National Defence Committee on May 5th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Go ahead.

[Lisa Campbell]

—the early validation of requirements that's happening at DND is very helpful. Their independent review panel on defence acquisitions helps brings some certainty. We also do a lot of industry engagement to validate this. We collaborate with international counterparts. We also talk to the supply chain because, increasingly, prime contractors are procurement entities in and of themselves.

Your question relates to risk management. There is risk in all these complex projects, whether military or non-military. As I said earlier, the life cycle of procurements is getting shorter and shorter. What we're really concerned with is making sure the government has opportunities for choice and innovation throughout the life of whatever it buys. That means that intellectual property, for example, isn't locked down such that you always have to go back to the OEM. You can actually have choice down the road.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you for that.

Unfortunately, that ate up all your time, Mr. Bezan. I'm going to have to give the floor over, and we going to have to suspend so that the witnesses can leave, so, Mr. Fisher, if you have a question, you have about three minutes.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you, folks, for being here today. I'm probably going to sound a bit repetitive, but I want to get a little more clarity on a couple of things.

We spoke about infrastructure needs and we spoke about order of magnitude. We're talking about the investments we're making in some of our airfields and stuff, and at one time the plan of the government was to move forward with an F-35. Were there orders of magnitude done? Was there work done on what it would cost us for infrastructure improvements when it was understood, or thought, or felt that we might move in that direction for a fifth-generation stealth fighter?

I'm sorry if that's a little repetitive if you feel that you've sort of answered the question, but I don't really have the clarity that I feel I need on that.

[RAdm Patrick Finn]

Again, yes, we have a directorate of costing services. Our chief financial officer's work was done on what would be the rough order of magnitude approach for infrastructure in that model. They looked at hangars and what kinds of runways. Again, I would just say that it was early work. The aircraft itself was still evolving, so what would it entail and what would we need to do? Some work was done there. I'm sorry to say that I don't know the resulting numbers.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

You have no ballpark figure on what those resulting figures were?

[RAdm Patrick Finn]

I do not.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

That's what I'm trying to get at. Was it in the order of magnitude of billions and billions of dollars? Or was it in the ballpark of what I see here, which is $30 million, $3 million, $10 million, $9 million, $10 million, and $20 million? That's what I want to know. I think that's what the committee needs to know.

[RAdm Patrick Finn]

In the context of the acquisition budget that was discussed and reviewed for the F-35, we can take that question on notice and go back to our chief financial officer.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

I would respectfully request, through the Chair, if I could, to have that detail, if there is any detail existing, provided to the committee in terms of any of the early order of magnitude work on expansion of infrastructure.

If I have another second, Mr. Chair, again, Admiral Finn, you talk about how we have plans to procure a replacement for the CC-150 Polaris, yet in your next sentence you say that we have plans to upgrade, modernize, and extend the life of the Polaris CC-150. Can you give me a breakdown of how that works? Is that because we're in a bit of procurement hole? Or is that just real forward thinking, in that we're saying that until we're in the position where we're going to procure a replacement for the refueller, we also must extend the life? Can I get a 30-second clarification?

Do I have 30 seconds?

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

That's about all you have.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Okay.

[RAdm Patrick Finn]

Our our normal process is that we identify requirements. We go into what's called an “option analysis”. In option analysis, we look at whether we life-extend, replace, lease, or eliminate.

That is a project that is literally in the identification phase and has not even entered option analysis. All options will be on the table.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

I would like to thank our witnesses for coming. Thanks very much for your time and your efforts today.

I'm going to suspend for a few minutes while we switch out witnesses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Welcome back. To respect the time that we have left, we need to get started.

I would like to welcome and thank Ms. Mason and Mr. Perry for joining us today for our discussion on the defence of North America, and more specifically, the Canadian NORAD region and our aerial readiness from a bunch of different perspectives and aspects.

You each have up to 10 minutes to talk to us today, so I'd like to give the floor to either Ms. Mason or Mr. Perry for 10 minutes. Thank you for coming today.

It looks like it's ladies first.

[Peggy Mason, President, Rideau Institute on International Affairs]

Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to address you on this important study.

I'm sorry, but I didn't have time to send my remarks in advance for translation. However, I have provided copies of my presentation for the interpreters.

