National Defence Committee on Nov. 16th, 2020

[MGen Trevor Cadieu]

Madam Chair, I would like to thank the member for his question.

This pandemic, of course, has affected everyone globally, and many Canadians in the Canadian Armed Forces have not been spared that. It has required us to make some tough choices, as you've indicated.

First of all, to privilege the health of our members, when the chief of the defence staff initially ordered Canadian Armed Forces members to disperse, we activated what we refer to as our “business continuity plans” to better understand the environment that we were operating in and how serious this illness was going to be. In the short term, it forced us to stop what we refer to as our “force generation”, or our training activities. When we committed to operations in support of Operation Laser—the CAF support in long-term care facilities—it required us to hold in abeyance some of our additional training that would have been conducted at that time.

To respond to your question about what the impacts of the cancellations of training are going to be, first of all, there will be a delay in some cases to the professional development we deliver to Canadian Armed Forces members. Depending on how long this pandemic takes, it's going to impact our ability to increase our training throughput to what it once was. Second, it also speaks to the requirement to, in a responsible way, while ensuring that first and foremost, we are mobilizing to support Canadians in their time of need, that when we can do it responsibly, respect public health measures, social distancing, the use of non-medical masks and personal protective equipment. The Canadian Armed Forces does need to return to its training activities so we have a ready force that's prepared to respond not just domestically, but also to protect this country against external threats.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Mr. Garrison, please.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I want to turn to the question of the role of the Canadian Forces in the distribution of vaccines. We know that vaccines are on the horizon, but we have a period to go through that will require a great deal of discipline before we get to those vaccines.

It will require a great deal of discipline among all Canadians for us to adhere to health directives until we get to the vaccines. My question is about the scope of the role that's being envisioned for the Canadian Forces in the distribution of vaccines. My hope would be that part of that will be to provide assistance in rural, remote and northern areas, where underlying health conditions mean the population is more vulnerable, and where medical facilities are more limited.

[MGen Trevor Cadieu]

The Canadian Armed Forces are working very closely with the Public Health Agency and other federal government partners as part of the COVID-19 vaccine task force. We have already committed Canadian Armed Forces members and leaders as part of this effort.

Currently, we have a number of CAF members operating out of the Public Health Agency to establish what will be known as a “national operation centre”, which will be the command and control node, or the hub that will coordinate the distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine across the country, including in northern and remote communities. Our chief of the defence staff has dispatched some of his best planners to work with the Public Health Agency to develop a logistic support plan that will, for all intents and purposes, be the manoeuvre plan to support the delivery of the vaccine across the country.

Beyond that, I believe the Minister of Health and the president of the Public Health Agency will be coming forward in short order with an update on the status of the logistic support plan, the distribution plan that's going to be put in place. In terms of the Canadian Armed Forces' role in that, we will continue to collaborate with the Public Health Agency to better understand what the needs of the CAF might be, and our chief of the defence staff will provide advice to the minister.

To address your specific point on support for northern and remote communities, our chief of the defence staff has made it clear that throughout this pandemic, we're to be prepared to provide support to those communities when called upon.

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

Of course, given the important role of the Canadian Forces on a day-to-day basis, and also in the distribution of this vaccine, I would hope that forces members would be given a high priority for the vaccine.

I was a bit disturbed by a question earlier, and I hope it wasn't a nod to the anti-vaxxers, but can you please reassure me that no consideration is being given to the idea that vaccinations against COVID-19 would be voluntary for Canadian Forces, so that no one will be allowed to skip the vaccine except for medical reasons?

[MGen Trevor Cadieu]

This issue is currently under consideration by our chief of the defence staff. We are only learning now about the types of vaccines that might be available. General Vance has issued direction to the Canadian Armed Forces, as has our deputy minister to the Department of National Defence, to come back to them with recommendations on how a vaccine might be rolled out internally to the Canadian Armed Forces. He'll rely on his surgeon general as well to provide advice on the universality of that vaccination.

That determination has not yet been made. It will go in front of our chief of the defence staff. I'll turn it over now to the surgeon general to see if he wants to amplify anything on that response.

[MGen Marc Bilodeau]

Madam Chair, I have nothing to add.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Thank you very much, Mr. Garrison.

We'll move on to Mr. Bezan, please.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

First and foremost, I'm very pleased that the Canadian Armed Forces are going to be managing the logistics and the supply lines in moving the vaccines across country. Nobody can do it better than the Canadian Armed Forces when it comes to getting things moved out in a timely and reliable manner. Thanks for taking that leadership role.

Now that we've got Mr. Crosby with us, I did want to drill down a bit on how COVID is impacting the supply lines of the Canadian Armed Forces, how everything from getting bullets, boots and uniforms to even toilet paper—which seems to be on the run again in all our stores—is being affected. I was wondering, Mr. Crosby, if you could talk about how our suppliers to the Canadian Armed Forces are being impacted and how that is affecting the supplies that are required.

[Troy Crosby]

I appreciate the committee's flexibility in allowing me to join late here today and the opportunity to address some of these important questions.

