Evidence of meeting #80 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 parliamentarians.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Secretary General, NATO Parliamentary Assembly
Gabor Iklódy was excellent. He's now with the EU, incidentally. I think he voiced a sense of it, something that is still voiced frequently. Discussions within NATO itself do tend to be focused, for all sorts of reasons, on the very specific security agenda. It's getting much better now, I think particularly because there's a realization that there's a need to co-operate with other organizations, particularly the EU. I think the discussions within NATO are more free ranging.
They're still nervous about the notion, you know, that if NATO is discussing something, then people don't think it's going to be academic. If it comes out, then there's always the danger that if NATO is discussing specifically North Korea, heck, what are they going to do?
That's tough. It gets better.
Within the context of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, you know parliamentarians. We have a meeting every year with the NAC. When it started to happen, you could see the culture shock, because frankly, we have to agree on a joint agenda. My focus on that is to just make sure that we don't lose any of the business because I know perfectly well that with any of the business, the members of Parliament will raise any issue that they think is important, whether it's trade, whether it's North Korea, whatever it is.
We have very free-ranging discussions, which I'm pleased to say the ambassadors respond to. They welcome the much more free wheeling and open debates that we hold in public, because frankly, the parliamentarians can say things that sometimes they would not; for example, when it comes to criticizing another ally, which does happen within our context sometimes and which you would not hear very much inside the NATO context.
Liberal
Sven Spengemann Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Just to bring it back to a more general proposition, is it fair to say that the unity of political vision and the intensity with which that vision is expressed in the political democracies that are part of the alliance is as effective a deterrent as the military capability of the alliance? Or is it an equally significant component of the deterrent value of NATO?
Secretary General, NATO Parliamentary Assembly
I think there was big concern about NATO enlargement. It was, of course, how much more difficult it would be to achieve consensus. Simply, the more people you add, the more difficult consensus is to achieve.
People on the inside tell me that has not been the case. They still find it is possible to achieve unity and come out with common positions that are meaningful. It's no worse than it ever was. I do think we ought to recognize that NATO is fundamentally a political and military alliance. Of course, you need both. There's no point in having an impotent discussion without sort of the force to back it up.
I passionately believe that the political side of NATO is vitally important and is something that we should take more advantage of.
Liberal
Sven Spengemann Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
That's very helpful. Thank you.
On the operational side with respect to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, are you connected to broader parliamentary discussions? I'm thinking in particular of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, which meets a couple of times a year. Last time actually it was in St. Petersburg with North Korea being present. Are there opportunities for the NATO Parliamentary Assembly perhaps within the Twelve Plus Group of the IPU to send its message and to network further?
Secretary General, NATO Parliamentary Assembly
Thank you very much.
We do co-operate as much as we possibly can with other inter-parliamentary organizations. We find that, simply because our agenda is so heavy, more of them come to us than we can possibly go to. We have regular participation from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean, and the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. Actually, that's very extensive. Increasingly we're doing stuff with the Arab Parliament, which is the parliamentary dimension of the Arab League. We're looking also at trying with the Gulf Cooperation Council.
We haven't really done very much with the IPU, generally speaking, because it's just so big and so broad that, again, it's just which ones we can prioritize. So we're focusing on the others, which are rather more directly related to what we do.
Liberal
Sven Spengemann Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
In my remaining time, Mr. Chair, I would like to take Mr. Hobbs to the paradigm of information technology.
Yesterday we had SpaceX successfully launch the Falcon Heavy rocket. That's one symptom of the privatization of space, if you will—or at least orbits around the planet with respect to satellite launches, data collection, data sharing, communication issues.
How does NATO intersect with these developments? What challenges are posed by the privatization of space, if we can call it that? How would the alliance respond?
Secretary General, NATO Parliamentary Assembly
Actually, one of our committees, the economic and security committee, is going to be looking at that this year. One of its focuses is the future of the space industry.
