National Defence Committee on Feb. 23rd, 2015

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

I suspect part of that would be, if there hasn't been a deployment, you might do more training in years where there's not the heavy....

[MGen Christopher Coates]

Right. It also depends on what I would call the battle rhythm of its parent headquarters, the 1st Canadian Division headquarters in Kingston. So that too will be factored in.

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

I suppose, to bring this back to the defence of North America, in the broad scheme of things, the DART would play, if any, a small role in filling in but there really isn't a domestic focus of this team.

[MGen Christopher Coates]

There isn't, but we've not had—knock on wood—a really catastrophic kind of disaster that would....If one were to imagine an earthquake in Vancouver scenario, for example, that would see the DART deployed.

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

General Loos, could you expand on the level of coordination between the detachments and units of JTFN, and other domestic security authority agencies in carrying out operations, particularly in the north?

For example, could you expand on the links and coordination with the RCMP, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, other government agencies, and perhaps the coast guard?

[BGen G.D. Loos]

Certainly, we have a lot of interaction with all of these partners. Our main partners in most activities end up being the three RCMP divisions in each territory. They have presence in many of the communities where we have presence. There's a lot of sharing of information and challenges. Sometimes we help each other out with transport. Certainly, they're part of our Arctic security working group as well.

With the coast guard, there are connections with search and rescue, but as well, they, the RCMP, Fisheries, and others regularly come to Operation Nanook where we ramp up whole-of-government scenarios specifically to understand roles, responsibilities, and organizational structures, and how we would come together as a team, and to learn lessons and figure things out.

We also have Operation Nunakput, run every summer, where with Fisheries, part of coast guard, and the RCMP we do coordinated patrolling from Great Slave Lake all the way up the Mackenzie to the Beaufort.

Again, that's another opportunity to have presence, to build partnerships, to learn lessons as we go, and to share our approach to those responsibilities.

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

My district borders the state of Maine in the United States. In the last year or two there was an operation with Canadian and American personnel, military as well as coast guard.

Would that have fallen under your supervision, do you know?

[BGen G.D. Loos]

I don't believe so, no.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Ms. Murray, for seven minutes.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Thank you.

I'm going to ask about two different things. One of them is how the defence budget cuts and the delays in capital replacement are affecting your responsibilities. The other is to find out more about the issue of readiness for a potential disaster, particularly on the Pacific coast. I'm a Vancouverite and I'm always interested in the risks and the preparedness for that.

With the first question, I'm sure you're aware of the Conference of Defence Associations Institute's recent report from last week. It's highly critical of our situation with respect to budget cuts and national defence. Capital spending has dropped to 13% of budget where normal was always 20%. Their analysis suggests that the funding is, on an inflation-adjusted basis, down to 2007 levels, so it's far below what was promised in the defence strategy. In fact some $32 billion is being pulled out of the defence strategy from the promised trajectory. I just want to put on record their quote here:

The reality is that we are entering a period of continued decline, diminished CAF capabilities and capacities, less training and lower output, with consequently reduced influence on the world stage and weakened contribution—

—and this is the part that is specifically relevant to our discussion—

to our own security, domestic and international.

How do you deal with these budget reductions, some of which are transparent and you can plan for, but some of which are backdoor cuts like lapsing and freezes and so on? What's the process for taking an unplanned budget reduction that might affect supplies, training, or maintenance and making sure that you can focus it where you are the most effective, and cut out things that are not as necessary? What's your process?

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

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, I just want to remind Ms. Murray and the committee that on page 1068 in O'Brien and Bosc in chapter 20 on committees, when witnesses are appearing who are departmental individuals, they aren't compelled to answer questions that might be outside of their operational expertise.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Thank you Mr. Bezan.

Generals, answer as you see fit, please.

[MGen Christopher Coates]

Thank you very much.

From a departmental perspective, we're the Canadian Joint Operations Command and we're provided with assets and resources and capabilities by the army, the navy, and the air force primarily, and sometimes other parts of National Defence like the chief of military personnel, who can provide us with healthcare specialists, for example—our doctors and nurses. Then we use those resources to satisfy the operational requirements.

