Veterans Affairs Committee on Oct. 21st, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 109 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motions adopted by the committee on Thursday, March 9 and Tuesday, December 5, 2023, the committee is resuming its study of the recognition of Persian Gulf veterans and the definition of wartime service.

Today's meeting is taking place in hybrid format, pursuant to the Standing Orders. All comments must be addressed through the chair.

I would like to inform members of the committee that we have confirmation of two ministers for this study. They are the Minister of Veterans Affairs and the Minister of Defence.

In the framework of this study, the Minister of Veterans Affairswill appear before this committee on Monday, October 28 and the Minister of National Defencewill appear on Thursday, October 31.

I would remind committee members that they will be given a limited amount of speaking time during the question and answer period. I invite members to time themselves because they tend, at times, to exceed their time. Unfortunately, should they do so, I will have to interrupt. That said, I will always remind members when they have one minute remaining, but once the clock runs out, I'll have to stop them and give someone else the floor.

I would like to welcome our colleague MP Charlie Angus, who is replacing Ms. Blaney.

I'd like to put the following proposal to the committee. For the second hour of our meeting, we have only one witness.

For the first hour, we have two witnesses. I think it should be okay to have an hour and 15 minutes with those two witnesses, and 45 minutes with the other one, because he's alone. Is that okay, or would you like to have one hour with the first witnesses and one hour with the second witness?

I heard someone ask if we can have the three together for two hours.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

It's whatever the witnesses prefer.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Yes. It's up to you guys. It's also up to the witnesses.

What do you think?

Okay. Let's go with an hour and 15 minutes with two witnesses, and 45 minutes with the other witness.

Mr. Desilets, do you have a question?

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Yes, I have a very simple question for the clerk about the visit from the two ministers and how much time they'll have: Will they be with us for two hours? Also, what's scheduled for the following meeting in early November?

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Marie-Hélène Sauvé]

All I can tell you right now is that we'll have the Minister of Veterans Affairs here during the first hour of the meeting on Monday, October 28. It's up to the committee to determine whether it wants to hear from other witnesses in relation to that study in the second hour or do something else. Then, the Minister of National Defence will be here during the first hour of the meeting on Thursday, October 31.

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

That means that each minister will appear for one hour. In principle, following the meeting on Thursday, October 31, the time allotted for this study will expire. Even if we go ahead with the two ministers, the study will expire.

Mr. Chair, what will we do during the second hour of those two meetings?

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

First, I'd like to take 15 minutes in camera to discuss the letter we received, so as to deal with a matter concerning the redacted materials. Then, it will be up to committee members to decide how to proceed. We have a list of studies we could undertake.

Consequently, during the second hour of the meeting on Monday, October 28, we will discuss committee business in camera.

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Very good. Thank you.

Now I would like to welcome our witnesses.

As an individual, we have, by video conference, retired vice-admiral Duncan Miller, commander of the Canadian naval forces and allied combat logistics commander.

I have to tell members of the committee that we have some technical problems with the system of Mr. Miller. We're going to try, and we're going to ask the interpreters if they are okay with that. If not, we have all of his notes, in both languages, so we will share everything with you.

In the room with us, we have retired rear-admiral Ken Summers, commander of the Canadian Forces in the Middle East.

We're going to start with Mr. Summers, and after that we're going to go to Mr. Miller.

Mr. Summers, you have five minutes for your opening statement. The floor is yours.

[Rear-Admiral, Retired) Ken Summers (Commander, Canadian Forces Middle East, As an Individual]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I am Ken Summers, retired admiral. During the Gulf War, I was the commander of all of the Canadian Forces in the Middle East: the operational command, the aircraft, the ships, the hospitals, all that.

I'm very pleased that, in fact, you've made additional time for this testimony, because I now can be here as opposed to not making it. I'd like to give my very personal perspective, I guess, on what happened in the Gulf War. The bottom line, ladies and gentlemen, is that the Gulf War was a war. It was not a peacekeeping operation, as some people have suggested. I should have brought a piece of the Scud missile that fell at Bahrain near my headquarters to emphasize the point, or perhaps the bullet that went in the sand very close to where I was when I was up in Kuwait City following the liberation.

Anyway, the Iraqi invasion occurred on August 2, 1990. Immediately, the UN Security Council—Canada was a member of the Security Council in those days—passed a number of resolutions, and Canada was very active in those discussions. In fact, our ambassador, Yves Fortier, co-sponsored a number of the resolutions, and I do recall—because I was watching this extremely carefully from Halifax—that he made a statement that has always stuck with me. He said that sometimes you have to make the peace in order to keep the peace, and that's something that turned out to be very true as things developed later on in January 1991.

