Mr. Speaker, in my introductory comments on welcoming this opportunity to speak I said how great it was that we had three parliamentary debates on national defence in a hundred days which was more than we had in 10 years. Certainly I welcome that. I know members of the armed forces and members of the House welcome it. I see it as very positive.
The premise under which we are discussing today is that for the first time, certainly in my memory, parliamentarians are having a look at and listening to what the country has to say to determine what will be the defence policy. In my memory a white paper has not been written as a result of a parliamentary committee. I welcome that. It is the way it should be done. Instead of people behind closed doors putting together documents on premises that may or may not be right, I believe this is the right and proper way to produce a white paper.
By way of introduction I want to give some indication of how I plan to organize my thoughts today. I want to have a look at the traditional way we have gone about producing defence policies in Canada. Then I want to expand and have a look at some of the factors that have changed which may cause us to rethink our traditional way of producing our defence policies. Then I want to give some examples of those general discussions in the time I have.
To begin with, Canada's traditional approach to defence planning has been affected by many factors. Many of them cannot be changed. We have the country's political evolution and, to a certain extent, our post-colonial sense of dependence. This was thrown off at Vimy Ridge but it still remained for a few years after. We have our vast expanse and remoteness. We are the second largest country in the world. We have three oceans. We have the world's largest coastline. We have our physical contiguity with the world's most powerful state and, above all, our own peculiar political culture and the effect on how we govern ourselves.
The formulation of a clear policy in Canada is never a simple or easy matter. In my opinion Canadian defence policy has seldom represented a deliberately chosen course of strategic direction or a fully integrated element of national purpose and object.
For more than four decades the basic premise on which Canada's defence policy was based was the cold war. That was the background against which we defined our security interests. That was the reference point for the setting of priorities and the making of decisions.
The 1964 white paper was based on the view that if there were a war it would be nuclear and over quickly, thus precluding the practical use of conventional or reserve forces.
The 1971 white paper cut back military numbers but expanded their roles: protecting our sovereignty, defending North America, upholding NATO, domestic emergencies and UN peacekeeping.
The 1987 white paper considered nuclear powered submarines, new tanks, bases in the north and forward operating bases for F-18s as essential to our defence, at a time when the cold war premise was about to come to an end.
It also, incidentally, seriously considered the total force concept, calling up a force in reserve to complement forces in being.
The latest policy statement issued by the minister of defence in September 1991 represented a useful, but I believe long overdue clarification of a change in orientation. If one really views it in its pure terms, the document was more of a rationalization of incremental decisions that had already been taken more than a suitably thoughtful re-examination of the basis for future policy development and planning.
The premises have changed. It is now time to measure policy against those changes and on that basis work our way to decisions that will serve our national interest.
To begin with we are now living in a period of technological change that can justifiably be called a second industrial revolution. Advances in microelectronics, genetic engineering, materials, space and telecommunications have turned industrial planning upside down.
When we factor in the deeply embedded and substantive trends in the physical environment, human rights, demographics, trade and economic patterns, it suggests a climate in which the traditional business as usual view of defence planning is unlikely to work.
I believe also the concept of national security is changing. Today it must be recognized that military might does not wield the same amount of national power it did yesterday. Indeed, the relative power of countries is now determined by an increasing interplay of economic and military factors which together with the fragile disposition of modern political systems is a major consideration.
The emerging democracies in eastern Europe for example, in Latin America and elsewhere will only add stability to their respective regions if they are seen as capable of tackling their domestic problems.
National security in the future may be just as concerned with environmental issues and the ability of a nation to feed itself as it is with the size, nature and structure of the armed forces
shaped from the time honoured need of maintaining territorial sovereignty and security.
The Exxon Valdez oil spill off the coast of Alaska comes to mind. So does the collision early in this decade between a U.S. and a Russian nuclear submarine near Russia's Arctic naval base in which some experts suggest that had the submarines collided at a different angle, both may have sunk instantly before their nuclear reactors could have been shut down.
Economic and social developments, while traditionally considered important in determining national interest, have today taken on a new significance for military planning as states struggle for independence and to protect markets and access to resources vital to their domestic economies.
Interruption in the flow of oil out of the Middle East for example was a major consideration in Canada's going to war for the first time in 40 years in the Persian gulf in 1992.
Similarly, the concern of Atlantic Canadians, my own province and the Atlantic provinces, over the survival of their northern cod stocks may very well involve maritime forces responding to foreign overfishing on the nose and tail of the Grand Banks in a big way.
The hon. member for Labrador this morning spoke of this and other national and sovereign imperatives that we will have to consider. Therefore I will not cover that.
I now want to cast my eye internationally. At the end of World War II we ended up with 60 countries in the world-recognized entities as countries. As a result of revolutions and decolonialization, countries breaking up, today we have three times that many countries in less than 50 years.
