National Defence Committee on Feb. 6th, 2018

[LGen Marquis Hainse]

I'm not sure what you are referring to with that particular comment. I've never heard that it put the program in a precarious position. It just put the program where I think it should be. He has to understand what is happening within NATO territory, but we also need to understand what is happening at the periphery of NATO territory. This is certainly what did happen with regard to providing support in that context.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Yes. I was referencing a report that was in the Ottawa Citizen.

In any event, our role here is really to give recommendations to the government through our committee. What would your recommendation be from an operational perspective? I'm not trying to drag you into the politics of it, but from an operational perspective, can you comment on how important you think it is for Canada to be an active participant in AWACS, or not?

[LGen Marquis Hainse]

[Technical difficulty--Editor] I would provide you the context as far as I can, and I'm not going to take the role of the chief of defence staff, as you will understand. It is his role to provide that advice. For NATO, AWACS is clearly a very important program in providing ISR assets of what's happening in NATO territory and outside NATO territory.

The fact, clearly, right now, is that NATO is expecting all of the nations to provide at least operation and support, money, in terms of that program. We have yet to totally come to grips with this. As for Canada, it is my understanding that the government is at this point considering this. In terms of whether we should participate or not in terms of their contribution to NATO AWACS at this particular juncture, I'm sorry, but I'll refrain from offering my open hand. I would say that NATO AWACS is going to be a very important program at this particular time.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

I appreciate your candour and your honesty.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

That ends the formal questioning. We have a little less than 40 minutes to go. I'm going to divide the time equally amongst members with five-minute questions.

I'm going to turn the floor over to Mr. Yurdiga.

You have the floor.

[David Yurdiga, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

NATO and the United Nations share a commitment to maintaining international peace and security. Can you comment on the framework for a NATO-UN co-operation and the evolution of NATO-UN co-operation in the field?

[Kerry Buck]

As you said, there's a shared commitment to international peace and security, and the two organizations have been co-operating very closely in that area since the early 1990s, both in support of peace accord operations and crisis management operations. This kind of co-operation will play out in different ways. For instance, in some theatres, the UN will be more focused on post-conflict stabilization and coordination, and facilitation of some of the humanitarian and development assistance, while NATO, for instance, would be focusing more on either the harder edge security or defence capacity building.

Each organization has its area of expertise, and they share areas of expertise at times as well.

We realize that here and recognize it, so we've been enhancing the dialogue between NATO and the UN as well. We've formalized [Inaudible—Editor] arrangements. NATO has an office in New York, and the UN Secretary-General participates in the high-level segments at the General Assembly every year.

We had a meeting last week with the UNHCR special envoy on women and peace and sexual violence in conflict as well at the NAC last week for instance. That's one example.

[David Yurdiga, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Moving on to the relationship between NATO and NORAD, can you comment on that?

[Kerry Buck]

General Hainse may be better situated to give you more details on that. NORAD is focused on North American air defence and the supreme allied commander's area of responsibility is outside of the NORAD ambit. It's almost like a division of labour. For instance, ballistic missile defence, as we deal with it at NATO, is related to ballistic missile defence of European air space. That's NATO's ambit and SAC's ambit.

I'll leave it at that unless you have more detailed questions about NORAD.

[LGen Marquis Hainse]

This is exactly right. There's a seam between NORAD and NATO, and we do need to understand the seams and what we can and cannot do. In the future, this could be something that could be worked on a bit better. We talked about AWACS a few minutes ago. Maybe AWACS could work better from a Canadian perspective to work out the seams. We're not there yet, but this could certainly be an area that could be improved, and in terms of ballistic missile defence, clearly, there is no link at all between the two [Inaudible—Editor].

[David Yurdiga, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thank you. That's all I have for questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Mr. Spengemann, for five minutes.

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

Mr. Chair, thank you very much.

My question is for Ambassador Buck.

I'm going to begin with a rhetorical proposition. In addition to our collective capacity within NATO, the biggest deterrent to Vladimir Putin and others who seek to threaten us is our collective belief in and preference for the values of democracy.

I wanted to sound you out from the small “p” political track. In 2018, where are we across our allies with respect to the intensity of that belief and the values of democracy and our preference for it? Where is public appreciation of the value of NATO and the work of NATO?

We've got hashtags in social media including #WeAreNATO, but is there anything else that needs to happen to make sure that we raise NATO to the level of public prominence and appreciation that it needs to be in, in 2018?

If not, again, is there anything that we can do on the political track to support that?

[Kerry Buck]

Thanks very much for that.

NATO is primarily a political military alliance, and I will insist on the political part of that. Quite often, in the view of the public, it's seen as primarily a military alliance—yes—but it has a big political role.

The values of democracy are written into the Washington treaty, and to be frank, inside the alliance, adherence to those principles of democracy has waxed and waned over the years. It is what it is. We're an alliance of democracies, and at times, democratic choices and other political developments inside some of the alliance has not gone in the direction of full respect for democracy, and I'm talking about the past. There have been governments inside the alliance ruled by juntas, and so on.

