National Defence Committee on Feb. 23rd, 2015

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Good afternoon, colleagues.

We are here, as you know, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) for our continuing study of the defence of North America.

We have two witnesses with us this afternoon: from the Department of National Defence, Major-General Christopher Coates, Deputy Commander (Continental) Canadian Joint Operations Command, and Brigadier-General G.D. Loos, Commander, Joint Task Force North.

Gentlemen, welcome this afternoon.

Major-General Coates, would you like to begin the opening remarks?

[MGen Christopher Coates, Deputy Commander (Continental), Canadian Joint Operations Command, Department of National Defence]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Chair, members of the committee, it's a pleasure to be here. I am accompanied today by Brigadier-General Gregory Loos, Commander of Joint Task Force North, headquartered in Yellowknife.

I'm here to talk about the Canadian Armed Forces role in continental disaster relief operations.

It's well appreciated that disasters of both natural and man-made origin are a persistent challenge to countries and governments around the world. The effects of these calamities are widespread, most notably the human toll on every individual affected. With almost no warning, lives and homes can be lost in the blink of an eye with periods of recovery lingering from weeks to months or even years as in the case of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. As recent memory shows, hurricanes, floods, and forest fires are but a few of the most common natural disasters our country faces on a yearly basis.

Our provincial and territorial partners have well-tuned, capable means at their disposal to mitigate and respond to the effects of disasters at any location throughout our country. Periodically, however, the effects of a particular disaster can become so great they overwhelm the capabilities of our civilian authorities.

That's where the Canadian Armed Forces can come into play. As part of the Canada First Defence Strategy, the Canadian Armed Forces are prepared to provide critical assistance in support of civilian authorities during a crisis in Canada, whenever and wherever required.

While we are not the lead when it comes to disaster relief, we can rapidly surge resources and unique capabilities at critical moments to complement and enhance the resources of our civilian partners.

At all times we are in continuous liaison with Public Safety, the lead for federal emergency response, as well as with provincial and territorial authorities and other federal partners. This liaison is a critical piece of our joint planning apparatus with Public Safety and our civilian partners, which is intended to allow us maximum forewarning of an impending request for assistance to the Canadian Armed Forces. Even before such a request is made, our regional joint task force commanders and staff actively collaborate with our civilian counterparts. This ensures civil decision-makers have realistic expectations of CAF capabilities, limitations, and deployment times.

During this whole-of-government planning process, a key factor in deploying the Canadian Armed Forces is the ability of civilian authorities to manage the situation without our support. This is an important determination to make, as any support provided to civilian authorities by the Canadian Armed Forces is always one of last resort.

When it becomes clear that the situation may overwhelm the capacity of civilian authorities to respond to the crisis, and usually in response to a formal request for assistance, the Minister of National Defence can direct the Canadian Armed Forces to provide support to complement and enhance provincial and local efforts already under way.

This is facilitated through Operation LENTUS, the Canadian Armed Forces contingency plan for the provision of humanitarian and disaster relief support to provincial and territorial authorities during a major disaster. Under Operation LENTUS, the Canadian Armed Forces' intent is to have strategic effects in the affected location within 24 hours of receiving a request for assistance.

There are instances, however, when particular disasters such as floods and forest fires can occur without sufficient forewarning to engage in the normal whole-of-government planning cycle. In such cases our regional joint task force commanders can initiate an immediate military response if they determine this is needed to save lives, alleviate suffering, and protect critical infrastructure. Known as a regional rapid response operation, this critical fail-safe in our response capability does not have to wait for a formal request for assistance. Among the many capable and unique resources and assets we can bring to bear from across our force generators are engineering, health services, force protection, transport, aviation, and logistics, among others. Once in location, our personnel work collaboratively with civilian authorities to assist in organizing the joint response to the crisis at hand, including effective command and control of the response.

As we saw during the intense flooding in Manitoba in 2014, this support equated to 500 Canadian Armed Forces members working alongside provincial authorities and volunteers in tasks as simple but important as sandbag production, which was key to protecting property in affected areas.

Four CH-146 helicopters out of Edmonton were also employed in this operation as well as a CP-140 aircraft for information, surveillance, and reconnaissance of the situation.

We also saw the provision of Canadian Armed Forces disaster response to flooding on three other occasions in 2014. Between May 7 and 8, the Canadian Armed Forces, the Canadian Rangers, two CC-130 Hercules, and five Griffon aircraft successfully evacuated 90 people from Kashechewan and Fort Albany in northern Ontario. Between May 10 and 12, 730 people were successfully evacuated from Kashechewan by military resources, and between May 17 and 20, Canadian Rangers and two Hercules aircraft extracted 165 residents of the Attawapiskat First Nation.

These are just several recent examples where the unique capabilities of the Canadian Armed Forces were successfully utilized during relief operations to extract Canadians out of harm's way.

So far, I've focused on domestic disaster response operations. I'll now briefly touch on our continental capability.

