Evidence of meeting #21 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 caf.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Colleagues, I see a quorum and I see our witnesses, so I'm calling this meeting to order.
We have with us in the first hour, Wilfrid Greaves, assistant professor at the University of Victoria, and Peter Kikkert, assistant professor, public policy and governance, at St. Francis Xavier University.
I think Professor Greaves gets the prize for the most colourful background.
With that, you'll have five minutes each, gentlemen.
We'll start with Professor Greaves.
Dr. Wilfrid Greaves Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Victoria, As an Individual
Good afternoon, and thank you for having me.
I am honoured to be here, and I thank you for hosting this important discussion on issues related to climate change, security and the non-combat role of the Canadian Armed Forces.
I am privileged to be speaking with you from the traditional territories of the Lekwungen-speaking peoples on southern Vancouver Island, where I am fortunate to live and work.
Climate change is the greatest medium- and long-term threat to security in Canada. While this is not a novel assessment, it is a point of increasingly urgent consensus among security scholars and other experts. The climate security nexus, as it is often called, has been expressed in numerous reports and assessments, and is reflected in the growth of new institutions and programs focused specifically on this topic, including the new NATO centre for excellence on climate and security currently under development.
In a 2021 journal article, I outline five climate-related threats to and in Canada: human security threats, economic threats, Arctic threats, humanitarian crises and increased domestic conflict. My findings and those of colleagues and peers find that no region of the country is immune to climate-related insecurity. Indeed, the very diversity of climate-related disruption produced by Canada's vast geography and diverse communities is a fundamental aspect of our current and future climate challenges.
One result of climate-related environmental changes is that the Canadian Armed Forces have been required to increase their domestic operational tempo providing emergency response to extreme weather events. Canada's armed forces are good at mounting large logistical operations on short notice, making them an indispensable tool for government to respond to environmental disasters. Operation Lentus the standing framework whereby civilian authorities can request CAF assistance in responding to natural disasters, was activated at least 37 times between 2010 and 2021, and with increasing frequency.
For instance, 2021 alone had seven different Lentus deployments in four provinces and two territories, compared with one in 2020 and three in 2019. Last year, hundreds of military personnel deployed under Op Lentus to help prepare for flooding in Yukon, wildfire evacuations in northwestern Ontario, wildfires in Manitoba, and to provide potable water for the people of Iqaluit. Meanwhile, hundreds more CAF members supported the federal government's response to COVID-19 through operations Laser and Vector.
While some Lentus deployments are relatively small, or their tasks straightforward, others have been in response to the most destructive environmental disasters in Canadian history, such as the 2013 floods in southern Alberta, which displaced over 100,000 people; the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire, which displaced nearly 90,000 people; and last year's combination of wildfires and flooding in my own province of British Columbia, which displaced more than 50,000 people and resulted in the west coast of Canada, including the port of Vancouver, being temporarily cut off from the rest of the country. Notably, each of these disasters was the most expensive in Canadian history until it was exceeded by the next. Whereas the 2013 Alberta floods caused approximately $5 billion in damage, the Fort McMurray wildfire caused nearly $10 billion in total damages, a figure that is likely exceeded by the costs and economic losses related to the floods in B.C.
In fact, British Columbia in 2021 provides an exemplar of the indispensable role the CAF plays in protecting the human security of Canadians. The wildfires and flooding disasters led to the deployment of hundreds of Canadian Armed Forces personnel to assist with emergency response and relief efforts. In the midst of a heat dome that fuelled wildfires and killed nearly 600 British Columbians over two weeks between late June and early July of last year, the CAF deployed more than 300 personnel to support local and provincial wildfire responses, including fire suppression, construction and airlift. In November the CAF contributed to the whole-of-government effort to address the floods, with more than 500 personnel delivering food and supplies, conducting reconnaissance and damage assessments, constructing flood defences, and helping to evacuate people, pets and livestock, including the dramatic helicopter rescue of nearly 300 people trapped by landslides on Highway 7 near Agassiz.
