NDVA Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL DEFENCE AND VETERANS AFFAIRS

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE LA DÉFENSE NATIONALE ET DES ANCIENS COMBATTANTS

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, November 22, 2001

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[English]

The Chair (Mr. David Pratt (Nepean—Carleton, Lib.)): I'd like to call to order this meeting of the Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs.

Before we hear from our witnesses, what I would like to do is deal very quickly with an item that came from the steering committee, and that I believe was passed unanimously at the steering committee. It's the fourth report of the subcommittee on agenda and procedure, and it deals with the process by which we hear witnesses.

Shall I call the vote on the motion?

Mr. John O'Reilly (Haliburton—Victoria—Brock, Lib.): I so move.

Mrs. Elsie Wayne (Saint John, PC/DR): I second the motion.

(Motion agreed to)

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Today, we are pleased to welcome two members of the community who have been very active on defence issues. Professor Jack Granatstein is co-chair of the Council for Canadian Security in the 21st Century; and Professor David Bercuson is director of the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies, at the University of Calgary.

Gentlemen, on behalf of the rest of the members of the standing committee, I'd like to welcome you. I know members are going to have lots of questions, so why don't we get right into your presentations? They will be followed by several rounds of questions. Please proceed.

Professor Jack L. Granatstein (Co-Chair, Council for Canadian Security in the 21st Century): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I was asked to give a brief history of Canadian defence policy. That, of course, is an impossibility. However, I will be brief, and I will be pleased to try to answer any queries on more current matters, too, including the report of the Council for Canadian Security, if you wish.

Essentially, Canadians have always mistrusted a professional military and have preferred a militia or citizen soldiers. In New France and in British America, the imperial powers provided the regulars and the colonial citizenry provided the militia, and there was substantial mistrust between them. The regulars preyed on the women and fought in a stand-up, straight-line, European style, responding to orders from Paris and London. The militias were more adapted to local conditions and fought a petite guerre, and only for their homes and immediate surroundings.

Within a few years of Confederation, however, the imperial presence disappeared, and Canada was left with only a very few professional soldiers who were neither very professional nor real soldiers. This permanent force acted as a training cadre. Little money ordinarily was provided for defence—either for the permanent force or the militia—and only when Ottawa became frightened of the United States did anyone even think of military matters.

When the Great War began in August 1914, Canada had some 60,000 untrained militia, along with some 3,000 members in the permanent force, as well as a handful of sailors in its tinpot navy. In other words, almost no one knew how to fight or to train, and in the first years of the Great War, lives were lost because of this. But Canadians could learn. Over the course of the war, the Canadian Expeditionary Force became a highly professional, highly efficient force. Officers like Arthur Currie and Archie Macdonnell developed into fine soldiers. Canadians gave more than 600,000 of their sons to the war effort. Canadians imposed conscription on a reluctant nation to sustain the Canadian Corps in the field. Canadians were very proud of the Canadian Corps and of the quite extraordinary victories that it won.

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However, as soon as the armistice came in 1918, Canadians and their government turned their minds elsewhere. The world was now safe for democracy, and governments wanted to spend their money on other things. The permanent force, the tiny navy, and the air force sank back into decay, and the reserve forces became virtually unarmed and completely irrelevant. “Let someone else defend us”, seemed to be the message. The result was that in September 1939, when this nation went to war again, Canada began from scratch and casualties again had to be suffered when men went into action.

Not until 1943-44 were the Canadian Armed Forces capable of fighting well. The air force was then a quarter-million men and women, strong and efficient, running a bomber group and countless fighter, transport, and anti-submarine squadrons at home and abroad. The Royal Canadian Navy, with 100,000 men and women in its ranks, had learned on the job and had become the third largest navy in the world. The army had five divisions and two armoured brigades fighting overseas, and by 1945 the 1st Canadian Army, in historian Lieutenant-Colonel Jack English's words, was “the best little army in the world”. Once again, conscription had to be used to sustain the army at the front.

But with the result of peace, Canada's military again disappeared. The great wartime host of 1.1 million men and women almost overnight became an ill-trained regular force of 25,000, with aging, obsolescent equipment. The Soviet Union soon became a threat, however, and Canada helped to create the North Atlantic Treaty. However, not even joining NATO did much for rearmament. It took the Korean War to turn the government's attention to the state of the armed forces, with the subsequent dispatch of a powerful brigade of troops and an air division to Europe, and a brigade, ships, and transport aircraft to the Far East.

