National Defence Committee on Nov. 22nd, 2016

[RAdm John Newton]

Thanks, Admiral.

We started 20 years ago talking about the replacement of the Protecteur class, so it's a long-term endeavour to situate these recapitalization efforts. We're at the moment where we retired two of our AORs...and I will take exception to the term “prematurely”. After 46 years, it's not premature. It was done: the ship owes us nothing. It served Canada well.

I should add that replenishment ships aren't just resupply ships. They deliver real military capacity. I bristled when you said they had sort of a lower-level role. I spent a good part of my career on them. It's an exciting role delivering anti-submarine warfare helicopters to the anti-submarine surveillance requirement in distant operations. They provide humanitarian aid and disaster relief in mission after mission. They have command and control capacity. They are the nucleus of the Canadian task group, which is the real capability that the Canadian navy is striving to put back together after the modernization of the Halifax class and the gap introduced by the AOR.

It's an amazing capability that gives us the mobility, the flexibility, and the sustainment on station. Whether it's two or three, that's a government decision, but when we're given one, two, three, or four of anything, it is our job, both Art McDonald's and mine, to make the most of those platforms. We'll do a whole number of things to make sure we are very effective, with relationships in foreign countries, basing and hubs in foreign countries, and other capacities that can be brought to bear in our navy to help fill in some of these capability gaps that the auxiliary oil replenishment ship gave us.

It's our job to build readiness using other forces, relationships, and other navies, just like we did with the Spanish tanker SPS Patiño, which has renewed a relationship with the Spanish navy that was damaged during the turbot crisis. It's a beautiful relationship now with an enduring NATO ally, because they lent us a ship, and we paid for the fuel to fill our AOR gap. On the west coast, Art McDonald's team used the Chilean warship Almirante Montt, which has created an even deeper relationship with a Pacific power that is very closely aligned to Canada.

In trying to fix the capability gap, we've found virtue and success and enrichment of our relationships with our best partners and allies. That's our job, to fill in the gaps and patiently wait while the government delivers the program that is set out under the national shipbuilding strategy.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

I hope you didn't misunderstand me. The reason I'm asking about those supply ships is precisely because I'm trying to elevate their importance in all of this.

[RAdm John Newton]

Yes, sir, but some of these elicit great passion. I'm just one of those types of people.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

I appreciate that. I'm glad to hear it.

You partly answered the next question I was going to ask, about whether some of these interim arrangements we're making will reduce the independence of the Canadian navy. We've become dependent on allies for capabilities we don't have, and I'm wondering if that might in any way constrain our future military operations.

I'll start this time on the east coast.

[RAdm John Newton]

Yes, sir: theoretically, you're right that if you hook all the niche or specialist capability requirements in any domain to any one ally, or any one type of thematic relationship, you lose your sovereignty as a navy. And you can never know what tomorrow's mission will be. No mission tomorrow ever is a reflection of what it was in the past. We've learned to be flexible in how to approach the future. The Gulf War didn't follow the pattern of the Cold War. The war in Yugoslavia and the meltdown in central Europe didn't follow any style of conflict we had seen before. The war on terrorism, name it what you want, has not been something we were taught out of the lessons of World War II or Korea. We always look now to the future with this great uncertainty, so we don't want to create dependencies.

That said, there's a certain degree of dependence required. No nation can go it alone. You need friendships, you need partnerships, and you need really strong relationships. NATO gives us that. Rim of the Pacific...and the Western Pacific Naval Symposium is building those in the deep Pacific. You need bilateral arrangements with your closest allies, who you are wedded to by fate or the gift of geography. We have a continental ally, by the gift of geography, in the United States.

Warfare is so complex. The threats go all the way from nuclear war to cyberwar to the conventional areas of mine warfare and anti-submarine warfare. We do have reliances, and so does every country in this world. Everybody learns to contribute what they are expert in.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

We'll have to leave it there, unfortunately.

Mr. Gerretsen, you have the floor.

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

Thank you.

I just want to pick up, Admiral Newton, on the discussion that Mr. Garrison started. You talk about our sovereignty, and the fact that because of the interconnectedness, whether it's through NATO or the various roles that different players are playing in the world, sometimes we become dependent. I at least heard Mr. Garrison's question to be a little bit more direct. I'd like to pick up on where you see our sovereignty with respect to the dependence that we might have on other nations.

Is it something that you think we can improve upon by making changes, or is it something that you're very confident about, that the sovereignty completely exists?

[RAdm John Newton]

Wow. That's like a research project. That's a very tough question, sir.

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

Tell him it's a great question. He likes that.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[RAdm John Newton]

It's a great question.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[RAdm John Newton]

I'd rather Art McDonald start, and then I'll write notes and think about it as he goes.

We are a very proud nation. The reflection of that is that we're a really proud navy. We don't abrogate sovereignty to anybody in any way, shape, or form. At a government level, government has put its cards in NATO, and they've made bold statements, even since the election, about their resolve and standing behind NATO. We stand behind NORAD. We've made statements about the shipbuilding strategy, which feeds capability into that relationship. We're feeding capability into both NORAD and North American aerospace defence that is relevant to those alliances. I don't think anybody sees NORAD or NATO as being an abrogation of either the nation's sovereignty or the sovereignty of our navy.

I'm trying to do my best to answer your question. I think we strive to have the most important and fundamental capabilities in the navy, with our brothers and sisters in the Royal Canadian Air Force, who provide long-range patrol aviation, which is relevant to the maritime battle, to the Cyclone helicopters, which are really fundamental to anti-submarine warfare and to the surveillance and the targeting of our missiles, to our SOFCOM colleagues who deliver high-end strike forces in everything from counterterrorism to the interdiction and embargo scenarios—

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

I'm sorry to have to interrupt you, but I'm limited on time. You said that you strive to have the most advanced technologies to be able to do this, if I'm paraphrasing you correctly there. I'm not trying to get political with this question; I'm just trying to understand the facts. Do you have the resources you need to get there?

