National Defence Committee on Feb. 2nd, 2022

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Andrew Wilson]

Mr. Motz, it seems like you've selected the speakers, but not your microphone. The interpreters are having a hard time hearing you.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Is that better?

[The Clerk]

Yes. We're getting thumbs up in the room.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Thank you very much. I apologize for that.

Mr. Mulroney, before my time is up, I want to get to what you started out with on your opening statement, which is your experience with China.

The communist regime there has obviously made Canada a target. We're targeted for political and economic interference. Can you expand on how they go about doing that? You did a little, but for the time I have left, can you just give us your thoughts on that specifically?

[David Mulroney]

There are three things principally that China has in its Canada policy. One that we're seeing is that we're one of the most important allies of the United States. Anything they can do to weaken that alliance and split us off is valuable. Two, we're a source of technology. They don't always respect us, but they respect us in certain areas, and they are working 24-7 to make off with as much of that technology as they can. Third, Canada is home to groups that are of interest to China, notably the Chinese diaspora.

The Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, talks about the great Chinese nation, and he's speaking globally, and that leads China to interfere in diaspora communities and to treat people as hyphenated rather than as Canadians. They victimize members of the diaspora but also Uighurs, Tibetans and Falun Gong practitioners.

They're working at making us less reliable allies to the United States, deepening our economic dependency on China, making off with our technology, and interfering at the community level in Canada, all with a view to transforming us into a more reliable client of China. You need only look at the rhetoric and the way the Chinese ambassadors and Chinese diplomats speak to us, including to parliamentarians. I've followed that over the last 10 years. The decibels are rising; the stridency is rising. They're assuming they can tell us what to do.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

I'll defer the remaining 20 seconds to one of my colleagues coming up in order to get a question.

Maybe Mr. Perry did such a good job of answering the short answer last time that I'll let him weigh in on that for the time I have left.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You don't have that much time left. I'm sorry.

We're on to Mr. May for six minutes.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

First of all, I just wanted to confirm that the translators are hearing me okay. I just want to make sure.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

They're happy with you.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

That's fantastic.

I want to thank both of the witnesses for being here today. My questions will be for Mr. Perry.

Mr. Perry, in your opinion, should Canada be increasing its ability to counter cyber-threats?

[David Perry]

It should. That's been a key area for a number of years, in that it's been recognized that we don't have enough capacity to adequately engage in that modern field of warfare but, more generally, the field of statecraft. I know there are efforts under way, especially given the technology sector in this country, that should be an area of focus and potentially an area of particular strength for Canada looking ahead.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Where do you see the biggest threats coming with regard to cyber?

[David Perry]

I would tie the cyber-threat back to the general threat from great powers in China and Russia that have a number of different elements of statecraft at their disposal. Cyber is one that they employ in concert with a number of different aspects—intelligence, conventional military and economic linkages—but cyber is increasingly the fabric that underpins much or all of that. Having a sophisticated understanding of how that all works, a good ability to defend our own networks, and an ability to take so-called offensive action, if that's what the Canadian interests require, is important.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Do you see progress with CSE at this point?

[David Perry]

There has been significant progress in that area, in bolstering that, and the Canadian Armed Forces has done that as well. There's still significant room to expand that.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

I'm going to shift gears a bit. You talked a little about the domestic activities of the military and the request for support from the military. You talked about climate change, and obviously COVID over the last two years.

You kind of talked a bit about the idea of how you cover both fronts, the domestic side and the challenges we're facing there versus the more traditional sense of the forces. Do you have any suggestions? Do you have any recommendations that we could consider on how to deal with that moving forward?

[David Perry]

The key recommendation would be to decide or provide some suggestion about how much priority should be placed by Canada's military specifically on filling those functions, or whether or not there might be other bodies in the federal government or other levels and types of support that could provide some of the assistance that we are increasingly calling on the military to do.

The military has been very successful at doing that, but it's coming at a cost in terms of its ability to simply do something else, whether that's collective training, being prepared on an individual basis, or doing things like vehicle maintenance. You're making a trade-off every time you deploy somebody to take on that type of task. While they can do it quite effectively, it simply means that they're unable to do something else at the same time.

I've moved away from an assumption that the Canadian military will effectively be called last, when no one else is available, and that's an assumption that I think in the last couple of years we've seen doesn't seem to hold up. We're going to have to either re-evaluate the collective totality of what we're asking them to do, or look at the individual resourcing impacts of asking them to do more in the domestic space.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

What have other countries done in this regard? Obviously, especially on climate change, this is a global problem. Have other countries addressed this, or are they leaning on their military as well?

[David Perry]

There are a number of different models. Certainly, you've seen during COVID that lots of other countries have used the military domestically. Just as a general observation, supports like these have taken place in more specific and focused areas. Some of the militaries have dedicated forces that can do things like civil engineering, effectively, with parts of the United States military as an example.

We have more of a general multi-purpose force approach. Some of the same people who we're asking to potentially deploy to eastern Europe are being asked to provide support at home. They can do that, but if you're helping fight a forest fire, or you're helping people in support after a flood, then you're less able to have the type of training to go overseas. In particular, with the military medical capacity, which is designed purely to deploy and provide medical support to our own troops, we're really stretching that particular aspect of our forces pretty significantly.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Chair, can I get a time check?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You have a little less than a minute.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Perfect.

I have a very quick question about procurement. You mentioned “Strong, Secure, Engaged”. Within the 30 seconds I'm going to give you here, I'm wondering if you can talk specifically about the national shipbuilding strategy.

[David Perry]

I'll say, in 30 seconds, that it's moving forward but slower than anticipated. I'd love to see that accelerated to the extent that it can be accelerated. The ships it's supposed to deliver will be vital. Until we get them, our options in the Pacific in particular will be a lot more limited than they hopefully will be once those ships arrive.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Excellent. I think that's my time.

To both witnesses, again, thank you for being here.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Ms. Normandin, you have six minutes.