as an expression of our national interests, our Canadian interests, work together. But there comes a point where if our foreign policy objectives do not materialize, we must have certain defence capabilities that go beyond that. So if, for example, we are not able to work well with these two threats, and they form threats or they infringe upon the rules of international behaviour, for example in Ukraine, as we're witnessing today, we must have defence capabilities to deal with that. So that was my point.

Does that address your question?

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Well, not completely.

What happens in the unlikely scenario that our foreign policy and that of the United States clashes? How do we align ourselves then with our defence asset procurement or our ability to maintain our sovereignty and independence?

For example, it's always being tossed around, saying, “What happens when the United States all of a sudden wants all of our oil or all of our fresh water?” I'd like to hear how we can align that policy or whether we're always going to be at the mercy of the United States.

[Dr. Alexander Moens]

No, I would not use the word “mercy”. As mature liberal constitutional democracies, our disagreements will be settled by negotiations and by politics.

I did not mention other liberal democratic countries in my two political opponents for that reason because I do not believe our defence policy needs to aim for that option.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Norlock]

Mr. Warawa.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Thank you to both witnesses.

I'm a replacement at this committee, but I find this a very interesting discussion.

In the interest of time, I'm going to be asking a question of Mr. Moens. I wish I had time to ask questions of both witnesses.

Mr. Moens, you said that liberal democracies need to have the will—and I'm paraphrasing—and the ability and equipment to match that will. You also said that defence policy must be ready for a foreign policy failure.

Mr. Putin, in Russia, has a high approval rating from the general population of Russia for aggressive action. His approval rating is actually increasing by his tactics, so there is a will within the Russian population for this.

Could you address the will that you see within the general Canadian population, and the will within the American population, and how that's affecting the priorities that we have for defence?

[Dr. Alexander Moens]

I would first make a small comment to your reference of Putin in Russia, since under Putin, Russia is increasingly becoming an illiberal autocracy. We have to be careful of what the Russian people really want. It's not the same as the free expression of interest as we have in our country.

Regarding your main point, in the case of the United States, I believe, their capability is still enormous. The comments I made about renewal and investment in defence would not come in quite the same way to the United States.

In the case of Canada, as trustees of the people, I believe you have a role in educating the Canadian public of the need for a defence capability. As a university teacher, I'm trying to educate my students about the needs of foreign policy and defence policy. I think the Canadian public understanding of our defence policy is a bit low, but there is a lot of room for the Canadian public to understand it better in the future.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

The United States is going to be making fairly substantial cuts to its military funding. How do you think this is going to affect Canada's interoperational capabilities with the U.S.?

[Dr. Alexander Moens]

I don't think it will affect our interoperable capabilities in the near future, but I do think it's an enormously important signal for middle powers like Canada, France, Australia, Japan, and others to fill the gap of capabilities in the world, relatively speaking, that are being abandoned by the United States.

If we don't, then our political opponents will fill that gap and that will make us significantly less secure.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Norlock]

Ms. Murray, you have seven minutes.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Thank you, and thanks for being here to provide your thoughts about these interesting issues. I'm just going to follow on with this discussion.

Mr. Moens, you are implying that Canada needs greater military capability to fill the gap and to be able to pitch in, in the case of foreign policy failure. Are you advocating an increase in the budget for National Defence, and if so, how much?

[Dr. Alexander Moens]

Yes, I am. I am indicating that.

Clearly, I am suggesting that experience with 1.1% of defence spending in the 1990s has shown that it isn't sufficient for defence investment, defence renewal, so I am arguing that there is evidence that 1.1% is not correct.

If you look at the most expensive period within ISAF, it's probably about 1.4% or 1.5% of our defence spending, and that only renewed a small area of our capabilities—

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

So you're suggesting somewhere around 1.4% or 1.5%. I want to move onto some other aspect of this.

[Dr. Alexander Moens]

No, probably more. I would say 1.7% and up.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

All right.

I got a different impression from you, Mr. Saideman, that it's more about having clarity as to what it is we're trying to accomplish, what our strategy is, and having a strategy that really helps make decisions and choose priorities. I got the impression also that you felt there could be a better job done in military procurement that might actually give us more bang for the buck than the way we've been doing it.

