National Defence Committee on Jan. 30th, 2018

[Len Bastien]

No, so I should thank you for that, Mr. Chair.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

It's a circular argument.

[Len Bastien]

It is.

We come here to have a valuable exchange of dialogue so that we can engage with you and help you do the very valuable work that you do to help the department situate itself inside the government, so with that, I thank you.

I wouldn't want to leave you with the perspective that a classified conversation would yield different answers to the questions I received today. Indeed, if you had asked different questions, there would have been different answers, absolutely.

[Leona Alleslev, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

I think that we're wrestling with it because we recognize, particularly in cyber, that it's far more complex and uncharted, both because of the nature of the changing warfare and because, at the moment, those who would deny us our sovereignty and call into question our domestic security are moving quite agilely and are not constrained to the same extent that we are. To understand that next level of conversation, we feel that we need to be able to have a secure conversation.

[Len Bastien]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

I had 10:30 a.m. in my mind, because we've just started in the mornings again. We're actually at 10:45 a.m. I'm just checking on something else here, motion-wise. Again, I'm happy to give everyone a fair amount of time. Ms. Romanado had a question.

We do have a little bit more time, and I'd like to give you an opportunity, Ms. Romanado. Go ahead. You have the floor.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you very much for your testimony. I had the great opportunity to visit MDA about two weeks ago and to visit their installation. I know that the Triton project is actually a new maritime command and control solution for both fixed and deployable systems, so we look forward to receiving that briefing.

We talked a little bit about the assets that we are deploying for NATO, specifically support. You mentioned 120 to 130 positions in direct support of NATO. I know that with “Strong, Secure, Engaged”, we're talking about a 3,500-person increase in military personnel.

Maybe you're not the person to answer this, but in terms of how many of those folks are going to be allocated towards cybersecurity and with respect to operability with our NATO allies, what kind of training programs are we developing for cyber for our men and women in uniform? Are we working with NATO to create those training programs, based on that incredibly fast-moving technology?

[Len Bastien]

Indeed, we will come back with as much information as is available to us with respect to the MDA project. They're probably quite excited about it and have more details than we would, on the periphery, watching that happen.

With respect to what we would refer to in our terms as force development for cyber and co-operation and collaboration with NATO, as Commodore Feltham indicated in his remarks, NATO has invested significantly in a centre of excellence—a cyber range, if you will.

Imagine a technical environment where you can test cyber ordnances, your reaction to an attack, and so on. These are very valuable entities that we, as a partner of NATO, will be able to exploit and take advantage of. We look forward to that.

With respect to the commitments of our policy, the policy as delivered by the government directs investments by the department over a 20-year period. Those funding and personnel commitments have not exactly dropped into our laps this year, so we are busy looking at the design of the implementation of this policy and what it's going to look and feel like over the 20 years of its term.

It's a little early for me to comment on how much of the resources committed in the policy will land in NATO. Suffice it to say that the policy also explicitly tells us that we will continue to invest in and support our relationships with our allies, including NATO, Five Eyes, NORAD, and the others.

Unfortunately, I can't give you an quantitative answer other than an explicit direction from government in the policy for us to continue investing in that area. Then, as we implement the policy in the coming years, it will become clearer to us how and where to make those investments.

As Rich said earlier, there's always more demand than there is supply in a give-and-take relationship with any entity. We want to be very smart about where we put our resources so that we get the most return on investment for us and for Canadians, ultimately.

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

In terms of our actual training programs, right now if someone is working as a cyber-operator, they would do their BMQ and then go off for their 16 weeks of training. Are we working to develop those training programs that are going to be meeting that forecast, that evolution of cyberwarfare? What are we doing in terms of recruiting the best that we need? We know this is an emerging field that we need to continue to invest in, so what are we doing in terms of the training and recruiting and getting that pipeline?

It's one thing to have NCMs, but we're going to need officers as well. What are we doing in terms of recruitment for that field?

[Len Bastien]

That's an excellent question, Mr. Chair. I'll ask Commodore Feltham to speak to that.

[Cmdre Richard Feltham]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As I mentioned earlier, the human resource demand in this occupation is extreme and very difficult. We don't take it lightly. I would say I spend the vast majority of my time trying to understand innovative ways to come to that answer.

The first tranche of operatives we put into cyber-occupation, as an example, we took from a proven commodity. They were people who were doing that work within our operation centre, and we moved them into the operator trade. We've developed internal training programs. We have standards to develop and train our operators. We got those standards in collaboration with our allies. We worked together to have standardized training that we can exchange with our other broader allies.

Also we recognize that within the civilian sector, there's a robust and rich opportunity to recruit young Canadians from colleges around our country, and we are working with a number of colleges to accredit their programs and to bring those people into our programs as fully fledged cyber-operators.

I would not want to leave you with the impression that this is another military occupation that we will handle like every other, because it's not. It demands a different view, a different focus, and an adaptive approach over time.

The answer I give you today is that I hope that it will adapt and evolve over time to meet the demands of that occupation. For example, in the coming weeks we're going to have an entire ideation session on how we can best use the reserve force within a cyber-occupation. We're looking at every and all means, and not just within our own structure. We are trying to leverage both industry and academia to bring ideas to us and to leverage those as well. I don't think we have all the answers—I know we don't—but we're working with all allies internationally and nationally to get the best advice within that structure.

[Len Bastien]

If I may follow up on that, earlier a colleague asked a similar question, and I wrote a note, which I want to contribute to the answer, around the reserve force and how exciting that is for us.