This exemplifies the capabilities the CAF can bring to the table that other actors cannot, and that will be increasingly required as the climate crisis worsens. In light of these events, I can only conclude that while the CAF's ability to deploy domestically in response to environmental disasters is vital, it is also insufficient.
I conclude my comments this morning with four brief points for why current disaster response capabilities in Canada should be increased in the years to come.
The first is that climate impacts and extreme weather are increasing the need for operational deployments and thus risk the straining of CAF resources, which will be needed not only across the country but also for longer periods of the year as a result of less predictable fire, flood and other extreme weather seasons.
Second, the climate change impacts affecting Canada also affect our neighbours, partners and allies, which means that established practices of resource sharing and co-operation will be strained due to the concurrent demands for finite resources, such as current programs for sharing firefighters with foreign jurisdictions such as Mexico and California. Notably, the increased demands upon and therefore reduced availability of civilian emergency resources from other jurisdictions will likely add further demand for the CAF to be the respondent agency domestically.
Third, the greatest danger is not just the increasing frequency and severity of climate-related extreme weather events, but the increased likelihood that they will occur simultaneously and strain the capacity of government to respond. British Columbia last year experienced three major disasters spaced out over less than six months, but what if in that time there had been another extreme weather event facing another major urban area in Canada on a scale comparable to the 2013 Calgary floods or the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire? A blizzard in Halifax or a snowstorm in Toronto...? The concurrence of these climate disasters in future will substantially reduce the efficacy of the Canadian Armed Forces' ability to respond.
Finally, I conclude by simply noting that the overall health of the CAF is vital, therefore, to its ability to effectively respond in these situations. Broader discussions around the health of the armed forces in terms of the respect and standing of all of CAF members, diversity and inclusion within the ranks, the role of women and the need for a strong and forward-looking leadership are also relevant to the CAF's efficacy to respond in these kinds of situations.
I will hold my comments there, and I look forward to your questions.
Thank you.
Liberal
Dr. Peter Kikkert Assistant Professor, Public Policy and Governance, Brian Mulroney Institute of Government, St. Francis Xavier University, As an Individual
Good afternoon to the chair and committee members.
I'd like to begin by acknowledging that I am joining you from the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq people. I am honoured to be here. Thank you for the opportunity.
Climate change, the natural hazards it amplifies, limited provincial and territorial investment in disaster management resources, and the Canadian Armed Forces’ unique capabilities have led to the CAF’s transformation from a force of last resort in disaster response to a force of first—or only—resort.
As this committee has already heard, this tempo of domestic operations will negatively affect the CAF’s operational readiness and training for its primary combat role. Further, the CAF provides only response and relief. It does not do mitigation, preparation and recovery work. In short, the military is not a cure-all to the current disaster management gaps in this country, particularly its lack of a disaster workforce.
Possible military-centric solutions are to establish a special CAF branch or operational command focused exclusively on disaster response or to ensure a fully dual-use military that is equally trained and prepared to deal with traditional security threats and disasters. I would argue, however, that this will turn the CAF into a jack of all trades and a master of none.
The CAF has a central role that no other government body can perform: deterring and defeating potential enemies. This requires a very specialized skill set. Other civilian groups and agencies can assume most of the disaster response roles performed by the CAF, and far more cheaply, but not vice versa.
The RCAF Cormorants that rescued the 300 people during the landslides in B.C. last November, which Dr. Greaves referenced, offer a great example of the kind of contribution the CAF should be making to disaster response. So do the dozens of times Canadian Rangers patrols have been used to assist communities during floods, fires and severe weather. Additional investments in existing capabilities and responsibilities, such as increasing the CAF’s primary search and rescue assets or offering the Canadian Rangers more training and experience in disaster response, would allow the CAF to assist in disaster events across the country without affecting the primary function of the regular force.
