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.
12:50 p.m.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC
Okay, thank you.
We'll turn to Professor Charron after that.
12:50 p.m.
Assistant Professor, University of Manitoba, Director of the Centre for Security Intelligence and Defence Studies at Carleton University, As an Individual
It's not so much as a question, but one thing I've been trying to do over the last couple of years is remind everybody that we have this binational agreement with the U.S. called NORAD. When it's out of sight and out of mind, it can be easily marginalized. I'm also starting to see signs that NORAD itself is thinking about how it can evolve and change, and this will have repercussions for Canada. I'm hoping that we're going to be able to keep pace to evaluate those suggestions, so that we're not doing it in an ad hoc fashion.
I think the brilliance of NORAD was that Canada and the U.S. came together and saw the need for this agreement. In fact, we have to remember that the military actually got ahead of the official signing of the treaty. We don't want to do that again.
But to pay attention, to go to NORAD, to ask them questions.... For example, as we considered the Arctic offshore patrol vessels, how would they fit in with NORAD? That's a question we don't often ask ourselves, and I think it's an important question.
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Stephen Fuhr
Thank you very much.
Ms. Gallant or Mr. Bezan, do you have any other questions?
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
I have one question.
What would you like to see done to strengthen the RCN's interoperability with allied naval forces, including the United States navy and their coast guard, NATO navies, and navies of other foreign allies?
12:50 p.m.
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Calgary, As an Individual
I'll take that one, because it's one that I've been very interested in. It's the issue of making sure that the navies of our friends and allies are aware of what our capabilities are.
Our starting to integrate with the American battle groups really stemmed from an initiative that occurred on the west coast when the commander of the west coast fleet, MARPAC, simply had a good relationship with the commander of the American force and said, “Our frigates are really good, why don't you see how they can integrate?” That was when we saw HMCS Ottawa being integrated, I think it was with the Lincoln battle group, for the first time.
The point of the matter is, the more we show what we can do—because we are one of the most capable navies there are, in terms of our training, capabilities, the men and women who man the ships.... We are one of the truly great naval powers, in that context. But we have to make sure that they are aware and that they can see the integration.
Then when they see the integration, it's basically jumping at opportunities, such as integrating with an American battle group or any other formation, such as Combined Task Force 151 for the anti-piracy patrols, demonstrating to people how we work, then working together so that we can integrate our systems, so that wherever there are difficulties in integration, we're able to overcome them.
Let me be clear. All the open evidence points to Canada's being probably unique in its ability to integrate itself with all the NATO countries and with the Americans at the highest level, and that means also in terms of security capabilities, but also as one of the very best countries to integrate with the forces of countries with which it hasn't traditionally integrated, such as the Indian navy or the Chinese navy. This is due to the flexibility that goes into the training and capabilities that our forces have.
This is one of the untold stories, but if you look at Combined Task Force 151 or at RIMPAC and at the ways we're brought in, you see that we're always at the top level in terms of integration. We are one of the few countries being given task force command in, say, some of the conflicts in the Middle East.
That's a testament to what we do, and it basically means that we have to unleash the navy to let them do this more and more, so that people are aware.
12:50 p.m.
Assistant Professor, University of Manitoba, Director of the Centre for Security Intelligence and Defence Studies at Carleton University, As an Individual
I would add that in addition to the hardware and software compatibility, which we often think of first, there are also the very important soft skills and exercises and forms that we tend to under-resource.
For example, when sequestration hit the U.S., the first thing we saw was that they couldn't participate in joint exercises anymore. That's a non-starter for interoperability; it really hurts us. We have to make sure that we're able to fund exercises.
Also consider things such as the Canadian Forces College, which brings together military and other government department representatives, especially at the NSP level, not only from within Canada but from outside. It's those connections that in the future can be really important conversation starters. We should not underestimate the importance of that NATO staff college system.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
Sherry Romanado Liberal Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC
Thank you.
Actually, Professor Charron, you brought up a question I want to talk about.
We've heard a lot about the procurement and the fact that our Canadian Armed Forces have been able to manage a capability gap quite well, given our procurement issues. We don't talk a lot about the men and women who are currently serving. You brought up the Canadian Forces College.
You talked about the funded flying hours. In terms of domain awareness, it's one thing, but also in terms of recruitment and retention. We heard about that from the commander of the Royal Canadian Navy, that some of the challenge we have is that sailors want to sail. They want to be out on the water. They need to be practising. They need to be out there doing what they do best.
I'd like to give you an opportunity just to touch on that, on what we should be doing in terms of focusing on the training and development of our men and women who are serving, in spite of this capability gap, and in terms of future procurement projects, what we should be looking for to make sure that they are able to use these new systems, because it is a system of systems, the interoperability, and so on and so forth. I think it would be nice if we could hear about the importance of that.
As two academics, I'm sure you'd like to talk about training, and so on and so forth.
12:55 p.m.
Assistant Professor, University of Manitoba, Director of the Centre for Security Intelligence and Defence Studies at Carleton University, As an Individual
I would just say, yes. Any leader is always looking for opportunities to train, opportunities for their subordinates to be doing what they “signed up to do”. Often training can be compromised because it's an easy place to save dollars, but especially when it comes to the navy and the Canadian Armed Forces, or the RCMP, the Coast Guard, and so on, it's that repetition; it's knowing what to do in crisis situations that is the reason we have such professional forces and police, and we're the envy of much of the world. So, yes, please continue.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
Sherry Romanado Liberal Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC
Professor Huebert, do you have any comments on that?
12:55 p.m.
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Calgary, As an Individual
Yes, absolutely. That's a critical point. As you and Dr. Charron have pointed out, often when we face financial crises, the first thing that goes is training because that's the budget item where people can say, “Okay, as long as we can still get the procurement projects going and as long as they're paying for the individuals, the expense of the personnel, we don't have to worry about training and we can cut that back.”
I think there has to be a mechanism in place, and I've seen a couple of instances where commanders have tried to say to the political elites, “We need more training, full stop; the amount you've given me isn't enough.”
The Coast Guard also faces this. I want to be very clear on that context. They tended to say, “Yes, sir, or yes, ma'am, what we're going to do, and we'll cut back on training.”
There surely has to be some mechanism at one point, and this can't be open or arbitrary, where the commander says, “No, this is a crisis; we need to keep it going and I think you're making a bad decision.” I don't know if we have that necessary capability that we can have that feedback from the commanders in the context.
We also have an interesting development from a longer-term perspective in terms of our new procurement. In most instances, most sea capabilities are going for much smaller crews, so we may be in the growing situation that for the individual sailors who go to sea, the crew sizing is going to be a lot smaller, and that may give us the capability of sending those smaller crew sizes out to sea. Of course, once again, how this transpires and works out, I'm not an expert in that field that I can say, but if in fact we do succeed in making crew sizes a lot smaller, we should be thinking very seriously about how much we're extending, but the extending of course then means that we have to have a very robust repair and mid-life extension issue. In other words, the more training you do, the harder it is on the sea frame, and that means further repairs in that particular context.
1 p.m.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
I know that all professors are keen to know that their students have a job after their courses, so Professor Huebert needs to know that one of his students, one of his best students, is working for me now.
1 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Stephen Fuhr
Professor Huebert and Professor Charron, thank you so much for coming today. It's nice to see you again, and I'm sure we'll be seeing you in the very near future.
May I get a motion to adjourn, please?
Thank you.
The meeting is adjourned.