National Defence Committee on April 24th, 2018

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

We're just going to switch, if you can start with—

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Well, then I'll start over here on this side.

MP Gallant, the floor is yours.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

We were told by the military commanders that the Canadians will be going into the encampment where the Germans currently are. It will be cordoned off, sort of like an airfield. There won't be the need for interoperability with the forces for Burkina Faso, Bangladesh, Chad, or the Chinese, who have reportedly dropped their guns and run.

How would you characterise the capabilities and the threat level of the terrorist groups who are taking the fight to the actual peacekeeping operations people in Mali?

[MGen (Ret'd) Lewis MacKenzie]

Briefly, when we established safe havens in Bosnia, I made the point that if you're going to establish a safe haven, you have to go out to at least long-range artillery range and sanitize that area. Otherwise, you're just sitting there waiting to be attacked.

On a lesser scale, the same thing will happen in Mali. Just because those weapons systems that can threaten from a distant location haven't shown up yet, these people have sponsors, whether it's Iran, China, Russia, or whoever in the world, and they will provide the weapons necessary to pin down the crusaders and to threaten them.

The best you can do is to defend your compound and patrol out from those locations. I trust that the Canadian Forces will have the capability to do that and sanitize the area out to artillery range—or mortar range in this case, which is fortunately a lot shorter.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Okay, and—

[MGen (Ret'd) Denis Thompson]

So, if I can just pile on, I've been to Gao, and it looks a lot like the Sinai. It's a desert location. I haven't been to this specific airfield, but I imagine that it's a wide open space. The general mentioned C-RAM, counter rocket, artillery, and mortar radar. That's important. It tells you when stuff is coming in, and sure, you might not be able to answer, but it does give you the time of flight to make yourself flat, and it avoids casualties.

There's a whole bunch of other protection measures you can take, including the installation of long-range IR cameras, etc., but somebody—

[A voice]

Drones.

[MGen (Ret'd) Denis Thompson]

Well, drones, of course, and they do have them. But somebody has to go out there and engage these guys if they decide to turn up and lob stuff your way. In terms of state sponsors, one of the mortar bombs that hit my camp in Egypt didn't explode, so we could see that the tail fins on it were triangular. That meant it was of Iranian manufacture. So we know these guys are being supported by outside agencies. The proof is in the pudding, so to speak.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Can you tell us how our air protection will be different from what the Germans have? What will we have as opposed to what the Germans currently have? Will that change? You mentioned they have the ability to sense mortar rounds coming in, but they don't have the ability to fire at them before they hit the encampment.

[MGen (Ret'd) Denis Thompson]

I have no idea. I don't know what the Germans have.

[MGen (Ret'd) Lewis MacKenzie]

What I would say is that I'm upset when I hear people talking about our gunships. I heard gunships mentioned. We have utility troop-carrying helicopters with a machine gun in the door. When it's fired, the bullets can hit the ground but they're not going to be precise, and that's no criticism at all. They were never designed to be escort helicopters for two Chinooks, as opposed to Apache helicopters that are available within the force at present, but I guess are leaving. Those are proper gunships. They can pinpoint a target on the ground.

So they won't have the same capability as they're replacing, in a breath.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Given that our soldiers will probably be targeted, just as current troops on the ground are being targeted, are you recommending or suggesting that we should have these counterterrorism groups surrounding or protecting our encampment when we're there?

[MGen (Ret'd) Lewis MacKenzie]

I trust the Canadian Forces will. I know they're working on it—that's for sure—but the information is coming out in dribs and drabs. I have confidence that they are aware of that and will do something about it.

[MGen (Ret'd) Denis Thompson]

Yes, I can't imagine that we would deploy a force without making sure that contingency is looked after.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

It's very difficult for this committee to have an idea of what's going on—what's being planned and what's actually currently going on—because we haven't had the courtesy of briefings as we had received, for example, for Afghanistan and other missions that were ongoing previously. We're just relying on what's in the news in dribs and drabs to understand what's going on with this mission and missions abroad.

In terms of the original concept of peacekeeping, do we have the consent of all parties in Mali, that you're aware of, to be there doing what we're doing?

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

I'm going to have to end that. Sorry, we're out of time for this particular question.

I'm going to give the floor to MP Gerretsen.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

General MacKenzie, picking up where we left off, you said that politicians lacked an understanding, or there was a lack of understanding amongst elected officials of what exactly our role in peacekeeping is.

Can you expand on that?

[MGen (Ret'd) Lewis MacKenzie]

Yes, and I'm going back a ways, but in the mid-90s, when the people delivering the prepared statements in Parliament in the evening session didn't know the difference between NATO and the UN, that wasn't very encouraging.

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

Do we have a better understanding now?

[MGen (Ret'd) Lewis MacKenzie]

I'm waiting to see. I can't pass judgment because I haven't seen any debates on the issue.

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

Going back to Mr. Mitchell's comment about the decrease in funding in 2012, which led to the closure of the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre, can you comment as to whether you think that had a little bit to do with our lack of understanding?

[MGen (Ret'd) Lewis MacKenzie]

I think it had to do with the Canadian military not being happy with the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre either. They felt that they could do the job of preparing their people better than the peacekeeping centre could, because the latter didn't look beyond the training of observers and leaders going into peacekeeping. It neglected to take account the civilian training that was going on, like the African female police officers who were being brought over, or a number of other civilian organizations. We ran some role-playing exercises at the War Museum which, from a military perspective.... Rest her soul, Flora MacDonald sitting beside me as the political representative—

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

The last great Progressive Conservative.

[MGen (Ret'd) Lewis MacKenzie]

Yes, and it was a very effective exercise, and it cost us.... I don't know what it cost us: 50,000 bucks or that type of thing. The money that we were spending was not a lot.

It was a shame. We had I think a pretty impressive board too. We had a lot of good people on the board who were making good recommendations.

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

Mr. Mitchell, did you want to follow up?