Within a few years, Canada had its first peacetime, truly professional armed forces. By the late 1950s, the country had 120,000 men in the three services, well equipped, well led, and well financed. The reserves were shortchanged then, but with a large, efficient regular force, National Defence believed—wrongly, I think—that this didn't matter very much.

The professional peak was reached by the end of the 1950s. Thereafter, decay slowly and progressively set in. Beginning with the Diefenbaker government, there were budget and personnel cuts, equipment shortfalls, unification of the forces, social engineering, and most notably, a lack of political will to have a proper military. The result, after forty years of cutbacks, is that the Canadian Forces today are in their weakest condition since the beginning of post-war rearmament, the weakest they have been in a half century. The reserves, arguably more critical today than ever, are in terrible condition, under strength, ill-equipped, and suffering from a severe morale problem.

Why are we in this state? I suggest Canadians have never lost the colonial attitude they had at the foundation of European settlement. I regret to say we are a people who ordinarily expect someone else to do the fighting for us—first France, then Britain, and now the United States. Protected by three oceans, linked with the great powers, except in the two world wars and in the unique decade of the 1950s, Canadians have always been prepared to let someone else make the strategic decisions, pay most of the bills, and do most of the dying. This, by definition, is a colonial attitude. It is an attitude reflecting a weak sense of sovereignty, a weak sense of nationhood.

We may believe we are like the Swedes, who are said to think of themselves as a moral superpower. We might think we are beloved by the world, but we're not. We may believe, as Professor Janice Gross Stein wrote in the Globe and Mail last week, that we can have an army only of ill-equipped soldiers proffering humanitarian aid, but we cannot. We don't know what the next five or ten or fifty years will hold for us. We cannot know what kinds of wars we might have to face. The one certainty in a world of great uncertainty is that we will always require well-equipped, professional soldiers, sailors, and airmen able to deal with whatever the future throws at us.

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It's long past time for Canadians to act like a nation. That means having a real military, with good, well-trained people, modern, high-tech equipment, and the necessary funds allocated to defence to guarantee these things. September 11 demonstrated new threats to our persons and to our way of life, and while the war against terrorism goes on, we will think of the military. We can't do much now to help in this war, but if we use September 11 as a wake-up call, we might be better positioned to react in the next crisis. And there will be a next crisis. There always is.

Let me use a simple analogy. Just as we pay for fire insurance on our houses even though the odds are good that we won't have a fire, so too do we need the insurance provided by a professional military and a broad-based reserve. As a television advertisement used to say, you pay me now, or you pay me later. I would modify that slightly. You pay now in dollars for an efficient, professional military and a well-trained reserve, or you pay later in dollars and in your sons and your daughters.

Thank you very much.

The Chair: Thank you, Professor Granatstein.

Professor Bercuson, do you have any comments?

Professor David J. Bercuson (Director, Centre for Military and Strategic Studies, University of Calgary): Yes.

First of all, thank you for inviting me. For the most part, my comments are addressed directly to the report, which I believe has been distributed to all the members of the committee and which was released on November 9, but I just want to briefly give you a little bit of background to that report.

The project began about ten months ago, when the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies put together some 25 experts from across the country on Canadian defence and security policy, and asked Professor Granatstein and Senator Laurier LaPierre to co-chair this committee. At the time, we thought the committee would write a report that would make a contribution to a white paper process we believed would be underway by now. At least, we certainly hoped it would be.

One underlying assumption is common to all of the contributions made to this report, and it is an underlying assumption of the report itself. It is that a sovereign nation requires its own military or, to paraphrase Sir Winston Churchill, it will have somebody else's. The second assumption is that militaries are meant to fight wars or to prepare to fight wars, and that anything else they do is incidental to the main reason for their existence.

I could point to some of the main recommendations of the report, but I'll assume some of you will have read it or the recommendations. I do want to highlight two issues, though, and then I will stop my comments.

The first things is that we began work on this project long before September 11. In fact, the report was finished in draft form by September 11. We revisited the draft after September 11, and found we had been tragically prescient in many of the things we had predicted. No one could have predicted the events of September 11, but the unpredictability of history and of events itself was part of the reason why we think this country needs a new white paper. It was written into the report, and we changed very little of it as a result of September 11.

