National Defence Committee on April 24th, 2018

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[MGen (Ret'd) Lewis MacKenzie]

I got that three IC on and said, “Hi. This is General MacKenzie.” He said, “Yes, and where are you?” I said, “I'm with UNPROFOR.” He said, “What country is that in”? I said it was the former Yugoslavia, and he asked where I was. I said, “I'm in Sarajevo.” He said, “What do you do?” That's when I hung up. I mean, that was the level of incompetence at UN in New York at the time.

It had no priority within the Security Council, the General Assembly, or whatever. That's what happened. We backed off. Afghanistan came along later, and now we're doing something that we know how to do, and we get proper leadership, even though with some of the caveat bullshit that showed up in NATO, it was very frustrating. It wasn't quite as homogenous as we thought it was going to be in Command and Control, but nevertheless, at least the troops, the equipment, the training, and the leaders were there to compensate.

It was the mid-nineties when we all backed off. Rwanda, Srebrenica, Somalia: that's what caused us to pull back. Was it worth dying for? That was the question. The mission no longer was worth dying for.

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

Mr. Mitchell, you talked a lot about leadership. The 2017 UN Peacekeeping Defence Ministerial meeting was held in Vancouver. Canada announced that it supported the principles of the Elsie initiative and led the other countries to accept them also, along with the principles pertaining to child soldiers. The first priority is training our troops well, and beyond that making sure we never have to face child soldiers again.

We also talked a lot about smart pledges, that is, joint commitments to offer our services to the UN. We did that indirectly during Operation Frequence, by helping France. During Operation Entebbe, we offered transport services. I can tell you that, according to UN officials, the reception at the summit in Vancouver was outstanding. Third, we have just offered two Chinooks and four Griffons for the UN mission in Mali.

You talked about leadership, using influence more, being there, and offering resources that other countries do not have. Is that the right path for Canada?

[BGen (Ret'd) Gregory Mitchell]

Without wanting to dabble in the political realm or the summit, other than when I look at it from a military perspective, the announcements were essentially for enablers, as was mentioned. Helicopters, communications, and intelligence are things that are enablers and that the UN is always begging to obtain from the developed world. I applaud those. They're very important. They're needed.

Do they provide leadership? I would suggest that the leadership comes from things like a concentration in and support for the child soldiers initiative and the money that was pledged to the Roméo Dallaire child soldiers initiative at Dalhousie. That's excellent. It's great work, and it should happen. It also came in the concentration on gender issues and so forth, which was again something that the Pearson Centre was doing. Those I would applaud.

Has it gained us a leadership position on the international stage? A little bit, yes, in good things. Are they “smart” contributions? Personally, I just think that's a PR term. They're all good contributions and welcome. I don't think it's big enough. I don't think it's broad enough. It's penny-packeted, if you understand my meaning.

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

What is missing ultimately?

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

I'm going to have to leave it there, Jean, unfortunately.

MP Gallant, the floor is yours.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and Generals MacKenzie and Thompson.

Militarily, do you see the Mali conflict in any way as a threat to Canada?

[MGen (Ret'd) Lewis MacKenzie]

No. It's not a threat to Canada. It's a continuing threat to international peace and order, because it involves very much not just the civil conflict that's going on, but the insurgency and the fundamentalism and the franchise of al Qaeda and ISIS, etc. It's like whack-a-mole. We're chasing them all around the world, and they just happen to be doing a pretty good job in Mali right now.

There's a contribution there, but as a threat to Canada, no.

[MGen (Ret'd) Denis Thompson]

As I think you know, my wife was the ambassador in Mali from 2005 to 2008—Madame Isabelle Roy. I know Mali very well. I've been there probably more than half a dozen times. I actually went from Timbuktu to Gao on the river. It took me three days. It was a lot of fun, but you can't do that today.

Is Mali a threat to Canada? Absolutely not. Is it in Canada's interests? It sure is. We have commercial mining interests there. If we were a colonial power, we would be really interested, but we're not of that mindset. We're concerned about al Qaeda in Maghreb. They hosted Bob Fowler there for the better part of 100 plus days.

