National Defence Committee on March 22nd, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Okay. Thank you very much.

Next we're going to questions in five-minute rounds, and first up is Mark Gerretsen.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to build on a couple of things. Very briefly—this has been brought up by a few members—there has been a comment that there is currently no military threat in the Arctic. What do you mean by “currently”?

Preparing for a military threat is not something you can do once the threat has been acknowledged. You're going to want to be prepared in advance of a threat. I think it was Rear-Admiral Bishop who made the comment. If you could build on that a bit, I would appreciate it.

[RAdm Scott Bishop]

Do you want to start, Stephen?

[Stephen Burt]

Sure, I can comment on that from an intelligence perspective.

When we look at the Arctic, we can see that there are certainly multiple actors in the Arctic—Russia is the primary example—and there are people who do things in the Arctic who we watch closely and occasionally find of concern. But there's nothing that we consider direct threats to Canada, or to North America, for that matter.

They're not doing anything up there that they don't have a sovereign right to do. They're working in international airspace. They're working largely within rules that we all respect internationally.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

But you would agree that it's a threat.... It's not something that you would foresee coming, necessarily?

[Stephen Burt]

It comes down to what I was saying previously about intent and capability. No one at the present time has an intent to threaten us in the Arctic or anywhere. Intent can change, obviously, and it can change quite quickly.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Okay.

Did you want to add something, Rear-Admiral Bishop?

[RAdm Scott Bishop]

Yes. When we say that there's no threat to Canada in the Arctic, it doesn't mean that there's nothing important about the Arctic, far from it. There is a lot of activity going on in the Arctic with global warming and climate change. The Arctic is becoming increasingly ice free, and because of that, there is more activity in the Canadian Arctic year over year.

With the open skies agreements, a lot of commercial aircraft fly over the polar regions. If unfortunately there were a major air disaster in the Canadian Arctic, it would be Canada's sovereignty, such that we would be the first responder on the scene to provide assistance.

There is a lot of stuff going on in the Arctic. There are a lot of federal agencies that operate or have mandates there, but really, getting into the Arctic is a very difficult thing to do. It is the most expeditionary theatre that the Canadian Armed Forces operate in. As you know, there is no infrastructure in the Arctic. There are no roads, no rail lines, and rudimentary airports and logistics facilities.

There is a significant military role in the Arctic, even though there is no direct military threat in the Arctic.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Thank you.

I'm going to change a bit to the discussion about the west coast. Based on some of the information that we obtained, NORAD has identified that since 2001 and the 2001 terrorist attacks, there were more than 3,500 possible air threats intercepted, which involved more than 1,400 aircraft in airspace in Canada and the U.S.

You talked a bit about NORAD and equal partners between Canada and the States. The U.S., on a number of occasions, has sent or scrambled jets to intercept. They've come to Canada's defence, so to speak. I imagine a lot of that has to do with the fact that we would scramble from Cold Lake and that the commute is quite far.

We're depending quite a bit on the U.S. to defend us. I'm curious to hear if you can comment on this. How many times have we scrambled to defend the States likewise? How often does that happen?

[RAdm Scott Bishop]

Obviously it doesn't happen as often, but it does happen. I don't have specific command statistics at my fingertips, but I know from personal experience, having worked on the strategic joint staff last year, that there have been occasions where we have sent Canadian Forces F-18s into American airspace in response to an air incident. It does happen. Obviously, the United States has more fighter resources than we do. The commander of NORAD uses all the fighters that he has at his disposal, both Canadian and U.S., to make the best decisions.

I think when there is a threat stream or we have indications and warnings of an event, then the commander of NORAD repositions the aircraft to be ready to respond to those events. For air incidents that occur in Canadian and American airspace in civil aircraft, as you can imagine, there's very little notice involved with those kinds of incidents, so we don't have the opportunity to forward or position aircraft.

Given the size of our country and the resources that we have for defence, I don't think we'd ever be in a position where we would always be able to scramble an aircraft to intercept another aircraft anywhere in Canada. I don't think that's realistic. That's why the NORAD agreement works so well for us because we are able to help the Americans out and they're able to help us out, but in a way that respects each other's sovereignty.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you very much, Admiral.

We'll move on to the next question for five minutes with Mr. Paul-Hus.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Rear-Admiral Bishop, we have up till now talked a lot about issues relating to threats. We know that operations with NORAD are of primordial importance. This goes back to 1958. The threat to the north and to the west has always remained roughly the same. However, as you mentioned, there is a change in the environment because of the ice melting.

The threat is not so much the possibility that we may be attacked, but concerns our territorial sovereignty. An assessment has been made of our territory. I would like to know whether we have adequate military equipment at this time. A lot of investments have been made in detection in the north. Concerning the global spectrum, I presume that detection is covered by NORAD and by satellite. There is also equipment on the ground, our CP-140 Auroras and our F-18s.

