Evidence of meeting #25 for National Defence in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was navy.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:30 p.m.
Liberal
12:30 p.m.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC
Professor, you just raised the question I was saving for this round, and that's about the Auroras.
In the Canada First defence strategy, the Conservatives promised they would build 10 to 12 new long-range maritime patrol aircraft, and then decided they couldn't afford them. They would refit the Auroras so they would last until 2030, at which time they would be 50 years old. But they decided to only refit 14 instead of the 18 that the military said they needed.
In terms of domain awareness, how do we sit with the Aurora patrol aircraft, and the fact that we will have only 14 out of the 18 the military asked for, which seems to me to be problematic, and the fact that they may not actually last until 2030, being 50-year-old airframes?
12:30 p.m.
Assistant Professor, University of Manitoba, Director of the Centre for Security Intelligence and Defence Studies at Carleton University, As an Individual
You're probably right. I mean I—
12:30 p.m.
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Calgary, As an Individual
Wow, that's—
12:30 p.m.
Assistant Professor, University of Manitoba, Director of the Centre for Security Intelligence and Defence Studies at Carleton University, As an Individual
Go ahead, Rob.
12:30 p.m.
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Calgary, As an Individual
Go ahead? Okay.
As I was saying on the Aurora, one of the critical things we have found—and the Russians and the Americans have found it—if that if you have a relatively robust size of airframe and it is not supersonic, you can actually make them. The new industrial capabilities mean that we're getting a lifespan out of these aircraft that exceeded anyone's expectations. If you look at the American B-52s and you look at the Russian Bears, those are even older aircraft. Both the Russians and the Americans have found out that there are certain aspects, in terms of responding to the airframe fatigue that everybody thought was a major issue, so the airframe itself can actually go much further than we thought.
That's part of the problem that adds to the complexity of this. We have found that we can push the lifespan of the Auroras. Of course, the question is, what is the optimal amount? Usually the numbers in most studies go all the way from 12 to about 24, but it really depends on what we do. The problem is every time we do a refit with the Auroras, and get them up and get new assets, we find new things for them to do. The problem is that every time we make them better, as typical Canadians, we use them for more. What we were saying we needed them for is to go, “Oh, by the way, we're going to do it, and we're going to do a whole lot more”, and that becomes part of the problem.
12:30 p.m.
Assistant Professor, University of Manitoba, Director of the Centre for Security Intelligence and Defence Studies at Carleton University, As an Individual
I can't comment on the number, but tied to the number of Auroras is also the question of the status of the north warning system, and also brings up issues of cybersecurity, etc. Fixating on the number is a bit like looking through a straw: you're narrowing your lens and missing some of the other implications. I would certainly defer to the Department of National Defence on whether or not they think they have enough planes. The other aspect is the number of funded flying hours. You can have all the planes in the world, but if you don't have enough money to send them up there to do the surveillance, that's also a problem. That's something that is often the last to be considered in a budget.
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Stephen Fuhr
That ends the formal round of questions. We have time, so we'll go through three more back-and-forths, so the Conservatives, Liberals, and NDP, five minutes each. We'll start with Mr. Bezan.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to go back to talking about the current request for proposals for the surface combatant design. In the request for proposals, there is a clause in there, and essentially it's a gag order on anyone who's bidding on the design phase, any of their subcontractors or their employees, and I quote right here from the CBC, “any public comment, respond to questions in a public forum or carry out any activities to either criticize another bidder or any bid—or publicly advertise their qualifications”. That is prohibited.
Now Dr. Danny Lam—and I've talked to him about this—said in the CBC story this morning, “The clause will effectively stifle any public debate about the procurement”.
David Perry, who both of you are very familiar with.... After we had the department on Friday, he tried to clarify it. He said, “I don't understand how it could have been misconstrued: 'You shall not speak in public.' It's an attempt to keep the competition out of the headlines.”
Do you believe this clause that's in this request for proposals has the probability of showing up in other requests for proposals going forward from DND? How is this going to impact the public debate, and the debate here in the House of Commons, and being able to properly analyze the different options that are coming forward? Also, how does it impact both of you in how you do your research on defence policy?
Who wants to start?
