Evidence of meeting #36 for National Defence in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was capabilities.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Charles Sousa
Right. I think the vote is going to be around 1:07.
Okay, we'll proceed.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
I'll continue, Mr. Chair.
On deterrence, to what Professor Leuprecht and Professor Huebert are saying, what are the priorities for the deterrence investments we need to make? Using our critical minerals and energy as leverage is a great strategy. That's something we've been talking about as Conservatives. What are the investments we need to make to ensure we have capability and deterrence?
Professor, Royal Military College of Canada and Queen's University, As an Individual
Don't just think about military investments. What we're building in terms of the Canadian-European defence industrial capability is defence in depth. If there's conflict in Europe, where are we going to produce things? Who has the energy and the capacities? Why are we buying submarines? If there's conflict, we're going to need to protect our sea-lanes of communication with Europe and with the Indo-Pacific. That's what we're ultimately investing in.
I'll leave it there.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
Professor Huebert, do you want to add to that?
Professor, University of Calgary, As an Individual
This is the important thing: We haven't even thought about the context of which wars we would actually involve ourselves in. The Russian invasion of Poland or the Baltics seems to be the growing scenario that many people are thinking of, particularly in the context of Trump really destabilizing the NATO alliance. That one we can understand, but nobody has talked about what Canada would do in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan that then spills over into an attack on both South Korea and Japan. Would Canada involve itself? If it involves itself, what does that look like? Does anyone have any clue on that?
We need to be thinking in terms of the types of threats. We need to be thinking in terms of the types of wars. We need to be thinking about the wars that we haven't thought about. That's the one that is so hard to figure out at this point.
Conservative
Senior Fellow, Macdonald-Laurier Institute, As an Individual
We're thinking of it in terms of the defence industrial strategy. I'm a little wary of being very hard and having very strong policies that commit us to one or another. You can just as easily posit scenarios where a government changes in Europe—in France, Germany or wherever—and may not be as amenable to providing arms in a scenario where we're fighting against China. It may not want to provide or sustain support. What's really critical, if we're thinking about a defence industrial strategy in this future scenario, is that we have to have an agile and effective understanding of what we need for operations, and go from there.
Specifically on deterrence, one of the areas the Canadian Armed Forces is deficient in and has not highly prioritized is the ability to do long-range strikes. One of the submarine options on the table has the ability to undertake that. I think the River-class destroyers will have that.
We really need to assess the requirement for long-range missiles that allow us to attack targets deep within a foreign adversary, because we cannot provide defence for every single possible scenario and capability being developed out there. Having the ability to turn around and affect another state that is fighting against us is critical. You see this happening in Japan. You see this in South Korea as well. These are countries that largely would be considered pacifists yet are acquiring long-range cruise missiles and long-range ballistic missiles.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Charles Sousa
Thank you, Dr. Shimooka.
I'm sensitive to the time.
Mr. Earle, we have you for five minutes, sir.
Liberal
Philip Earle Liberal Labrador, NL
Thank you.
I appreciate the testimony. I'm new to this committee, and I must say the testimony is forthright. I'm learning some things. There's always room to learn, and I appreciate it.
I'm going to direct my first question to you, Mr. Leuprecht. I'll capsule it, as I like to do, in what I heard.
I heard at the beginning of your testimony a comparison of the size of the CAF to that of a certain division of the U.S. military, the population of the United States compared to that of Canada and the size of their economy compared to Canada's, but your comments were impactful. I'll say that to you. Later in your testimony, you talked about the importance of relying on Europe. I'd qualify it to be reciprocity, where we would do things with them along the lines of critical minerals and they would do things for us—allies and friends.
Could you talk to us in a bit more detail about what you actually meant by that particular comment?
Professor, Royal Military College of Canada and Queen's University, As an Individual
This is a very dangerous time for Canadian sovereignty. I'm spending a lot of time in Europe working with European colleagues on various defence issues. There's a lot of anticipation and expectation in terms of what Canada can and will deliver for Europe.
On all the things we've talked about, in particular supply chain security and the like, the risk is that if Canada does not deliver, Europe is big enough to figure out a way to go it alone and get it from elsewhere. That means Canada would lose its most important ally, in terms of partnering with Europe, to offset the vagaries of U.S. unilateralism, which we have used Europe to counterbalance for 100 years. The risk here is that we will find ourselves very isolated in the world, with very few friends and partners because nobody takes us seriously in terms of the commitments we make, and our only option will be to draw even closer to the United States.
This is very much about investing in a strategy that indeed balances our commitments and our friends, but the most important point of counterbalance is ultimately with Europe. You also heard the third option. This is going back to 1971. We need to figure out the relationship with Europe, if we think we've become too interdependent on the U.S. Certainly, our European allies all believe they've become too interdependent on the United States as well.
