Thank you, Mr. President and honourable members of Parliament.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify on the readiness of the Royal Canadian Navy.
I am honoured to serve the 3,000 sailors of the Canadian Atlantic fleet and several thousand defence workers who ensure that our warships are combat ready. My primary task is to help them generate the readiness of the Atlantic fleet and plan and execute the fleet schedule. I'm privileged to be able to work with inspired Canadians every day who are focused on excelling. They are living a chapter in the history of our storied navy, which has played an indispensable role in the defence of Canada. They know from reading their ship schedules that Canada's national interests will soon lead them to exciting global destinations.
Thus, it is very pleasing for me to see in photographs recently the sailors of HMCS Charlottetown at the pyramids. Importantly, I know that behind the scenes this visit enabled Global Affairs Canada's mission in Egypt. Similarly, I recently saw pictures of sailors from HMCS Vancouver in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and I know again that, behind the scenes, visiting Vietnam highlighted that Canada seeks mutually beneficial relations in a strategic maritime region.
When Windsor, our submarine, recently returned from patrol, a fixture on the bow of the submarine was painted blue. In the traditions of our service, blue denotes that the submarine had been sailing north of the Arctic Circle, providing reassuring support along NATO's northern flank.
Next week, sailors of the Royal Canadian Navy, Canadian ambassadors, will be visiting cities like Cartagena and Veracruz, because today they're in Cuba and they will continue that regional engagement.
This is indeed exciting service for young Canadians seeking to make a difference. It all speaks to a navy that has created and is sustaining a high level of readiness.
I'm always amazed at how naval readiness is facilitated by motivated sailors who actively join in making their ship the best in the fleet. One of my most enjoyable duties is to preside over honours and awards ceremonies. Hearing the citations, I am reassured that Canadian sailors have a strong sense of ownership in achieving excellence at sea. Aboard ships and in schoolhouses, I witness how they work to transfer to the next generation their experiences from operations.
The older generation has served in tough campaigns: the vanguard of the government response to the crisis in the Persian Gulf, wars in the former Yugoslavia and in Libya, and in the uncertainty following 9/11. They've also gone to the Arctic, and they're delivering humanitarian aid around the world.
A navy at sea, forward with allies, is a powerful option for government, and in turn builds readiness. Just this week, HMCS Vancouver went from patrol in the western Pacific to disaster relief duties in the hours following the earthquakes in New Zealand. I had every confidence that Vancouver was prepared for this kind of work. I was confident in Windsor, our submarine, when it was called to patrol off Norway's northern coast by the NATO maritime commander, following the submarine's work in Dynamic Mongoose, a major exercise of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Canadians should be proud that there are few navies that can claim to be so globally deployable and versatile as the Royal Canadian Navy. Yes, we have challenges, and it was sad to bid farewell to our fleet replenishment ship very recently. Preserver and her sister ship Protecteur literally led our navy to global operational success for 46 years. The Queenston class cannot come soon enough.
I'm also very proud of the crew of HMCS Athabaskan. They played a key role in sustaining operational output of the fleet during the Halifax class modernization.
Regrettably, the retirement of the Iroquois class destroyer has left the task group without a powerful air defence umbrella. Thus, I take to heart that the Canadian surface combatant request for proposals is in the hands of industry.
As part of the strategy thrust called “evolving the business of the business”, MARLANT has other roles to contribute to readiness. To encourage effectiveness and efficiency and facilitate optimal staff output from our personnel, each senior commander of our navy has been given functional authority in one of the three principal pillars of naval readiness. By way of background, the pillars are the material readiness of our ships, the readiness of individual sailors, and the operational readiness of our forces.
Specifically, my command has been assigned responsibilities in the operational readiness pillar. Thus, I exert pan-navy leadership over the policies that lay out exactly how each ship and capability will be developed to its ordered state of readiness.
We devise the activity cycle of a typical warship, including the periods given to heavy maintenance, upgrades, crew building, training, trials, and finally, operations. This is a complex blending of matériel and personnel resources, fiscal capacity, time, commitments to missions, assignment to national task groups, reserves for arisings, and inevitable rest and recovery following operations.
This functional task also includes the periodic review of each warfare competency in order to guard against skill fade. We have already reviewed mine warfare, anti-submarine warfare, and above-water warfare. Exercise CUTLASS FURY was conceived to enhance anti-submarine warfare expertise, not just in our navy but with our allies. Strong international participation highlighted the degree to which your navy has the confidence of our closest allies to address this very perishable skill set across our alliance and partnerships.
X-Ship is an expression of innovation in your navy. X-Ship, or HMCS Montréal, is exploring new manning concepts and procedures as well as new technologies, which are all key aspects of naval readiness.
The second task assigned to my pan-navy leadership is what's called “collective training”. While individual training develops a competent sailor, collective training builds sailors into effective fighting forces. Collective training has both a training and a validation function. Validation assures the commander of the navy that the standards are established for safe and effective operations. It is our key risk management tool.
HMCS St John's, operating with international ships, submarines, and aircraft, today is being validated to this very high standard. This is the last step in the preparations of St John's to relieve HMCS Charlottetown on the NATO reassurance mission, and doing this step is very important to the readiness equation.
MARLANT has also been assigned the task of being the national maritime component commander. In this role, I provide naval advice to Canada's senior operational commander for all Canadian warships on operations. The maritime component commander communicates with ships and alliance commanders to help formulate the employment of the asset, including operational tasks, port visits, rules of engagement, repairs, and sustainment.
Presently the maritime component commander has five ships on his radar. Charlottetown is operating in the Mediterranean at high readiness, assigned to the NATO standing maritime group 2. Vancouver has just finished the relief operations in the earthquake scenario in New Zealand and has started the long Pacific voyage home, supporting Global Affairs Canada along the route. Last week I was pleased to see Brandon, one of our patrol ships in the Mediterranean, getting credit for a very difficult drug bust off Guatemala.
The maritime component commander thus monitors and sustains readiness during the course of a deployment, readiness being a dynamic condition that fluctuates with changes in the crew and the status of machinery and systems.
The maritime component commander has another important task. Surveillance of the undersea domain is a complex, sustained, highly classified, multinational effort. Ships, helicopters, patrol aviation, and submarines all contribute to undersea surveillance. Our ability to respond to a threat depends on relationships, shared intelligence, a common picture, interoperability, and common tactics. Readiness flows accordingly.
This concludes my short introduction to naval readiness. I look forward to answering your questions.