Well, last week, for the first time, I had an opportunity—that was mentioned to one of your members—to actually go into Hansard and see what was happening on January 15 and January 16. I was at the other end, and I phoned back to Ottawa, and they said, “Well, they're still debating whether we should even be here.” I said, “Well, they'd better hurry up because in about two hours' time, something is going to happen that's going to put this all behind us.”

In any event, it did occur, and those discussions were very interesting. Video and Hansard on January 15 showed that the Prime Minister, among others, made the point that they had passed resolutions but that the deadline was approaching at midnight and that if Iraq did not withdraw from Kuwait, then it was incumbent upon the members of the United Nations to actually enforce the resolution. That set the stage.

In fact, on that point, I noted that on the 16th, when it occurred, there was some discussion still going on. One of the members of Parliament actually came into the House and said they had seen video that the war had already started, and that got the ball going. Very shortly thereafter, actually, the Prime Minister came back in and said that we were now with our allies taking action against Saddam Hussein in Iraq to enforce the resolution.

I noted that, quite correctly, the leader of the opposition, Jean Chrétien, very quickly arose and said.... Well, he had been talking about enforcing the embargo, letting the embargo and those things continue on. Very quickly, he got up and said that they were behind what was going on over there, and they supported the Canadian Forces and our troops over there. It was really quite something.

Shortly thereafter, the government formed a war cabinet, which consisted of the Prime Minister as the head, plus a number of the senior ministers and the chief of the defence staff, John de Chastelain. I would recommend that you get him to come talk to you. John de Chastelain was there at those particular meetings. What happened with the war cabinet is that we provided the information to the war cabinet of what was going on in the Gulf, and in return, they would give us direction in terms of where we could operate and what type of action we could be taking as things went on. It was a two-way street. We were providing the information to them, and when it required their approval for operations, they came back and gave that to us, including areas of operation and also the type of weapons that could be used.

To the 4,000 Canadians who were deployed over there during that particular time—our ships, the aircraft squadrons, the hospital, security and support—the hostilities over there were, in fact, a daily reality. Our ships, which Admiral Miller will no doubt discuss in greater detail when he comes on, were instrumental in the interdiction operations that took place in the gulf prior to actual hostilities. Canada, with only about 5% of the interdiction ships, ended up doing in excess of 25% of all the boardings in the gulf, and quite honestly, we were in the central, middle gulf.

Do I have one minute left, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Yes. Please continue, Mr. Summers. We will ask you questions after that.

[RAdm (Ret'd) Ken Summers]

Great.

I have to mention the aircraft, the CF-18s, which people believed were just flying over the ships in the gulf and protecting them. In actual fact, they did an awful lot more. They started doing that, but then they were moved up to the head of the gulf and were right off Kuwait City and the operations there. In fact, the station they had was code-named “Brown”. The Americans named it that after Canadian World War I ace Roy Brown. That's how we got that.

They did those operations right off Kuwait at the CAP station, the close air patrol. When the requirement came to actually conduct fighter operations and bombing missions over Iraq and Kuwait, we were asked to provide close air support, the so-called sweep and escort missions, where they went ahead of the attacking force and with the attacking force going over Kuwait and Iraq. That was a tremendous thing. Toward the end, they got into doing air-to-ground, or air-to-sand, perhaps. In any event, it was a mission.

I would point out very proudly that of all the aircraft over there, it was only the Canadians who did all three missions with the same aircraft and the same pilots. That was a testimony to the professionalism of our air force.

All the time, of course, there was—

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

I am sorry, Commander. I know that you have gone through a lot of things as a commander, but you will—

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Go ahead, Mr. Richards.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

We have only two witnesses in 50 minutes. I would be comfortable with our giving him a few more minutes. He obviously has a very unique perspective as a commander of our forces there. I think it would be nice to give him a few more minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Me too. I said at the beginning that it was going to be five minutes, and I gave him six.

We will be having two or three rounds of questions, Mr. Summers, but I think the committee would like you to continue with your testimony. Please go ahead.

[RAdm (Ret'd) Ken Summers]

I have another five minutes. Got it. Okay.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[RAdm (Ret'd) Ken Summers]

The aircraft were doing great things. We had a 707 air refueller, and that aircraft proved to be absolutely invaluable, as it was providing fuel not only to our own CF-18s, but also to the other allied aircraft as they went in and over Kuwait and Iraq, and back out again.