Do we currently have adequate military equipment to ensure our sovereignty, in light of the threats that have been discussed?

[RAdm Scott Bishop]

That is an excellent question.

Because of the size of our country, we always have to set priorities when investing in equipment for the Canadian Forces. The defence policy review that will take place over the next few months will allow us to identify the needs in respect of new equipment. It is always a matter of resources with regard to the threats. We have to make decisions in light of that reality.

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

Rear-Admiral and Mr. Burt, my question is about the current threat.

I think we can agree that you could always use more equipment, but the members of the committee need to understand the situation. We have been talking about threats for an hour, but is Canada well equipped at this time to counter them? If you had to set a priority for additional equipment for our air forces, what would that be?

[RAdm Scott Bishop]

The issue of new equipment will be included in the defence policy review. In today's world, military operations are very complex and taking part in them requires a lot of equipment. That is why we are cooperating with the United States, NATO and our other allies to conduct operations. It is impossible to provide all of the necessary equipment for any given operation.

For its part, Canada has the equipment it needs to be a very good ally and a good partner to the U.S. in conducting operations. As I said previously, Canada is very well respected as an ally by the United States and the other countries. There will soon be discussions in the context of the defence policy review regarding the acquisition of new equipment. It will be a key issue in the review.

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

Mr. Chair, I'd like to clarify one point.

The rear-admiral mentioned that the department is doing a capacity assessment, but what is our role here with regard to that?

We can talk about it again later.

Do I have a bit of time left, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

You have 40 seconds.

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

We often hear that terrorism and cyber threats are not the responsibility of National Defence, but of Public Safety.

Do you intend to improve your relationship with that department? I think transferring the issue to another organization is not a good idea.

[Stephen Burt]

At National Defence, we have a specific mandate regarding the protection of our personnel and infrastructure. Their safety is our responsibility. In Canada, obviously we cannot be in charge of all of these issues on our own. We work primarily with the RCMP and CSIS. In a case such as the attack that took place a week ago in Toronto, we study the situation closely to determine if our participation is necessary, especially when it is a matter of terrorism. If it turns out to be a criminal incident, it is up to the RCMP and the police of the jurisdiction concerned to decide whether it is relevant for us to join forces. We offer whatever support is necessary to all of our partners, everywhere in Canada and in all situations, but our responsibility mainly involves our personnel and our military bases.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you.

The next question goes to Mr. Rioux.

[Jean Rioux, Liberal, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I thank the witnesses for being with us today.

I'm going to ask all of my questions together, so they will be quite brief.

Rear-Admiral Bishop, you said this in your presentation:[...] there are more than 700 CAF members serving in the U.S. Approximately 300 of them are committed to the NORAD mission, including 147 posted to NORAD headquarters in Colorado Springs [...]

So this means that approximately 550 additional people are deployed in the United States.

Can you tell us, not in detail but in general, where they are?

[RAdm Scott Bishop]

I'm going to answer this question in English because I don't have all the acronyms in French. We're an acronym-driven organization.

We have officers working with the United States Army, Navy, Air Force, and U.S. Marine Corps across the United States. It would take me a long time to describe everywhere that we are. To show you the level of integration and co-operation, we have officers, as I've said, in NORAD headquarters, in the deputy commander role, and also a lot of Canadians making up a significant amount of that staff.

We also have Canadians in very key leadership roles in American units. For instance, in each one of the five U.S. army corps, they have a deputy who is a Canadian one-star rank, who is integrated into their command structure. That's the level of trust that the United States has with Canada.

We have a lot of people working with U.S. units. In their AWACS squadron, we have a sizeable presence. We have people working in the Pentagon. We have a lot of people in the United States on military courses, and that spans a spectrum from training to professional education at their war colleges.

It's also important to note, in saying that we have a substantial presence in the United States, that the United States sends a lot of exchange officers to work with the Canadian military. These opportunities to work in the United States alongside the Americans, and for the Americans to send people to Canada to work alongside Canadians, is a really effective way of deepening our understanding of each other's ways of approaching operations and of our respective cultures. It makes us a better fighting force when we're paired up to do an operation together.

It is a very close level of co-operation. Those 700 people are spread all across the United States, Alaska, and some of the U.S. territories.

[Stephen Burt]

I'd like to specify that that is also true of intelligence. Several of the people assigned to defence intelligence are in Washington. A large number of Canadians, also on the intelligence side, work at NORAD for the American general who commands the J2, that is to say the intelligence and command aspects. In turn, several Americans work in our organization, as well as elsewhere in defence intelligence organizations.

[Jean Rioux, Liberal, Saint-Jean, QC]

So there is a broad integration, and a lot of trust.

And is there the same reciprocity in the army? Are there American officers posted to the Canadians Forces?

[RAdm Scott Bishop]

The numbers are not equivalent because of the relative size of our two countries.