National Defence Committee on April 14th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Mr. Garrison.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our witnesses for appearing today.

This discussion we're having often centres on NORAD and the replacement of the F-18s. That's very important, I'm not saying that it's not, and I may return to it later, but I want to focus on something a little different, and that's the CP-140, Aurora long-range patrol aircraft.

We know that these planes play a role in our international missions. They've been deployed to Libya, Syria, and Iraq. They also play a very big role in the defence of sovereignty here with coastal surveillance, Arctic patrol, counterterrorism, and anti-smuggling.

My question is about the state of the fleet. In 2014 there was a decision to modernize the fleet to try to extend its life to 2030. Can you tell us a little about the progress of that modernization?

[LGen Michael Hood]

Absolutely.

The decision at that time was to increase the number of aircraft that we were modernizing from 10 to 14. That's a good-news story in that the subsequent development of the capability of the CP-140 has two roles. Principally it's an anti-submarine warfare capability and maritime surveillance, but it also has an overland ISR role as it's deployed right now in Iraq and Syria, as you pointed out.

The investment that we made working with DRDC and Canadian industry has realized the capability within the CP-140 is world leading. It's more capable than what's coming off the line on new products. So we took the decision at the time that we were going to invest in the CP-140 and keep that fleet active, because it made no sense in that we weren't going to get any technological advantage with a new one, and we'd perhaps work to see how we could potentially evolve Canadian technology into a Canadian aircraft in 2030. I think it was a wise decision.

We have to husband the fleet very carefully to get it out to 2030, so it could do a limited number of hours every year, but on its capability, I have no hesitation in saying in anti-submarine warfare and overland ISR, it's world class, if not world leading.

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

When you say you have to husband the fleet, can you tell us how many have been modernized at this point, where they’re based, and what they spend most of their time doing when they're in the air?

[LGen Michael Hood]

There are two phases to the modernization. Block 3 is just finishing and then there's block 4, which is going to put on some defensive countermeasures, and link 16. I know that I'm getting a bit technical.

On husband, the life of most aircraft is predicated on wing life. For instance, we just flew aircraft 307, a C-130, into the museum here in Ottawa, because it had reached the end of its wing life. We know how many hours we have left on those aircraft. We have sufficient to do the tasks that we have in maritime warfare, also in our deployed operations, but we couldn't fly them unendingly on a mission. So it's just more being careful to make sure we manage the capability correctly.

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

Can you tell us a little about what those hours are being expended on now?

[LGen Michael Hood]

Absolutely.

Daily, they would have maritime warning tasks and sovereignty patrols, both in support of that NORAD mission and in Canada's national missions. They have done patrols of long-line fishing and drift-net fishing in the Pacific, as well as a lot of training, because we train a lot for our primary task, which is anti-submarine warfare.

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

When we talk about extended life to 2030, what's the state of the procurement decisions? When you talked about maybe a Canadian aircraft being developed—and I know there are some off-the-shelf options—where are we at on procurement? In 2014 it was estimated that the cost of replacement would be $3 billion to $5 billion, and we know how costs escalate. Can you give us an idea where we're at on the replacement question?

[LGen Michael Hood]

We have near-term projects that are in investment planning. In fact you could look at the defence acquisition guide; it's a public document. It tells you all the programs that are beyond.... Typically, 2025 may not be in the defence acquisition guide, so we know that we've got sufficient time.

I would imagine that, in the next three to four years, we would initiate a project for the replacement of that and we would look at this great capability that we've built here in Canada and consider what's the right answer for the country moving forward.

As in the previous question I answered, that will take in the evolving threat. We know there is a proliferation of submarines in the world, for example. We know that there is a high probability that parts of the Arctic will be navigable, which may put more demands on our SAR. I think a project out then would have a better chance of making sure we got that project right in 2030.

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

When you talked about the number of launches in your response on search and rescue, how many of those would involve the Auroras? Is that what gets launched?

