National Defence Committee on Feb. 23rd, 2015

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

That's time.

Mr. Brahmi, you have five minutes.

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Major-General Coates, your explanation is rather difficult to follow. You said in your remarks that armed forces commanders and staff work actively with their civilian counterparts. You then said that the Canadian Armed Forces always provide support to civilian authorities as a last resort.

Has that situation changed recently?

What I observed after the floods in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu and the surrounding area in 2011 does not quite fit with the explanation you gave. In fact, it does not fit at all. When you say you are in continuous liaison with civilian authorities, was that line of communication put in place after 2011 or recently? Specifically, was it put in place as part of Operation Lentus in Calgary in 2013?

[MGen Christopher Coates]

I can't comment on what happened in Saint-Jean because I was not in this position then. However, the provincial liaison officers were in place long before then, so that is not new. The fact that we respond as a last resort is not new either.

For example, this year in Winnipeg, I was in direct contact with public safety officials for several days to ensure that they were responding, not us. I know they explored every possible avenue for civilian and volunteer assistance before using our services.

Calgary was not a planned operation like Operation Lentus in Winnipeg this year. Calgary is an example of a rapid response operation. The commander in Edmonton made the decision to take action because he felt the situation posed a risk to public safety. The resources of the Canadian Armed Forces were needed to address the situation.

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

I remember that in 2011, the then Minister of Public Safety, Vic Toews, said that removing or moving sandbags was not something that the military should be doing. Is it also your opinion that the Canadian Forces should not be helping civilians move sandbags?

[MGen Christopher Coates]

I believe that the Canadian Armed Forces could be called on to do anything the government asks. I therefore cannot say that the Canadian Forces should or should not be performing such tasks. In fact, the Canadian Armed Forces were needed to provide support to civilian authorities as a last resort. That means that all other options had been considered previously.

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

In a letter to Quebec minister Robert Dutil, the Minister of Public Safety wrote, “I have discussed this with Minister MacKay and we agree that removing sandbags is not an appropriate role for the Canadian Forces.”

[MGen Christopher Coates]

I'm not very familiar with that case, but I believe that it is justified when sandbags have to be laid quickly because of flooding. However, arrangements could be made with civilian companies or volunteers to remove the sandbags, even though that can take days, weeks or months. I think that civilian authorities have options other than turning to the Canadian Armed Forces to remove them.

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

In your presentation, you said that in the event of flooding, Regional Joint Task Force commanders could initiate an immediate military response. In that case, this could be done without a request from Ottawa, couldn't it?

[MGen Christopher Coates]

That's right.

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

A regional commander could decide to bring in the Canadian Forces to help people in the event of flooding?

[MGen Christopher Coates]

Absolutely. That is what happened in Calgary, in fact.

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

Unfortunately, that is not what happened in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu. It's sad, but maybe we are not in the right province.

[MGen Christopher Coates]

As I said, I did not take part in that operation, so I can't comment on it.

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Thank you, Mr. Brahmi.

Mr. Bezan, please, for five minutes.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

General Loos and General Coates, it's great seeing both of you again. Thank you for participating in our study.

General Loos, in your opening comments you were talking about the NORAD infrastructure in the north that is the responsibility of Joint Task Force North. We've had some witnesses here who have talked about the north warning system. It is getting near the end of life expectancy.

Are there any plans in the works on how we move forward with that signal system? Do you feel that the current location is right, and that the technology is the right technology for today's security threats that we face in Arctic?

[BGen G.D. Loos]

Sir, I'm going to have to beg off that question and delegate up, if it's possible. I will clarify that we have that infrastructure in the north. I will make use of it when I'm able to. For my operations, I can make use of NORAD's infrastructure, but I do not own or control it. We now have all of our infrastructure in the north under our assistant deputy minister for infrastructure and the environment, so we have a centralized control of infrastructure.

The primary user is NORAD for that, and for our forward operating locations and installations that go along with that. There are four of those. I make use of those because they're there. Infrastructure is limited, and they can be launching points for other operations.

