National Defence Committee on Nov. 8th, 2017

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

I'd like to welcome everybody to the defence committee this afternoon. More importantly, I'd like to welcome our witnesses.

We have Stéfanie von Hlatky, associate professor and director of the Centre for International and Defence Policy at Queen's University. Thank you for coming.

We also have Yves Brodeur, fellow at Canadian Global Affairs, via VTC from Quebec; and Julian Lindley-French, fellow at Canadian Global Affairs, via VTC from the Netherlands. Thank you very much for appearing.

Just a reminder, please restrict your comments to 10 minutes. If you see me holding up a white paper at any time, that means I'm looking for you to sum up in 30 seconds so I can keep us on time.

I'm going to turn the floor over to Ms. von Hlatky for her opening remarks.

Ms. von Hlatky, you have the floor.

[Dr. Stéfanie von Hlatky, Associate Professor and Director, Centre for International and Defence Policy, Queen's University, As an Individual]

Good afternoon, everyone.

Mr. Chair, deputy chairs, hon. members and members of the committee, thank you. I'm delighted to be here with you.

It is my pleasure to be here today to testify. I am really delighted by the topic.

Before I go any further, I just want to state that, although my presentation will be in English, obviously we can do the Q and A interaction in French afterwards.

Today, I want to focus my remarks more specifically on gender considerations for NATO. Several events and initiatives have highlighted the importance of taking gender dynamics into account for the practice of security and defence. United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 and follow-on resolutions were important to outline the need for greater participation by women in conflict resolution and peace processes, as well as the need to prevent sexual and gender-based violence. These resolutions also called for gender mainstreaming, which is the integration of gender-based analysis and perspectives into policy-making, operational planning, and missions.

Following the UN, NATO adopted its own directives and guidelines to implement the women, peace and security agenda, and I would argue that Canada has an important role to play in the entrenchment of those norms as part of NATO practices.

Over the last year and a half, I have been the lead project director for a NATO science for peace and security grant project that focuses on how best to integrate gender guidelines into NATO practices. The project is called “Tailor-Made Gender Awareness Applications for the NATO Community”. This project includes applied research and the development of a course that examines the many ways gender considerations impact NATO's day-to-day activities. Topics covered include the integration of women in the armed forces; the incorporation of gender perspectives in policies, operational planning, and missions; and how to perform gender-based analysis across a variety of positions.

In order to accomplish this work, it was very important to go to the NATO community first and really understand how these guidelines and directives had been rolled out since the adoption of the first directives and how the end-users, if you will, were perceiving some of the changes that occurred with the incorporation of these various gender directives and guidelines. Our team analyzed over 100 publicly available NATO documents on gender, and we also visited NATO headquarters to do over 50 interviews with various officials, both on the military and the civilian sides. In addition, we ran two pilot courses in order to test the material in front of a NATO audience and seek feedback.

One of the key documents that underpinned our work was bi-strategic command directive 40-1, which focuses specifically on implementing Resolution 1325 and incorporating gender perspectives in the NATO command structure. This document was last updated very recently, in October. The directive applies to allied command operations, allied command transformation, and of course the armed forces that are assigned to NATO operations and missions. Implementation relies on the integration of gender perspectives across NATO's core tasks: collective defence, crisis management, and security co-operation.

If you read the bi-strategic directive, you will notice that the document outlines a rationale for these directives and certain operational benefits to the incorporation of gender perspectives. It sets out certain expectations with regard to NATO performance on this file, and clearly defines and states the roles and responsibilities of positions such as gender advisers and gender focal points.

While the directives are clear, the mechanism to implement this within NATO and across NATO states could be strengthened. Canada is well poised to play a key role in this respect. Canada has a strong tradition when it comes to developing gender-based analysis tools and has made gender equality a central part of its current international priorities. It's also recognized as a leader within the NATO context, given that Canada was among the first group of countries to remove all professional barriers to the participation of women in the armed forces.

