National Defence Committee on Nov. 16th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Good morning, everyone.

I'm calling this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number four of the House of Commons Standing Committee on National Defence.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Wednesday, October 14, the committee is meeting today to study the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on Canadian Armed Forces operations.

We've done this before in a hybrid format, so the same rules will apply.

Please keep in mind that those of us attending in person, me included, must abide by the rules of the public health measures in force at the present time.

When you're not speaking, please put your mike on mute. When it comes to the speakers list, the clerk and I will do the very best we can to maintain the speaking order for all members.

I would like to begin by welcoming our witnesses this morning.

I'm very grateful that you could join us this morning. I will probably hand it over to Major-General Trevor Cadieu and ask him to introduce the members of his team. Then he can proceed with his opening statement.

Further, Troy Crosby, who is the ADM, materiel, will join us for the second half of this meeting, around noon. When he comes online, we'll take a little break. We'll introduce him to the meeting and then will carry on.

Welcome, Major-General Trevor Cadieu.

I would like to hand it to you to introduce your team.

[Major-General Trevor Cadieu, Director of Staff, Strategic Joint Staff, Department of National Defence]

Good morning, Madam Chair.

Before I get started, I want to confirm that you can hear me.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Yes.

[MGen Trevor Cadieu]

Madam Chair, thank you for the invitation to discuss the role of the Department of National Defence, or DND, and the Canadian Armed Forces, or CAF, in the whole-of-government response to the evolving COVID-19 situation and the impact of COVID-19 on domestic and international operations.

With me today, Madam Chair, are Major-General Marc Bilodeau, surgeon general for the Canadian Armed Forces, and Rear-Admiral Rebecca Patterson, commander of the Canadian Armed Forces health services group. As you indicated, Mr. Troy Crosby, assistant deputy minister for the materiel group, will be joining us for the second hour of this meeting.

Since the start of this pandemic, which has claimed the lives of thousands of precious Canadians and well over a million people globally, our most sacred duty in the Canadian Armed Forces has been to mobilize for what has been and must continue to be a whole-of-nation defence against COVID-19.

Starting in February, as we all worked to better understand the disease and the threats it posed, the Canadian Armed Forces deployed in support of Global Affairs and the Public Health Agency under the rubric of Operation Globe. That was the mission we established to repatriate Canadians from China, Japan and the United States. As part of this operation, Canadian Forces health services medical personnel screened and prepared travellers for their journey and provided compassionate inflight and post-flight care. Upon arrival in Canada, the Canadian Armed Forces, in coordination with the Public Health Agency and the Red Cross, facilitated the quarantine of nearly 1,000 Canadians at Canadian Forces Base Trenton by providing accommodations, transportation, food services and general duty support. Approximately 300 Canadian Armed Forces personnel supported Operation Globe.

As our nation organized to delay and mitigate the effects of COVID-19, the chief of the defence staff issued direction to protect the force and prepare for a potential large-scale and enduring domestic response known as Operation Laser. That's a critical Canadian Armed Forces mission that continues today.

In order to ready the Canadian Armed Forces, we dispersed personnel, we restricted travel and engagements and we temporarily contracted our global force posture in order to provide support to Canadians. We established Operation Laser, a formidable team of 24,000 Canadian Armed Forces members—regular force, reserve force, Canadian Rangers and civilians—postured throughout the nation and ready to respond to requests for Canadian Armed Forces assistance.

You are familiar with the tireless work of Canadian Armed Forces men and women in 54 long-term care facilities in the provinces of Quebec and Ontario. After undergoing a focused training and orientation program, these members needed to move decisively to form augmented civilian care teams and rapidly surge into facilities hit hardest by COVID-19. In the course of their duties, our teammates observed issues related to the provision of care to residents in some of those facilities.

As you would expect of your Canadian Armed Forces, these uniformed members immediately reported their findings while taking immediate corrective action on the ground alongside civilian colleagues to provide dignified care. This effort involved nearly 2,000 Canadian Armed Forces members, many of whom selflessly gave of themselves to better protect our most vulnerable Canadians in some of their darkest moments.

Separately, the Canadian Armed Forces has been honoured to provide support to other Canadians in this very challenging year. Hundreds of Canadian Rangers, for example, have reinforced public health measures in northern and remote communities while facilitating the delivery of humanitarian aid. Concurrently, the Department of National Defence and Canadian Armed Forces logistics experts have helped the Public Health Agency to strengthen its medical supply chain by assisting with the reception, warehousing and distribution of personal protective equipment and medical materiel across the country.

While protecting Canadians was and will continue to be our number one priority, the Canadian Armed Forces was also able to project aircraft and crews in support of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs to deliver life-saving medical equipment and humanitarian aid to numerous countries in Latin America and the Caribbean this past summer. This effort was hailed by both by the United Nations and our closest allies.

