National Defence Committee on Nov. 1st, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Welcome. We are studying the Royal Canadian Navy, naval readiness, and the defence of North America.

Today we have Robert Huebert, associate professor, department of political science, University of Calgary.

We have Andrea Charron, assistant professor, University of Manitoba, director of the centre for security intelligence and defence studies at Carleton University.

Thank you both for coming.

Mr. Huebert, because we have you by video conference and for fear of losing you at some point, we'll go with you first.

Sir, you have the floor for 10 minutes.

[Dr. Robert Huebert, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Calgary, As an Individual]

Thank you very much. First of all, it is indeed my honour to be able to appear before you again just to share some thoughts that I have on the issue of North America and naval power.

Let me start with a major issue that many Canadians often forget about but the fact remains that Canada depends upon sea power and has been a naval power since at least the end of the Second World War. We have what's often referred to as saltwater blindness, the fact of the matter being that our major elements of naval power reside in Victoria and Halifax, and as a result, the rest of Canada tends to forget about the importance that naval capabilities play.

This committee is meeting at an ideal time, because the Canadian navy is at a point of massive transformation. We are either in the process of becoming or planning to become what is referred to within naval circles as “the next navy”. Because of the peculiarities of the manner by which Canadian naval procurement has gone, we've tended to have these periods in time in which we have to reinvent ourselves, and that means what we do in both strategy and actual procurement. As a result, we face the challenges but also the opportunities of designing what we think this next navy needs to look at.

More to the point, we are also entering a period in time in which we have to think very seriously about what we mean about sea power in Canada. The reason is that from an international perspective, things look reasonably positive today. They look reasonably co-operative, but if we start digging underneath the surface and look at some of the reasons we need sea power both in the past and in the future, some very troubling developments are coming.

From an alliance perspective, we are starting to see some people challenging the issue of the founding elements of NATO. In the current American election we've heard candidate Trump put forward the idea that perhaps the United States was not going to follow article 5 unless everyone paid more. Hopefully, we won't have to worry about this after the election, but the fact that this is an issue of debate is troubling.

More troubling, however, we're seeing the economic underpinnings of the alliance also being challenged, and we've seen the difficulties that Canada has faced in the negotiations with the free trade agreement with the Europeans. We've seen both American candidates take very isolationist programs in their economic policies, and I dare say the British exit from the European Union is also the same.

At the same time, we see an increasingly powerful China and Russia, both asserting their powers in ways that are going to have a direct ramification for the navy.

From a geographical perspective, I would contend that the two areas the navy will have to focus on more so than in the past are the Asia-Pacific region, for reasons that I will get into in a moment, and the Arctic. The European side will, of course, continue to be relatively well served by the maritime infrastructure that NATO provides, as long as we do not start losing sight of the importance of NATO.

In terms of the Arctic, despite the efforts of many to say that somehow the Russians' actions in Georgia, Ukraine, and Syria can be separated from the types of actions that will be undertaken in the Arctic, I'm afraid I'm not in that particular camp. Nevertheless, some of the major rebuilding of the Russian capabilities has been with their submarine forces within the Arctic region. In the short term we see no immediate threat, but in the long term as Russia resumes its efforts to great-power status, I would suggest to you that Canada is going to have to again revisit what it does in the context of its naval capabilities in that region.

At the same time, the Chinese served us notice in 2015 when they sent a naval task force through the Aleutian Islands chain and sent port visits to several Arctic states. As a result, all of us can agree that the Chinese tend to proceed with long-term plans, and we can expect to see some form of involvement in a navy beyond their existing coast guard and icebreaker capabilities.

What does all this mean for the navy, and where do we have to start thinking? I would also argue that we can't think just of the navy. We also have to think of the Coast Guard because it also plays a critical role in Canadian maritime security.

In Canada we tend to separate the two from each other unlike, say, the United States that obviously joins the two together much more closely. Given the fact that we are dealing with a relatively small navy and coast guard and that, in fact, many of the stresses and challenges are the same, I think it's imperative upon us as a nation to think in terms of both coast guard and naval powers.

What are we going to have to be thinking about in the context of the North American naval sea power scenario? First and foremost, I think history makes it very clear that we have to ensure that any navy that we are creating retains a war-fighting capability that can fight with the very best. Our tradition has always been and our history has placed us alongside the two most powerful naval powers of this and the last century. They are, of course, the Brits and the Americans. Our maritime interests are best protected when we can, in fact, fight alongside our allies, be it in the Korean conflict, World War I, World War II, the Cold War, and so forth.