In terms of the north warning system itself and the future, I'm not on the inside track of any of that analysis or discussion, so I don't think I can really add any value there.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

General Coates, is there anything you want to add to that at all?

[MGen Christopher Coates]

Sir, I'd just suggest that it would be a great question for Lieutenant-General Parent when he appears before the committee.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Okay.

Now, General Coates, you made a comment almost a year ago in an article talking about the tri-command. You've got NORAD, you have NORTHCOM, and you have CJOC. They're all under.... They're triple-hatted, you might as well say, commanders and Americans.

You talked about the upcoming threats. We have, as a committee, been looking at things like cyber-security, but you've also brought in this issue of defence against chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear agents. I'm assuming that you're not talking about intercontinental ballistic missiles with this. You're talking about other threat factors, and I was wondering if you would expand upon that.

[MGen Christopher Coates]

Within the scope of the tri-command, we have about six working groups focused on areas of mutual interest. Communications would be one, for example. Our activities hemispherically, our partnering activities with Mexico, for example, could be another one.

One of the working groups is focused on chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear response. There are a couple of reasons for it. The United States has a very well developed, highly developed, system in place. Ours is less so on the military side. But in Canada, the primary response to a CBRN incident is under Public Safety. Along those lines, with Beyond the Border there is a nexus for CBRN as well. CJOC sits on a committee with Public Safety on CBRN. It's part of ensuring that, as a whole of government, our two nations, each nation, can respond most appropriately.

I don't think that there's anything magical about what we're doing. We're just looking at the resources and capabilities on both sides of the border to try to maximize what we can each do.

What do I see the threats are? The vector is probably not in ICBM, but we've done fairly robust analysis of where we think threats could come from. The most likely threat in Canada is what we would call a TIM, a toxic industrial material. We think that an accidental exposure is the most likely threat that could affect Canadians domestically in a CBRN sense.

How ready is Public Safety? Well, it would be good to ask them. We are preparing ourselves to be ready to assist them, if needed, where we think they might require assistance. We've looked at the scale of the various threats. We've looked at what we think should be and could be our response. We've talked under the tri-command with our American counterparts to learn any lessons they've got, to see if there are any holes in each of our capabilities.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Thank you. That's time, Mr. Bezan.

Mr. Williamson for five minutes, please.

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

Thank you.

I'm curious to know what CJOC's immediate response was here and abroad in response to the October 22 attack on the Hill. Obviously law enforcement here was very active. I'd be curious to know your operational tempo, what the response was, and if there's been an assessment of that in terms of how a future attack on Canadian soil might be dealt with by your organization.

[MGen Christopher Coates]

Responding to the attack was a matter for law enforcement. Assessing the threat is something that we do. We were actually reassessing our threat posture to the events of Saint-Jean on October 20. We were doing that on October 22 when the unfortunate events here in Ottawa occurred. The process continued, and we continued assessing the threat, and then adjusted our force protection posture, we called it after that. We've done that periodically since that time and continue to do so.

We're also undertaking a full-scale review of our force protection procedures and what I'll call the doctrine that goes with it. Our previous directives predated the kind of threat that we see today out on the street, so we're going through a process right now. It should bear fruit for us in the next few weeks, couple of months, where we'll be internally having a different method to assess and respond to the threats organizationally.

That was what we did domestically. In your question you asked what we did outside Canada. We did the same thing. What we found was that most of our missions outside the country were already in a pretty advanced force protection posture. Many of them are in locations where the threat is pretty high already, so not much adjustment was required external to Canada.

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

We all know that the two soldiers who were killed were targeted because of their uniforms. It could happen again. Can you assure the committee that everything is being done to ensure our men and women are protected? They are a visible sign of everything we stand for as a nation. To this day it still hits home; people refer to both Vincent and Cirillo and the sacrifice they made for this country. I think Canadians want to know that their well-being is being looked after as much as possible when they're on the home front, on home soil.