In these 180 countries of the world, there are 4,000 languages and as many religions. What is interesting about the composition of the countries is it is responsible for the trend that we see today. That is that 60 of these countries have populations of one million or less and 40 of them have less than 200,000, less than most of the smaller provinces in Canada.
More important, and I think it is germane to the argument I am making, less than 10 per cent of these countries have a homogeneous ethnic population and less than 5 per cent have an ethnic group that accounts for more than 75 per cent of the population.
I believe what we are seeing is an explosion of nations downward and inward to the point where they are really comprising the smallest ethnic and religious groups.
In the last four and half years we have been involved in the world and in Canada in more peacekeeping operations than we have in the last 40 years. If we take the trend that I spoke of earlier and look at the increasing intolerance of religious, social and ethnic groups one for the other, it is my thesis that the demand for peace operations is going to increase in scope, in number and in complexity.
Let us look at some very simple examples. Political instability has us involved in Cambodia. The inability of Somalis to provide food for themselves had us involved there. Ethnic wars in the former Yugoslavia has us involved there. Canadians are asking why, why? These are some of the things that our defence policy will address.
The simple answer is that Canada is a major trading nation with a multicultural make-up and it is in our national interest to invest our national resources to maintain a more stable world.
The traditional concept of national security is also affected by the uncertainty as to what might be a new pattern of world order to emerge following 45 years of a relatively stable cold war environment. I would suggest that history tends to work that way. History tends to work in pattern, certainly in my lifetime.
The most recent example I suppose I can quote is that after the end of World War II it took a few years for a pattern of the cold war to emerge and for east and west military and political alliances to polarize on either side of the iron curtain. We had the Warsaw pact versus the NATO alliance. The cold war is now over and the security systems that we have known all our lives are in question. We are waiting to see what will eventually replace them.
On top of that the traditional alliances, the Middle East order, has changed. Trade patterns have changed and we are not sure what is going to replace them. We are still getting used to the idea of a single superpower and what that means to the outcome of regional disputes, although the recent Persian gulf campaign does provide some tangible evidence of how future blow-ups may be managed.
What happens in the Middle East will in many ways impact on Europe and what prospects there may be for global order in coming decades. The same argument applies for Asia where the changing power balances are affecting the positions of China and Japan as well as the smaller economic tigers such as Korea and Taiwan.
Superimposed on all of that of course is the compelling need to refurbish the operating mechanisms of the United Nations. That I do not believe needs any elaboration in this House to the members present.
Until a clear pattern emerges which if we are to believe history it will in a few years, hasty decisions on defence services programs for a 15-year period based on an outdated defence policy of the past five years may prove very, very risky.
Another consideration comes to mind. It relates to the need in responding to these factors of change within the parameters of national pressures for immediately shrinking defence budgets. As identifiable enemies disappear we do not have an identifiable Warsaw pact, we do not have an identifiable Soviet Union; as a perceived identifiable enemy disappears, the constituency for defence cut funding in this country and in other countries will by natural order and natural trends diminish and the call for peace dividends and conversion will increase.
The Canadian Peace Alliance, for example, is already calling for the budget to be cut in half. I am still seeing editorials in national newspapers citing the importance of identifying the industrial parameters and the national imperatives related to the conversion of defence industries. Conversion of defence industries is a big thing in the United States and in the U.K.
They may not agree with them, and there are members in the House whom I see nodding and shaking their heads, but I believe they have to be addressed by proper defence policy review.
In summing up what I have said, let me repeat that this is a time when it is particularly important to base defence policy on a truly vigorous appreciation of the complex global situation, on the broader meaning of national security and on a focused effort to be prepared to dispense with the traditional methods in the interest of effectiveness. As I said earlier, the fact that the genesis for this white paper is coming from political committees, parliamentarians studying the issues, I believe is an indication that we have agreed and are prepared to digress from the age-old traditional methods.
Canada is committed to peace. That after all and above all is our national interest. Our national goal is to promote a more stable international environment as I spoke of earlier. The role of our armed forces is to defend this country and to contribute to the preservation of peace and stability throughout the world. Our defence policy must support these objectives.
To do this effectively it must be based on a clear-eyed perception, one that recognizes the achievements of the past but also the continuing dangers of the present.
Sir John Hackett, a very well-known and highly respected military person and author, once said: "When a society looks at its armed forces, it is looking in a mirror and if the reflection of that mirror is a true one, the face they see will be their own".
Our armed forces have always acquitted themselves admirably. Their reputation as true professionals is unsurpassed be it in NATO, peacekeeping, national efforts, search and rescue or any conceivable operation that is within the purview of the military inventory.
Our policy review must be correct in order that when our young men and women in uniform are committed to an operation and sent in harms way, as many of them are today, their government and their country will know that they need to be there and they have the proper equipment and logistics support to make sure that they will do their job as well as they can under the circumstances.
In conclusion the decisions we make about Canadian policy must be guided by commitment, by focus, and by prudence.
