National Defence Committee on Nov. 3rd, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

I would like to welcome Mr. Stephen Burt, assistant chief of defence intelligence, to our committee and the study of Canada's naval readiness and the defence of North America.

Before we start with your opening remarks, I just want to let the committee know that I am prepared to leave some time at the end for committee business, if that's agreeable. Having said that, Mr. Burt, thank you for coming. The floor is yours.

[Stephen Burt, Assistant Chief of Defence Intelligence, Canadian Forces Intelligence Command, Department of National Defence]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair and members of Parliament, thank you very much for the invitation this afternoon.

It is my distinct pleasure to address you today and provide our views on maritime threats facing Canada and global naval threats more generally.

Before I address these threats, the maritime threats to Canada, and the naval threats more globally, please allow me to provide some context. As you may recall from my testimony before this committee in March of this year, the Canadian Forces intelligence command, or CFINTCOM, is the functional authority for defence intelligence in Canada.

CFINTCOM's mission is to provide credible, timely, and integrated defence intelligence capabilities, products, and services to the Canadian Armed Forces, the Department of National Defence, the Government of Canada, and our allies in support of Canada's national security objectives.

Defence intelligence is a key element in the ability of the Government of Canada to make informed decisions on defence issues, national security, and foreign affairs. You can be assured that our intelligence capability is world-class, boasting a strong team of dedicated professionals and benefiting from productive relationships with other government departments as well as our partners in the Five Eyes community.

At this time, we do not see a state actor that has both the capability and the intent to use military force against Canada. I would caution, however, that while it takes many years for states to develop new capabilities, intent is much more difficult to discern, and it can change rapidly and with little warning in response to international events and competing national interests.

Further, as I will outline, there remain many serious threats to Canadian interests globally. In today's globalized world, conflict and instability in other regions can have a direct impact on the security and prosperity of Canada.

In the context of maritime threats, the fact that most of the world's population inhabits coastal regions means that the Royal Canadian Navy could very well be called upon to play a role in dealing with these threats, or to operate in areas where actors possess the capability and intent to pose a direct threat.

Before I begin my discussion of maritime threats to Canada as well as global naval threats, it is important to appreciate the global maritime security environment in which we find ourselves today.

There are five geopolitical realities that I think are worth considering in this context.

First, is the willingness of China and Russia to challenge the global rules-based order, and the resulting uncertainty and tension that this creates. For example, China's ongoing naval expansion and the increasing frequency and intensity of maritime territorial disputes in the South China Sea and East China Sea are cause for concern.

The second reality is Russian military modernization and aggression, as evidenced by the illegal annexation of Crimea and the ongoing Russian sponsored conflict in eastern Ukraine. Russia continues to reassert itself on the world stage, with its navy and air forces returning to out-of-area operations, as well as its direct military involvement in conflict zones like Syria. Such Russian activity, while it does not reach the levels seen under the Soviet Union, has not been seen for decades, and it creates further uncertainty in the geostrategic security environment.

Persistent instability in many areas of the world, with failed and failing states continuing to present real security challenges, is the third area of geopolitical realities I would like to highlight. They provide the ungoverned spaces needed by terrorists to organize and flourish, and they lack effective national institutions to prevent corruption, the abuse of human rights, or crimes against humanity.

The fourth reality is the increasing global demand for energy and resources, which relies on the free flow of commerce through strategic maritime choke points.

The final reality is ongoing climate change, which may trigger social instability and more frequent humanitarian assistance and disaster response operations, and which has implications for Canada's north.

Turning to maritime threats to Canada, the world has seen a marked rise in maritime security threats in recent years, as part of the broader global trend in crime and terrorism. Migrant smuggling and seaborne terrorist attacks, as well as maritime-based transnational crime and espionage, continue to pose threats to Canada and to our national interests.

Transnational criminal organizations increasingly engage in waterside and port criminality and present a threat to Canadian maritime approaches and a challenge to global stability and prosperity. Their illicit activities include the smuggling of people, drugs, firearms, and other contraband goods.

Human smuggling and irregular mass maritime-based migration continue to pose potential national security and terrorism-related threats to Canada. The arrival of migrant vessels in 2009 and 2010 exemplify that Canada is vulnerable to threats brought to our shores by human smuggling operations.

There are a number of foreign-based terrorist organizations that possess maritime capabilities and the potential to mount maritime-based operations. Some of these groups use Canada for financing, recruitment, procurement, and operational planning purposes. Although the maritime domain is primarily exploited by terrorist organizations to help finance their own operations, these organizations have also aimed to disrupt global maritime trade by targeting shipping at high-volume choke points.