The second thing I would like to emphasize—especially in this particular place at this particular time—is our strong feeling that this committee, in one fashion or another, should play a larger role in the future in the determination of defence policy. At the same time, it should also be trying to carve out an oversight role of some sort in regard to the Canadian Forces, within our existing Parliamentary system, of course. We believe very strongly that the area of national defence, which is the first priority of any government anywhere—the security of its citizens and the security of its borders—makes national defence a slightly different topic from most of the other topics governments deal with.

We would like to see a situation develop in which a committee such as this would have greater powers of investigation, more resources to do investigation, and more ability to call witnesses from the armed forces themselves; and would communicate more to the Canadian people as to the state of the military and where this committee believes the military ought to be going. I'm not here to try to curry favour with you, but of course I'm a very strong supporter of this committee's recommendations of last June.

That's the final thing I want to say. We didn't want to play the numbers game. Everyone knows the budget situation is difficult regarding the military, so there's no point in gilding the lily. In trying to decide what we would say about the budget situation, we simply accepted the recommendations this committee made to the government back in June. We felt that if the numbers were good enough for this committee, then they were certainly good enough for the council and for our report.

Thank you.

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The Chair: Thank you, Professor Bercuson.

We'll now go to questions, in a seven-minute round, beginning with Mrs. Gallant.

Ms. Cheryl Gallant (Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, Canadian Alliance): I'll be sharing my time with Mr. Benoit, Mr. Chairman.

I'm going to read from a discussion paper I received from Colonel Gary Rice, RTN, and I would then like our witnesses to comment.

During the 36 years from 1964 to 2000, the benign neglect of a succession of indifferent and unenlightened prime ministers, uninterested and uninspired ministers of defence and foreign affairs, and overly compliant chiefs of defence staff, wreaked havoc on the nation's foreign policy, its defence structure and its armed forces. Canada's once distinguished and highly esteemed foreign service was reduced to little more than a politically correct and left-leaning organization with little influence, while its proud, capable, and respected fighting forces gradually dwindled down to an undertrained, poorly armed, inadequately equipped, and large demoralized corporal's guard that, in the eyes of the Canadian people and Canada's allies, is suitable only for lightly armed peacekeeping, humanitarian, or constabulary roles.

Professor Granatstein, could I get your comments first, followed by those of Professor Bercuson?

Prof. Jack Granatstein: That's almost exactly what I said, except I thought it was longer than 36 years. I would make it 40-plus years.

It began in the Diefenbaker period. I was in the Canadian Army at that point, and the first wave of budget cuts hit in 1961. I can well remember driving around in jeeps without tops in the winter, and having to line up to get a pencil—the one pencil in the company that I was in—to share. Money began to be very tight then.

So it's not even benign neglect, it's malign neglect of the Canadian Forces. It has gone on regardless of party, regardless of government, and I regret to say it will probably go on under future governments as well, unless there is a real popular will to change this. In fact, I think the people are ahead of the government in their attitudes toward the military. Polls certainly suggest substantial support for the military now. A war is going on as well, which usually builds for it. But whether or not the money will come, whether or not it will be added to base, and whether or not it will be progressively reinforced so that we can re-equip, get more people, and resume active training, I don't know. I wish I believed it was so.

Prof. David Bercuson: In general, I would agree with the sentiments, but I wouldn't be so political in the sense that I don't think government is the problem, I think the problem is the citizenry. I think the people of Canada largely don't see and do not understand the direct connection between sovereignty, military forces, international trade, and their own paycheques. If they did, as I think is probably the case with, for example, the citizenry in Europe, which lived under the threat of communism for a long time.... When the Europeans needed to sustain large military forces, there was virtually no argument in Europe—even among the major political parties—as to the need to be members of NATO and so on for countries like Denmark, Belgium, and the Netherlands. There was almost bipartisan agreement that the expenditures they made to keep up their part under NATO were necessary to sustain their position in the world of sovereign nations.

But this country has been far removed. We all remember Senator Raoul Dandurand saying back in 1927, “We live in a fire-proof house, far from inflammable materials.” Despite the fact that we have been burned enough in the last century to have left 100,000 of our people overseas, Canadian citizens just don't see or do not realize that they have a stake in the indivisible peace. Perhaps we could also say governments and organizations, such as chambers of commerce and so on, have not done enough to try to provide leadership and education to the people, but I think governments simply respond to what the people want. That's why they get elected.

Mr. Leon Benoit (Lakeland, Canadian Alliance): If I could, Professor Bercuson, you said there are problems with the citizenry. When you have governments, one after another, that lead people to believe we just don't need a strong military, though, and when you've had opposition that really goes along with that—until the last eight years, I would argue—why would the people think any differently? Why would you expect anything different from the people? I do put the blame on government. I think the attitude of the people is changing, and that's encouraging, so where to from here?

