Thank you.
Ms. Alleslev.
Evidence of meeting #70 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 states.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #70 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 states.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Leona Alleslev Liberal Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON
Thank you very much.
The discussion of metrics is the most important conversation we need to have because part of the conversation of course around the relevance of NATO is always tied to money, and while money is only one benefit in return for that, spending has to be another part. Qualitative and quantitative measures will help us to define how, why, or whether or not we're being successful.
But I do understand we've almost confused or intermingled the conversation around the benefits and metrics of a mission, or a military intervention versus the metrics and value of membership in NATO. I just want to be clear, do you agree those are two separate things and must be viewed and measured separately?
4:15 p.m.
Adjunct Professor, Royal Military College of Canada, As an Individual
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Leona Alleslev Liberal Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON
That's excellent. Then let's talk about the value or metrics for NATO overall because missions are a little dicier. There is the military execution leadership and our role in that. There's our role in thought leadership and one of the key things that you talked about is our relationships within our roles in NATO. In recent memory we have withdrawn a number of people at all levels, in NATO headquarters, in academia, or in research and development, or the Arctic, or any of those kinds of roles.
Back to your relationship conversation, do you think there's value in having and measuring the number of people involved in key areas, which we define as being integral to that which Canada is focused on at all levels within the broader NATO structure?
4:15 p.m.
Adjunct Professor, Royal Military College of Canada, As an Individual
We need the numbers to tell us that part of the story, but it's only a small part. As human beings we have trouble approaching the stories about relationships, the narrative about our involvement in NATO, in a way that is meaningful for somebody else to understand. This is the problem we face when we're measuring not just the numbers. We have to approach it in a slightly different manner. Why I chose that perspective to share with you today is that after reading some of the transcripts of past meetings I didn't want to repeat what some of the other witnesses have shared with you. I wanted to go somewhere slightly different.
4:20 p.m.
Adjunct Professor, Royal Military College of Canada, As an Individual
The metrics component, understanding how to report to government, how to measure that Canada is getting benefit, securing itself as an entity called “Canada”, and strengthening its brand, its sense of self, and its sense of purpose in the world just by belonging—not questioning what we belong to but just by the nature of belonging—and the routine over almost seven decades—
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
Leona Alleslev Liberal Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON
Then take it to that next level about participating and being in those conversations at its seat at the table, a seat at the table in NATO procurement, or a seat at the table in the research and development of a certain program, or a seat at the table in the thought leadership around the NATO Defense College and the academic vision of where we are going next. Would that address quantitative and qualitative?
4:20 p.m.
Adjunct Professor, Royal Military College of Canada, As an Individual
In a way, it would. I appreciate your bringing it up. I'm sure Mark will have something to add, too.
In my experience, if you don't take a seat at the table, you don't have a voice in the discussion, and there are some pretty important discussions going on within the international realm of security right now. If Canada is not participating.... As I said, it's a multi-layered approach. NATO is not a thing out there. It is something we produce in our membership in it. Just belonging to particular components of NATO allows us to have what you are talking about and to have that seat at the table. We can be part of the discussion.
4:20 p.m.
President, Canadian International Council, As an Individual
I would completely agree. I think that it matters, absolutely. That is the crux of what I was talking about. When we have to revisit or rethink the metric, contributions of personnel at all levels of NATO operations, not just troops in the field, are absolutely critical for the functioning of the organization.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
Leona Alleslev Liberal Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON
Outstanding.
Your next caveat is that if we don't adapt to the next war—and I don't even mean war but the changing environment in which an alliance finds itself, because we still tend to be focused on the past—and become agile and quick.... Are we in a race against time? Is there a sense of urgency that we and other NATO members should be communicating, that it's not just a question of adapting but getting it done quickly and having a model that allows us not just to move but to move quickly?
4:20 p.m.
President, Canadian International Council, As an Individual
Yes, I think that's it. The reality is that a big alliance like NATO tends to move slowly. When you talk to some NATO officials, you get the sense that they are preparing to fight a pitched tank battle in Europe against Russia one day. That's not the way the war will...if there is a war. Actually, I shouldn't say....
If a conflict was to emerge, most likely it would be in cyberspace or through the use of non-state actors. I think there has to be an acceleration. You used the term “thought leadership”. I think a big part of where NATO should be going is to think about new ways and new approaches to collective security and common defence.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
Leona Alleslev Liberal Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON
We, as parliamentarians in NATO member countries, should be advocating as loudly as we can to encourage that sense of urgency in adapting and becoming more agile.