The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction threatens Canada and our allies. North Korea's provocative actions continue to threaten security in north Asia and beyond. Iran poses multiple significant security concerns for maritime assets operating in the Middle East. Russia and China both possess a growing arsenal of sophisticated weapons, including strategic nuclear capabilities designed to discourage western intervention in a regional crisis.

With regard to espionage, as a leader in many maritime economic and scientific fields, Canada is an attractive target for espionage. Hostile foreign states and foreign intelligence services are engaged in the unlawful acquisition of Canada's military, political, economic, and scientific information or assets that relate to the maritime environment.

We also assess that select foreign nations are likely to encroach on the Canadian and North American perimeter in the Arctic, the western Atlantic, and the Pacific Ocean with unauthorized or illicit activity by ships or aircraft. While it remains unlikely, as I've already stated, that Canada will be attacked in the foreseeable future, there are countries such as Russia that maintain capabilities such as ballistic missile submarines and long-range aviation aircraft, which can target Canada and North America. As the Arctic becomes more accessible due to climate change, there is an increased potential for threats to emerge there as well.

Finally, there are a number of sophisticated sea-based systems that could pose a threat to Canada or North America, most notably Russian long-range, submarine-launched nuclear ballistic missiles as well as conventional and nuclear submarine-launched cruise missiles. Submarines with these systems conduct regular patrols, primarily in the European theatre but also in the High Arctic and the North Atlantic, with these assets having an occasional presence in the Canadian exclusive economic zone.

Turning now to global naval threats more generally, the threat environment facing Royal Canadian Navy assets deployed abroad is dynamic and varies by region. We face a number of challenges and threats from both traditional state actors and non-actors.

Surface platforms, such as corvettes, frigates, and other offshore and ocean-going vessels, continue to be developed with great diversity and at an increasingly rapid rate. Russia is in a period of naval rejuvenation. China is rapidly shifting from a coastal defence force to one capable of patrolling and defending its territorial waters and beyond, and India and Iran are developing new capabilities as well.

Anti-ship cruise missiles are an extremely potent threat to both warships and merchant shipping. They can be launched from a multitude of platforms, including ships, submarines, and aircraft. While few missiles have the capability to destroy a frigate or a destroyer-sized ship, they can easily incapacitate them. Russia, China, India, and Iran are all key developers of this technology.

While anti-ship cruise missiles are a well-recognized threat, anti-ship ballistic missiles are an emerging one that will prove challenging to counter. Anti-ship ballistic missiles are in use in China and, we assess, likely in Iran.

Anti-ship torpedoes are one of the most effective weapons available to enable arsenal capable of sinking large vessels on impact. They are difficult to detect, and once detected, are difficult to evade or defeat. Russia maintains the world's largest and most diversified inventory of torpedoes, and it continues to develop, produce, and export both anti-ship and anti-submarine torpedoes.

Naval mine warfare represents one of the most difficult battle spaces in modern anti-surface and anti-submarine warfare. Minefields are dangerous, and clearing them is a long and dangerous process. This makes them ideally suited for small and large military forces alike, as well as non-state actors, because an inexpensive mine is capable of sinking a large and very expensive warship.

Finally, military interest and acquisition of unmanned systems are driven by the requirements to reduce operator workload, increase mission endurance and survivability, and reduce risks to human life. Unmanned systems pose several threats to maritime elements, including the ability to physically damage a target, conduct surveillance, perform electromagnetic attacks, deploy and/or neutralize naval mines, and so on.

In conclusion, as you can appreciate, the maritime threats facing Canada and the RCN both at home and abroad are numerous and varied, and they are nested in a volatile and unpredictable security environment. The Canadian Forces Intelligence Command is interested in monitoring such threats, because they affect the ability of the Canadian Armed Forces to operate.

I hope that you find my testimony today helpful. This concludes my presentation. Thank you very much for your attention. I would be happy to answer your questions.

Thanks very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you very much, Mr. Burt, for your comments.

I'm going turn the floor over to Ms. Romanado for the first round of seven-minute questions.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair

I'd like to thank you again, Mr. Burt, for being here.

Since the last time you were here in March, we've had some developments. We've had an opportunity to travel to NORAD to receive briefings, specifically with respect to intelligence and the importance of intelligence, and we concluded the first phase of our study of the defence of North America. Now we're on the naval readiness component.

When it comes to intelligence, I think it's not something that can be looked at in silos. All three branches of the military need to be working together, as well as the folks with the RCMP, and so on.

One area you didn't talk about in your testimony today, but you did refer to in your last testimony in March, was the importance of cybersecurity. We learned when we were in NORAD that currently cybersecurity is not something that is looked at as a joint initiative through our NORAD agreement.

