Evidence of meeting #79 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 nato's.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:45 a.m.
Liberal
Leona Alleslev Liberal Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON
Outstanding.
From your perspective, how valuable—I mean, it's kind of a trick question because you are responsible for the college—or important is the college in terms of its networking, bringing people together, and its fundamental understanding of NATO and NATO priorities?
9:45 a.m.
LGen Christine Whitecross
Thanks very much for that question. I'm going to tackle it in a couple of ways.
First of all, we provide more than just the senior course. Since the early 2000s, the college has also been open to our partner nations, of which there are more than 40. Whether they're from the Mediterranean dialogue, ICI nations, Gulf countries, or partnership for peace, you name it, there are a number of countries that are very much interested in coming to the NATO Defense College to learn about NATO.
What they get from it, when they depart at the end of the course, are the network opportunities for all of these other nations. I think the real uniqueness that the college provides, not just to NATO and to our partners, is that we have a group in a room, from disparate countries, who are “forced”—and I use that word in quotes—to come to consensus on issues that pertain to them personally, in terms of the regions of the world that they come from, and that pertain to NATO. So, with the influence of NATO on the regions and the regions' influence on NATO, they're forced to come to an understanding on the perspectives of the other people who are actually on the course.
This isn't necessarily something that we see in other defence colleges and universities around the globe.
9:50 a.m.
Liberal
Leona Alleslev Liberal Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON
Once upon a time, Canada had an NDC, where the N stood for National Defence College.
If we believe that this coming together, consensus-building, and educational environment for senior leaders is important within a NATO context to define NATO priorities, would it be unfair to extrapolate that, in terms of a national capability, it would also be something that would benefit us at home? Would it do that not only in terms of educating our officers in the NATO context, but also in the broader context, because the National Defence College looked at other countries that are not NATO allies?
9:50 a.m.
LGen Christine Whitecross
Only because I used to be CMP and the Canadian Forces College reported to me, I'm a little bit unsure....
9:50 a.m.
Liberal
Leona Alleslev Liberal Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON
The National Defence College, not the Canadian Forces College. The National Defence College for senior officers.
9:50 a.m.
LGen Christine Whitecross
Right. If I can just say, the Canadian Forces College changed its curriculum to include the generals' courses, the colonels' courses for those who would be promoted into generals, what we call DP4, “developmental period four”. That includes the national security course for very senior executives in the Canadian Armed Forces, and in government—so military and civilian, to what the NATO defence—
9:50 a.m.
Liberal
Leona Alleslev Liberal Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON
But it doesn't include travelling to Egypt and Japan, and meeting other senior leaders of other governments and other militaries in the same way, from a networking approach, does it?
9:50 a.m.
LGen Christine Whitecross
I don't believe so, no, it doesn't.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank our witnesses for taking the time out of their busy schedules to be with us. It's good to see you again.
I appreciated the briefings that we had when we were in Brussels at NATO headquarters. It's good to get some of this on the public record, as well, following up on those discussions.
I know that when we were in Brussels, I asked a question about Turkey as an alliance member and some of the decisions they've made recently and how that may have an impact on their relationship with NATO. In particular, they have procured some new air defence systems from Russia, which aren't interoperable with most NATO nations. In the war against ISIS, they recently attacked one of the coalition partners, the Kurdish YPJ, who have been strongly supportive of the Americans, the Brits, and others, who are all NATO members. Maybe NATO itself has been supportive of some of these Kurdish players, including the Kurdish peshmerga in Iraq, with whom Canada has been working.
How is this going to impact the relationship, with Turkey as a trusted partner? How do we visualize doing some mediation to try to get them to back down from attacking innocent civilians in the city of Afrin?
9:50 a.m.
Kerry Buck
The alliance's strongest asset is unity. It's the centre of gravity for the alliance. It's a consensus-based organization. That consensus and that joint commitment to NATO and to NATO unity is really important, and Turkey is a long-standing ally. Thus it's in Canada's interest, it's in the alliance's interest, to have Turkey at the table, and they occupy a particular space as well.
Geographically, they have inroads in a region that's very important to NATO's security. They're a Muslim nation, which is an important factor as well. Turkey is an important ally in NATO, and it's in our interest to keep them as an important ally in NATO.
