National Defence Committee on May 1st, 2018

[Peggy Mason]

Thank you. I just have to come back on the point. I agree and I'm very glad about the comment about the UN having lessons learned and having the capstone doctrine. We were reminded of that. I was just talking about a very narrow lacuna in the protection of civilians, the lack of doctrine there. But I have to respond with respect to the Canadian Forces College. It's military-led. The entire thrust of a multi-dimensional UN peacekeeping operation is that it's civilian-led.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you for that.

That ends the first two rounds of formal questioning. Given the time left and the people who have indicated to me that they would like a question.... I have MPs Spengemann, Bezan, Alleslev, Garrison, and Robillard. If we do four minutes each, that will take us to the end of the questioning. I'd like to start with MP Spengemann.

The floor is yours for four minutes, please.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Mr. Chair, thank you very much.

I have two questions for Madam Dugal, and if I am under, I'd be happy to delegate the remainder of my time to my Liberal colleagues.

My first question is, could we ask you to give the committee a sense of the structural importance? I think you alluded to it in your previous questions or answers. What is the structural importance of the civilian components of peacekeeping operations, the civilian personnel? This is for the committee to grasp the importance of that part of the operation.

[Zoé Dugal]

As I think Ambassador Mason said, UN peace operations are led by civilians. The head of any peace operation in the UN system is the SRSG. This is a civilian who reports directly to the Security Council of the UN and who reports to the Secretary-General. Even in traditional peacekeeping, the head of the mission is still a civilian. Everything we've talked about during this session with regard to prevention, diplomacy, state-building, reforms, and so on is all led by civilians.

The military component, as I think the general has also alluded, is coming to reinforce what the civilians are trying to do. So in terms of stopping the fighting, yes, but then you need a peace accord and you need to move forward with rebuilding the society. This can only be done by civilians.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you very much for that.

The second question is a very short one, but the answer probably requires a very complex thought process. It's the question of exit criteria for military operations. When and how do we devolve into a nascent peace consolidation, peace-building process, questions of governance. Often they are run in parallel. They are sort of overlapping, sequencing, and then we see the political reflex to withdraw troops because of domestic political factors—the money being spent, the lives being lost, and the public saying enough, we need to pull out—but it may not all be congruent with the trajectory of that particular country at that time.

[Zoé Dugal]

The HIPPO report I presented addresses the fact that peace operations are a long-term commitment. It's not cheap, and you cannot go for six months and then leave.

The UN has developed doctrine on how to reduce military involvement in peace operations as the peace process and the rebuilding of the state are progressing. It doesn't mean you go for a year and then withdraw all military components. You can reduce them, and you can give them different tasks.

As the situation is evolving and hopefully progressing, you reduce the military component, the police component, and actually the civilian component as well. The UN reduces all these components when it sees progress. Then after a while you give them different tasks. Instead of monitoring a ceasefire, for example, they might help secure the borders. This is the evolution. Sometimes you have progress, and then you have regress. In that case, you might have to bring back more military.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Before we delegate Mr. Spengemann's remaining time, Ms. Novosseloff wanted to weigh in. I would appreciate 60 seconds or less, please.

[Dr. Alexandra Novosseloff]

In this debate I haven't heard the word “governance”, which is key to the stabilization of the crisis and the conflicts we have. If the Malian government is a party to the conflict, which is the case, you also have to talk to the Malian government in terms of governance, because what triggered the conflict in the first place is the lack of respect for minority rights in the north, in the Azawad. The origin of the conflict is in the fact that you have a very centralized state that does not respect local grievances.

This is the key to the exit, but we have to put more pressure in terms of governance, because if you're involved in the trafficking that is fuelling the conflict, then you have to stop that. This is key to stabilizing conflict.

Of course, it's always up to the parties to the conflict to reach a solution. There is still a mission in Cyprus because the parties to the conflict haven't found a way to reach a solution despite numerous peace processes. It's not the fault of the UN. It's the fault of the parties to the conflict.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

MP Bezan.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Thank you, Chair.

I just want to say that everyone around the table here believes that capacity building and the whole-of-government approach are the right way to go. Some of the concerns revolve around how the military operation is taking place. I take General Fraser's comments to heart that we have the best of the best and we know how to get the job done.

In the Mali mission in particular, we have a UN mission, we have the G5 Sahel anti-terrorism operations—which Canada may be supporting in terms of medevac and the logistical movement of troops—and then we have the French. There are three different groups working there, all somewhat connected but with different missions.

In terms of lessons learned, should we be looking more at the success of Bosnia? I know it was backwards, but should we consider a NATO-led or other group leading the anti-terrorism operations, and then stabilize the region so peace can be made?

[MGen (Ret'd) David Fraser]

I agree. What's missing from Mali is a governance structure that actually pulls all those pieces together.