I'm going to back up a second. It may sound like it's coming from left field, but I've just gone across the country for electoral reform, and one of the areas we're looking at is whether we should move into electronic voting. The reason I'm bringing this up is that there are a lot of concerns in terms of cyber-attacks, and so on, and people trying to change the results of elections. We're hearing a lot from our friends to the south about concerns of hacks and things of that nature.

I'd like you talk a bit about the importance of cybersecurity. I know we're looking at a new policy review through the Minister of Public Safety. Could you could talk to us a bit about that area? We haven't heard a lot about it today.

[Stephen Burt]

Sure. I'm happy to do that.

In terms of the maritime domain, specifically, the primary cyber-threat I would underline is the threat to merchant vessels, in fact. They are often more vulnerable to hacking for a variety of reasons. There's a tendency to use more outdated software and more dated systems on some of those ships. They sometimes were not designed with cybersecurity in mind the way systems are designed now, certainly within the military context, but even more generally for the private sector now. This is something that is present in people's minds.

From a maritime security perspective, this obviously presents a range of challenges: financial loss for companies, potentially, depending on how systems are manipulated; loss of an ability to track a course that can result in lost goods or environmental crises of one kind or another; and the risk of manipulating a vessel's automatic identification system or electronic charts, depending on what systems they're using.

All of these things are taken very seriously by the private sector and are something they monitor now, but because of the nature of commercial shipping, there are many vessels still on the oceans that aren't fully up to date with software and hardware that would give them the robustness we would like.

With regard to threats to military vessels, there are certainly nations out there, Russia and China primarily, that have the capability to effect a range of systems. What I would say about that is that it is a known threat, something we take very seriously, and something we are conscious of when we're designing or upgrading our own systems. Keeping, as much as possible, ahead of that threat curve is very much a part of the work we feed into from the intelligence command perspective.

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

On that note, we know when assessing threats that we look at the capability and the intent. You mentioned that Russia and China have the capability. We have seen that Russia does have the intent to use cyberwarfare.

Given our proximity to and relationship with the United States, and our agreements with NORAD, what are the possibilities that our systems can be hacked through our relationship with the United States? If the United States is vulnerable to cyber-attacks, which means they can get into Canadian systems, what are we doing to put in place a cyber policy, perhaps, whether it be just for our nation or for a binational policy to protect our intelligence, especially in terms of military intelligence, from cyber-attacks? Do you have any updates on that?

[Stephen Burt]

The cyber-policy issue for the Government of Canada runs out of Public Safety. That's something they've been working on for a long while and that we and others are plugged into.

As you note, by its nature, cyberspace is very much a shared space, and obviously in North America in particular there are a number of interlinkages. I couldn't tell you, frankly, to what extent which areas might be more vulnerable or which ones are more.... I wouldn't want to get into that anyway, even if I did have the information at my fingertips, but certainly it is something that we work very closely on with the Americans, on the military side with U.S. cyber command, and with our own elements within the Department of National Defence.

Given the nature of it and the interlinkages not just military to military but between government and the private sector and then private sector to private sector, it really is something that has to be addressed holistically, which is why Public Safety might be in a better position to comment on some of those things.

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

In terms of the importance of our surveillance capabilities and our aging physical assets, we've heard, for instance, that the north warning system is going to reach its shelf life in 2025. We've heard that we have to look at our RADARSAT.

We hear a lot about the physical assets. What about our human assets? You might not be able to talk to us about that, but what initiatives are we taking to ensure that we have enough human assets in terms of intelligence gathering?

[Stephen Burt]

It's an interesting question. Certainly in the Canadian Forces intelligence command and in defence intelligence generally speaking across the spectrum—because the command only controls a little less than half of the overall defence intelligence resources—this is absolutely a growth area. There's a lot of interest. I'm told that in recruiting centres the second most-requested area of interest by people walking in is “intelligence officer”, after “pilot”.

A number of initiatives are under way in the defence intelligence enterprise, both within the military and for civilians, to bring in new folks, to recruit them out of school, and also to bring in people who have areas of expertise in other domains, to bring them in, train them up, and have an investment in the future.

The challenge right now, frankly, is that you end up with.... We have more people and we're growing quickly, but a lot of our growth is in new people, so they don't necessarily have all the experience and training that we would want to deal with everything we're dealing with right now. There's a big piece of work under way from a training and development perspective, and again, for both uniformed and civilian personnel, to make sure we have the right skill sets.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Mr. Paul-Hus, you have the floor.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Burt, may I speak French?

[Stephen Burt]

That is not a problem for me.

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

Mr. Burt, the first time you testified before our committee, during our study on the air force, we were left with a somewhat bizarre impression, because you said there were no threats from state actors. The committee has met with several other people and all of them were of the opinion that there was some degree of threat.

