Mr. Chairman, it is indeed an honour and a privilege for me to rise in my place and debate the issue now before the house.
As members of the House may or may not be aware, my riding of Renfrew--Nipissing--Pembroke is the home of Area Support Unit Petawawa, formerly base Petawawa, which was a fully occupied army base in Canada's most populous province until it was downgraded to an area support unit, with the base commander being reduced in rank from colonel to lieutenant colonel. Until 1995 it was also home to the Canadian Airborne Regiment.
Canadians know that when it comes to defence policy, there are two topics the Liberal government is afraid to talk about: helicopters and the Canadian Airborne Regiment. However, the sweep of history in the events of September 11 have overtaken the government and it is time to revisit both of these issues, as they are intertwined.
In the case of the helicopters, the political decision to cancel the EH-101, at great cost to the Canadian taxpayer in the $600 million to $700 million range, and then to finally purchase an off the shelf version, the Cormorant, which is the same helicopter without the industrial spinoff for Canadian industry, for $500 million to 600 million, has to be one of the best examples of what has gone wrong with defence procurement policy since 1993. The purchase of the Cormorant is the admission that the decision to cancel the EH-101 contract was wrong. Hopefully needless deaths can be avoided by retiring the 40-year old Sea King helicopters that should have been scrapped with the Chinook helicopters years ago.
Now it is time to look at the other great mistake of Liberal government defence policy in concert with the helicopter scandal, that is, the decision to disband the Canadian Airborne Regiment.
In committee on October 12 the Minister of National Defence stated several things that cannot go unchallenged. The minister made reference to helicopters being used to deliver troops, or what is referred to as being air mobile, with the inference that helicopters make the airborne obsolete. That might have been partially true if Canada had opted to purchase a helicopter like the Black Hawk, which is what, as the Minister of National Defence made reference to, makes the U.S. forces more air mobile with the use of helicopters.
For the record, the Americans still operate with a parachute battalion, refusing to put all their eggs in the helicopter basket. This decision was made with a failed helicopter attempt in mind, the one to rescue the American hostages seized by Iranians in 1980 during the American hostage crisis in the dying days of the Jimmy Carter presidency and the loss of life of American soldiers when their helicopters crashed in the desert.
Currently, the helicopter that would be available to deliver troops to Afghanistan is the Griffon.
If Canada is committing the entire complement of our domestic specialist task force, Joint Task Force 2, or JTF2, that could translate to 250 troops. A Griffon can transport eight soldiers, though this number may be less with full kit. So 31 helicopters would be needed if our involvement is to be on the ground with our allies in Afghanistan.
Choppers cannot fly from Canada all the way over there, so each Griffon would have to be individually disassembled, loaded into a Hercules transport plane, one per trip, flown to a base within mission range and then individually reassembled. This would have to be done 31 times. These 250 troops would also require at minimum 93 support staff. This preparation would take weeks.
Now compare this to sending in the airborne, which would require four C-130 Hercules transports, which carry 50 soldiers per plane. This would be accomplished with 16 support staff.
Best of all, in less than 48 hours, as Hercs can refuel in the air and fly non-stop, troops would be in and on the ground, shoulder to shoulder with our American allies, as opposed to weeks later using the Griffons.
I purposely omitted the reliability of the aging C-130 Hercules aircraft though out of a fleet of 32 planes it should be easier to put four in the air than engage the entire fleet to transport the disassembled Griffon helicopters to Asia. It should be obvious to anyone listening that the reason Canada did not commit with the British is that we have nothing to commit for that type of contribution.
The minister has used the term which we hear so often, for reasons of security, to hide the fact that we will have to rely on others to make a contribution on the ground.
The Minister of National Defence was not being entirely clear with the Canadian public as he danced around the question in committee in responding to my comments about the need for a unit like the Canadian airborne. A cold and hard critical analysis of the facts is required. There is a need for a public debate on this issue as we all have a stake in the outcome.
I would like to talk about CSAS, the Canadian special air service. The minister stated that there was no longer a need for an airborne regiment. However there is a need for a general purpose quick response light infantry for deployment in Canada's interests at home and abroad. Such a formation must have an air assault and air transportable capability with sufficient mechanization in armament to fight and sufficient logistics to maintain it. Elements of such a force should be parachute capable and be able to be transported by war fighting combat helicopters and land vehicles like the LAV.
The Minister of National Defence stated that these capabilities exist in our armed forces. Now is the time to put this force together and play a role in current or possible land operations. The SSF or special service force which was a pre-1994 light brigade had all of these capabilities. The SSF was a parachute battalion with very limited sustainment capabilities but the brigade as a whole had all the combat, combat support and combat service support to allow it to be fully operationally capable and sustainable.
It is time to put on the table a discussion that revolves around the formation in the Canadian armed forces of a specialized regiment with air capability. I propose that the minister base the regiment at CFB Petawawa and call it the Canadian special air service. This group would share a number of equivalencies with the British SAS and the U.S. delta force.
The forming of the CSAS would be in direct response to the need for a highly specialized unit within the Canadian armed forces. Its role would include the defence of Canada and domestic operations such as responding to the threat of terrorist attacks. It would train regularly in anti-terrorist measures. This group would represent a body of men and women that would effectively increase the size of the army component of the Canadian armed forces at a time when our troops are seriously overtasked.
I had the privilege of being the guest of 3RCR battle group from CFB Petawawa during Operation Palladium in Bosnia-Herzegovina. I can personally attest to the professional job of the men and women who proudly wear in public the uniform of a member of the Canadian armed forces.
The majority of the Canadian peacekeepers are not navy or air force. They are army and that is where the government should focus a rebuilding effort within our military. The Canadian government spent a peace dividend that never existed. The events of September 11 have demonstrated the need to never relax our vigilance against those who oppose our enjoyment of peace and democracy.
All this shows how important our armed forces are to Canadian sovereignty, international esteem, influence and our commitment to democracy at home and abroad.