Since 2008, Canada and the United States have maintained an important bilateral framework for the provision of military support of one nation to support the military of the other nation, either during or in anticipation of a civil emergency, known as the CANUS civil assistance plan. This plan allows for scalable deployment of military personnel and assets from one nation to the other to respond to a myriad of crises and events such as flooding, earthquakes, forest fires, and even the effects of a terrorist attack. This is just another way we can save lives, mitigate human suffering, and reduce damage to property.

Already, this plan has been successfully activated on two occasions.

During USNORTHCOM's response to Hurricane Gustav in August 2008, Canada provided a CC-177 Globemaster aircraft to help evacuate medical patients from the southern United States, and two Hercules aircraft for humanitarian assistance efforts.

In 2010, when Canada hosted the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, USNORTHCOM was proactively prepared to provide support for liaison teams and chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear response forces should the unthinkable have occurred.

The men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces remain dedicated to the safety and welfare of their fellow citizens and bringing relief to our communities, wherever the need may arise. I believe Brigadier-General Loos has a few remarks he would like to make, after which I will be pleased to respond to any questions you may have.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Thank you.

General Loos, please may we have your opening remarks?

[BGen G.D. Loos, Commander, Joint Task Force (North), Department of National Defence]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, members of the committee, I thank you for the invitation to join you today.

Joint Task Force North, or JTFN, encompasses a vast region, including over 4 million square kilometres, about the size of western Europe, and including over 75% of Canada's coastline.

Our role in JTFN is to prepare for and conduct operations in the north. These may be defence of sovereignty operations or they may be safety and security operations in the service of other government departments, based on their requests for assistance.

In terms of our organizational assets to accomplish this role, we have several units based primarily in Yellowknife. We have JTFN headquarters and its area support unit with the mandate to maintain situational awareness for the region and to have the capacity to plan, coordinate, command, execute, and sustain operations. As well as maintaining a small liaison presence in both Whitehorse and Iqaluit, our region also possesses NORAD infrastructure such as the north warning system and CFS Alert.

Additionally, there is 440 Transport Squadron, generating its four Twin Otter aircraft to provide vital tactical air transport support for many northern mission profiles.

There is a Canadian army reserve unit, C Company of the Loyal Edmonton Regiment, that is based there as well.

Finally, 1 Canadian Ranger Patrol Group headquarters commands its 60 patrols from Yellowknife. These patrols, including some 1,850 rangers, based in 60 of the 74 communities found in the JTFN area of responsibility, are our eyes and ears throughout the region, and mentor and guide southern-based military elements when they come north to train or operate.

1 CRPG headquarters also administers the Junior Canadian Rangers patrols in 41 communities.

To be ready for our assigned role and missions, we monitor our region, plan and execute operations to train and improve our capabilities, and foster great working relationships with a number of northern partners.

Regional situational awareness is accomplished via a number of means: our Canadian Rangers, using a number of military systems; by carrying out specific air and maritime surveillance and presence missions; and by sharing information with partners from other military units, allied military formations, and other government departments.

To improve our readiness and foster partnerships with all regional, federal, territorial, and aboriginal and first nations stakeholders—and amongst other goals—we routinely plan and execute four main operations a year, primary of which are Nanook and NUNALIVUT.

Of course, there are many challenges to operating in our Canadian north. Mother Nature challenges us with great geographical distances to cover and monitor and with many different types of challenging terrain in which to operate.

An evolving climate is raising new concerns for many communities in the region, which in some cases may translate into future issues requiring military disaster assistance response. Similarly, human activity in the region is increasing, which may also lead to high tempo for military responses to certain scenarios.

For these potential challenges, our deliberately planned operations permit us to better prepare for them by anticipating them, exercising through those scenarios, and learning valuable lessons along the way.

Thank you for the opportunity to share our approach to military operations and readiness for Canada's north.

I would be pleased to attempt to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you.

[Witness speaks in native language]

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Thank you, General.

We'll proceed now to our first round of questioning in seven-minute segments, beginning with Mr. Norlock, please.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and, through you to the witnesses, thank you for attending today.

Major-General Coates, can you speak to the level of readiness of the integrated command and control system of CJOC and its ability to respond to emergency situations in short notice?

[MGen Christopher Coates]

I would say that the command and control system is always turned on—if that's an analogy that makes sense. We're always operating and we're always ready. The Canadian Joint Operations Command manages our response through the Canadian Forces integrated command centre, called the CFICC, which is always on duty, 24/7, and 365 days a year. They're linked in on a continual basis with our regional operations centres in each of the six joint task force regions and are permanently connected to the other partners, such as the Transport Canada operations centre; the government operations centre, Public Safety; and RCMP centre.

I would suggest that the command and control apparatus is at the highest level of readiness at all times. The response forces, of course, are at graduated levels of readiness after that, sir.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you very much.

I also understand that it was under your command of 1 Wing Kingston that the Chinook helicopter was re-established.