I have to mention the field hospital, because it was sent over there. It was stationed at Al Jubail, which was on the Persian Gulf, but when war started, it went out to the west to a place called Al Qaysumah on the Saudi-Kuwait border. When it was being set up, it came under a Scud attack. It was the hospital that looked after not only injured allies but injured Iraqi people coming to the headquarters. It was really quite something. In fact, the number of Iraqis coming there because they were given up.... Our security forces who went with them became very much the guards of all the POWs until they could send them elsewhere.

Someone mentioned this, but the mining that took place on the shores of Kuwait City and at the airport was absolutely incredible. It was our engineers who went there and were able to clear the shores and the airfield of booby-trapped bunkers with ammunition and all sorts of stuff. I would also proudly say that other allies were not quite as lucky, so I put it down to our professionalism and the training of our soldiers that no one ever got hurt doing those mining operations.

I will finally say—and I mentioned this—there was a Scud attack on the headquarters in Bahrain.

Suffice it to say, ladies and gentlemen, this was not peacekeeping. No one in the navy or air force and no soldiers were killed. I believe this was pretty much the case because we had worked very hard at training and they were extremely well trained and prepared prior to going over there. We had luck, to be sure, and other allies weren't so lucky. They were able to conduct operations there and we came back with everybody, basically.

Notwithstanding all of that, there was something out there called Gulf War syndrome, which, honest to God, we didn't understand at the time. It subsequently became something called PTSD. It was something we tried to figure out, but we didn't know. Subsequently, when we came back, PTSD, among other things, was something that was known. I'm sure there are people who were in the gulf who still suffer from PTSD.

I think all the airmen, sailors, airwomen and soldiers involved in the gulf would tell you this was not a peacekeeping mission. It was war, pure and simple. Those who were there knew it, and they and their families back home knew it and felt it. I remain surprised that Canadians—I didn't realize this—did not recognize the Gulf War as a war. I encourage ACVA to give long-overdue recognition to those brave Canadians who served.

I note that all three ships and all three aircraft squadrons received battle honours, which means that they were involved in the participation in a battle with a formed and armed enemy, thus meriting the classification of wartime service. To not do so, to me, sets a bad example and an unwelcome message to those who serve our country in uniform.

That is my other five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm quite prepared to answer any questions you might have.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

That's great. Thank you, Mr. Summers.

We're now going to go to Mr. Duncan Miller on Zoom.

The floor is yours for your statement.

[Vice-Admiral, Retired) Duncan Miller (Commander, Canadian Naval Forces, Allied Combat Logistics Commander, As an Individual]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Hopefully, you can hear me.

Good afternoon, distinguished members of ACVA.

I'm here to support the attempts of the president and vice-president of the Persian Gulf Veterans of Canada to have the Government of Canada acknowledge that the Gulf War from 1990 to 1991 was indeed a war, and that they and all veteran participants in that war are war veterans.

I was shocked that at a previous session of your committee an assistant deputy minister of Veterans Affairs declared that the Canadian government does not define the Gulf War of 1990-91 as a war. The committee member who asked the question replied that the committee could therefore pack up and dispose of the issue. I believe he needed to ask “Why?” in order to understand the government's position.

In response, I'd be happy to elaborate on why it should be termed a war and to provide answers to your policy questions, which arose in previous sessions. I can provide the naval operations information as the commander of the naval forces and the allied combat logistics force formed during the war. I'm delighted that Admiral Summers is there in person, as he was the joint force commander. Between us, we should be able to answer all your policy questions.

In 1990, the Canadian government authorized the navy to send three warships to the gulf area to participate in the war. Initially, we were authorized to conduct interdiction operations in the Gulf of Oman. Post-January 1991, we were authorized to operate in the central gulf area. During this time, the United States commander asked if we would escort the United States' ship Princeton out of a known sea minefield, which had damaged the ship off Kuwait. We were not authorized at that time to cross north of the latitude where the ship was positioned, and I called Admiral Summers to explain the situation and say that the ship Athabaskan was well prepared to proceed. As I understand it, he received a reply from the Prime Minister within hours to authorize the deployment, which was ultimately successful.

In addition, during the war, we were authorized to proceed off Kuwait under burning oil well smoke to protect the United States' hospital ship Mercy against missile attack. We experienced being within kilometres of an anti-ship missile attack on the British destroyer HMS Gloucester, and we were overflown by several Scuds fired in the vicinity of Admiral Summers' headquarters in Bahrain. We were always prepared to evacuate him and his staff if necessary.

There's no doubt in my mind that we were in a war: 150 Americans and 37 British soldiers died in the war, and countless were injured. A number of Canadians have suffered and still suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of being in the war, with all of the stresses that entails.