During your meeting last week, Josh Bowen made a convincing case for the development of localized and interoperable volunteer teams with standardized training and competencies, building off of the array of NGOs that provide response, relief and recovery support in this country. As this committee has already heard, possible models exist, particularly Germany’s Federal Agency for Technical Relief or Australia’s state emergency service. Both organizations have small cadres of full-time professionals who assist with administering and training thousands of volunteers at the local level.
Importantly, however, both organizations have recently raised concerns about volunteer recruitment and retention. Australia offers a cautionary note on the volunteer system, particularly for Canada, given the similarities in our approaches to emergency management. Recent research there has suggested that the traditional model of volunteering is in decline, with high turnover rates, older volunteers and growing levels of burnout.
Much like the CAF, the Australian Defence Force has been shouldering more of the burden. Earlier this year, 6,000 military personnel deployed to assist in flood relief activities. As a result, Australia is also discussing how to move forward. Whether the military should embrace a larger response and recovery role, and if the country needs to adopt a new approach to volunteering, including incentivization, or if it requires a professional, civilian emergency response force are key issues that Canada must also consider.
Local responders help tremendously during the first minutes, hours and days of a disaster, but are eventually overwhelmed or are required to deal with their own personal and property concerns. While rapid disaster response aid NGOs help fill this group, they need help. It's time for Canada to consider investing in a professional and permanent disaster management workforce. Perhaps it could be a Canadian resilience agency or a Canadian resilience corps, an organization of paid full-time and part-time responders who could be quickly mobilized and deployed to disaster zones for response and recovery efforts.
To justify its permanent existence, such an organization must also be engaged in every phase of disaster management. It can't be just response and recovery, but mitigation and preparation, including the training of local response teams. These efforts would pay for themselves. Every dollar spent on mitigation and prevention saves between $6 and $13 in response and recovery.
Again, possible models exist. A permanent disaster workforce could, for instance, adopt FEMA's tiered system with a force of full-time personnel, a cadre of on-call response employees and a group of reservists. However it is structured, the establishment of a Canadian resilience agency or corps would provide the kind of disaster workforce that this country is currently lacking, and alleviate the pressure on the Canadian Armed Forces.
I look forward to discussing this further during the question period. Thank you for your time.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Thank you, Professor Kikkert.
Madam Kerry-Lynne Findlay, you have six minutes.
Conservative
Kerry-Lynne Findlay Conservative South Surrey—White Rock, BC
Thank you.
Thank you very much for being here and for your thoughts on this.
The questions you're posing are exactly the questions we're wrestling with at this committee. We know there is a need for some domestic deployment. What should it look like? Should it be within CAF? Should it be a separate agency? Should it be a specially trained agency within or without? You're asking the same questions that we certainly have on our minds.
I'm interested in what sort of training regime you think would be required to build specific Canadian Forces units to combat climate change.
Either one of you can respond.
Assistant Professor, Public Policy and Governance, Brian Mulroney Institute of Government, St. Francis Xavier University, As an Individual
In terms of preparing the CAF for a greater response role, they already do a really good job of this. That's one of the reasons they've been used so extensively. The CAF's regional liaison officers, who work so closely with local emergency managers and provincial emergency management teams, do a really good job of creating that ease of transition of the CAF into a disaster response role.
In terms of moving forward, if the CAF is going to continue with this role, those kinds of relationships need to be expanded, maintained and sustained over the long period of time. Keep on doing what's worked so well. That's one thing.
If the CAF is going to fulfill this disaster response role moving forward and we're not envisioning a civilian agency to do it, the CAF does need greater training in standard emergency response procedures. We can see a situation where perhaps they receive some training in, for instance, wildfire fighting or flood mitigation measures. There are lots of specialities that can be brought into a training regimen to better prepare responders for these kinds of emergency situations.
