Evidence of meeting #36 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 need.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Senior Analyst, Canadian Global Affairs Institute, As an Individual
I think it would be about 1.3% of GDP. That would give you something like a $5-billion to $6-billion increase overall to the budget, if I had my druthers.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
You said that you believe more should be put into capital now. Yet we have 8,400 active personnel in the navy. Again, our reserve is what helps us get to 38th place, otherwise we would be much lower. Do you think the active personnel, the force, needs to be increased as well?
Senior Analyst, Canadian Global Affairs Institute, As an Individual
I think there are definitely deficiencies there. I think the most acute problems are around the capital front, though. If the government could get an effective human resources system, that's something you could address in a relatively shorter time frame. The real deficiencies are on capital, because it takes, particularly in Canada, multiple decades when it should probably take a decade or less to buy big complex projects.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
Just for clarification, you said 1.3% of GDP. We are right now at...?
Senior Analyst, Canadian Global Affairs Institute, As an Individual
It depends on how you measure it.
Liberal
Senior Analyst, Canadian Global Affairs Institute, As an Individual
By the NATO metric it's 0.99%.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
Okay.
Mr. Sokolsky, you talked about adjusting commitments to meet the requirements. I think one of the problems we face, just generally speaking now, is that those requirements are always changing so quickly. Especially in this day and age, the requirements seem to change. New threats are coming about that we weren't anticipating two years ago. How do you square that, in the sense that the requirements are always changing yet the commitments seem so long to take?
Mr. Byers mentioned how the icebreaker from 2005 is taking two decades. Have the requirements changed in the Arctic since that was originally thought out?
Professor, Department of Political Science, Royal Military College of Canada, As an Individual
It's adjusting the commitments. If we're not going to have the navy that some others think we need, then perhaps we should reduce our commitments. The Chinese navy has grown. There's no doubt about it. But there are large navies in east Asia that are aligned with us: Japan, Korea, India, the United States. So if we have to choose, maybe we choose another area to focus on the north Atlantic area, where our capabilities are relatively more important. This is what I'm saying.
With regard to China, China's naval capabilities are growing. Are they growing to control the high seas or to protect China, or to protect China against the very sort of force projection that the west wants to maintain near China? It's important to understand what the threat really is.
Also, with ships today our fleets are smaller but ships are more capable. In addition, there are land-based options; the Chinese use them with their missiles. What I'm saying is that given the track record of Canadian naval building, instead of hoping for the fleet that we should have, adjust our commitments so that where we commit we can have a relatively great advantage.
I'm just suggesting that given rising tensions in Europe we might want to pivot back to Europe, where we have allies that we're used to working with and where the Canadian contribution I think stands relatively more significant.
I also want to say that the percentage of GDP devoted to defence is not the only measure. As a NATO ally we have to project our force elsewhere. Other NATO allies are in Europe. Our commitments are always overseas, so it's always going to demand more on our part. We saw this in Afghanistan.
With regard to the Arctic, if the Arctic is a priority then let's redirect scarce resources to the Arctic. I agree with the building of the icebreaker.
As someone said, we're a large land mass. For most countries their navy has to do with the protection of their immediate sovereignty and defence. Our navy has a lot to do with the protection of other people's sovereignty and defence. That stretches us and makes us look like we're making even less of a contribution.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
I hate to cut you off, because you're from my riding, and it might come back to bite me later on.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
Before I run out of time, I want to go back to you, Mr. Boutilier. With everything you said about how we got to where we are—a very simple question, I hope—in your opinion, how much of that has to do with our dependence on the United States?
Adjunct Professor, Pacific Studies, University of Victoria, As an Individual
I think it's a huge factor, in the sense that we've always gone into battle and always deployed as part of a coalition. Our reliance on the United States is enormously important in a whole host of ways, whether it's intelligence sharing, whether it's access to missile calibration, or whether it's mid-ocean oilers. With the Americans increasingly focused on the Pacific—I personally vary from Joel in the sense that I don't think the North Atlantic is really where the action is going to be over the next 20 years—I think the American relationship is exceedingly important. I would certainly support David's contention regarding an increased defence budget, because we have been nickel-and-diming the physical capital of our forces to a dangerous degree. You can't go much below 23% or whatever in terms of naval activities, because then it comes back to haunt you.
February 7th, 2017 / 4:30 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
First of all, Mr. Chairman, through you, were each of our witnesses today part of the national defence review?
Adjunct Professor, Pacific Studies, University of Victoria, As an Individual
Professor, Department of Political Science, Royal Military College of Canada, As an Individual
I was not.
Professor, Department of Political Science, University of British Columbia, As an Individual
Yes.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
For those who were, did anyone receive an advance copy of the defence review yet?
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
There was a real push on last spring to get the aerial piece of our study on North American defence done, then it dragged for the naval piece, so it wouldn't be included. I'm wondering where that is right now. As Dr. Boutilier mentioned, it's kind of awkward making all these procurement decisions when not only do we not have our defence policy review done, we don't even have the foreign policy review upon which it should be based.
The first question will deal with the potential for conflict brewing in the South China Sea.
Dr. Boutilier, what role, if any, do you see the Royal Canadian Navy playing in that part of the world?
Adjunct Professor, Pacific Studies, University of Victoria, As an Individual
Well, this, I would suggest, is quite clearly at the cabinet level in terms of a decision. If we look at the United States Navy and we look at the Royal Australian Navy, they have both in fact tested Chinese pretensions. I use the word “pretensions” with intent, because the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling of July 16 indicated that Chinese claims were in fact almost entirely bogus in the South China Sea. Their sailing of naval vessels through what the Chinese would otherwise consider to be their waters has put that PCA ruling to the test.
We will have ships in fact transiting the South China Sea. I don't know whether the government has any intention to test Chinese claims in terms of maritime territory around these artificial creations in the South China Sea.
We were, long ago, one of the principal architects of UNCLOS. At the heart of the matter is not so much what we do but the degree to which the signatories to UNCLOS, of which China is one, observe their responsibilities under UNCLOS. UNCLOS requires China to accept in totality the PCA ruling out of Den Haag.
The Chinese have mounted a campaign designed to discredit that ruling. They've simply manifestly ignored what the court laid down. As a nation, we did come up with a statement, not terribly muscular but a statement, suggesting that we supported the PCA ruling. What was disheartening to me was the fact that only about seven nations globally actually came forward with something reasonably muscular in support of this international norm. There were a whole host of lukewarm comments and then fence-sitters—hardly reassuring in terms of sustaining an international system of legal norms.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Is there a need to re-evaluate middle- or long-range Royal Canadian Navy procurement projects, given this potential for conflict in the Pacific?
