National Defence Committee on Nov. 23rd, 2020

[Amir Abdulla]

Thank you very much for your repeated kind words on the award, which we see as a strong recognition of multilateralism as well. We see not only how multilateralism is something for WFP but also how multilateral responses can really help improve the situation.

On your specific question, for me there are two parts to that.

First of all, the link between conflict and hunger is well recognized in the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2417, in which they are inextricably linked. In countries such as those you just mentioned, we see this play out every day.

Whether it is hunger driving conflict or conflict driving hunger, it's a vicious cycle. Then when you add climate to that, you end up with climate driving conflict driving hunger. That cycle comes up.

When you add the third C, COVID, then you have COVID in a time of conflict and climate. Then that circle and cycle become so vicious that it just tries to get.... So what we need to do is to create virtuous cycles, to sort of take things back the other way.

In a sense those virtuous cycles also take place through a series of Cs. They take place through collaboration—by all of us working together—and coordination—so that collaboration is best done in a manner such that you don't get overlaps and you reduce the gaps. For a voluntary funded organization, the third C, which is contributions, ends up becoming important. Without financial contributions, we can't keep that cycle going.

I think the SDGs in agenda 2030 and the SDGs for COVID brought into sharp focus how much things are interlinked. You can start with one, poverty; two, hunger; three, health; four, education; five, gender—which is hugely important; six, water, and carry on up to 17, going past 16 in conflict, and they are interlinked. COVID has brought that into sharp focus. If we don't solve one, we won't solve all of them.

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

In the minute I have remaining, if you look at fragile states and at the provision of essential goods and services by non-state elements, some of which radicalize and some of which are politicizing these functions.... You're speaking to the defence committee. From a security perspective, do you have any worries about exacerbated conflicts along those very precise lines where failed states basically do not have the capacity to provide either nutrition or health services and undesirable elements will take over that role?

[Amir Abdulla]

I think you have touched on what is a fundamental threat or weakness. There are some areas of failed states where there are nefarious actors who will move into that gap. It is those gaps where organizations such as WFP, working with very neutral donors donors such as yourselves—and, if I may add, even at the appropriate times.... Notwithstanding, the draw that might seem to have on domestic...I would say that the amount of equipment or number of troops or personnel that would be deployed for an operation such as Operation Globe is very small, but the returns on impact on what people see is very high.

They see something. They don't have to join those nefarious elements. They will get their assistance from people who mean the right thing.

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

Thank you very much, sir. It's been very helpful.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe, you have the floor.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses who made remarks. They were all equally interesting.

My first question is for Mr. Leuprecht.

I carefully read your article entitled “Defining a role for the Canadian Armed Forces and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief” in the August 3rd edition of the Hill Times—I have it here. In that article, you say that there is a problem with the federal government having to provide assistance to the provinces, whose health systems are underfunded.

I would like to hear from you about the federal responsibility for this underfunding. The federal government's share of funding for the health care system is getting smaller and smaller. The impact of this underfunding is particularly acute in times of pandemic. In addition to absorbing the inflationary costs of health care, the provinces must compensate for federal underfunding.

At first, the legislation had federal health transfers at 50%, but now they are 22%. I'd like to hear from you on this.

[Dr. Christian Leuprecht]

Because of the way the system is set up, I will reply in English. I have been instructed to stick with the one language, so I apologize. I could reply in French if we had the different system.

In my view, you heard the Premier of Quebec asking the Canadian Armed Forces in the spring to stay through the month of September in long-term care homes. It was thanks to the Red Cross, which provided the backfill capacity, that the Canadian Armed Forces were able to go from one home to the next and turn it from red to green.

I think this co-operation with the Red Cross demonstrated that the premier was expecting things that were perhaps not appropriate to ask of federal military assets. It also worries me, in terms of civil-military relations, if we expand the role of the military.

The federal government needs to play a much more aggressive role in working with provinces on prevention and in making sure that federal transfers should not necessarily be tied to specific expenditures. I think we have a significant gap that the pandemic, the floods and the wildfires exposed between a coordinated investment in critical infrastructure. I think the long-term care issue demonstrated that we perhaps also need to change our understanding of critical infrastructure. Once a premier calls in the military, then whatever has failed effectively becomes a piece of critical infrastructure.

I think we need to separate those two debates. Fiscal equalization is a political problem that the provinces and the federal government need to sort out. Then there is an operational issue of immediate tactical and operational response, where a failure to coordinate effectively between the federal and the provincial governments on medium-term strategic planing resulted in this particular deployment.

