National Defence Committee on March 22nd, 2016

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

In terms of development of capabilities rather than threats, there's been a large investment in submarine forces around the Asia-Pacific. Would that be something that you're monitoring in case of changed intent?

[Stephen Burt]

Absolutely.

Without getting into a lot details about what we do and how we do it, the developments, particularly in Asia-Pacific.... I wouldn't say they're troubling, but certainly it's what appears to be a more classic sort of military arms race dynamic among a number of countries there, both surface and subsurface weapons systems.

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

One of the things I think the government is going to be grappling with is the linking of threat analysis to capability development within the Canadian Forces.

I heard two interesting things this morning. One is a statement that there's currently no military threat to Canada in the Arctic. The other is that at this moment there's no state actor that's a threat.

How would you link that to Canada's fighter capacity? We're looking at a fighter that has what I would call the maximum capacities, but that doesn't seem to be linked to the threat analysis in any way.

In other words, might we need something else in terms of air capacity, like heavy lift for participating in peacekeeping or other kinds of things, when instead we're looking at a fighter plane with enormous capacities that, as I said, don't seem to be linked to the threats?

[RAdm Scott Bishop]

I would say that the comment that there's no direct military threat from another state to Canada in the next 10 years is one that we would all stand behind. I think one of the issues that we face is that it's very difficult to predict with certainty what the world is going to look like over a very long horizon of 20, 30, or 40 years. If we went back to only two or three years ago, I think most of us would not have predicted Russian annexation of the Crimea and Russia's efforts to destabilize eastern Ukraine.

I think there's always a worst-case scenario that we need to be ready to work through, and a lot of those worst-case scenarios require very high-end capabilities. This is obviously something that will be a major feature of the upcoming defence policy review, in which they are going to be looking at the kinds of military capabilities that will be required by Canada over that longer horizon to make sure that the country is always prepared to do its share in the defence of North America.

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

One of the other themes that seem to run through the presentation this morning is that of the dependence on interoperability with the United States.

Mr. Drake, does this reliance on interoperability in any way restrict Canada's ability to operate an independent foreign policy? In other words, by putting a lot of chips on the interoperability bet, do we restrict our ability to act independently on other foreign policy issues?

[David Drake]

I don't think so. I don't think the two are naturally in contradiction of each other. Obviously to defend North America, there is really no choice but to work together. I think it's clear as the admiral and as Stephen Burt have said.

How do we deal with things abroad? I think we need to recognize that we work as a sovereign nation within NATO, in which we have treaty obligations to defend all NATO members and so forth. I think one needs to look at sovereignty in a wider perspective, and I think it's a genuine response that Canada is very much a country with multilateral orientation and we are simply too small a country to be able to look at absolute power projection in any circumstance. We need these abilities to work with others to protect and to do our part within a wider context.

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

You touched on the reason for my concern, which was the comments yesterday by a certain Republican presidential candidate, who indicated a certain deviance from U.S. foreign policy and commitment to NATO. He said he regarded NATO as a large waste of money and that the U.S. commitment to NATO should be reassessed.

Wouldn't that present a large challenge to Canada if we had such a person occupying the White House when we have a very strong commitment to NATO?

[David Drake]

We really don't comment on what is pretty idle speculation from news reports of discussions of presidential candidates, so with your permission, I'll just pass on that one.

[RAdm Scott Bishop]

I would say that the issue of sovereignty obviously is absolutely critical to us when we're talking about North American defence. We keep a very close eye on any effort by NORAD that looks at modernizing or changing the way they do business to make sure that Canada's sovereignty concerns are kept first and foremost in those discussions. Being interoperable with the United States to pursue military operations is not surrendering Canadian sovereignty. In fact, it's exactly the opposite. Being interoperable with the United States lets us remain an equal partner because we have capabilities to work shoulder to shoulder with our most important ally.

The other benefit of remaining interoperable with the United States is that the United States sets the bar for any military operation of significance around the world. By ensuring that we are very interoperable with the United States, Canada can operate in pretty much any foreign military operation and not only operate but also assume a leadership role, which we have done several times.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you, Rear-Admiral.

We will go now to the next question, by Mr. Fisher.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, gentlemen, for being here.

I think the rear-admiral spoke mostly about the evolution of NORAD from 1958 on. The events of 9/11 certainly demonstrated that NORAD is very relevant, and we can agree that we have a new threat in ISIS. Is there a continual evolution towards being prepared for that type of terrorist event as opposed to the terrorist event of 9/11, which was certainly different from what we're seeing in the world now?

