National Defence Committee on Feb. 14th, 2022

[Andrew Rasiulis]

I will just follow up on the Canadian position and its military deployments. We've been involved with deterrence operations, as we are now in Latvia. We have a ship that's part of the NATO force cruising into the Black Sea, and we have air deployments in Romania. Of course, we met our roles in Afghanistan. The Canadian military has been very much a part of deterrence and, in fact, war-fighting, as we did in Afghanistan.

The training side is specifically what we're talking about today with Ukraine. Ukraine is not a member of NATO and therefore does not get combat support. It gets training support under the partnership for peace arrangements. This is where I said we're punching above our weight, because in the Ukrainian training mission, Canada has been doing quite a bit compared to other allies. Not to denigrate the others, but—

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Unfortunately, we're going to have to leave it there. Again, I apologize for always cutting you off.

Mr. Spengemann, you have five minutes please.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Chair, thank you very much.

I'll start with a fairly broad question to Mr. Rasiulis, and perhaps I'll have time for some more detailed follow-up ones.

I was born in Cold War Berlin. I recall very vividly having to cross multiple checkpoints to visit family. I was a very young child at the time. My father was a child in Berlin during the 1948 airlift. He recalls the American relief pilots who were dropping chocolates and raisins in little parachutes to kids who were picking them out of trees. I had a very sharply defined vision of east versus west.

If we fast forward to 1989-91, there was at least a flicker over some time of not east versus west, but east and west. I'm wondering if I can invite you to speculate, with the benefit of hindsight, what went wrong.

We're now in 2022 and I think, without putting words into Mr. Colby's mouth, he described the current scenario as a foreign policy disaster. What could we have done differently? If there are one or two big foreign policy questions that could have been settled differently between, let's say, 1970 and 2007, what would they be?

[Andrew Rasiulis]

This will get us into a huge debate, so let me trot out my territory on this one.

I believe that the Russian position.... After the Cold War, we were not all that nice to the vanquished. Yes, the west won the Cold War, but this is the classic case of how to deal with your opponent when you defeat your opponent.

We sort of ignored them. We sort of pushed them around. We did the Kosovo bombing. We ignored them. That's why Putin went to the Munich conference in 2007 and said they'd had enough.

Could we have done something so that he wouldn't have had to do that? Could we have engaged the Russians more and not sort of pushed them aside? I don't think we did this malevolently; we just sort of thought that they weren't big players anymore, so we could do it our own way. We just sort of ignored them.

That, I think, was a big mistake. That has come to roost now. By deploying the troops they have—130,000 or whatever on the Ukrainian border—the Russians are demonstrating that they count. They're saying, “Please talk to us.” Now they've got everyone's attention. Everyone is talking to them.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

I'm sorry to cut you off.

Mr. Colby, can I ask you to come in briefly? Then I'll have a follow-up question. Maybe you'll both have time to address that as well.

[Elbridge Colby]

Sure. Thank you. It's a difficult question.

My own personal view is that Ukraine and Georgia are probably a bridge too far. States that were with the U.S.S.R., except for the Baltics, were probably a bridge too far. My view is that we should not admit Ukraine and Georgia into NATO under any circumstances.

There could be a possibility of an agreement with Moscow, but it's looking unlikely at this point, although it may follow what—God forbid—looks like a conflict.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

I have two minutes left.

I'm wondering if you could each comment briefly on defence co-operation as a diplomatic tool, as value in itself as a military process. Then I'm also wondering about, for example, UN peace operations, not conflicts between great powers to which Canada is allied, but other work that needs to be done, like in Mali, for example, and in other areas in the world where we do good military work through the United Nations. What's our capacity as Canadians to do that work? What priorities should we set?

[Andrew Rasiulis]

I'll speak from a Canadian point of view on that one. We're stretched. The Canadian military deployments that we have now in Latvia and in Ukraine are basically pushing the envelope for us in terms of how many forces we can deploy. In Afghanistan we had roughly 2,000, and that was our limit, given the number of forces we have.

We have done peacekeeping, like in Mali, where we had that one helicopter squadron that went over there and did a six-month tour. We can do things like that, but in a very, very limited way. That's a capacity issue. These are good roles, but again, the Canadian Forces has only so many people and so many resources to do this. You will reach burnout if you deploy too much. You really have to make choices.

[Elbridge Colby]

I would just say briefly, sir, that I think on the defence co-operation side, that's a very important tool. It is a diplomatic tool, confidence-building, but also we can be greater than the sum of the parts, depending on the context. The ideal European defence posture going forward looks a bit like the latter part of the Cold War, where there were different national units along the inner German border. Obviously, as you'd know very well, that's not necessarily that militarized, but Germans, Canadians, French and Brits working together. That's the ideal, I think, that we want to move towards. We should think about Europe being SACEUR in the future, to give more strength to that politically.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

I think I'm very close to my time, Mr. Chair, with not enough time to get another question in. Thank you very much, both of you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You are indeed. Thank you for sacrificing your 14 seconds.

With that, Madame Normandin, you have two and a half minutes, please.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I would like to pick up where Mr. Rasiulis left off, namely the issue of Ukraine and NATO.

