National Defence Committee on Feb. 28th, 2019

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Yes, I don't support that.

I want to go back to Mali. I want to echo the thanks around the table to DND for facilitating our visit. I think it was very important for us to go there to visit the troops and see what they were actually doing and also to help raise the profile in Canada of the importance of the mission in Mali. The consequences, if there were a failed state in Mali, would certainly, we all understand, be quite severe in terms of refugee flows, arms trafficking, human trafficking, destabilization of neighbouring states. It is thus a very important mission.

We heard three things. Two have been discussed here.

We heard about the excellence of the Canadian contribution. We heard it from everyone—from the UN officials, from other countries' ambassadors, from people on the ground.

Our contribution has set a very high bar, when it comes to air evacuation, that is very difficult for anybody else to meet. It includes new techniques that we're piloting in the field for delivery of blood products, which may end up being very important to emergency services at home. It also included—and people commented on this—a number of women in key roles in the mission, including heading up the supply hub in Dakar. If we're talking about doctors, I know most people's image of doctors in the field is men, but in fact doctors in the field there are women. That's all very good.

The second thing we heard, which the minister has mentioned, is that the medevac is key to operations. You singled out the most important thing: without the air evacuation services, MINUSMA has to scale back its operations. Canadians, I think, sometimes don't get what MINUSMA is doing. They're protecting schools, they're protecting transportation routes, they're protecting hospitals, they're protecting food delivery. Having that air evacuation capacity is really important for them to continue to do those things.

The third thing we heard, which neither of my predecessors mentioned, is the concern about the gap we're leaving.

Your government has set a hard date for departure of August 1. We met with the Romanian ambassador; we met with UN officials. The Romanians and the UN officials tell us that the Romanians cannot have a capacity in place before October 15, which means there would be at least a two-month gap there, without the services we're providing.

Mr. Minister, why are you not here today requesting the money so that we can extend that mission and prevent that gap in our support for the mission in Mali?

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

That's a very important and valid question. Obviously, we wanted to have an impact on the ground. We have demonstrated that. From the beginning, if you'll recall, when we were doing our analysis of how we could better support peacekeeping operations, I also said that this was not the peacekeeping of the past. We needed to look at how we could help the United Nations become better.

Through those reforms, it's actually the UN themselves.... I was meeting with Under-Secretary-General Lacroix about this. I had a discussion with him about a week and a half ago. These are their reforms. The smart-pledging concept we have put in place, which we will start up here, requires nations to step up so that no one nation is burdened with a high-level capability. Only some nations have that ability. When it comes to medical evacuation, this is why, if we keep extending our mission, it stops being a smart pledge. We're working very closely with Romania on this, not only on the political level but also on the operational level. We have sent people to Romania. The Germans have also been working with us, and the Dutch. We're working with them to make sure the gap is as small as possible.

That date has fluctuated back and forth a bit. In my last discussions.... It's the training aspect they're trying to speed up.

One thing I can assure you is that with the UN, there's always a transition period. We can be happy that countries like Romania stepped up because of what we demonstrated. What we also need now, and I've been talking with my counterparts, is other nations to step up. Once you have about four or five nations, you can get into a rotation. Imagine this high-level capability and other ones. We're working with the under-secretary-general, who has started identifying those high-level capabilities that only a few nations can provide. Look at how we can get into a smart-pledge concept, not just for this mission but for other missions as well.

Overall, what we're looking at here is the long-term aspect for the UN, so that all missions are supported properly. We have to start, and it's important that we stick to the one-year commitment and then have other nations start taking it over.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

That sounds really good in Ottawa or New York. It doesn't sound so good in Camp Gao, where we're going to reduce our presence and leave that gap on the ground. I totally understand your concept of smart pledges and the UN reform, but a one-year term when you leave a gap—when you reduce the capacities of the UN mission—is not actually supporting peacekeeping. It doesn't sound so good in the field. There's going to be a big gap there. I think our national reputation is at stake. If there's a severe security incident during that period, when we have “left early”—that is what people are going to say, no matter what we pledged in New York, that we left before our replacements were in the field.... It's going to damage our reputation, and our support for peacekeeping, if we're not there and there's a major incident.