I used to be the director of the Assembly science and technology committee, and it's an issue that keeps coming back. I hope it's going to lead to a massive decrease in the barriers of the exploitation of space, particularly for civilian purposes, but also military. It does change the paradigm and I don't know by how much, but we're looking at a decrease by a factor of 10, possibly, in heavy launch costs. I don't know where that will lead, but I view it with massive enthusiasm, frankly.
Liberal
Sven Spengemann Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
But it's fair to say that the alliance has to stay very nimble in terms of forging partnerships with the private sector, and potentially even addressing unknown unknowns.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Stephen Fuhr
You have 30 seconds.... I'm going to have to end that part of the conversation.
We're going to go to five-minute questions, and I'm going to give the floor over to Mr. Fisher.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Welcome, gentlemen, and thank you very much for being here.
Mr. Hobbs, when the United States requested greater burden-sharing among its members, and actually calling out some by name, what type of impact, if any, did that have on diplomatic relations between NATO members? What is the general feeling within the Assembly on that?
Secretary General, NATO Parliamentary Assembly
The issue of burden-sharing is as old as the alliance itself, and it's been raised repeatedly, obviously by American administrations. There was a particular speech by Secretary Gates, in Brussels, just before he left, under the Obama administration.
It's one of those situations that is getting worse and worse and worse. And it's incredibly difficult to work out whether you should look at equality of sacrifice, equality of commitment, and how you should do it. But the simple fact is that the inequality in sharing of the burden is becoming unsustainable.
Within our organization, we have found that at every one of the meetings we have held on Capitol Hill—and one of our previous presidents made specific efforts to reach out to Capitol Hill—with possibly 50 congressmen and women, the issue of burden sharing was raised. They were saying, “It doesn't matter how much we love NATO, it doesn't matter what we think about it, but my constituents are now understanding that we're paying more than our share of the bill.”
The Wales commitment precedes the Trump administration. The collective view within the NATO Parliamentary Assembly has been very supportive of meeting the Wales commitment, which of course is not just 2% of spending, but 20% on defence investment.
And yes, frankly, you do see people looking for creative excuses and putting other stuff in and talking about whether that's the best measure. It might not be the best measure, but at least it is a measure. Frankly, I think it is one where there has to be movement and the NATO Parliamentary Assembly has been very supportive of achieving that commitment. It's vital, in my opinion.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Okay, so would you say you've come to some conclusions? Is it reasonable for countries to remain NATO members if they're not pulling their weight and paying their fair share? Have there been conclusions at your assembly level? You've been there for 10 years.
Secretary General, NATO Parliamentary Assembly
I don't think the alliance works with sticks as well as it does with carrots, and I don't think anyone would go as far as talking about expulsion or anything like that.
In fact, the Wales commitment was made by all the alliance nations. It's not been imposed by anybody. They all said, “This is what we're going to do”, and if one or more alliance members are now saying, “All we're asking is for you to do this”, there is massive moral pressure to do it. I don't believe for one moment that anybody would say, “You can't play if you don't contribute”. But, yes, it will be increasingly embarrassing for those nations that are not moving in the right direction and don't have a demonstrable plan for getting there. That's the way the alliance will work. It won't work in terms of imposing sanctions or this sort of stuff.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Thank you, Mr. Hobbs. I assume I have only a short—
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Okay.
Senator Day, there was talk earlier with the other two witnesses about the relationship between NATO and China. Through your work with the Canada-China Legislative Association and the Canada-NATO Parliamentary Association, I know you have some expertise in this area. I thought you might want to chime in on this because you didn't get an opportunity when it was brought up earlier.
Senator, New Brunswick, Lib.
Certain groups within the NATO Parliamentary Assembly have had an opportunity to visit China. China is moving ahead very rapidly with respect to rearmament and improved armament in a lot of different areas. How much they want to show others is always a question, but we know there's a lot of activity going on. All you have to do is watch some of the parades they have periodically to see the equipment. I think, again, it's better to have the dialogue than not have dialogue. The more we can be meeting and talking to countries like China, the better it is for all of us, I think.