National Defence Committee on Nov. 15th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Welcome everybody. I call the meeting to order. I'm sorry that we're a little bit late. We had votes in the House. I'd like to welcome General Jonathan Vance, chief of the defence staff, to update this committee and Canadians on Canadian Forces current operations.

Sir, you have the floor.

[General Jonathan Vance, Chief of the Defence Staff, Department of National Defence]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for inviting me to appear before you once again.

As chief of the defence staff, I'm responsible for providing military advice to the Government of Canada, but I also have the privilege to engage parliamentary committees, such as yours, to discuss issues of importance to the defence of Canada. I'd like to personally thank you for all the work that you do.

I take my responsibility seriously, as do you. Today I will provide you with a short update on some of our operations, following which I will be happy to answer any questions that you have.

I'll begin today with a brief overview of my primary responsibility: the defence of Canada.

Our international operations tend to draw the most public attention. But while more than 1,500 Canadian military members are deployed internationally, tens of thousands work every day here at home, along all three coasts, and across the breadth of our country.

This assistance takes many forms. One of the most important is our involvement with the national search and rescue program. The Canadian Armed Forces operate three Joint Rescue Coordination Centres in Victoria, Trenton, and Halifax, and provide military assets to more than a thousand incidents each year.

These efforts are particularly important on our east and west coasts, where our citizens live and work with the dangers of wind and tide. Every day, air crews at Gander, Greenwood, Trenton, Winnipeg, and Comox stand ready to assist Canadians in distress, as do our search and rescue technicians. Each one is ready to leap into harm's way at a moment's notice, and each day they honour their motto, “That Others May Live”.

We also have other standing missions inside our borders. Consider Operation PALACI as one example. Every year we deploy teams to the critical Rogers Pass in British Columbia, just three hours' drive from Kelowna. There, our gunners use artillery pieces to prevent snow build-up in the surrounding mountains, reducing the risk of a major avalanche that could block the pass. With more than 4,000 vehicles and 40 trains passing through Rogers Pass every day of the winter, this modest effort helps save lives and protects the vital flow of commercial goods between British Columbia and the rest of Canada.

I'm sure members of this committee will also be able to recall specific natural disasters to which the Canadian Armed Forces have been called to assist, such as floods in Manitoba, the effects of Hurricane Igor in Newfoundland, the evacuation of northern communities or the wildfires around Fort McMurray.

I would be remiss if I did not single out for special mention our reservists who are not only the face of the military in their communities—very often so—and ready to provide support in crisis, but also form an increasingly important part of operations and training in Canada.

There are many other efforts, most notably, our involvement in NORAD, seeing to our air and maritime security and surveillance, and our annual northern operations, which also contribute directly to the defence of Canada.

Moving to the international stage, we continue to support Iraqis as they fight to liberate their country from the scourge that is Daesh.

First, our special operators continue their mission to train, advise, and assist. In the early stages, this mission was principally focused on training. As peshmerga forces have closed with the dangerous and determined enemy, the advise and assist roles have become more prominent and are more critical.

Yes, our troops are working with the peshmerga as they move forward. They must, in order to do their job. But the peshmerga and the other Iraqi security forces are the ones doing the fighting.

We advise them on plans and tactics. We assist them if they are unable to defend themselves alone against the threat. We provide them with the same support we provide to other coalition partners, including our enhanced intelligence capability that continues to support the coalition.

Medical personnel have also been deployed to a role 2 medical unit in the region. The ministerial liaison team is working within the Government of Iraq, with a Canadian general officer leading, looking ahead to the future while also helping to insure Mosul is liberated.

I expect the coming months will be crucial. Iraqi military successes will need to be reinforced and solidified with political, economic, and diplomatic ones.

Finally, Mr. Chair, I will address the issue of peace support operations. While I cannot discuss the specifics at this time, I will provide an outline of the principles I consider as I approach this question.

The first is how these operations fit into our overall framework, in terms of conflict prevention, conflict management, conflict termination, and harm reduction. Can peace support operations produce desirable outcomes in this framework? If they are well managed, well planned, and supported, then yes, they can. They can help prevent conflicts from breaking out, or from worsening. They can help reduce harm to civilian populations.

Second, can we help achieve these outcomes? Yes, we can.

As a top-tier military, we can help improve the skills of both UN and local forces. We can help them be more effective and professional. This capacity-building will help these countries achieve lasting stability. We must help them achieve their own security. And finally, can we mitigate risks to our people and to civilians? Yes, we can.

We have learned lessons over several decades of UN missions. Beyond simply placing forces into a particular mission, we must retain some control over them. We must ensure they are able to act, and to protect themselves. And we must consider all aspects of a mission, including the different threats faced by sub-sections of the population, such as women, children, or fighting-age males—and plan how to address those.

These are the broad principles I must consider as Chief of Defence Staff. And I will be happy to expand upon these principles with you today.

Mr. Chair, committee members, I have not yet had the chance to mention Operation Unifier, or our reassurance efforts with NATO. I believe I could probably fill all of your time today with details on our current operations, but I would like to leave you with one last point, and in many ways it is my most important one.

We will only succeed on operations if we succeed in looking after our people, if we build a culture where each and every member of the Canadian Armed Forces is treated with respect and dignity as they train to that high-skill level that we expect of them, one that allows them to serve their country to the full measure of their ability.

Whether it's eliminating harmful sexual behaviour through Operation Honour, or making sure that military families are looked after while their loved ones are away, there is both a moral and operational imperative driving these activities, which is why looking after the people I have the privilege to command is, and always will be, my top priority.