The second part is going to be much more challenging and relates directly to the interim report that you just released. That is, of course, war deterrence. A lot of the open literature is now pointing to the fact that a lot of the anti-ballistic missile capabilities are now being designed to have a maritime capability, in other words, pursuing naval assets for ABM capability. As you indicated in your very good report, you recognized the need for Canada to once again reconsider whether or not we are to join with the Americans in terms of their ABM. One of the possibilities into the future and something which I know the Norwegians are now considering is what role their maritime capabilities will play in the context of war deterrence.

At the same time, the renewed Russian submarine development also may require us to revisit some of the secret co-operative measures that we had with the American navy in meeting the Russian Soviet nuclear-powered submarine threat. I would add we need to be cognitive of whether or not the Chinese give their new submarines an under-ice capability, which, of course, then requires even more strenuous war deterrent capability.

We never have to lose sight of the fact that we are a trading nation, and we also have to play our role in terms of the maintenance and protection of maritime trade.

There is a fourth element that we need to add to the list of what the navy is already required to do, and that's to respond to the increasing problems and threats that climate change is now producing. We see quite clearly that the scientific evidence is overwhelming that our climate is changing. It is warming to a degree that I think many people 10 years ago were not prepared for. A warming climate automatically means more stress is placed on the requirements for what a navy has to do.

What you have here is a requirement for the navy to retain its war-fighting and war-deterrent capabilities at the highest level with the strongest naval powers there are, but at the same time be able to respond on constabulary capabilities to the growing environmental crises that we can predict at this point. It is unfortunately only a matter of time until we see increasing storm powers and rising sea levels that will affect us and other nations, which the navy will be required to respond to.

In conclusion, what do we need? First of all, we need to ensure that we have a robust maritime strategy. The navy itself has worked very hard at trying to come up with the type of strategy that is necessary, be it Leadmark one or Leadmark two, or any of the subsequent strategies that it has tried to develop to respond to what is required by Canadian sea power. We need to ensure that this is an ongoing process that is open, and that is open to criticism and in fact is not smothered by any effort to have one coherent overall government fits all.

The second element we need to maintain is the shipbuilding strategy. For too long, Canada has built in fits and starts, and this has been expensive and very problematic. The maritime shipbuilding strategy needs to be maintained so we are copying what the Americans, what the Japanese, and what the French do in ensuring that a shipyard is continually putting put out state-of-the-art capability on a one ship basis following each other.

Third, we need to ensure that we can meet the largest and most modern surface and subsurface capabilities, both in terms of missiles, as you have heard, and in terms of the subsurface capabilities. Torpedos that can probably start hitting the speed of missiles are threats that we need to be able to assure, and I would recommend that we be very serious about maintaining our submarine capabilities.

Finally, we need to have the ability to meet these major threats right across the spectrum. We need to ensure that the political leadership remembers that Canada is a maritime power. We need to ensure that not only do we have a navy, but we have a navy that is capable of meeting such a wide spectrum of needs and threats.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you, Professor Huebert.

I'll give the floor to Professor Charron.

[Dr. Andrea Charron, Assistant Professor, University of Manitoba, Director of the Centre for Security Intelligence and Defence Studies at Carleton University, As an Individual]

Thank you for the invitation. It's always an honour to be invited here.

Based on my research areas, I want to restrict my comments on naval readiness and the defence of North America to three areas. The first is maritime domain awareness, or MDA. The second is maritime warning, especially in the context of NORAD. The third is maritime control which, while currently achieved bilaterally with the U.S., may become binational in the future. These three areas are often overlooked, but I argue that when one considers readiness, knowing your environment, the actors, activities, and potential threats approaching North America, this is essential.

Also, I find conversations about readiness tend to volte to the size of the fleet and the overseas capabilities, and they overlook the importance of information and intelligence sharing with other government departments, which hold arguably 90% of the information about vessels of interest in Canada's maritime zones.

The first area is maritime domain awareness, which is the understanding of anything in the maritime environment that could adversely affect security, safety, the economy, or Canada's environment. This is an ongoing challenge. It is dependent on technology, such as the readiness of RADARSAT constellations, the information and intelligence of other government departments, and on things as simple as the number of flying hours dedicated to surveillance and the navy's ability to compete with the needs of other government departments for those flying hours.