My recommendation is for Canada to become a global leader in gender training, bolstering its own gender adviser capacity in the process. Since gender analysis is a field that evolves very quickly, I would also recommend that this training approach be equipped with a proper network of experts, whether in academia or civil society organizations, to provide periodic updates, feedback, the latest data and research. I think that would be desirable. Convening international forums to share best practices with some of our allies and other international security organizations beyond NATO I think would also help support this effort and certainly help with the momentum.

In the short term, there are a lot of opportunities for improvement. The consideration of gender in the realm of security and defence is often very segmented. We saw this in our study leading up to the course. Very expectedly we saw some differences between how the civilian side of NATO would implement gender reforms versus the military side, but perhaps surprisingly we felt the military was somehow ahead of the game on this one because they were quite prolific when it came to producing directives that demonstrated how to implement these gender guidelines, whereas on the political side of the House much of the activities that we surveyed were focused on awareness raising.

On the political side of NATO, Canada can contribute to support the development of a comprehensive strategy to incorporate gender into NATO policies and to make sure that the assistant secretary generals are asked to report on implementation. This would ensure gender considerations are truly integrated across all of NATO's activities and across the eight portfolios held by the assistant secretary generals: political affairs and security policy; emerging security challenges; defence investment; defence policy and planning; executive management; public diplomacy; operations; as well as intelligence and security. In case you're wondering, yes, all those positions are held by men.

This more systematic approach ensures gender analysis is carried out by the organization as a whole, not just by the gender advisers or the women, peace and security office. Too often, improvements in gender practices within an organization will rely on the initiatives of individuals or the expertise of certain people, but that is just not a sustainable way to make change happen, especially not in an organization that has high turnaround and very short contracts.

We must also recognize why progress on the gender file has been slow. There are 29 different political cultures within NATO, which is difficult to reconcile, and this complex and multinational environment creates an implementation challenge that would not be present in the implementation of a strictly national action plan, for instance.

Moreover, gender guidelines are often jargon laden and are seen to impose excessive reporting metrics that do little to relate the gender perspective to the daily work of security and defence professionals on both the civilian and military sides of the NATO house. Another example is linked to the often-cited view that once bullets start flying, gender is irrelevant. Although now you're starting to see more and more work in academia and in policy circles on how adversarial tactics incorporate gender perspectives as well, I think this area is still misunderstood and that has led to some very important blind spots. We can think of the role women play in insurgencies and in terrorist organizations, but we can also look to the mission in Latvia and how the gender dimension has been exploited in Russian information campaigns. Canada's long-standing experience with gender-based analysis is an asset here, one that should be better leveraged in the security and defence realm to support national and NATO priorities.

Canada is a credible actor in this field. However, in the last two decades, Canada was outpaced by Nordic countries. They have continuously updated gender training as opposed to considering gender equality a fait accompli, which is something that happened in the Canadian Armed Forces in the 1990s and 2000s.

The Deschamps report served as an important wake-up call for introducing new initiatives and reforms to bring the Canadian Armed Forces' diversity standards and gender literacy to a higher level. Important steps have been taken, like the diversity strategy, the appointments of gender advisers, and the inclusion of gender as an important consideration in the new defence policy, “Strong, Secure, Engaged”. This is a firm basis on which to establish Canada as a leader and norm setter when it comes to gender in security and defence, to show how it can improve policy-making and operational planning tailored to the needs of NATO objectives and missions.

As the framework nation of NATO's enhanced forward presence battle group through Operation Reassurance, Canada is well positioned to advocate for gender best practices not only at the NATO HQ and SHAPE, but also through its contribution in various missions.

To tie this to the broader discussion on Canada's involvement within NATO, I think that very often more qualitative contributions to the alliance are obscured by the big focus on burden-sharing debates and the 2% rule. Canada has already done a lot on the women, peace and security file at NATO, but I think it can do much more in the future.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you for your comments, Dr. von Hlatky.

I'm going to turn the floor over to Mr. Brodeur.

[Yves Brodeur, Fellow, Canadian Global Affairs, As an Individual]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I don't have any opening remarks. I would simply like to thank the committee and its members for inviting me to appear. I will be pleased to answer your questions in English or French.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

The interpretation didn't come through, but I understood your remarks.