As for whether it was defined as a war, several bodies declared it as such, including the United States, the United Nations, Google, Wikipedia, and Encyclopædia Britannica. Even the Veterans Affairs Canada website has as its title “Gulf War 1990-1991”.

The Canadian government issued the Gulf and Kuwait Medal for all those who participated in the war. This medal is authorized by the government as the third-highest war medal in the Canadian honours system. The ships Athabaskan, Terra Nova and Protecteur, as well as 423 Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron and 439 Tactical Fighter Squadron, were awarded battle honours by the government. Battle honours are awarded for combat in a war.

The Canadian Armed Forces defined the Gulf War as a war. General John de Chastelain, chief of the defence staff at the time, wrote the introduction for the book I co-authored with Sharon Hobson on the Canadian naval operations during the war, entitled The Persian Excursion: The Canadian Navy in the Gulf War. His first line was, “The Gulf War was the first time since the Second World War that a Canadian Joint Force Headquarters commanded elements of Canada's sea, land and air forces in a joint and combined combat operation.” He finishes his introduction with this: “Commodore Miller and Sharon Hobson have compiled an entertaining account of Canada's role in the Gulf War which should be of interest to the military and civilian reader alike.” Note that he uses “Gulf War”.

The official history of Operation Friction references the Gulf War as a “war” on numerous pages, including the jacket, which states, “The crisis in the Persian Gulf in 1990-1991 saw Canada's armed forces sent off for war for the first time since the intervention in Korea.”

The recognition being sought from the Canadian government has been spearheaded by a master corporal, who is the president of the association, and a warrant officer, who is the vice-president. They represent all of the sailors, airmen and women and army personnel who participated in the Gulf War. I fully support them. A coalition of the willing went to war to expel Iraqis from Kuwait, and a war ensued. There can be no doubt in this committee that veterans of the Gulf War in 1990-91 are indeed war veterans.

In closing, I would like to pass on former member of Parliament Peter Stoffer's advice to me when coming before this committee. By the way, he informed me that he founded the first ACVA. He wanted me to remind you that it took 50 years for the government to recognize merchant naval veterans from World War II as war veterans, with a similar delay for Korean War veterans. As it's only been 34 years since the Gulf War, his hope was that you wouldn't take another 16 years to do the right thing and recognize Gulf War veterans as war veterans.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much, Mr. Miller.

Thank you, both, for your service and also for your courage during those battles.

We will now start the first round of questions. Members will have six minutes each.

I invite Mr. Fraser Tolmie to start the questions.

[Fraser Tolmie, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to give a brief thank you to my fellow colleagues. I was away two weeks ago and received some very nice messages from everybody with the loss in our family. I passed those on to my family. I want to say thank you and that I recognize the outreach and outpouring of love.

To our witnesses, I'd like to say thank you very much for your service. I'm very grateful to have your perspective here with respect to what has happened and the challenges we're facing with wartime recognition of service.

Rear-Admiral Summers, I'm going to ask a question and I'm going to follow up with a bit of a statement. Would you say that we are allowing other governing bodies to dictate what we as a nation should be recognizing as wartime service? I ask that because you talked about the United Nations and about resolutions. We as a nation adhere to a lot of international bodies with regard to what war is and what the rules of war and engagements are. I know that Canada is very sensitive to that because of the way we want to be seen in the world.

Would you say that this is something that is impacting the decision being made with regard to recognizing the Persian Gulf as wartime service for our vets?

[RAdm (Ret'd) Ken Summers]

Thank you for the question. I hope I can answer it.

War has changed in a lot of ways. If you think of the First World War, the Second World War and the Korean War, those were more classic wars that we grew up with and know. Once the 1960s came in, Lester Pearson was the man who really got peacekeeping going. That became the modus operandi on how you resolve conflicts. That went so far and held true all the way up until the Gulf War. That's when something happened that really went beyond. The resolutions didn't work. You had to have the oomph behind it. That's recognized in the United Nations charter. When they turned around and saw that the resolutions would not be effective, they had to use a particular force.

I think it's all changed. If you look at what's happening in the world today, I think you'll find the same thing. I guess the United Nations in many ways in the western world can set the tone and scene through their actions and discussions at the UN, but in the final analysis, it still comes down to the nations themselves to back it up.

It was the coalition of the willing, at the time, that came together. It was not really command and control as we know it in the military. It was nothing more than coordination and co-operation. That's how we did things. We talked to all the other commanders. We didn't ask any nation to do more than their government had authorized them to do. Doing that, we were able to actually mesh together a pretty damn good plan.