To improve MDA, Canada created three marine security operation centres, or MSOCs, in 2004, against the backdrop of 9/11. The MSOCs on the east and west coast are led by the navy, and they house other government departments in order to fuse and share information to aid in the creation of Canada's maritime operating picture. This picture is only as accurate and useful as is the completeness, accuracy, and assessment of the information provided by all the participants.

If other government departments, for example, choose not to participate, it compromises the left of bang picture as well as response options for the navy.

The second area is the new maritime warning mission of NORAD. This was added in 2006, when the agreement was signed in perpetuity. It is still not a well-understood mission. It has three parts to which Canada's common operating picture is an essential element.

Maritime warning involves, first, the processing, assessing, and disseminating of intelligence and operational information related to the approaches to North America. Second, it involves developing a comprehensive shared understanding of the activities in the NORAD common operating picture. Third, it requires warning and advising of maritime threats against North America.

NORAD's maritime area of operation is global, which provides Canada with more information and far earlier warning than national systems alone can provide. For the Arctic this is especially important.

NORAD's common operating picture, generated by NavNorth U.S. fleet forces, is only as good as the information provided by Canada and its allies.

The third area is maritime control or the deterrence or defeat of a threat. NORAD doesn't have this mission yet, but it could in the future. NORAD considers how to evolve in the coming weeks. No doubt the 60th anniversary of NORAD, which will take place in 2018, is an impetus.

Our navy works closely with the U.S. and the Coast Guard, as well as with other government departments within Canada. The navy works bilaterally with the U.S. to achieve maritime control, but should NORAD accept the maritime control mission and it comes to fruition, this will require a rethink of Canada's naval command and control structures.

Canada's maritime community is small, and it seems everyone knows everyone, but if maritime domain awareness, maritime warning, and maritime control in whatever form are to keep ahead of evolving threats, these sometimes orphaned functions need serious attention.

Canada lacks a national maritime intelligence-integration office like the one in the U.S., which forces a re-look at these sorts of functions. In Canada, the sharing of information between other government departments and the navy, while improving, is still a work in progress. A common maritime lexicon is still maturing. There is still no formal feedback to NORAD regarding the usefulness of the warning and advisories, and I fear there is a growing disconnect between the perceived threats the Americans feel they are facing. There are certainly growing calls for us to go after the archer and not the arrows, which I think could represent a doctrinal change for the navy and for the Canadian Armed Forces.

This concludes my opening remarks. I look forward to your questions.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Go ahead, Mrs. Romanado.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Mr. Chair, I would like to bring forward an issue that happened at the meeting last Thursday. I am referring to a comment made by my colleague across the way that I believe was an inappropriate comment and was in direct conflict with appendix I of the Standing Orders, “Conflict of Interest Code for Members of the House of Commons”. Given that the statement that was made, which insinuated that a member of this committee and other members of Parliament...broke one of those principles in appendix I of the Standing Orders, possibly principles 2(b) and 2(c), and that the member has absolutely no evidence to prove such a statement, I am asking Madam Cheryl Gallant to apologize to this committee for the following false statement made last Thursday. I quote:

Ms. Romanado mentioned that as a parent of a Canadian Forces.... It very well could be that the children of serving members of Parliament, especially with government, would be able to have a seamless release from the military and then to Veterans Affairs, but the average everyday person who's being medically released from the military does not have that advantage.

I therefore request that the member retract that statement and issue an apology.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Mrs. Gallant, go ahead.

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

I will not retract it. I believe the statement I made is true.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

That's very unfortunate.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

All right. I'll consider that closed.

Let's move on to our seven-minute questions with relation to what was said today by the witnesses.

Mr. Spengemann, you have the floor.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Professor Charron and Professor Huebert, it's great to see you again, and thanks for your time.

I want to start out by presenting a big-picture question taking us back to the two principal threats that you mentioned, Professor Huebert, those being Russia and China, and put that into the context of our needs to take a look at our submarine program in particular.

I also want to draw attention to recent news that China is aligning itself more closely with Iran than what we may have seen in recent history. When you talk about reinvention of our navy and our naval strategy, I wonder if you could comment on the more precise parameters of what you see in Russia and China in terms of platforms and in terms of numbers, and our need to anticipate rather than react. Also, casting an eye over to our friends in Australia, who are a much smaller Pacific nation with a much smaller coastline—we have the longest coastline in the world—we see that they are engaged in a submarine program that is now, in terms of numbers, in the range of six to 12. I wonder if you could comment on that.

