National Defence Committee on Feb. 23rd, 2015

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

I understand that part, but I just want to know who's in charge. Is it you or is it him?

[MGen Christopher Coates]

It's my boss.

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

But there's no commander, at the commander level, who's in charge of all search and rescue operations from an operational perspective.

[MGen Christopher Coates]

Yes. General Vance, my boss, is the operational commander for search and rescue.

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

But that's not his main job, obviously.

[MGen Christopher Coates]

It's a job that's assigned to him. It's one of his main jobs. He has several.

It's just like the search and rescue region commanders in that two of them are also joint task force commanders. They have that responsibility as well. The commander of Joint Task Force Pacific is also the commander of search and rescue region Victoria. The commander of search and rescue region Halifax is also the commander of Joint Task Force Atlantic. We say they have different hats.

So General Vance has the SAR hat for the nation and he also has the operational hat for the nation, sir.

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

But they don't report to you for search and rescue, they report to General Vance.

[MGen Christopher Coates]

They report through me, sir.

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

Through you: okay. I just wanted to get that straight to understand it a little better.

I'm going to jump around a little, because I have questions here and there.

General Loos, just looking at your experience here, you recently came from the command of cyber-defence. I wonder if you—either of you—could comment on the Canadian priorities in terms of cyber-defence, both in the north and generally speaking. Are we looking at cyber-defence as it affects primarily military assets? Where else would you go beyond that in terms of the capability of what the priorities are for cyber-defence in Canada?

[BGen G.D. Loos]

Let me answer that in a couple of ways. One, in my last post I was the director general for cyberspace. It was a force development position. Part of what I was doing was analysis and research on what the demands were, what the requirements are, and what the changes in threats and risks are, and to try to put forward some ideas on force structure and developments for where we should go in terms of building our cyber-forces in the future.

It's certainly not part of my current mandate. That area evolves, as you can appreciate, very, very quickly, so if I were to give definitive answers now along that line, my information would likely be out of date from when I last worked on it. I certainly wasn't commanding our efforts. We have capabilities today. We need more. I think we have plans to invest in more. It's recognized that we have to defend our systems. That's a requirement wherever you're based—here, in the north, or overseas.

I don't have the latest developments on what will be in the program going forward, but I know that we are looking at what we need and investing in it.

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

So you can't share any conclusions with us, is what you're saying.

[BGen G.D. Loos]

I could share some, but whatever I would share is already out of date. I honestly don't know the latest plan moving forward.

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

Well, thank you, sir. You'll forgive me if I say it's not very helpful, but thank you for your answer.

General Loos, or perhaps General Coates, we did have questions about the use of the Ranger force in the north. I appreciate that we did have a witness specifically on that. One question I had was that it seems the Rangers are there, in a sense being available for on-call, for being eyes and ears even when they're not being paid or employed, but it seems there aren't any regular patrols. I asked whether there would be a weekly or a biweekly or monthly patrol where they would actually go out on the land and be those eyes and ears and do a surveillance patrol on a regular basis as part of the surveillance and domain awareness in the Arctic.

That doesn't seem to be the case. Why is that?

[BGen G.D. Loos]

We patrol for a number of reasons, and there's not necessarily a revisit rate that drives what we're doing with respect to patrolling.

Essentially—and I know you have heard this before—our Rangers do act as our eyes and ears whether they are wearing their red hoodie or not. They are members of the communities. When you take a community-security view of the north instead of worrying about four million square kilometres of territory all the time, you worry about what's going on around those communities and within range of those Ranger patrols.

When they are out on the land hunting and fishing, if they see something odd, they report it back. That's what we expect of them. That's part of the bargain when we sign them up, and they understand and actually thrive in that role. They understand they are performing an exceptional service for their country whether they are actually on paid duty or not.

In terms of regular patrols, there are regular patrols. An annual plan is worked up and executed, but it doesn't have a weekly or monthly basis. It draws on a number of factors including the rhythms of those communities with regard to their normal hunting periods and so on. It's about having presence. It's about having regular patrols, but those are not necessarily on a weekly or monthly basis.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

That's time, Mr. Harris.

Mr. Williamson, go ahead, please, for seven minutes.

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

Gentlemen, it's nice to have you here today.

General Coates, the disaster assistance response team, DART, has made significant contributions to the international community. An example that really stands out, I think, was our rapid response in the early hours after the Haiti earthquake a number of years ago. Of course last year as well the DART was deployed in the Philippines.

I think Canadians are well aware of its work abroad, but are there examples of it being deployed domestically in the recent or not-so-recent past?

[MGen Christopher Coates]

Sir, I'm not aware of examples of the DART being deployed domestically. It's within its plan, a plan we call Operation Renaissance, that it can be deployed domestically. We find that we can often respond just as quickly if not more quickly with other resources that may be nearby.

The elements of the DART are on an about one-day notice to move, or about two-day notice to be up and running. We maintain elements of our immediate reaction units that are dispersed across the country at a higher level of readiness than that.

The DART affords great capabilities. Up until now we have just never needed to deploy it domestically.

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

In my district last year there were a number of power outages. I represent CFB Gagetown, and there were calls by some to bring in the military, but in fact we found that civilian authorities really had the situation well in hand. Given the numbers as well, I think the DART's able to go in and pinpoint work with others as well.

Sir, the DART is often deployed to provide assistance to people in some very desperate and difficult situations. Can you explain to us some of the types of equipment it uses and the services it provides in these difficult zones?

[MGen Christopher Coates]

The DART has about five functional areas. The first would be its medical element. It provides primary medical care, triage, and some limited evacuation capability, ambulance capability.

It's a small detachment of about 45 or so medical people. That doesn't take you very far. It can be very focused, but it's limited.

Then there's an engineering capability involving about 60 people. It provides for basic construction—horizontal and vertical—as well as some route clearance, engineering assessment, and water purification. Route clearance was the big function in the Philippines.

We have an aviation capability for mobility that can also deploy as well as a CIMIC capability so the coordination of support, specially trained individuals who are good at assisting and prioritizing and matching needs to resources in disaster zones.

I don't know if I got up to the five. I think there are five.

In addition there's a support element that keeps the DART functioning, another group of people who keep the DART going.

That's more or less, those are the capabilities that make up the DART.

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

For medical people, did you say four or five, or up to 45?

[MGen Christopher Coates]

It's about 45.

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

About 45, good.

And of course—disclosure—my wife is on the DART team, Lieutenant-Commander Williamson. They're under an exercise right now.

How often do such exercises occur? And any heads-up for the next one, so the dog will get fed next time?

[MGen Christopher Coates]

I'm certain we can find a way to give you a heads-up. The current exercise, I believe, is the one you're referring to, in Jamaica. I don't know if she was part of the team that deployed there or just watched the others go to Jamaica. A really good exercise from the reports that I've received back on it.

About on an annual basis, we try to either work the disaster response team or our non-combatant evacuation operation. It may depend on the years and what's going on, which of those will occur.

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

And I suppose much would depend....The DART on average gets deployed, is it three or four years, on average?

[MGen Christopher Coates]

Approximately.