Evidence of meeting #125 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 philippines.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Bloc Lac-Saint-Jean, QC
As a result, either the projects are not completed or they cost a lot more than anticipated. Doesn't that feed a certain cynicism toward the Department of National Defence, not only among some observers, but also among our allies and Canadians in general?
Associate Professor, Carleton University, As an Individual
Yes, and that's especially true when it comes to ships.
Honestly, I don't know who came up with the idea that 15 modern warships were going to cost $26 billion. Now we're being told that they're going to cost $100 billion, and once again we're wondering where these projections come from. The government is currently insisting that the budget for the 15 ships is still $60 billion, even though we know that all other analyses say that they will cost $100 billion.
When will the government be honest with Canadians? When will they be honest with you, the parliamentarians, about costs? There's no point in always being optimistic and hoping that people won't notice that the cost has simply doubled or even tripled. That's not the way to do it.
Bloc
Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Bloc Lac-Saint-Jean, QC
Thank you very much.
General Leslie, you seem very critical of the latest federal defence policy, and rightly so, I'm sure.
What do you think of the Canadian government's current defence procurement policy?
As an Individual
I think our procurement system is indeed the worst in the world, frankly. We can see the results. In the past 10 years, the Canadian Forces have not received a single advanced, modern and complex system that's been put into service. In addition, there's a cost associated with every year of delay.
The cost of delay is the price of failure. As a result of 10 years of procrastination and dithering on defence acquisition, with, quite frankly, an enormous bureaucracy that has grown even bigger, which doesn't necessarily make for efficiency, the cost of buying complicated defence equipment is probably three times what it was in 2015. It's kind of like the housing issue. The more you let the problem fester, the more expensive the equipment gets, which then blows to smithereens your cost estimates.
NDP
Lindsay Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Thank you, both, for appearing today.
I'm always interested in talking more about that illustrious or arbitrary 2%—however you may want to deem it. There's been a lot of pressure on Canada to reach it, for obvious reasons, and we could do so, I think, with the spending that may come forward, certainly, in terms of the F-35s, submarines and what have you.
We've talked a great deal in this committee about the fact that we have such an incredible recruitment and retention crisis. We have a military housing crisis. There's a lot lacking in terms of what the rank and file need on the ground to have the kind of life to be able to do the job we're asking of them. There's a great reliance on outsourcing and consulting. I think this is part of what you were getting at, General. There have been cuts, and then there's been a backfill, and yet that backfill isn't actually meeting what's necessary. I certainly think it's because of this outside consulting; that's my opinion.
Do you agree that reaching the 2% through those major procurement projects isn't enough? What do we have to do to focus and ensure that we're doing what people on the ground actually need?
November 7th, 2024 / 9:45 a.m.
As an Individual
I deeply and sincerely appreciate the work of this committee in trying to bring to light some issues that are of ever-increasing importance to the average, everyday Canadian. Unfortunately, it's a tough job, because most Canadians, deep down, know nothing about defence. Quite frankly, I don't think the government has done a lot to lead the people of Canada into exposing to them the consequences of failing to meet obligations that we promised.
Let's not forget that. We promised in 2008, at the Minister of Defence level, and we promised in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 that we'd meet it. Oops, in 2023, we said we're not going to meet it until 2032, which is an arbitrary number chosen by the Prime Minister to get him out of a really tight jam in his visit down to Washington.
There's nothing in the fiscal framework that indicates the Government of Canada is serious about meeting that 2%. It doesn't count unless it's in the fiscal framework. Where's that ammunition contract? Talk about an easy sell. That's representative. That's typical. People have lost sight of the actual output required by the Canadian Forces. That's what we should be measured on. Quite frankly, that's what our allies are measuring us on.
When we whine that we can't meet 2% by 2024, the rest of NATO doesn't care, because we promised that we could and we would, and here we are. I think it's going to get surprisingly tough for us over the next couple of months as we get asked a lot of really hard questions in the context of North American defence, NATO contributions and North American free trade—all of which are linked, but a lot of Canadians don't see it that way.
NDP
Lindsay Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
It's not entirely what I asked, though, sir.
Do you just do it through large procurement contracts? How do you balance it with what the needs of the forces are on the ground?
As an Individual
It's an excellent question. I apologize. My political skills rose to the fore. I answered the question I hoped you were going to ask and not the one you actually asked. I've been caught flat out. Well done.
The armed forces have a plan. The government has a plan. You just have to fund it now, and you have to take the timelines and compress them. Whereas in the past you could live with a decade, now you're talking about a matter of months.
“That's impossible,” you'll say. We did it during the Afghan war. We bought tanks in less than six months and C-17s in four. We bought the 777s in the space of five or six months. We had troops training on those new tanks while they were rumbling forward into the battle area. I could go on, because there's a long list that demonstrates—
NDP
Lindsay Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
What if you don't have pilots to fly the F-35s or you don't have enough navy personnel to man a sub?
As an Individual
The two are matched. You have to do one commensurate with the other, keeping in mind that it takes about a decade to produce a pilot. It takes about a decade to buy an F-35. There should be a match when they first enter service, but there's not, because the attrition rate was so high, in part because no one was willing to dedicate the energy and the time. No one outside of the uniformed component was willing to dedicate the energy and the time to fixing it.
Now, perhaps, it's going to get more attention, keeping in mind that the minister is responsible for this.
NDP
Lindsay Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
As a New Democrat.... One of the foundations, which we didn't see at all in the defence update, is about peacekeeping. It makes zero mention of peacekeeping initiatives, yet Canadians were foundational in the creation of that.
The government promised the international community, and maybe this falls into what you were talking about in terms of those promises and obligations that have not been fulfilled.... Do you think Canada needs to do more to honour that commitment? Should it have been included in the DPU?
