Evidence of meeting #6 for National Defence in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was ukraine.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:30 p.m.
Principal and Co-Founder, The Marathon Initiative, As an Individual
I hope not. I certainly don't think so.
4:30 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
In terms of force generation, were the U.S. troop strengths, or new recruits, severely weakened as a consequence of COVID?
4:30 p.m.
Principal and Co-Founder, The Marathon Initiative, As an Individual
I have not seen any evidence to that effect.
4:30 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Thank you. We had recruits in basic training and they were in isolation, which really amounted to solitary confinement—committing suicide—and those who were left had missed the deadlines for their courses because they were locked down. We lost a new tranche of people coming in.
In the eyes of the United States, is Canada upholding its NORAD obligations?
4:30 p.m.
Principal and Co-Founder, The Marathon Initiative, As an Individual
I'm not aware of the specifics. The United States is always looking to the Wales commitment as probably the arbiter. That's the main thing I would focus on.
4:30 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Given our assets, where do you see Canada's national interests and the United States' national interests intersecting to the greatest degree?
4:30 p.m.
Principal and Co-Founder, The Marathon Initiative, As an Individual
Well, obviously the North American continental defence, which is going to be.... I mean, homeland defence has become a much bigger issue for the United States, because in the old days it was just nuclear attacks, basically, that we had to worry about at home. That, of course, was the origin of NORAD, but today we're looking at a wide variety of other kinds of conventional strikes and cyber-attacks.
This would be very real for both of us, because, say, taking the Taiwan scenario, the Chinese would likely seek to interrupt the logistics flows and force flows from the United States and other theatres that help—the same with the Russians—and that would have a direct impact on Canada. There would be significant expectations for NORAD to be able to defend.... I mean, there are Russian submarines with a wide variety of conventional as well as nuclear cruise missile capabilities floating around the Atlantic, and pretty soon, before we know it, there are going to be Chinese capabilities as well.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Back in 2016, this committee was studying the defence of North America, and the hypersonic missiles—of North Korea, actually, at that time—were sort of the new thing. What sort of technology, be it from China or elsewhere, is breaking or burgeoning that we should start to pay attention to so we're not caught so behind again?
4:35 p.m.
Principal and Co-Founder, The Marathon Initiative, As an Individual
Well, look, a couple of months ago, ma'am, it was reported that the Chinese had conducted a hypersonic weapons test. Not only had we not achieved that, but also a lot of our scientists thought it was impossible. There are enormous breakthroughs going on, and we should no longer think of China in particular as playing catch-up.
Russians, since the Second World War, have always been at the forefront of military technology, but they lack scale in this day and age. The Chinese are bringing scale and sophistication now. Now they are basically at the forefront. In fact, our former vice-chairman of the joint chiefs said that they may exceed us—at least, their goal is to exceed us—in military technology capability by the end of this decade. We have a lot to be concerned about.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Thank you, Ms. Gallant.
The final five minutes go to Madam Lambropoulos.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Emmanuella Lambropoulos Liberal Saint-Laurent, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm probably not going to take my whole five minutes, because a lot of my questions have already been answered, but what I would like to ask is this. You mentioned that, going forward, our threats are increasingly in the east and that basically we're going to be needing to focus more and to rely more on our allies. With most of them being in Europe, what change in strategy would you recommend, or what more do we need to be doing outside of what we currently have as alliances?
4:35 p.m.
Fellow, Canadian Global Affairs Institute, As an Individual
I would suggest that we stay the course. I think we have it right between balancing our interests in Europe with taking care of our Arctic space, and I think that given our resource limitations, that's probably it.
You can make intellectual arguments to address the China option, but there's a resource issue there. Even the United States has made.... As Mr. Colby recommended, they can't fight two wars. The Canadian option is, for all sorts of reasons, to basically stay the course with Europe and perhaps up our game in the Arctic somewhat, but basically I think we have it right.
4:35 p.m.