We need to play a full part in the counterterrorism strategy that's ongoing in Mali, in my humble opinion. This committee knows that when I was the commander of Canada's special forces, we trained the 33ème Régiment des Commandos Parachutistes in Mali, before the coup. That regiment was disbanded and many of their members killed because they supported President Amadou Toumani Touré.

We have a lot of links to Mali. While my wife was the ambassador there, we were the third-largest donor to that country, and it was definitely en croissance. Any country that we can rebuild to that extent is worth investing in. That's why it's in Canada's interests. It's not a threat, but it's in our interests to participate.

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

Thank you.

I know that neither of you were in Rwanda, but you've compared the Mali mission to the United Nations mission in Central America, as well as the former Yugoslavia.

Could you compare what you would experience as a commander in Mali to the way it was in Rwanda?

[MGen (Ret'd) Denis Thompson]

The terrain is entirely different. The population density is entirely different. The whole physical geography is completely different, so the military problem set is different as well.

Plus, this was organized slaughter in Rwanda. You were talking about multiple insurgent groups working at counter-purposes to the United Nations there.

[MGen (Ret'd) Lewis MacKenzie]

The big difference is that the whole situation in and around Rwanda was just a modest border observation force. It was the surprise that caught the UN out, because all of a sudden the president's plane was shot down and all hell broke loose. That's when the genocide started. Before that, it was a very modest observation mission on the east boundary.

Having been surprised, the UN didn't want to augment the force. They did, modestly. Some idiot had put a previous colonial contingent, the Belgians, on the ground in an area where the Belgians weren't terribly popular as one side in the conflict. It was a ridiculous UN decision to put the Belgians there, and it put them in a very difficult position. Subsequently, after the slaughter, they went home.

It was the surprise of Rwanda, both on General Dallaire and on his force. That wasn't what they were supposed to be dealing with. They were supposed to have a simple border monitoring mission, much like a conventional peacekeeping mission. It didn't turn out that way.

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

In terms of the communication with command and the UN, was there the ease of flow that you're aware of, compared to your experience with Central America?

[MGen (Ret'd) Lewis MacKenzie]

Look, Roméo Dallaire is a friend, and we have a public debate about a few issues. The problem for General Dallaire, God bless him, was that he'd never worked with the UN before, and he kept asking for permission. You never ask permission from the UN. You do things, and then you say the next morning, oh, by the way, I did such and such. They'll say, “You shouldn't have done that!” Well, sorry, it's too late.

The UN was incompetent at that time in terms of giving General Dallaire what he needed by way of resources, intelligence, support, logistics, and all of that. They hung him out to dry.

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

General Thompson, you mentioned that we had Canadian soldiers—

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

It's five minutes right on the nose. We won't have time to even get a response, unfortunately. But we will have time at the end and if you'd like another question just let us know.

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

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, gentlemen, for being here. Your level of knowledge on this is astounding.

These will probably seem like fairly basic questions, but I'm interested in how peacekeeping has changed. We've all used the term “peacekeeping”, but we've all said that the term “peacekeeping” isn't accurate. We heard comments like “counter-insurgency” and “no peace to keep”. I guess my question would be, how has peacekeeping changed? Has change occurred only because of successes or failures, or is there an upsurge of better ideas on how we can move forward? Are we in a better position now than we were before? I asked last week if our new Canadian strategy adds to our credibility, and was told that it did. I'm curious about your response too, because of your very blunt responses, which I appreciate. Does it add to our credibility? Is it perhaps a response to some of the things that we've seen that have changed the face of what we may or may not call “peacekeeping” today?

I'll start with General Mitchell, but if any of you feels like you have any interest in chiming in, please feel free.

[BGen (Ret'd) Gregory Mitchell]

First and foremost, the thing that has changed is that we're not in the mid-nineties as far as the UN situation goes. The UN headquarters is far more advanced than it was back then. Even since I last worked for them, in 2006, when I was working to develop a new mission start-up guide, it has changed dramatically since then. It has gone from having three people in its peacekeeping department to having huge capabilities now. It's not perfect—it's far from perfect. It's still a very Byzantine system, and there are lots of areas to try to improve, but it is improving and it's trying. Let's keep in mind, please, that the UN is its member states. If we're not prepared to step up and provide leadership and help out, then why should anybody else? We're a member state.