That doesn't detract from the weight and the value of the alliance as a political alliance, an alliance of shared values. In a way, it becomes a space where we can keep people in the tent, keep allies in the tent, and try to reinforce and re-instill those values.

You asked about the public appreciation for NATO. NATO has done a lot to help publicize what NATO's mandate is inside the alliance, and NATO has a couple of public diplomacy campaigns running right now. We learned for instance that Canadians know of NATO and know that they support NATO, but they don't know enough about what NATO does. We're not in a bad space on that front, but the more public diplomacy by committee members, the better.

The NATO association is doing a great job of spreading good news. We're trying to focus on getting the message out to youth and out to a broader swath of the population across the alliance, not just youth but also women, to ensure that there's a greater understanding of NATO's political role as well.

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

Thank you for that answer.

I have a very brief follow-up, Mr. Chair, in the remaining minute.

Is there a NATO budget item that speaks to the promotion of the political component of the alliance and its promotion among the member states? Are there channels that we're not tapping into as well as we could, even as parliamentarians here at home, to share with our constituencies the work and the values of NATO?

[Kerry Buck]

The political role of NATO runs across the whole alliance, on the military side and the civilian side. For instance, the Supreme Allied Commander Europe has a diplomatic role, as does the commandant of the NATO Defence College, and so on. The political work is supported across the budget of NATO. There's also the public diplomacy section that engages directly in public diplomacy, and they have a budget line item inside NATO as well. Then there are partnership activities that are partially funded by allies and partially funded by the alliance. These help spread the news among NATO's 40-plus partner countries about what NATO does and also help build awareness and capacity.

I don't know if I've answered your question.

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

That's helpful, yes.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think that's my time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Benson.

[Sheri Benson, NDP, Saskatoon West, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

Hello everyone. I'm pleased to be here.

Ambassador Buck, in your view, are there any legal obstacles to Canada's signing on to the nuclear prohibition treaty?

[Kerry Buck]

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons goes much further than simply banning the possession of nuclear weapons on a nation's own soil. It prohibits a range of activities—the transfer, deployment, stationing, or stockpiling of nuclear weapons under any circumstances. Also, it broadly prohibits any party to the treaty from assisting, encouraging, or inducing another state to engage in prohibited activities.

This means that any state that chooses to ratify the ban treaty would immediately find itself unable to support, for instance, NATO's nuclear sharing arrangements, which are a critical element of NATO's nuclear deterrence that extends to all allies, including Canada.

For these reasons, the nuclear ban treaty is fundamentally incompatible with the collective defence commitments that Canada and its allies have made and regularly reaffirmed since the founding of NATO.

That being said, a pillar or cornerstone of NATO's nuclear policy is that nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation are a core element of NATO's and Canada's approach to nuclear deterrence as well. It's a core part of our policy, and it has been restated and reaffirmed, for instance, in the Warsaw summit communiqué and in the North Atlantic Council's statement on the nuclear ban treaty.

In that statement we reiterated—and I don't want to get too lawyerly here—article 6 of the NPT that talks about the step-by-step and a verifiable way of achieving nuclear disarmament. Canada is actually leading one of the most viable channels to move that step-by-step approach to disarmament forward, the fissile material cut-off treaty. That's outside of NATO, obviously, but we're still firmly committed to that part.

[Sheri Benson, NDP, Saskatoon West, SK]

Just to confirm, you're saying that there are legal obstacles to Canada being able to sign that treaty. I think in this committee we have heard from other experts that, in fact, that is not their interpretation. I just want to clarify that you're saying there are legal obstacles for Canada to be able to actually sign that treaty.

[Kerry Buck]

What I said is that the ratification and the signing of a nuclear ban treaty would run counter to our commitments inside NATO. I haven't worked as a lawyer for decades and it really wouldn't be a good idea for me, off the top of my head, to give a legal opinion.

[Sheri Benson, NDP, Saskatoon West, SK]

Just finally, I'm wondering if you might tell this committee the status of the NATO committee on proliferation. Specifically, is this committee active, and if so, what are the measures on the prevention of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction? Is it talking about who is chairing the committee? Just basically give an update for the parliamentary committee on that committee.

Thank you.

[Kerry Buck]

What I can tell you is that, at the North Atlantic Council, both at the ambassadorial level and at the ministerial level, we have had multiple meetings of the NPG, multiple discussions of nuclear non-proliferation, disarmament, and the nuclear deterrent.

The committee you referenced is active. It's a conversation that is very live at NATO right now.

[Sheri Benson, NDP, Saskatoon West, SK]

Okay.

I have 25 seconds.

Just a quick search of the NATO website shows that the committee on proliferation organized an annual NATO conference on arms control, disarmament, and non-proliferation as part of the outreach efforts. Can you provide the committee—you probably don't have enough time—with some more information on this conference, and are there some plans to hold one in 2018?

Thank you.