National Defence Committee on April 26th, 2018

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

There are a couple of seconds left. Go ahead, please.

[Carolyn McAskie]

This will be another one of my blunt interventions, Mr. Fisher.

My understanding, from conversations I've had over the years with colleagues from the military and the Department of National Defence—and I'm going to really stick my neck out here—is that the Canadian military doesn't want to work with the UN. They preferred to work with NATO, but when they came out of Afghanistan, they found that NATO wasn't necessarily all it was cracked up to be—but then, what is?—and that their preferred partner is our friends to the south. Politically, that's not exactly good optics for Canada, especially these days, but the underlying message that I get is they're not interested. My sense is that the Minister of National Defence has had a difficult time with his generals dragging their feet.

You can quote me, but I can't quote you chapter and verse. It's just my gut feeling. That's what you asked for.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

I know I said four minutes each, but we have only about five minutes left, so I will yield the floor to Mr. Garrison.

If you would be so kind as to provide a little bit of time for your colleague, I would appreciate that.

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

We'll see.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

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

Again, this has been a very valuable panel for us. One of the things I did to prepare for it was to look at Professor Dorn's “Unprepared for Peace? The Decline of Canadian Peacekeeping Training (and What to Do About It)”. Can I ask for that report to be tabled with the committee so it can become a formal part of our deliberations?

I'm going to ask both of you this question.

In that report, you made the statement, “The loss of CAF experience in the field since 2005 carries a high price”. Then you went on to talk a little bit about that, Professor Dorn, in the sense of asking what it is that's in our national interest that we're not getting as a result of our failure to participate, since that's what we're talking about here.

[Prof. Walter Dorn]

The high price is that we are not as familiar with the United Nations as we could be, so when we go into those missions, we do not have all the knowledge we need to network effectively in that system. We have paid a high price because we're no longer providing the leadership at the military level. We had six force commanders in the 1990s and we've had none since, so we don't have the international visibility we had. We're paying a high price because we want to train others in peacekeeping, but we don't have the experience ourselves, so we cannot claim to be the experts in peacekeeping.

The Pearson Peacekeeping Centre was the founding Institution for the International Association of Peacekeeping Training Centres. We were the leaders in peacekeeping training for over a decade, and we've lost that, so that's part of the high price.

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

Ms. McAskie, would you comment?

[Carolyn McAskie]

I think on the more nebulous side, because influence is very hard to quantify, we have very much lost our place at the table. Officially the government will say that's not true, but the feedback I get from colleagues in the UN is that they are very disappointed. They did not know what had happened to Canada during the previous government and they had welcomed the current government as the one that was going to fix it. They're still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

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

Great. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you, MP Garrison.

The last question goes to MP Alleslev.

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

Thank you very much.

You mentioned a report or a spectrum that you have on peacekeeping. Could you provide that to us so that we could look at peace enforcement versus peace, just so we have that lexicon?

[Prof. Walter Dorn]

Sure.

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

Thank you very much.

Why does a seat on the UN Security Council matter to Canada? Why should we care whether we have one or not?

[Carolyn McAskie]

You'd have to ask previous governments.

We sat on the Security Council once every 10 years, once every decade, from the get-go, and then we lost out. The Security Council, for all its faults...and right now it has a major fault, in that there are major vetos. The veto is being used. They have been unable to reform the voting structure. The five permanent members are unlikely to give up the veto, despite the fact that very good proposals have been put forward for a change in the structure to enlarge it and to change the voting structure, etc. As long as the veto holders hang on to that, it's unlikely to change. Given the relations with Russia right now, the Security Council is much more stymied than it has been since the end of the Cold War.

That said, the Security Council is still the place where the big decisions are made for international peace and security.

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

Thank you.

[Carolyn McAskie]

If we're at the table, we can be part of that. Right now we're in the corridor.

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

Thank you very much.

Your bluntness allows us to make effective recommendations, because we can't if we don't have the facts, so thank you.

As my last question, what should we call this study?

[Prof. Walter Dorn]

I would recommend finding a name that captures your thesis—I tell this to students who are writing essays—and then subtitling it “Canada's role in international peace operations”.

[Carolyn McAskie]

Call it “Canada's back”.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

I like that one.

[Carolyn McAskie]

I'm assuming you've all had access to the Senate report. The Senate committee discussed the same thing 18 months ago.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

That was in 2016.

[Carolyn McAskie]

I told them pretty much what I told you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

It's an interesting time to revisit this situation, though, given that we have a new approach and we have a mission. It changes the conversation.

I want to thank both of you and Dr. Zahar. Your expert opinions matter. They're a very important part of this conversation.

Thank you very much for your time.

The meeting is adjourned.