National Defence Committee on Oct. 18th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Good day. Welcome, everybody.

To our guests, welcome to our study on the naval readiness in the defence of North America. I'd like to welcome specifically our guests from the Naval Association of Canada, Vice-Admiral, retired, Drew Robertson; and Commodore, retired, Daniel Sing. Also, from the Navy League of Canada, we have Captain, retired, Harry Harsch. Thank you for coming, gentlemen.

I understand the gentlemen from the Naval Association of Canada are going to split their time. If you need to go over time a bit we're relatively flexible. Then we'll close off with the opening remarks with the Navy League of Canada for 10 minutes.

Over to the Naval Association of Canada. You have the floor.

[Vice-Admiral, Retired) Drew Robertson (Naval Association of Canada]

Thank you very much.

Many thanks for the opportunity for the Naval Association to appear before you. It's a pleasure, especially in my case since it's my first appearance not at the pleasure of a minister.

I'll deal with the strategic question of what Navy Canada has and will have on our present force, and then turn it over to my colleagues.

The navy responds to and deters other powers in our home waters, working of course with the air force. But all governments have also repeatedly used the navy to respond wherever our national interests are challenged, rather than wait for the challenge to arrive off our coast. Governments have ordered such deployments because supporting the international rules-based order has produced the peace and security on which our trade and prosperity depend. Indeed, such operations abroad have been the core business on which repeated governments have deployed the navy abroad, amounting to dozens of deployments globally for our ships, submarines, aircraft, and task groups over the last 20 years, even while the fleet at home maintained our security.

Yet despite an unbroken record of success on operations at home and abroad, the navy's capabilities and capacities have eroded steadily over the past 20 years, incrementally but increasingly compromising its ability to defend Canada or to act as a force for good abroad. There's been progress recently. The frigates are now well past mid-life, but they've been successfully modernized and our submarines are operational. Further, the national shipbuilding strategy is an important undertaking of considerable promise.

The question isn't whether Canada will successfully build warships; we always have. The question is whether we'll build warships with the capabilities and in the numbers required for the rising challenges. That said, for the Naval Association a regrettable observation is that over the last 20 years a succession of governments and eight parliaments have been unable to sustainably resource defence. The most clear sign of this has been that this G7 nation, with all its maritime interests at home and abroad, has seen its replenishment ships—two of them—and its destroyers—three—age into their mid-forties before being forced out of commission; not merely without relief, not with a gap, but without governments having even entered into contracts to build their replacements.

The navy's success of the last 20 years was due to investments in the fighting fleet that defended Canada made decades before. Here I include submarines, frigates, destroyers, maritime patrol aircraft and, of course, over water CF-18s as well. The youngest of these platforms is now 20 years of age. The oldest is the Athabaskan at 44 years of age. The ability of this government and those that follow to live off these legacy investments is rapidly coming to a close, even as the strategic risks for governments deepen. What are those risks today? Beyond having fewer ships for our defence, we've gapped long-held capabilities.

Canada no longer has the ability to independently control events at sea due to the loss of its task group air defence capability. It no longer has the ability to independently sustain deployed task forces abroad and must rely on others for at-sea refuelling and logistics support, even in our own home waters. Consequently, Canada is unlikely to be able to conduct a prolonged multi-rotation response to international events, nor is it likely to be offered the significant leadership opportunities at sea that such a response enables, particularly in complex operations of the kind we partake in repeatedly, including after 9/11 supporting our American allies for several years in the Middle East.

Looking ahead, on the present course future governments face greater reductions and rising risks. Today's fighting fleet of submarines and surface combatants is already smaller, which research has shown is required to achieve the enduring and bipartisan policy outcomes governments seek, such as maintaining our sovereignty and contributing to international peace and security.

As the parliamentary budget officer and others such as Dave Perry, who I know was here with you in the spring, have noted, the Armed Forces is unsustainable over the coming decade, likely to an amount in the tens of billions of dollars. So plans aimed at restoring the fighting fleets, including those to extend the life of Canada's four highly capable Victoria class submarines into the mid-2030s and then replace them with a new capability, as well as to replace our Aurora maritime patrol aircraft, are not only in jeopardy, they are headed hard aground.