We're already there. The main costs have already been expended. It wouldn't cost that much more to make sure the transition is smooth. It's not indefinitely extending the mission that I'm asking you for. Can we match up with the Romanians and not have that gap?

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

In fact, we took this into account. There was a transition period when we took over as well. We knew there was going to be a transition period when somebody new comes in. There's a transition period just in terms of the number of aircraft and the space that can be used. There's always that transition period.

This is where the UN has the ability, with a contracted method, to make sure that medical capability is there so that there will be no gap for those missions.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

We know that contracted people will not go into active fire zones with their helicopters and equipment. They will not.

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

We've been working very closely with the UN to make sure that they're comfortable with the contracted helicopters. It's more important to get other nations on the rotation, so that all missions can have that support.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

The simplest thing would be for us to stay.

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

I understand that. People would also just like to have us take over a piece of territory, but we have to look at it differently. Imagine how long the UN has been in Mali or we have been in the DRC. We have to start looking at it differently. We're not coming up with the ideas. The UN itself has come up with these concepts, so it's very important we start supporting them on implementing these reforms. It's the only way to make sure that these missions are going to be more effective.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

MP Dzerowicz.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Davenport, Lib.]

Thank you so much, Minister, for your presentation and for being here today. I was very blessed and honoured to be part of the trip to Senegal and Mali and to get first-hand experience of our operation there. I think part of the story that we haven't quite said is that our being there is also a chance for us to test out this new model that the UN has around peacekeeping, around peace and security, around this multi-dimensional integrated stabilization mission and this type of concept. It's a lot of learning for us. I think part of what my colleague Mr. Randall was talking about was around how we deal with the gaps. I think this committee will also be bringing forward some recommendations that we think might be viable moving forward.

With that, one of the other key things we heard was that we do such a great job in terms of training police officers. The countries in west Africa really want to be able to protect their own borders and want to help build their own capacity. We heard quite a bit of positive news around the Canadian police training of police officers, I believe in Niger. As part of your presentation, you mentioned $313.9 million in support of “international operations”. I wanted to know whether that was part of it and whether we were expanding some of our training of police officers in areas such as that.

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

It's not with the RCMP, right...?

We do training. We do have military in the region doing capacity-building. I can have General Wynnyk talk about it in more detail. On the police aspect in terms of the RCMP, they either are going or will be going to be part of the EU training mission.

[Julie Dzerowicz]

Yes.

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

I couldn't agree with you more; I am obviously very proud of the work done by the Canadian Armed Forces and all the military there, but the policing aspect is so important. They deal directly with the sense of security that the population is going to have. As I said before, we're trying to buy time for those things to be done properly with some of the other initiatives we have, such as with the CTAT training we are looking at doing.

How we can incorporate also, let's not forget, the training of women police officers? When I visited the DRC, I saw units of female police officers dealing with the sexual violence and actually arresting people. These are the things we need to support. We also know that the population is more trusting of women police officers as well. These are some of the things we need to work toward. We can't do everything alone, but once the CTAT concept starts, we'll be learning from that and sharing that experience with other allies.

General, do you want to add to that?

[Lieutenant-General Paul Wynnyk, Vice Chief of the Defence Staff, Department of National Defence]

Yes. Thank you, Minister.

I would just add that the Canadian Forces is doing capacity-building right now in Niger under Canadian Joint Operations Command. It's a small mission, drawn primarily from soldiers from the Canadian Army and to a certain degree our Special Operations Forces Command. They're doing security capacity-building, essentially mentoring as they go along.

We are developing a fair bit of expertise in that particular area. The soldiers who are there right now are from Quebec, from 5 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group, but the funds that are being requested aren't specifically for that.

[Julie Dzerowicz]

Okay. Thank you.

Minister, just to your comments, we had a chance to visit a UN peacekeeping school in Dakar. We met with a number of women police officers from right across northern Africa who were there. They were sharing knowledge with each other about some of the challenges they were facing. I think they were very happy to hear that this was an initiative we were funding also and that it was a priority we were making.

