Evidence of meeting #7 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 threat.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
Thank you for that.
I'm sensing maybe from both of you but certainly from Mr. Hampson that our focus needs to be global—our threat is global—and on being a better partner with our allies, as opposed to focusing only on domestic issues. Would you concur with that?
Chancellor's Professor, Carleton University, President, World Refugee & Migration Council, As an Individual
Is that directed at me or Marcus?
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
It's to both of you. I'll start with you, sir.
Chancellor's Professor, Carleton University, President, World Refugee & Migration Council, As an Individual
We're using our military domestically for various kinds of disasters, emergency kinds of activities. I would suggest that's not a very good use of our military. It's a very expensive snow shovel to send to Newfoundland. We should be following the German example. They have an all-volunteer force of some 100,000 civilians who are well trained to deal with emergencies. We saw them going into action during those floods in Germany. That's something we should be thinking about very seriously here in Canada so that our military, as we've heard from—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
We're going to have leave Mr. Motz's question there. Thank you, Mr. Hampson.
Mr. May, you have four minutes, please.
Liberal
Bryan May Liberal Cambridge, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to both of our witnesses for their testimony here today—an absolutely fantastic contribution so far.
My questions are going to be to Mr. Hampson. You started to talk a little bit about it in Mr. Motz's questions. You've written about the need for Canada to prioritize Indo-Pacific engagement from a foreign affairs' perspective. Could you speak to the role of the military co-operation in Indo-Pacific operations in deepening this engagement?
Chancellor's Professor, Carleton University, President, World Refugee & Migration Council, As an Individual
To be charitable, in recent years, we are obviously participating in RIMPAC exercises. We sent a frigate through the Taiwan Strait with our American friends and others, but showing up for the occasional what I would call “naval cameo appearance”, and I don't mean to be overly sarcastic there.... We need to have more assets in the Pacific. We need, quite frankly, to decide which countries are going to be priorities in terms of developing deeper partnerships. My list would be Japan—that's an obvious one—South Korea, Australia and Indonesia. I think we can start by having more military attachés in the region, and as we start acquiring new equipment, we can start building those relationships.
Liberal
Chancellor's Professor, Carleton University, President, World Refugee & Migration Council, As an Individual
The challenge right now is that we're once again being pulled towards Europe and Russia and, depending on how that story unfolds—and I don't have any better tea leaves in my teacup than anybody else—I think one of the challenges is going to be to develop what I would call “dual conventional capability” to deal with different contingencies in the Indo-Pacific.
That starts, by the way, by having a stronger naval presence so that we can work more closely with the Australians and with the Americans. At some point, they may invite us to join AUKUS, but I don't think that invitation is going to be coming any time soon. It means putting more real assets and, at the leadership level, having minister-to-minister meetings on a regular basis to find out from them. As opposed to our going to them and saying, “Here's what we think we should do”, we should be talking to them to find out how we can help them in more constructive ways.
Liberal
Bryan May Liberal Cambridge, ON
What about obligations? We heard testimony already today about an “expensive snow shovel”. How do we start that balance?
Chancellor's Professor, Carleton University, President, World Refugee & Migration Council, As an Individual
I think we have something like Germany has, which is to start now to develop our disaster civilian protection and disaster management systems, and to start building a semi-professional volunteer force that can deal with those kinds of natural disasters. I mean, that could be a great nation-building exercise, particularly with younger people, at a time when national unity is increasingly fragmented, for reasons that we're all too familiar with. I think that could be a great initiative, and it doesn't have to be that expensive.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Thank you again, Mr. May and Mr. Hampson.
We have a minute and a half for Madame Normandin.
Bloc
Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We see that Russia has started to withdraw its tanks. From a more conventional military point of view, people are saying that this looks like de-escalation, but on the other hand, we see an increase in cyber-attacks. We see that the Duma has called on President Putin to recognize Donbass as a sovereign region. Russia is maintaining the discourse that Russian speakers are victims of genocide in Ukraine.
Isn't this just the proof that hybrid warfare can be effective?
I would like you to make a brief comment on this.
Senior Fellow, Macdonald-Laurier Institute, As an Individual
This is definitely part of that hybrid warfare and cognitive warfare. As for any suggestions that there's some sort of a genocide, as Vladimir Putin said in his presser just two days ago—that there was some sort of genocide going on in Donbass—this is disinformation.
Russia de facto controls the militias in that area, and if there were any genocide that was happening, they would be aware of it. I think that Canada and our allies need to be aware of some sort of a false flag operation. We've been warned from the U.S. intelligence side as well that Russia has been planning one.
