National Defence Committee on March 21st, 2022

[LGen (Ret'd) Walter Semianiw]

I'll let my colleague begin.

[Dr. Anessa Kimball]

It's a fairly significant compromise. The more personnel we send to the Arctic, the more it will cost. We certainly want to support the people living in this environment, who can provide some information. There are options, but there's also the issue of deterrence. Do we need soldiers on the ground, or can this be done in different ways, with our systems, our drones and other items?

We're hearing that it would be very expensive to invade the Arctic in a conventional way. This begs the question: do we need [Technical difficulty—Editor] to defend? Are there other ways to do so?

We're asking you this question because you have more access to information. I think that we could have more troops on the ground. However, there's a limit beyond which it becomes unnecessary given the cost.

[LGen (Ret'd) Walter Semianiw]

On that note, there are more important matters.

I'm going to bounce between English and French.

We had an exercise in 2011 in and across the Arctic—a map exercise, done very quietly. A northern country sent a number of scientists onto Canadian territory to do some type of testing. We were going to move CBSA and RCMP officers in place to move them off of Canada's terrain. Their response was to send military forces over to guard their scientists. What did we do? We then had to respond.

At the end of the day, I agree with my colleague, but to be able to maintain and hold territory, someone has to be standing on it. It can't be held by a drone, by an aircraft or by a ship. An individual has to stand on a piece of ground, and you have to move them off of that piece of ground to take control.

The question is, how do we do that across our Arctic?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Madame Normandin.

Madam Mathyssen, you have six minutes, please.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

So often I end up continuing the conversation from Madame Normandin. This is the same line of questioning.

General, you spoke about people on the ground in terms of military personnel. Can you expand on those numbers?

Of course, we're looking for several recommendations for this report. We've heard often about the infrastructural deficits that exist in the Arctic. It's not just on base. We're talking about housing, the resources to feed and provide fresh water to military personnel—sadly, not to those who live there—and all of the impacts of that.

What is required to sustain the kind of action you're speaking of?

[LGen (Ret'd) Walter Semianiw]

I agree.

That was the last component of my presentation. You have reservists in the north already, but not enough. You have some in Yellowknife, Whitehorse and Iqaluit.

I was going to say in the first five minutes that expanding the reserves across the north would be a thing you could do for the here and now. It would cost you far from what you would spend if you put regular military there. It could meet your threat now. Expand the number of reservists across the north to form some type of organization or some type of battalion.

Following on a question you posed to the previous group, I'll give you a great answer. Take that organization and give it a full northern identity. Currently, that organization is part of the Loyal Edmonton Regiment. Why not take that group, organize it into 600 to 800—200 in Whitehorse, 200 in Yellowknife and up to 400 in Iqaluit—and form it into a northern organization that has a northern indigenous peoples identity?

I think that would address a number of issues. It would also immediately address the need to have people on the ground to address any land threat, because you'd also have an expanded ranger program. Rangers, expanded reserves and then the ability to get [Technical difficulty—Editor]

I don't know if that answers your question.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

It certainly starts to.

There is a difference between indigenous partnerships versus indigenous-led. Are you advocating more for that indigenous-led side? What would you propose for how that might look?

[LGen (Ret'd) Walter Semianiw]

Yes, my responses are about the here and now. What could you do now that is cost-effective and can be done quickly?

I would say one is to establish an organization in the north. Yes, it would be indigenous-led, but if you're part of the Canadian Army, you're part of the Canadian Army. They wouldn't be separate; they'd fight as part of the Canadian Army, if needed, across the north.

There is an identity and there's a leadership at a certain level, but at the end of the day, it would be part of the Canadian Army working with the rangers, which need to be expanded across the north and have their training, equipment and logistics support increased. With those two components on the ground, there is partnership and an element of leadership, but clearly it's all part of one package.

Something important mentioned by the previous group is that it's a challenge across government. Any threat in the north would additionally have to be dealt with by the RCMP, by CBSA, by the Coast Guard and by the Canadian Armed Forces. How do they all legally come together to achieve an objective? Not very easily.

[Dr. Anessa Kimball]

If I might add something, Canada has a really unique opportunity, as it's going to be founding NATO's centre of excellence on climate and security. There still needs to be [Technical difficulty—Editor] going to be a brick and mortar asset. Canada has a role in terms of determining what voices will be at that centre. We've talked a lot about indigenous people. Right now, it's an opportunity that Canada can plan for and profit from in some senses. It's a temporary opportunity that's a bit of a golden hour. Canada has announced to NATO that this is supposed to be on the ground and running in 2024.

It's about thinking outside the box.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Finally, to both of you, this is a furtherance of talking about infrastructure and high-speed Internet.

Dr. Kimball, you were talking about drones and the operation of drones. What kinds of expenditures are we looking at for setting up those sorts of infrastructure programs?

[LGen (Ret'd) Walter Semianiw]

Perhaps I could quickly address that.

First, it's going to be extremely expensive. I think Dr. Kimball would tell you that as well. This is not cheap. Therefore, when you take a look at what we can do with the public purse, given that health care and education are probably just as important, if not more, as I said, it's something that has to be built over a number of years, but built based on a foundation and on a plan. Without a plan, we keep adding little band-aids, with pieces here and pieces there. Develop a plan. Develop a strategy for protecting Canada's north. That might take five, 10 or 15 years. You'll have something to start with.

