Evidence of meeting #11 for National Defence in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was arctic.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Thank you, Ms. Mathyssen.
We have completed the first round. The second round is 25 minutes of questions, and we have 20 minutes, so I'm going to have to cut back every questioner by a minute.
We'll start with Ms. Gallant.
March 21st, 2022 / 4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My first question will be for Mr. Fergusson. He was touching on infrastructure and how we have to integrate all the different areas. We have Canadians' industrial control systems exposed, and Shodan, for example, is a search engine for the Internet of things. It scans the Internet for any connected devices, including industrial control systems such as chemical facilities, traffic control systems, gas stations, oil rigs, wind turbines, power plants, water pumps, waste-water systems and cargo ships. It looks for any of the exposures, such as a system online, and what it will do is list what these weaknesses are, where they can be exposed.
How should Canada build in a capability from a defence perspective, given all these different infrastructure systems that we have to integrate?
4:15 p.m.
Professor, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, Department of Political Studies, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
Well, this is a little out of my area of expertise, but I would answer it this way. I'm not sure if I would label this a Defence problem. National Defence and NORAD, for example, have always thought that they should have a lead role in North American cyber-defence or cybersecurity. I don't think that's necessarily the case. The issue becomes when you have this mix of defence, and those are largely closed or isolated systems and you have a mixture of public and private systems involved. How do you coordinate this? How do you get everyone to sing from the same song sheet? That's a problem with the way we've organized government in the past, at least in my view.
At the end of the day, this should be a lead for Public Safety. That's where this key element belongs, not with Defence, but with Public Safety. They need to be able to do more than simply perform a coordinating function, although that's very important.
I think we have to be careful when we have governments structured as military has structures, in terms of silos that tend to problematically not be able to talk to each other and don't want to talk to each other. How do you eliminate those barriers? That's something important for the Government of Canada to take a very close look at. The program you're talking about is a good initial step forward, but we have to proceed further on that than we are right now.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
The challenge is that the Canadian defence system, the different bases, all use these civilian infrastructure systems. They're connected to it and by extension are exposed, as well as the civilian structure.
With China, not only do we have the intellectual property theft, but now we have the weaponization of data. They have mass surveillance of Canadians, as well as their own citizens, and are using it for hybrid warfare.
How should we defend against that, especially from a national defence perspective, because it all ties together?
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
4:20 p.m.
Professor, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, Department of Political Studies, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
Very quickly, it does tie together, but who's going to take the lead on this? That's the key question here.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
Emmanuella Lambropoulos Liberal Saint-Laurent, QC
Thank you, Chair, and thank you to all our witnesses for being with us to answer some of our questions today.
My first question is for Mr. Huebert.
You spoke a little about Canada not necessarily being good at understanding the threat from a purely Canadian context. However, Mr. Fergusson and you both said that if there were a target, it would be towards North America as one entity, not as two separate entities.
Can you go into a little further detail on that? My colleague Mr. Fisher asked a similar question, but I'd like you to possibly go into a bit more detail on why we need it, from a purely Canadian context, and what we could do in order to get that information.
4:20 p.m.
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Calgary, As an Individual
There are two major reasons for understanding it from a Canadian context. The first is, of course, to ensure that we are getting the maximum out of [Technical difficulty—Editor] Americans. We cannot appear to the Americans as being a free rider.
During the Trump administration, I think we started getting a few hints that the special status—whereby it was automatically assumed that the Americans understood there was a special relationship with Canada and therefore we could probably pick and choose to a greater degree than perhaps the international environment called for—could become problematic moving into the future, and that we would be seen as separate. Therefore, we have to understand...to play our role with the Americans in a proper context to be able to respond in this ability.
The other issue going forward, of course, is that there may be situations related to national security, or a hybrid of national security, that do not involve American interests and that we still have to respond to. We started getting a bit of a flavour of it dealing with the two Michaels and having to respond, from a foreign policy perspective, to that.
However, most observers have pointed out that American support for us in that context may not always have been in lockstep, therefore it is indeed possible.... It gets back to the points that were raised earlier in terms of some of these cyber-threats. There is the possibility that Russia or China may utilize a form of attacking Canada from a cyberwarfare perspective, to basically show the Americans what is in fact possible and to therefore have a deterrent effect.
Once again, it gets to Public Safety; it gets to the ability...but it follows Dr. Fergusson's point in terms of the need to be able to respond. The bottom line is that we need to understand the threats and to play our role with our alliance system, and we can do so only by having a Canadian understanding as we move forward.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
Emmanuella Lambropoulos Liberal Saint-Laurent, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Huebert.
Mr. Fergusson, I have questions about whether or not we would be able to....
I know that Minister Anand is going to be talking soon about how to better identify and detect hypersonics. I wanted to ask you a bit about that, but I'm going to skip it and go to Mr. Saideman to ask about something that is very top of mind for me in terms of National Defence and the CAF.
You said there are a couple of tools the deputy minister should be able to use if we were to have an effect on changing the way the CAF works. You mentioned a couple of things that are used in the United States. I'd like you to go into a bit more detail about those, so we can see how we can use them in Canada too.
4:25 p.m.
Paterson Chair in International Affairs, Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, As an Individual
The first thing is to keep in mind that we ought to have leadership within DND that is not retired military people. We need to have a distinct perspective for military people. That wasn't just a minister of defence problem; it was also potentially a DND challenge about how many people within DND are retired. Given that the people who have risen to the top of the military in the past generation have a lot of problems, it might be that we look elsewhere for leadership within DND. That's the first thing.
The second thing is that we need to think about what tools the deputy minister has. Jody Thomas claimed that when she asked to help Jonathan Vance deal with the Deschamps report, he told her to stay out of it. This suggests a real problem within Canadian civil relations, with civilians being told to keep out of it and that the military should have control over these processes. We've seen where that has led us.
