National Defence Committee on Oct. 18th, 2022

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

I do. I think my question is a quick one, but I'd like it if each panellist could answer.

We had a lot of talk about the general acknowledgement of a crisis around personnel. Can each member give us the actual jobs, the top positions that can't be filled? Is it engineers? Is it medical? Is it pilots? Is it equipment operators? Where are the critical shortages? Could each of you respond to that?

[MGen Conrad Mialkowski]

Mr. Chair, I'll go first to answer that question.

Within the Canadian army, first and foremost it's signals trades. It's communications, but not only communications: Computer systems trades are distressed. It also includes engineers—not combat engineers, but more the professional engineers who help with our acquisition program and our ability to create capability development in the land domain.

Finally, we all share the same pressure in terms of medical people in the Canadian Forces health services, as well as administrative folks, particularly clerks and our human resource managers and financial managers, which we lack across the entirety of the structure.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Kelly.

Ms. Normandin, go ahead. You have one minute.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Melting glaciers and climate change are making the Far North more accessible and therefore busier. My understanding is that Canada doesn't necessarily have the ability to keep up with the current level of expansion. Is that something we can expect will change in the future, or does the capacity to better protect Canada's sovereignty in the Arctic have more to do with policy?

[VAdm Angus Topshee]

Thank you for your question.

I have no doubt that we are already in a position to protect Canada's sovereignty in the Arctic. The CAF has enough capability in all domains to ensure Canada's sovereignty and security in Canada's north, and to respond to current and future threats. As the chief said, we constantly have to improve our assets to ensure continued capability in response to threats in the distant future.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Ms. Mathyssen, you have one minute.

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

We've often talked today about defending Arctic sovereignty and our Arctic sovereignty, and you just mentioned it several times. How do you find balance in protecting Inuit sovereignty? How does those combine in your day-to-day functions?

[VAdm Angus Topshee]

One of the highlights for us of the introduction of the Harry DeWolf class is that we've worked to affiliate each of the six Harry DeWolf class ships with the six regions of the Inuit north to make sure that we are, from the beginning, understanding the region through the communities that live there.

As I said before, our goal is to make sure that our presence is a benefit and never comes at the detriment of anything that's happening up there, so we're working very closely with the communities of the north to make sure that we live up to that expectation.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Ms. Mathyssen.

I'll ask the final question.

You see Elon Musk do some pretty bizarre things, particularly lately, the last of which was that he threatened to cut Ukraine off from satellite access. He reversed himself 24 hours later.

It does speak to a vulnerability. It particularly speaks to a vulnerability that I think we have up north, which is our reliance on satellite communications.

Can any one of you...but I'm assuming General Kenny will be the one who can respond to this. Do we have a similar vulnerability to a commercially based, owner-operated satellite system?

[LGen Eric Kenny]

You speak of SpaceX, which is one component of the many commercial providers putting multiple satellites up that will benefit all Canadians and many members around the world.

From my perspective, the ability to have redundancy and resiliency comes with increased capacity, whether that's through commercial industry, private partnerships or the military. It's not going to be one alone. We need to understand what the vulnerabilities are and make sure that we have capacity or capability to switch to others as required. We do that even for some of our current systems.

I do believe that if we don't partner closely with our commercial satellite providers, we won't be as successful as we could as we move forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you.

Thanks, each one of you, for coming before us. As you can see, you really got the attention of the committee. It was very engaged, and this was an excellent launch to this study. We look forward to your coming back to the committee from time to time as we move on to other studies.

With that, the meeting is adjourned.