I would like to hear from Professor Charron as well. What is it, in terms of this strategic threat from Russia and China, that we should precisely be keeping an eye on and doing in the intermediate term?

[Dr. Robert Huebert]

That's a very important question because it gets down to the brass tacks of trying to look forward into what we need the navy for.

In the context of the Russian capability, where we see the Russians putting most of their money and succeeding is in their nuclear submarine program. This is the underlining security requirement for Russia. It's in their documents. It's in their forced posture. It's a maintenance of nuclear deterrence. They call it nuclear stability.

This creates an issue in that they are also developing the capability of a broader maritime reach. We've seen this with the recent deployment of their aircraft carrier to the Syrian fronts. They don't have to send a carrier there, but it's a means of showing that they have the projection of a surface capability. What this means for Canada is that there is going to be a renewed problem, and that is, as we face an increasingly aggressive Russia, we have to deal with the fact that our closest ally, the United States, is increasingly becoming concerned with the nuclear SSBN capabilities of the Russians.

Publicly, they say that everything is fine, everything is okay. We can see in their procurement, however, particularly in their Virginia class, that they are continuing to give their subs an anti-submarine mission. We are going to have to meet that type of requirement, even if we don't agree that the Russians have moved in an aggressive fashion, which I think is a false context in this element. But we see this in the American procurement, and we see this in the American force posture. It ties directly to what Professor Charron was saying about the maritime mission of NORAD.

With respect to the Chinese, probably one of the biggest threats we are going to be facing—and this is something that the Australians are very sensitive to; you can read it in all of their documentation, and you can see it in their recent decision to buy 12 submarines from the French—is that the Chinese are expected to become a maritime nation presenting a challenge to western nations. They are already moving to become a peer competitor. We can see this in both their force composition and in their statements. We can see that they're getting increasingly unhappy with the existing international legal dimension just by looking at the recent arbitration decision that went very clearly against them. The suspicion is that the Chinese, through the type of missile capabilities and submarine capabilities they are developing, are increasingly going to be threatening western interests.

If that is to be expected in the long term, what Canada needs is the best capability of responding to a submarine threat, which means submarines of our own. It's not a World War II movie where you get destroyer surface capabilities. You need submarines to meet submarines. In order to meet the Type 094s and 096s that are now being prepared and that the Chinese will be building in increasing numbers, it is imperative that we maintain a submarine capability, much the same way as the Australians have.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Some Canadians might say that we have friends to the south who will take care of this, and that we have allies over on the other side of the Atlantic who have their capabilities. What precisely are our allies telling us that we should do more of with respect to naval development, particularly the submarine program? Are there any messages to us that we need to close gaps?

[Dr. Robert Huebert]

That's a very difficult one right now. As I said in my opening statement, what we're seeing increasingly among many of our closest friends and allies is an inward look that I don't think is allowing them to take an alliance perspective in looking outward to the type of threats we're meeting. At this point, I'm not aware or privy to the types of conversations on what Canada specifically has to meet.

The reason I say we need to have an independent submarine capability is that, as we've seen in this presidential election, we cannot assume we will always have a United States that will have Canadian interests at heart. In the long term, we have to be sensitive to that. Remember, regardless of where Trump ends up polling, he has a substantial amount of population that is isolationist-oriented. That, to my mind, is also a threat. We need to ensure that we have an independent capability if the worst type of environment, i.e., an America that returns to isolationism, is ultimately in the cards somewhere down the road.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you very much for that.

Professor Charron, I'd like to get your views as well.

[Dr. Andrea Charron]

Usually when you get a briefing from NORAD and they talk about the strategic threats from Russia and China, they tend to focus on the aerospace threat, so the fact that Russia is investing significant resources in strategic nuclear forces, or that they have global precision strike capability now. For China, it's the fact that they are rapidly modernizing their nuclear forces.

As far as Canada's subs are concerned, that's not something I can necessarily comment on, except that I would sort of borrow from the thinking of John Mearsheimer. The advantage that the U.S. has to Russia and China at the moment is that the U.S. has the freedom to roam, which Russia and China don't yet have. It's improving, but they don't have it. Any conversations that Canada has, being as we are one of the United States' most important allies, is how our growing capabilities will match their ability to keep that freedom to roam.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

That's helpful. Thank you for that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you.