Look, for instance, at technology, and look at the payoff it can yield. Between 23% and 25% of U.S. GDP is generated by high tech. In Canada, it's under 6%. In Europe, it's 9%. These investments are about upping our game in terms of our national prosperity. We can directly track when we started to divest from defence in this country and how that correlates with our national prosperity and GDP.
Liberal
Philip Earle Liberal Labrador, NL
Thank you. I appreciate you giving us the thesis of the complication of where we are. I think we all know—we hear it so often—that geography has made us neighbours with the United States and has made us strong allies.
You talked about the importance of the relationship with Europe. Can you go a little deeper for us—as it relates to the DIS in particular, because that's really what we're studying—into the strategies we can employ that would bring us closer in our relationship with the Europeans? Is some of that similar to the strategy that we had with the United States, notwithstanding geography?
Professor, Royal Military College of Canada and Queen's University, As an Individual
At the end of World War II, we decided.... Look, only one country in North America was there at the beginning of World War I and World War II, so it's not unusual for the United States to be a little late to the party. What would the world have looked like if Canada hadn't helped to hold down that island off the coast of Europe from which we ultimately launched the D-Day invasion? This is how we played ahead. We decided that the world we had in the first half of the 20th century was not the world we wanted to live in. We invested in the instruments of statecraft, in international institutions and in building a prosperous, stable and secure post-World War II system.
That strategy was so successful that it has made North America the most secure, prosperous and stable continent that history has ever known. It's no wonder so many people from around the world want to come here. What I'm worried about is that as Canadians, we have lost our way and our vision for how we got to the country we have today, and how we make sure we sustain the country we all love and that so much of the world adores.
Liberal
Philip Earle Liberal Labrador, NL
Thank you.
At the risk of sounding contentious, I just want to say not to forget Newfoundland—I'm a proud Newfoundlander and Labradorian—and our great contribution during that as our own independent country.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Charles Sousa
That's well said, Mr. Earle.
Mr. Kibble, you have a few minutes as well.
Conservative
Jeff Kibble Conservative Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'll throw this out to the panel.
While we have no national security plan, the defence industrial strategy and the Defence Investment Agency are multidecade constructs. Between February 28 and last Thursday—roughly 80 days—the Iran war began, the Strait of Hormuz closed, the defence minister said that Canada will contribute to Hormuz, the United States paused the Permanent Joint Board on Defence, a Russian ambassador threatened Latvia at the Security Council, and an internal email asked CAF personnel in Ottawa to hand back fragmentation vests because there's not enough equipment to go around.
In addressing the immediate changes over the last 80 days, do the government's current plans, interactions, actions or leadership indicate that we will see acceleration in the next 80 days?
We'll start with Mr. Leuprecht, and then work around the room if time allows.
Professor, Royal Military College of Canada and Queen's University, As an Individual
We live in an outdated mode of understanding of war. We live in a world at war and at conflict, but we understand it as just a black and white dyadic structure, as opposed to our adversaries engaging in cognitive warfare against us every day. My colleague Heather Exner-Pirot pointed out the challenge we have in the cyber and hybrid domains. The disruption of critical underwater sea cables, including to Canada and in our own waters by our adversaries, is—
Conservative
Jeff Kibble Conservative Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
I'm sorry to cut you off, but I want to give everyone the opportunity to speak, if that's all right. I appreciate your comment.
Mr. Shimooka.
Senior Fellow, Macdonald-Laurier Institute, As an Individual
I would argue that current defence policies are rooted in 2017, frankly. I could go on for many hours.
On top of this, the reality is that if you look at the development of technological capabilities occurring among our allies—the United States, NATO or whoever—it is absolutely clear that there are completely new processes and approaches. We are not even scratching the surface of this.
We really need to move forward. We're talking about drones and unmanned undersea or surface vehicles—all of that. We have not started. We are only on the very cusp of it.
Conservative
Jeff Kibble Conservative Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Thank you. I wish we had hours to discuss this important topic.
Mr. Huebert.
Professor, University of Calgary, As an Individual
I will just go to pillar IV of the defence industrial strategy, which is on the protection of supply routes. What is Canada's policy? This goes to your example of the Strait of Hormuz. How are we keeping the supply strategy of oil? In other words, do we have a plan? Are we passive? Do we just sit back and let the price of oil approach two dollars a litre? We don't have anything on that.
That illustrates your point. We have these new forms of conflict. We have these events occurring. We have this industrial strategy that has a very specific pillar on resupply and supply change. When the war is occurring in this form—and I agree that we've been at war for a very long time—what's our strategy? Do we have a plan, or are we passively waiting for the Americans and Iranians?
Conservative
Jeff Kibble Conservative Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Thank you. I agree that we're seeing absolutely no plans.
If Mr. Chair will allow one more quick answer—
Conservative
Jeff Kibble Conservative Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
—I want to give Ms. Exner-Pirot an opportunity.