The peacekeeping has changed because it's more complex, it's more dangerous, it's more of everything like that. It's not two people separated. It has changed. We've been very disappointed. We've stepped back a lot less in countries. It's now developing-nations-led as far as boots on the ground are concerned. I had an Indian general say to me, “Well, why should I want you guys from SHIRBRIG? I can put a division of Indian troops on the ground here tomorrow with the division headquarters, and so forth.” The UN doesn't want unilateral things; they want multinational things. Again, my suggestion about a multinational headquarters before is important.

The other thing to keep in mind is the when we talk about credibility, the boots on the ground are an important part of that credibility—the Indians and the Bangladeshi, and everybody else. I would suggest that if Canada also puts boots on the ground, along with the other things that we're talking about, we would step into that world leadership role again.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

General Thompson.

[MGen (Ret'd) Denis Thompson]

Very briefly, I think the big change has been a shift from a lot of chapter VI missions to chapter VII missions, and the inclusion in those mandates of such things as protection of civilians. When you give a UN force a “protection of civilians” mandate, you're taxing them quite considerably. I think that's where you need a lot of resources. To harp on what I said before, it's about quality and density from top to bottom.

[MGen (Ret'd) Lewis MacKenzie]

Lester Pearson didn't invent peacekeeping. There were tons of ideas floating around New York at the time about putting a neutral force in-between countries, armies, that are fighting. He richly deserved the peace prize because he stickhandled through the General Assembly—not the Security Council—the approval to deploy the force between countries, Egypt and Israel. It's no longer countries, fortunately, that are going at each other; it's these factions. From the point of view of our getting involved and taking a leadership role, let's just consider for a moment that in the days that we had a leadership role, in 1992, we were 1% of the world's population doing 10% of the world's peacekeeping.

We are now being asked to join forces of 12,000, 16,000, or over 100,000 deployed worldwide. The only time the UN, up until the end of the Cold War, really screwed up and didn't do conventional peacekeeping was when it went into the Congo in 1960, and 250 peacekeepers were killed. It's no longer conventional peacekeeping because, fortunately, countries aren't invading each other all that much these days and calling for the UN to come to give them a pause.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

That's your time. It goes fast.

MP Yurdiga.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the generals for coming here and providing your expertise. I really appreciate it.

I heard the term, the UN is “incompetent” or that there's “incompetency”. Has the UN changed over the years? Is it more competent to get the job done? Obviously there's some concern on the part of a lot of people that the UN is not up to its job.

[MGen (Ret'd) Lewis MacKenzie]

I'll just add a bit of humour to all of this very serious discussion. When I did say to the public that if you are a UN commander in the field and did it at CDAI, don't phone the UN after five or on the weekend, because there's no one to take your call then. When I got back to Canada, I was invited to New York. I was taken to a building on the far side, on the opposite side facing the UN building. We went up in an elevator to the third floor, and there was a door that had a cardboard sign on it. It said, “The General Lewis MacKenzie Memorial Situation Room. We work 24-7”. It was commanded by a Canadian diplomat who was running the show.

They do have an integrated headquarters, as General Mitchell has mentioned. The problem is that at one stage, for about two to three years, Canada and a number of highly trained, staff-trained officers were donated to the UN to set up and run the headquarters. A lot of third world nations, etc., who liked the $150 U.S. per diem in New York, protested because they were losing those positions. They were being asked to turn them over to mostly western-trained officers to run this headquarters, and the UN cancelled the whole thing after less than a year.

They still struggle with this unequal quality of trained personnel to set up and run missions overseas, to the point where the under-secretary general of peacekeeping at the UN, less than three years ago, said that the UN was not capable of running a mission overseas on the scale they have now. However, they haven't resolved the issue. They are still trying. Their hearts are in the right place, but it's pretty hard to do when you have battles going on in the middle of the Central African Republic, for example.

[MGen (Ret'd) Denis Thompson]

I'm no UN expert, but I will just quickly add that MFO civilian headquarters in Rome has 12 professionals in it. I knew them all by their first names. If I needed something, I just picked up the phone and called them. That's in stark contrast to what these two gentlemen had to deal with.