[LGen Michael Hood]

The Aurora doesn't have a primary search and rescue role. The majority of those launches would be either the Cormorant helicopter across the country, the Griffon helicopter in Trenton, C-130s in Winnipeg, Trenton, and Greenwood, or Buffalos.

There are times when we require more assets, and the Aurora deployed on a search and rescue mission in support of a Russian aviator who crashed into the Arctic Ocean. We deployed more assets. In fact, every aircraft can be a secondary search and rescue asset, but I don't have the specific numbers for you.

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

There was discussion in 2011 in terms of search and rescue about the possibility that there could be other service providers, which I would call privatization. You just mentioned now what gets launched in terms of responding to search and rescue. Could you tell us, in your opinion, are there other groups that have the capabilities that could provide the same kind of response that the Canadian air force does in search and rescue?

[LGen Michael Hood]

I would have to say truthfully that I imagine that there could be at some point, but quite frankly, the RCAF is responsible for aeronautical search and rescue. That's a task the government has given us. We have a good chunk of our air force on standby and support. I have a whole air force that could respond as required, so I don't think there's anyone out there who's going to do it as well as I can, and I'm not actually interested in facilitating discussions looking at other options. I'm more focused on delivering the fixed-wing search and rescue project that hopefully will be in contract later this year.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Mrs. Romanado, you have the floor for seven minutes.

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

Thank you, General Hood, for being here today. I would like to thank you for your service to Canada and all that you're doing to protect Canada and North America.

In your testimony and in answering some questions, you mentioned that the current resources that are available to the Royal Canadian Air Force are not a challenge at this time. In the 1980s we took possession of 138 CF-18s. We modernized 80 of them, 77 of which are still in service. From what I understand, we're planning on replacing those 77 aircraft with 65, with which aircraft we are going to buy to be determined. Could you explain the significance of the number 65? Given the example you used, when we were in Afghanistan, we had the Vancouver Olympics, we had Haiti happening, and given our NORAD and NATO commitments, is 65 going to be enough, considering attrition and training needs as well?

[LGen Michael Hood]

The assessment is right now that 65 is the correct answer when we look at our present defence commitments at the various NORAD alert levels, plus, by and large, a standing commitment to NATO. That is how the number was derived.

With some of our fleets, for example the C-130 fleet, we bought more C-130s in small packets over time, so the size and shape in the fleet we deliver at any one time doesn't necessarily have to be stagnant. The future security environment could demand an increase in those numbers.

The number today is 65. In the future, would we need more flexibility? Would we need to consider replacing attrition aircraft if we were to lose some? Those are good questions to consider and think about, but at the end of the day, defence has to be affordable, and in today's situation and the extant commitments we have, 65 is the number that we've derived.

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

Okay. I wanted to make sure I understood, with 12 fewer aircraft, that if something changes, and given the complexity and the length of time for procurement, whether we will be able to get those assets in time.

Switching to command and control, how important is beyond-line-of-sight communications? We have a massive country. How important is it that our air defence assets have communications in real time with decision-makers?

[LGen Michael Hood]

In most cases it's actually critical. I think with the fusion of data links—voice, radio, full-motion video—that are used to help decision-makers in a very complex world, we're starting to see increased investments in that. In fact, the air force has a major project to replace all of the ground-air-ground radios used by NORAD in air defence, and we're also embedding the ability for beyond-line-of-sights within that.

With the future complexity of warfare, the increased surveillance demand is seeing increased investments in those areas. I would tell you that I think it's critical, and becoming more so every day and in a very complex environment.

I think back to some of the missions we were doing in Iraq, for example, where you would have had normally about 72 hours of non-stop ISR, intelligence surveillance of any type—it could be a UAV; it could be an air-breathing platform like our CP-140—over a target to ensure that we understood how people moved around, what the risk would be to attacking that target. The precision and care that's required with these decisions in the future, and our desire and certainly our government's desire to see collateral damage limited, is making things like the beyond-line-of-sight even more important moving forward.

