National Defence Committee on Nov. 29th, 2017

[LGen Charles Lamarre]

We're looking at that journey from start to finish, and that's how we're referring to it. The journey, the cheminement, from the moment that you get attracted to come in, to start to click on the website, all the way through to the time that you transition out of the Canadian Armed Forces when you decide to leave, when your service is done, at that time we want to make sure that not only you, but your family is also supported. To that end, it's a question of making sure that every experience is well tailored to the individual. That includes a number of things that are quite different: Dealing with a member first and foremost, giving certainty on the courses and training coming up, making sure that is a transition from one posting to another, that they're well supported during that posting, that's where the family starts to get brought in.

Right now we are looking at establishing the transition group that will grow out of current organizations on how we move people across, but will increase and make it a better transition. That includes making sure that some of the things that in the past used to hamper you when you moved between provinces are limited. We're looking to work with the provinces to make that easy also. Currently even how a person moves is being made better by virtue of their having access to counsellors at the other end as well to make sure you can find out about the schools you're going to, the kind of employment there. We're working with third parties as well to make sure that spouses who are looking to transfer will have access to job-searching capabilities and service and support while they do the transition. This also looks at examining children who might have special needs. Once an assessment is done in one province we're looking to work with the provinces to make sure that assessment is also valid in the next one.

A broad range of things concentrate on the member, but also concentrate on his or her family to make sure their experience throughout their career is well-rounded.

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

Thank you very much for that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Ms. Gallant.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

My questions will be for the chief of the Communications Security Establishment.

First, do you see any money earmarked here for training people in the CSE specifically for cybersecurity?

[Greta Bossenmaier]

The money that's being requested here is again to ensure that we can maintain our capabilities in safeguarding Government of Canada systems and the important information they contain. That money will be used to ensure that we have the right people, the right skills, the right technology, the right tools in play. Is there specific money toward training, something we have to do with our staff, given that we focus on the very leading edge of cybersecurity? We always have very robust training for our cybersecurity experts.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Is CSE partnering with the private sector to harden its cybersecurity?

[Greta Bossenmaier]

Partnership across cybersecurity is key. We often say that cybersecurity is a team sport. It's impossible for any one organization to be able to know it all or do it all itself, given such a dynamic environment. We definitely provide advice and guidance that is applicable to private industry, to critical infrastructure. We definitely have conversations with private industry in the sense of are there best practices that one can leverage and learn from one another? We definitely partner with departments and agencies across the Government of Canada that are also focusing on ensuring their systems are safe and sound.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

In addition to providing guidance, is guidance taken from the commercial financial establishment, are things they learn being given to CSE as well?

[Greta Bossenmaier]

We work in partnership. For example, as probably a first for CSE, we recently released one of our very sophisticated tools called assembly line, and we've put it out there to the public and to private industry saying that this is a tool we've developed that's being used to help safeguard the Government of Canada systems, and they now can use this tool to better look for malware that might be in their systems. That's an example of that kind of partnership and sharing. We're saying by putting out this tool they may also be able to find ways to enhance and use the tool that would be beneficial even to a broader group.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Have you held tabletop exercises with the different departments and in concert with the private sector?

[Greta Bossenmaier]

I'll go back to my earlier comment in terms of Minister Goodale, but in particular the Department of Public Safety, who has a role right now to interact in terms of emergency management and broader national security. They definitely run exercises across a variety of sectors, with cybersecurity often being one of the fields.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Maybe you could describe the effort it's taking to ensure that qualified DND personnel, medically releasing soldiers, are aware of opportunities and employment with the CSE. Many of them already have the security clearances. They have specialized skills. Are there actual efforts going forth to capture some of the people who may be interested in continuing on through a position in the CSE?