12:35 p.m.
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Calgary, As an Individual
I can start with that. Yes, I'll start with that one.
Dave is absolutely right. How can you construe it as anything else but limiting any debate? The problem that occurs is it doesn't stop debate. What it does stop is informed debate. You ask, what do we do as academics? Both Dr. Charron and I have plenty of colleagues who, if they don't have the facts, they'll make them up. You know how it goes in terms of debates. People will then look to anecdotal pieces of information. It means we get a very stifled debate. This is unfortunately something that we have inherited, and it continues. It's one of the issues that really stymies us as researchers. It may be this particular clause but, ultimately, people will only share information if they feel there is no risk at all. I think this whole danger of creating information that may not exist totally misinforms any real substantive debate that we want to have on defence. Having said that, given the way the state of industry is, we have to be sensitive there will be proprietary information they don't want getting out. It's a question of how you balance those two requirements, in my view, that becomes most problematic.
12:35 p.m.
Assistant Professor, University of Manitoba, Director of the Centre for Security Intelligence and Defence Studies at Carleton University, As an Individual
I tend to self-gag on all issues of procurement and fine print, in terms of clauses. I really don't know.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
I want to go to the design itself.
Dr. Huebert, you had already mentioned that we're building a whole block of ships rather than just trying to do this over time. Dr. Lam and I have talked about this as well, that it would be better if we were going in smaller groupings to keep up with technology.
One witness we had at the table here talked about how we should just be buying the hull, and everything else inside of it would be modular so that you could move technology in and out a lot more easily, and also repurpose the ship for different mission protocols that are going to be required.
Is that something we should be focusing on as we go forward on shipbuilding, especially as new technologies are coming on, such as lasers—I know there's talk around electromagnetic rail guns, things like that—which aren't here today but could be within the next decade?
12:40 p.m.
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Calgary, As an Individual
The Scandinavian countries have moved very strongly towards going to a modular layback. If you look at both the Norwegian navy and coast guard, they can make their coast guard vessels the equivalent of a naval combatant by the usage of modularity in terms of missile systems, torpedo systems, and so forth.
Historically, from the Canadian perspective, any time we have started experimenting with that capability we always get cheap in terms of any follow-up modularity. If you look at the Kingston class, there was some experimentation in terms of giving it some form of mine-clearing capability, with the idea that you could off-load and on-load. But what we ended up doing, once we bought the Kingston class—and once again, it's this Canadian mentality that we built it; it's done and over with, and we don't have to think about it—we never ever provided it with the proper demining capability that we gave her that capability for.
If we were to go to a modular formulation, which is entirely conceivable and which many say works for medium navies, we then have to change our mindset and be willing to say that we need those modularities now, and they in fact cost money. That's something we haven't shown an ability to do. If we could do it, in theory I think it's a great idea, but I haven't seen evidence that Canadians of any political stripe have really had an appetite for those sorts of add-ons. They don't get the political punch for that, and that's been a problem.
November 1st, 2016 / 12:40 p.m.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
Thank you both for this very interesting discussion.
Just as a point of clarification, I did have a conversation with a senior procurement official yesterday, and there was no intention of frustrating any conversation that might occur as a result of the bidding process. The idea was to try to achieve an orderly bidding process, but they have since withdrawn and it's back to however it is we used to do things. I just want to make that point.
Your conversation about the navy and coast guard led me to think about an experience I had recently in Miami with a NATO group on an absolutely magnificent coast guard ship. Our Coast Guard or our navy would be delighted to have the ship, and I think the Americans have recently purchased about 55 of them. Its area of operation was off the Florida coast in the Gulf of Mexico, which coincidentally was the same area of operation that a couple of our navy boats were in. It led me to wonder whether we should continue to maintain this distinction between the Coast Guard and the navy, and whether really we should be seeing the entire naval domain awareness, control, warning, constabulary functions, terrorist- and war-fighting functions all as a bit of a spectrum of conflict.
Your debate has actually brought that out a bit more. This is a general question. I just wonder whether we can continue to afford the luxury of the separation between the coast guard and the navy, given the threat spectrum, from both state and non-state, but also inevitably the increasing responsibility in the Arctic.