I'm really interested in the idea of strategy, so my first question is this. Do you see this as needing to be done as sort of an inclusive strategy that includes, as some of the other committee testimony has suggested, foreign policy, defence policy, trade policy, foreign aid policy? Should the strategy be to do an overarching thing, and then from that drop out a defence policy, or is it your view that we can go right to having a coherent defence policy that can create some direction and prioritization?

[Dr. Stephen Saideman]

I think that every year we delay these decisions, we're increasing costs and creating greater inefficiencies for ourselves. I'd say that while it would be nice to have a whole-of-government analysis of everything, I think we need to get straight the defence picture. For these kinds of decisions, I'd say focus on including some people from foreign affairs. They have an assessment of the threats, because assessing the threats around the world is not purely a defence thing; it's a foreign affairs thing as well. I'd say get a better picture of what we think the threats are 10, 20, 30 years out, and what our commitments are.

Our commitments are very clear actually. I don't think we have to rethink NORAD or NATO. We have to think about what the implications of those are, since we are now spending money and time with sailing our ships from the Arab gulf all the way up to the Black Sea or the Baltic. We don't know actually where the ship is going, but we're spending money sending planes to Romania. That costs money.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

In thinking about the defence of North America, even if it's something like F-35s or some other plane, we've had other people testify that it really depends on whether your priority is out there or whether it's the defence of North America. There are less militarized implications there. I was surprised to hear Mr. Moens say that because of our large spaces and seas, this argues for the F-35s. We've had other people argue against it. So the defence of North America tied into the planes, what priority has that versus deployment elsewhere?

In developing a strategy—just off the top of your head—what would be the top five principles or values that you would lay down first to help you make decisions of prioritization? For example, where does the defence of North America sit in relation to our defence and security issues externally? What kind of higher-level values or principles would be laid out?

[Dr. Stephen Saideman]

Again, I think that the defence of Canada is most important. For the military of any country the primary purpose is defence of the homeland. But as I said, the Canadian ships, planes and soldiers are not going to be used in the next 20 to 30 years for most of their day jobs protecting Canada from foreign threats. Those employed in the cyber-realm, those employed in various other realms, may be doing that on a day-to-day basis, but If you take a look at the pattern of Canadian Forces usage over the past 20 years, projecting forward, Canadian Forces were used to protect the Olympics and for a variety of other things at home. But most of the expensive missions that require advanced kit have been elsewhere: Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Libya.

In terms of making the major investment decisions, I do think Canada has a choice. It can drop its NATO commitment and not invest in ships and planes, but I think the NATO commitment is very important.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

When you say something like that, what is the principle or value behind the statement?

[Dr. Stephen Saideman]

The principle is that Canada cannot fight alone in the world. One of the fundamental principles is multilateralism. Canada cannot fight alone.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

What are some other principles at that core level?

[Dr. Stephen Saideman]

Canada will fight alongside democracies, dealing with threats to international security, and sometimes for humanitarian purposes that overlap with security interests. I don't think Canada has the ability to dedicate lots of resources to every humanitarian crisis. It's only going to happen when there's a confluence between security interests and humanitarian interests.

Libya, for instance, was both. For Canada, the stake in Libya was NATO. That was a security interest. It was also essentially an R2P mission, even if people didn't call it that. But Canada can't dedicate all of its fighters and all its planes and all of its ships to everything that goes on in the world. It has to make choices, and the choices will be when the humanitarian interests are coincident with security interests, not when they're off on their own.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Norlock]

Thank you very much, sir.

Ms. Gallant, you have five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman .

I'm wondering about the Arctic. You really didn't mention it. Do either of you have any concerns about defence of our Arctic territory?

[Dr. Stephen Saideman]

When we think about the Arctic, it's really the future that we're thinking about. There's not really a present threat as we speak. But the investments we make today obviously are important for the next 20 to 30 years. Is there a likelihood of a great threat in the Arctic? It's very expensive for all of us to operate—not just for the Canadians to build new facilities in the Arctic but also very expensive for the Russians, the Americans, the Danes, and all the rest.

I don't think the threat is severe. I doubt that it will be severe down the road, because it is really hard for everybody to operate there. I'm not a climatologist and can't say what global warming is going to do to make things less difficult, but it will always be very expensive. When we face the challenge of resources, we have to deal with the places where there are the greatest risks. I think, given what we've seen in the past 20 years and what we're looking at for the next 20 years, the Arctic is an important priority, but it's not the top. It's simply not going to be a zone of combat.