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Like my colleague Art Hanger, who was defence critic for the Canadian Alliance before me, I was afraid to call for a white paper on defence, because I knew it would be used as an excuse by government to even further reduce the commitment to the military. But things have changed since September 11. I know your paper doesn't really take that into account, because you had prepared the paper before that time. I would therefore like to ask you this, because the mood is now different. Polls show the mood is different. If you attended any Remembrance Day ceremonies, it's clear the mood is different. I was proud to be a part of all those ceremonies.

With that in mind, is it not critical that we now take advantage of the opportunity and start the process in terms of setting a new defence policy? Clearly, the 1994 policy has two problems. First of all, it was weak even at that time, and times have changed. Secondly, it hasn't been honoured. We have to have a policy process whereby we can feel more confident it's going to be honoured. I think you can do that by having government and opposition truly included together in the process, and by having the finance minister put his signature for long-term financing right on the white paper, like Australia did. What are your thoughts on that?

Prof. David Bercuson: Obviously, I completely agree with the need for a defence white paper review right now. I want to add a thought to what you have said.

We live in a society that has evolved more and more—and I think this is quite obvious to all of us—into a small-d democracy of the fullest and most vigorous kind. I think it's very important for us to maintain civilian oversight over the military and to periodically review defence policy. Those reviews have to be conducted—as the last one was—by a body such as a combined Senate-House of Commons committee. If not, policy gets made by fiat. It gets made in the absence of policy. The military defines roles that should be defined by the government, and they will do it because they need to. They need to decide what they're going to be doing with their future, and if they're not getting the right direction from government, then they won't follow it.

That doesn't mean I don't think the policy flow from the civilian side at DND to the military side isn't consistent, but it's not an open process. I understand totally that you can't administer a defence policy in the light of full public opinion, but once every several years, every four to six years, the nation has to have a thorough review of where it has been and where it needs to go.

A lot of people will come to this committee and say the military is too small. I don't know whether or not the military is too small, but I know it's too small for the roles it's being asked to play today. The Canadian people have to make a choice. Either we cut back on the roles assigned to the military, or we increase the resources available to the military. To me, that needs to be a public policy process. The people should be telling a committee such as this what they think, and the government should act accordingly on the wishes expressed to or recommended by this committee.

Mr. Leon Benoit: In the public process, you'll have my—

The Chair: Thank you, Professor Bercuson.

Mr. Benoit, your time has expired.

Mr. Price.

Mr. David Price (Compton—Stanstead, Lib.): Thank you very much for being here, gentlemen. I think it's really necessary to have people of your calibre here—people who have the background you have—to inform us and to help us out on some of the questions we do have to deal with.

Just to follow along on the same line of questioning, I'd like to hear from both of you on this. You've talked in your paper about a new white paper, but I'll go straight to the question. Do you not think we need to have a foreign affairs review before we go to a white paper? How can we possibly know what we need without knowing what the government is going to do in terms of the foreign affairs situation?

Prof. David Bercuson: To me, that would be the ideal circumstance, on the one hand. On the other hand, to an extent, we also have to start thinking somewhat differently in this day and age from what we would have thought up until maybe ten years ago, when we thought about foreign affairs, environmental affairs, the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce, and so on. We did discuss this when we laid out this report.

We thought the point we would try to get across in the report is that we're dealing with a category called security. It's obviously not security in the sense of security against crime, but security against enemies, foreign and domestic. That's what we tried to address.

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Although we would like to see a foreign affairs review prior to a defence review, if we had a security review, it would draw in elements from departments that are not National Defence and would have to address issues on their own. That would be second best, but it would suffice.

Prof. Jack Granatstein: I agree entirely. That's precisely what I would have said.

Mr. David Price: You mentioned that the NATO partners in Europe are getting their act together, you might say. In getting their act together, what they're doing exactly—this seems to have been the buzzword around here the last couple of days—is partnering. You mentioned the Dutch and the Belgians. They're doing exactly that. They're doing one certain function. For instance, the Dutch are going to be doing air-to-air refuelling for the Germans. The Germans will be handling the airlift. The Dutch are going to handle the frigates—they're building missile frigates—and the Belgians are trading off something else for that. This is happening right across the board.

Realizing, of course, that the only important partner we have is just across the border, I'd like to have your thoughts on the partnering situation if we cannot afford to have a complete military.

