National Defence Committee on Feb. 27th, 2018

[William C. Graham]

—I come back to your parliamentary association. I think that's the perfect place. It is where members of Parliament from both countries can sit down, look one another in the eye, and say, “Look, we have real problems. I'm a Canadian politician. My people are saying to me, 'What is it you guys are doing over there? Why are you doing this?'” You can look them in the eye and have genuine conversations. That's where parliamentary diplomacy can be very valuable to a government that often can't say that directly. Ambassadors wouldn't say it directly, but parliamentarians could say it.

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

Could you respond, Admiral?

[VAdm (Ret'd) Robert Davidson]

I've always viewed NATO as a bit of a buffet. Some of us like the shrimp and some of us like the beef. Every member of the alliance looks for something a little different from that buffet. They're looking for different things. We're not all on the same page and we should recognize that.

It's a dangerous path to go on to start a conversation such that, “If you don't share our values, then maybe it's time that you don't belong in the alliance.” That's a very dangerous path, because at what level do countries start to worry that, when Russia or somebody else starts to do something, we couldn't all just decide, well, Estonia does not really share our values, so maybe they ought not to be part of the alliance? Once they're in, I think the decision not to be part of the alliance, if it ever comes to that, needs to be more of a self-determined decision or a self-selection, rather than the alliance pushing to try to unify our values across the board, because I think that almost becomes impossible.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

I'm going to yield the floor to Mr. Yurdiga.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I'd like to welcome our witnesses to our committee.

I'd like to continue on with the same line of thought here. NATO is only as strong as its weakest link. We have seen Turkey purchase the Russian S-400 missile defence system and there are rumours of potentially opting to buy the Russian Su-57 fighter jets over the F-35. To add to the quagmire, we heard about its offensive against Kurdish fighters in Syria, who are armed by the United States.

Are you concerned with NATO's cohesion? Is Turkey becoming more of a liability than a valued NATO member?

[VAdm (Ret'd) Robert Davidson]

There's always been a challenge. We went through years of challenge with the brewing conflict between Turkey and Greece. There have always been challenges within the alliance, so this isn't necessarily something new. There is enormous propensity for any nation that starts to go down a different path to disrupt NATO's ability to make decisions in certain areas because it's a consensus-built organization. You're absolutely right. It does present challenges, but I go back to the point that I made previously. You can't start to say that it's making the alliance weaker and ask what we are going to do about it. The alliance is better with it, even if it is creating some of those problems within the alliance. It's something that you just have to work through, in my view. It's a diplomatic challenge, but I don't know how you go down the path of saying that it is now a weakest link and, therefore, what...?

[William C. Graham]

I think, it was Talleyrand who said,

“Geography determines diplomacy.”

Geography determines diplomacy, and Turkey is in the place where it is. Turkey is adjacent to Iran. Is it any wonder that the Turks and the Iranians were doing business and doing things that the Americans didn't like? I mean, it's a next door neighbour and has very powerful relationships. It's also a neighbour to Syria and has deep problems dealing with the Kurdish issue, which has been going on in Turkey forever. I think it's worse than the Greek-Turkish Cyprus issue, which was bad enough and bedevilled relations for ages. I think it's fundamentally more serious, but I totally agree with the admiral that Turkey is in a key geographical position for NATO, that it's been a key ally for a long time, and that we should be able to work our way through those particular problems. I think the admiral's point is absolutely right. If somebody is going to go out of NATO, it's probably going to be because somebody chooses to leave rather than is pushed by the others. It wouldn't make sense to be pushed, but there might be conditions in Turkey where you might see that, and I would say, then, that it behooves us to work to try to keep Turkey in the family because of its importance.

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

The concern I have is that Turkey is becoming closer and closer to Russia—obviously, with its buying Russian equipment instead of NATO-approved equipment, I would assume. That presents a lot of challenges as far as—

[William C. Graham]

Interoperability.

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

Yes.

Does NATO need to reform? What can we do? I, obviously, understand that it's a difficult situation. Strategically, geographically, it's very important, but there is a point where it teeters to the other side. How would that be determined? Where can we go from there? Can we do more diplomatic things with Turkey to ensure that it is a valued member?

[VAdm (Ret'd) Robert Davidson]

First of all, I think we need to remember that only two years ago, Turkey shot down a Russian airplane. Turkey is pursuing its own path. That path will sometimes mean that Turkey builds relationships with its nearest neighbours, and sometimes that path will be more focused on the alliance and NATO. We should expect that.

