National Defence Committee on April 19th, 2018

[LGen Stephen Bowes]

I can start from the mission perspective, if you will. We're focusing on a task that's aeromedical in nature, sustainment. It's much easier, in a sense, to describe. We are making a commitment, through the deployment of an aviation task force, to do certain tasks. It's easy for us, relatively speaking, and I hesitate to use the term “easy”, but it's more understandable, that how we would describe the success of our contribution, at the tactical and operational levels, is that the capability the force commander relies on is in fact there.

When it comes to the political level within the UN, I'd have to defer to Mark.

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

Ultimately, the criteria you outlined at the beginning are around liberal democracies or a rules-based world order being burdened, and therefore, in a way, it is foreign policy by other means. How do we know we're achieving it?

[Mark Gwozdecky]

Well, maybe you weren't implying this, but Canada isn't intent on bringing our form of liberal democracy to Mali.

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

No, its stability....

[Mark Gwozdecky]

Our goal is to bring stability and to allow for the peace process to succeed.

The UN has its own system of measuring its progress. It focuses on how the political process is moving forward. Right now, I don't think we would say that the process is making major gains at the moment. There's a bit of a stall, I would say, in that process, but it still exists. There still is work under way. It has not fallen apart, so in that sense, we need to keep supporting it. Ultimately, success is going to be measured at the political level, not the military level. We'll be working with the United Nations to improve its ability to do that.

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

But that's also on our definition of success. What Canada has chosen is this mission at this time to achieve certain things for Canada, as well. How are we measuring that, politically?

[Mark Gwozdecky]

I think we and the United Nations share the same overarching objective. As I said, our strategy is based on the results of successive UN high-level reviews that have said measure, focus on the political, focus on supporting the political dialogue that will lead to sustainable peace.

We seek that and so does the United Nations. There is a consensus around that.

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

To that point, you were quite clear and I think it's important to highlight yet again on the mission being not only military. Could you give us an idea of the size, scope, and complexity of the civilian component, or the non-military helicopter operation?

[Mark Gwozdecky]

I won't speak about Canada's contribution there because as significant as what Canada is doing, we are, in the global scale, only one contributor and there are many other big donors at work. The European Union is probably the biggest, providing all kinds of comprehensive support from military right through to development assistance and everything in between. Through Operation Barkhane, for example, the French are providing really vital support in terms of dealing with the counterterrorism issue.

On the civilian support, if you define it as everything non-military—police, stabilization support, counterterrorism, capacity building, development assistance, humanitarian assistance—there's a whole bunch of categories of non-military that I think in scope dwarf the actual military.

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

Proportionally, would you say 80:20, 70:30? I'm not going to hold you to it, but what is the order of magnitude?

[Mark Gwozdecky]

I'd say significantly larger.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you.

We have about five minutes left before we have to do in camera committee business, and both MP Rioux and MP Romanado wanted questions, so if you could share that time, I would appreciate that.

MP Rioux, you're up first.

[Jean Rioux, Liberal, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you for being here.

Although I attended the peacekeeping meeting in Vancouver, I can tell you that the information you have provided is more interesting. I think this has helped everyone understand the situation better.

LGen Bowes, you talked about the fact that there was a history in Mali. Does defence go beyond Operation Frequence?

In addition, Mr. Senior, in terms of our commitment to helping the population, how many years has Canada been providing humanitarian aid to Mali?

[LGen Stephen Bowes]

Our mission in Operation Frequence is a strategic airlift mission in support of Operation Barkhane, so it supports the French forces. We provide a C-17 periodically through the year to airlift supplies in for movement of personnel and equipment for the French forces. That's what Operation Frequence is, into the Sahel.

[Jean Rioux, Liberal, Saint-Jean, QC]

Was it your first mission to help Mali in military operations?

[Jeff Senior]

With respect to the provision of humanitarian assistance, I would need to verify the complete number in terms of what Canada has provided. The general answer is that it's essentially since the crisis emerged in 2012-13 that the situation has become as complex as it is today with increased numbers of displaced persons and refugees within the region. It's since that period that the nature of Canadian assistance has changed and has included an increasingly important humanitarian component in response to that situation. It's in the order of $60 million, I believe, since 2012, over a five- or six-year period.

[Jean Rioux, Liberal, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you.

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

Thank you very much for being here. It's always a pleasure to see you again.

I'm going to premise my question with obviously having two sons serving in the Canadian Armed Forces. As Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence, I'm a little biased when it comes to our Canadian Armed Forces members.

One of my colleagues was talking about risk, especially with respect to the Mali mission, and I don't know about you but I've never known a Canadian Armed Forces member who would shy away from a mission. I know that Canadian Armed Forces members are incredibly well trained. In terms of other countries asking for more of Canada and why our Canadian troops are so popular, I think it's a testament to their resolve and the training that they receive. You mentioned our numbers may be small, but we're mighty, in my opinion.

That being said, given the change of peacekeeping missions, from peacekeeping to peace operations, can you talk to us a bit about the challenges in terms of recruitment and training of our Canadian Armed Forces to make sure that those brave men and women in uniform have that multi-dimensional training, because it's not just a question of boots on the ground. It's understanding cultural differences, conflict prevention, diplomatic solutions, and so on.

Can you explain a bit about how that's shifted the training of Canadian Armed Forces to understand the multi-dimensional aspects of missions today?

[LGen Stephen Bowes]

It's a long answer and we don't have the time for a long answer—the flag's already up—the point being that we're a complex organization when you consider the amount of the skills across the Canadian Forces, but we all come together as teams. We focus on individual training all the way through collective training.

There is a greater recognition going forward that it's not just about recruiting. It's about retention of our individuals over time, retaining the leadership from whom you've invested in experience, and then grooming the next generation for succession.

Intellects are the foremost capability we have: intellects being completely blind to race, creed, colour, gender, and sexual orientation. By focusing development on the brightest and best Canadians regardless of those categories, we'll enable ourselves to work in an environment that is best described by the term “ambiguous”. We have to deal with ambiguity on a day in, day out basis. It's a very complex world. The point about peacekeeping is that it used to be between states. Now it's within states, between all of those actors, and it's extremely complex.

[Mark Gwozdecky]

On that, I can assure you that our men and women deployed in Mali will benefit from augmented diplomatic support in the field, which is to say that they will have access to information that our diplomats will be gathering on the ground so that they better understand all the dynamics at play and all the actors at play, and so that when they intervene and when they're involved with the local population they do so from the standpoint of cultural understanding, cultural sensitivity, and awareness.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you for coming today. They say timing is everything. Although this motion has been sitting on our books for a while, we're just getting into now. I think the discussion is relevant, because we have a totally different approach and we now have a mission. That didn't occur a year and a half ago when we talked about doing this study, so I think the timing is going to work out great for this.

Thank you very much for coming, and thanks to all of you for your service to Canada. I'm going to suspend so we can let you leave.

[Proceedings continue in camera]