I'm going to turn the floor over to Dr. Julian Lindley-French.

[Dr. Julian Lindley-French, Fellow, Canadian Global Affairs, As an Individual]

Thank you, Chair. Good evening from the Netherlands.

In this, your Veterans' Week, let me first congratulate Canada for its historic contribution to the freedom of Europe and for its continuing defence.

The other day at Camp Adazi in Latvia, close to the Russian border, I saw first-hand the vital Canadian contribution to NATO's enhanced forward presence and force operations in the defence of Latvia. Still, and with very genuine respect, let me talk, Yorkshireman to Canadians, about how I see your reality. I am no expert on Canadian defence policy, but these are my impressions.

First, I really wondered at Adazi if Canadian forces really understood and would be able, in the worst case, to cope with Russian forces on the other side of the border in the western military oblast.

Second, military power is relative. Reading “Strong, Secure, and Engaged”, I certainly got the engaged bit, but strong and secure?

Third, Canadian defence policy to an outsider seems more devoted, at times, to upholding the values of Canadian society, values indeed that I share, rather than to defending it in what is going to be a new age.

Fourth, at times “Strong, Secure, Engaged” reads like a plan for a previous age, a 1990s-plus strategy, with a focus on stability rather than defence, let alone high-end collective deterrence and defence and trying to do all these things with a force of some 67,000 personnel.

Fifth, I note the ambition to “field advanced capabilities to keep pace with allies and maintain an advantage over potential adversaries”, yet I really wonder, given the cost balance of your forces and your high personnel costs, costs which, reading the paper, I would suggest would increase, if with around 1% GDP on defence you can indeed meet the full spectrum of operations. Two per cent well spent, after all, is far better than 1% however well spent especially when 20% of that is on new equipment.

Sixth, I see no evidence of Canada really preparing for a future war NATO along the lines that General Allen and General Breedlove, Admiral Zambellas, and I discuss in our new paper, “Future War NATO? From Hybrid War to Hyper War via Cyber War”.

Seventh, if you are to meet your three current, and indeed future, defence goals—the defence of Canada, the defence of North America, and contributing to wider security, which I take to mean NATO collective defence as well—you will need to be equipped with the technologies of the new military age. These would include autonomous systems, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, et al. These things do not come cheap. Indeed, if you are to operate closely with U.S. forces in future towards the high end of the spectrum, which is why Canadian forces are indeed in Latvia, that's the bare minimum your forces will need.

Eighth, Canadian forces may well need to be effective, expeditionary high-end first responders if and when the overstretched Americans are forced to engage the world on multiple fronts at the same time.

I saw in Afghanistan the outstanding quality of Canadian personnel, but I wonder if Canada is preparing for the wrong future. Indeed, when I read your defence policy, and again, I say this with respect, but I'm being a blunt Yorkshireman, my sense is that you need your own strategic analysis to better make the kind of strategic judgments upon which, in a complex environment, Canada will have to engage. I fear that at some point, Canadian troops, under NATO command, could find themselves faced with the best that 20th century Canada could equip them with facing the worst the 21st century could throw at them. Again, I saw the quality of Canadian personnel. When we get defence policy wrong—and I've been very blunt in the House of Commons in London about the consequences for British troops—it is our young men and women on the front line who have to close the gap between the real world and poor policy.

My take-away is this: 50 years ago next month the Harmel report entrenched the twin tracks of sound defence and engaged dialogue at the heart of NATO strategy. They remain there, and rightly so. My sense is that too many allies, too many of us, are happy to pursue dialogue but seem to have forgotten sound defence and, indeed, how much that sound defence costs.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you, sir, for your opening remarks.

What we're going to do is we'll go through a round of formal questions, at which time we'll break, and then we'll go into committee business, just as agreed to by the rest of the committee.

Having said that, Mark Gerretsen, you will have the first question.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. von Hlatky, thank you for being here today. It's always nice to have people here from the best university in Canada. It was nice to see you last week at the opening of the Peace Support Training Centre that's located at CFB Kingston.