That narrative about a genocide will be the narrative that's used to create the pretext for some sort of Russian action in Donbass, whether it's recognition of Donbass as an independent nation and then having Russian forces come in at the request of the government there.... We need to be very aware that Russia is actively operating in the information space in that area right now, and we need to be very careful about—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Thank you, Madame Normandin and Mr. Kolga. I'm impressed by the talents of both members and witnesses to stretch time limits.
With that, we'll go to Ms. Mathyssen for a minute and a half, please.
NDP
Lindsay Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
I, too, will try to stretch it.
Just to continue on with what Mr. Kolga was talking about, ultimately in terms of that information, that misinformation trying to lead NATO forces in or not, there is a certain timeline that Putin has and there has been a lot of “will he or won't he.” Again, there is that timeline in terms of when things thaw in that area. I guess I'm thinking about is this: If we can get to a point where things thaw and there isn't that option, how do we avoid this going forward into next winter or what have you?
Senior Fellow, Macdonald-Laurier Institute, As an Individual
I think there's a certain timeline on a full-blown invasion of Ukraine, but let's not forget that Vladimir Putin can continue intimidating Ukraine, can continue intimidating NATO for quite some time and he's benefiting from this. The price of oil is reaching record highs, and let's not forget that half of Russia's economy is based on resources and oil. He's benefiting right now from the situation that he has caused, this crisis that he's causing.
Will there be a thaw? Will he pull back some troops? He said he's going to do that, but up until an hour ago, NATO clearly stated that there's no evidence of this happening.
As I stated in my opening remarks, Vladimir Putin requires these constant conflicts to be happening, whether they're internal with opposition activists like Alexei Navalny or others, or externally like NATO. I don't think anyone in Canada should expect a complete thaw, and we need to prepare for that. That means sufficient resources for our forces.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
It's a good thing I know Mr. Kolga very well, so he will not be insulted that I'm cutting him off.
With that, we'll go to Madam Gallant for four minutes, please.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
First of all, to Mr. Hampson, NATO has most recently added space and cyber as new domains of warfare. Where or what is the next domain of warfare as you see it?
Chancellor's Professor, Carleton University, President, World Refugee & Migration Council, As an Individual
I think it's fair to say the next domain of warfare—and we're already in it—is in what I would call the pre-attack phase, shortened warning times through satellite blinding, anti-satellite activities and capabilities, which both Russia and China are investing heavily in, and a new class of what could be characterized as hypersonic weaponry, both conventional and nuclear, cruise and ballistic, endo-atmospheric and exo-atmospheric, that will, again, shorten warning times and enhance what I would call the “fog of war” and the risk of miscalculation.
We've talked about what Putin is up to today, on the ground, an hour ago. That all comes from satellites that are gathering information in real time and sending it to NATO headquarters and here in Ottawa as well. Imagine if those satellites are taken out, which can be done. What then? What do we know? That, I think, is the biggest risk. I know arms control is not your remit here, but it's going to be very important to look at what's happening in the evolution of new technologies to try to afford some of that.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
The government argues that Huawei equipment is already part of the telecom infrastructure. How does the indecision on banning Huawei to 5G impact Canada's threat environment?
Chancellor's Professor, Carleton University, President, World Refugee & Migration Council, As an Individual
First of all, I think it makes us look very foolish with our Five Eyes partners who wonder why, again, we've been taking our sweet time to make a decision that they've already made. It has also proven quite costly with our telcos, although some of them have essentially voted with their feet and cancelled contracts with Huawei, seeing the writing on the wall, but there still is equipment there. It's a front door into communications, and I think the sooner we make the transition the more secure we'll be.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Mr. Kolga, on your website, DisinfoWatch, various headlines are depicted. They are essentially headlines that we have seen in Canada, but don't mesh with the government narrative.
For these headlines that we've seen on major networks, I'm wondering how the Russians implant that disinformation. There's also a website called Project Veritas. I'm wondering if that is also a source of Russian disinformation.
Senior Fellow, Macdonald-Laurier Institute, As an Individual
Thank you for the question.
I am not aware of Project Veritas.
On DisinfoWatch, we try to scan for headlines that are published in Chinese state media, Iranian state media and Russian state media and those proxy platforms. We try to dissect the narratives in there to expose the disinformation. We try explain to Canadians why this is disinformation, why these narratives have been produced and what they might be targeting. That's the objective of the platform.