At current budget levels, then, you can anticipate the RCN's fighting flight being further reduced over the coming 15 years, reduced eventually toward a figure—at least a figure in the press—of just nine surface combatants, which would be a 40% cut from the 15 of only two years ago, while the submarines and the air force's maritime patrol aircraft will not likely be affordable and will not likely be replaced, at least not as we currently know them.

Such changes would obviously each compound the risks that I cited earlier by significantly further eroding the maritime capabilities and capacities required to contribute meaningfully to continental and international operations. While for decades the government has often had major warships deployed to two theatres simultaneously, that would no longer be sustainable with a smaller fleet. But, most importantly, such a force would not be suitable or adequate for the vast challenge of defending our three-ocean home waters.

The Naval Association believes that this much smaller and unbalanced future force would consequently not be adequate to national need, especially given the rapid changes under way in the global maritime order: as nations throughout the world, but especially Russia and China, continue to narrow or close technological gaps that western navies have enjoyed for decades, and continue to make significant and disproportionate investments in maritime forces, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region; as great state co-operation continues to give way to competition and confrontation at the expense of the international rules-based order, especially at sea and, most notably, in the South and East China seas; and, finally, as Canada's third and largest, but least accessible and most fragile, ocean space opens to commercial shipping and resource extraction and as the navy and air force secure our sovereignty there.

For the Naval Association, the success of the defence policy review depends on bringing spending levels into balance over the medium to long term with the defence outcomes governments expect. The Naval Association would argue, as I have, that defending Canada in the new strategic environment will require increased investment to achieve what governments expect of the Armed Forces, not less.

In making such investments, the Naval Association would observe that, in addition to securing Canada's defence, there is no better insurance against strategic risk and unforeseen global shocks than a balanced, multi-purpose, and combat-capable maritime force.

The association also believes that this defence policy review represents a moment of strategic opportunity, not just to balance the defence outcomes and resources, but to allow the Armed Forces to be restructured for the challenges of this century. The force structure of the 20th century should be reshaped for the challenges ahead.

Such strategy-driven measures will take vision, commitment, and effort, but the result would be an Armed Forces clearly better prepared to defend Canada.

Thank you very much for your interest. I look forward to any questions you may have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Commodore Sing, you have the floor.

[Commodore, Retired) Daniel Sing (Director, Naval Affairs, Naval Association of Canada]

As intimated by Vice-Admiral Robertson, the Naval Association of Canada feels it is important to affirm that it is very difficult to examine the state of the Royal Canadian Navy solely from the perspective of the defence of North America, as the Royal Canadian Navy has an important and complementary role to play beyond the 12 nautical miles of territorial seas that surround North America.

The Naval Association of Canada also feels it is important to provide you with a quick perspective on the kind of navy Canada needs. Like our country and its ocean estate, the underlying issues are vast. These scene-setting remarks will only skim the surface of many considerations. To save time, I will read only the portions highlighted in grey in the 15-page document I submitted to the clerk last Friday.

The Naval Association of Canada believes the Canadian Armed Forces and the Royal Canadian Navy must be combat-capable. If military forces are adequately combat-capable, they normally have little difficulty performing less demanding tasks.

Canada's peace and security contributions to the United Nations, to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and to other defence and security arrangements, especially those with the United States, must be meaningful.

Without the establishment and continuous maintenance of ready to deploy, ready to act, capable, and effective Canadian naval and maritime air forces, purposely designed to operate against current and future threats in Canadian, international, and far-away waters, Canada's intertwined national interests of peace and security and economic prosperity will be at risk.

The number of naval platforms and crews, and their characteristics are principally a function of five factors: the threat or risk to the nation's defence, security and economic prosperity; the maritime defence and security outputs desired by the government; the maintenance requirements of the platforms and their equipment; the quality of life considerations of the platforms' crews; and the financial resources available for the acquisition of equipment, operations, training and maintenance.

The Naval Association of Canada agrees with the North American threat assessment that was captured in the committee's September report on “NORAD and Aerial Readiness”. The most important threat to assess is the future one. Unfortunately, it is also the most difficult to predict. An unclear or debatable assessment of future threats does not facilitate difficult military capability and equipment choices. Optimum military forces, which take years to design and procure—and in some instances decades—can only be properly identified if the future threat has been correctly predicted.

