Evidence of meeting #6 for National Defence in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was capacity.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Christian Leuprecht  Professor, Department of Political Science, Royal Military College of Canada, As an Individual
Conrad Sauvé  President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Red Cross
Amir Abdulla  Deputy Executive Director, United Nations World Food Programme

12:55 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Karen McCrimmon

Thank you very much.

The floor is yours, Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe.

12:55 p.m.

Bloc

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

This is my last round to speak, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the witnesses for their participation and responses to the committee today. Frankly, it was very interesting.

My last question is for Mr. Abdulla.

Many people say that Yemen is experiencing the worst food crisis on the planet. In September, Canada was publicly identified by UN investigators as one of the countries contributing to the war in Yemen. Famine is known to result from war.

Can you tell us how Canada's sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia is worsening the food crisis in Yemen?

12:55 p.m.

Deputy Executive Director, United Nations World Food Programme

Amir Abdulla

That's a very difficult question to answer, obviously.

One thing here that is important to note is that weapons themselves don't create a food crisis. It's when those weapons are used, I would say, in a manner that is not fitting, and that happens, and the warning on that is on both sides.

The Saudis have been armed. They say that they're defending their national interests and their territory and that they have been attacked in their territory. This has been done so by arms that have been supplied on the other side. The issue here is that one hopes for a situation where there would be no need for arms to be supplied, but to directly correlate it is probably too strong a correlation that the presence of a lot of weapons in this area certainly exacerbates the situation.

Canada has played its role also in making sure that the food crisis is met by ensuring that food and cash vouchers are available to the people most in need, and you are one of our donors on the food security side. I would say that you need to point to that also. One hopes that the conflict ends and there will be no need for anybody to supply either side with weapons.

12:55 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Karen McCrimmon

Thank you for that.

Go ahead, Mr. Garrison, please.

12:55 p.m.

NDP

Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Since this is our last round of questions, I'd like to turn to Mr. Leuprecht.

Quite often in Canada there's a feeling that the countries named by Mr. Abdulla, Yemen and the band running from South Sudan across to northeast Nigeria, don't have a lot to do with Canada, and there is a tendency, therefore, for certainly the general public to say that these things may be unfortunate but they don't have much to do with Canada.

Can you comment on any threats to security from the deteriorating situation in Sahel in West Africa?

12:55 p.m.

Professor, Department of Political Science, Royal Military College of Canada, As an Individual

Dr. Christian Leuprecht

As you know, I've written about the Sahara-Sahel.

We need to always remember that Europe is our second most important strategic partner after the United States. We saw what mass migration did and the aftermath that we are still living with in terms of European politics. We have, not just in terms of Canadian values but also in terms of Canadian interests, a strong interest in the region in part because we are one of the very few allies that can also bring francophone capacity to bear, and these are already the countries where we can see some Canadian Forces operations. I point particularly to the regular force operation in Niger, but also to the support, for instance, that Canada has been lending in all countries surrounding Syria, with the exception of Syria itself, in terms of regional stability. So, yes, our interests are clearly at stake.

12:55 p.m.

NDP

Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC

Do you see more that Canada should be doing right now on the diplomatic front to address these threats in the Sahel?

12:55 p.m.

Professor, Department of Political Science, Royal Military College of Canada, As an Individual

Dr. Christian Leuprecht

There's probably more that we can do in terms of coordination.

The challenge with diplomacy is always that we have very little capacity on the ground and a lot of work to be done. Part of this is how we resource not just our Canadian Armed Forces but also, generally, our international affairs, our international development and our international trade functions so that we can better assert our interests. Given that resources are limited, there is probably considerable opportunity for synergies both with other allied and partner countries and with member organizations to build capacity in order to try to have a sustainable path forward for a region that is going to bedevil us for decades to come.

1 p.m.

NDP

Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC

Madam Chair, with that I will conclude my questions.

Thank you very much to the witnesses.

1 p.m.

Conservative

James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB

I have a point of order, Madam Chair.

I wanted to raise the issue that we had technical difficulties again at the beginning of this meeting. We started 15 minutes late. I'd ask that we make sure all our witnesses are informed in the future that they need to have properly working microphones and that we have them online early enough so that all these problems are worked out before the meeting is supposed to start at the top of the hour.

Notice of this meeting was given over the weekend. We received it on Saturday. The briefing notes, I think, came out on Friday evening. The passwords and stuff did not come out until last night. That isn't enough time for us, as members, to prepare, especially over a weekend when our staff are off, and to pull together our own research papers and to make sure we are asking the best possible questions on this important study.

I'd ask you, Madam Chair, to ensure that proper notice is given in plenty of time so we can have our staff available to us to help us prepare for these meetings, on Monday mornings in particular, but that should be the practice at all times.

1 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Karen McCrimmon

Thank you, Mr. Bezan.

Mr. Bagnell.

1 p.m.

Liberal

Larry Bagnell Liberal Yukon, YT

Related to that, I'm wondering if it's possible for the Library of Parliament to consider if we have a briefing like we have for these meetings—the meetings are all on the same topic, roughly, and a lot of the briefing paper is the same—if there's a way to identify what's new in it, either by putting it in italics or a different colour or something, so we don't have to look through the whole paper each time to see what's new from our first briefing.