[Greta Bossenmaier]

We have a very long and robust history working with the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces. Many ex-service people are actually employed by the Communications Security Establishment. We always are looking for the best and the brightest we can find to work in this very challenging field. We have broad recruitment efforts, which are under way as we speak, for new hires and new recruits, reaching out to new people graduating from university all the way up to people who are mid-career and to people who are leaving the service and are interested in joining the organization.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

In the defence review, they're talking about standing up a cyber command. CSE would work even more conjoined with CSIS in some sort of cyber command. Can you describe how that organization would fit together? Would you be in the same place, or would you be remotely communicating with one another?

[Greta Bossenmaier]

I'm not sure, when you talk about standing up a new place.... Again, we already work in concert across the Government of Canada, in partnership with departments and agencies, and of course in concert with the Canadian Armed Forces. They are looking to set up a new cyber operator.

Maybe I'll turn it over to my military counterparts to speak about that.

[LGen Alain Parent]

We're not looking at building a new cyber command. What we are looking at doing is expanding our capabilities in the cyber realm and developing our forces in terms of expertise. We are also, in the policy, going from being purely defensive to the ability to conduct active cyber operations, including an offensive cyber capability. In order to do that, we're creating a new cyber operator occupation in the military to attract new talent and increase resources dedicated to cyber operations. The capability for cyber will rest within the existing command—army, navy, air force—and Canadian Joint Operations Command, not a new cyber command.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Mr. Garrison, last question.

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

Thanks very much.

Thinking back, Mr. Finn, I should have asked one more question about the large tugs. Is there something you could say publicly about either the time frame for that or the magnitude of the contract? When might it be completed? Are we talking a million-dollar contract or a zillion-dollar contract? I'm not trying to get you to reveal anything more than that.

[Patrick Finn]

With regard to the timeline, it is now in definition, as we call it, so I can say that it's been formally launched by government. We're doing that. We have gone out to industry. We started to kind of pull in the information and look at the costs there. We hope within the next year, I would say, to have the request for proposal on the street to go out and seek the proposals.

I apologize; I have the information, but I can't remember the quantum of the budget. It is not in the billions but it is not trivial. These are very sophisticated tugs that will replace all of our fleets of tugs as well as our current fire boats, which you would be familiar with. It's a substantial, complex bid. We are looking for mature designs that we could bring and build in Canada.

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

Great. Thanks very much.

When you folks were here on the estimates—some of you are different now, but your positions were represented—I asked some questions about both recruitment in rural and first nations communities and funding for the reserves and cadets. We were assured that there was enough money in the budget this year to make progress in all of those areas.

I'm not looking for anything in detail, but how are we doing on the recruitment in first nations and rural and remote communities and the funding for reserve and cadet programs?

[Jody Thomas]

We're going to ask General Lamarre to respond to your question.

[LGen Charles Lamarre]

The whole idea of how we're going to be recruiting visible minorities, aboriginal and women—as we were talking about earlier on—has targets assigned to it. We can give examples of concrete increases in the number of women. Of the first-year cadets at RMC this year, 25% are women.

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

We asked about first nations.

[LGen Charles Lamarre]

We're coming to that one as well.

One of the things we're doing is measuring within each of our recruiting initiatives which ones give us more bang for the buck. We're finding that some of the initiatives we've done—we're doing an analysis of that problem—are getting low rates of return. However, some of the initiatives we're doing are paying off great. We bring aboriginal youth from northern Canada into places like Calgary, and we get them through and give them bespoke care when they come through the recruiting centre. That's paying great dividends. That is what we're doing on that. We're also measuring the programs we have under way right now to figure out if they're effective or not, and then changing those to do it.

There was great work that was done by the army this summer when they ran their bold eagle program. They looked specifically to where we want to prioritize where the candidates came from. From there, they're analyzing that.

Next year, they're going to put more emphasis on remote locations that have access to units that actually operate...so small detachments of the reserve that might be in places like Battleford, like Regina. Those ones are going to be identified, and then the population surrounding them, to attract them. Those young people, after doing a program such as bold eagle, will then have the opportunity to join a reserve unit and go work there.

That's on the reserve front. On the regular force as well, we're specifically setting up campaigns to attract the youth to do that.