As I said, I'm not sure that is—
Conservative
Kerry-Lynne Findlay Conservative South Surrey—White Rock, BC
I think this has been one of the issues. Yes, they have done a good job. We all appreciate the efforts they've made, but they're not at the moment really specifically trained for firefighting, say, or flood mitigation and that sort of thing. Of course, there's a lot to be said for, on the other side of it, the mitigation preparation side of better diking and investment in things that will help lessen the effects.
What would be the educational requirement to be a member of this vocation within the Canadian Forces? Would it be the same as it is now, or do you think there would have to be a different educational requirement?
Either one of you can respond.
Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Victoria, As an Individual
I'll just add something related to that.
I don't know that the initial educational requirement for recruitment into the forces would necessarily be different if this was more mainstreamed as part of the mandate for the forces. I think the technical skills would obviously need to be improved upon. That would presumably be training that occurred with the CAF rather than prior to it.
I do think there is another suite of skills, though, that are relevant here and that should be considered. There's a whole host of what we might call social and emotional skills that are required for people responding in these kinds of emergency and disaster situations, not the least of which is the need to be interacting with people in those communities who are under great duress in situations of crisis.
We should also attend to the ways in which the appropriate training for CAF personnel performing these kinds of roles also extends to training them to be able to effectively interact with community members and to engage with people in a range of different kinds of physical and social communities across this country with all manner of diversity in a supportive, constructive and respectful way. I think there would be a basket of training and skills related, not directly to the firefighting skills per se, but to the associated context in which these kinds of operations occur.
Conservative
Kerry-Lynne Findlay Conservative South Surrey—White Rock, BC
Professor Greaves, you said that you felt CAF was indispensable to this. Would you also be in favour of a separately organized group that is specifically trained to do this work outside of CAF, or do you think it needs to be within the forces?
Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Victoria, As an Individual
As currently configured in this country, the CAF's role is indispensable because, as my colleague Dr. Kikkert said, there is no other agency able to swoop in and provide these kinds of supports. The CAF is currently absolutely indispensable, but I certainly have been quite persuaded by arguments that Professor Kikkert and others have made about the need to establish a more robust and distinct body of some sort to provide these kinds of roles.
It's not obvious to me that this is a core military function. The CAF is the tool available, so it's the tool the Government of Canada deploys. Certainly, understanding the difference between war-fighting, which is the core function of the armed forces, and the kinds of civilian emergency management support we're discussing here is highly relevant. There might well be very strong arguments for considering the need for an alternative agency of some kind to better perform this function so that the CAF can better perform its other core function.
Conservative
Liberal
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Thanks very much, Mr. Chair.
Our last study was on recruitment and retention, and it's fascinating how that touches so closely to what we're talking about today. Essentially, the Canadian Armed Forces is being pulled in multiple directions, as Professor Kikkert said, in going from the force of the last resort to the force of the first—or only—resort.
Dr. Greaves, you used a phrase I like: the increased “tempo” for domestic events.
We've had a number of witnesses over the last week or so speak to varying recommendations for a path forward. There were some distinct themes, and you touched on some of them today.
One is that there needs to be greater investment in civilian emergency response capacity, and that the military, to the extent they are called on to respond in a domestic capacity, get additional resourcing and specialized capacity, regardless of whether it's the regular force or the reserve force, as needed.
For both of you, I'm interested in your thoughts on the appropriate division of responsibility between military and civilians. Because time flies by, I'm also going to throw this out: When it comes to civilian capacity, how much of this can we expect to be built up at the provincial level? At the last meeting, we heard about the fact that this is essentially a provincial jurisdiction, but the provinces have the ability to reach out to the federal government when they need help, and the federal government rarely denies that help.
I know that I threw a lot at you there, but I would ask Professor Greaves to speak to that first, and if Professor Kikkert would like to speak to it as well, that would be wonderful.
Thank you.
Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Victoria, As an Individual
Thank you for the question, sir.
I see a couple of big and important issues to address there.