Mr. Chair, I am grateful for the opportunity to testify before you and the committee today. Merci. I will be very happy to take your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you, General. We all know we lost some time here, so I'll be a little less flexible with running over. Having said that, Mr. Fisher, you have the floor for seven minutes.

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

Thank you, General, for being here today. Welcome. Thank you for all you do in your service to our country.

I want to chat a little about mefloquine, the anti-malaria drug. With the possibility of sending troops to some countries where malaria is a current problem and a current issue, and knowing that the U.S. and the United Kingdom have now banned mefloquine—I believe for the U.S. it was maybe six, seven, or eight years ago. Australia and New Zealand are considering it and were discussing it. I'm not sure about other countries.

This is a big issue in my constituency, my riding of Dartmouth—Cole Harbour. I've met with veterans who take this very seriously and who are very concerned about mefloquine. I understand it was taken voluntarily by our military members. But with new issues possibly popping up and side effects that, perhaps, weren't known back in the 1990s when we were administering mefloquine, at least in a larger capacity, do we have a plan?

Is there a plan for our country to discontinue the use of mefloquine, or to ban it? If so, is there an alternative for when we send troops into countries where malaria is a major issue? Could you maybe chat a little about what we are looking at or considering doing going forward?

[Gen Jonathan Vance]

This is before the surgeon general right now. If it's an issue that concerns our veterans, and it's an issue that is on people's minds, then it's certainly on mine. It is before the surgeon general. We will use the scientific approach in this regard. There are alternatives to mefloquine that have been used in other missions, and I think it would be premature right now to foreshadow the advice the surgeon general will give to me before he does so.

I appreciate the question, and it is being looked at as we speak.

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

Are we currently using just mefloquine, or are we using different alternatives now while this is before the surgeon general? Are you able to elaborate on exactly what the use is right now of mefloquine?

[Gen Jonathan Vance]

I don't have the exact details of what we're doing today on various operations. I do know that the use of mefloquine is less prevalent than it was in the past.

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

My understanding was that mefloquine was the drug of choice, because you took it once a week, where there was an alternative that you took every day. Do you know what the name of that alternative is? It slips my mind right now.

[Gen Jonathan Vance]

Mine, too. Maybe that's because I took it. I don't know.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

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

Did you take it?

[Gen Jonathan Vance]

No.

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

Okay.

[Gen Jonathan Vance]

If I could, Mr. Chair, maybe I take this question on notice to give you a more fulsome explanation of where we're at exactly right now. I know, having done operations where I've taken anti-malarials, which was not mefloquine at the time, that each operation is different. The threat vectors through the mosquito populations are different. We take a prophylactic approach to protect our Forces, no matter where they are. Each approach is different, so I think it's probably best that I offer you on notice a more fulsome explanation of exactly where we're at from a medical perspective and how that prophylaxis works. When the surgeon general finishes his work on this and reports to me, then we will certainly share that with the Canadian public.

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

Do you know when the surgeon general might report back to you?

[Gen Jonathan Vance]

I don't have a date right now.

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

Is it imminent, or is it years away?

[Gen Jonathan Vance]

It is absolutely not years away. I would say it's imminent.

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

Somewhere between imminent and years away.

[Gen Jonathan Vance]

The surgeon general has an opinion right now on the validity and the use of anti-malarials, and I think it's probably worthwhile that we put that in as a “take on notice” response.

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

Thank you very much, General.

There are a few minutes left, so I'm happy to share that if someone wishes to take that extra time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Mr. Gerretsen.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Thank you, General.

I have one question that I think will take up this time, and then my other line of questioning afterwards will be different.

Can you tell us, because we've heard the two terms, “train, assist, and advise”, and, “train, advise, assist, and accompany”, what the difference is between those two terms?

[Gen Jonathan Vance]

The difference is that the first mission—“train, advise, and assist”—is the mission that we are on. That's the scope of the mission that we've undertaken. The use of the term “accompany” is used by some nations, including Canada, to describe the difference between providing assistance—providing support in planning, providing support in such things as medical evacuation, provision of intelligence, provision of expertise in planning and control of forces—and the accompany function, where you're actually fighting with them. “Accompany” is used to describe that you are actually with them in the fight on the front line in combat.

By illustration, when we were in Afghanistan and we were doing the operational mentoring and liaison teams, that was very clearly an accompany mission. When the Afghan National Security Forces were involved in combat, not only did we mentor them in combat, but we were fighting with them shoulder to shoulder at the most pointy end of what they did.

In our mission, we are not doing that. In our mission, we restrict ourselves to the training—which I said has a predominance in the beginning—advising and assisting commanders, principally at the battalion level, on what to think about, how to contemplate the operations they're doing, and while they're fighting, to help them maintain situational awareness of where they are in relation to flanking forces, how to support them in terms of how they can call for fire, how they manage themselves better in conflict. We are not accompanying them, by virtue of that definition.

Where the assist function comes in, there's a number of different ways that we assist. One is through supporting them in their medical evacuation. Another is to help commanders maintain control of their forces, to help them keep an eye on things. Their forces aren't as well trained as we are. No matter how much training we do, there is still an element of assist that we can provide them in operations.

Another element of assist that I think is germane—and what's certainly caught people's attention—is when and under what conditions we would shoot, we would fire. It is for defensive purposes. Whether we are static and in a defensive posture or whether we are moving into an assault or an offensive operation, we have a mandate to not only protect ourselves—the right of self-defence is inherent with every soldier—but we also have the rules of engagement that allow us, in the event that there is an attack or something approaching our forces that would overwhelm us and therefore we are defenceless or approaching a point of defencelessness, to engage.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

And that's in “assist”, correct?