Nowadays, threat weapons are faster, stealthier, longer-range and more effective. The proliferation and improvements of submarines, mines, anti-ship torpedoes, anti-ship missiles, and cruise and ballistic missiles, in particular, represent increasing potential to do harm, directly or indirectly, to North America. Such evolving threats should not be discounted, and preventive and/or protective measures need to be considered and implemented.

The Naval Association of Canada believes the Royal Canadian Navy, subject to difficult equipment choices, has an important role to play against all of these threats.

The need to conduct maintenance, trials, and individual and collective training adds to the overall number of platforms required to generate a given set of naval outputs. Given the difficulty of correctly predicting the future, acquiring and maintaining balanced, multi-purpose, flexible, and combat-capable military capabilities on land, on and below the seas, and in the air, seems prudent.

Combat-capable naval ships and submarines, and maritime aircraft and their sophisticated sensors, weapons, and communications equipment, are not inexpensive. Spending on defence and on the Royal Canadian Navy is like buying insurance: you have to pay for it up front, you don't know when you will ever need to use it to its full capacity, and you can't readily acquire some or more when a crisis suddenly emerges.

The Royal Canadian Navy is principally responsible for: monitoring Canada's ocean estate and approaches; when necessary, asserting and defending Canada's maritime sovereignty; and, as directed by the government, contributing to international peace and security.

In order to exercise sovereignty, a nation must first know what is going on in, near and, at times, far away from its sovereign territory, be it on a land, on and below the seas, and in the air. This is normally achieved through surveillance. Moreover, it must be able to respond, normally with mobile assets, to incidents or challenges, potential or actual, in a timely fashion.

The purpose, nature, cost and effectiveness of the surveillance technologies vary widely. It is not easy to optimize a single solution for multiple purposes.

At sea, above-water surveillance technologies are mostly electro-magnetic in nature, whereas below water, surveillance technologies are mostly acoustic in nature.

Beyond the increasing potential threat posed by missiles, among other weapons, which can be launched from submerged submarines, the need to conduct undersea surveillance must not be overlooked.

Once an actionable surveillance picture has been generated, a mobile response asset or assets can be deployed—if not already deployed—to further refine the picture and/or to take whatever action might be warranted. Ships and submarines can deploy with no or little support to faraway places and remain on site for significant periods of time. Response can take one of two forms. Either the assets are called into action from their home base or they are already at sea and therefore are able to respond more quickly.

The Canadian Armed Forces and the Royal Canadian Navy need to be able to exercise a reasonable degree of sea control on, above, and below the ocean surface wherever they are tasked to operate. Ideally, the Canadian Armed Forces and the RCN should be able to exercise sea control without the assistance of allies when operating in Canadian waters. Because it's difficult to predict future threats and situations, care must be taken to acquire and maintain the right number, mix, and quality of seagoing platforms and supporting services.

So that future governments will continue to be able to make meaningful contributions in times of tension, crisis or war, the Naval Association of Canada believes it is in the national interest to acquire and maintain a modern, balanced, multi-purpose, flexible and combat-capable maritime fleet.

Oceans and navies have played key roles in the prosperity, security, and defence of most, if not all, states, especially coastal ones. Going forward, the oceans will continue to play an important role in Canada's prosperity, security, and defence. Canada will continue to need a balanced, multi-purpose, flexible, combat-capable navy. A capable and effective navy cannot be easily and quickly created when a need arises. For it to be of use when needed, it must exist before difficult situations manifest themselves.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you very much. Captain Harsch, you are next.

[Captain, N) (Retired) Harry Harsch (Vice-President, Maritime Affairs, Navy League of Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, and thank you to the committee for the opportunity to represent the Navy League of Canada at today's committee meeting discussing the Royal Canadian Navy and naval readiness. I sincerely regret I did not have time to submit my opening remarks in advance. However, I have failed at retirement, and last week was a particularly challenging week. In my day job people would actually pay me and expect me to do stuff.

As background, I retired four years ago after over 36 years of service as a seagoing officer, including command of three warships, appointments as a senior Canadian officer at NATO's naval headquarters in the U.K., and as an attaché in both London and Copenhagen. However, I'm here today as the vice-president of maritime affairs for the Navy League of Canada, a volunteer position I have held for almost three years.