I am going to focus my opening remarks on the issue of Canadian participation in the American strategic system for the ballistic missile defence of North America.

I should note that as an international security policy adviser to the then foreign minister, Joe Clark, in the Mulroney government, I was intensely involved in the Canadian decision not to participate on a government-to-government basis in President Reagan's strategic defense initiative, a decision made by Canada in the height of the Cold War in 1985 on the basis that participation in what was then only a research effort, while prudent for the United States to pursue, did not accord with Canadian defence and security priorities. As everyone is well aware, in 2005 Canada decided again not to participate in what had become a program not only of research but of development.

In a nutshell, my position is that both those decisions not to participate were in accordance with Canadian defence and security priorities, and the same holds true today. I will advance six reasons why Canadian participation in U.S. BMD for North America should not be a Canadian priority.

One, the American BMD system, called GMD, or ground-based midcourse missile defense, is not reliable, despite 30 years of investment and billions of dollars spent.

Two, strategic BMD is a spur for Russia and China to build ever more and better offensive systems in order to overwhelm these defences in case they should ever work and be directed at them. It is infinitely cheaper to build more offensive systems. In other words, BMD has very negative security implications.

Three, as senior DND officials testified before you on March 22, there is no military threat to Canada from either North Korea or Iran. In any event, North Korea is primarily a non-proliferation challenge, and addressing it as such—so successful with Iran—is what should be followed with North Korea.

Four, there is very little likelihood that Canadian participation in missile defence would give Canada the much sought-after seat at the BMD table. In 2004 the United States made the decision to locate the ballistic missile defense command in NORTHCOM, not NORAD, and during our subsequent negotiations on participation would not provide Canada with any guarantee of a meaningful operational role in BMD, or even a guarantee that Canadian cities would be defended.

Five, the fact that European members of NATO are participating in a version of theatre missile defence and regional missile defence is an issue that is entirely separate from whether Canada should participate in a strategic system that does not work for North America. There might be a separate debate as to whether Canada should participate in any way in the NATO systems—for example, on ships—but that is not what is under discussion here.

Six, there will be significant financial costs to Canadian BMD participation at a time—this is what you've been discussing this morning—when the Department of National Defence is facing a veritable abyss of delayed procurement, not to mention a major modernization of the north warning system in about 10 years.

For all these reasons, I argue that it is not in Canada's defence and security interests to pursue participation in the American ballistic missile defence program for North America at this time. Let me pursue just a couple of these reasons in a bit more detail.

On the BMD not working, I leave that for questions for those who want to follow up on it. I'll turn to reason number two, which is the vital arms control dimension, bearing in mind that awhile past I was the Canadian ambassador for disarmament to the UN and have a special interest in those issues.

It is worth briefly recalling why the Soviet Union and the United States agreed to the 1972 anti-ballistic missile treaty, which severely restricted ballistic missile defences. It was because of a straightforward proposition. It is much easier and much cheaper to build more offensive systems to overwhelm defensive systems like BMD than it is to develop a reliable defensive system, and thus, if pursued, they risk triggering an offensive nuclear arms race.

At a minimum, both Russia and China have to take into account the potential effect of a functioning BMD system negating their retaliatory capability, which in turn means they must keep open the possibility of building up offensive forces as a hedge against U.S. BMD development, whether or not they believe American assertions that right now the system is aimed not at them but at rogue states.

The American BMD system also acts as a catalyst to nuclear weapons modernization, as Russia and China seek not only increased numbers of nuclear weapons but also increased manoeuvrability to evade defences. Preventing these incredibly destabilizing developments was the whole rationale behind the ABM treaty, which George W. Bush abandoned in 2002 in order to pursue the BMD chimera. It is precisely these destabilizing developments that we have seen increasing since then, especially with respect to manoeuvrability.

On reason number three, the low level of threat from North Korea that can best be addressed by the non-proliferation challenge, you've heard some testimony on this, so I'll leave that follow-up for questions.

On reason number four, which is that participation in BMD will not give Canada a meaningful seat at the table, physically sitting at the table does not mean you have a say. In this regard, I would point to the excellent study commissioned by DND, “NORAD in Perpetuity”, dated March 31, 2014, and in particular page 34, which draws the same conclusion.

In the interest of time, I'll not add to my prior comments on the lack of relevance of NATO missile defences to Canadian participation in the U.S. strategic BMD for North America.

