National Defence Committee on Feb. 15th, 2018

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

You mentioned that you think Putin will be there for a long time. I'll just point out that the average lifespan of a male in Russia is 64. He is 66, so one can only hope. As everyone knows, I'm not a big fan of Putin. He banned me from Russia. How could I like the guy?

Admiral Rouleau, you talked about Canadians in command at NATO. I'm assuming that we still have great military leaders and that the opportunity still exists for generals and admirals to move up into command positions at the NATO level for different operations. From the maritime command standpoint, you also talked about our having the platform. I'm sure you're referring to our destroyers.

Will the new ships coming forward—we're talking about frigate-sized surface commands like heavy armoured frigates—have that command capability such that we can still go in and lead a battle group, whether it's with respect to piracy or Baltic policing on the sea?

[VAdm (Ret'd) Denis Rouleau]

Yes. The replacement of our current 12 frigates is a program under the national shipbuilding program. Some of those will have command capabilities on board, and by that I mean the extra communication equipment they need to carry and the extra space to carry staff on board. When you assume command, if you take the principle of the Canadian navy to go as a Canadian task group, it means, if you go on your own, you're self-sustaining, and you have your own tanker that brings you fuel, ammunition, and food with you, so you don't need to call somebody else to come and help you out. That is still the concept that the navy wants to move forward with.

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

They'll have that air destroyer capability that will still be required, versus the submarine capability.

[VAdm (Ret'd) Denis Rouleau]

Some of them will, yes.

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

Anti-submarine warfare....

Will they be big enough? I know we talked about BMD, and one of the things that is critical from an air defence standpoint is.... You look at the Americans and some of the other allies running Aegis systems. Are these hulls going to be big enough to carry an Aegis platform?

[VAdm (Ret'd) Denis Rouleau]

They will carry the necessary radar equipment to do that kind of job.

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

Mr. Fadden, in your opening comments you talked about Turkey, saying that we should have been intervening 10 years ago. Its recent behaviour is disturbing, to say the least, whether it is about conforming to NATO principles of democracy, the rule of law, or human rights.

What do we do now? When Ambassador Buck was here, she was very diplomatic and careful in her wording, but I'd be interested in hearing your comments, Mr. McRae and Mr. Fadden, on what we do about Turkey today.

[Richard Fadden]

Well, I think, Mr. Chairman, that's a very good question, but to some considerable degree, as the question implies, the barn door has been opened. Having said that, I think we engage them, and we engage them rather more than we have been over the last several years.

There has developed in Turkey now a political dynamic that I don't think we or NATO are going to change a great deal, but we have to recognize more directly that Turkey is a quite significant regional power, which we have not done systematically over the years. I don't know what they've said at the NATO council, but I do know enough about what went on between ministers and prime ministers that this was definitely not the mindset. We're not going to get it to change anything it's doing if we don't treat it like a significant power, but I would say that both NATO generally and we specifically should simply engage, engage, engage. If we're not happy with what it's doing, we should say so, mostly in private, but we must not allow it, however we do this, to develop a closer relationship with Russia. I don't think it's going to.

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

Well, they have a pretty close relationship now and Turkey's air defence system is a Russian system.

[Richard Fadden]

Well, they do, but I think they're doing it mostly to irritate people right now and to make a point with the Kurds and Syria, but if you look at Russia as it is as a country, and Turkey as it is, there are not a lot of similarities, and I don't think there's much convergence of their strategic interests. It's more short term.

My answer would be to just engage, engage, engage.

Ambassador McRae may have a different view.

[Robert McRae]

In fact, I don't have a different view.

I notice that General Mattis met with his Turkish counterpart on the margins of the meeting today in Brussels, and it was very much.... The U.S. approach is frankly exactly what Dick described, which is hold them as close as you can, say the hard things that need to be said in private, and be careful of public posturing because it's probably going to be counterproductive.

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

Thank you.

I'm going to give my last question to Mr. Viersen.

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

That was precisely my question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Actually, I'm going to have to stop you. He's over time already, but there will be more time. I promise you that.

Mark Gerretsen, the floor is yours.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question is for Mr. Fadden. I'm coming back to the discussion about Canada's membership in NATO and how to strengthen Canada's national security. We're making recommendations here back to the government, and I'm wondering if you can give us a recommendation on how you would see Canada strengthening that role, in helping to evolve global security through NATO.

What can we do specifically in terms of the Government of Canada?

[Richard Fadden]

There's an expression in French:

“Charity begins at home.”

In other words, you start by worrying about your own backyard.

I think the Arctic is an area of considerable concern. The Russians have spent hundreds of millions of rubles reinvigorating Cold War bases, and I think it would be to the general advantage of the alliance, not only Canada, if we got the alliance to focus a little more on northern defences. That would be a contribution to world security, I think, because it's an area where there is going to be a great deal of development over the course of the coming decades because of the northern route opening up.

Canada's contribution could be, diplomatically, to convince NATO to spend more time worrying about Canada's north as opposed to Norway's north. There's nothing wrong with worrying about Norway's north.

That would be one concrete example. I think that alone would help stabilize that part of the world. I would just mention in passing that China has just declared itself a near Arctic power. I have trouble with the concept, but it does mean that we should be prepared, along with our NATO—

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

There's a lot of interest.

[Richard Fadden]

Yes, exactly. There should be a NATO interest in what they are up to in the Arctic.

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

Are you willing to offer any insight as to what you think specifically we should be doing in the Arctic?

[Richard Fadden]

I think we should increase our intelligence capabilities, which have been allowed to weaken a little bit over time. I think we should have far more exercises in the north.

In the past, and Denis can correct me, but generally speaking, when NATO does exercises it involves the U.S. and Canada hauling themselves over to Europe. I think we need to have far more NATO exercises in northern Canada. We used to have more than we do now. I think it would send a powerful message if we started doing that again.

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

Mr. McRae.

[Robert McRae]

I agree completely with that. Norway regularly seeks NATO exercises in and around its waters. You have to know that it's a long-standing Canadian policy not to have exercises anywhere near Canada's waters or territory, so it would require a policy shift on the part of the government of the day to invite NATO into our own backyard.

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

Do you see us doing that?

[Robert McRae]

We have refused even to refer to the Arctic or the north as a NATO area of preoccupation.

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

Basically we're inviting NATO to come and participate in exercises in Canada. I think the vast majority of Canadians accept the fact that we're in NATO, but they probably really don't know what it's all about. How do you think the public would perceive that?

If you don't feel that your qualified to answer that question....