The Navy League of Canada was established in 1895. Its objective was to promote an interest in maritime affairs, and it was one of the key voices that led to the creation of Canada's navy in 1910.

Today the Navy League of Canada's primary focus is its two cadet programs that benefit over 10,000 young Canadians in over 260 communities across the country, but we also maintain our maritime affairs mandate to promote Canada's maritime interests, hence, my appearance here today.

In my remarks today I would like to make the following three points, all of which I believe are interrelated.

The first one is what the concept of readiness actually means in terms of generating naval forces that are able to do what the government asks them to do.

Second is the view that Canada is a maritime nation, and what that means in terms of the navy's role.

Finally, as work progresses towards the future fleet, the Navy League believes that flexibility with respect to capability is the crucial enabler to overall readiness, in other words, the RCN's ability to deploy at short notice to defend Canada and Canadian interests.

Readiness is multifaceted, but it really boils down to having a fleet that is capable of deploying at short notice, in some cases measured in hours, to bring meaningful effect to any given task as assigned by the Government of Canada. It encompasses personnel, material, technical, and combat readiness.

This can range from the traditional ready duty ship sailing literally within hours to conduct a search and rescue operation or to support other government departments in enforcing Canadian laws.

It can also include deploying within days to provide humanitarian assistance or disaster relief, in effect only as long as it takes to sort out the broad scope of the mission, and then load the ship with appropriate supplies.

Readiness also means combat-ready ships forward deployed around the world working in NATO task groups or with our other partners and allies, and it also means the capability to deploy a naval task group with as little as 10 days' notice in support of a host of complex operations.

In the first instance, readiness means having a capable, balanced, and flexible fleet of ships, submarines, and aircraft as well as effective, shore-based facilities from which to base them.

And once you have those capabilities, you then have to maintain them. Warships, submarines, and aircraft are highly complicated systems, and they work in hostile environmental conditions. In staff colleges you often hear the statement that no plan survives first contact with the enemy, which I believe is true, but the naval upshot to that is nothing survives in salt water. Proper maintenance means having the industrial base both in-house and commercially to be able to work on these intricate machines as well as having adequate spares on hand and an established supply chain that can meet demands.

And, of course, there's education and training for the ship's companies that operate these platforms. There's a saying the sea trainers are fond of using that goes, “Everything we do at sea is completely safe until we forget how utterly dangerous it is.” The only way one can mitigate those risks is by having competent crews. That competence is achieved through demanding and thorough individual training; refresher training; team training; all-ship training through challenging work-up programs; and multi-ship training exercises, both national and multinational.

As an aside, I wanted to pick up on something Vice-Admiral Ron Lloyd said a few months back about these multinational exercises that are not only essential to generating readiness, but more importantly, they are fundamental to holding alliances together, demonstrating group resolve to destabilizing developments, while confirming the RCN's ability to be interoperable and share information, logistical support, and intelligence. They are, in many respects, the lifeblood of an armed service that pays dividends, whether pursuing a national objective, deploying with the alliance, or building capacities with regional partners.

I would now like to move on to the concept of Canada as a maritime nation. Canada is bounded by three oceans, with the world's largest coastline, the second-largest continental shelf, and the fifth-largest exclusive economic zone. And as a trading nation, we are, I think it is fair to say, dependent on the oceans. That means that Canada is by definition a maritime nation, although it seems some do not appreciate that and what it means in terms of capability.

The potential challenges to national security that exist as a result of that dependence are convoluted. As a consequence, we have not always equipped our naval forces accordingly.

A properly equipped navy at the right degree of readiness is inherently flexible. It provides the government with a range of policy options across the spectrum of conflict from diplomacy to humanitarian operations to constabulary operations to the often-complicated world of peace support operations and all the way to war-fighting if necessary.

The Navy League believes that a balanced, multi-purpose, and combat-capable fleet is the key to that flexibility. The navy must be able to protect Canadian sovereignty and interests, whether in domestic situations, forward-deployed operations, or the plethora of contingency operations we find ourselves in today.

The RCN has been busy for pretty much as long as I can remember, from my early days as a Cold Warrior to commanding a frigate in the Arabian Gulf during hostilities in 2003. That was an amazing experience, by the way. I will never forget the privilege of leading some 240 of the most remarkable and courageous Canadians in what was, in every respect, a mission with uncertain outcomes.