I'll pass it over to my colleague.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Please be very brief.

[Dr. Anessa Kimball]

I agree. The cost is going to be quite large. As I said, comparatively, Canada has invested way less in the Arctic than the U.S. and way less than Russia and even some other states, like Sweden and Finland. I think it has a little [Technical difficulty—Editor] but a lot to do with political machinations about what goes on bipartisan-wise in Ottawa. I try to stay out of that, because my job is to be a scholar and not to get into politics that much.

Again, I think it needs to be something that all parties need to align themselves on and say that this is a priority because Canadian territorial defence matters.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Ms. Mathyssen.

Colleagues, we're down to the second-round dilemma once again. If we go to 5:45, it's a little less than 20 minutes. I think we'll do three minutes, three minutes, one minute, one minute, three minutes and three minutes.

Ms. Gallant, you have three minutes.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

General Semianiw, as you know, the greatest strength of the Canadian Armed Forces is its people. In your capacity as the former commander of military personnel, I ask these first two questions.

When COVID hit, CAF recruits in basic training were isolated in their rooms for the rest of the program. Some were teenagers away from home for the first time. Essentially, they were in solitary confinement. Meals were left outside their door. There was no human contact. At least one committed suicide. Since proficiencies were not achieved by the deadlines, the ones who didn't quit on their own were released.

Now, having been commander of military personnel, what recommendations would you make to improve retention should a similar situation arise in the future?

[LGen (Ret'd) Walter Semianiw]

That's a great question. One, as you all know, retention, as you've heard, is probably the more difficult piece at times and [Technical difficulty—Editor]

On the retention side, I think [Technical difficulty—Editor] communicate to the men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces why you're doing what you're doing. My advice is just doing that. I know that sounds unmilitary-like at times, but clearly we've found over the last couple of decades that there was more need to communicate so that the men and women who safeguard this nation clearly understand why they have to stay in their rooms, or why they have to do this or that, as a directive from the chief of the defence staff. Clearly, when you look at it, I don't think any of us were as prepared as we should have been for COVID. It did take time.

Mr. Chair, just to give you a bit more, I work with Canadian Armed Forces personnel who were in the cyber program, so I have a lot of knowledge on that piece. I watched them go through trying to learn and to train on cyber. These were brand new recruits. None of us were prepared for changing what we normally did, because in the military it was always about face-to-face training and being in a training schoolhouse.

To answer the question, it's difficult. To be fair, I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't prepared for it. I'm sure none of us were ready, really, for COVID.

I don't know if that answered your question.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Do we now have a constellation, General Semianiw, with our European counterparts, of satellites from the most western part of the Northwest Passage all the way through to Europe? Does that exist yet?

[LGen (Ret'd) Walter Semianiw]

Remember, when it comes to satellites, to ask the question from a satellite perspective, do we own those satellites or are we renting time for those satellites? The short answer, from my understanding, is no, we don't. We get time. We get the information we need when we think we need it.

My [Technical difficulty—Editor]

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Unfortunately, I think we'll have to leave it there—

[Dr. Anessa Kimball]

My colleague is correct. Most of the information comes from our existing partnerships that are strong, like Five Eyes.

We talked a little about the Arctic. One of the things we don't really talk about very much is how states have managed to get information off of the Arctic through using scientists in one way or another. I can tell you an interesting story about underwater microphones meant to listen to whales that actually listened to submarines that were placed by the [Technical difficulty—Editor]

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

We're going to have to hold that story about underwater whales and microphones, unfortunately.

We now have Madam O'Connell for three minutes.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

I thank you both for being here.

Professor Kimball, you've written about military procurement. In your opening remarks, you also spoke about the changing nature of the needs and the capabilities. You spoke about misinformation and hybrid attacks.

Tying that into procurement, what do you see as some of the priorities from a procurement perspective, taking into account this new age, or the future of threats in Canada?

[Dr. Anessa Kimball]

Absolutely, Canada needs to invest in the informational awareness domain. We say this as if it's something easy, but it requires investing in communicating more clearly with partners, investing in equipment and investing more in institutions. Canada is placed to be able to have access to more, but it doesn't do well enough in making sure it gets access to information, or in pushing in certain cases.

At the end of the day, the most it can do is invest in its people and its talent [Technical difficulty—Editor ]. We need to convince the next generation of young Canadians to join the military forces and to become interested in these issues, because we're seeing other countries recruiting with conscription, while here we have a problem just recruiting to get people into our forces. As we know, one of the strengths of Canada's forces is literally the diversity of the people they can put in the field.

I would close by saying that one of the things Canada does very well—it doesn't really want to recognize this, but all NATO partners do—is being an expert in languages. It is the only partner in NATO that has two official languages, and Canada leads with the most languages in its battalion right now. Canada is leading the most new partners and managing the most languages, and it is doing this quite well next to much more powerful and much more endowed states. It is accomplishing the same tasks as partners in Poland and other Baltic states.

This shows that there's something that Canada adds that's not like the other partners. Maybe we need to get over the federal political disagreements and realize that this is a force of Canada and we need to go with it.

[LGen (Ret'd) Walter Semianiw]

Clearly, the number one investment needs to be people. How many years does it take to have a sergeant with 20 years of experience? It takes 20 years. I can always buy equipment off the shelf. People need to be the number one priority.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Thank you.