National Defence Committee on Oct. 4th, 2022

[Richard Fadden]

I think there are people now who advise the prime minister of the day and they do it, I think, as well as anybody could. In the end, the prime minister of the day has to be the final decision-maker, but I think he or she would decide on the basis of the tools that are available to him or her. Right now, most of the time when there's a disaster of the sort that we have in Atlantic Canada, it's the Canadian Forces.

I think Mr. Trudeau acted entirely rationally. He didn't have any other tools. They needed help and they needed it now. My argument is not that he acted illogically, but rather that he didn't have any other tools.

The inquiry that I'm advocating would, to begin with, do a compilation of all of the emergency capabilities in the provinces and the municipalities, because I don't think we even have that comprehensively. Then it would do an examination of the environments I talked about and make concrete recommendations on where we would have to, quite candidly, spend money to build this kind of capability. You may want to contract with the private sector or with civil society. You may want to say to the provinces that you're going to give them x millions of dollars to do a limited amount.

What I'm arguing fundamentally is that we need to give the government of the day more tools.

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

Specifically though, if there was more of a long-term thinking permanent body that would look at that, it would be one of those....

[Richard Fadden]

Yes, I think so.

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

It would be made up of a lot of people similar maybe to those who are around the table now, but on a more permanent official-type capacity.

[Richard Fadden]

I'm sort of beating myself against the head because I'm arguing against my former colleagues, but I do think public servants have a specific role and they're constrained by the political environment. I would add to this review body some experts from the outside, because they do provide a different perspective. I think government is entitled to as broad a perspective as we can give it.

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

You talked about the inclusion of the private sector. Some of the witnesses we heard from talked about moving this away from so much focus on the military because it is so costly.

Mr. Chair, I think you said they are the most expensive sandbaggers, woodcutters, whatever...yes.

That said, the private sector has a very specific purpose of making money. What would be in place to ensure that was kept under control, so that it was specifically and consistently for the public good and not for their own private interests?

[Richard Fadden]

I'm not against the private sector making money. What I'm against is the private sector making excessive money in the context of disasters.

I think the chair is right when he argues that they are pretty expensive woodcutters. If you use military helicopters to transport facilities across the country, given the way that over the years Parliament has insisted that the Canadian Forces account for costs, it is much more expensive, I think, than contracting with a private company and saying, “We need 10 helicopters and for the following prices.” I mean, I think you can negotiate reasonably.

In the interest of clarity, I'm a long-time supporter of the Canadian Red Cross. I've been associated with them for a while. They have been used over the course of the last several disasters at a cost that is not even in the same realm as the Canadian military. They are far less expensive because they use trained volunteers.

You use the private sector when you need things like logistical support. You use civil society, be it the Red Cross or the Salvation Army or whatever, which can draw on many volunteers, because they maintain those kinds of lists in a way the government does not. You use the federal government, or the governments generally, as a real last resort.

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

Okay.

Again, though, in the private sector, often those profits are primary. Oftentimes the argument with the armed forces is that they have specific training. You mentioned that they are trained effectively and fully.

How would the private sector be monitored to deal with that appropriately and not cut costs, so that ultimately their people are compensated and trained in the most effective manner?

[Richard Fadden]

I think you'd have to go back to what I was saying in my remarks. You have to divide up the kind of support that the Canadian Forces provides: logistical, administrative and people. I think if you define precisely what you want from the private sector....

I'm using helicopters, because helicopters are used a lot in disasters to move people around. Canadian Forces helicopters are attack helicopters, by and large. They're excruciatingly expensive. They're expensive to maintain. People use them, in fact, because they are armed and they can go out and shoot people. They're not designed to move bedding. Whereas, you have private sector helicopters that are very good at transporting goods. We have any number of companies that would do that, so we issue a standing offer.

I think we would be making the wrong decision if we automatically excluded the possibility of using the private sector. I agree with you that you have to be careful. Not every contract that the federal government signs is as cost-effective as it might be, but some are. It depends on the circumstances.

It's either doing something like that or we're going to have to continue relying on the military. The problem there is that it cuts down on their operational training, and they're not getting enough of that, I would argue.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Ms. Mathyssen.

We're on the five-minute round. We have a little more than 20 minutes to cover off 25 minutes' worth of questions, so I will be a little brutal with Mr. Motz and others.

Mr. Motz, you have five minutes.

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

I'm sure you will. Thank you very much.

Mr. Fadden, it's great to see you again, and thank you for being here.

We've been studying over the course of the last several months, the military readiness, and we've seen some significant inadequacies with the shortfalls we have in personnel. We've now moved into this study, and I think they overlap.

After last week's committee meeting—we had Major-General Prévost and others here—I received some correspondence from someone within the military. They said the following: “Perhaps some of our leaders are too far removed from the reserves to know what's really happening. A division—and I'm not going to mention it—has lost over 400 reserves in the last three years because they're fed up with the governance mandate for the military. They didn't join to clean up domestic disasters; they joined to protect their country. We've never been so vulnerable and so woefully inadequate. Others countries are protecting our north because they know we can't. Championing the military will do wonders for their morale, because it's at an all-time low. Life on the base is very different than in Ottawa. If you want to get answers to your questions, ask those on the base, not Ottawa.”