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

I want to be clear, and correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Leuprecht. The Prime Minister of Canada has put military personnel on standby to assist the provinces.

Am I correct in concluding that the federal government offered the military assistance first, even though it didn't have long-term care facilities in mind?

[Dr. Christian Leuprecht]

The military will carry out whatever it is asked to do by the political authority. The question is what the federal government can do so that provinces do not inadvertently place burdens on the federal government and operational demands on the military that are best handled within provincial jurisdiction with some strategic foresight and some medium-term planning.

I think there's more work to be done between the federal and provincial governments on that medium-term planning to anticipate these challenges and avert them in critical infrastructure in the long-term care, but there's also more to be done on the part of the federal government itself when it comes to emergency response, when it comes to, for instance, the logistical capacity within government departments.

There are many lessons to be learned here, but I would caution against tying fiscal health transfers to immediate operational and tactical failures on the ground that are really a function of provincial management and auditing of long-term care homes, rather than a function of how many dollars the federal and provincial governments agree is appropriate to be transferred and, of course, under what conditions, that is to say whether unconditional or conditional transfers.

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

Logically, there should be no conditions, since health is a provincial jurisdiction. If the federal government doesn't provide its fair share of health care funding, we end up in a situation like the one we're in today.

Many say that Quebec was in trouble. It had exhausted all its resources when it asked for help from the Canadian Armed Forces.

Isn't that your opinion too?

[Dr. Christian Leuprecht]

As you know there are 33, I believe, transfers, most of which are unconditional, some of them conditional. Unconditional means the province makes a decision on how it spends those funds. We can see by virtue of the fact that the Canadian Armed Forces were called into long-term care homes in two provinces but not in the other eight provinces or three territories, that different provinces made different decisions in regard not just to the allocation of the funds available to them, but to the management and the auditing with regard to, for instance, long-term care.

We can learn from laboratories of experimentation what went right in different provinces and what could have been done better in other provinces, and so let's get together and try to make sure that we understand tactically and operationally what failed here rather than trying to turn this into a debate about how much additional dollars the federal government may or may not need to transfer. Ultimately, it is a provincial choice how the province spends unconditional transfers.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Thank you very much.

We have Mr. Garrison, please.

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

I'd like to thank all the witnesses for their valuable testimony here in committee today. I want to join my colleagues in thanking the World Food Programme for all their work around the world and congratulate them on their receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize.

The testimony we've had this morning, which clearly links hunger with conflict, climate crisis and COVID, is very useful.

My question to Mr. Abdulla, first and foremost, is you talked about the third C of responding in a virtuous cycle rather than the other cycle, and that being contributions. I'm not asking you to comment on the contributions of any individual nation at this point, but has there been a special appeal for funds and what has been the general response to that appeal, if there's been one?

[Amir Abdulla]

When the global COVID response began, again, using one of the virtuous Cs, there was a lot of coordination with OCHA, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, working very closely with the WHO. A global humanitarian response plan with a corresponding appeal was put out. Quite honestly, across the globe donors responded very generously to that.

WFP had two parts to that appeal. There was the appeal for common services and the logistics we would do on behalf of the system, such as the contribution Canada made, not only a financial contribution but also the in-kind support of the Royal Canadian Air Force. Then there was another part of the appeal, which was about the increased food security crisis. At the time of COVID, we already had quite significant needs. For the worst-affected countries, we estimated that up until the first quarter of next year, because that's the sort of long-term lead you need to get food lines going, it was close to $5 billion USD. The response against that was phenomenal, with more than 50% or 60% funded. I do have to point out that a lot of that $5 billion USD was not increased need. A lot of it was the need we have in South Sudan, Yemen and countries like that.

We will always have gaps, but we acknowledge within the World Food Programme that donors are very generous towards food crises and food security. They recognize it. It's very visible, and contributions are forthcoming. We appreciate that very much. We're often asked what the face of hunger really is. It's a hungry woman who is going without to feed her hungry child. That's what we see constantly. For us, that's why we have to advocate as we do.

We are hoping to get the virtuous cycle to a point where we can actually start to reduce need. One of the most frustrating things is having to save the same lives again and again and again, continuously. Unfortunately, it's conflict and climate. I mean, COVID we hope will pass, but if we don't come to grips with conflict and climate, those two Cs, and if we get rid of the third C....

Since I'm on the virtuous Cs, we certainly see Canada as the fourth C in the virtuous cycle.