The success of that mission was a perfect example of flexibility and why readiness matters whether in conducting escort operations in the Strait of Hormuz or conducting maritime interdiction and boarding operations in the broader Gulf region or saving the life of a horribly burned Iraqi merchant sailor just north of Dubai.

In fact, at the time, Admiral Robertson was my fleet commander, and he had just returned from the Gulf region having served as the first commander of the Canadian task group that deployed immediately after the attacks on New York and Washington.

While one could argue that the Cold War threat of nuclear annihilation kept the stakes comparatively high, it is my opinion that Canadian naval operations over the past 20 years or so have become increasingly more complex and more dangerous, just as the post-Cold War world has become more complex and more dangerous. The navy has always been up to the task; it just hasn't always been that good at telling its story to the broader audience.

Taking part in diverse deployments in support of the international campaign against terrorism, conducting counter-drug operations, providing protection for the World Food Programme, and addressing the menace of modern-day pirates off the coast of Somalia are all examples of what Canada's navy has been up to recently, and all demonstrate the value of having a standing fleet at an appropriate level of readiness. Of course those missions continue today, with Canadian ships forward-deployed with NATO and other allies to promote regional stability and security.

Given their ability to sail on very short notice, navies can also be leveraged to effect in support of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. The RCN has frequently been at the forefront of these operations over the years.

A few of the many examples are the 1998 search-and-recovery operation in response to the crash of Swissair Flight 111 into the sea near Halifax, and the 2010 deployment to provide relief to earthquake-stricken Haiti. However, our ships are not necessarily best equipped for that role.

In that respect, the Navy League believes that ships like the Royal Netherlands Navy's Rotterdam and Karel Doorman classes or the U.K. Royal Fleet Auxiliary's Bay class, or the Royal Danish Navy's Absalon class have been used to meaningful effect in a variety of operations from humanitarian and disaster relief to supporting operations ashore.

The Navy League believes that such a capability would significantly add to the flexibility and the overall readiness of the RCN, but, this should not come at the expense of combat-capable frigate-type ships, which have consistently and frequently proven their utility in more challenging operations.

We are concerned, however, with the steady erosion of the fleet, in terms of both capabilities and numbers, notwithstanding the fact that the ships we have left are first class by any measure, particularly after the Halifax class modernization program. It seems that just as the number and complexity of operations involving naval forces, such as multi-functional and multinational operations conducted in support of UN mandates, are increasing, Canada's ability to deal with them is waning as a result of reduced capacity.

In conclusion, we often hear the phrase “the world needs more Canada." As someone who has served abroad with allies and partners, I have seen first-hand how Canadian Forces always excel when working and leading in a collective international environment, but we get credit only if we show up.

As Dr. Jim Boutilier quipped at the recent Maritime Security Challenges conference in Victoria, if you want to be seen, you need to be seen.

The Navy League of Canada believes that the readiness of our navy is predicated on having a flexible fleet based on the right numbers and types of ships, with the right support networks and well-trained and experienced sailors and aviators who are provided with the right level of support. We are optimistic that the national shipbuilding strategy will deliver the fleet Canada needs. It has the potential to rejuvenate the fleet and the Canadian industrial base that supports it.

Finally, as many of you may be aware, next Tuesday is Navy Day on Parliament Hill. This event is coordinated by the Navy League of Canada, and brings together government, the RCN, the Canadian Coast Guard, the Maritime Affairs Alliance, and the exceptional sailors program. We look forward to seeing you there.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you very much for that.

The first questioner will be Mr. Gerretsen. You have the floor.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you, gentlemen, for being here today to share your insight with us.

I do have a question for each of you, so I apologize in advance if I come across as though I'm hurrying you along. I'm timed with respect to how much time I have.

My first question is for Admiral Robertson. You talked about, if I understood you correctly, the fleet being too small to protect our interests. Can you expand on that? I'm also curious on what the navy sees as the primary interest or focus in how it should be used.

[VAdm Drew Robertson]

If we look at the primary role of the navy as being to defend Canada and to protect the national rules-based order internationally, that's a pretty fair and simple summary. To believe that a navy is useful in both locations, it helps to understand not only that there may be a threat some day, but that there actually is potentially one today, that there are capabilities that could be turned against the international rules-based order today.