What are your thoughts to those comments coming from our own members of the armed forces?

[Richard Fadden]

I think there's some truth to it, but there are also some limitations. If you're a colonel on a base, you don't look at the broader situation, so I think what you need is a combination of the base-level perspective with the NDHQ perspective. Neither is complete without the other.

One of the things that struck me when I was at DND was that all of the more junior people told me they hated being in garrison. They didn't join to be sitting on bases. They just hate it. They want to go to Latvia. They want to go to Ukraine. They want to help with the disaster in Indonesia, but our capabilities now are becoming so limited that the likelihood of their doing that is less than it used to be.

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

Thank you for those comments.

I agree with you on the military being used as a last resort. I think “last resort” has become too easy a term to be stretched.

You mentioned, with Ms. Gallant, some comments about the Canadian Emergency Management College. I happen to be a graduate of that place, and it had tremendous learning there, which I was able to apply in some disasters in my own community.

Do you think it's possible, when you look at the totality of the economic impact of a disaster and the cost to then clean it up, that we'd actually save taxpayer dollars federally if the government could stand that college up again and invite our provinces, our municipalities, our NGOs and our civilian organizations to increase the civilian capacity? In so doing, do you think the need for the federal government to come to the rescue, if you will, of some places would be mitigated?

Do you see the long-term gain in something like that?

[Richard Fadden]

Yes, I absolutely do. A solution to the entire problem it's not, but it's a solution for a big chunk of it. I think the model should be a national college—not a federal one—with the federal government perhaps taking the lead, but you know, provinces don't particularly always enjoy joining federal institutions and, as they say, “being told what to do and how to do it”.

It's a bit like the national police college. It's run by the RCMP, but it really is nationally administered by all the police forces in the country.

I absolutely think it would be worthwhile. It would need to have its mandate carefully defined and to be resourced adequately. We have a bad habit in this country of creating institutions and then not resourcing them adequately, at least initially when we're setting them up.

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

Thank you.

When you look at disasters now, with the disaster down east with this hurricane, there might be questions asked on overlap, on duplication. When we're talking about using NGOs, federal resources and government organizations, there are sometimes duplications. Is there a way that we could avoid that and be more efficient in our response to these?

[Richard Fadden]

You're going to accuse me of being repetitious, but I think we need a compilation of what resources are actually available on the ground right now, because I don't think.... Unless things have really changed a great deal in the two or three years since I left government, we don't have that compilation. How can you plan to avoid overlap if you don't know what's available to begin with, except on the ground, where, hopefully, the senior person would say, “For the love of God, you're both doing the same thing—go in an opposite direction”? To start, we need a compilation of what's available.

I'm sorry, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

That's all right. I don't mind taking it out on Mr. Motz.

You have five minutes, Mr. Robillard.

[Yves Robillard, Liberal, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Good morning, everyone.

Mr. Fadden, how long would it take to set up and train a civilian organization that would have the same capacity and the same means as the Canadian Armed Forces have right now to respond to national emergencies?

[Richard Fadden]

It's almost impossible to have the same resources as the Canadian Forces because they have something other organizations will never have, which is people. When disaster strikes, they can put 30,000 troops on the ground to do whatever needs doing.

That said, there are logistical resources, administrative resources and emergency reserves. I believe the next witnesses are here on behalf of the Red Cross. I suggest you ask them that question. The Red Cross has emergency supply depots all across the country. I think those resources could be bulked up fairly quickly.

Duplicating the Canadian Forces' logistical resources, however, would take some time. Take, for example, the armoured troop transport vehicles that were used in Alberta when there were forest fires, and in the Maritimes. It's doable, but it would take a few years. It doesn't happen overnight.

[Yves Robillard, Liberal, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

How can the federal government do a better job of helping the provinces boost their resilience in national emergencies?

[Richard Fadden]

That's an excellent question, but I'm not sure I have a great answer.

Part of the problem is that, when the federal government talks to the provinces about these things, the first thing the provinces do is ask the feds for a cheque. I realize that's the best thing in some situations, but the provinces have responsibilities too, and they just need support.

Here's an example from the not-too-distant past. In the spring, there was a water issue in Gatineau. I'll never understand why governments in Canada allow people to build houses and cottages in places where flooding is possible and, in some cases, likely.

That kind of thing can be done collaboratively by both levels of government, but there has to be political will, and that political will can't be imposed.

[Yves Robillard, Liberal, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

What can local, provincial and federal governments do to reduce growing pressure on the Canadian Armed Forces to respond to national emergencies?

[Richard Fadden]

First of all, all provinces and municipalities should be required to have emergency management organizations. Second, those organizations have to work together. For example, Manitoba and Saskatchewan should have an agreement to share disaster response resources. That should be practically automatic. Similarly, New Brunswick should be able to ask Quebec for help in case of disaster. That does happen more or less informally, but I think it should be formalized. Places like Montreal and Trois‑Rivières should be able to ask Quebec for help.

That kind of collaboration should be required, with plans in place for that kind of exchange. That would be one way to improve things.

[Yves Robillard, Liberal, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Desilets, you have two and a half minutes.