National Defence Committee on Nov. 3rd, 2016

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

Sure, no worries.

I wanted to switch gears to the subject of submarines. They are unique vehicles, especially for intelligence gathering and for the fact that they can remain unseen. With our current deployment of submarines, how reliant are you on the information they gather, and would you like to see Canada expand its submarine capability to aid you with that intelligence gathering?

[Stephen Burt]

I'm afraid I may disappoint you, again.

There's no question, getting to the comment about submarines earlier, that being able to monitor what's happening under the sea is an important capability from an intelligence perspective. I can't get into specifics around what you get and what you don't get out of specific capabilities like that.

What I would say is that from an intelligence-gathering perspective and from a more straightforward military capability perspective, 41 countries around the world continue to make significant investments in submarines. We see booming business by French companies, in particular—French and German companies—in exporting submarine technology to east Asia and around the globe. We see booming business in the construction and export of submarine launch torpedoes and missiles. These are seen as an important capability by many countries around the globe who invest heavily in making sure that they have them and who watch very carefully when their neighbours get them. It is a system of importance. It is a system that is being invested in heavily, particularly in the Asia-Pacific, and it is a system that our navy is going to run into when they deploy around the globe.

It is an important maritime capability. The issues of what Canada should or should not do are a bit beyond my remand.

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

Right.

We've heard testimony at this committee before about a country like Australia that has two-thirds of our population and is making significant investments in their submarines. You look at the neighbourhood that they inhabit, and it's probably a wise choice. Are you able to offer an opinion that we should expand our role? Is that something you would like to see in our submarines?

[Stephen Burt]

I think it would be wisest if I did not offer an opinion on that particular question. What I would say is that the Royal Canadian Navy is a global force. Yes, in Australia's immediate neighbourhood there are a number of countries that are making investments in submarines, but we also operate in those environments, even though we don't necessarily live there.

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

Okay, I think that's time, and I thank you very much for coming today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

We have time, if we want to get to committee business, which I'm sure we all do.

We'll take two more five-minute questions, starting with Mr. Bezan.

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

I'll share my time with Ms. Gallant.

I have one quick question for you on your business of intelligence gathering and sharing. Can you talk about the relationship with the Five Eyes from a military perspective?

At a previous committee meeting, one of our witnesses said that if we are lacking in any certain capabilities, such as submarines, we may not get the intelligence from our Five Eyes partners on whether or not there is a threat in the region. I just wanted to ask, are there any caveats that could be placed upon the information that we share or information that we gather from our Five Eyes partners?

[Stephen Burt]

In terms of reciprocity? In terms of being able to contribute...?

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

Or from the standpoint of threat....

An example is that the Windsor was deployed in the North Atlantic to track a Russian submarine earlier this year. If we didn't have the submarine capability, would we have known that was in the North Atlantic and near Canadian maritime domain that we're responsible for?

[Stephen Burt]

In general terms, I would say that the Five Eyes relationship is of essential importance on the intelligence front. We gain far more than we give out of that relationship just partly by its nature, partly because of the capabilities of our partners. It is fundamental to our success and our ability to operate globally, that close, really unprecedented co-operation among five different countries.

Without talking about a specific capability area like submarines or anything else, the ability to speak the same specialized language around working in a domain and understanding the ins and outs of it and being able to talk to your counterparts who also have experience operating in that domain are an important part of information sharing. It's important to have people who, on all sides of that discussion, actually understand the business when you get into specialized capability areas.

Having said that, our allies have always been very open and generous with us. It's not to say they will always be so, but certainly historically we have benefited immensely with their willingness to share things with us across the spectrum of their own capabilities, whether or not we actually operate in those areas.

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

Thank you.

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

To our witness, in your final response to Mr. Paul-Hus you mentioned you had limited resources. What does your command need in order to increase its capacity to fulfill your command's missions?

[Stephen Burt]

I'm trying to recall what I said we had limited resources for precisely.

