National Defence Committee on March 27th, 2018

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

Mr. Scheid, when it comes to the summit that's coming up in Brussels, do you have any information on the agenda? NATO has set equal emphasis on projecting stability at the summit, and things that have happened at the previous summits seem to have been emphasizing the projecting stability part, and a little less on the deterrence and defence part. Do you have any foreknowledge of the agenda and whether those things will be equally considered?

[Kevin J. Scheid]

You're trying to get me in trouble here, aren't you?

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

Yes.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Kevin J. Scheid]

I'm a NATO bureaucrat, so I have to be careful about my words—as opposed to citizens who have formerly served.

I don't have any particular insight into the NATO summit agenda. I know that, among other high-priority items, there will be a discussion of the NATO command structure adaptation and the way the command structure is changing and evolving. There's been a great deal of discussion about adapting the command structure to the threats that are perceived in the east and south.

They're talking about adding additional staff to the command structure, as well as some new capabilities, particularly in the cyber area. Cyberspace has been declared a domain of combat. There will be a discussion about a cyber operations centre being established at SHAPE to help coordinate what the member states do in terms of responding to any large cybersecurity attacks or threats.

[Gen (Ret'd) Raymond Henault]

I could add to that, if you'd like, only because I have the agenda in front of me.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Kevin J. Scheid]

You have the agenda. You can share it; I can't.

[Gen (Ret'd) Raymond Henault]

I have the major lines, anyway.

What Mr. Scheid has already passed you is quite accurate, by the way.

There are five key themes for this upcoming summit. One of them will be defence and deterrence, and enhancing that even beyond what it is now. We've discussed that a bit, so there's no surprise there.

The projection of stability is of course going to be the second theme, and a very important one, focused on terrorism particularly.

The third, which in my view is also a very important one, is the strengthening of co-operation with the European Union, with mobility and capacity-building for partners and things of that nature. I can tell you that during my term in NATO, our relationship with the European Union was a stressed one, only because we had the problems of Turkey's non-acceptance into the European Union and difficulties with Cyprus. Getting any decisions made was very difficult. To me, the strengthening of co-operation, especially in the cyber dimension and also in force projections, and the sharing of information will be absolutely crucial.

The last thing I'll say is that the command structure will again be renewed. I can tell you a little about that if we have some time later on.

Burden sharing will be the fifth theme that will be discussed at the summit. That's the one, of course, that Canada is very familiar with, in terms of the 2% requirement and also the 20% of defence spending, which by the way will be very much surpassed as a result of the new defence policy, once all the projects are undertaken.

It's a very positive outlook, from my perspective, for the summit.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you.

MP Gerretsen.

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

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to pick up on where you left off there. I noted that the NATO Communications and Information website says that some three-billion euros' worth of business opportunities are planned between November 2016 and 2019 in cyber, air, and missile defence, as well as advanced software. This fundamentally includes refreshing NATO'S ICT infrastructure, satellite communications, and so on.

Can you elaborate on the contributions made by Canada towards these three-billion euros' worth of business opportunities?

[Kevin J. Scheid]

Absolutely. This is over a period of time. I think it's five years that we're looking at. These are major investments in satellite communications, about one and a half billion of that, which is a large piece of that. We're making common-funded investments into missile defence, and there's a large investment in refreshing and expanding our missile defence—

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

My question was more about what opportunities Canada has.

[Kevin J. Scheid]

Well, Canada's contribution to NATO is 6.6%...a contribution of those common-funded programs, and the field is open for Canada to compete on these contracts. In fact, that's one of the reasons I've engaged with the industry today.

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

Do you know if any Canadian companies have been awarded contracts in these areas?

[Kevin J. Scheid]

The largest award was for Trident, as I mentioned. That's a sophisticated, software-intensive maritime command and control system. It's about $15 million Canadian, which is a substantial contract.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Henault, in your comments you said that you should note for us that the decision by Canada to lead a multinational battle group in Latvia served to re-establish some of the credibility lost by Canada in recent years. What credibility was lost, and how was that lost?

[Gen (Ret'd) Raymond Henault]

As I think everyone is aware, Canada withdrew from Afghanistan in particular. Although it wasn't the only nation to withdraw, it did withdraw most, if not all, of its forces ultimately. The withdrawal from the AWACS program, the withdrawal from air-ground surveillance at about the same time—

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

How did it affect our credibility? You said it was “lost”. I'm just curious.

[Gen (Ret'd) Raymond Henault]

It was diminished. Our influence, perhaps more correctly, was diminished as a result of it.

I was asked about it on more than one occasion when I visited NATO, and I used to be able to get to NATO about every six months or so. It was a question asked not only by NATO practitioners in the headquarters itself but also by some of the representatives of other nations: was Canada stepping back from its commitment to NATO as a founding member? There was obviously no impression that Canada was withdrawing from NATO, but it was certainly stepping back on what they viewed as its commitments and programs that it had been very forcefully responsible for, or at least supportive of, and so it made it more difficult.

Certainly, during my time there, when I was the chairman of the military committee, Canada was heavily involved in NATO. It was one of the prime contributors to Afghanistan. The air contributions, naval contributions, and land force contributions were of the highest order. The credibility and the influence that could be brought to bear by the Canadian military representative and by Canada in a number of fora, not least of all at the ministerial and head-of-state level, was significant.

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

Is it safe to say that in your position, withdrawing from AWACS, for example, was the wrong decision to make at the time?

[Gen (Ret'd) Raymond Henault]

That's a decision the Government of Canada makes for its own reasons. But from my perspective, from a contribution point of view, it was certainly a diminishing of our operational contribution to NATO that I certainly would have liked to see remain in place.

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

xxx More recently, Russia's reaction to the European missile defence shield, its annexation of Crimea, the destabilization of the Ukraine, and threats to the eastern flank have created some significant tensions for the alliance.

You also said that more recently, Russia’s reaction to the European missile defence shield, its annexation from Crimea, the resulting destabilization of Ukraine, and threats to NATO’s eastern flank have created significant tensions for the alliance. Can you briefly tell us what those tensions are and what Canada's role should be in relieving those tensions?

[Gen (Ret'd) Raymond Henault]

Canada is already doing a lot to help relieve that by the projection of forces. If we want to talk about projecting stability, Canada is doing that not only in the Baltics but also in Ukraine and through the training programs it contributes to in other areas, the air support that it provides through air policing, and so on. It's helping to reduce the overall tensions that a lot of this brings.

Certainly, the annexation of Crimea was something that no one would have expected, quite frankly, and it has created tensions in a way that is different from the way it would if it were creating tensions for a member of NATO. But we have to remember that Ukraine is a member of the membership action plan as declared at the Bucharest summit in 2008, as I recall. That was my last year. It was declared, by the way, that both Ukraine and Georgia would eventually become members of NATO. That hasn't happened, obviously, for a variety of reasons, changes in government and things of that nature. But the tensions are there, because it's already been very much involved in contributing to Afghanistan and all of the things that we've seen from a Ukrainian point of view, their desire to become a member of NATO and so on, so—

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

I'm going to have to just jump in there. I'm sorry, but I have only about a minute left.

Mr. Bouchard, you said in your opening comments that NATO is the “cornerstone” of Canadian defence policy. What do you mean by that?