Evidence of meeting #3 for National Defence in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was right.
A video is available from Parliament.
9:10 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Stephen Fuhr
Thank you, Minister.
We ate a little bit into the time, but I thought that discussion was worth listening to.
Mr. Fisher, you have the floor.
9:10 a.m.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much, gentlemen. Thank you, Minister.
Two points of interest for the east coast are of course the national shipbuilding program and the Cyclone helicopters.
You touched quite a bit here on the shipbuilding, but you didn't speak about actual funding, about ensuring that we have sufficient funding to live up to the commitments of both our platform and the contract. Perhaps you can touch on that just a bit and maybe give us an update on the Shearwater project with the Cyclone helicopters.
9:15 a.m.
Liberal
Harjit S. Sajjan Liberal Vancouver South, BC
I'll let General Vance talk about the number, but right now, we have six Cyclones that are operational.
I have visited Shearwater myself, and I think we have the right type of aircraft to suit the needs. We have six that are operational, and there has to be a transition period for the training. It is not going to be fully operational for a number of years.
I'll get that answer for you in a second.
9:15 a.m.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Okay.
Perhaps you could touch on whether we're going to have appropriate funding for the commitments we've made for the shipbuilding contract. You spoke about the types of ships we need and the capabilities we need, but there wasn't really mention of the budgetary side of it.
9:15 a.m.
Liberal
Harjit S. Sajjan Liberal Vancouver South, BC
It's too early to say exactly how many ships we're going to be able to have with the numbers, the funding, that has been allotted from the past. It's too early right now to say exactly what types of ships and how many, but as time goes on we will have a better idea of the number of ships. It's going to depend on what type of capability we're going to want to have in the ships.
One of the things we do need to do is to make that process more streamlined. Before we actually give the number, we need to be able to decide on the capability, and we've set a date for when we need to stop adding new capabilities. Otherwise what happens is that you decide on a number, then you go past a date and you add in new capabilities. Then the cost will start to increase and that will also then eventually decrease the number of ships we're going to have.
So back to the Cyclones, there will be 28 new Cyclones.
9:15 a.m.
Liberal
Harjit S. Sajjan Liberal Vancouver South, BC
There will be 28. There's six right now being trained up.
9:15 a.m.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
What do we have for trained pilots for the Cyclones right now? Do we have the ability, if the six were completed and ready to go, to put them in the missions?
9:15 a.m.
Liberal
9:15 a.m.
Chief of the Defence Staff, Department of National Defence
The Cyclones are just beginning the workup to be able to land on and operate from ships, so they're at what we would call IOC, interim operational capability. They won't be fully operational for another year and a half or two years.
9:15 a.m.
Liberal
9:15 a.m.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
I'll just ask you a quick and snappy one.
We have folks who are struggling when they come back and transition into civilian life from the military, and you spoke about working with Veterans Affairs on this type of thing. Is there a strategy? Is there a plan on how to make that transition a little bit more seamless, a little better?
9:15 a.m.
Liberal
Harjit S. Sajjan Liberal Vancouver South, BC
We are working on a plan right now to make sure that there is not only that transition from while you're serving and into civilian life, but that, if you are injured and you need care, you have a good transition directly to Veterans Affairs as well.
I know that General Vance is looking at revamping JPSU, and he can talk about that in a second.
The reason our troops join is to be able to serve, but we need to also make sure that they will be well taken care of, and this is a challenge that we have identified. I know a lot has been done since the early days, at least from the Afghanistan mission, but we also need to do a lot more.
Some of the challenges that we have faced in the past.... One sense I want to bring to all of you and to all Canadians is that the Canadian Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs want to make sure that we do the best for our troops, but it's not just one solution that will fix things. It's a continual process of learning and making sure that we suit the needs because this is a very complex problem, but we are committed to it.
General Vance, do you want to talk about JPSU?
9:20 a.m.
Chief of the Defence Staff, Department of National Defence
Minister, thank you.
The intent in transition through the JPSUs in partnership with VAC will be to ensure that each individual who is injured and needs to transition somehow.... It's really one of two missions. Get well and return to duty or transition successfully post-retirement out of the armed forces with an absolutely seamless transition, where going from the care of the armed forces to the care of VAC is not rocky or causing lag times in benefits, uncertainty about care, who to see, and so on.
The effort under way right now between the two ministers and between the two departments—we're working closely with retired General Natynczyk—is to ensure that VAC and the armed forces pace each other as they deal with a customized program per individual. This is what's been missing, I think. We need to treat each individual very specifically and have a customized transition plan for them that either gets them well and back to work, back to duty, or successfully transitions them. It needs more customization. To do that between the departments means that their needs and what they are anticipated to need as they transition are met so there is no lag time, so that it's seamless.
More importantly, lots of people retire or transition out of the armed forces healthy and problems materialize after the fact. So that seamlessness and that transition point or the access to VAC has to be able to occur at any time and place if something after the fact materializes, whether wear and tear on the body or psychological injury.
We need the systems also to accommodate for the fact that if someone manifests late they can approach VAC or the CF and then instantly will have programs available to them and be recognized without a great deal of burden of proof and whatnot that they are in fact who they are and they've suffered what they've suffered.
9:20 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Stephen Fuhr
General Vance, I'm going to have to cut you off there and move on to the next questioner in order of fairness.
Mr. Spengemann, you have the floor. I'm going to cut you back a couple of minutes. You get three minutes and we'll resume with five minutes, so both sides of the table have equitable time.
