National Defence Committee on Nov. 3rd, 2016

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

I think that's my time, Mr. Chair.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Mr. Bezan.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Before you start the clock, I just want to point out that the last time Mr. Burt was here was when we passed my motion on doing a study on force protection. That was back in March. Here we are several months later, and we've had times when there have been no meetings called by the chair, and we still haven't had an opportunity to have one single witness to talk about how we protect our forces when they are either at recruiting centres, armouries, or on base. It's unfortunate and downright embarrassing that we haven't done that yet, when that motion was passed unanimously by the committee.

I'll start my questions with Mr. Burt. It's good to see you again.

You almost contradicted yourself. You said that there are no state threats but then went on and painted a picture of what Russia and China are doing. Really, it's downright scary the threat they pose to us here in Canada. I really appreciate what you've laid out on the naval threats facing us here in Canada.

Of course, we're going through the request for proposals right now for the future surface combatants. There was a report released just this morning by Dr. Danny Lam. His concern is that the design of the existing hull or the vessel that's out there today, does not have the capabilities to deal with the threats you so clearly laid out: ballistic missile capabilities; the sensor arrays we're going to need, which take a lot of energy and require an on-board ability to generate that type of electricity; and new direct energy weapons, such as lasers, rail guns, and things like that that are going to come online.

Do you feel that we need to broaden this and look at adaptability and modularity as we go into the ship design of our next surface combatants? As Dr. Huebert suggested when he was at committee on Tuesday, maybe we should only be building a ship for today, and then look at doing something different. Rather than doing 12 or 15 ships of one design, we should be adapting as we go through the building process over the next 20 years to take into consideration new threats and new technologies.

[Stephen Burt]

We work very closely with our procurement staff, the navy, and the other services to ensure that there's a clear understanding of what we see in the future threat environment. At that point, it becomes the responsibility of the services and the procurement folks to decide what the appropriate response is.

I'm not familiar enough with the ins and outs of the current procurement setup to comment. I understand that you may have Mr. Finn coming through in the next couple of weeks. He might be able to give you more detail on the procurement side of things.

I am confident that the information we provide in that process is heard, registered, and becomes part of the decision-making. Certainly everything I've passed on to you today are things we have raised before and have been raising for some time. This information is known and is accounted for in the decision-making by the department.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

I appreciate that.

We are talking about Russia and expansionism. We're watching very closely what's happening in Ukraine, Syria, and of course, along the eastern plank of NATO. You are more than well aware of Russian aggression against NATO allies in the Black Sea and the Baltics and through the North Sea and the English Channel.

I read an interesting article last night on the concern that Russia's interest in the Arctic is resource based. Oil is running out in Siberia. Even with the lower prices, with a commercial approach we wouldn't develop it unless there was a return on investment, but they need cash flow.

Are you at all concerned in your work through the Canadian Forces intelligence services that Russia's appetite for oil to generate cash to fund their military machine is something we have to be paying closer attention to, especially with the expansion of military bases throughout the Russian archipelago islands in the Arctic?

[Stephen Burt]

I absolutely agree that we need to pay attention to the state of the Russian economy and how it is doing globally. Obviously, energy is a big part of their revenue generating, on the economic side.

I am not sure that being able to extract energy from the Arctic is a big driver of their current infrastructure push right now up there. I think what they're doing right now has a lot more to do with control of their own maritime territory and being able to track, and frankly tax, any commercial shipping that is going through that area. It's their own issue of maritime sovereignty and surveillance, much as what we have.

Having said that, the overall issue of the poor, frankly, Russian economic picture and what that does in terms of driving decision-making in Russia is of great interest to us.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Mr. Fisher, you have five minutes, please.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you very much, Mr. Burt.

I'm thinking along the lines of Mr. Bezan with my questions as well, regarding Russia. You mentioned that they possess a growing arsenal of sophisticated weapons, and you mentioned naval rejuvenation. Your job is to accumulate information. My thinking is, can they keep this up, this proliferation? They've built their economy on oil. Oil is at $45 U.S. today. The Russian economy is not great.

Maybe there are some members of the committee who have a clear sense of this proliferation, but can you paint a picture for me of Russia five to 10 years ago, Russia today, and what you think Russia might look like in five to 10 years? I'd like to get a better understanding of what this proliferation looks like, has looked like, and what it might look like based on the fact that oil is $45 a barrel now.

[Stephen Burt]

That's a great question.

I can paint you a very brief picture. The major changes in Russia, 10 years ago to now, and likely looking into the future, have been around the political attitudes in the Kremlin. I think they've made a series of decisions that have put them in a bit of a corner economically while attempting to advance their interests geopolitically.

Russia sees itself as being under threat. It sees itself as having been taken advantage of in the nineties, after the end of the Cold War. It believes and feels that it wasn't respected in that time and wasn't cut any slack and allowed to reform its economy. I think there's a real drive for respect. They want to be a great power. They want to be seen as being a great power. They become infuriated when they feel that their interests are not being taken into account, especially in the near abroad.

It's a difficult mindset. It makes it difficult to deal with them on a number of issues, because pride becomes involved. I think going forward it is an open question.

To answer your specific question about whether they can afford to continue doing what they're doing, the only answer I can give is this. So far, yes, but at a certain point, they are digging themselves a hole that they're going to have to come to grips with, just as the Soviet Union did. When that will occur and how they will react is something that I would have some difficulty speculating on.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

I get the respect and the pride side of it. You said that they feel that they're under threat.

