National Defence Committee on Nov. 1st, 2022

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

I believe General Pelletier was going to respond after. I'm glad to know that his sound is all right.

[LGen Alain Pelletier]

Mr. Chair, I truly apologize for the current state of the technology.

All I'm going to add to what Mr. Quinn said is that at NORAD, in a number of symposiums, we have looked at how we're going to do business better in the future, in terms of not only the use of infrastructure, but also the use of other technology in the north. We're very focused on how we're going to get after such capability, and we're working to actually get after multi-use capability, so that whether it's a hangar or the elongation or improvement of runways, it's going to benefit not only the military community but hopefully the local communities as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You have one minute.

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

In the same meeting last week, Dr. Byers focused a great deal on the RADARSAT improvement. Could we receive an update on where that is in terms of his focus on that?

[Jonathan Quinn]

I think I'll start. I'm not sure if General Pelletier or General Huddleston will have anything to add.

If I understand the question correctly, part of the NORAD modernization plan is to enhance the amount of funding that has been allocated for the replacement system for the RADARSAT Constellation Mission, which was actually just launched fairly recently. This is an effort to look ahead and make sure that we're doing everything we can to minimize gaps in capability for the Canadian Armed Forces to start thinking about and planning out those replacement capabilities for when the RADARSAT Constellation Mission reaches the end of its useful life.

For the replacement, we're looking to do something a little bit different, which is for the successor to the RADARSAT Constellation Mission, a government-owned capability for which the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces are principal clients or beneficiaries. The replacement would be a DND/CAF-owned asset, and this is to make up for the increased demand that we have for earth-based observation, not only for the Arctic but also for other missions around the world, and also to account for security requirements as well and the necessity for DND/CAF to have the ability to share information at higher classification levels than is necessary for other government departments.

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

We're going to have to leave Ms. Mathyssen's question there.

Colleagues, we have 20 minutes left and 25 minutes' worth of questions. The math doesn't work, so I will take a minute off everybody.

With that, we go to Ms. Kramp-Neuman.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Good morning. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, gentlemen, for being here today.

There's a concern that a personnel crisis is contributing to our inability to ensure our national security. That's the paramount issue here. Second, a recruitment crisis is clearly causing chaos. Something has to give, and we need to have a plan. Retired general Rick Hillier has publicly stated that he has been given information that the personnel crisis is as critical as a 50% shortage. I realize operational security precludes you from commenting on just how bad things are in the military, but I think it's really important for us to understand what aspects of the CAF training must be scaled back due to the crisis. Just recently, General Eyre has publicly stated that we have to scale back.

What precisely, in your opinion, must be scaled back in the army, in the navy, and in the air force respectively? Second, is this drawdown an admission that we cannot meet our NORAD and NATO commitments?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Insofar as you can, if you could tie that question to the study, it would be helpful.

[LGen Alain Pelletier]

Mr. Chair, I'll let General Huddleston, who's responsible for force generation in the RCAF, address the question to start off.

[MGen Iain Huddleston]

Thank you, sir.

My responsibilities include reconstitution and the retention effort for the RCAF. I'm not involved in recruitment, although my division is focused on supporting recruitment through improving RCAF attractions. What we mean by that is selling ourselves effectively at events around the country and at colleges.

I acknowledge that the CDS has presented our personnel situation as a crisis, and I agree with that. My role as the commander of 1 CAD, with my commander of 1 CAD hat on as opposed to the CANR hat on, is to streamline operational training by training individuals from the basic point to where they are operators. We are looking at ways to fast-track and to acknowledge the past experience of the individuals to accelerate those paths.

Another part of my job is very much on the retention side, where I need to make the RCAF a better place to work and a more attractive place to stay, moving forward. Effectively, that's where I'm focused. In terms of the RCAF as a whole, the focus points are similar, but they extend now to basic training and to working with the chief of military personnel to improve recruitment.

To describe it as a crisis is accurate. There are a number of numbers out there in the public sphere, as you've said. I won't speak to those, but it is very much a near-term, key focal point for the RCAF.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Do any of the other gentlemen wish to comment on that?

[LGen Alain Pelletier]

I'll just add on to General Huddleston's answer that obviously NORAD will continue to do its mission as part of the CAF reconstitution priority. The vice-CDS has acknowledged the requirements for our personnel to be dedicated to the mission, given the no-fail nature of our mission in terms of threat warning and attack assessment.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You have about 20 seconds.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

How can we best attract our brightest and best Canadians to work within the military? What's the carrot that we can dangle to these individuals to get them involved?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I bet all of you have opinions about what that carrot might be. If you could work your answer into some other part of the proceedings, that would be helpful.

Ms. Lambropoulos, you have four minutes, please.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for being here to answer some of our questions.

I'm going to piggyback a bit on what my colleague said previously. I know that it might not be necessarily within your role, but I was wondering if you could answer to the fact that recruitment efforts are happening even in the north.

Last week we heard from Stéphane Roussel, who told us that the indigenous communities are pretty much maxed out through their work with the rangers, and I was wondering if you could comment on whether there is still room in the north and in indigenous communities to go and recruit. Especially if we're talking about protecting the Arctic, I feel that this is a community that can probably do that best. Do you have any comments on this?

[LGen Alain Pelletier]

I agree that northern communities have a lot to contribute to the defence of our country and to the protection of our sovereignty; however, I believe that the issue of capacity would be best addressed by our chief of military personnel, who keeps statistics and has a very good understanding of the recruiting pool across Canada.

Unfortunately, I don't have the statistics or the data to answer the question.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you.

Another colleague of mine, Madame Normandin, previously mentioned our ability to detect and destroy a missile that is headed towards Canada. You were starting to answer the question, but I don't think you finished the answer to that question. I'm quite curious to hear what this anti-missile agreement was and why Canada is not part of it.

Can you comment as to whether or not being part of such an agreement would make us safer from these threats?

[LGen Alain Pelletier]

I'm not going to elaborate on why Canada is not part of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. That's a policy question that I'll leave to our national decision-makers; however, I'll address our capability of detecting, tracking and—

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I'm sorry, General Pelletier; apparently we are not getting translation.

I don't know what to do, other than to simply limit the responses to General Huddleston and Mr. Quinn. It's really quite unfortunate, because I know General Pelletier well. I think the world of him and I think he has tremendous things to add to this conversation.

Should I be arbitrary here, colleagues, and just simply say that we'll have to invite General Pelletier back at another time?

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Is he retiring or anything?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

No, not as far as I know.

Are you retiring, General Pelletier?

[LGen Alain Pelletier]

No, I am still in the system.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Yes, as far as you know, you haven't been invited to retire. Well, that's good; we're ahead of the game here.

I am, unfortunately, going to ask the other two to respond to the questions. Again, I feel bad that we're not going to have the benefit of General Pelletier's thoughts and wisdom here.

Let me turn to either Mr. Quinn or General Huddleston to respond to Ms. Lambropoulos.