I'd like to turn our attention to something that I know I've mentioned to you before as being of great concern to me. I have mentioned it at committee as well. Several media articles have reported on racist attitudes or possible right-wing radicalization of Canadian Armed Forces members. Can you inform us of measures or steps that are in place to ensure that conduct reflecting such attitudes will not be tolerated?

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

First of all, I can assure you that any attitude like that will not be tolerated. I've spoken to General Vance about this a number of times. He takes it very seriously and is monitoring any situations like this. What we want to do is make sure that we get ahead of any potential problem. I am actively looking at this. I will look at steps in terms of what more we need to do, which may even include a review.

We want to be in a position where we deal with something early. We can't be in a situation where what resulted in a sexual harassment, and we had to...what Op Honour is actually dealing with. We'd rather have a better understanding early on and deal with this. At the same time, I also want to make sure that Canadians know that the vast majority of the Canadian Armed Forces are absolutely professional. A lot of these reports that we find out are actually from members themselves.

This type of attitude will absolutely not be tolerated. It's a type of poison that we cannot have, not just in the Canadian Armed Forces but also in our society.

[LGen Paul Wynnyk]

If I can just add a few more details to the minister's comments, obviously when people join the Canadian Armed Forces, they're screened. There are a number of verification processes they go through—criminal record check, credit check, employment history. But if there is any indication at all of extremist beliefs or activities, they're automatically ruled out from enrolling, right away. There is just no leeway in terms of enrolment in that regard.

All applicants must then sign a statement of understanding that they must comply with Canadian Forces policies regarding racist or discriminatory behaviour, and obviously there's zero tolerance.

The second part is that, should we discover this at some point, then fairly significant administrative and disciplinary measures are taken.

So as the minister said, there is truly zero tolerance right from the beginning.

[Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you. I appreciate that.

There is a motion before this committee, and if we get a chance to, it would be really great if we would be able to get some more recommendations.

How many minutes do I have left?

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

You have 15 seconds for a question and a response.

[Julie Dzerowicz]

Oh, well then I want to say thanks so much.

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

I welcome the work of this committee on this topic. The environment inside the Canadian Armed Forces is extremely important, and Canadians expect their Canadian Armed Forces to be making sure that they have an environment that allows everybody to succeed, and these types of attitudes will not be tolerated.

I will personally be looking at this as we learn more.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you.

We're going to move to five-minute questions with the first going to MP Gerretsen.

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

Minister, thanks a lot for coming.

On the occasions when you've been here, I've particularly been interested in asking questions about support for our military and reserve personnel and how that's translating into our individual communities.

Coming from Kingston, where we have CFB Kingston, I have a great appreciation for how our military personnel are really integrated into our communities.

You were talking earlier about the summer employment for reservists. We have the Princess of Wales' Own Regiment, the PWR, in Kingston. It is absolutely inspiring to see, in particular, although there is a range of ages in the reservists there, the young reservists who are getting involved, whether they're involved in doing outreach in the community or they're involved in various different parades and whatnot.

I am curious to know if you can share more information specifically about this program for young reservists for summer employment and what opportunities they're going to get out of this program?

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

This program has been a major hit, and I probably hear more from the reserves when I travel, which is a good thing. It means that the reserves are connecting with their communities while they do their training.

Giving confidence to the reserves when somebody joins that for the first four years they're going to have guaranteed summer employment, that assurance, goes a long way to making sure that somebody won't have to look year to year at what they're going to be doing. It allows also the reserves themselves to make sure that the training can be done. It's been a huge success. I think there's a tremendous opportunity from training, but there are also opportunities when it comes to doing other types of activities or from supporting domestic operations as well.

The reserves have a particular priority in the defence policy, and it's one of my personal priorities because of the importance of the connection that they have with the community.

I know that the chief and the vice are working actively to operationalize the reserves even more. We're looking at getting more equipment for them and aligning some of the benefits. A lot more work needs to be done, everything from, for example, getting them night vision goggles. We're getting down into the weeds as to the types of things that are needed.

The TAPV has also now been allotted to the reserves, but it's about equipment and allowing them to actually put things into action, which is what we're trying to demonstrate now.

I have also been talking to the deputy minister to make sure that the reserves have enough money for class A pay as well, because as we start growing the reserves, we need to make sure that the pay is going to be there as well.