Evidence of meeting #115 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 china.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Gen Jennie Carignan
I don't have the numbers off the top of my head, and I don't think I can share—
Conservative
Gen Jennie Carignan
Again, I don't think I can share those numbers.
What's important to us are the effects they are delivering.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
During his time, your predecessor was forced to deal with a very bad hand on defence spending for our armed forces, given the severe cuts this government has implemented.
How would you confront a minister were they to propose further cuts to defence, which would certainly further limit operational capabilities in our armed forces?
Gen Jennie Carignan
Our role is to balance all of those issues—what we are being asked to do versus the resources we are provided. It is clear that we need to sequence and prioritize. We won't be able to do everything at the same time. Again, my job as chief of the defence staff is to ensure we can deliver the capabilities with the funding envelope we are provided.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Thank you. I cut you off a little early—15 seconds—but we'll try to make it up at some other point.
Ms. Lapointe, you have the final five minutes.
Liberal
Viviane LaPointe Liberal Sudbury, ON
Thank you, Chair. I'll be sharing my time today with my colleague MP Lambropoulos.
Good morning, witnesses.
Last week, a panel of experts appeared before the committee to provide an update on the situation in Ukraine and the Baltic region. Marta Kepe, a senior defense analyst at RAND, said that Canada's highest priority was to protect large infrastructure systems from malevolent actors. She added that this constituted a major weakness for our country's security.
Can you describe your plans to address this threat?
Gen Jennie Carignan
Plans are in place to protect critical infrastructure.
There's always a review process to identify this critical infrastructure. This review can cover economic aspects, security aspects or defence inventories, strictly speaking.
We're working on this plan together with our American colleagues, who are part of NORAD's overall plan.
Based on various scenarios and situations, contingency plans are in place to protect this critical infrastructure.
Liberal
Emmanuella Lambropoulos Liberal Saint-Laurent, QC
Thank you to our witnesses for being here with us today.
I have a couple of questions related to recruitment. You said the goal for the year is 6,400. Does that year end in December, or is it a different year that you look at?
Liberal
Emmanuella Lambropoulos Liberal Saint-Laurent, QC
Are there any legislative changes that could make your recruitment process a bit simpler and allow you to either recruit a greater number every year or make it quicker? That way, by the time you call people back, they haven't already found another job and it's a couple of years down the line, which is something we've heard.
Gen Jennie Carignan
For the moment, the changes we are implementing as of this fall are within our own control, so as far as we can tell, we don't see the requirement for legislative changes for the moment.
Of course, we are partnering with other government departments, such as immigration, to enable the process. The modernization and implementation of new initiatives, new methodologies and new processes are ongoing this fall.
I'm hopeful that, starting in January, we will see some changes in recruitment intake.
Liberal
Emmanuella Lambropoulos Liberal Saint-Laurent, QC
I know that in the beginning, IRCC was more reluctant to share information on files. Is that no longer the case? Has it been simplified? Has a solution been found?
Gen Jennie Carignan
Our organizations are consistently collaborating and talking to ensure the protection of privacy. All of these issues need to be considered as our folks collaborate to streamline the process, so our folks are consistently collaborating in this space.
Liberal
Emmanuella Lambropoulos Liberal Saint-Laurent, QC
Earlier this week, we spoke to academics who were of the opinion that we are not necessarily ready. They said that level of readiness has not been reached and we are not looking at the situation going on in the world as seriously as other countries in terms of readiness and being on a war footing.
What's your opinion of that, based on our current situation within the CAF?
Gen Jennie Carignan
This relates to the points I made in my introductory comments. We know we are at the transition point in our global security environment. We know our forces are not presently postured for the future. This is why we are undertaking a lot of changes internally to defence. It's because we need to restructure to be more adaptable and more responsive.
We are not only transforming internally; we're also setting the path forward to establish new capabilities that will put us in a better posture for the future.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
We're going to have to leave it there. Thank you, Madame Lambropoulos.
Generals Carignan and Kelsey, on behalf of the committee, I want to thank you.
However, before I let you go, you can see there is a lot of interest, on the part of all the parties and of all the members, around recruitment and around how we're going to get there. I wonder, when you go back to your offices, if you could reflect on those questions and, if you will, sketch out the five-year plan to get there, because, as I understand the back-and-forth, it only brings us up to a previous standard of readiness and capability. The world is changing very quickly, as you appreciated in the last question and as you appreciated in your opening remarks. I think the committee would benefit from a point summary of how we're going to get from where we are to where we need to be, and maybe we could have some discussion about whether where we need to be is actually close enough to where we need to be.
I'm assuming from the nodding that is going on around the table here that if you could undertake to do that, it would be appreciated.