That doesn't mean that we don't have concerns, but we choose to express those concerns to Turkey. We choose to do it in a way that won't rupture alliance unity. For instance, on the escalation of hostilities in northwest Syria and what Turkey is calling "Operation Olive Branch”, we have had briefings at the NAC by Turkey about Operation Olive Branch, and Canada has been clear and Minister Freeland issued a statement about the fact that while we recognize Turkey's legitimate security concerns, we also urge restraint, call for every possible effort to be made to protect civilians as Turkey carries out what it's carrying out in northwest Syria, and urge them to continue to focus on defeating Daesh.
We managed to deliver those messages to Turkey, where we're concerned. You mentioned the S-400, the purchase of assets from Russia, as well, and that's something we also raised with Turkey.
We work with a close ally to deliver those messages, while maintaining alliance unity.
9:55 a.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
Thank you.
I want to follow up a bit more about China's near-Arctic policy and development of the polar Silk Road, and the impact that it could have not just on North Atlantic security, but Arctic security.
We have a particular capability in Canada, with Arctic expertise. Maybe it's a niche where Canada could be offering to do more training and interoperations with NATO members.
Have there been any thoughts of setting up a centre of excellence? I know right now the Canadian Armed Forces are getting ready for Operation Nunalivut, which is taking place in Resolute and in Cambridge Bay. Should we possibly be doing more training with NATO members and making use of our resources in the Arctic to get them better prepared to deal with potential Arctic threats from Russia and others?
9:55 a.m.
Kerry Buck
On Arctic training—or I'll call it “North Atlantic training”, because we really are focusing on the North Atlantic here—yes, we do have specific capabilities. So do Norway, for instance, and close NATO partners Finland and Sweden. We, NATO, have been ramping up our exercising and we've included North Atlantic partners as well.
As I said earlier, we're also focusing on more maritime, and so on, and more situational awareness around the North Atlantic.
Regarding China, there has been a lot of discussion at the North Atlantic Council about the security environment in Asia, and by “Asia” I mean all of Asia. We've had a lot of discussion, obviously, about North Korea.
When we talk about situational awareness and Russia, we will also inevitably talk about China and we have been doing more outreach to Asian partners to increase our situational awareness. However, the focus has not been on China in the Arctic, by any stretch. We've been focusing on [Inaudible--Editor], and more about China's role vis-à-vis North Korea.
9:55 a.m.
Liberal
9:55 a.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I'll direct my question to General Hainse, but if somebody else is more comfortable answering, I'm fine with that.
Canada withdrew in 2012 from the AWACS program. What was the reaction of our allies at the time?
9:55 a.m.
LGen Marquis Hainse
Canada withdrew from that program, if I can go back a little bit. At that particular juncture, we were one of the founding members of the AWACS community. We were the third largest contributor to AWACS, in terms of funds and personnel. In 2011 when we announced that we were going to withdraw, it was a big surprise to me. We need to understand and remember why we were at that particular juncture. That's why we took the time to explain to our allies. Their reaction was certainly one of surprise—
9:55 a.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
Sorry if I'm interrupting you, but I'm really limited in time.
What was our rationale for doing that?
9:55 a.m.
LGen Marquis Hainse
Our rationale was that at that point we were going through a strategic review, and we were looking at the least performing program. At that particular juncture, we thought that the NATO AWACS program was not doing enough out-of-area of operations that we had asked to receive some support for, and we didn't. Since then, though, NATO AWACS has to do out-of-area operations.
10 a.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
Sorry. The feed here is kind of breaking up a little bit.
Could you repeat the last sentence?
10 a.m.
LGen Marquis Hainse
At that particular juncture, NATO AWACS was not doing a lot in terms of out-of-area operations.
10 a.m.
Liberal
10 a.m.
LGen Marquis Hainse
A lot more now.
10 a.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
Just to confirm, there have been reports suggesting that the United States has asked NATO to contribute to the program in the war against the Islamic State. Is that correct?
10 a.m.
LGen Marquis Hainse
Yes, we do exactly that. We did provide AWACS with regard to supporting ISR in both Iraq and Syria and to Turkey, for that matter.
10 a.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
When that occurred, according to Commander Paddy Teakle, it put the program in a precarious position.
Would you agree with that?