Principal and Co-Founder, The Marathon Initiative, As an Individual
The only thing I would say to that is that I think this should all be in the context of an overarching alignment over China. This is an argument similar to the one I made to the Europeans. It's that I think the deal is going to be, because Canada is reliant on American defence capability, just implicitly.... In a sense, the biggest challenge we face as a nation is that it's the first time we've not been a larger economy than our rival since Great Britain in the 19th century, when we had a hostile relationship with Great Britain. This is a very new situation. It's going to be a fundamental, societal-level, long-term challenge for us, and I think it's very important that we be aligned at the basic kind of level, even if there is a division of labour.
I agree with what Mr. Rasiulis is saying and it makes sense to me, but I think that politically and in ways that make sense and in planning terms—in Five Eyes terms— it's important that we be aligned in this orientation towards China.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Emmanuella Lambropoulos Liberal Saint-Laurent, QC
I have one last question. Currently, Ukraine is not part of NATO. You mentioned the option of them pulling out their request and accepting to be neutral. If they were a member of NATO and this happened years down the line and Russia wanted to invade, how would the defence of the NATO partners be different from what it currently is?
4:35 p.m.
Fellow, Canadian Global Affairs Institute, As an Individual
Vastly. I mean, it's hard to imagine how to conceptualize how you would bring Ukraine into NATO while it has a hostile relationship with Russia. In fact, a portion of its territory is occupied by Russia or its proxies in the Donbass, and then there's the whole issue of Crimea. I guess, to be literal, that if we brought them into NATO we would immediately go into war-fighting mode to defend the Donbass and to buffer off the Crimean peninsula. We'd go into war mode if we actually brought them into NATO.
4:35 p.m.
Principal and Co-Founder, The Marathon Initiative, As an Individual
I basically agree.
The Russians have local military superiority. We have not militarized, from a NATO perspective, most of the situation in the former Warsaw Pact areas. We have very limited forces. We talk about these battalions that deploy, but they're very modest compared to what the Russians can deploy. In Ukraine, the situation would be far worse. It would be a very dangerous and ill-advised situation. In a sense, a lot of these decisions about NATO expansion were made in a period when Russia was really down for the count and their conventional forces were really in bad shape.
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
Emmanuella Lambropoulos Liberal Saint-Laurent, QC
Maybe I'm missing something here. If what they want is for Ukraine not to be considered in the future as part of NATO, and NATO doesn't seem to really want them in because it would be a lot more negative for them if they were allowed in, what's the problem? NATO isn't in a position to want them in anyway.
4:40 p.m.
Principal and Co-Founder, The Marathon Initiative, As an Individual
The main opposition in practice is that NATO doesn't want to be coerced. The solid argument against it is we shouldn't be doing this with a gun to our head.
The bad argument, in response to your question, is that countries get to choose their own allies. It's the Americans and the Canadians who are going to be paying the bill for that, so it's not a very sound argument.
If we could find a diplomatic solution that would result in something sustainable, protect our NATO interest and leave Ukraine in an independent situation, that would be an attractive outcome at this point.
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
We're going to have to leave it there.
On behalf of the committee, I want to thank Mr. Rasiulis and Mr. Colby for an excellent hour. It's been a very thoughtful, insightful and significant contribution to our study.
With that, I'm going to suspend for a minute or two while our next two witnesses come in.
Again, thank you.
The meeting is suspended.
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
I call the meeting back to order.
It looks like there's another media request for Mr. Leuprecht. While he settles himself, I'm going to go in reverse order and ask Ambassador Robertson to talk to us for the first five minutes, and then we'll go back to Mr. Leuprecht.
Welcome, Ambassador Robertson.
February 14th, 2022 / 4:40 p.m.
Colin Robertson Senior Advisor and Fellow, Canadian Global Affairs Institute, As an Individual
Thank you, Chair.
I have three messages and a plea. First, we need to rethink how we look at security. It’s been 18 years since we last conducted a national security review, yet the threats to Canada continue to evolve.