Again, this has been a really good start to what I hope is an ongoing dialogue. Everyone at this table has a sincere interest in making sure that our forces are as ready and as able as they can be.
I see a hand popping up.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Yes, Mr. Chairman. I'm just wondering if the CDS would be able to provide funding amounts required in each step to get there.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
If that's possible, I'm sure we'd be interested.
With that, thank you.
We will suspend and re-empanel. Thank you again.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
We are on our second hour of our meeting this morning.
We have, as our guest representative, from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Canada, Harry Ho-jen Tseng, along with his colleagues, whom I'm assuming he will introduce.
This is a continuation of our study about the threat analysis on the Indo-Pacific.
Sir, go ahead for your opening five minutes, please.
Dr. Harry Ho-jen Tseng Representative, Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Canada
Thank you very much.
Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.
It is my great pleasure to be invited once again to share my views on the latest situation in the Taiwan Strait. I last appeared at this committee in September 2023, and the situation has been evolving and changing ever since.
In January of this year, Taiwan held its eighth direct presidential election. Mr. Lai Ching-te of the Democratic Progressive Party won the election and took office on May 20. The people of Taiwan elected a president from the same political party for the third consecutive term and formed a new Legislative Yuan, which is our parliament, with no single party holding an absolute majority. This new political landscape is a testament to the will of our people: a democratic triumph achieved amid notable challenges, particularly the political pressure and foreign interference from China.
In the wake of the election, China seems to have stepped up interference in seeking to create a political stalemate in Taiwan. Shortly after the elections, China escalated its pressure by luring the Republic of Nauru, an island state in the Pacific, to cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan, and arbitrarily altered flight routes in the Taiwan Strait. Following the presidential inauguration on May 20, China conducted so-called punitive drills around Taiwan. Since then, Chinese warplanes and warships have been intruding into our ADIZ and nearby waters, sometimes crossing the median line of the Taiwan Strait—a provocative move equally familiar to our neighbouring countries.
Nevertheless, facing the intensified political and military threats, we have exercised self-restraint and shown resolve to safeguard our democracy, peace and stability.
In our commitment to maintaining peace and stability, we have secured domestic consensus to reform our national defence system, extended mandatory military service to one year and increased our 2025 defence budget to 2.6% of GDP. It demonstrates our determination to strengthen self-defence and our belief that peace can be maintained only through strength.
In our commitment to protecting shared values, we dedicated ourselves to fortifying democratic alliances for collective deterrence. Since this year, we have seen public statements from the U.S., Japan, the G7, the European Union, NATO and Quad, all emphasizing the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait. Notably, the Canada-Australia defence relationship joint statement, as well as Canada's recently released defence report, have both echoed this sentiment.
Unfortunately, despite our self-restraint, we have encountered mounting Chinese pressure to exclude us from participating in international organizations. China, by distorting UN Resolution 2758 in line with its one China principle, has used it as a legal basis to further isolate Taiwan. In fact, Resolution 2758 does not mention Taiwan, does not address the political status of Taiwan, does not establish PRC sovereignty over Taiwan and does not preclude Taiwan from participating in the UN and its agencies.
To sum up, China has recently stepped up misinterpretation of UN Resolution 2758. It is part of China's legal warfare, or “lawfare”, intended not only to prevent Taiwan's international participation but also to justify its potential aggression towards Taiwan in the future. If China is not stopped from distorting UN Resolution 2758, when military conflict happens in the Taiwan Strait it would be illegal for Canada to come and help Taiwan. I call on this committee to heed this critical issue and render support for democratic Taiwan.
Thank you. I'm happy to answer your questions.
Liberal
Conservative
Dean Allison Conservative Niagara West, ON
Thank you.
Thank you very much for being here today.
Taiwan is obviously a very proud leader of the semiconductor industry, and obviously semiconductors have led the charge when it comes to the tech revolution and now as we look at AI and where that's going.
My question for you is that as we look at this.... I know that TSMC is one of the largest companies in the world, but we see that American companies were actually selling advanced semiconductors to China, and now that's being blocked by the U.S. government. I'd love to know your thoughts on that.
Representative, Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Canada
Indeed, TSMC is making more than 90% of the advanced chips in the world. As a matter of fact, we are part of the so-called export control regime that the U.S. has imposed, including Japan, the Republic of Korea and the Netherlands. Taiwan is part of that. The target of that is really the semiconductor, especially the advanced node semiconductor, being exported to China. This is very important.
You also mentioned the coming age of AI. AI can prosper and thrive only with very advanced semiconductors. Those are all semiconductors that are for the time being only produced by the TSMC. We are a very crucial player in terms of the coming age of AI. I think that there are more and more countries coming to recognize that.