National Defence Committee on Dec. 1st, 2016

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Okay.

[Col Claude Rochette]

There is an amount of $90 million to cover travel costs for our troops when they have to travel to and back from the field. There is also an amount for military vehicles.

There is also an amount of $4 million for commercial payments for some vehicles.

An amount of $1.3 million is to cover the costs of camps and support for our troops.

An amount of $10 million is for equipment for our special forces.

As for the rest, there is an agreement for the purchase of equipment, weapons, and so on.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

I know that there have been problems with firearms. The intent was to buy some firearms from the outset. I don’t know whether we are talking about C7s. I would like some details and to find out the amount involved.

[Col Claude Rochette]

That's $9.5 million.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Okay.

[John Forster]

The amount was set aside for small arms, basically, to give to the peshmerga, so that when we're training them there, they have small arms.

One of the conditions of that program was that the Iraqi government had to approve in writing that it was okay for Canada to provide that equipment. That just came through very recently. I think it was last week. The actual transfer of any equipment hasn't taken place yet.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Are the firearms C7s or C8s?

[VAdm Mark Norman]

No, not exactly, but they are similar light weapons.

[RAdm Patrick Finn]

Mr. Paul-Hus, I would just add that these are the weapons that Canadian special forces use for training purposes. We also have to make sure that we provide arms and munitions that can last a long time, meaning after the end of this mission. We try to be precise in the model we choose, so that it can be used for a long time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

There's not much time left for a question and a response, so I'll move on to Mr. Garrison.

You have the floor.

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

I notice in the supplementary (B)s there's an amount for reinvestment of revenue from the sale and transfer of real property. Since my time on city council, locally we've always been concerned about the divestment of DND property. Of course, naval commanders—I won't name anyone specifically whom I dealt with in the past—were always concerned that they don't make more waterfront land, so we remained concerned about divestment of land as a short-term way of raising revenues when there may be long-term needs down the road.

My question is really about the time frame that's used in making those decisions to declare property surplus.

[Jaime Pitfield]

Thank you for the question.

These decisions are driven totally by the operational requirements of the forces.

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

In what time frame?

[Jaime Pitfield]

That's a good question.

I think five to 20 years would be reasonable, but we have been hoarders, so the thrust at DND right now is to release land that we're not using.

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

I guess I fall on the hoarder side, for the very obvious reasons that navies are very constricted. Certainly, in both Halifax and Esquimalt, there's not a lot of places for them to go if they have future needs.

[VAdm Mark Norman]

If I may, we're both extremely cautious and realistic in the appreciation of the long-term requirement for land. In past years we've been a little too quick sometimes to divest land. In some cases we've had to actually go back and try to re-acquire some land that we divested.

To Mr. Pitfield's answer, we do have a process. It's part of a robust, long-term capability planning process which typically uses a 20-year planning horizon. The real property component of that is integrated into those discussions. That's the kind of cycle you're seeing. Many of the divestments that are reflected in the supps now are indicative of decisions, or at least advice, around the divestment of property which predates many, if not all of us, sitting at the table today.

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

I also have a concern about the treatment of tenants. A lot of this land has been leased, and when you go to divest the land it has a big impact. In my riding, probably the most important issue right now is Royal Roads University, which was DND's university before, and has now been declared surplus. We have a university sitting on a very long lease and they're trying to make decisions about infrastructure investment and trying to use some public-private partnerships. There's a great deal of concern for them as the tenant about the insecurity of both their lease and who might eventually be the landlord.

How do we take care of those interests of what have been long-term and very good tenants of public property?

[Jaime Pitfield]

I met two or three weeks ago with the president of the university when he came to Ottawa. As we discussed the future of that big piece of land, which is a very valuable piece of land, and also the subject of high interest from a number of first nations, we are trying to make sure that stakeholder groups, particularly Royal Roads and two of the first nations, are very aware of what is going on. Communication is very good.

The lease is a 99-year lease and they're at year 85 in that. We respect that lease, and whatever happened to the land, the lease obligations would go along with it, but we're years away from resolving this.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

I yield the floor to Ms. Romanado.

You have the floor for five minutes.

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

Mr. Chair, if there's time remaining, I will share it with my colleague, Mr. Spengemann.

I want to talk a little bit about infrastructure. I heard earlier that part of the infrastructure funding that you were talking about does involve some of the PMBs—I'm sorry; it's military-speak—the housing for our military. When I was visiting Bagotville, we saw an interesting model—I want to say a campus—a little ecosystem of a community around the base in Bagotville. I'm curious to know if it's something that you're going to be putting funding into in terms of getting more housing for our military, because you did mention infrastructure. We see there's a problem every time they are deployed into new movements. It's difficult for the families to find affordable housing and so on.

Could you elaborate a little bit on that, regarding some of the initiatives you're taking?

Thank you.

[Jaime Pitfield]

Thank you.

National Defence has 12,500 houses for the use of military members and their families, and they're scattered across the country, not always in the right places, according to requirements. We are in the midst of using operational requirements from base commanders and from the three environments to determine where we need the appropriate number of houses, and then we're going to try to rebalance the portfolio. That's the big answer.

National Defence got through the budget this year and received $50 million to upgrade the infrastructure quality of our houses. That would be new construction and renovations. We have spent significant amounts of money over the last five years, in the range of $500 million. The impact on the portfolio has been quite good. The demand used to be for four-bedroom houses for big families. Now it's more one- and two-bedroom apartment-style accommodations. So we are doing that.

We're trying to follow the techniques of modern markets. The one you're speaking about in Bagotville, I'm not sure if that is government-owned or if it's owned by the private sector. We are seeking to rely on the private sector to provide housing of the right quality and the right affordability, which is possible today. It wasn't possible in the fifties. It's a different model that we're trying to move towards. At the end of the day, the welfare of the troops and their families, the affordability, what we provide through houses, the neighbourhoods and that kind of thing—all these are paramount.

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

Thank you.

I'll share my time with my colleague.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Mr. Spengemann, you have the floor.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

I'm back for one more round on Operation Impact with Mr. Forster and Admiral Norman. There was $375 million in funding: $233 million for Global Affairs and $142 million for DND. How important is their work to yours? How important is your work to theirs? Could you talk about the civil-military planning process, both inside the Government of Canada and on the ground in Iraq?

I'm not giving you a lot of time to answer that.