National Defence Committee on Nov. 23rd, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I call this meeting to order.

It's my privilege to welcome to this hearing the Honourable Bill Blair, Minister of National Defence, former minister of emergency preparedness and former public safety minister, who is, I think, uniquely qualified to talk about the issue before the committee, along with Deputy Bill Matthews and Chief of the Defence Staff Wayne Eyre.

Minister, you know the drill. We look forward to the first five minutes and then our colleagues' erudite questions.

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Minister of National Defence]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Once again, I'm actually very pleased and honoured to have the opportunity to come before your committee to speak to this very important topic, one with which I have, unfortunately, rather close experience. I'm happy to share my reflections on that.

If I may begin, last week I had the privilege of co-hosting allies and partners from around the world at the Halifax International Security Forum. I was very pleased, and I want to acknowledge, that we had the largest delegation of Canadian parliamentarians ever to attend HISF. Many of the members of this committee were present, and I was very pleased that you were able to be present. It was an important opportunity for all of us to learn together and to have, I think, very important and frank discussions about the state of the world and global security.

At that security forum, I had the opportunity to discuss with colleagues from around the world how the security situation continues to change rapidly. We reiterated and reinforced our shared commitment to democracy and to the rules-based international order.

I also had the opportunity to reiterate my commitment to ensuring the Canadian Armed Forces have the resources and capabilities they need to meet our aspirations and do the difficult jobs that we ask of them. It's why our government has made some major defence investments already, including the fighter jets for the air force, new ships for the navy, new combat support vehicles for the army and more, including nearly $40 billion in NORAD modernization. It's why we continue to make sure we're spending money on the right things in a way that is fiscally responsible for Canadians.

As I said in Halifax, Canada has a responsibility to its allies in NATO, NORAD, the Indo-Pacific and elsewhere, and, quite relevant to our discussion today, we also have a responsibility to Canadians. As the Minister of National Defence, I want to assure this committee that I take this responsibility very seriously. I look forward to coming back before this committee to discuss supplementary estimates at a later time.

Whether it's an unprecedented wildfire season, as we've experienced this past summer right across Canada, the atmospheric river event that occurred in B.C. last year, or the impact of hurricane Fiona, Canadians are learning about the devastating effects of climate change first-hand.

I am very grateful to the men and women of uniform, of the Canadian Armed Forces, who rushed to danger when Canadians needed them most: to Operation Lentus, in which roughly 2,100 members of the Canadian Armed Forces spent more than 130 consecutive days battling fires across six provinces and territories. Soldiers provided firefighting support and stepped up with search and rescue. They helped over 800 people evacuate safely from very difficult circumstances. Bases even housed and fed families who had to leave in a hurry. Our military answered the call to service, just like they always do. In my previous role as minister of emergency preparedness, I saw first-hand how important our armed forces are in keeping Canadians safe when disaster strikes.

As climate change continues to make these events more frequent and severe, we expect that the demand for CAF assistance will only continue to increase. For example, between 2010 and 2016, there was an average of just two requests for assistance per year from provinces and territories that required the military's help to deal with natural disasters. So far this year, in 2023, there have been eight. This support doesn't come without a cost, and I'm joined today by the chief of the defence staff and by the deputy minister of national defence, who will be able to provide you with some information and insight on what those costs are. These domestic operation deployments can have a real impact on the Canadian Forces, and they do.

When I was here in September, I was joined by the chief of the defence staff, who talked about the increased stress these deployments can put on force readiness, on our people and on our equipment. I want to assure you all that I hear that very clearly; I see that impact and I'm committed to helping. That's why the armed forces are working with our provincial and territorial partners to find ways to get them the help they need while being mindful of the costs that come with that help.

As I said at the outset of my remarks, it's why we're working hard to increase the capabilities of our armed forces. I know and want to acknowledge to you all that there is more work to do and we are taking the right steps forward. Supporting our men and women in uniform is my top priority, and as the demands of our military grow at home and abroad, we will continue to do everything that is necessary to support them.

Thank you very much. I'm happy to submit myself to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Minister, for those economical remarks.