That's the change I've seen over my career from when I started. The precise demands, certainly of air power, have evolved immensely.

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

My colleague, Mr. Paul-Hus, brought up interoperability. The Canadian north is massive. We have inclement weather. In looking at our runways, I notice that quite a few of them are short, less than 6,000 feet. And that includes two of our forward-operating locations.

Given this information, how important is the interoperability and capacity of our replacement aircraft so that it can work with our current infrastructure, including our air tanker support?

[LGen Michael Hood]

I think it's certainly a consideration. I'll break those out into a couple of cases. If we're just talking about fighters, for example, they're going to operate from paved surfaces. The Inuvik runway is 6,000 feet. Quite often when our F-18s are there, they'll take the cable with a hook. But many aircraft have, for instance, drag chutes that preclude the need for that hook, because that will allow them to stop in that distance. I don't see any infrastructure limitations, irrespective of what replacement of the F-18 is—if I imagine where your question is going.

With respect to our tanker aircraft, it should be noted—and I think Lieutenant General St-Amand will speak to you about this on Tuesday—that the majority of the time in our NORAD response there are American tankers on standby. There's one in Bangor, Maine, and another one in Oregon. When we launch our F-18s, it's quite often U.S. tanker support.

Notwithstanding the testimony you heard on Tuesday, we have five Airbus, but only two of them are air-to-air refuelling tankers. One is deployed right now, and the other one is in heavy maintenance; it's not available to support. That aircraft is coming to the end of its life as well. We have plans for replacement. We're waiting for the decision to be made on the future fighter aircraft, and that will determine the requirements of the next tanker aircraft.

So whether it is a probe-and-drogue, as we use right now, or a boom that flies into a refuelling receptacle, we will replace the tanker aircraft with whatever our front-line fighter is at the time. That's been our plan for quite some time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you very much for that.

We'll move on to our second round of questions. They will be five-minute questions.

The first questions will go to you, Mr. Rioux.

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

There is a lot of talk about aircraft, knowing full well that technology is progressing. Can drones play a major role in this respect? Can they mean that we need fewer aircraft?

[LGen Michael Hood]

UAVs will play an important role moving forward. In that whole technology piece I was talking about and the requirement for increased amounts of surveillance and reconnaissance, UAVs will have a very important role to play.

Certainly, in my assessment and the assessment of the air force—and I think General Vance would have said the same thing—we don't see drones replacing fighter aircraft, for example, certainly not at this juncture, not with the technology that's available.

We've had a project, JUSTAS, that hopefully will be delivering a solution to us in the next three to four years. That will be an important part of Canadian Armed Forces capability moving forward, both at home in a surveillance role and also when deployed. I see that as independent of any decision on replacing the CF-18.

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

You are saying that they cannot replace aircraft.

What is the weakness of a drone compared to an aircraft with a pilot? What are the pros and cons of drones?

[LGen Michael Hood]

What I would say is that UAVs have capacity limitations. In fact, even weaponized UAVs, those that will have dropped ordnance in Afghanistan or in Iraq, are very limited in their capacity of what they would carry. They're not going to provide the flexibility and weapons choices that a manned fighter would.

There are some fundamental things a UAV can do that an aircraft can't. Persistence and endurance is one of those, that ability to have eyes on a target for 24 or 48 hours. They do play an important role in that. As you know, there are limitations in the number of aircraft you have. Also, I think, there's the flexibility. Operating in the Arctic, as we've talked about, is a huge challenge. In terms of the early UAVs that came out, I've flown in the Arctic with jet streams of 200 knots and winds of 200 knots, and most UAVs would be going backward in that wind. They don't have the speed.

When I look at the uniqueness of the Canadian geography and its challenges, I'm very happy to see the progress that UAVs have been making. I'm quite happy about where we're at with our project, because I think technology is improving to the point that we will get the right solution. It will help our other operations, but it will never have the capacity or the full flexibility to replace a manned fighter.