As an Individual
Absolutely. I think I mentioned in my prepared remarks that Canada currently has 35, or slightly fewer, military peacekeepers deployed.
I'd like to point out that Ukraine, which is fighting a savage war in Russia and literally having to trade its soldiers' lives for ground held because it doesn't have the ammunition needed—which Canada could have been providing if we hadn't cancelled that contract—has more peacekeepers deployed than we do.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Colleagues, we have 25 minutes' worth of questions, and we only have about 20 minutes, so we'll chop off a minute.
You have four minutes, Mr. Stewart.
Conservative
Don Stewart Conservative Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses.
General Leslie, how are we doing? We know how we're doing at the macro level on recruiting and retention. How are we doing with our pay and benefits for soldiers? Should we be taking a hard look at that as part of our increase in spend?
As an Individual
Yes, we should be. They just got a recent pay raise, which was modest, but when you consider the stress they've had to go through—especially those stalwarts who have stuck it out over the last five or six years, the middle managers, the supervisors, the sergeants major, the warrant officers and the captains, and the list goes on—a pay raise, but a significant one, would certainly do wonders, especially for the cost of living increases that have happened elsewhere.
Yes, it's long overdue.
Conservative
Don Stewart Conservative Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
It is, particularly in the communities we're trying to recruit from. Toronto is a very expensive place to live. On the reserve side, getting those soldiers out has become increasingly difficult, given the lack of incentive from a salary standpoint.
I wanted to ask you about the conflict in the Middle East, the war in Ukraine and the general hostilities globally. How concerning is it for you, the lack of readiness in our armed forces to participate in and contribute to these global conflicts?
As an Individual
Canada, as was articulated earlier, is roughly within the top 10 or 12 defence spenders, according to the way we count it. However, I think it's been quite clear, through my testimony and that of others, that our output is not commensurate with the amount of money we spend. The first issue is to try to figure out what we have to do, what we're willing to spend to get it done and how quickly we can get it done.
Suddenly, we're faced with three demanding scenarios. There's one in the Indo-Pacific with China and its expansionist tendencies. The second one is the unfolding, continuing tragedies in the Middle East, egged on by Iran and Russia. Finally, of course, there is the looming spectre of the potential of further vast amounts of bloodshed in Ukraine, depending on what happens over the next couple of months with senior decision-makers elsewhere.
Is Canada prepared to fill some of the holes that could result from a more centralist view of the United States, and how much is it willing to contribute to the defence of others? We'd better be able to step up to the plate.
Conservative
Don Stewart Conservative Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
How do you feel about the risk in the Arctic? You mentioned earlier that sovereignty is about being seen. Maybe there's an economic price that we're going to have to pay should we want this defended by one of our allies. To the extent that we're not in the Arctic, can we really claim sovereignty there, if we're outsourcing that to the United States?
As an Individual
That's an excellent point, sir. Russia and China have both been engaged, since 2007, in a court case before the United Nations, in which they do not recognize a significant portion of Canada's claims to the Arctic seabed. If they don't recognize it, then they could challenge us, just by having their exploration vessels show up in our waters. We have no permanently deployed naval forces to challenge them. That, in itself, is a huge risk.
By the way, Russia and China have recently formed an entente on Arctic exploitation, and China has articulated its vision for including an Arctic passage in its belt and road initiative.
Conservative
Liberal
Emmanuella Lambropoulos Liberal Saint-Laurent, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thanks to both of our witnesses. Thank you for being here to answer some of our questions.
There's a huge amount of spending and dollars that would come if we were to meet our 2% target much sooner. I agree that we need to work on that, and we need to get to a level of readiness, considering the situation in the world and the results of the elections the other day.
Of course, in order to be able to do this, the population does, to some extent, need to support this spending. I'm wondering what messages you think our government should start sharing to the general public. I don't think everybody follows these meetings, and this is pretty much the only public space where these conversations are had and people can actually get this information.
What messages should we be sharing to the population to get them on board with this kind of change and shift?
You can both respond.
Associate Professor, Carleton University, As an Individual
The first one I would point to is the fact that there's actually been quite a bit of movement, and it's not well understood. This is where, I think, I disagree a little bit with the general.
New capabilities have yet to come online, but in the past few years we have bought new air-to-air refuelling aircraft. We have bought maritime patrol aircraft. We are buying 88 F-35s. We have drones for the Arctic. We have MRZRs for the special forces. We are buying polar icebreakers. We are buying program icebreakers. We are buying a polar epsilon satellite system. The list goes on and on.
It's striking to me that there remains a view—a lagging indicator, as it were, which we all remember from COVID—that the Canadian Armed Forces are simply unequipped, will never be equipped and everything is falling apart. That's true today, because we are dealing with a decade-long, or generational, gap in the capabilities we require. In the next 10 to 15 years, vast numbers of new capabilities will be coming on board.
There has to be at least some effort to put a positive spin on the story. Otherwise, if it is so negative, you simply put your hands up and you give up. We have to, at one point, acknowledge that there is an effort to re-equip the forces. If we want Canadians to join the armed forces and contribute, you have to tell them we are acquiring new equipment. Otherwise, why would you join a force that is never going to be equipped? Why would you join a force when the message, continuously, is that it's falling apart?
I agree that we need to point to the problems. We also have to at least acknowledge that we are making progress. This does span two governments. Various people can take credit for this. If we solely focus on the negative and are never trying to actually demonstrate that we are making progress.... It's not enough, but we are making progress. That is a necessary part of the story that we have to tell if we want Canadians to be part of this institution.
I'm usually a pessimistic guy, so this is surprising coming out of me.