Colleagues, before we go to our six-minute round, I would just note that the minister will be appearing shortly on supplementary estimates. I generally provide a fairly free-ranging conversation on supplementary estimates. I encourage members to focus on the motion at hand, because this is a rare privilege that we have to study this.

With that, we have Mr. Bezan for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, welcome back to committee. I appreciate your appearing on this topic.

General Eyre, please pass on to all the troops our gratitude from the Conservatives and indeed from all Canadians for the work our soldiers do on Operation Lentus. Probably the biggest interaction Canadians ever have with our men and women serving in uniform is when they're out there sandbagging and fighting fires and dealing with natural disasters across this country. We all appreciate having that support and that type of commitment from the Canadian Armed Forces.

Minister Blair, you said in your final comments there that you want to make sure you continue to support our troops, yet, last time you appeared at this committee, you announced a $1-billion cut to the Canadian Armed Forces. How will it impact the operations to support Operation Lentus and other deployments of the Canadian Armed Forces when you don't have the money to actually carry it out?

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Bezan. It's an important question.

I'm absolutely committed that it's not going to impact those men and women. The instructions we've received from Treasury Board and that I passed on to both the CDS and the deputy minister are that we are looking at ways in which we can eliminate unnecessary costs, but none of those reductions are to impact the capability of the Canadian Armed Forces or the supports that we provide to the men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces.

For example, we have been looking very carefully at a number of other expenditures that do not directly impact those members on such things as consultant reports, some professional services and some issues around travel. We believe there are savings to be had in those areas.

We have a responsibility, as I know you would acknowledge, Mr. Bezan, in that we're spending Canadian taxpayer dollars. We want to make sure we're spending them carefully. I see the expenditure of every dollar for national defence as an investment in the men and women and our capabilities. Where those dollars are not producing real impact on those capabilities or supporting the men and women, we are also prepared to do what's necessary to save that money.

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

Let's talk about the capabilities, as well as the overall troop strength that we currently have, the force strength. As we know, the last time General Eyre was at committee he said that we were over 16,000 members short in the Canadian Armed Forces. In addition to that, we had a further 10,000 plus who were undertrained and undeployable.

With that in mind, we know we had a terrible forest fire season this past year. In Manitoba we have had the Canadian Armed Forces out many times, in my riding, to fight floods. Having that low a number of deployable troops and having the commitments that we have today to our operations in both the Indo-Pacific and within NATO, and with Operation Reassurance and Latvia through the enhanced forward presence group, how are we going to have enough troops around to fight forest fires or other natural disasters here in Canada?

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

There are a couple of things in that.

First of all, let me take the opportunity, Mr. Chair, to say that last time I was before committee, General Eyre and I were discussing the challenges of the Canadian Armed Forces in recruitment and retention. We articulated that over a three-year period, we actually had more people leaving the armed forces than we were able to recruit.

We believed, and the General shared with us, that we'd reached the bottom of that and were turning the page and starting to move forward. Unfortunately, I want to report to this committee, because it's important that we be candid, that this continues to persist as a challenge for us. I met earlier today with the chief, the deputy minister and his staff, and General Bourgon with respect to recruitment and all the efforts we are doing to expedite those processes. We need good people in the Canadian Armed Forces and we need to retain the great people that we have. I just wanted to be really clear on that.

At the same time, we're very fortunate in this country. We already have an extraordinary group of Canadians who fight wildfires. They're volunteer firefighters, professional firefighters and municipal firefighters right across the country, almost 130,000 of them. They do an extraordinary job, for which we should all be very grateful. At the same time, we've seen that on occasion, particularly with how bad the fires were in the past year in Nova Scotia, in Quebec, across the prairie provinces, and in Alberta, British Columbia and the Northwest Territories, we needed to provide them with additional supports. When they came asking, we tried to be very careful about how we deployed those resources, not to replace those firefighters but to provide the support and services they cannot provide.

For example, the Canadian Armed Forces were there when communities needed to be evacuated. When people needed to be evacuated from Yellowknife, one of the largest municipal evacuations in the history of this country, they were there to help with that. They were the only ones who could.