Ours is a meaner, messier world. In looking at 2022, UN Secretary-General Guterres warns that the rules-based multilateral systems that Canada helped engineer and sustain are not fit for purpose. Polling confirms what we see and hear. Our citizens have less faith in democracies and democratic institutions. Our democratic allies, especially in Europe, have less confidence in U.S. leadership.
The threats are varied and deadly: climate change, pandemics, terrorism, poverty, and inequality. This devil’s brew accentuates state and inter-state conflicts, resulting in more displaced persons than any time since the Second World War. Conflict itself is changing, with hybrid warfare, untraceable cyber-attacks, disinformation, drones and mercenaries.
The United States, polarized in its politics, is less willing and able to carry the internationalist burden. A rising, aggressive China and a revanchist Russia mean the return of great power rivalry and a revival of the ideological and systemic divide between authoritarianism and democracy.
Second, our approach to addressing defence modernization is taking far too long to produce any useful results.
Our operational readiness relies on maintaining and updating our equipment fleet. Government process requirements too often handicap industry from getting the job done. Given the age and increased operational tempo, are the budgets sufficient? Are we investing enough in the enablers, digitalization and data management, that will deliver and manage an effective force that can win future wars?
Operational readiness of our forces starts with meeting recruitment targets and then ensuring conditions are sufficiently attractive to retain our forces. We’ve prioritized cultural change to address sexual misconduct. We also need to look at the terms and conditions of service. Let’s think creatively how we grow, train and attract the kind of talent that can master the technological challenges of our digital age and address new threats like cyberwarfare and disinformation.
We rely on the Canadian Armed Forces as first responders to deal with floods, fires and ice storms, and to rescue our retirement homes during pandemics. These calls will only increase demands on limited resources. Government should look at creating a corps of volunteers to complement civil defence and disaster relief. The Germans do this well.
The third message is that changing geopolitics and new threats require a new grand strategy that combines purpose, priorities and budget.
Changing geopolitics means that the insurance premiums for national security have gone up. We are going to have to find more money for defence, and also for the civil instruments of national security. This means more investment in diplomacy and development, and in communicating abroad our messages on democracy, multilateralism and a rules-based order. Military power wins battles, but to win wars in today’s world requires both hard power and soft power. In our meaner, messier world, Canada needs more of each.
We took advantage of the end of the Cold War to reduce defence budgets, confident that we could continue to rely on the American security umbrella. The Americans are fed up with carrying the load, and successive presidents have challenged us to do more, especially now that it’s time for NORAD renewal. We claim sovereignty over our Arctic but struggle to exercise it. We need a budgeted blueprint with deadlines. We can learn a lot from Nordic partners like Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland. Is there a role, for example, for NATO, now that the Arctic is part of the geostrategic chessboard?
As a trading nation, we depend on freedom of navigation. As a maritime nation, fronting on three oceans, we need to ask ourselves, do we have the right balance between our army, air force, and navy? We don't necessarily have too much army or air force, but we do need more navy. Our potential adversaries are investing significantly in their navies, and so must we.
The new offshore patrol ships are fine for performing their important but limited roles, but a deployable, combat-capable navy requires destroyers, frigates and submarines with air and logistic support. Investing in operational readiness only when we feel pressed and then doing so on the cheap undermines our national interests. Without an overarching strategy and shared cross-party view of our national interest and how to go about advancing and protecting it, we will continue to be late, unprepared and obliged to follow rather than lead.
To conclude, this is my plea to you as members of Parliament. When it comes to ensuring operational readiness, we need cross-party unity that can endure changes of government. Without cross-party support, it's hard to see how we can successfully address our threats.
Thank you, Chair.
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Thank you.
Professor Leuprecht, please go ahead. You have five minutes.
4:45 p.m.
Dr. Christian Leuprecht Professor, Royal Military College and Queen’s University, As an Individual
Thank you. My apologies for the disruption before.
I thank you for this opportunity to testify once again before the committee.
I will answer your questions in both official languages, but I will testify in English.