Happily, there's a country that is satisfying that, and another that's perhaps getting ready to. Look at Russia and the actions it's taken over the last six years. It has built up quite a list of activities contrary to the international rules-based order. Not only that, but as a member of the UN Security Council, the UN isn't going to be doing anything about it. It's what NATO does to deter the actions of Russia that matters.

Although we all talk about needing ships that are capable for war fighting, and we believe that quite honestly, perhaps most important is that the ability to wage war, matched with political intent from something like the alliance, means we don't ever wind up going there—the deterrence is effective. That's why there's a ship today reassuring the European allies, and a ship today then deterring.

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

Did I hear you correctly that the fleet is too small to protect our interests?

[VAdm Drew Robertson]

It is already decreasing, with the loss of two supply ships. That means we can't even refuel the destroyers in our own waters. And it's going to get smaller if the current budget is an indicator of where we will be going over time.

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

Okay, this leads into something that Captain Harsch was talking about. You defined “readiness” quite well; you gave us a picture of what it was. I didn't hear much about whether or not Canada is ready.

[Capt(N) Harry Harsch]

I did allude to that with respect to the 12 modernized Halifax class frigates. In fact, as part of this conference I was at last week in Victoria I had an opportunity to go to sea in HMCS Calgary, which is one of the modernized ships. It's incredible. I thought the ship I commanded, the Fredericton, was an amazing piece of kit. The difference is that the evolutionary improvements that the Halifax class modernization brings, specifically with respect to command and control, are amazing.

We had Senator Daniel Lang with us at this particular event, and one thing that struck him was the ship's company. It was a high readiness ship's company, as I alluded to in my remarks, with just amazing young Canadians who form these crews.

Are we ready? I think we're as ready as we've ever been, absolutely. The problem is we just don't have enough ships that are ready.

The other important point is that with 12 frigates, it doesn't mean we have 12 frigates available at any given time. There are going to be some that will be available for operations or on operations, some that are in maintenance periods after operations or once they get to a certain time and need to go into a refit period, and then there are the ones that are preparing for operations. So having 12 ships means you may have four or five available on a good day.

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

Thank you.

Commodore Sing, you talked about the evolving threats that the navy faces. Can you give any examples of how the navy is responding to the evolution of the threats?

In particular, over the last several decades, we have seen this change in what we view as threats, away from single large actors to smaller threats that we're seeing from more rogue actors. Can you give some examples of the evolution of the threats and how the navy is responding to them?

[Cmdre Daniel Sing]

This concept of threat has many facets. The one you alluded to was: who might be menacing us?

In days gone by in the Cold War, it was easy to recognize the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact as being that group of countries menacing the livelihood of the west. As recent history has demonstrated, that threat has, at least in perception, decreased. In reality, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the challenges that the Soviet Union had in adapting to its new political realities, we've seen the rise of different types of threats, and not necessarily state threats. Who could have fathomed two or three years before 9/11 the concept that individual human beings, part of a small group, might develop a plan to crash aircraft into the World Trade buildings?

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

Right, so how has that changed the way that the navy operates?

[Cmdre Daniel Sing]

Those types of threats have changed, but haven't changed the way navies operate. I believe, in reading the report on your investigation into NORAD and aerial readiness, that many of the speakers spoke to the different facets or elements of threat. They continuously came back to the fact that just because a potential aerial threat from Russia is unlikely does not mean that military forces don't expend a considerable amount of time, energy, and effort looking at ways to defeat that threat if it were to manifest itself. Similarly, I believe navies around the world do the same thing.

While navies per se can't do all that much in dealing with ISIS in Mosul or what's happening in Aleppo today, it doesn't mean that the navy has discarded the notion of the evolution of supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles, the greater distances of intermediate and short-range ballistic missiles, with the verbal threats being made by the leader of North Korea vis-à-vis the United States, and as a consequence also implicating Canada. Naval forces around the world, including the Canadian navy, are developing means of countering these types of threats.

As one small example, recently the Canadian navy has argued the case, and was successful, in moving forward in investing in the Evolved Seasparrow Missile Block 2, in order to counter what it knows, in collaboration with allies, to be increasing capabilities from potential adversaries, mostly military.