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

We were also talking about having capabilities and potential training of our reserves as well as our regular force on emergency responses and fighting wildfires.

Does the $1-billion cut in the budget or any of the $10 billion in lapsed spending over the last eight years impact the ability to invest in the equipment we need to go out there and support our civil authorities when we are providing that type of support in a natural disaster?

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Let me acknowledge to you that I am asking a lot of questions about this, too.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Unfortunately, he has left you have 15 seconds.

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

On our ability to get the budget spent, there are two things that we need to talk about, the budget of the Canadian Armed Forces and their actual expenditures. There is a gap, a not insignificant gap.

Our ability to get that money spent on recruitment and retention, on wages for those men and women, on the infrastructure, the equipment and the kit they need, and on housing and child care—all the things that make it possible for them to serve and to make sure they are available and capable of delivering those services when we ask it of them—remains a bit of a challenge, a significant challenge for us. It's part of the work we are all undertaking to do to get the job done and to spend the money that is available. As I have already indicated to this committee, more needs to be done. We need to invest in more of the right things.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Bezan.

Mr. Fisher, you have six minutes, please.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister, to you and your team for being here.

Please pass along to the incredible women and men of the Canadian Armed Forces our thanks on behalf of this committee for all they've done. My goodness, there were hurricanes, fires and floods, and I am just speaking about Atlantic Canada right now. It's absolutely incredible how much they were able to help Canadians just this summer alone.

Minister, we've heard testimony advocating for greater investment in civilian emergency response capacity at the provincial and territorial levels, but we've also heard calls for additional resourcing and dedicated capability in the military. That could be the regular forces or the reserve forces.

I'm interested in your thoughts and perhaps even the general's thoughts on the appropriate division of responsibility between the military and civilians when responding to emergencies. What are the advantages and the disadvantages and perhaps the limitations of each?

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

I will begin, Darren, and then I would like to give the CDS an opportunity to opine. This is his profession, and I think we defer to his experience on this.

My experience as the former emergencies minister is that we always try to be very careful in how we deploy and use members of the Canadian Armed Forces, so perhaps I can explain how that works procedurally.

The province would encounter a situation in which their capacity to respond to an emergency may be exceeded, so they would then ask for help. The request would come to the Minister of Emergency Preparedness, and I understand that you're going to be hearing from him later today, but I had that job previously. When we received that, it would be received at the government operations centre. It would be passed over to the government operations centre, which works with the Canadian Armed Forces and other federal departments, and everyone would be able to contribute what they could and could not do.

It did take into careful consideration not only the capability of the armed forces but the appropriateness of their being the response. There were others who are part of that discussion, the Canadian Coast Guard, as an example, and the RCMP. There would be a very important discussion about how we could help the province.

However, it's important to acknowledge that there are some unique capabilities of the Canadian Armed Forces, for example, the ability to airlift out of a certain area. They also have some people who are not necessarily on the front line of firefighting as level 1 firefighters, because most of them are not trained to do that. There is important work that needs to take place behind that front line, and Canadian Armed Forces members are well trained to do that and have been really important in doing that.

We've also had situations in the past year. I recall vividly a day when a number of Canadians were stranded on a highway just outside of Hope, British Columbia, and there was no way to get them off. There were landslides and mudslides occurring all around them. The Canadian Armed Forces swooped in in their helicopters, because they are the only ones who could do it, and they rescued those people and took them to safety.

By the way, that wasn't an RFA. They answered without our having to go through any government process. They came to help because that's what they do.

The process of determining whether or not it's appropriate to use Canadian Armed Forces members, I want to assure this committee, is done very much in consultation with CAF itself.

[Gen Wayne D. Eyre, Chief of the Defence Staff, Canadian Armed Forces, Department of National Defence]

Mr. Chair, the demand is going up. We've seen a doubling every five years, over the last decade and a half, in requests for assistance in responding to natural disasters. The frequency and intensity of natural disasters, I think you'll all agree, are on the increase. What is missing is capacity. I believe the Canadian Armed Forces will continue to be called upon.

