National Defence Committee on Feb. 28th, 2022

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

That's fair to the smaller countries. What about the Five Eyes? Are we viewed by them, in that alliance, in the same light as the smaller countries? What can we do to be better in our military capacity and in our acquisitions?

[VAdm (Ret'd) Darren Hawco]

There are three weight classes in the Five Eyes, as a function just of the size of the GDPs and the size of the countries. I think it's fair [Technical difficulty—Editor]. Your question would be.... Of course, we're not going to compare ourselves to the United States. Of course, we would pause at comparing ourselves to the United Kingdom, although we compare favourably in many places, in many ways. It has 2.3 times the size of the population of Canada, and not the same level of infrastructure issues and nuclear deterrents and all that.

I would say we absolutely compare favourably to the Australians; and clearly New Zealand, as a country of four-point-something million, would not compare itself to Australia or Canada. We still have the same range of capabilities and the same capacities, notwithstanding a lot of the hyperbole around AUKUS.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Would we be a better partner if we had committed more of our GDP to defence?

[VAdm (Ret'd) Darren Hawco]

Yes, absolutely.

In the context of national security, I think the German chancellor's perspective is instructive. He recognized that whether you can argue the 2% pledge has lineage and rational economic thought behind it, it's the number that's being used.

In terms of investments in national security capacities, which are significantly military but not just military, I think of Mr. Fadden's testimony a little while ago about what GAC needs, what the Communications Security Establishment needs, what the service needs. It's a much more complicated discussion than just investments in the military.

However, is the military in need of additional resources, and is the new Westminster system in need of a bit of a process shift in terms of the enablement of the spending of resources towards military capability? Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Motz.

Mr. May, you get the final three minutes.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Vice-Admiral, as NATO modernizes, what kinds of contributions should Canada be looking to make, not now but in the coming decades? I'm going to give you an opportunity to give us some insight into the future. How should we prioritize, and what contributions...? In your mind, what does that look like for Canada?

[VAdm (Ret'd) Darren Hawco]

I'll approach it from three brief perspectives: a policy lens, a management lens, and a capability [Technical difficulty—Editor].

The alliance is realizing a need for rapid decision-making capacities and capabilities, the ability to come to consensus quickly on crisis issues or near-crisis issues. That's a place where Canada has played and needs to continue to play a role at the government level by saying that we need to get past discussions about why a European issue is a European issue versus a NATO issue, because there is a lot of tension between the EU and NATO. Canada has a place and a role to play in that, and it does.

On the management side, Canada does a lot of work in the corners in terms of the cyber-readiness of the alliance and the fiscal management of the alliance. It carries a lot of water in that particular space, and we need to continue to do that.

On the capability front, we are seeing that the nature of warfare is changing. We see an increasing issue of action inside the democratic institutions of Germany, the function of elections and interference by Russia, etc., and also the change in warfare where it is no longer about heavy weapons and the like; it's really going to be about smaller capabilities, slighter forces, less targetable from beyond-line-of-sight weapons and all that sort of stuff.

There is a lot of thinking that we need to collectively make sure that we remain interoperable so that the ones and zeros between all the countries are able to continue to be exchanged, be meaningful, and be able to be moved quickly.

Europe is big, but it's not that big. You should be able to place and move, place and move, and have the posture and the logistics necessary to sustain missions at pace for a long period of time. Canada has contributed and continues to—and needs to continue to—contribute to that dialogue about the force capabilities the alliance needs.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Is there anything we should be changing in our defence position to help us fill those roles as needed?

[VAdm (Ret'd) Darren Hawco]

I would say, one, we're in North America, so we have to get there. We have to recognize that we have to get there if there is ever an issue related to European security. There is a sealift component to that, so we need to think through that. Either it's contracting.... Probably that's the smart way to do it, if you don't have vessels that are able to move your stuff. That's one area, that we have to get there.

Another is that you just have to be ready all the time. If you're not ready all the time, then you're going to get caught short. There are resource implications of training, of lift and of national procurement. We're talking hundreds of millions of dollars, Mr. May, that need to be added to the national procurement lift, and, I would argue, we need to tackle procurement. We've heard that from other speakers, and I have thoughts on that, which I could share separately.

These are areas we need to deal with.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

We're going to have to leave it there, Mr. May.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Thank you very much, Admiral Hawco.

Thank you to all the witnesses.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you.

I want to thank Professor Popova and Admiral Hawco for continuing this excellent series on threat analysis and readiness in response to those threats. I have to say that, when we began this study, we did not anticipate that we would be on the verge of a World War III. That will change the perspective of the committee, to say the least.

Again, those were excellent contributions, and I want to thank both of you for them.

With that, colleagues, we'll suspend for a minute while we go in camera.

[Proceedings continue in camera]