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

Thank you very much for that generous assessment.

Will additional things in terms of the coordination C and the logistics kinds of things be necessary? I think the entire world is facing a very grim three or four months here until vaccine distribution can start. Are there additional things you would be asking of organizations like the Canadian Armed Forces that would help with logistics and coordination?

[Amir Abdulla]

As we see the potential second, and in some places third, wave start to hit before the vaccines get there, we have not ruled out the likelihood or the eventuality that we may be coming back and once again asking for military and civil defence assets.

Right now there is no request out, but the cell that would trigger those requests is reviewing that. There was a meeting to review recently. There is no immediate request, but right now we feel we can't rule that out. It will be possibly sometime in the first quarter of next year until the vaccine gets going. One thing is that many of the logistics capacities will go into moving the vaccines, which will be hugely important, but all the other stuff needs to keep going too.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Mr. Benzen, you are next.

[Bob Benzen, Conservative, Calgary Heritage, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to all the witnesses.

Professor Leuprecht, you said a lot of very interesting things in your opening comments, and I'd like to follow up on a few. Clearly, with the pandemic, and all our other military commitments overseas, dealing with forest fires and whatnot, there's a high demand for the Canadian military. Yet, it doesn't seem we have enough resources. You talked a bit about the government's need to increase defence spending from 1.3% to 2% of its budget.

Can you talk a bit about that?

[Dr. Christian Leuprecht]

Let me just give you some data on recent operations.

There were 31 domestic operations from 2010 to 2020, including assistance activity for 23 operations. The number of and types of troops assigned for 29 of them, and the duration for 23 of them show the following patterns. The frequency of these operations is increasing, but the majority of these were relatively minor, they required fewer than 100 CAF personnel, and 16 out of 23 operations for which information is available were relatively short, so less than a fortnight in duration. While the size of operations has increased recently, post-2000s, floods have required call-outs of about 2,500 CAF personnel, whereas the 1997 Red River floods required 8,000 personnel, and the 1998 eastern Canada ice storm required 12,000 personnel.

The real critical point to get to is aviation transport, and of course, our colleagues have already flagged that. The evacuation of communities, airlifting supplies and personnel is in high demand. There has been some demand for specialists, such as engineers, and a great demand for general labour. However disruptive these operations might be, by and large, these are operations that should be within the capabilities of the CAF.

As the chief of the defence staff pointed out in his remarks before the committee, the CAF now builds this into its training and incidents operational cycles. What is disruptive is the size of the operations, and demands that are unconventional, for example, for floods and forest fires, the CAF now builds in. But the CAF, as I pointed out, had not built in a large pandemic operation of the size that it was asked to carry out. It demonstrated it could carry out that task, but it showed that with constant resources, there are very difficult trade-offs to be made.

We live, as our colleagues have pointed out, in an international security environment that is likely going to require more capacity and more demands, simply operationally. We live in an environment where our allies, and our key strategic ally, the United States, are calling for allies to do more on defence, and we have a growing requirement in terms of domestic operations.

In the past, people always said that Canada was a free rider. I've argued that Canada is not a free rider, it is an easy rider. It has spent just enough on defence. The problem is that what was just enough in the past is simply not enough in light of the challenges and the demands we are facing today in terms of domestic deployments, continental defence and international demands in terms of peace, stability and security, as well as our allied commitments.

[Bob Benzen, Conservative, Calgary Heritage, AB]

That definitely means we should be doubling our spending, and going from $20 billion to $40 billion.

[Dr. Christian Leuprecht]

I would caution that what Canada needs is not necessarily a bigger military, because people always think that we need to recruit more people. We already have challenges on the recruitment side. We need a better military, and in many ways, a better organized military with the right kit, the right training and the right people. That has always been the strength of the Canadian Armed Forces.

Ultimately, it's exceptional people with exceptional kits that can be relied upon, and the ability to do that on our own. This is ultimately what's in question here, if we further undermine our ability to deliver for the organization, that we can deploy and be relied upon to deliver regardless what the government asks of its Canadian Armed Forces. I'm concerned that the current level of commitment is not enough to sustain that in light of the current operational tempo.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Monsieur Robillard.

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

My question is for the Red Cross.

Assuming there's an increase in outbreaks in long-term care facilities, is it possible that the Canadian Armed Forces could return to these facilities to assist the Red Cross?

[Conrad Sauvé]

Is your question about the Canadian forces or the Red Cross? Are you asking if we'll be overwhelmed by the current situation?

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

Yes.