[RAdm John Newton]

Today, the country made a very deliberate decision to modernize the Halifax class, and that has delivered. The modernized Halifax class is in the top tier of military capabilities on this planet. It has only 20 years, and it won't hold at that tier forever. Today, I am confident in what I've been given with the Halifax class. Today, the Victoria class submarine, and Windsor, and Chicoutimi sailing to the far Pacific, have been modernized with key elements of maritime capability. The Windsor has the Virginia class sonar suite, the most advanced sonar in the world.

Yes, I'm confident. It has the most advanced and destructive weapons system, which keeps adversaries a long way away from Canadian sovereign interests or national interests around this world.

Is it perfect? We're delivering the Cyclone a little bit behind. The Cyclone is now reaching our decks. The first deployment of a helicopter air detachment and a Cyclone helicopter occurred on Spartan Warrior just two weeks ago. They're introducing amazing capabilities, so I don't have worries there. Our special ops capabilities operating with our submarines are now at a level of maturity. I'm really happy and satisfied that these high-end strategic and strike capabilities are at the forefront of global capability.

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

Thank you.

Just changing gears briefly, at one of our last meetings we had General Vance here. One of the questions I asked him was about Russian posturing in the world and how that's changing. In fact, today there is a report saying they're now making some decisions to move nuclear weapons around in Europe.

My question for General Vance was more specifically towards the Arctic and the changes in the environment there, literally and figuratively speaking, and how that is impacting our ability to ensure that we are responding appropriately to that. Any changes or any changes that we make in the Arctic will heavily involve our navy.

What role do you see our navy playing into the future as it relates to Russia perhaps doing some work on the bases they have in the Arctic...about their continual and increased levels of coming into Canadian territory, if only for a brief period of time and moving on? There is definitely posturing going on there. What role does the navy play in that into the future, and do you have the resources you require in order to be able to do that into the future?

[RAdm John Newton]

I'm going to start with this one, Art, because the navy has labelled me the navy's Arctic expert, and I've been working on the Arctic file for a fair while.

That's a big question that unpacks into two components. One is the soft security, environmental pollution, constabulary nature of risk or threat devolution in the north because of climate change. The other one is the militarization or the use of northern waters by potential adversaries in future conflict scenarios.

On the soft security side of environment, shipping, and regulatory control of Canada's sovereign waters, which are the internal waters of the archipelago, there is no doubt a change in human activity in the north related to climate change, which is causing a whole series of consequences, whether it's human security, the use of the Arctic waters for shipping, or the opening of Arctic waters for potentially more oil or resource exploitation.

Into that domain, a government at a previous point made the commitment to build the Arctic and offshore patrol ship. The first ship, Harry DeWolf, is a major construction achievement in the Irving Shipbuilding yard. It is a very large ship, far bigger than probably most Canadians could imagine, which is well under way. Building has started on the second ship. That ship is not a warship, it's not a combatant. It has a gun, it's armed, but it is an enabling ship to a whole bunch of other capacities of the federal government. Whether it's support to the coast guard, support to Fisheries and Oceans, support to the territories in resource protection, whether it's support to a pollution initiative with Transport Canada and with the coast guard leading, or whether it's related to search and rescue, we can contribute as we do in southern waters fully now as we build these six Arctic offshore patrol ships.

I'm going to say one thing about these ships. On the more military domain, in terms of the point about potential aggressors in the north, it's a hard place to go—really hard. It only becomes marginally easier, even in a global warming scenario, during a few weeks, maybe three months at the most in a far right global warming scenario, because eventually—

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

Right now: 20 years from now that might be different.

[RAdm John Newton]

Winter will still occur 20 years from now.

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

I hope you're right.

[RAdm John Newton]

If not, then—

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

I know three people in the room who definitely believe you on that.

[RAdm John Newton]

Sir, perhaps I can answer the last piece about military elements of the capability. It is the centrepiece of a whole number of capabilities invested in by the Canadian Armed Forces, by the people of Canada. The C-17 is fully an Arctic-capable strategic-lift air platform that delivers major components of anything required by the government or military in the north to most dirt fields in the north. It is then distributed by C-130Js or Chinook helicopters. Personnel rescue can fly in the back of the Cormorant, which is fully enabled for the north.

We now have Arctic response company groups that are fully capable of deploying into the north. These are companies of trained soldiers. We have enabled rangers who support every mission of the navy, the army, and the air force in the north.

We have a command and control structure that has regional joint task forces. I command one, Art commands another, and General Nixon controls the one in the north. It's a coherent command and control structure that allows military forces to converge.

The missing piece, in this and many other aspects of military capability in Canada, is a sustainable, long-range, large, useful multi-mission capability like the Arctic offshore patrol ship to work in Canada's northern waters. This new piece is coming in 2018.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

We're going to have to leave it there and move on to Mrs. Romanado.

You have the floor.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank our colleagues for being here today and for their service. I know that the Royal Canadian Navy is called a “force generator”, and with two sons serving, that's also my nickname here on the Hill. I have an affinity for the Royal Canadian Navy.

Admiral Newton, you talked about the Cyclone helicopter. We've only had eight of the 28 delivered, from what I can understand. I know we just had the exercise with Spartan Warrior. Can you give us an update on the delivery of the Cyclone helicopter and when we anticipate that the systems integration will be complete for that replacement?