In terms of your point about federal versus provincial jurisdiction, I think that's a highly salient concern, but I would personally raise some warnings about allowing a kind of patchwork quilt of response capacities across the country being determined by the different distinct fiscal and climate-related needs of each of the different provinces. As we know, and as members of this committee know, there's a lot of resource sharing that occurs in Canada. CAF personnel located in one province will be deployed to support an Operation Lentus deployment in another province. I think we see an almost inherent kind of interprovincial quality to what we're discussing here.
In that context, while some particularly at-risk provinces might well be served by improving their own emergency preparedness and disaster response capabilities, I personally would suggest that it's an important role for the federal government to have its own capabilities so that they can contribute, either as an initial response or as a supplementary response, to other capacities that might exist at the provincial level.
If I may just quickly offer a thought related to your question, in a climate context when we think about resilience, the most resilient forms of response are going to be the ones that are the closest to the community, closest to the local level. To the extent that personnel and resources are having to travel long distances to respond, there will be room for disruption and delay and, ultimately, the effectiveness may be somewhat undermined. I think models that site resources, human capacity and personnel within communities, or as distributed as possible, is probably one that's going to prove to be the most resilient in the climate change future.
In terms of the various approaches that have been identified, I would defer to my colleague in terms of the merits of many of those, but from what I've seen and heard from other experts, the model along the lines of, for example, the Canadian Rangers, which are inherently community based and deeply rooted in particular communities and regions of this country, is a model that to me seems very commendable and offers a lot of potential value in a somewhat broad and climate environmental disaster context.
Assistant Professor, Public Policy and Governance, Brian Mulroney Institute of Government, St. Francis Xavier University, As an Individual
That's an excellent question. It drives at a lot of what I was trying to highlight in my opening statement, which is the need for something else. The CAF cannot be the only response tool we have as a country. We need to do a better job of building up our local capabilities, our humanitarian disaster workforce. Dr. Greaves is right. Resilience starts from the bottom up. You build these local emergency teams. They know the region. They know who's vulnerable. They can respond quickly and that's great. We absolutely need that, but at some point, that local response does exhaust itself, so we need something else.
Right now, it's hard to replicate the hundreds of boots on the ground that the CAF can put on in very quick order, but I would argue that given the CAF's other responsibilities, something else should come probably from the federal level, and it should be able to deploy into the provinces and territories as required. Whether it's a new civilian agency or some other kind of disaster workforce that we can envision, I think that's going to be required. As Dr. Greaves pointed out, there are only more disasters and the kinds of emergencies and severe weather coming down the pike, so moving on this quickly is important.
I will say that national responses are important. The local is absolutely vital. I think of the Australian conversations, and they seem to be a couple of years ahead of us. After their bush fires in 2019-20, they had a large-scale national commission on national natural disasters. One of the things they highlighted was the need for a national response. Australia does have state emergency services that are far more robust than what we have at our provincial and territorial level, but they are overwhelmed, so something more than it was required. A national response was required, and that's the conversation they're having right now. I think it's one that this panel is having as well, so this is very timely in discussion, I think.
Liberal
Bloc
Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Professor Kikkert, Professor Greaves, thank you very much for being with us today.
As we read your publications, we note that there is something similar between the two of you. You have both published extensively on the issue of Arctic security and sovereignty. I would like to ask a question about this, and I will ask you both the same question after a long preamble.
There has been a lot of talk about using the regular force to respond to climate emergencies, because they are always ready, available and trained. When it comes to using the reserve force more, one of the problems that arises is that reservists are often in regular employment. Usually they are given plenty of notice of when they are to be sent on a mission, allowing them to prepare accordingly and to make the necessary employment arrangements. However, in the case of climate emergencies, the need is very immediate. The question is whether the reserve force could be better utilized.
I would like to hear your comments on the possibility of better utilizing the reserve force and looking for ways to better occupy territory in the Arctic to better ensure our territorial sovereignty and continental security. To do this, we could use military personnel similar to the Canadian Rangers, for example.
Could this be a win-win situation?
This would allow us to kill two birds with one stone. We would use a kind of parallel militia, which would make better use of the reserve force's capacity.