4:20 p.m.
President, Canadian International Council, As an Individual
Absolutely. One of the worrying things about the recent geopolitical shift is that it has brought back some of the old binary thinking of us versus them, the Cold War thinking. I think we have to get back to looking at this as a dynamic, rapidly changing security environment, with a multiplicity of—
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
Leona Alleslev Liberal Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON
This is a bit of a delicate question. We talk about it being the relationships, the shared values, and all the security that comes with being part of that organization, yet my colleague mentioned Turkey looking at weapon systems from Russia. We have a very stringent process around how countries should become members of NATO. Is the time now to at least start having a conversation as an alliance about what to do if a member is no longer part of that ideological framework?
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Stephen Fuhr
As much as I'd love to hear the answer to that, I'm going to have to yield the floor to Mr. Robillard. Maybe someone else will pick up on that, because it's an excellent question.
November 20th, 2017 / 4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Yves Robillard Liberal Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
Mr. Sedra, your biography says that you are the co-founder of the Security Governance Group, a private consulting firm focused on security issues.
Could you tell us how your work on security issues, in the area of private consulting, is affected by NATO-related issues, its presence in the world and the contributions of its members?
4:25 p.m.
President, Canadian International Council, As an Individual
I wear multiple hats in my career. Currently, the bulk of my attention goes to running a not-for-profit think tank, one of Canada's oldest international affairs think tanks. That's a little plug. It's called the Canadian International Council. However I was, for the last five years, running a consulting firm. Our main focus was to provide research-based consulting to support countries like Canada, UN agencies, states—the United States was one of our clients—in security-sector reform, so the training and capacity building of security forces in conflict-affected countries. We were primarily doing some of the thinking behind some of these. We weren't implementing these capacity-building programs, but we were researching and providing advice on the best approaches to take. We were working with many NATO member states on some of these issues.
I'm also an academic. I teach at the University of Toronto and the University of Waterloo. As I said, I wear many hats.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Yves Robillard Liberal Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
How are NATO's borders and cooperative security adapting to the current global security environment?
4:25 p.m.
President, Canadian International Council, As an Individual
You were saying borders and co-operative security—I'm not exactly clear. Are you asking how the collective security system is run in light of the fact that there are borders and issues of sovereignty and so on? Yes.
In many ways, we are seeing the erosion of the traditional notion of sovereignty in terms of security threats. For security threats, whether you're looking at transnational crime, terrorism, cyber-conflict, or global pandemics, they don't respect national borders. When we talk about supporting a multinational organization like NATO to confront these threats, there are going to be concerns among some member states that this could violate the principle of sovereignty, and some may see that as threatening.
In many respects, this trend of populist movements we see globally is a reaction to this type of globalization and the erosion of the principle of sovereignty. I think as responsible states that want to address these issues in a holistic and comprehensive way, we can only do that through partnerships and through multilateral organizations like NATO. No state is an island. Even the most powerful—the United States—cannot address these threats alone.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Yves Robillard Liberal Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
In your view, how do Canada's contributions to NATO serve the country's defence and foreign policy interests?
Should we enhance our contributions to NATO?
4:25 p.m.
President, Canadian International Council, As an Individual
Yes. I believe that increasing spending on defence—and there is movement in that regard already—so that we can make a larger contribution to NATO.... Also, and I said this earlier, I think we make such an important qualitative contribution in terms of personnel, leadership, and thought leadership already, that there are opportunities if we were to expand our role in those areas. If we can take on a greater leadership role, that can offset some of the shortfalls in resources. I truly believe that is a way to go and something that's badly needed, because there are deficits now in leadership within this institution as a result of what's happening in the United States and elsewhere.
4:30 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and you too, Mr. Sedra.
You reference the rapidly changing global security environment. In the news recently we have the issue of artificial intelligence as it applies to defensive or offensive measures, and specifically—over the weekend—the threats in relation to armed drones. Even if the UN bans their use, we have nations that disregard UN conventions all the time, and we of course have the proxy wars and the non-state actors.
How should NATO contribute to security with respect to artificial intelligence? We're told with cybersecurity that in order to be defensive you have to be offensive, so do we need to go down the offensive route with armed drones as well?