Thank you.
March 8th, 2016 / 9:20 a.m.
Liberal
Sven Spengemann Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Minister Sajjan, Deputy Minister Forster, General Vance, thank you for being here and thank you most importantly for your service to the nation.
Minister Sajjan, I wonder if you could take the now limited time that I have to tell the committee and the Canadian people how the nature of conflict has changed, how it has transitioned from interstate conflict to conflict that's now on a preponderance of evidence taking place within the borders of nation states and what implications that has both for the humanitarian and the military work that we're doing and also for civilian populations that are caught in the crossfire of these conflicts?
9:20 a.m.
Liberal
Harjit S. Sajjan Liberal Vancouver South, BC
This is one question I think many nations are struggling with. We're facing these evolving challenges, the conflict has changed, whereas in the past we used to have two states come to an agreement and we could put peacekeeping troops in between them and maintain their agreements.
With the evolving change in conflict we need to be cognizant that a military solution cannot be the one-stop solution. We need to make sure how diplomacy and development are going to be synchronized. This is one experience that I think Canada is very well poised to be able to offer to our allies. We have done this well.
What we're talking about here is after the fact. What we also need to now get better at is to start identifying where, in terms of some of the conflicts that we have seen, we could have possibly looked at dealing with them early on. We need to be looking at how do we identify some of the early indicators of say, for example, a political vacuum that might have been created in an area. What can we do early on to prevent the problem from getting even bigger?
What it comes back down to is our understanding of conflict and our understanding of certain regions of the world, understanding their social dynamic and how it's connected in with the political realm. The situation in Iraq is an example of this, where the ethnic sectarian violence created a political vacuum to allow a radical organization to take a foothold in a country and this is where we're at.
We need to be able to learn from those lessons and see what we can do in the early stages to prevent it from getting into a full-scale coalition effort to stop the threat.
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
Sven Spengemann Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Maybe very briefly, what implications would that have for our work with our allies, both organizational allies like the United Nations and our coalition partners? Coalitions are broadening. New cultures are coming into the resolution of conflicts. It's a very complex picture and it requires, in my view, a lot of coordination. Would you make very brief comments on that?
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Stephen Fuhr
Sir, if you could do that in 30 seconds or less I would appreciate it.
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
Harjit S. Sajjan Liberal Vancouver South, BC
We need to set the example of it. We have some great lessons here in Canada, and I think we've already started this where our Operation Impact mission was done in collaboration with myself, Minister Dion, and Minister Bibeau. It set the example of interdepartmental works.
It's not only at the leadership level, our departments also work in collaboration as well. My counterparts around the world, especially in the European nations and particularly in the U.S., realize the value of this. They need to also start working together.
The next mechanism for us as a coalition is to be able to bring these resources together and then determine how we use multilateral organizations like the United Nations, like NATO, to be able to bring proper solutions to this.
Very quickly, on my first meetings at NATO with my counterparts, these are the discussions that we were having. How do we look at capacity building early on in areas and at bolstering the security forces so they can provide better policing? How do you bolster the governance structure in countries to prevent radical groups from taking a foothold in a country?
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Stephen Fuhr
Thank you, Minister.
Mr. Paul-Hus, you have the floor for the last five minutes of the first round.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
Pierre Paul-Hus Conservative Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Minister, in February 2016, the International Institute for Strategic Studies concluded that after the long deployment of troops to Afghanistan, Canada would not be able to reorient its defence posture and reconcile plans and resources overnight.
Minister, we both served in the military during the same period. At the end of the 1990s and the beginning of 2000, we experienced the transition of a peacetime army to a more warlike one.
My question is simple. How do you think the troops perceive that transition, as they were in combat in Afghanistan and will now be asked to act as blue berets in UN missions, without being able to intervene, either to fight or in the decisions that will be taken as to the course of these peace missions?
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
Harjit S. Sajjan Liberal Vancouver South, BC
When we look from the outside at how the conflict has changed and how we have transitioned.... I have been on peacekeeping operations in Bosnia and then full-on conflict. One thing that I'm very proud of now, as a minister, is that the Canadian Armed Forces, because of our size, are actually quite adaptable to situations. We provide very good theatre-specific training, so regardless of the mission we're going on, we'll have the right training moving forward.
The staple of the training will always be there. That's going to be for the combat training for the kinetic fight. That provides you with the baseline. What we bring to the table, as Canadians, and what our troops bring to the table, is the uniqueness of our experience. I still can't explain what it is, to be honest, but watching our troops overseas, they do provide a unique thought process when it comes to dealing with other cultures and nations.
The Canadian Armed Forces are well suited and can adapt quite rapidly to various missions. Even in Afghanistan, we were doing full-on combat, but at the same time, in some cases, we were actually doing very similar things to what we were doing in Bosnia.
Canadians can be proud of the fact that the Canadian Armed Forces can be adaptable. Having said that, we still need to ensure that we have the right capabilities and the right training in place to look at potential future threats that we may face.
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
Pierre Paul-Hus Conservative Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC
You will remember that when we were in Bosnia, we had to transition from the United Nations to NATO. The troops were satisfied to exchange their blue berets for green ones and to know that they would from there on in have clear rules of engagement and would be able to engage in combat.
Now that our troops have been trained in combat, how much time will it take for them to make this transition? In other words, how long will it take to change the soldiers' mindset and get them to accept being blue berets?