1 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Karen McCrimmon

All right. Thank you very much for those interventions, Mr. Bezan and Mr. Bagnell.

Right now, Mr. Bezan, you have your last five minutes. If you want to share it with one of your colleagues, feel free to do so. Thank you.

1 p.m.

Conservative

James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB

Madam Chair, I didn't realize we're extending, so I'm more than happy to ask a few more questions.

To the Red Cross, when the Canadian Armed Forces were deployed in long-term care facilities in Ontario and Quebec, they provided a report on what they saw. Will the Red Cross be providing a similar type of report on the care they're giving right now in other provinces?

1 p.m.

President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Red Cross

Conrad Sauvé

We have provided a report on any incident we witnessed directly to the health and social service authorities of the province in real time. I think we will provide a larger report on our findings and the surge and the lessons learned from this.

1 p.m.

Conservative

James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB

Will that report be made public?

1 p.m.

President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Red Cross

Conrad Sauvé

Yes, we'll make our report public on that aspect, absolutely.

1 p.m.

Conservative

James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB

Thank you very much.

You already talked about transition, and we know you worked very closely with the Canadian Armed Forces already. To your knowledge, will the Red Cross be playing any role in vaccine distribution across the country?

1 p.m.

President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Red Cross

Conrad Sauvé

Of course, we've provided a lot of surge in this present operation, and we are sitting at the planning table with the Public Health Agency of Canada to see how we could contribute. Nothing has been defined at this stage, but we're obviously available to provide any help we can.

1 p.m.

Conservative

James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB

Professor Leuprecht, you were talking about setting up a new organization and making sure it's properly funded, without taking away from current readiness training and operations of the Canadian Armed Forces. We did mention, in the last go-around, the issues of possibly setting up something similar to a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers....

Can you drill down more on what you expect this organization to look like? Would it be army? You're saying it's a combination of reserve and regular forces.

Also, you did mention the whole issue of cost versus trade-offs with other areas of the Canadian Armed Forces. Where does the cost come from, and what is the trade-off from other capabilities of the armed forces?

1:05 p.m.

Professor, Department of Political Science, Royal Military College of Canada, As an Individual

Dr. Christian Leuprecht

Given all the data that I provide in the written submission and also my publication, I think it is currently a difficult role for the organization in terms of trying to make the domestic operations work with all the other demands. So having a dedicated effort will assist in that regard.

If there's no new funding for that effort, it inherently means that it is going to come at a cost somewhere else, but it also provides then some opportunity to use that capacity for other types of operations that are domestic operations such as being able to improve the conditions of first nations, which is my suggestion. I think this can be a positive sum game for all involved.

I think the federal government needs to step up its own emergency planning and operations capacity on the civilian side. That was hampered here in terms of how the federal emergency response plan was rolled out. It needs to step up in terms of coordinating, being able to make sure that agencies such as the Public Health Agency of Canada have better logistical capacity, and to ensure that the provinces are able to provide the sort of surge capacity themselves that the federal government was ultimately called upon to do, both in terms of uniforms as well as the Red Cross.

1:05 p.m.

Conservative

James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB

Would you suggest then, Professor, that the disaster rapid relief team that we have through DART be also set up under this new group and then you'd have an international and a domestic arm within this new organization?

1:05 p.m.

Professor, Department of Political Science, Royal Military College of Canada, As an Individual

Dr. Christian Leuprecht

The DART is essentially, if I'm correct, a team of about three people who are full-time and there's an ability to pull about 200 people on very short notice from across the organization.

What I'm proposing is a dedicated entity within the Canadian Armed Forces of about 2,000 people who work specifically on these issues. I think the demands are now so regular and so expansive that we need to build that capacity internally so we also have a better ability to anticipate precisely the sorts of demands that might be coming.

I think nobody had really anticipated that the Canadian Armed Forces would have to go into long-term care homes. They were, of course, prepared. They were educated and they were trained. There are better planning opportunities and, if that unit can plan for it, it can flag to the federal government where potential problems might be. Then the federal government can coordinate with the provinces to try to avert those problems in the future before they actually come to the point where we have to deploy the Canadian Armed Forces' surge capacity and work more proactively with the Red Cross from the beginning rather than having to wait a couple of months until the Red Cross can effectively backfill for the Canadian Armed Forces with the requisite capabilities.

If it wasn't for the Canadian Red Cross backfilling in June, the Canadian Armed Forces would perhaps even have had to stay much longer. It is thanks to the Red Cross that this was returned to being a civilian operation.

1:05 p.m.

Conservative

James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB

I share that gratitude as well for all the work the Red Cross has done in backstopping the Canadian Armed Forces.

Thank you.

1:05 p.m.

Conservative

Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON

Madame Chair, I have a point of order.

I actually had my hand raised when Mr. Bezan was speaking to his point of order. My request is that as soon as it is known that a witness cannot attend the meeting please advise all the committee members as to the change and who may be coming in instead of the witness who was unavailable.

Thank you.