In addition, although some training and activities have paused to ensure the continued safety and security of our personnel during this pandemic, your military continues to be active in operations abroad. In fact, nearly 2,000 troops are deployed in support of Canada's allies globally.

Looking ahead, we recognize that additional unity, determination and sacrifice will be required of all of us to eventually prevail in this fight against COVID. The Canadian Armed Forces remains poised to do our part alongside other government departments, partners and Canadians. We have liaison officers working in support of other government departments in order to streamline communications. We are integral to all government contingency planning, and we maintain a robust, ready force comprising sea, land and air force elements.

Our teams are again fully integrated with the Public Health Agency of Canada, where we are working with optimism and enthusiasm as part of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout task force. Specifically, the Canadian Armed Forces is assisting with the development of a logistics support plan for the rollout of the vaccine. We are helping to establish a national operations centre that will oversee distribution of the vaccine, and the chief of the defence staff will be prepared to provide advice on how best to use Canadian Armed Forces resources for the actual vaccine rollout in the weeks and months to come.

Finally, I will close by acknowledging that we, like most Canadians, have learned how to better function in the midst of this pandemic, and we are applying the tough lessons from our operations to enhance our resilience, to grow from and to be better for these experiences. Our chief of the defence staff and deputy minister have directed that we continually refine our understanding and application of public health measures to protect ourselves, our loved ones and our communities.

Moreover, we are mobilizing medical and mental health supports to enhance the wellness of Canadian Armed Forces troops. We continuously work to strengthen our stocks of personal protective equipment, and we are developing innovative risk mitigation strategies to reduce the risk of community transition as we conduct operations in support of Canada.

Madam Chair, ladies and gentlemen, we look forward to taking your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Thank you very much, General Cadieu.

On behalf of the entire committee team, I would just like to say thank you for everything you have done. The work of the Canadian Armed Forces in support of Canadians during this pandemic was quite obvious in the media coverage.

We will commence with the questioning round.

First up for six minutes is Mr. Benzen.

[Bob Benzen, Conservative, Calgary Heritage, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to all of the witnesses. I concur and thank you for your service to Canada.

Major-General Cadieu, many of our allies and partners have domestic organizations to help them with disaster responses. For example, in the United States they have FEMA. In Canada, we now are relying highly on the military.

Because we're going to have these ongoing pandemics and have all these environmental issues now with floods and fires, etc., is the military doing some long-term thinking and planning to organize themselves on a long-term basis with the necessary training they will need for dealing with, on one hand, foreign interventions and then, on the other, the interventions they will need to make within Canada? These are totally different in nature and have different costs involved.

Have you been giving some thought to how we would use our reserves and our regular forces to deal with this on an ongoing basis?

[MGen Trevor Cadieu]

This is absolutely something that our chief of the defence staff has been considering with the senior leadership of the Canadian Armed Forces.

On the one hand, of course, our nation, as is the case with all of our allies, is confronting a rapidly evolving security situation globally. The threats posed by potential adversaries is something that the Canadian Armed Forces needs to organize for, and so our chief of the defence staff is focused on what capabilities and resources need to be mobilized to defend Canada and Canadians against external threats. But, of course, he also recognizes that at home we need to be prepared to support Canadians in their time of need, and we have seen that, as you suggest, on many occasions over the last several years.

He has directed us to consider what additional training and organizational structures are required to be prepared to respond to other natural disasters, weather events and domestic emergencies.

[Bob Benzen, Conservative, Calgary Heritage, AB]

Would you say that right now we need to increase the size of our military, both of our reserves and our regular forces, to deal with all of the situations we're encountering?

[MGen Trevor Cadieu]

In terms of the resourcing of the Canadian Armed Forces, of course, that's the subject of deliberations for the Government of Canada based on the advice of our chief of the defence staff. We are organizing with the resources at our disposal to be able to address those two requirements: the imperative to protect Canada and Canadians, and also be able to respond domestically to emergencies that might arise.

[Bob Benzen, Conservative, Calgary Heritage, AB]

Right now they say there were 384 cases of COVID-19 in the forces that have been reported over the last 10 months. I know you guys have pulled back on training a lot to ensure the safety of our personnel. Some training has been resumed. I know we had some training in Wainwright a few weeks ago. Can you talk a little about training. Because this pandemic is going to continue for some time, we do have to resume some training and get our forces in top condition, so what are our plans for getting the training back up to speed again?

