National Defence Committee on April 26th, 2018

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you for that.

We'll go to five-minute questions now.

MP Alleslev, the floor is yours.

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

Thank you very much for being here.

I would like to leverage some of the things you have already said. Probably the most significant one is around understanding where our contribution could be, not only on missions but in staff-type functions.

Could you expand a little bit on that—what areas, at what level? What would you recommend, and how do we advocate for it?

[Carolyn McAskie]

He's the expert.

[Prof. Walter Dorn]

What has changed in peacekeeping since traditional peacekeeping is the expansion of mandates, which means that you need all kinds of people who have skills in those areas. If you're dealing with nation-building or security sector reform, you not only need to reform the military and the police but to deal with the courts. You even need to deal with the intelligence agencies of the government.

That requires specialized capacity, and that's where our reservists can help, because from their regular jobs they may bring in skills. That's why we need to do specialized training for these kinds of activities, with the wide range of mandates the UN is giving.

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

Would those be in New York? I'm talking about the structural strategic level, not only the level of being deployed on specific missions.

[Prof. Walter Dorn]

We need to strengthen the United Nations in New York. It expanded fivefold from the heady days of the early 1990s with DPKO, now the Department of Field Support, but there is a need for much more support.

I view New York as being understaffed, under-resourced, underfinanced. I worked there for the last year, and there are so many initiatives that people would love to do, but they just don't have the resources and personnel to do them.

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

What's the barrier to Canada's contributing to those staff positions in New York?

[Prof. Walter Dorn]

The Canadian government has been taking so much time thinking about how it might contribute and not acting, not doing it. My view is that if you started acting in small steps, you'd be able to find new openings to do larger ones. We have to apply for some of the military posts in New York as well.

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

Okay. If I could take this into a slightly bigger philosophical question, we really have been talking about our role in the world and why the stability of the international interest is in our own self-interest. In that regard, are we measured somewhat by the relative contribution we make? Do we have a responsibility to play in the international domain relative to our weight or our desired perspective? How would you evaluate that, based on where we are today?

[Carolyn McAskie]

Well, you have to remember that I come from the generation of public servants who talked a lot about punching above your weight. I spent 40 years in development, peacekeeping, peacebuilding, the humanitarian side, international negotiations, the international development banks, the UN. Canada was a leader all the time.

That meant that we were able to shape the agenda. We shaped the agenda because we showed up and we took responsibility.

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

And today...?

[Carolyn McAskie]

Today I know of a highly competent Canadian who's had a full-time career in the UN, and during the time of the previous Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, he was told he was not going to get the SRSG job because Canada was not doing anything to support the effort.

We lost out on placing competent Canadians in the mission. They've stopped asking us to provide military leaders and political leaders, and we're not at the table. If we're not at the table, we cannot influence the negotiations.

I've sat through midnight at UN negotiations for longer than I care to remember.

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

Could you give me a feel for the gap? Do we go back to where we were, at 1995 levels? I too came from that era, and that's my perception of punching above our weight. It's more than we are doing today. How do we judge what the appropriate level is?

[Carolyn McAskie]

It's partly numerical, but it's also qualitative and quantitative. You have to be at the table, but if you're at the table at the UN Development Programme budget committee and you're the fifth-largest donor, it's different from being the 15th-largest donor.

Our contributions to development efforts have gone down and down, and we're just not seen as a player. Our diplomats on the ground still do a fabulous job, but they are constrained by the fact that they don't have the resources to back up their influence.

I do not know how we are going to win the vote for the Security Council in the next round. I just do not know. I don't know what the campaign is; I'm not part of it.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

MP Yurdiga is next.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

These are troubling times. Things have mutated over time. Peacekeeping is no longer peacekeeping. It's a hybrid between peacekeeping and counterterrorism. That's a challenge.