When it comes to the supply chain, the way the spring played out was that the materiel group worked really closely with the Canadian Armed Forces to determine the critical fleet needs and our critical contracts. We looked at our available sparing and where we were from an activity level and the ability to support the activity levels that were being forecast at that point.

In the beginning, we identified a reduced number of fleets that were important to the ongoing operations, the responses under way, and we were able to look at supply and our ability to provide support over periods of 30, 60, 90 days and, as time went on, further into the future. There were different approaches, different considerations for those fleets. We ran into some interesting circumstances that we wouldn't have foreseen.

I'll give you a specific example. On our wheeled light support vehicle, we found that we were forecasting a shortage of a particular part of the brake cylinder. Interestingly enough, those brake cylinders are sourced from northern Italy. Rather than finding ourselves in a bind however, the combined team was able to look at the issues we were having with the brake cylinders and apply an engineering solution that allowed us to ensure that the supply of parts remained unimpeded and that the vehicles were available for Canadian Forces operations.

The situation is different in other circumstances, where moving parts and people, for example moving field service representatives across international and even provincial borders, has proven challenging at times. It remains challenging in certain cases where we have equipment coming from offshore, but we're able—

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

Mr. Crosby, does it mean though—and I'm glad you're pointing this out—that international supplies are the ones being impacted? I'm sure the domestic ones are being impacted as well, but does this again come down to our own force generation, to our own control over our sovereignty, so that those supply chains and suppliers should be more closely aligned to supply lines within North America, particularly here in Canada?

[Troy Crosby]

The resilience of the supply chain really comes from our ability to hold sufficient spares and to have the repair and overhaul capacity that's required when it's needed. Our time frames, looking out 30, 60 and 90 days and beyond, are sufficient to maintain our supply chains and we haven't had any specific issues through the past eight months of the COVID pandemic.

When we look at our supply chain resilience in the longer term, there's a balance to be found between the cost of warehousing sufficient spares for different operational circumstances and tempos and having second sources of supply, for example, or more assured sources of supply—either domestically or with allies.

Through the pandemic response, our ability to reach out internationally to our allies and work co-operatively with them has been key to keeping those supplies moving. I'm happy to report that we haven't run into any issues.

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

Thank you, Mr. Crosby.

Regarding DND and the Canadian Armed Forces working on ongoing procurement projects, has COVID impacted things like the JSS and the AOPS program for getting ships built and rolled out in time? Has it impacted the selection of our next fighter jet? I know the tenders are in and it's just a matter of making sure everybody has the chance to digest that information and make the selection.

Again, staffing resources have been limited with working from home and with COVID-19 protocols. Then there is working on the surface combatant design as that project continues to evolve.

What impact has COVID had on those procurement projects?

[Troy Crosby]

Thank you, Madam Chair, for the question.

I'll respond in two general categories.

The first category would be those projects that are largely being advanced through work that takes place in office spaces. In the beginning there was a little bit of a slowdown, as we came to grips with working remotely and through new technologies.

Generally, the projects that are advancing through the development of a request for proposal, such as the logistics vehicle modernization project or the remotely piloted aircraft system project—both of which have recently released significant portions of their draft requests for proposal—continue to advance. Similarly, the future fighter capability project, which has had the proposals in hand since the summer, has been able to advance.

There are challenges as we deal with a significant volume of classified information. Nevertheless, the team has found some really creative ways to ensure that we continue to move forward on those. I would see delays, potentially, in the order of weeks for any of those kinds of activities, but not measurable in the long term.

On the other hand, the projects that are in more of a production phase have been more challenging. The question touched on some of the shipbuilding projects. We can all appreciate that the physical distancing requirements on board a ship under production or on board a submarine going through a repair and overhaul have been more challenging. However, it's been remarkable to see the shipbuilding industry's response in finding solutions and working with its labour force to find ways to continue to move work forward. It's been quite astonishing. In fact, through the spring we were holding weekly defence industry advisory group meetings with the shipyards and there were 50 participants. They were quite readily sharing information on how best to respond and to continue to move forward.

Other projects in a production-type phase include the fixed-wing search and rescue project, which is the aircraft being produced in Spain. Airbus, the aircraft manufacturer in this case, did a phenomenal job of keeping the project moving forward according to its original timelines.

Again, moving back and forth across international borders has been challenging. We've actually made a deliberate choice to patriate and move some of the work that had originally been planned to occur in Spain to Comox, so that we would get ahead of future waves and uncertainty with the COVID situation. It set us back a little bit, but I think we're well positioned now to continue moving forward with the project in its current set-up.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Thank you, Mr. Bezan.

Madam Vandenbeld, please.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you very much.

I would like to echo the thanks of my colleagues for the work the Canadian Armed Forces have done throughout this crisis. You are literally saving lives. I think I speak for all members of the committee when I say we are very grateful.

My first question is to Rear-Admiral Patterson, specifically about your role as commander of the health services group. I can well imagine that additional stresses and demands were put on the health services group during this period.