What we need to be, truly, is a force of last resort. What we need is to get intermediate capacity at the municipal and provincial levels drawn upon first. What we provide, for the most part, is a self-contained, self-deploying, self-sustaining and self-disciplining labour force with its own inherent command and control. It's a nice, tidy package that shows up. However, it's expensive. We train for the worst of situations—high-end combat. If that capability is used for much lower and more frequent business, it's not economically viable. Take a look at the world security situation, which is deteriorating around us. The demand signal for those primary tasks we're responsible for is only increasing. However, our readiness to do that is decreasing, due in part to the incessant demand for these types of domestic operations.

We're going to continue to be called upon. Let's do it as a true force of last resort.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You have about a minute, Mr. Fisher.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you.

Minister, you touched on the capabilities that might be beyond the capacity of any volunteer-based organization.

Does that also stand for provincial and territorial organizations? Is there a period of time when they're able to cover some of these things off, or is there—as the general said—always a possibility that the CAF will be called in?

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

We talk about these events over the past year, even going back to hurricane Fiona and the atmospheric flood in British Columbia. The overwhelming response was not from the Canadian Armed Forces. They supplemented that response in every case. The provinces, territories and even local jurisdictions.... The policing jurisdictions and volunteer fire departments from small towns right across Nova Scotia, for example, all went into service and worked around the clock. There was a Herculean, heroic effort to save homes and communities, and to keep people safe. It is only when an emergency—we've seen this in the past year, in particular—exceeds the capacity of a local jurisdiction that they ask us to help.

I want to be very clear. The determination as to which help is appropriate and how much help can be provided is made by CAF itself. We don't ask of them what they cannot do. We ask them what they can do. Yes, we ask often.

I may also take the point.... I hear very clearly from premiers and ministers of the provinces and territories. They really value the CAF contribution. It's one of the first things they ask for. On many occasions, we've had to say, “That's not the appropriate response. We'll provide you with other help.”

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Madame Normandin, go ahead for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Minister Blair.

General Eyre, it's always a pleasure to meet with you.

I'd like to follow up on the previous questions regarding the need to call upon the armed forces as a last resort.

Would you say that, over the past two years, the decision to call upon the Canadian Forces has been a last resort? In some situations, could there have been other solutions?

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Yes, ma'am. I think it's a very important question.

The best example I can cite for you—where it was the first resort, because we were in a full-blown emergency—is when we deployed the Canadian Armed Forces into long-term care facilities in both Quebec and Ontario. That was a situation in which people were dying. It was a situation in which the people who normally work in those long-term care facilities either weren't able or weren't willing to.... People were significantly at risk. We went to the Canadian Armed Forces and asked for their help. We learned almost immediately that it wasn't necessarily the best use of those very limited and valuable resources.

We went right to work. I hope Minister Sajjan will have the opportunity to speak more at length about this. We started working with a number of different NGOs—the Canadian Red Cross, primarily, but also St. John Ambulance, The Salvation Army, the Search and Rescue Volunteer Association of Canada and others—to create what we called a “humanitarian workforce”. We worked very closely with the provincial authorities, Quebec in particular, to get military members out of the long-term care facilities and to replace them with trained volunteers. They were primarily trained by the Red Cross.

That situation was perhaps characterized as “first resort”, but we were in a full-blown emergency. People were dying. We moved quickly to get the Canadian Armed Forces in there to stabilize the situation, then worked just as quickly to get them out of there and to replace them with the appropriate resources.

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

Thank you.

I want to hear about the pressure being exerted on the forces, but from a different perspective. We know that military service generally consists of a three‑phase cycle. Armed forces members spend a third of their time training, another third deployed and the remaining third off duty.

To what extent does an Operation Lentus deployment exclude a military member from being deployed abroad afterwards?

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

It could have an impact. Let us be quite clear on that. I think the general is really anxious to jump in here, so why don't I let him.

[Gen Wayne D. Eyre]

That's an excellent question, Mr. Chair.

Deployments of this nature add stress to the individuals' personal and operational tempo. They spend more time in the field, and less time with their families. This factor increases the stress level for families, given the constant deployments.