Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for the invitation to speak to you today about the threat analysis affecting Canada and the Canadian Armed Forces' operational readiness to meet those threats.
In my opening remarks, I'll focus on the changes in the threat analysis since the publication of Canada's defence policy, “Strong, Secure, Engaged”, in 2017; recent changes to Canada's armed forces' operations domestically; long-standing shortfalls in key maintenance budgets; and the implications for operational readiness.
As we are witnessing currently with Russia's military buildup on the Ukrainian border, the return of great power competition, which was identified in our defence policy five years ago, has only amplified since. Russia and China, in particular, continue to invest in programs of widespread military modernization and employ those modernized armed forces, in concert with other elements of state power, in ways that threaten Canadian interests. The demonstrated behaviour of antagonistic great powers is the backdrop against which the ongoing reinvestment in Canada's military is occurring.
That reinvestment is needed both to maintain Canada's basic commitments to national, North American and international roles, and to enhance our ability to deter unwanted great power behaviour. In North America and the Indo-Pacific, in particular, greater clarity of purpose and matching resources are needed to ensure Canada's ongoing security and open access to international trade.
Set against those international pressures, the last several years have seen a dramatic increase in the use of Canada's military on domestic operations. Our changing climate and the current pandemic have resulted in deployments across Canada more frequently, and for new and unanticipated purposes. The operations have unquestionably provided a valuable service to the country. However, if we anticipate employing our military at the same scale and frequency domestically as we have recently, we need to re-evaluate the full set of missions we are asking the military to perform and how they are being resourced.
Defence planning presumes the military will be a force of last resort for domestic operations, but that premise no longer appears valid. If the military has become the force of choice for providing domestic assistance, and those roles are prioritized, that will necessarily reduce the operational readiness of the military to perform other missions by impacting training, equipment usage and personnel operational tempo. If that kind of defence reorientation is desired, it should be done purposefully and with any required resourcing trade-offs made deliberately.
Finally, a key aspect of operational readiness the committee may wish to investigate is the operational availability of the Canadian Armed Forces' equipment fleets. The ability to deploy equipment operationally is dependent on the maintenance and support regime that keeps our ships, aircraft and vehicles serviceable. A key component of that serviceability is the availability of funding and the ability to deploy it in what National Defence refers to as its national procurement account, which is a centrally managed budget that funds a significant portion of the military's maintenance.
Within the last decade, defence has been dealing with two different shortfalls related to its ability to address the identified maintenance needs of its fleet. The first is a shortfall in the capacity available in government to put maintenance contracts in place, as well as in industry to do the actual work. The second shortfall relates to the availability of funding to conduct all that.
As a result of combined shortages of funding and capacity, for years our military has been conducting less maintenance across its equipment holdings than is required. Over time, undermaintaining equipment reduces its availability for operational employment, a dynamic exacerbated as equipment ages. Given the advancing age of some key fleets—frigates and fighters in particular—this maintenance deficit is growing, which will limit the operational readiness of Canada's military for the next several years.
In sum, several factors are combining to constrain the operational readiness of Canada's military. These are the need to take additional steps to defend Canada and North America with our American allies, an imperative to be more involved in the Indo-Pacific, a significant increase in domestic operations and the long-standing but ongoing maintenance shortfalls. A re-evaluation of what Canada is asking its armed forces to do and the resources required to do it is in order.