National Defence Committee on Sept. 19th, 2023

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

You mentioned Leopard tanks. We're going to move a company of tanks there. One thing that's come out through the reporting on the tanks we've donated to Ukraine—and we're also trying to gear up to have enough tanks to train here, as well as to deploy forward into Latvia with our Leopard 2s—is that the state of repair and maintenance on our Leopard 2s has been left wanting.

Are we doing any heavy overhaul and maintenance on our Leopard 2s to ensure that what we have left is operational, especially because we're down on numbers? Are there any plans to replace the Leopard 2s that we donated to Ukraine for our own Canadian Armed Forces?

[MGen Paul Prévost]

On the first part of the question, we are working on our tanks. We're just sending eight tanks right now to Latvia, because we do need to position tanks, as you mentioned, in what we call a squadron of tanks. These ones are shipshape. Now we're working on making sure that the train...because we sent eight to Ukraine and we're sending some to.... I'm sorry. It's more than eight. It's actually 19, I believe. I'd have to come back on the number. We're sending those tanks to Latvia. The ones we have in Canada are also being well maintained, to the best of our ability, in order to train there.

On the question of the spending reduction, we are going through the analysis right now. One thing we're not touching in the spending reduction is the money that's been allocated to our operations there. There shouldn't be an impact to what we do in Ukraine or what we do in Latvia in what we're allocated through the spending reductions right now.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

We'll have to leave it there. Your five minutes are up.

One of the developments we've been talking about is the scarcity of shells from the Ukrainian side. We haven't talked about the scarcity of shells from the Russian side. Mr. Putin went on bended knee to Mr. Kim in North Korea to beg for shells. That's in part because the Russian supply is either dwindling or junk, one or the other. They haven't maintained the fuses, etc.

I'd be interested in this development, because this is bringing a European war into Asia, and Asia feeding into a European war. It has geopolitical implications, but it also has practical implications on the ground. If the Russians are running out of shells, I don't know what the implications are. You're the experts. What are your thoughts on this latest development with Kim and Putin?

[Alison Grant]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's a very interesting question, and one that of course we look at and study.

You know, there has been a lot of commentary about Russia having to go hat in hand to its dwindling number of friends and allies, in particular Iran and North Korea. Coming out of that meeting between Russia and the DPRK, there were no arms deals announced, from what I know, but of course we cannot speculate on what was discussed. We will certainly hold Russia's feet to the fire in terms of taking any actions that violate UN Security Council sanctions, which would be the case if they did make an arms deal with North Korea. With Iran, we know that there have been reports, of course, of deals struck as well, with weapons found on the battlefield in the theatre.

It is not surprising that Russia is going to these countries to ask for weapons. It has only some means of supply; it is not able to get them from erstwhile friends such as China, for example. That's been discussed as well. There have been no arms deals discussed.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

It is interesting that the Chinese are not supplying the Russians with armaments.

[Alison Grant]

That's correct. It is, and we will continue as well to publicly remind China of its own obligations and ensure that it doesn't become directly complicit militarily in the conflict in Ukraine.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Just quickly, from DND's standpoint, what are the strategic/tactical implications of limitations on the supply of shells?

[MGen Paul Prévost]

Do you mean from the Russian side?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I mean from the Ukrainian side.

[MGen Paul Prévost]

Mr. Chair, the same message here is that we need to continue, all the alliance together, the partners that are involved in the fight, to galvanize the industry and work with our governments to continue to feed that fight.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

That is a singularly unsatisfactory answer, but I will let you off the hook and go to another question.

Elon Musk seems to like to turn on his satellites and turn them off. I'm interested in your views as to what limitation this might have on the ability of the Ukrainians to mount operations if, in fact, they don't have reliable satellite services. You did mention this in your opening remarks about Canada's supplying satellite information, but I don't know that it's actually services.

Do you have any comments on that?

[Ty Curran]

Going back to an earlier question about lessons learned, one of the things we've seen in this conflict is the importance of software in addition to just platforms. This question of the ability of a foreign government or a company to alter some of the equipment speaks to the importance of ensuring that we have not just access to the platforms that we need but also the ability to manage the software that's part of that. It's something that we need to keep looking at as we look at future procurements.

I'm more in the general's space here, but it's an increasingly information-driven future of conflict, and we need to be able to manage that information space, which includes the software elements of that.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you. Unfortunately, my time is up, and if I'm going to make my colleagues adhere to time, I have to adhere to it myself.

I want to offer, on behalf of those of us who travelled, that one of the most impressive presentations was on cybersecurity from the UN representative. We have a lot of lessons to learn from these folks, and if we collectively have any advice to give, it would be that we put some people in with the cybersecurity people we saw in Latvia.

Colleagues, that brings us to the first hour and a half of our two hours.

I want to thank you, friends, for coming and briefing us. We appreciate your service, and I don't say that lightly. It is a very difficult geopolitical situation in which we find ourselves, with immense personal implications—many personal implications in this room. Again, thank you for your presence, and no doubt we will see you again.

With that, we will suspend and go in camera. Thank you.

[Proceedings continue in camera]