It's an interesting day to be testifying on readiness, given the fundamental failure of our national security architecture and posture that we have seen in this country in the last couple of weeks. It should give us all pause for thought.
On readiness, the Canadian Armed Forces is keeping its head above water, but it is probably treading water. It will be unable to continue to do so if the organization stays the course, probably insofar as we wouldn’t know that we are vulnerable until it’s too late. That is, we have the right forces for today but not for tomorrow, and we have no plan to right-size tomorrow’s CAF and ensure that it is fit for purpose.
Most of the emphasis continues to be on the tip of the spear, because those capabilities are perceived as the goal of the organization. Confronted with very hard choices in prioritization among operations, recruitment, training and support, the CAF will always prioritize operations, international and domestic. However, the organization's greatest asset, and its greatest challenge, is not money; it is people.
Key enablers, notably personnel, are out of sight and out of mind. Recruiting, training, educating and socializing personnel takes time. By way of example, it takes about seven years and one million dollars to generate a fully trained officer, yet for years, recruitment has been relatively neglected because of too many competing higher priorities. By way of example, the CAF is currently having to go a full year without a director of professional development, because no colonel is available to fill the position. Colonels are the ranks from which the CAF draws its general and flag officers, so it is not only CAF's professional development that is suffering as a result; the case is also illustrative of the extent to which the CAF’s senior officer ranks are depleted and oversubscribed.
The fragility of the CAF PD system is emblematic of the greater CAF, which is in urgent need of reconstitution, the CDS's top priority, which is regenerating the force, culture change and modernization. Professional development and culture change go hand in hand, yet how is the CAF to succeed in reconstituting itself without professional development?
The government’s attitude is that the CAF doesn't need more money, because it's doing what the government is asking it to do. That attitude could not possibly be more misguided. Just look at the frequency and extent with which this government in particular has been drawing on the CAF to support international security and domestic operations. Never has the CAF been more instrumental to advancing Canada’s interests, and yet never has it been asked to do so much with so little.
As I wrote in my note to introduce the first issue as editor-in-chief of the Canadian Military Journal in autumn 2021, the CAF and the many components of DND, along with the defence team, may well be the most underappreciated and misunderstood organization in the Government of Canada family and in the country:
Never have fewer uniformed and civilian members had to take on a greater number and complexity of tasks with relatively fewer resources. During the Cold War, the CAF generally had a single principal mission: the Soviet Threat. During the 1990s, it evolved to a focus on peace-enforcement, and was followed by Canada’s deployment to Afghanistan....
Armed conflict now covers the spectrum, from collective defence to wars of choice. It has changed from attrition warfare to intellectual battles; from defeating the enemy on the battlefield to setting the conditions for stability and sustainable peace; from managing violence to overseeing national security.
Today's CAF is expected to contribute across a full spectrum of missions, to prepare for large-scale conventional warfare; advise and assist in building capacity and training foreign troops against a host of terrorist non-state actors; take the lead as a framework country in NATO's enhanced forward presence to deter Russian revisionism and aggression in Latvia and across NATO’s northeastern and southern flanks; contribute to UN peacekeeping and peacemaking operations; advance the government's feminist international assistance policy; dispatch special operations forces to far-flung corners of the world to shore up local capacity; prepare to deter violent extremists—
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
If I continue to let you run on all the tasks the CAF has to do, we'll be here until tomorrow. I'm sorry to cut you off. I appreciate your thoughtful comments.
With that, I'm going to move to Madam Findlay for six minutes.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
Kerry-Lynne Findlay Conservative South Surrey—White Rock, BC
Thank you very much to both of you for being here today and for your well-thought-out comments. It's very much appreciated.
Following up on where you were, Mr. Leuprecht, there are so many areas in which this government in particular is looking to our CAF to operate both domestically and internationally. We may be about to see an invasion by Russia in Ukraine as well as what we're speaking about here today.
Do you agree with me that there has to be more money and more investment put toward recruitment and retention, and that it is urgent?