From a continental perspective—and that's the one that I can talk about—I have not been witness to the effects of any reduction in capabilities over the two years that I've been in the job. Our ability to meet all of our readiness requirements—whether they're in search and rescue or the domestic forces that are in readiness, the immediate reaction units of which I spoke, our ready duty ships, or the aircrafts that are standing by on the coasts in order to respond to surveillance requirements—we monitor that on a daily basis. Outside of an occasional once or twice perhaps every six months where an aircraft has a servicing problem, which doesn't strike me as that abnormal, we're always green every morning. So we've been able to meet our requirements.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

In essence you're a supplier to the other forces and they provide you with—

[MGen Christopher Coates]

They're a supplier to us, ma'am.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

They're a supplier to you. Okay. They're protecting their budget of what they're supplying to you, apparently—

[MGen Christopher Coates]

In a sense our focus is on Canada First. So if there are effects, we're not feeling them at Canada First. We've been able to maintain our temple of exercises and our interaction with our counterparts, be they the U.S. or others we interact with in various exercises.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Thank you. That's really good information, so the cuts are falling somewhere else and we'll have to figure out where that is.

Secondly, with the tectonic plates we know there is predicted to be a massive earthquake and a potentially big tsunami. Sometime every 200 years this occurs, and I think the last one was some 40 or 50 years ago, so it could happen and we need to be prepared.

Can you just walk us through when there is warning? Should there be a major event, how would you support the provincial and local emergency network? Just walk us through who is going to get the call, who does that person communicate with, and where this is taking place. Let us suppose it's somewhere that an earthquake, fire, or tsunami might affect a dense urban area. How would that work?

[MGen Christopher Coates]

It would be really challenging. In the worst case it would be really challenging, so it's a great question.

I mentioned earlier that we have six regional joint task forces and there is one headquartered in Victoria, Joint Task Force Pacific. Our rear-admiral, who is the commander of Joint Task Force Pacific, maintains very close contact with his provincial emergency measures counterparts. They hold frequent exercises. They usually do it in September or October after some personnel changes have taken place. They did another one again this year where they actually went through what the response would be.

I mentioned earlier that we have Operation LENTUS, which is our disaster response operation. There is a subset to that which deals with response to a Vancouver, west coast earthquake.

If a problem occurred, would I hear about it from Rear-Admiral Truelove, who would give me the call to say that we had just had a really bad earthquake and that we were responding? Or would he be cut off? Would we hear about it on the news? We don't know, but we've put measures in place that would account for that. It could be that he would hear about it from his emergency measures counterparts who are the lead at the provincial and federal level. If he were able to respond, then it would be under him that we would flow resources and assets into the province in order to respond and assist our provincial and municipal counterparts.

We have a plan that if he were unable to communicate with us, the commander in Edmonton, Joint Task Force West, would assume that function for us. We do practice that, and if he were cut off, Edmonton takes over and we start to flow in the forces through that direction.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Thank you. That is your time, Ms. Murray. An interesting area of questioning but we allowed a few extra seconds.

This is the beginning of the five-minute round.

Ms. Gallant, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I just want to clarify. I'm not sure where cuts are coming from in the previous speaker's questioning because aside from less spending because we're not full bore in Afghanistan, when I look at the figures we're actually double what we were just after that decade of darkness back in 2000. I just want to make sure that people listening or reading the transcript at home realize there is some misinformation that's being planted here.

General Coates, it's great to see you again, and again, thank you for the work and leadership you put into re-rolling Helicopter Squadron 427.

My question has to do with Operation Nanook. Back in August 2011 an exercise turned into a real-life situation, and some things went well, some things could perhaps have gone better.

Would you please share with the committee the lessons learned from that particular exercise?

[MGen Christopher Coates]

I don't have at hand the particular lessons learned from that exercise. I'll search—

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

Generally speaking.... We don't have to have it point by point through the debriefing, but what was learned during that?

[MGen Christopher Coates]

We would be glad to come back to the committee with the lessons learned out of that. I'm afraid I don't have them at hand.

Certainly we go through that process every time. It was associated with Operation Nanook . They're available, I'm sure. I would perhaps be venturing if I said something.

[BGen G.D. Loos]

We do have a lessons learned process for every operation or exercise we undertake so that would be available.

We were very lucky to be in that area on exercise at that time. So the response was quite quick and lives were saved. I know that.

I know as well that in a broader sense both Operation Nanook and Operation NUNALIVUT are specifically scheduled each year to be at a time of year when we have more activity and when there are potentially more dangers and risk for more search and rescue activity when we've got winter and summer adventurers. The fact that we choose those periods of time to bring our forces north to practise means they are closer and at hand when certain things come up. We were very fortuitous in this case but in other instances it's part of our plan to be up north operating and in the area in case some overly adventurous folks bite off more than they can chew and we get called in to assist.