[RAdm Scott Bishop]

That is an excellent question. We have talked extensively about NORAD's role in aerospace defence looking outside of the continent in monitoring the continental approaches, but NORAD also has a very key role inside the continent in continental aerospace, specifically to look at the threat of an airborne attack from a malign actor like a terrorist. This obviously had its genesis in the 9/11 attacks.

NORAD continuously monitors what's happening in the skies above Canada and the United States. It maintains a high level of awareness about what is going on in the airspace, and not only in terms of where aircraft are moving. It's plugged into federal departments on both sides of the border to understand if there are any issues on board aircraft that are in flight. NORAD has an extensive array of procedures to deal with aircraft that may not be under positive control by pilots, and has a set of procedures to deal with that. That is a very important component of the NORAD mission.

Again, we see that co-operation extend in both directions across the Canada-U.S. border to deal with that potentiality. It is something that NORAD does pay a significant amount of attention to.

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

In the last Parliament, this very same committee completed a study and sent it to the House. The government had 120 days to respond, but of course there was an election. I haven't read that entire report, but are we able to break new ground here? Are we looking at different things that were not looked at in that last report?

[RAdm Scott Bishop]

Could you give me an example of specifically what you have in mind?

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

Well, we're sticking with the aerial side of things in this portion of this study. Do you think we're doing the same things that were done in the 41st Parliament?

[RAdm Scott Bishop]

That's a difficult question, because I'm not entirely sure I understand the context you've provided and specifically what you may be after.

The issue in terms of NORAD is that they are constantly looking at how they need to evolve to deal with the threats we have today. As I said, there is a lot of ongoing but very nascent discussion in NORAD about how NORAD might have to change, going into the future. We're at the very beginning stages of those discussions. Admiral Gortney, the current commander of NORAD, is working with his staff to explore different options. We're a full participant in those discussions.

I'm not sure if that answers the question.

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

It does.

I'll move to a fairly general question. I think there is a notion among certainly a portion of the Canadian public that we're not the best equipped or the best prepared to meet our challenges, and that we rely heavily on the United States. There were a lot of comments about equal partners with the United States.

Do you feel that's a relatively true statement, the feeling of the Canadian population, or do you feel that we're well equipped, that we have everything we need, to be an equal partner with the United States? Are we relying on them too heavily?

[RAdm Scott Bishop]

I couldn't speak for the Canadian population, but I can certainly speak for the Canadian military. I can tell you that we feel we have the level of equipment and training to be an equal partner with the United States in operations, particularly in NORAD. We make a pretty significant contribution to North American defence. I think that contribution is very well appreciated by the United States in the military chain.

As we look for the defence policy review and a replacement of some of our current capability for the military, we will be very interested in making sure that we remain able to operate with the United States, both to protect our continent and to work with them and other partners internationally to pursue military operations when the Canadian government decides it needs to do so.

On a military-to-military level, I think there is a deep amount of respect for what Canada brings to the table in NORAD, a deep amount of respect for what we're doing in operations around the world, but the defence policy review will have to chart the future for Canada and the Canadian Forces in terms of maintaining our interoperability and ability to conduct operations with allies going forward.

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

Thank you very much, guys.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

You have about 90 seconds left. I'll take a quick question, if that's okay.

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

Sure.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

This might be for Mr. Burt, but anyone can jump in.

You mentioned earlier that our top threat currently is probably an asymmetric one, so terrorism probably represents our biggest challenge. Thinking of the western part of Canada, would you agree—without giving us a specific threat assessment—that from Winnipeg west, let's say, there would be a higher probability of an incident occurring in the Vancouver area, more often than not, just given the volume and diversity of air traffic going in and out of Vancouver? Would you say that's a fair statement?

[Stephen Burt]

For the primary threat, the integrated terrorism assessment centre, out of CSIS, is the lead for this. We feed them staff to help them work on these things, but for these issues, they're really our centre of excellence for the government.

Speaking generally, the terrorism threat in Canada is the inspired individual who is already in Canada. While there are certainly threats to aviation security that have to be monitored closely by Transport and others, by all of us, including through the NORAD construct, I think the chances are that events are going to happen in big urban centres, and they're going to be done by individuals who are already there and who are disaffected for some reason or another. Those are tough cases to track.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Just by definition, Vancouver is probably the biggest urban centre west of Winnipeg, so by default, that—

[Stephen Burt]

That would be Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. Those are the areas that—it's not my mandate—the people who are in that business spend most of their time and energy on.