You represent the Canadian Forces Intelligence Command, and to our mind, you are the key person in terms of the Canadian government. You have come back here today to talk to us about the Royal Canadian Navy and you are again saying that, at this time, there is no state actor that has both the capability and the intent to do harm to Canada using military force.

So I think I have understood your arguments and I would like to have that point clarified for the committee today.

If we take Russia, for example; it has demonstrated its capability and its intent. You say that if Russia does not have malicious intent, we cannot consider Russia to be a threat. I would like to divide the question in two. First, do the Russians have the capability to deploy forces, if then have the intent to do so? The intent could emerge today or in five years, we do not know. Is the Russian navy's capability effective enough? According to the eight pages of information that follow, if the intent is there, there is a real threat.

I would like this to be clear for the committee, please.

[Stephen Burt]

That is exactly the issue. The definition of "threat" has two aspects: capability and intent.

Certainly, in the case of Russia, we are keeping a close watch on several aspects relating to capability, to see what it is capable of doing. However, we do not see any intent on the part of any country to attack Canada militarily.

That does not mean that no country has the intent to harm Canada's interests. A number of states are doing things that harm our interests. In the case of Russia and China particularly, some things being done that involve international law are creating uncertainty in terms of how we will need to act in the future.

That harms Canada. As a nation engaged in global trade, we need a certain foundation of rules to conduct our affairs and so that our interests will be protected. So each time these nations or other states take measures that, while they are not military threats, properly speaking, affect our interests, that poses a problem for Canada and is a threat to our interests.

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

Let us assume that Russia, China or some other country decides to enter Canadian waters in the Arctic by non-military means, with icebreakers or in some other way, to create a passage and occupy the territory for trading purposes. From a military point of view, you do not consider that to be a threat. Rather, it would be a threat that affected public safety, given that there would have been no aggressive military action.

Is that right?

[Stephen Burt]

It would depend a little on what those countries were doing. If it was a demonstration of their capability, it would show that if their intent were to change, they would have the capability to act accordingly. To that extent, it would be a warning to us.

However, let us not forget that Russia itself owns a large part of the Arctic. So it has rights and interests in the Arctic also and it can act within its own maritime jurisdiction. It seems reasonable to us that it would build bases and enhance its capability to monitor its own passage. It is doing that for its search and rescue operations within its own jurisdiction, or to monitor maritime trade going on there. We do not see that as a threat.

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

At present, are you seeing Russia becoming more powerful on the west coast, in the Arctic? We can observe equipment and bases and everything Russia needs for taking action being prepared. From their perspective, it is peaceful, but it could become an economic threat for us.

[Stephen Burt]

The Russians are doing two things in the Arctic.

First, they are building bases that enhance their capability in the Arctic. This is mainly to preserve their own capability to act within their own territory.

Second, most of Russia's strategic capability is also based in the Arctic. That is different. It is a global capability. There are a number of good reasons for it to be in the Arctic. That capability appears to us to be a threat.

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

So I come back to my first question.

As I understand it now, Russia's capability is fairly impressive. I think it has become significantly more powerful. If the day comes when Russia has the intent of engaging in maneuvers, we might have trouble, if we do not take steps of our own to build up significant naval power.

[Stephen Burt]

Intent can change very quickly.

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

So it seems to me to be important not to say there are no threats, because a threat can happen quickly and we have to be prepared.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Mr. MacGregor, welcome back. You have the floor.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair; and thank you, Mr. Burt, for appearing today.

I was looking over some of the subagencies that you're responsible for. Under intelligence collection, you have the joint meteorological centre and the Canadian Forces joint imagery centre; and under intelligence assessment and enabling, you have the directorate of meteorology and oceanography. I would say you have some very powerful tools at your disposal to analyze the impacts of climate change. Canada being a northern country, we are starting to see the effects of climate change far more rapidly than countries around the equator. I know forest fires are going to be an issue in the future, as well as rising sea levels, and of course, an ice-free Arctic Ocean is a very real possibility by the end of this century.

I wonder whether you could provide the committee with an overview of the future of Canada. This study is specifically looking at Canada and the defence of North America, and if we're going to start seeing the effects of climate change hit us a lot more rapidly as we go into the future decades. Could you just provide the committee with an overview of some of the threats in that context?

[Stephen Burt]

I'd be happy to do that.

I should specify with regard to the two units you've mentioned, one that works for me, which is the directorate of meteorology and oceanography, is primarily a policy unit. It deals with our linkages with Environment Canada and the arrangements we have with them for forecasting and whatnot. The joint meteorological centre, which is in Gagetown, New Brunswick, is actually the forecasting centre for the armed forces. I didn't know when I took this job 18 months ago that I was going to be responsible for the weather in addition to other things.

[A voice]

You're doing a great job so far.