On my final point, there will be significant financial costs to Canadian BMD participation at a time when there are so many competing priorities. The “NORAD in Perpetuity” report referenced earlier goes into this issue of costs.

For all these reasons, seeking Canadian participation in BMD at this time, in my view, does not serve Canada's priority defence, security, and non-proliferation interests, and that's what it's all about: what are the priorities? We can't do everything.

I would like to add one further point. On October 28, 2014, in the hearings then being held before this committee on the defence of North America, one of the authors of the above-noted report, “NORAD in Perpetuity”, Professor James Fergusson, gave testimony. He, until that point, had surely been Canada's foremost academic expert on and proponent of Canadian participation in American BMD, but that was not his testimony on that day, October 28, 2014.

He had, after all, worked on the “NORAD in Perpetuity” report, which highlighted the extremely low probability of Canada's getting a meaningful seat at the BMD table, as well as the costs associated with Canadian participation. To these reasons, he added the low level of ballistic missile threat from rogue states and the many pressing needs of National Defence in relation to procurement, not least for “large chunks of the Canadian navy”, as he put it.

For all of these reasons, he stated in answer to a direct question about what priority he would give to BMD, “...it's not one that I would suggest is a high priority right now”.

Thank you. I very much look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

I'd like to reset the clock and give Mr. Perry the floor for 10 minutes.

[David Perry, Senior Analyst, Canadian Global Affairs Institute, As an Individual]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for inviting me today. I think this study on North American defence is important, both in the context of the review of defence policy that's ongoing right now and beyond that, because I think the strategic situation surrounding North American defence has appreciably worsened in the last couple of years. I think this study is timely.

For more than two decades, the focus of North American defence and security has been largely on non-state threats, on things like narcotics trafficking and terrorism. I'd argue that Canada is currently quite well positioned to defend itself against those types of threats.

I would argue, though, that we're significantly less well prepared to defend ourselves against state-based threats, such as North Korea and their ballistic missile threats. North Korea has been developing this technology for several years and is now working to put these types of missiles on their submarines. While the United States has developed their ground-based midcourse defense system, which my colleague just referred to, and originally asked Canada to participate in that system, Canada declined to do so. As a result, I think the only thing you can guarantee about ballistic missile defence in Canada is that Canada currently has absolutely no say in potentially defending Canadians.

Beyond ballistic missiles, events over the last two years have reintroduced the need to defend North America against other potential state-based threats. The Russian military has significantly upgraded its air and naval forces in recent years, and it continues to do so. Over the last two years in particular, the Russians have demonstrated this new equipment's effectiveness, as well as a willingness to use it to advance their own interests.

Russian forces successfully employed in Syria a new class of sophisticated conventional air- and sea-launched cruise missiles that have greatly enhanced range, are difficult to observe, and are capable of precision targeting. Three aspects of this development are troubling.

First, these weapons come in both nuclear and conventional variants. Second, they can be carried by long-range Russian patrol aircraft and their newest and most capable submarines, and over the last decade Russia has resumed deploying both of these asset types in and around North America. Third, because of the increased distances at which these new missiles can successfully hit targets and their low observability characteristics, the current arrangements for defending North America against them must be upgraded to counter them effectively.

In sum, Russia has developed and recently used abroad sophisticated new technology that could be deployed against North America, using the same aircraft and submarines that now routinely patrol the air and waters around Canada and the United States. I would argue that it's not a question of whether the Russians are coming, because they're already here; the question is what their intentions are and how we should respond.

As part of the review of Canadian defence policy, I argue that we need to increase our ability to detect and effectively counter this type of state-based activity. Accordingly, I'd recommend five measures be taken to enhance Canada's ability to defend North America.

First, we should seriously examine becoming a full partner in the ballistic defence of North America, and if the terms are agreeable and the Americans are willing, we should join. This would give the Canadian government the ability to potentially defend Canadians from ballistic missiles, something which it cannot do at present.

At a minimum, even if Canada is not threatened directly by North Korea, the United States clearly thinks it is. This means that Canadian citizens could be threatened by an accidental launch or a wayward missile from North Korea, even if it's aimed south of the border. I am personally not sufficiently confident in North Korean missile technology to think that there's zero chance North Korea might hit Vancouver with a missile even if it's aiming at Seattle. Currently, the Canadian government could do absolutely nothing to prevent this from happening.