[Stephen Burt]

There's a strong sense, publicly stated by President Putin and other senior Russian leaders. They tend to see the colour revolutions in places such as Ukraine, central Asia, and whatnot, and attempts to democratize in some countries in their periphery as western-run influence operations to undermine Russian interests in those countries. They feel that the opening of NATO membership to eastern European countries similarly was a direct attack on Russian interests. They feel that, wherever possible, the west takes advantage of Russian weakness, so they're determined not to be weak.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

You spoke in your opening comments about the “increasing global demand for energy and resources, which relies on the free flow of commerce through strategic maritime choke points.” How big an issue is piracy? Is any of this by state actors, or is it all just one-offs and small pirate groups?

[Stephen Burt]

I wouldn't necessarily tie that with piracy. I think piracy is an issue, but it is an issue that can be managed both by navies and by the private sector in terms of protecting their own ships as they move through some areas where piracy is rampant. Piracy is an issue. It has been an issue, obviously, off the Horn of Africa. It is an issue presently in the Strait of Malacca, off Indonesia.

The bigger issue in terms of threats to global commerce that I would identify is in the Asia-Pacific region around territorial disputes, and given the number of choke points in that area, the potential for territorial disputes to get hotter and to block trade.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you for that.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have nothing further.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Mr. MacGregor, the floor is yours. You have three minutes.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Burt, in your opening remarks, you talked about some of the maritime threats to Canada. I want to look at organized crime specifically and at some of the smuggling that happens: the smuggling of people, of drugs, and particularly of firearms coming from the United States and so on.

I come from a coastal community on the west coast. I was looking at all the streams of intelligence that come in. It can range all the way from the shipping manifests that Transport Canada is looking at to a municipal police force to the CBSA. You have all these streams of information coming in. I want to get a sense of how your agency fits into that. Also, are you satisfied with the current state of maritime domain awareness in Canada and do you see any improvements that can be made?

[Stephen Burt]

Our role in all of that from a defence intelligence perspective is to remain alert to foreign activity or illicit activity off the coasts and in maritime approaches and to be aware of what's going on in those areas. Specifics around transnational organized crime in ports and the smuggling of weapons and whatnot is very much a law enforcement responsibility.

With regard to our role in that, we have a role in feeding into the maritime domain awareness picture—often abroad or in the near abroad in terms of our approaches—and making sure that picture is fed into the RCMP, the CBSA, and others who have specific law enforcement and regulatory powers.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Sometimes you'll be feeding the intelligence to them, but at other times you may receive intelligence from your partners. I guess that would lead you to directing a naval ship to an intercept mission?

[Stephen Burt]

I think there's a range of actions that might be appropriate, but certainly once they're inside 12 nautical miles and into territorial waters, that becomes a legal law enforcement issue much more that it is.... If there were to be Royal Canadian Navy or other Canadian Armed Forces assets used, they would have to be used in conjunction with the mandate and authorities of other partners and agencies.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Just quickly, in looking at the security, I have a lot of constituents who are either directly or indirectly employed at CFB Esquimalt. Continuing on the line that Mr. Bezan started, what can you tell us about the trend for security for the personnel who work at those bases? It's not so much on the base, but has there been a trend of increasing threats to people who are off the base and so on?

[Stephen Burt]

My major concern when it comes to threats to personnel is threats to uniformed personnel. I think that's what we've seen in the last couple of years. I think that Canadian Armed Forces in uniform are uniquely vulnerable, both because they're so easily seen and identified and also because targeting them has a certain symbolic value.

There is a symbolic value in targeting the base and base infrastructure and whatnot, or perhaps a recruiting centre, but my personal concern, my greater concern, I think, is at the level of the individuals who are easily identifiable and are seen to have a certain symbolic value if you were to do something nasty to them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

That ends the formal questioning. We have some time, so we'll go around the track once, at five minutes per question. I'll start with the Conservatives.

Mr. Paul-Hus, you have the floor.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Burt, I would like to talk about cooperation with the Coast Guard when it comes to terrorist activities.

We know that the coastal marine security operations centres, in Halifax and Esquimalt, analyze the various threats, and the Royal Canadian Navy oversees the operations.

If there is a maritime threat and a ship with terrorists on board arrives along our coasts, the Coast Guard will be the first to intervene. However, it may be too big a threat for the Coast Guard's resources. At that point, the Canadian Forces, in the form of the Royal Canadian Navy and the Special Forces, will have to intervene, in that kind of situation.

In the last two or three years, have there been any terrorist threats by sea, near Canadian coasts, that have called for intervention by the Coast Guard or the Royal Canadian Navy?

[Stephen Burt]

I think the threats that come by sea are certainly terrorist in nature. You see that mainly in other countries. There have been several cases of terrorist attacks in ports and in essential passages, for examine, in areas like the Strait of Malacca. These are very narrow canals that ships have to pass through.

There is always a risk of a terrorist attack in Canada, and that could take various shapes, including by sea. That being said, most terrorist activities that take place in maritime areas are connected with criminal groups and terrorist financing.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

If you raise a warning flag at the Canadian Forces Intelligence Command, to say there is a threat, will we have the resources needed in order to take action?