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

I want to talk a little bit about PESCO. Why was PESCO created? Obviously, it seems like the mandate is the same: European defence. Why PESCO? Why was it created?

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

I'm going to have to hold it there. Someone else might pick up on that, but we're out of time.

I'm going to yield the floor to Ms. Romanado.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

It's a real pleasure to be here today and to hear the very interesting, contrasting testimony that we've heard.

Mr. Graham, you talked a bit about something that we haven't heard a lot about: the level of knowledge of most Canadians regarding defence. You gave us some information regarding the percentage of millennials and women who understand what NATO's mission is, and so forth.

Given the lack of, say, education and/or interest of the general population in terms of our defence and our commitments to our NORAD and NATO allies, how difficult is it for us, then, to make decisions as parliamentarians in terms of procurement? For instance, Vice Admiral Davidson talked a little bit about the fact that we are not spending as much as we should, that we are not putting in as much as we should be, and that we do not have the capabilities. How do you convince the Canadian population that this is something that we should be investing in when there is lack of knowledge and basic understanding of defence, and our number one priority is our sovereignty? What is the challenge? I mean, you've had this experience working in Parliament. Could you elaborate?

[William C. Graham]

It is a big challenge. To go back to what Admiral Davidson said, Canadians tend to be security takers rather than providers. That is, to some extent, a natural feature of the fact we live beside the largest single military power in the history of the world which has provided our security for us. I remember sitting in the room when George Bush was having a disagreement with prime minister Martin—actually it was over ballistic missile defence—and George said to Paul, “We provide your security. The least you could do is get on board with ballistic missile defence.” We know where that went.

The politics of these things are terrific. I don't see a Canadian public that would agree to 2%. We would have to double our defence budget. I'm a realist, but I totally agree with the admiral that if we're going to have a navy in the Arctic, we have to have double-hulled ships, we have to have the right equipment, icebreakers and things like that, that the Chinese have and we don't have.

Going back to your lack of knowledge, I think the defence review, to some extent, is trying to address it at the university level, but this is a social problem. We don't have reporters anymore who write intelligently about defence issues. We used to have several people in the Ottawa Citizen and in The Globe and Mail and in other major newspapers who were deployed abroad. They reported on missions and they had intelligent observations. None of those voices is available anymore, or very few of them, anyway. They tend to be specialized voices in the social media which have an axe to grind rather than, perhaps, an overall view.

I think to some extent it's the job of politicians. You have riding associations, town halls, and things like that. I used to do a town hall occasionally on defence issues. Actually it became better attended than you would have thought. When something like this Korea business...at the Korea conference yesterday at Trinity College, at the university, it was totally oversold. There were over 100 or so people, and there were extra people trying to come in because people were aware that there's a problem going on there.

I do think there is a role for public education. I think the traditional media that we counted on for doing that isn't there at the moment, so there's a lot of responsibility on behalf of elected politicians to try to help educate their constituents.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Do I have some time?

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

You have 40 seconds for a question and a response.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Vice Admiral, do you have a comment on that?

[VAdm (Ret'd) Robert Davidson]

I would agree that it's largely a political challenge. I'm not sure how you get the debate going. I'm not the expert in that area, but we're undoubtedly not doing it.

[William C. Graham]

You've done it at the Canadian.... The CIC that you have in Victoria has had several debates on it, but it tends to be amongst the cognoscenti. It's all the folks who are already in agreement who come. The admirals and retired diplomats come and they say this is a problem. Nobody else is listening.

[VAdm (Ret'd) Robert Davidson]

I spoke about the Navy for a period of time when I came back from doing the counter-piracy, counterterrorism mission in the Arabian Sea. Truthfully, you'd speak to an Ontario audience and they would often say, “What do we need a navy for? We have a bridge.” When you have so much focus on trade with the United States, it's very hard to get Canadians to understand. It's a big challenge.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you.

Mr. O'Toole.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Thank you, Chair. It's always good to join the committee, particularly with two distinguished guests.

Colonel Graham, I really appreciated all your work with the Governor General's Horse Guards. Chris Stewardson is a very close friend and he said what a great author you were—

[William C. Graham]

Thank you.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

—after having been minister.

Admiral Davidson, I sailed on your ship for a brief time as a TACCO on the air detachment, and I'm going to start my questions with you.

I remember your conducting replenishments at sea. As a member of NATO and as a proud naval country, the replenishment at sea capacity is critical to navy function. Would that be fair to say?