As I understand it, we have the Federal Accountability Act [Technical difficulty—Editor] has to do with money that they have to go back and look to the deputy minister for oversight or approval of. That is one tool that could be used to make sure the military heeds civilian control—
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Unfortunately, we're going to have to leave it there. I apologize.
Madame Normandin, you have one minute.
4:25 p.m.
Bloc
Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC
Thank you.
Mr. Huebert, you said in your presentation that the United States, historically, has taken the lead with regard to defence. The United States analyzes Canada's defence capability, but it takes the lead. You said that this was both good and bad.
I would like you to explain why this is bad, since you haven't done so.
4:25 p.m.
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Calgary, As an Individual
The biggest negative of the Americans' taking steps, sometimes without our due consideration, is whether they always follow Canadian interests in terms of some of the different defence expenditures they have.
I'll give you one example, which is the American move for an anti-ballistic missile capability. As we go into that, we've seen politically within Canada a series of debates on whether that is in fact the way to go ahead when it comes to the challenges facing the overall strategic balance. In other words, if you have a defensive system, do you undermine nuclear deterrents?
As it turns out, everybody is developing their own ABM systems and that debate becomes relatively moot. In the context of the time, going back to the 1980s and 1990s, Canada was a basic, passive participant in terms of how that was going to play out. That probably stands out as the best example of where Canadian interests may or may not be, but we didn't seem to really have a position that the Americans were willing to follow.
4:25 p.m.
NDP
Lindsay Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Dr. Saideman, to go back to what you were saying about the oversight and accountability required within DND and the CAF, I spoke to the ombudsman recently about his ability to provide that additional oversight and accountability.
Would you agree that, instead of having to report to the minister or to the deputy minister, DND and the CAF would benefit greatly from his reporting directly to Parliament?
4:25 p.m.
Paterson Chair in International Affairs, Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, As an Individual
I'm of mixed minds on this.
I understand that it makes sense to have more independence for whoever is doing the reporting on the military, whether it's an ombudsman or an inspector general. The challenge is that in the past, Parliament has not been the best place to put these people, because Parliament has helped to politicize these things in such a way that the reporting is not really focused on improving the CAF. It ends up being mostly about how best to corner the minister of national defence.
What has surprised me in all of my career is that I now really focus on personalities. We're in much better shape having somebody like Minister Anand in this position. She will treat the complaints of the ombudsman more seriously.
I think we need to reform the ombudsman's office so they have more independence over their travel budget and their expenditures. That way, they could do their job without being micromanaged by anybody else who doesn't want to get bad news.
4:30 p.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
Thank you, Chair.
Professor Fergusson, I'm going to go to you with this one. I'm going to have you recall your memory.
You were before this committee in 2014. You said that the defence of North America is not just about air, land, seas, space and cyber domains, but about defence industrial preparedness, defence technology, and research and development.
Professor Fergusson, looking at our Canadian defence industrial preparedness, defence technology, and research and development over the last eight years, how have we done? Give us a grade and maybe some thoughts to expand upon that grade.
4:30 p.m.
Professor, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, Department of Political Studies, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
A grade.... That's a tough question to answer.
My answer is that by and large we have been marching in place. There has been an increased emphasis in investment, particularly in DRDC. For example, they have gotten more money to deal with research and development of technologies for NORAD modernization.
I agree with Dr. Saideman about the problems of Canadianization and industrial development, etc. I've always believed that part of it is recognizing—and this is where I differ from my colleague, Dr. Huebert—that our defence is indivisible from the United States, which in turn is indivisible from our allies in many ways.
There's a need to move away from this silo-based industry and technological benefit system—which is central to both DND selling it to government, and to government—to a different understanding of how defence industrial technology development and production have changed over the years.
I always like to point to the F-35 program, not in terms of whether they're going to buy it or not, but in terms of the development of consortiums, in which everyone commits to be involved. Industry gets involved on the basis of competitiveness and technological abilities.
We haven't really moved beyond a model in our minds—a model of 20, 50 or 100 years ago—to recognize that, as a function of the continually rising exorbitant costs in the R and D world and in the procurement world, Canada and the United States in particular are integrated. Our defence industrial technology base is integrated with the United States, but we don't seem to recognize it, in part because the government doesn't know what's going on. This is now extended to the allies.
If you ask me for a grade, I would say we're probably a C+ or a B, but there are lots of opportunities to move forward and—again, I disagree with Dr. Huebert—get over this Canadianization uniqueness thing. We have to stop doing that, because there is very little uniqueness in terms of where we reside in the world.
4:30 p.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
Thank you very much, Dr. Fergusson.
I guess I'll ask you this. Clearly, the witnesses today have made comments about how we are integrated with the United States and their defence is our defence.
If we had a volley of missile attacks, are we going to be as protected as the United States? Are they going to be protecting us from those missiles coming in, or will they go after only the ones that are aimed for the United States and not Canada?
4:30 p.m.
Professor, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, Department of Political Studies, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
First, the answer is that we don't know. Second, on legal grounds in the United States, they are not required to defend us. Because of our co-location and our integration with the United States economically and elsewhere, it is in their interest to defend us.
At the end of the day, [Technical difficulty—Editor] of the United States. We don't participate. We don't commit. We don't want to invest. It's sort of a roll of the dice for Canada. It depends on a variety of strategic scenarios about what such a volley would look like, where it's going, how quickly it can be identified in terms of targets—
4:30 p.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
The bottom line, then, sir, is that we are vulnerable.
4:30 p.m.
Professor, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, Department of Political Studies, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
Exactly.