Can you comment on the improvements to the new CH-147F model, and its contribution to the Canadian Forces, other government departments, law enforcement agencies, and other civil authorities?

[MGen Christopher Coates]

I think the air force would be a better witness to this, but I did have an opportunity to fly the new Chinook very recently.

Having started flying helicopters more than 25 years ago, this new aircraft is night and day in terms of what it will afford in terms of a capability for Canadians, the Canadian Forces, and all those—certainly in the disaster response sense—that we would aid.

Interestingly, the aircraft can self-deploy to anywhere in our country, with an incredible range of more than 1,000 kilometres. Using fuel that already exists at major centres, it can reach up north very, very quickly. Unfortunately, the aircraft is not at full operational capability yet. We've not employed it yet in a disaster response operation, although it was on standby for one of the ones I mentioned earlier, the flooding in northern Ontario last year. We did have them on standby just in case, but they weren't even at what we would call initial operational capability at that time.

I think the promise that they offer to us will be transformational. It will allow commanders to function by compressing time and distance in ways that we've not been able to do before.

I don't know if that's too generic for you, sir.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

It's not too generic; it's actually very good.

I'm very interested in the range of the aircraft: 1,000 kilometres. You mentioned that it's not quite fully deployable. Is that because there is additional equipment that's being installed in it, etc.? What's the issue?

[MGen Christopher Coates]

It's because the capability itself as a system is not yet ready, sir.

Some of the experienced aircrew who we would want to deploy, if we deployed a detachment of two or three aircraft, are being used to train the other aircrew. The maintenance capability is not yet completely up to speed. It takes some time to develop that and get all of the parts and supplies and all of that worked out. In the air force we'd be in a better position to respond, but that's my understanding of why we're not quite at full operational capability yet.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you.

Also, can you expand on the level of coordination and communication between CJOC commanders and allied militaries, and how this contributes to the defence of North America?

[MGen Christopher Coates]

Sir, our principle partner in the defence of North America is the United States. We maintain a very active relationship with the other two commands that are involved in the defence of North America, those being NORAD and USNORTHCOM. The structure that we use is called the tri-command. We meet twice a year, with the staffs continually engaged between the three commands to work through matters of mutual interest. We share our contingency plans together, we exercise together, and we meet frequently as leadership.

I represented my commander at Admiral Gortney's—the new commander of NORAD and USNORTHCOM—recent commanders' session down in Colorado Springs. That's just an indication, a reflection, of the degree of closeness that we maintain through the tri-command with both NORAD and USNORTHCOM. I think we share our perception of threats; we share our understanding of what each of our capabilities are. Through our exercising together, we learn how to optimize our responses and maximize our capabilities.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you very much.

General Loos, can you explain how the JTFN collaborates with regional partners through the Arctic security working group and their meetings, and how these meetings address the many challenges and opportunities associated with operating in Canada's north?

[BGen G.D. Loos]

We meet twice a year. It's meant to be a forum where we bring together regional, federal, territorial, and key municipal emergency measures organizations, essentially any main stakeholder that has an interest in Arctic—we say Arctic security, but realistically it really is a spectrum from safety through security, and actually on the defence side, we're not often preoccupied with defence issues. It's mainly safety and security.

It's co-chaired by Public Safety, by the regional rep who's based in Yellowknife. What we attempt to do, aside from providing a forum for us to come together and share our respective challenges and our capability developments and evolutions, is make relationships. We normally try to set a topic for each of our engagements that will help float everyone's boat in terms of awareness and knowledge of a specific risk area or a problem area. We understand each other's mandates better, what resources are available to throw at any potential future response or crisis, and mostly it's about having pre-crisis relationships among all the main players before something comes along.

I think you can find that a number of times we'll raise topic areas that point to issues. We then try to hammer through those in operations that follow as scenarios.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Thank you, General.

That's time, Mr. Norlock.

Mr. Harris, please, for seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, both generals, for coming here today.

We had some guests last week, General Woiden and Colonel Moritsugu, telling us that you guys would answer all the hard questions. Maybe I'll get to them shortly.

First of all, General Coates, you have six commands under you, and JTFN is one of them. Could you list the other five?

[MGen Christopher Coates]

If I get this wrong, I probably am fired.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

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

Sorry; I can follow up with other another question, no worries.

[MGen Christopher Coates]

Joint Task Force Pacific is headquartered in Victoria, Joint Task Force West in Edmonton, Joint Task Force Central in Toronto,

Joint Task Force East in Montreal, and

Joint Task Force Atlantic is in Halifax.

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

So they're geographical task forces.

[MGen Christopher Coates]

They are geographical, yes.

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

Are you also responsible for search and rescue? Is there a separate commander for search and rescue? Is that something that's under your command as well? If so, who's in charge?

[MGen Christopher Coates]

My boss is the operational commander for search and rescue in Canada. On his behalf, I lead that. We have three search and rescue regions in Canada.