Whoever wants to pick that up first can answer. I appreciate it's a general question, but I think it's something we need to come to ground on sooner rather than later.
12:40 p.m.
Assistant Professor, University of Manitoba, Director of the Centre for Security Intelligence and Defence Studies at Carleton University, As an Individual
I'm hesitant to say let's just take the Coast Guard and navy and smack them together.
12:40 p.m.
A voice
It could be a bit of a mess.
12:40 p.m.
Assistant Professor, University of Manitoba, Director of the Centre for Security Intelligence and Defence Studies at Carleton University, As an Individual
You're talking about taking a special operating agency with a safety mandate and marrying it to the navy, and that doesn't solve the constabulary problem, because neither the navy nor the Coast Guard right now really has a constabulary function. That's Transport Canada, the RCMP, etc.
But we're starting to do this in some ways in the Arctic, based on the platform that we have. The Arctic offshore patrol vessels will be piloted by the navy but will have on board Coast Guard, Transport, RCMP, etc., as required. Maybe that's the way to go, working with this whole-of-government approach rather than taking the Coast Guard and the navy and making them into a new sort of hybrid.
We have a small navy and a small Coast Guard. On the one hand, perhaps that gives us economies of scale, but you would have to change the whole training, the mandate. It's something that could maybe happen far off in the future, but it makes me nervous for a whole bunch of reasons. I think it's a conversation that the commissioner and the commander of the navy are much better placed to participate in, concerning the limit.
The real innovation of the Arctic offshore patrol vessels, however, is being able to do that. You get the range of responses, from the safety to the constabulary to a defence option, based from one platform. For a small country such as Canada, for our naval, Coast Guard, and Transport Canada forces this is very innovative.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
12:45 p.m.
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Calgary, As an Individual
If I may add, there's also something critically important here. Of course, I agree to a certain level. You don't want to simply mesh them together. On the operational side, there are all sorts of issues.
What has been a major problem, however, is that the Coast Guard has traditionally seen itself as operators. They see themselves as responding to immediate requirements, many would say with a tactical sort of mindset. I think what has been required and what Jody Thomas has been doing an outstanding job of is to bring the Coast Guard into strategic planning. In other words, the unification needs to come in via thinking in the context not just that we want the Coast Guard to respond to specific issues and that's all we think about; rather, they have to be part and parcel of the strategic response, the layered response, from the constabulary to the war-defending to the deterrent, so that they are part and parcel.
Really, the integration you're talking about has to be at the senior leadership level. Once again, I have nothing but praise for the current commissioner and the direction in which she is now trying to take the coast guard in this context. What has happened is, because no one thinks the Coast Guard operates at a strategic level, they tend to be ignored because they are so successful. We can see this in the financial difficulties they constantly find themselves in.
Once again, raise it up into an understanding. Bring the type of issue you're talking about, of integration, into the strategic vision that is necessary for thinking about the maritime defence of Canada. Once you manage to get the Coast Guard thinking in that context, you have the integration that is necessary.
I think that's the direction they're going in, and I think that would directly respond to questions of the type you're raising, sir.
12:45 p.m.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC
I'm going to do something at the risk of seeming too clever or cute. These witnesses have both been with us before. One of our previous witnesses who had been here twice said there were things he wished he'd been asked. I'm thus going to actually put this to both of you: what is the question you wished you'd been asked today? Then go ahead and answer it.
I'll start with Professor Huebert.
12:45 p.m.
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Calgary, As an Individual
The question I would like to be asked is how we get a political understanding that is ongoing. In other words, I love the type of work that the committee is doing and the questions they are asking, but you know the system in which the committee will be proceeding: you'll go on to other issues.
How do you situate a political institution that allows us to remind ourselves constantly that we are in fact a maritime power, not just relying on maritime forces to have pretty ships and look good in nice uniforms, but remind ourselves that there is in fact a very real security need for Canada, and how do we ensure that the political leadership remains constantly aware of that in addressing the ongoing challenges that basically require us to think of very expensive but necessary solutions?
That would be one of the questions I would like to be asked in that context.
But you guys always ask so many good questions, how can we turn around and say we haven't been asked any questions?