I want to ask you a couple of questions about, first of all, the percentage of women who are peacekeepers in NATO. Are you aware of what percentage of peacekeepers would be women?

[Dr. Stéfanie von Hlatky]

Yes, thank you for your question.

There are 11% women in NATO's armed forces, but when you look at the deployed women, it's down to 6%.

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

You said six.

[Dr. Stéfanie von Hlatky]

Six, yes; I think there is a challenge there in terms of not only understanding that gap between the number of women who are in the national armed forces and then how many are deployed on—

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

Do you have similar numbers for Canada, specifically?

[Dr. Stéfanie von Hlatky]

The numbers I've received from Canada conflict right now. I've reached out to a third source to have that number confirmed.

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

What did you get?

[Dr. Stéfanie von Hlatky]

It was hovering around 15%, which would be quite high.

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

Within the culture of NATO, what do you see as the challenges to having gender better incorporated into peacekeeping efforts? What are the cultural challenges? We've heard about some of the physical challenges in terms of a lot of the stuff being built for male troops. What do you see as some of the cultural challenges?

[Dr. Stéfanie von Hlatky]

I think one of the main cultural challenges is that not all 29 member states have the same definition of what gender means, or how it might be relevant to their work.

I think that a second challenge is related to the fact that some officials view gender as the specialized purview of —quote, unquote—“gender experts” within the NATO structure. That would be in the international military staff, the gender adviser, who certainly is there to provide support for the international military staff in terms of the integration of those guidelines and directives. On the international staff side—still within the secretariat—you would have the women, peace and security office, which is led by the special representative to the secretary general on women, peace and security.

You have these individuals whose primary job, if you will, is to look at how we can better implement those guidelines. Without diffusion of that gender literacy, the true mainstream effects will not be felt.

I think that another challenge that relates to the professional culture is maybe at the political level. In NATO you have the North Atlantic Council, and you have the military committee, and the military committee supports the decisions made by the NAC. Then you have the secretariat that implements those decisions, so IS and IMS.

What I want to emphasize with that is that at the political level there also needs to be a lot of momentum. When you look at which countries are vocal on this issue, you will see very uneven efforts. I think Canada in this case politically can serve a very important role in bringing up these issues in the North Atlantic Council, and certainly our current ambassador Kerry Buck has done that.

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

I want to switch gears; otherwise, I will run out of time.

You contributed to an article in The Hill Times earlier this year where you said that Russia will make every effort to undermine NATO's multinational battalion attempts at trust building with local populations in countries such as Latvia.

Can you speak to the types of tactics you see Russia using to undermine those attempts that NATO is working towards?

[Dr. Stéfanie von Hlatky]

Absolutely. One of the key efforts that we see in Russia's information operations is to undermine the public support for the presence of Canadian Armed Forces in Latvia, and I suppose of the entire multinational battalion.

It's doing so by basically trying to undermine the credibility of the Canadian Armed Forces through various articles in the Russian-speaking media. For instance, the crimes committed by the Canadian Armed Forces colonel were highlighted in certain of those news media articles. That, to me, has a very gendered dimension, because they are trying to undermine the masculinity of the Canadian Armed Forces by bringing up this idea that the Canadian Armed Forces are—and I quote here from the article that's translated into English—“a bunch of homosexuals”, to borrow from that article.

You can see how they're playing on gender conceptions of masculinity there to try to undermine the support for the mission locally.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Lindley-French, do you think that Canada should be spending 2% of its GDP on our military? Is that what you're saying?

[Dr. Julian Lindley-French]

Yes.

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

As a follow-up question, how do you value non-monetary resources? For example, when we were recently in Latvia, we were told by one official that, when Canada shows up, other countries show up.

Canada might not spend a lot, but we're definitely there when we're needed. We show up. Out of the four battalions that are currently assembling and working, the one that Canada is leading has the most nations that have come to participate with Canada.

How do you value those things that cannot be attributed to a percentage of GDP?

[Dr. Julian Lindley-French]

I don't, bluntly—

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

Okay.

[Dr. Julian Lindley-French]

—because other countries can do the same thing.