I wonder if you could talk a bit about how you were able to build resiliency and keep the members of your teams healthy, safe and well throughout this process.

[RAdm Rebecca Patterson]

As you can imagine, the Canadian Forces Health Services is a finite health resource, just as it is out in the civilian community.

As the pandemic has evolved, of course, we have needed not only to be ready to respond to Canadians but also to be ready to continue to provide care to Canadian Armed Forces members. As well, we also have families and we need to be able to balance out what's going on in our personal lives with everything else that's going on.

As the pandemic has unrolled we've made, certainly, extra efforts to prioritize the work that needs to be done. We're making sure that the needs of Canadian Armed Forces members as well as our personnel are met from a care perspective.

We have used criteria in our business resumption plans in order to make sure that as many people as possible are working remotely, because we are a civilian and military team, in order to continue providing the kind of care that has been available.

We've looked at other ways of giving access to care to Canadian Armed Forces members, things such as virtual care, a project we really hope to advance in the future.

When you talk about resiliency, I think it's about working hand in glove, physically distanced of course, with the chief of the defence staff and trying to meet all of his priorities.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

I don't know which of you would be best to answer this, but further to that, the Public Health Agency of Canada is actually in my riding of Ottawa West-Nepean. I did have an opportunity to go there and to thank the colonel and his team for the work they were doing. I wonder if you could elaborate more on the integration between the Canadian Armed Forces and the Public Health Agency of Canada, both in the initial stages of the pandemic—I know there were a number of activities, also with Public Health Ontario on contact tracing, on logistics and on PPE movement—but also in terms of moving forward. How will that integration continue with the Public Health Agency of Canada?

[MGen Trevor Cadieu]

This partnership between the Department of National Defence, the Canadian Armed Forces and the Public Health Agency is one that we are proud of in support of Canada.

As you indicated, at the start of this pandemic we worked very closely with the Public Health Agency, first of all on the successive repatriations of Canadians from China, Japan and the United States, and on the subsequent quarantine operations that were conducted out of Canadian Forces Base Trenton.

Following that we worked very closely with the Public Health Agency to facilitate the arrival, storage and distribution of medical materiel and personal protective equipment to Canadians. Currently, and moving forward, as I've indicated we are working closely in support of the Public Health Agency on the vaccine rollout strategy.

I do want to provide one point of clarification on that. The Canadian Armed Forces is working in support of developing a logistics support plan for the actual rollout of the vaccine. The role that the Canadian Armed Forces is going to play, or potentially going to play, in terms of the actual rollout of that vaccine has yet to be defined. That's the work that's ongoing right now to understand the needs of Canadians, provinces, territories and different jurisdictions.

Once the Public Health Agency, with the CAF in support, has worked that out, we would expect there would potentially be a request for Canadian Armed Forces assistance, which would be considered by our chief of the defence staff.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you very much.

The other aspect of this, I understand, is that in Operation Laser there is in fact a higher proportion of women who are involved than, perhaps, in other operations, including women in leadership positions.

Could you comment a little bit about the role that women have played in the domestic operations?

[MGen Trevor Cadieu]

Madam Chair, I'm going to hand it back to Admiral Patterson because she is such an inspirational leader in the Canadian Armed Forces for our country, and internationally as well, I will be frank to say. Women have featured prominently in all aspects of our Operation Laser deployment, but they are also standing tall and proud for our country in operations around the world right now.

One powerful example is Major-General Jennie Carignan, who is currently the commander of the NATO mission in Iraq. Her one-year tenure is just about to be up. She has led Canadian Armed Forces troops under very difficult and challenging circumstances, and so we look forward to welcoming her back to Canada shortly.

I'll hand it over now to Rebecca for additional comments.

[RAdm Rebecca Patterson]

Madam Chair, thank you very much for this question, because in my other role, I am the defence champion for women, as I know you are aware.

With that, I thought I would give you the context of women in Operation Laser. I'm going to use health services as the example because, currently, with the about 18 different occupations that reside within health services, we're at about a fifty-fifty men and women division.

Throughout Operation Laser, we had about 1,772 personnel, both regular and reserve force, who were either actively engaged in all facets of Operation Laser or on standby in order to deploy. Out of those 1,700-plus people, over 700 were women. When we look at the actual work directly in long-term care facilities, of the health services personnel who were deployed—and there were about 729—393 were women. That is a good example of where the Canadian Armed Forces really has integrated gender into operations, whether it be domestically or internationally as General Cadieu has said, everywhere from leadership positions through to being key members of our team from the army, the navy or air force. With Operation Laser, we have integrated women fully into everything that's been done.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

General Cadieu, do you have something to add?

[MGen Trevor Cadieu]

Madam Chair, I'd be remiss if I did not give a shout-out to a couple of other very strong leaders. Lieutenant-Colonel Sarah Heer is currently commanding Operation Unifier. That's our commitment in Ukraine. That is a first. Commodore Josée Kurtz commanded a NATO standing maritime group, which was very significant. She has recently returned to Canada.