In your opinion, is it possible that Ukraine, on its own, as a result of attacks or pressure from Russia, will decide to renounce its will to join NATO?

[Andrew Rasiulis]

This is the big question, the question of Ukrainian neutrality. I won't take up too much time, but the Ukrainian ambassador in London yesterday, Vadym Prystaiko, who I know, said Ukrainians might consider neutrality to avert a war. This was immediately withdrawn by the Ukrainian foreign ministry as a misunderstanding and speaking out of context. The fact that he said that, I think, suggests that it is being considered by some.

It is on the table. The neutrality option for Ukraine is on the table. It is what the Russians really want. The question is this: How is this going to be packaged? I believe that by discussing the new European security architecture, which the Americans have given to Russia as an option, therein lies the possibility to talk about a new framework that could include a moratorium on enlargement. I certainly agree with Mr. Colby's assessment in terms of our reaching our limits, perhaps, on enlargement. Perhaps a moratorium might be a good thing.

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

What message does it send that a state like Russia is able to put such pressure on NATO?

[Andrew Rasiulis]

It's realpolitik. The question is, are you going to fight a war over something that's not going to happen anyway? Ukraine is not coming into NATO. There is no consensus to do that, so you're fighting on a point of principle that it has a right to come, but it's not going to come. Why are we doing this?

I think the message has to be put diplomatically, but I can tell you honestly that, basically, it's not worth having a war over a point of principle when the reality isn't going to be that in the first place. The message has to be handled carefully, and this is for Canadian diplomacy behind the scenes. We have a very good relationship with Ukraine. I think we can quietly, behind the scenes, tell Ukraine that a neutral option might, in fact, work to its advantage. Austria made it work for itself. Finland made it work for itself during the Cold War. This is not necessarily a sentence to be condemned.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Again, thank you, Madame Normandin.

Madame Mathyssen, you have two and a half minutes, please.

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

In terms of that neutrality for Ukraine, then, if that's in fact what happens, what should Canada do to support it in other ways through that?

[Andrew Rasiulis]

I didn't get a chance to talk about the Minsk agreements in my comments because of the time issue, but the Minsk agreements, if they're implemented, call for a system of federalization in terms of a special status for the Donbass to return to Ukraine proper as semi-autonomous. That's a question of federalism.

There's also the question of Russian language rights for the Russian speakers in the Donbass, which is a question of bilingualism. In both federalism and bilingualism, Canada has a great deal of experience. In that sense, should the Ukrainians wish to move forward on implementing Minsk, Canada could certainly play a great role, with our experience in federalism and bilingualism, to assist the Ukrainians.

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

You were saying before that we missed the opportunity after the Cold War to allow ourselves to build, in instances, trade. Why is it that the diplomatic corps, or that diplomatic side, has been so weakened? Maybe both of you can answer. I probably don't have time.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You have time to let Mr. Colby go ahead, because he's been silent.

[Elbridge Colby]

I'm not qualified to talk about the Canadian diplomatic corps. All I would say, Madam, is that in addition to the points that Mr. Rasiulis has made, Canada and others could also support, especially, Ukraine's ability to defend itself, which is an important part of this Finland model. Finland has had the ability to defend itself, and the Soviet Union understood that very well.

To me, something like that would be an outcome preferable to a Russianized Ukraine or a devastated Ukraine. How we get there, I think, is the question. To me, similar to Mr. Rasiulis, at the end of the day, NATO is a security alliance. It's designed to defend us. When people say that Ukraine has a right to join, I respect the people of the Ukraine, but, ultimately, those are Americans and Canadians who will be dying to defend them, and that should make sense for our people and your people, I would imagine. It's for you to judge.

I don't think it's in America's interests to send people to die for a principle. In a sense, that is hollow at the end of the day. It's not practical. We should be using our military only to serve our enlightened self-interests—but our interests. That's how we've made many mistakes as America in the last generation. I hope we can narrow our focus more but remain strong where it's needed.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Ms. Mathyssen and colleagues. We're running past the clock, but I'm still going to get Ms. Gallant and Ms. Lambropoulos in, for five minutes each, starting now.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

In 2014, as you know, China starting building islands in the South China Sea. In 2014, Russia invaded Ukraine, and that was just six years after invading Georgia. Here we are, almost eight years to the week in 2014. Once again, Russia may be on the brink of invading Ukraine, and China appears to be preparing an incursion into Taiwan.

Given Russia's build-up of its naval...in its Arctic, and China's presence in our Arctic, would it be better just to focus our efforts on the Canadian Arctic, in addition to upholding our NATO commitment?

That would be for Mr. Colby.

[Elbridge Colby]

Well, madam, the more Canada can do the better, but I think if your interests are localized in the Arctic, that's an important place to play. You're right to point to the Chinese as well as the Russians, but I would suggest that Canada can play a role beyond the Arctic that, I think, would be very welcome and useful.

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

In addition to the study being about threat analysis, it's on troop readiness. Were the U.S. forces stood down for two years, as they were for the most part in Canada, for COVID?