In my interactions with industry—we're significantly engaged in areas in which we are able to be—the discussion around cyber-talent is always a challenge, as it is for them as well. Given their industry base, they're able to pay some of the skilled people very well. It's very difficult for government to attract them to come over in the regular normal time as a public servant or as a regular force member. However, the interest in being a part-time cyber-operator for the Canadian Armed Forces is of great interest to industry and industry personnel whom I've engaged with.

As we learn and exploit how we're going to implement these new curriculums and these new criteria for being a cyber-operator, we're looking at creative ideas around using and leveraging the reserve force to get access to that industry talent, even if it's only on a part-time basis.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Go ahead, Mr. Bezan.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Thank you.

To build upon what Mr. Fisher asked earlier about one of our frigates being deployed to NATO's Operation Reassurance as part of the maritime task force, we know that U.S. warships have been attacked through electronic warfare by the Russians. We talked earlier about how our troops in the enhanced forward presence in Latvia have undergone hybrid warfare attacks with some misinformation and slanderous media stories coming from the Kremlin-controlled news agencies Sputnik and RT.

Explain to me the difference between how we would provide cybersecurity to our troops stationed in Latvia or on one of our frigates in a NATO Operation Reassurance measure versus what we do in Operation Unifier with our troops in Ukraine. From a cybersecurity standpoint, do DND and the Canadian Armed Forces provide close personnel support in, say, Yavoriv, versus what they do with the guys who are outside of Riga, as done through Joint Operations Command of NATO?

[Len Bastien]

Again that's a very good question, in the sense of getting a perspective of what it would look and feel like to deploy as military personnel from a digital perspective.

As Rich said earlier, when we get ready to deploy our forces into these areas of the world, a threat assessment is done and a reaction to that assessment to mitigate those risks is established before we deploy. In the digital and cyber world, for this conversation, we provide the capabilities for those men and women in uniform to operate, to do the job that they need to do to succeed in operations. We give them capabilities that are secure and compliant. We do our best to stay ahead of the bad guys when it comes to exploits and vulnerabilities and we are constantly readjusting our position.

In some ways it will be the same approach when we deploy our men and women when it comes to cyber and digital capabilities, but it will always be adjusted to the threat of the environment they are going into.

To that end, I will offer Commodore Feltham, as an operator himself, the opportunity to elaborate on my statement.

[Cmdre Richard Feltham]

Mr. Chair, I can really only reiterate what I said earlier, which is that it's all based on threat assessment, so the broad answer to your question is that there is no difference in how we approach the problem. The specifics of what we will deploy to support any individual operation will vary based on that threat assessment. I couldn't speak to every ongoing operation in the Canadian Armed Forces today, but the path we take to prepare our troops to enable them to succeed in operations is essentially the same. We analyze the threat and prepare them against that threat.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Commodore Feltham, you're a navy guy. Now we're going to be putting Wi-Fi on all our frigates and we're talking about leisure time, and people are going to be doing their Facebook, Instagram, and whatever else. How does that impact your job from a cybersecurity standpoint? Does the civilian infrastructure that's now being utilized through a Canadian Armed Forces asset compromise cybersecurity in any way, shape, or form?

[Cmdre Richard Feltham]

You're asking me if it compromises cybersecurity. I know I wear a navy uniform, but I must say I haven't worked within the navy structure for a number of years, so I'm not aware of their analysis of the threat that this morale tool introduces. I wouldn't want to speak out of turn.

The navy has done an analysis of what Wi-Fi means to the security of their platforms and the morale advantage that it provides to people who will deploy for months on end through having access to communications with families back home and what that provides for them. In terms of a threat or a cyber-threat, I'm not aware of any because I'm not working in the navy lines.

[Len Bastien]

I would only want to interject to make sure that it was clear to the committee that the Wi-Fi capability supported by the navy on those platforms is not connected to the corporate network in any way, shape, or form. It provides access to the Internet for the men and women on board ship to have a bit of a work-life balance when they are off duty.

The corporate equities on board that ship still fall under the authorities of my organization to secure and maintain, and they are not involved in getting these men and women access to the Internet through corporate systems. These are independent systems that the navy has deemed a tolerable risk in order to enhance work-life balance. Further to that, you would have to ask the commander of the navy of his level of comfort with that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Gentlemen, thank you very much for coming. The ability of cyberwarfare and information warfare to influence outcomes is significant. We have seen it in Ukraine, we have seen it in Europe, and we have seen it in the United States. We haven't worked out the terms yet, but there is a will of the committee moving forward to drill down a bit more on cyber, and I suspect that we will probably see you sooner rather than later on this issue.

Thanks very much. I was going to suspend and let you go, but I'll never get everyone back in here, so I'm just going to ask you to bear with us. There are a couple of housekeeping motions that we need to get to the table here.

I'm going to call on Mr. Spengemann.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Mr. Chair, thank you much. I think they are being circulated. Let me just read them back to back. There are two motions.

The first is as follows:

That the Committee approve the hospitality expenses incurred during the trip to Brussels, Latvia and Ukraine from September 18-26, 2017.

The second motion reads:

That the Committee approve the hospitality expenses for a dinner in Room 602, Parliamentary Restaurant on Monday, February 12, 2018 in honour of Ainars Latkovskis, Member of Parliament and Chairman of the Defence, Interior and Anti-corruption Commission, Saeima, Riga, Latvia.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Is there any discussion on those topics? Apparently I can do them both at the same time.

(Motions agreed to)

Gentlemen, thank you very much. We look forward to seeing you in the future.

The meeting is adjourned.