Assistant Professor, Public Policy and Governance, Brian Mulroney Institute of Government, St. Francis Xavier University, As an Individual
Thank you so much for the question and for bringing in the Canadian Rangers. They are very active in emergency response and historically they've been very active in emergency response. They've responded to forest fires and floods and avalanches, and not always just from their communities, but also in adjacent communities.
I do agree with your comments that any way we can strengthen the emergency response capabilities of the Canadian Rangers will benefit their communities and adjacent communities a great deal. Now that said, if you're going to be emphasizing this role for the Canadian Rangers, the ability of Canadian Rangers headquarters staff to actually support that also has to be facilitated, so I think increasing the number of administrative personnel who Canadian Rangers patrol groups have access to who can help facilitate these operations is going to be vital if the Canadian Rangers are given a broader kind of disaster workforce role moving forward in the north.
We're focused on the Arctic, and I work a lot with community responders in Nunavut. One of the ideas they have for emergency management that will hopefully alleviate some of the need to bring in outside help are Inuit public safety officers. These are officers who, if the program was developed, could be focused on marine safety, emergency preparedness, search and rescue, fire prevention. There are models for this that exist in Alaska, for instance. Again, having that local capability, I think, would go a long way to protecting communities in the north who are so distant and so far removed from external assistance coming from the south. As much as we can build up that robust local capacity which is important everywhere, it's even more important in the Arctic, given their remoteness and isolation and the time it takes for the south to get there.
Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Victoria, As an Individual
My colleague Professor Kikkert is the expert on the Canadian Rangers. I would certainly defer to him in terms of the overall assessment of the Canadian Rangers.
I would simply add that most Canadians will associate the Canadian Rangers with the Arctic. They almost go hand in hand. They are a vital component of Arctic communities and Canada's Arctic sovereignty. I would simply note that the Canadian Rangers exist in many communities outside of the north as well, in the northern parts of the provinces, from coast to coast to coast. In fact, the majority of the Canadian Rangers are not located in northern Canada, understood as the territorial north.
Just in that sense, I think the Canadian Rangers are in some sense an underutilized resource. That's not in terms of the immensely important work they do on the ground, but in terms of the understanding and appreciation we have of them as a non-Arctic-specific asset or resource. The Canadian Rangers already exist in communities somewhat more southerly located in Canada. They provide equally valuable services and supports to those communities that we might well build upon as we move further and further south and as we think about Canadians living at more and more southerly latitudes.
Bloc
Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC
Thank you very much.
I would just like to draw a parallel with the United States, since you mentioned Alaska. The United States uses their national guard a lot for internal deployments. So they use reservists more than we do in Canada.
I'd like to get your comments on the benefits of the increased use of reservists. You've already talked a bit about the importance of better funding for the reserve force. Maybe that would also generate more excitement, given the retention and recruitment issues.
Assistant Professor, Public Policy and Governance, Brian Mulroney Institute of Government, St. Francis Xavier University, As an Individual
I would say that in terms of the reserve, the mechanisms to bring them out and to solicit reservist volunteers to come and serve during disasters, in the rapid tempo in which the CAF has to deploy for a disaster response, is that something that...? Does it work that well? I think there are serious questions around that.
Again, to draw a parallel, this is a conversation Australia is also having, about how to use its reserve. In 2019 it actually called out the reserve for the first time. They had to respond. It's built into their defence legislation, so they're allowed to do it. I think there are questions around whether or not our reserve is structured to do that, how effectively they can do that and whether they have the training for that.
Again, if recruitment and retention is a concern, maybe building an organization outside of the Canadian Armed Forces might draw upon a perhaps much more diverse part of the population that does not want to join or serve in the CAF. I think there are lots of possibilities around the increased recruitment that potentially a civilian agency or a number of agencies could have that the military can't.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Thank you, Madam Normandin.
Ms. Mathyssen, you have six minutes, please.