I think training should be focused on training. I'm really concerned about countries such as Ethiopia, India, and Pakistan. I'm not quite sure whether they're training in counterterrorism, as our Canadian soldiers are. They are very well trained, and everybody's proud of what we can do. We punch above our weight in every single situation.

Should we be focusing more on training other countries in dealing with counterterrorism and, in that respect, with the ethics of military operations? We have seen in peacekeeping missions in the past that many times troops drop weapons and leave.

[Prof. Walter Dorn]

I've visited the Indian and Pakistani units. I've worked with their officers and I think they're very fine. Ethiopia has some major experience in combat and in peacekeeping over the decades. In many ways, those countries have surpassed Canada in terms of knowledge about how peacekeeping works.

If people are going to be deployed on peace operations, I don't think we should be training them as counterterrorists. We made that mistake in Somalia. We deployed the Airborne Regiment. Our country suffered a terribly maligned reputation as a result of the misactions of some of those soldiers in the Airborne Regiment, and we disbanded that regiment.

If you try to conflate counterterrorism with peace operations, you will create situations in which the soldiers will not react properly, escalating rather than de-escalating the situation and making it worse.

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

Thank you.

The problem I have is that we have the French troops on the ground with the G5 Sahel performing counterterrorism activities. There's active engagement on the ground. Now we have the UN there. Are the roles different? What is the UN actually doing at this point, on the ground? Everybody understands that they are targeted by everyone on the opposite side. What is the UN's role currently?

[Prof. Walter Dorn]

The UN role is to support a peace process and to do a wide range of activities, from protection of civilians to human rights to child protection. Operation Barkhane, led by the French, is a counterterrorism mission, and so is the G5 Sahel. It's important to keep those missions separate, because otherwise the terrorist-armed groups may say that it's all one unit, and they will attack the soft underbelly: those who are providing humanitarian assistance, those who are working for the UN on development. They have to see that there are separate initiatives going on. There's overlap, but those missions have to be kept separate. It's definitely a separate role.

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

Is there communication between the UN and the French? Obviously there are two different roles, and we don't want to get in the way of their operation. Is there communication between the two, and are we assisting the French?

[Prof. Walter Dorn]

There is communication. The French also have soldiers in the MINUSMA mission, so they're quite aware of what's going on. There are times when MINUSMA personnel may need to be rescued by French forces. They share some resources together, and their communication is essential. It's just that the roles should be viewed differently, and they actually are quite different.

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

The Mali borders are very porous. How important is it to secure the borders? Is it even possible? We have actors outside Mali who are going in, performing operations, and then leaving. Is it even possible to secure the borders?

[Prof. Walter Dorn]

It's not possible to completely secure the borders, particularly in a country like Mali, with those wide-open desert areas, but you can do a better job. That's why I was in Mali in January, looking at how unmanned aerial vehicles can be used in that mission.

[Carolyn McAskie]

Just to add, there hasn't been any reference to the consequences of how we managed the Libya operation. By “we” I mean the broader international community.

The fact of the matter is that a certain amount of the Malian conflict has been fuelled by the massive influx of armaments that were suddenly available after the international community declared victory in Libya, complete with a flypast, and then refused to accept a UN proposal that Libya be the object of a comprehensive mission that might—although I don't know, because it's counterfactual—have prevented this immense exodus of arms that has fuelled the conflict in northern Mali.

Here's another reason that we have to step up to the bar. We have to look at what we're doing and not doing all around the world and connect the dots. We did half a job in Libya, and now we're reaping the consequences. I'm talking about the greater “we”. I'm not just talking about Canada, but we were a big part of the Libyan operation. Then that was it. It was all over: “Boy, that was a good job. Let's go home.” Now we're reaping the consequences.

There's tremendous interconnectedness. Mali is the result of underdevelopment, environmental degradation, and ethnic groups being manipulated by the terrorist groups. It's very complicated in that sense, but we can understand what's happening. We can also look back and say we didn't do enough in the past. It's time to step up now and fix it.