Now over to Mrs. Gallant.

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

Welcome back to our witnesses. We're quite honoured to have you back. In fact, you're doing better than our chief of the defence staff, whom we've asked since this committee was first constituted. I don't know why it is that the government won't let him come, or what he could possibly tell us that they don't want us to know. We haven't had any briefings on deployments, despite repeated questions. Most importantly, we haven't had a briefing, even in camera, of force protection and what has been done to protect our armed forces personnel since the attack on a recruitment centre.

I'm really disappointed that in the face of the promise of an open and transparent public government, not only are we being deprived from hearing from the CDS, but now they don't even want MPs to speak. The committee and the House of Commons chamber are supposed to be the sacred places where an MP can ask questions or make statements without fear of reprisals.

My first question is for Professor Charron.

What do you make of the reported nuclear war training exercise in Russia with the 40 million people?

[Dr. Andrea Charron]

I'm not privy to classified information. I don't know any more than what has been reported in the news. Certainly, it's something that people are tracking, but we have to remember that there are two parts to a threat. There's capability, but there's also intent. I think sometimes we're quick to assume the intent, but that's something that I think we need to investigate more.

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

With respect to the scheduled visit by a nuclear U.S. submarine to Guam, what, if anything, do you think would be the possible ramifications that Russia or anyone else in that area would have to this planned exercise?

[Dr. Andrea Charron]

The good news about exercises is that generally, they're well communicated. They're certainly watched by everybody. As long as they've been on the books and planned, that doesn't cause nearly as much concern as when there are sort of pop-up events and people are caught untoward.

That speaks to my comments about maritime domain awareness. Always knowing about these events and being able to put them into some sort of context is very important. Otherwise, we can make some precipitous decisions that may launch events that we can't retract, and that's never a good thing either.

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

Dr. Huebert, we don't have any submarines in our navy that can go beneath the ice, so I'm going to ask you a two-part question. One, do you think that we need this capability? Two, Canada's nuclear policy is that there is to be no use of nuclear energy whatsoever when it comes to military. If you think it is required that we have a submarine that can go beneath the Arctic ice and if the only capability is through a nuclear-powered submarine, do you think Canada should be looking at changing its policy towards being able to use that capability in nuclear power?

[Dr. Robert Huebert]

We did look at having nuclear submarines twice and, ultimately, what's been the killer both times has been the cost. There's no question that having a nuclear-capable submarine is what will allow us to go under the ice, but the problem that has always bid the devil for all planners has been what to sacrifice to get that capability. In other words, it has proven virtually impossible for Canadians, be it Liberals or Conservatives, ever to come up with a defence budget that would allow having the capability to deal with all the requirements that have already gone through from a surface capability and at the same time going nuclear. It has always been that cost factor that has been the killer.

Would I personally like to see us having one or two nuclear submarine capabilities? Of course, but I'm an academic. I don't have to deal with the broader issue in that particular context.

Realistically, the best thing we can do is work as closely as possible with the Americans, which we have done, to allow them to ensure that that is in fact protected under the ice, but ensuring we retain a submarine capability so they keep us fully informed in terms of what they have done, which I will add we now know has been the case.

There was a lot of speculation that wasn't the case in the past, but one of our students at the University of Calgary found documents that demonstrated there has been an agreement between Canada and the U.S. on how to proceed under the ice, which makes it clear there were not sovereignty violations.

As for nuclear capabilities, keep in mind that ultimately because of the manner of the Cold War, Canada had to be, as a NATO member, always subscribed and avoided the issue of no first strike because we were quite aware that if the Soviets attacked, we might have to go to the nuclear option, if that ever came in.

You get into a fuzzy area in your second question in the context of how much and what we can and cannot do.

I'll say one other thing about your point about information. This is also a challenge that we as academics often face in terms of getting information. For example, we don't know how many flights the Russians have had in terms of bomber long-range patrols up to Canadian airspace. That tends to be classified information, and it's very difficult for us to know whether or not we should be concerned, because that information is not made widely available.

A lot of the materials that form the basis of what we're trying to come to is, in fact, classified. Some of it is classified for very good reasons, some I would dare say for political reasons and because we've inherited the words from the British tradition, and that is, classify unless you can prove there is no harm, as opposed to the Americans who say to classify if you can only show there is harm. That's a challenge I think we all face.