We had a similar structure in Afghanistan, and you could argue about it, but it was State Department-led. The United States military ran most of it, but there was a counter-drug operation within that. We still had huge problems on the ground trying to rectify it when, in fact, UN people could be going out doing something, and you had a counterterrorist operation going on at the same time.

First of all, I'm worried about fratricide, then I'm worried about unintended consequences. This is the weakness of the Mali construct right now. You have at least three separate operations going on without anyone coordinating at the top. This may be something Canada can contribute to a dialogue, asking what we could do to bring this so-called coherence to the overall mission for better effects on the ground.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Thanks.

General Fraser, you mentioned in one of your comments about the failure states we have today—Afghanistan, Iraq, and others—and it being the international players that created the environment. I can probably throw Rwanda and Somalia in there, and Sudan. Don't we lay blame also on the terrorists, on the Taliban, on ISIS? For the creation of the environment in Afghanistan, you can probably go back to the Soviets, and even before that the British, if you want to go back historically. Unfortunately, we get to a point where we have all these bad guys, whether they're terrorists or insurgents or otherwise. We have to deal with them.

[MGen (Ret'd) David Fraser]

This actually goes into your realm. You're the politicians. I would say that Osama bin Laden was a bona fide threat that attacked us on 9/11. We went into Afghanistan to go after that threat that attacked us on our home territory and killed Canadians. At some stage somebody made a decision to get rid of the Taliban regime, and Colin Powell said, “you break it, you own it”. Saddam Hussein, we supported that guy for how many years when he was fighting against Iran? Moammar Gadhafi, we supported him for how many years until we got rid of him? These are political decisions and not for a military guy to talk to you about. When you break it, you're in it for the haul. For the men and women on the ground—civilian, military, everyone else—it's really complicated, and there's no solution that's going to happen in two or three years.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Ms. Alleslev.

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

I'd like to go back a bit to maybe understand why Canada took so long to decide on this mission, and if, in your opinion, we have a whole-of-government approach currently that includes all of our civilians who are doing things that may not have a military component to them, from how we decide on where to go, from what's in our budget in terms of aid or whatever, in terms of prevention. Do we currently have a whole-of-government approach, from decision-making to in-country, to prevention, to an operation? If not, what should it look like?

Zoé.

[Zoé Dugal]

Again, it's a tall question. I'm not going to speak on the military side. I think the general can address that if he has some points to make.

No, I don't think we have a whole-of-government approach. I don't think Canada has a coherent policy on where to send civilians. The civilians who are serving with the UN at the moment are mostly in their own capacity. We do have a small contribution to the OSCE peacekeeping mission in Ukraine. Canada is managing this for Global Affairs Canada, so the funding and the decision came from Global Affairs.

In terms of other missions, it's not there. To echo what Ambassador Mason was saying, training is hugely important. There are also other aspects. Normally when you deploy civilians, the military, and police, you deploy them, you train them, you prepare them, you send them, and then you bring them back. You reintegrate them, you retrain them, and then you send them again. This is the continuum that the UN has been putting forward. The in-mission support is also touching on something that we didn't discuss today, which is called duty of care. This is when a government decides to send civilians, the miliary, and police to any kind of situation abroad. There is a duty of care on whoever is sending them. This is an aspect where you can provide in-mission support to Canadians who are serving abroad.

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

Thank you.

Ms. Novosseloff, do you have a comment?

[Dr. Alexandra Novosseloff]

First of all, when looking at the situation in Mali, we could have envisaged the type of operation that was done in Afghanistan in terms of a multinational force. For the time being it's not a path that has been taken by the international community, so the UN is there to do what it can to stabilize a number of centres in Mali, in the north. But certainly there's a limit to what it can do, and that is peacekeeping.

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

Thank you.

General.

[MGen (Ret'd) David Fraser]

I agree with the comments about what we have, as Canada.

I think we lost something when.... David Mulroney was a super DM. We got that. I thought when that capability came in, what I was seeing and feeling in Afghanistan got 100% better. It was good. It got 100% better. I think the Manley report....

We need something that pulls all the departments together to break down the silos and actually then facilitates and enables. For anything we do internationally, we need somebody back home who can actually harness that energy and bring Team Canada to bear.

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

Outstanding. Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

We have four minutes for MP Garrison, and then a short one for MP Robillard.

The floor is yours.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

The government has talked about a series of what I call niche contributions. It likes to call them “smart pledges”, and only a one-year commitment in Mali.

In my question I'm just going to get a go-around of our witnesses today. Do you think this kind of approach will give us the knowledge we need to resume a leadership role in peacekeeping? Whatever the value of those are, does this actually get us back to the traditional leadership role in peacekeeping?

I'll start with Ms. Dugal, and we'll just go around.

[Zoé Dugal]

One year is nothing in terms of.... It will be something for the men and women serving there, of course, so in terms of individual experiences I think this is valuable. In terms of how Canada is learning from this experience and in terms of how we contribute to the UN in general, I don't think one year is.... It's not going to look very credible, either, within the UN system.