National Defence Committee on Feb. 15th, 2018

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

I'd like to go back to the perhaps more diplomatic avenue that Mr. Fadden was mentioning in terms of our diplomacy, particularly with the case of Turkey and its aggression outside of its borders right now.

I don't understand much of what's going on there. Maybe you could comment on it. You talked about article 5. If Turkey was feeling threatened, could they not have come to NATO and asked NATO to help them out? They seem to be saying that they're being threatened, yet they're bombing in Afrin, Syria, right now. Could they not have gone with a NATO unit in that direction or do they feel that NATO is feckless and therefore they're not even going to show up and ask? I don't know.

Do you get what I'm trying to ask?

[Robert McRae]

I do, yes. It's a good question.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

If they don't even approach NATO to say they're being attacked from that area.... If they see it as a waste of time, they're not going to show up.

[Robert McRae]

I think it's a good question. NATO has made it clear that any armed attack on the territory of any member state would be met with a collective response. The secretary general I'm sure is reiterating that, including in the case of Turkey and, conceivably, Syria, which might take a run at the Turks for whatever reason. It's unlikely, therefore, that the Syrians would do that. I think the deterrence is still there in terms of deterring any armed attack on the mainland of Turkey.

Attacks on deployed forces are different. If troops are deployed outside your territory and they come under attack, that's not an article 5 event. For instance, in Afghanistan, our troops were attacked; this was not an article 5 event. The Turks deploying forces are using aircraft outside of their territory and inside Syria. If they get into trouble, in a way they're kind of on their own—

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Even if they pull out, if they disengage—

[Robert McRae]

If Syria or Russia, highly unlikely.... But if another country in response attacks Turkey, that would be an article 5 event. The Turks have come to the NATO council in the past, because this has been a long-standing issue with Syria, and they have asked for consultation around this. As you might imagine, at the same time, allies are pretty cautious vis-à-vis the Turks in terms of entangling themselves in something that might lead to an article 5 event.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

I think I have a pretty good understanding of that.

I'll give the time back to Mr. Bezan.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

The time's up, actually, and I'm going to give the floor to MP Garrison.

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

Thanks very much, Mr. Chair.

Once again, I have to do the lament of so much expertise and so little time. I don't want to have a distinguished admiral sitting before us and not give him a chance to talk about the shipbuilding strategy. Sometimes there's a tendency for people to say that the shipbuilding strategy has nothing to do with NATO. Your very presence here and your experience I think contradict that. I would like you to tell us a little more about Canada's naval contributions to NATO and the importance of those.

[VAdm (Ret'd) Denis Rouleau]

Well, as we've seen in recent operations, let's say in the Libyan operations, we had a frigate that was deployed and operated there immediately, under General Bouchard's command in Naples. More from a Canadian perspective, Canada's forces and the navy, as one of the services, always has the principle of operating under what they call the Canadian task group concept, which means you send out a command ship with two or three escorts, and you have your own supply ship with you.

That was the intent when we went to war in the gulf. We had that, and I remember everybody was flying a Canadian flag, and we were all self-sustained in our operation down there.

As we speak, we have recently reacquired the possibility of doing that with the recent supply ship that came out of Lauzon in Quebec City doing trials on the east coast. If the admiral was asked and if NATO was to say it would like to have a Canadian task group to go and do whatever the mission was, he could right now put together a Canadian task group.

Although we no longer have command destroyers or air defence for the group, some of those frigates have been upgraded to be able to assume the role of command ships, so they could actually go down there. One of them would be the command ship; that new supply ship could join them, and other frigates could join them as well. They could even have a submarine join them, as the ideal task group includes a submarine as well. It could go and join all under a Canadian flag, as opposed to going and joining, let's say, a NATO group that is multinational. It's possible.

In fact, this new AOR was not even part of the shipbuilding program. If we all recall, it was not part of the initial plan. This is something that came up after the fact. In fact, from a naval perspective, I say thank God, because I don't think we're going to see the JSS out of the shipyard on the west coast for quite a few years yet.