Prof. David Bercuson: Let me start very briefly by saying that is precisely what we meant by recognizing and acting on the notion of a strategic partnership with the United States. Certainly, they're obviously much larger than we are, and so on and so forth, but that doesn't mean we can't play any roles to take the slack away from them under certain circumstances and in certain areas of the world. That's how I would see it.

Prof. Jack Granatstein: It seems to me to be important that we move away from our traditional definition of “sovereignty”. We have tended to look at sovereignty as something we protect by hanging back from close relations with the United States. I would suggest to you that we weaken our sovereignty if we can't bring anything to the table in dealing with the United States.

We have a role in NORAD because of decisions made more than forty years ago. We have a special position there. If that organization disappears, then influence in Washington and on Washington dramatically diminishes. In other words, participation quite often guarantees a voice, which quite often guarantees sovereignty. At least we have a chance to influence decisions affecting us before they're taken. It seems to me that something like that is critical. By working more closely together, if we do it right and if we're careful to protect what we must protect of our independence, then we can make gains through doing that.

Mr. David Price: There's no question about that. I agree with you. In going in that direction, though, not to micromanage, would you have any ideas on just the type of thing we could be doing in partnering with our American friends?

Prof. Jack Granatstein: The critical decision that's going to be coming in the near future is, of course, that on missile defence. While I wish we didn't have to make this choice, I have no doubt at all the United States is going to do this. September 11 guarantees the Americans will proceed down this path.

What are we going to do? Are we going to do the traditional Canadian hang-back and hope it will go away? I think that would be a mistake, because it's in our interest to have missile defence come under NORAD, and not under United States Space Command. If it comes under NORAD, then with our number two in that command, we have the chance to have influence, to have a role, to actually help shape American policy in a major way. If we hang back, NORAD will probably disappear. It will certainly be diminished, and our influence will disappear. I think it's an absolute non-starter for us to pretend this isn't going to happen and to pretend the Americans are going to treat us seriously if we don't participate with them.

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Mr. David Price: If we look at the missile defence system they're talking about right now, that's quite a few years down the road in terms of development. In the interim, would you say we should be looking at getting involved in partnering with the Americans on a theatre missile defence system, as a North American one similar to what's happening in Europe? By 2005, Europe will have its theatre missile defence system up and running.

Prof. Jack Granatstein: Yes, I do think we should partner with them. We should actively seek out partnership areas in which we can play a role, exercise some influence, and probably help our own armed forces to modernize.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Price. That's it for you.

Ms. Wayne, for seven minutes.

Mrs. Elsie Wayne: I want to thank both of you for coming today. I also see some retired officers sitting behind you who have been before us as well.

We all know our military men and women have been having a difficult time financially. There's no question about that. Yet either you or someone else was saying the polls show strong public support. I have to say we have been really pushing our Department of National Defence right now—and we were been pushing before September 11—for new equipment for them and for more money for them, because we know more money is needed. It's because of people like you coming before this committee, and because of others who have brought this information to us, but I have to say September 11 really brought it to the forefront.

How can these men and women—and how can we—get that message out? Only people like you and people like those of us around this table can get that message to the Minister of National Defence and to the Prime Minister and the cabinet. All these other people would be on the Hill protesting. Every day until September 11, we had hundreds of protesters up here, and they would get lots of publicity. But the men and women in uniform cannot come up here that way to protest. How can we play a major role in making sure our military gets the funds it needs?

I had a major come to me on November 11. He has been in uniform for seventeen years, and he said he is going to step down. I asked him if I had heard correctly. He said, yes. He said the equipment he and his troops are using dates back to 1969. He said he can't train the young people this way. He just can't.

If it dates back to 1969, it's not just something that has happened in the last five years or the last ten years, it's been happening for probably the last thirty or forty years. So how do we make that impression? How can we get it through that the military needs to have a stronger budget, that the defence department has to have the support of the government and the support of the opposition, as well as everyone else, instead of playing politics with them?

Prof. David Bercuson: You—and when I say “you”, I collectively mean this committee—have already demonstrated that you can play an effective role.

Mrs. Elsie Wayne: We're trying.

Prof. David Bercuson: When you had your hearings on the quality of life in the military, they had tremendous impacts across the country. They headlined everywhere. As a result, we did have significant movement from the government in allocating new, additional funds to the department.