Recently in the Red Sea, the U.S. Navy and the United Arab Emirates have come under attack from Yemeni forces firing anti-ship missiles of Chinese origin adapted to attack warships in international waters. They were successful in the case of the UAE. They've made, I understand, three attacks against the United States' naval forces in international waters in the last week. They were unsuccessful, but they're only unsuccessful because Americans and others continue to work to defeat the evolving threat.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

That's your time.

Thank you very much.

Mrs. Gallant, you have the floor.

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

Thank you.

In this ever-changing, ever-evolving threat environment, what capabilities should the Royal Canadian Navy be looking to acquire in the future?

[VAdm Drew Robertson]

Aside from the numbers issue, to be able to deploy where required, it's also important that the ships be ready to deal with the challenges of not just today but of the future as well. Let's take the surface combatants that would be built seven, 10 years from now. They will not be modernized until mid-life, which means sometime around 2040 or 2045. Whatever exists today has to be extrapolated to what the threat will be a decade-plus hence, and that is why the requirements are the way they are. What is required is not simply a replacement of one capability in the outgoing ships with the same one, but something looking to the challenges of the future.

The force that fired the cruise missile against an American destroyer, which Commodore Sing referred to, were the Houthi rebels. Something similar had been done by Hezbollah a decade earlier. If you picture that as a threat from rebels, imagine what state competitors are putting into their platforms. These weapons will be used in their regions and, as has been done in the past, in our waters as well.

If you're looking for precise capabilities that would be required, the only thing that the navy doesn't have that would be contemplated and is common in other navies, including some of the European navies about the same size as ours, would be the ability to conduct precision strikes ashore. In this our navy has a limited capability, with a system it's acquiring. We would be looking, however, to have a greater capability to influence events ashore, mostly in support of Canadian Forces. We are also considering the potential of having a ballistic missile defence. This is not a strategic ballistic missile defence; this is a theatre capability. It's an anti-air problem, effectively, to be used to defend an area where Canadian Forces operating just ashore were attacked by short-range or medium-range ballistic missiles from enemies.

That's another potential, but those cost money. As I alluded to in my opening remarks, there isn't enough money for the replacement of the fleet that exists, so you could put those additional capabilities down as desirable, probably necessary for the effectiveness of the Armed Forces in the long term, but subject to the question of money.

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

To what extent should the Royal Canadian Navy be focused on our Arctic waters?

[VAdm Drew Robertson]

I'll answer that in a relatively simple way. Sailors around the world are going to view the Arctic as open water. As there's more open water, you're going to see more activity from navies. Navies will use the Arctic in the same manner they use any other ocean in the world. In that regard, aside from the Arctic offshore patrol ship, which will be able to establish a presence in Arctic waters, there's going to be a need for enhanced surveillance and communications capability. This kind of capability was already alluded to in your earlier study into the air defence.

The only other capability, not for the submarines we have today but for the replacements I would advocate, would be those having to do with under-ice activities, within the means of the technology of the day. That is going to develop beyond what I could anticipate today, since the decision about that kind of capability would be made a decade hence, but that is what one would want so that others couldn't take refuge under the ice.

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

China and Russia are trying to use international sea law to stake territorial claims. Is this any threat to Canada, and what actions, if any, should Canada take to stop these claims?

[VAdm Drew Robertson]

You've raised a fundamental question about what countries are doing with respect to international law and freedom of navigation. I would start by saying that the freedom of navigation is not a case of great states do what they will. Rather freedom of navigation is a grand compromise, a grand agreement, reached in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which one can think of as the constitution of the oceans under the United Nations.

The compromise was between nation-states trying to enclose the seas—as one can argue China is trying to do in the South China Sea at the moment for their purposes to exclude other forces and then be able to become the regional power—and between other nations that argued that the seas should be open and free. The compromise in UNCLOS was very small territorial seas, a very small band around every country, small economic zones, and then the vast majority of the seas are free for use. So any attempt by other countries to carve off part of the ocean as their own is simply going against the international rules-based organization of which UNCLOS is but one aspect and should be viewed with great concern in Canada since that right to the sea is not only something that is in UNCLOS but we know what happens when it's denied, and that is areas are closed off. Countries then become subject to the pressure of the country that has enclosed an ocean. Trade is denied, and on it goes effectively.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you for that.

I'm going to give the floor to Mr. MacGregor.