Here we are. We have that capability back in our hands now. The frigates have undergone a good revamping program. They'll be good for quite a few years, but they'll need replacing. They'll need those CSCs to come behind, and we know that as soon as Irving finishes with the AOPS in Halifax, this is what they're going to undertake. That's going to take time as well.

The ball is rolling out, and we've passed all the deadlines we had planned back in 2010, so that's already eight years ago. We have a few AOPS that are coming off the line soon out of Irving, but that's about all we have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

You have a minute and a half.

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

It's not a lot of time, and I want to go back to Ambassador McRae.

First, I want to thank him for acknowledging, at least implicitly, that the missile defence argument has two sides. Sometimes we are presented with arguments that it doesn't have two sides. Again, as I've always said, we're having a debate about something no one's asking us to join, at an unknown cost, with unknown reliability.

In the international context, I want to ask you about the argument that it's always cheaper to build more offensive ballistic missiles than it is to build the defence system. Doesn't this really raise the danger of contributing to the nuclear arms race?

[Robert McRae]

In terms of missile defence, the defensive systems are oriented really towards one very specific threat, which is what we would have called a rogue state, with a limited number of missiles and weapons. In the current climate, that's a North Korea and potentially an Iran in the future, and possibly other countries.

The Russians have agreed to build a nuclear reactor in Egypt for some reason, so one has to wonder what the story will be there in the longer run. Other gulf states have been seeking nuclear energy capability for no particular reason as well.

What needs to be borne in mind with regard to missile defence is that we need this debate, and that's really the purpose of my comment. It's highly unlikely the U.S. would seek to put any kind of interceptor on Canadian territory—and probably no radar, or just one—so we're talking about a very limited request on the part of the U.S.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Given the time available, we have enough for two more questions of five minutes each.

Ms. Alleslev, and then Mr. Genuis.

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

Thank you very much.

I'd like to talk about our contribution around the senior leadership positions.

General Henault, General Bouchard, yourself, and many others have held senior leadership military officer positions in NATO programs. We've seen a decline in that. Could you give us a feel for why that senior leadership contribution matters as much as other contributions, and what we can do to change it?

[VAdm (Ret'd) Denis Rouleau]

When you have a Canadian general or admiral as the chair of the military committee, it brings a level of influence that you may not have otherwise. I'm not saying that you would do that, use it the wrong way. To have a Canadian in command of the operations in Libya, as General Bouchard was, also brought the Canadian flag higher. To maybe tone down what Mr. Fadden said, when it comes to...we know we're good. I didn't mention that from the perspective that we're good, that they're asking for a Canadian perspective, but that Canadians are there all the time. You do a mission in Libya, Canadians are there. The Balkans....

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

But have we had those senior leadership positions to the same extent recently?

[VAdm (Ret'd) Denis Rouleau]

No. As I said, I was the last Canadian to command the NATO fleet.

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

What year was that, just for the record?

[VAdm (Ret'd) Denis Rouleau]

It was 2006-07.

We have moved away. I mentioned the lack of command ships, and all that caused some of that to happen. Other nations building their own command ships that never used to be in the rotation for command also made that rotation a little longer. But we have been present in the gulf with task force 150, which is the counterterrorism operation. It's a shore position. It's no longer a command ship at sea with a multinational fleet, but there's presence there. But from a NATO perspective—

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

In your mind, have our recent contributions been of the same magnitude as perhaps they were in that earlier time frame?

[VAdm (Ret'd) Denis Rouleau]

No.

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

Thank you.

Mr. McRae, can we talk a little about the process of a country not being in NATO any longer? The reason I ask is that we're a democratic and political organization based on shared values as much as we are an alliance from a military perspective. If those shared values are undermined, considering when we're in a situation where we have changing states all over in world power shifts, do we need to have that conversation about whether a member should continue to be a member when the ideals are no longer shared?

[Robert McRae]

That's a very good question. We should be clear. As Mr. Fadden said, although we use Turkey as a hypothetical case with its involvement in Syria, the leaders of other member states of NATO seem to be closer to Mr. Putin than they are to the secretary general of NATO, so clearly there are issues. This is a new phenomenon.

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

It's very new.