Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ladies and gentlemen, it's a real pleasure to be here this morning and have an opportunity to share some of my ideas on the subject of NATO and more broadly on national defence.
My ideas and my thoughts are largely formed from a period of five years in Brussels watching our diplomats in action, watching the reactions around the table as we spoke, so it probably won't surprise you as I speak that I may say a few things where I would disagree with my esteemed co-witness this morning on some areas.
I will speak in English to go a bit faster, but if you have questions in French, I am ready to answer them in that language.
I understand that your interest here is largely to get me to talk about NATO. I know we'll get into specifics of NATO in questions, but I'd like to start a little more broadly on Canada's role and some of what I would call our national mythology or national faith in what we think the world thinks of Canada.
We all know Canada is a G7 nation, and it's a relatively wealthy nation, a member of both NATO and NORAD, a nation that aspires to influence the direction of global affairs. One of my favourite expressions is that with wealth comes responsibility. Let me repeat that: with wealth comes responsibility. The world might expect that Canada would accept its responsibilities and be a significant contributor to global security. Frankly, we are not. We are largely a consumer of security rather than a provider. We do not do our fair share. We allow the United States and others to be our guarantors. Consequently, our voice, our influence, is much less than we think it is.
We consistently fail to achieve agreed NATO and G7 targets on either security investment or international aid. At NATO, we like to brag that a nation's outputs, such as its contributions and oversees missions, are more important than its inputs, such as its defence budget. We've heard comment about that already this morning. My view is that we do this as a means to defer criticism from our key allies over our meagre levels of defence investment. When we develop our defence plans, we future load defence spending in the out years so that we can brag now about planned investments that rarely materialize when the time comes to put our money where our mouth is.
One might argue that the times are tough, that we do what we can, that spending is needed in other Canadian priorities such as health and education. Indeed, that's all true. However, the world is not getting any safer. When our allies talk about the world needing more Canada, as President Obama did, I don't think they mean that the world needs more Canadian words, more expressions of our values, no matter how eloquently our leaders might put them. They really mean that the world needs more Canadian actions, more contributions to security and international development. We can produce the best-trained military personnel in the world, and frankly, we do produce the best with what we have. It's remarkable what the Canadian Armed Forces does produce. However, without the equipment, the investment, and the resolve to contribute those forces when needed, frankly, we're a hollow force that is unable to sustain a meaningful and persistent contribution.
When we fail to live up to our foreign investment targets, we miss the opportunity to build meaningful relationships and to address the poverty that is often at the centre of emerging insecurity. Our allies want more Canadian action, more investment, more money, and frankly, less self-righteous talk. When we talk without making commitments, honestly, I really don't think they're listening.
We do some things well. Our commitment in Afghanistan was well appreciated while it lasted, and it's been quickly forgotten.
We could talk about that. I have some slightly different views on that.
Our contribution in Latvia is a particularly welcome addition for our eastern European allies. It's not meant to be a self-sustaining fighting force, so it's not a deterrent in terms of its military might, by any stretch of the imagination. Rather, it's a demonstration of commitment and an assurance that we will come if called. That's really what it's for. You might call it a bit of an international speed bump: if the Russians were to roll over it, we would all come at the call, but it isn't going to slow them down very much.
If we all lived in eastern Europe—and it suffered most of the last 100 years under foreign occupation—we would all share their continuing concern about Russian adventurism. We too would want such a demonstration and such assurances on our soil, so it's a good thing, and it is a clear affirmation of the principles upon which the alliance rests.
However, the world has changed, or at least our perception of it should change. In the last 50 years, we in the west have deluded ourselves with a belief in the inevitability of the spread of western liberal democracy, western-style freedoms, and social justice. Surely everyone just wanted to be like us—that was the view.
Most pundits expected that the Arab Spring would bring such liberalization to the Middle East and North Africa, and it obviously hasn't, has it? Huge parts of this planet simply do not want what we have or what we believe in.
Human rights are no more universal than religious, conservative, or political beliefs. Even in the west, populism and a return to narrow values are putting democracy to the test. The last U.S. presidential election and Brexit are both fine examples where it seems democracy is no longer a fact-based exercise in political choice. Democracy itself is under siege.
For many people outside Canada, collective rights and security trump individual rights and freedoms. That's at the very centre of Russian thinking. That's why they don't think the same way we do. That's why they perceived the expansion of NATO closer and closer to their border as a security risk: it was bringing freedoms and open expression that would bring the instability that they saw, for example, in Chechnya. When free speech is viewed as destabilizing, how can freedom be preserved?
As a result, here we are in this challenging global dynamic. Vigilance and readiness have never been more important. State-on-state conflict has sadly re-emerged alongside terrorism as an existential threat. We could talk at length about the impacts on western security caused by recent Turkish actions, both domestically and in Syria, by China in the South China Sea, by North Korea with its ballistic missile capability, and by Russia in Crimea, the Ukraine, and let's not forget Georgia as well.
Yet, in the face of this crisis, the Canadian Armed Forces are slowly being disarmed. We don't even use the term Canadian Armed Forces all the time in our public speaking. Our naval capability has diminished. We have fewer ships, and certainly no area air defence capability any longer—something that was critical—and you know what the state of our tanker fleet is. The air force lacks the resources and fighter jets for a modern fight. The CF-18s need replacement with modern capability. We are lacking in areas like unmanned aerial vehicles, in surveillance assets, and in ballistic missile defence.
Let me also point out, this isn't just about defending Canada, although obviously it's well past time we started to do that. We've also made a commitment at NATO on deployable ballistic missile defence for NATO-deployed forces, and we have zero capability to do that.
We lack sufficient army personnel and equipment. Our capacity for urban warfare is limited. We have to rely on our allies for combat search and rescue, for attack helicopters, and for strategic lift, to name just a few.
We lack agility, flexibility and technology. We cannot operate meaningfully in the littoral, across the beach for example. I'm not talking here about an ability to do amphibious assault. I'm not suggesting that Canada should be able to do beach landings against other forces. Rather we don't have the simple ability to get resources across the shore in a humanitarian situation such as in our response to the earthquake in Haiti. I was the director of the Strategic Joint Staff during the response to Haiti. We had to get help from our American allies to get stuff across the beach. We did a lot of great things there but we lack key capabilities in that area.
If Canada were to chose to be a meaningful contributor to global disaster response, which I think is a great role for our nation, we need proper investment and we don't have the right investment in those areas. Our DART is very limited.
Our shortfalls in capability are simply across the board. Before anyone tries to lay the blame—I'm going to say this in this political environment—before anybody tries to lay the blame on any particular political party, let me say that the current and previous governments, and those that went before, all share the blame for letting domestic politics keep us from doing the right thing in foreign and defence policy.
Buying some more old fighter jets is another symptom of our inability as a nation to get our act together on foreign and defence policy in a comprehensive, multi-partisan way.
Finally, let me say this, our defence dialogue in this country is needlessly constrained by the tradition of keeping senior military leaders from speaking their mind publicly. Every serving general and admiral who has appeared before this committee and other committees around this Hill, with the possible exception of Rick Hillier, has been hamstrung by the government and the defence department of the day. You simply cannot expect to make well-considered policy choices in the absence of proper public discourse informed by frank military advice. I think Canadians deserve better.
I look forward to your questions. Thank you.