At the end of the day, in intelligence we have—to quote my former boss—two weapons systems really. One is our computers and the other is our brains. The resources that we need and that we rely on heavily are fundamentally people-based, so getting the right people with the right expertise in the door, trained, security-cleared people you can trust to do hard things and to think about hard questions and come up with clever, innovative answers. It's our ability to communicate and share that information generally over information technology systems, both internally with domestic partners and with allies. Those are the two areas where I would always want more resources.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

The last question goes to Ms. Romanado.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd actually like to offer my time to the honourable member for Scarborough—Guildwood.

Thank you.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

It's not often I get called the honourable member.

There was an interesting article in The Globe and Mail this morning about “Amerexit”. It's a triumphalist Chinese colonel who is basically anticipating that the chaos in the United States will ultimately and quite quickly lead to China's supremacy as the world's foremost superpower. There have been some developments down there. The first was of course The Hague decision, which China has unilaterally blown off. The second has been the change of government in the Philippines and a more obvious rapprochement between the Philippines and China. The third is the relationship between Malaysia and China, which seems to have some warming effect.

I would think that all of these things have some impact on your analysis of the threat environment, but also on the overall intelligence operation that you conduct. I'd be interested if you feel comfortable commenting on these recent developments, which are all in the public domain.

[Stephen Burt]

I'll briefly preface my remarks with two comments. One is that you promised me you weren't going to ask any questions. The other is that I will be in Colorado on election day, watching from NORAD. I may not come out again, depending on how that goes.

More seriously, with regard to your question—and I've alluded to it a couple of times here but haven't really expanded on it—we've talked a lot about Russia, but the Chinese reaction to the Philippines court case in UNCLOS around the maritime disputes in the South China Sea was very interesting. It was a much harder-edged decision than I think many people had anticipated, certainly than I had anticipated. It was much more embarrassing for the Chinese government than I think they were anticipating, and they've struggled with how to react to it.

The changing government in the Philippines, at the same time, has cut across that in sort of an interesting way, because I think a different Philippines government could have made it much more difficult for China to deal with this issue.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Aquino in particular, the previous president, was extremely hostile to that creation of islands.

[Stephen Burt]

It's very interesting to watch the Chinese try to recover from that and to try to put forward their preference for bilateral relationships and deal with specific disputes as opposed to dealing with the risk that they face in India to cope after that ruling with a number of ASEAN countries hopping onto that bandwagon.

To conclude, all that is to say that the submarines question and some of the other questions you've had regarding the operating environment in the South China Sea and East China Sea, and the refusal of China to abide by internationally recognized codes of conduct in some of those things, are very troubling.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you.

It looks like that concludes our round of questions. I want to thank you for coming. I appreciate your time. I'm going to invite you to come back again. I'm sure we'll see you again. We'll suspend for a few minutes while you leave.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Welcome back. We had said that we would get to committee business and we have about 18 minutes to get out of here on time. That leaves the committee business we are going to at least start with, which is the two motions put forth by Mr. Bezan.

Mr. Bezan, you have the floor.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The first motion I want to put on the table is as follows:

That unanimous consent be required for any Member of Parliament who is not a member of the Committee to be present during in camera proceedings of the Committee.

Just for further clarification, we had one issue when we were at an in camera meeting and the chief government whip came into the meeting. He did leave after some issues were raised with it, but I just want to make sure that we have this as part of our routine motions, which we approved at the beginning of the session. I just want greater clarity that we actually have that as part of the routine motions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

That's debatable obviously. Is there discussion?

Ms. Romanado.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just want to get clarity on it, because that motion says unanimous consent is required. I know for a fact myself, that when I was absent, travelling on committee business, I had to have a substitute. Would we now require unanimous consent to have the substitute there? The motion is not clear in that regard.

I think, from what I understand, we are following the rules that are in place in the House of Commons Procedures and Practice. I just wanted to double-check to get some clarity on that because, from what I understand, we have been following that. There was an incident. It was corrected and the whip left. I'm not quite sure where this is coming from.