[MGen Trevor Cadieu]

You are absolutely right. For the Canadian Armed Forces to maintain its edge and to be prepared to respond to emerging threats, our members have to continually train for the different types of environments they might be deployed into. Initially, when we knew little about this disease, there was a requirement to contract the force and to privilege the support that we were providing to Canadians. Over time, as we better understood COVID-19, it allowed us to initiate or reinitiate a number of training and operational activities.

In general terms, our chief of the defence staff and our deputy minister have articulated a number of guiding principles, if you will, that need to be put into place as our force generators and our different environments re-engage in training. For example, it's absolutely essential that our teammates respect public health measures and have at their disposal non-medical masks and personal protective equipment if it's required. They must be properly trained on the use of personal protective equipment. We make sure there's a period of onboarding for all Canadian Armed Forces' members and Department of National Defence personnel before they come back and work, so they can visualize the environment they're going to be in, while making sure we respect the flexibility that some of our teammates require to be working from home.

The last thing I would say is that as we deploy back into the field to conduct our manoeuvre training, it's forced us to mobilize some imagination, some innovation, on how to do that safely to maintain physical distancing, for example, and strong hygiene. It requires significant attention to detail and strong leadership and cohesion among all our teams.

[Bob Benzen, Conservative, Calgary Heritage, AB]

I agree. There's a lot of new—

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

I'm afraid your time is up, Mr. Benzen.

Monsieur Robillard.

[Yves Robillard, Liberal, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Good morning, Major-General.

Welcome to you and your team.

What specific role did women play in the CAF's Operation Laser?

[MGen Trevor Cadieu]

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

I will get started with the response to this question and will also turn it over to Admiral Patterson to see if she wants to expand on this.

What I would say categorically is that throughout Operation Laser, our women leaders and members of the Canadian Armed Forces have featured prominently in absolutely every aspect of the Canadian Armed Forces' response, whether it's deployment into long-term care facilities, or the advice that's being provided to other government departments. The Canadian Rangers, comprising both women and men, surged into our communities to help vulnerable Canadians in their times of need.

I cannot think of a force element that has been employed as part of Operation Laser in which women have not featured prominently.

I'll just turn it over to Admiral Patterson to see if she'd like to expand on this as well.

[Rear-Admiral Rebecca Patterson, Commander, Canadian Forces Health Services Group, Department of National Defence]

Thank you.

We have had women fully integrated throughout the whole task force. Of those 24,000 people, women have been equally represented in all of the different domains of work.

Apart from that, I have nothing further to add.

[Yves Robillard, Liberal, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Now, for my second question.

In northern Quebec, the Canadian Rangers played an essential role in supporting their communities.

Talk a bit, if you would, about the important role the Rangers have played throughout the pandemic.

[MGen Trevor Cadieu]

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

I think you are absolutely right that the Canadian Rangers have featured prominently in the Canadian Armed Forces response to help Canadians throughout this pandemic.

You referred specifically to Canadian Rangers support in the province of Quebec. Of course, we mobilize Rangers to the regions of Nunavik and Basse-Côte-Nord, among others, to provide critical logistical support, facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid and to help with the establishment of testing sites. This is essentially what we've seen across other regions of Canada as well.

In the first wave of this pandemic, the Canadian Rangers deployed to a number of their local communities. They were able to help reinforce some of the messages around public health measures and provide to us a better sense of the needs of those communities so that we could be more responsive to Canadians.

[Yves Robillard, Liberal, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

How did the communities respond to the Rangers?

[MGen Trevor Cadieu]

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

In many cases, almost universally, we find that our Canadian Rangers are very integrated in their local communities. They are highly respected because of the training they receive and their service to Canada. Often, our Canadian Rangers take on leadership roles in governance in their respective communities, so they've been very warmly received across Canada throughout this pandemic.

[Yves Robillard, Liberal, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Thank you for your answers.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe, you may go ahead.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to thank the witnesses for being with us today and answering such important questions.

I have heard no mention of this, so I am curious. As part of Operation Laser, how many CAF members contracted COVID-19 while working in Quebec's residential and long-term care centres?

[MGen Trevor Cadieu]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I will turn it over to our surgeon general, as your question is specific to the number of CAF personnel who have fallen ill in long-term care facilities. Overall, across both Quebec and the province of Ontario, we have just over 50, I believe 55, who have contracted COVID-19 as a result of their service in long-term care facilities.

Major-General Bilodeau might be able to provide additional granularity about the province of Quebec.

[Major-General Marc Bilodeau, Surgeon General, Canadian Armed Forces, Department of National Defence]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

A total of 55 CAF members contracted the virus at residential and long-term care centres and nursing homes in Ontario and Quebec. I don't have the exact numbers, but I believe 40 or so of the cases were in Quebec and about 15 were in Ontario. I can get back to you with the exact numbers, if you like.