National Defence Committee on March 23rd, 2022

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Why don't we just use four minutes up to this intervention?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I appreciate all of the assistance I'm getting to chair this meeting, but we are going with two minutes.

Mr. Motz, you have two minutes.

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

[Inaudible— Editor].

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Okay.

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

This is for the vice-CDS. Perhaps she could finish replying to the questions that we asked, the first one being the amount of money allocated to our 3,400 potential troops that would be deployed to Op Reassurance, should it become necessary. What amount is being set aside for CBRN personal protection equipment?

[LGen Frances J. Allen]

I'd like to clarify, just to make sure I understand the question correctly. Were you wanting to know about the preparation of the personnel who might be called upon to go augment in NATO, or about CBRN training and protection in general?

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

How much has been set aside for the protection and how much has been set aside for the training of those troops to go to Operation Reassurance, if need be?

[LGen Frances J. Allen]

Thank you for the clarification.

As we take a look at the type of environment that any military capability is going to be entering into, we do a threat assessment of the environment and make an assessment of what we think the CBRN requirements may be in that environment. We then make those adjustments and add them into the training if we believe that's a necessary step for us to take.

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

Thank you. That's great. I get the idea now.

To get back to our troops, some of them are over 20-year veterans who've been cast aside because they didn't get all their jabs. What amount is being set aside to replace them, or is it a cost-savings exercise because it's less expensive to pay brand new recruits than somebody who has been there 20 years, plus a potential pension if they go all the way to 25?

[LGen Frances J. Allen]

The Canadian Forces certainly has the funds set aside to have us at our manning level, so there's no additional funding that needs to be set aside as we're bringing new recruits into the Canadian Forces.

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

What amount is being set aside for StratCom?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Ms. Gallant. You'll have to get that answer at some other point.

Mr. Fisher, two minutes.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I just want to begin by responding to a comment made by Mr. Doherty earlier on, when he talked about Irving Shipbuilding and said Canadians need not apply.

Mr. Chair, that is an incredible disservice to the thousands of Canadian shipbuilders building our warships every day. There are thousands of Atlantic Canadian shipbuilders, many from my riding of Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, and we should be extremely proud of those shipbuilders. I, for one, am.

Could I get the vice chief to just elaborate on the challenges associated with major capital expenditures?

You talked about COVID. COVID is an excellent reasoning for perhaps the inability to spend that money, but what factors challenge the ability to spend on large capital projects as planned?

[LGen Frances J. Allen]

The challenges that can arise are many and diverse. Those types of things, I think, are probably seen by our implementers, be it in on the information management, the infrastructure, or the materiel side of the house. It's possible that Mr. Crosby has additional information that he could provide to you on the types of challenges that he sees on capital expenditures.

[Troy Crosby]

Sure. Quickly I would bring COVID, of course, into the conversation. As well, though, we have challenges with industry's capacity at times to move programs forward. As was mentioned earlier [Inaudible—Editor] with the technical challenges, the integration challenges of some of the very sophisticated technology that we're seeking to deliver come with their own problems that we have to work through, and the spend, of course, is the outcome of the delivery of this equipment. When we run into difficulties, us and industry, then we see that manifest as delays in the project and money being moved forward into future years where it's required.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Madame Normandin, you have a minute.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Drones are something we will discuss later, but L3 MAS, a Quebec business, was willing to work with other companies to “Canadianize” operating systems for drones. However, it appears that the government may be more inclined to go with a California solution.

Could you tell me if Quebec businesses are still in the running?

[Bill Matthews]

I will ask Mr. Crosby to answer this question.

[Troy Crosby]

L3 remains one of the two qualified suppliers in the competitive process for the remotely piloted aircraft system.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Madame Normandin, I hope that makes you happy.

Madam Mathyssen, you have one minute.

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

Of course, we've heard so many increasing reports of extremism, incidents of racism, continuous reports of sexual misconduct in the CAF and the leadership being charged. Many people within CAF have asked for a fuller picture. They've asked for each of the branches to develop annual reports to give a sense and scale of the scope of the problem.

I imagine this would be for Mr. Matthews in terms of the direction that the government would be willing to go in.

[Bill Matthews]

There's lots of discussion about how best to tackle this, mostly around culture change. Reporting is part of it. How far down you push the reporting, I think, is a live question, and maybe I'll turn to the vice chief, because she has more history on this issue than I do.

I'm not sure that pushing down detailed reporting at every level would be on my list of the best ideas, but there are others with differing views, and that's fine.

Vice Chief, you may wish to add here.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Unfortunately, the vice chief is not going to be able to answer that question.

With that, I'm going to turn to Mr. Motz or Ms. Gallant for two minutes.

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

I have a question about StratCom. How much has been allocated to StratCom?

[LGen Frances J. Allen]

Is that from the annual budget, ma'am, or the...?