Second, the increased Russian activity around North America requires that we enhance our ability to know what is happening in our airspace and our maritime approaches, particularly in the Canadian Arctic. Since 2007 the Russians have conducted long-range aviation patrols towards Canada's Arctic airspace, and they've done so in ways that indicate an inclination on their part to link this type of activity to strategic confrontations with Canada elsewhere in the world.

Similarly, Russian submarine patrols in the Atlantic have recently reached levels not seen since the Cold War. To that end, progress should be made to further upgrade and life-extend the existing platforms we currently operate to conduct intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions, so that we maintain an awareness of this activity. In the medium and long term, we need to acquire new platforms that would enhance our ability to do so in the future. This should include upgrading the Canadian component of the north warning system with a system better suited to the current and future threat environment.

Third, the government should move quickly to replace our fleet of CF-18 fighter aircraft to maintain our ability to successfully intercept long-range aviation flights approaching Canadian airspace, both today and in the future. Since the government has committed to holding a competition, a competition that is fully open to all interested bidders, it should begin as soon as possible.

Fourth, the government needs to invest in antisubmarine warfare capabilities to be able to counter Russian submarine activity if required. Canada's existing submarines, which are our most capable antisubmarine warfare assets, are rapidly approaching the end of their current lifespan. Options for extending the life of this fleet should be explored in the short term, and a project to acquire new submarines that could patrol all three of Canada's oceans should commence immediately.

Fifth, the government needs to ensure that the Department of National Defence has the needed financial and human resources to acquire modern capital equipment to defend North America. At present, in my assessment it does not.

Under the existing financial arrangements, a number of projects that are needed to maintain a modern capability to defend Canada against aerospace and maritime threats are not included in DND's investment plan and are therefore not funded. A list of unfunded projects would include the upgrade of the north warning system, a replacement of our maritime patrol aircraft, and the life extension and eventual replacement of Canada's submarine fleets. Funding for these projects must be found.

Similarly, the Canadian defence procurement system continues to be unable to acquire needed military equipment on schedule. We just witnessed this last March when almost $4 billion allocated for the procurement of capital equipment was deferred. This was the third time in six years this has happened, so a total of almost $10 billion in capital equipment funding has been pushed into the future, which means that that equipment has not been acquired.

Adequately defending North America requires a better functioning defence procurement system. In my assessment, improving the procurement of military equipment would require, at a minimum, a clear indication by the government that recapitalising the military is actually a priority, a prioritization of the defence equipment projects that National Defence is looking to pursue as part of the defence policy review, streamlining the currently unwieldy process that exists to procure this equipment, and finally, an increase in the capacity of the procurement workforce.

The combination of these measures would make an important improvement in Canada's ability to defend North America in conjunction with the United States.

I would now be happy to take any of your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you very much for your presentation.

We're going to start out with our first round seven-minute round of questions.

The first question goes to Mr. Gerretsen. You have the floor.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

I have a lot of questions and I'm going to ask you to keep the answers as short as possible. If I cut you off, I apologize in advance.

Ms. Mason, you talked about the significant cost of participating in the BMD program. You seemed to reference that a number of times and you cite that as a being reason for not getting involved. Do you know what it's going to cost, because we certainly don't and I'd love to know.

[Peggy Mason]

No.

I cited the report entitled, “NORAD in Perpetuity?” as underscoring the fact that there's no free lunch this time around, and that we would have to pay our way. They cite, for example, U.S. sequestration, where the Americans, because of their defence budget, are requiring that others pay their way.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

So we don't know what it's going to cost, but you used that quite a bit to suggest that we shouldn't get involved.

What if we found out that it costs us nothing, hypothetically speaking? Would you then change your position on it?

[Peggy Mason]

I gave six reason, and the arms control reason is the strongest reason of all, but frankly it is inconceivable that it would cost us nothing.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

You mentioned that you don't see a threat—and I believe you said no significant threat—from North Korea or some of those smaller-state players. To be quite frank, we've been hearing a lot of the opposite, which is that those smaller-state players are specifically the ones that BMD is designed to defend us against.

Could you expand on that? Why don't you see them as a threat?