The role of this committee holds great potential. Even though we live in a parliamentary system, a parliamentary democracy in which we do not have dual control over the military—as they do in the United States, where Congress is responsible for certain areas of the military and the executive is basically responsible for commanding the military—this has nonetheless become a very democratic country. The people do listen to what is said in the news. They do read the newspapers. They are concerned about the state of the armed forces, and the more leeway you have in investigating, the more money you have to get at the facts, and the more resources you have, the better the job you can do. But you're doing a good job already. The June report of this committee spoke very loudly about what this country needs.

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Prof. Jack Granatstein: This has another part to it, too, though. It seems to me that the interested public has to take its role more seriously. My colleague suggested a couple of days ago that it was time to create a massive list of the interested public who could be reached by e-mail; who could rapidly be mobilized to press for specific points; and who could be used to generate pressure on the political system. I think this is the way to go. If we could have 10,000 people and 10,000 important people—and it's quite possible to get that—who have a real interest in this subject and are prepared to sit down and write an e-mail to the Minister of National Defence, the Minister of Finance, or the Prime Minister, to say the government has to do something about this, I think that will actually have an impact. I didn't believe letters to Parliament had any impact until I went to the Canadian War Museum. I then discovered that when you mobilize people and get them to write letters, you can actually get something done. So I'm actually now a believer in mobilizing people. I think it's very much the way to go.

Mrs. Elsie Wayne: Just on that point, Mr. Chairman, I was speaking in Muskoka. I was just asked to go there to speak. They didn't choose any subject, so I took Caught in the Middle with me. I spoke about the military, and what Professor Granatstein just said is what I asked them to do. I asked every one of them in that room to write a letter, and I told them I wanted it to go to the Prime Minister, to the Minister of Defence, and to Paul Martin as well. I did the same thing last weekend in Dartmouth, Mr. Chair, because I think there is a need. When the government sees these things coming from the grassroots people, and when the grassroots people are supportive of what we're trying to do, Mr. Chair, then as Professor Granatstein has stated, we'll be successful in achieving things and in meeting the needs of our men and women in the military.

For all of us sitting in this room today, and for every Canadian from coast to coast, I have to say I have major concerns. It's not just the United States, because we need stronger security in Canada as well, given what has been taking place.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The Chair: Mr. Benoit, for five minutes.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Gentlemen, I do want to say that I think your report has provided a great service to Canada and to Canadians, and I do appreciate it very much.

I would like to ask you about joint operations with other countries. You brought this up. We realize, of course, that Canada can't provide everything needed in the types of conflicts we're getting into more and more, or probably in any type of conflict other than a very small, controlled conflict. But I've also heard our allies say a couple of things, the first being that we're not doing our share when it comes to the military. That's coming from our NATO allies, and from the United States with respect to NORAD. That comment has been made often, I think. And they've also said that when we are working with them, they don't want to have to babysit our troops because we don't have the proper equipment.

If we're talking about working jointly in Afghanistan now, for example, if we're going to send 1,000 troops into Afghanistan, I'm just wondering about the support for them from the United Kingdom and the United States, if those countries know they're going to have to provide the quick cover in case something serious happens, or if they're going to have to provide the lift to get them out quickly in case things get completely out of control for an interim period. It has been stated to me that we need self-contained units, at least, to work side by side with our allies as much as we can. Is that a way for Canada to go in the future in terms of NORAD? I'll leave that question with you first.

Prof. David Bercuson: Let me take a crack at that first. Interoperability, which is, of course, our ability to operate together with our allies, and especially with the United States, is one objective of our military. It has been an objective for some time, and rightfully so, yet our military has also talked for some time—as have the U.S. military and others—about “jointness”. Jointness is the ability of the different elements of our military to operate together on an integrated basis operationally.

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It's not that we have to choose between jointness and interoperability, but one of the reasons why I want to see a defence white paper is to bring out the arguments for how to tackle the problem. If we were to go ahead and say we are going redesign our forces in some way and they would operate more integrally together, more jointly, we could only do that if they would still meet criteria that would be required for them to operate with our NATO partners. In other words, we can't independently draw some kind of diagram of what our forces should look like, without taking into consideration both the requirements of our allies and the requirements of our own force structure. I don't know where the decision gets made and I don't know where the line gets drawn, but what I do know is that we need to look at the problem. We did not look at the problem at all in the process leading up to 1994.

Mr. Leon Benoit: I think we know we have to look at it.

When you have been asked, you've said, even today, that you're not sure whether the military has to be larger or not. I want to ask you that question again, because a lot of our allies, and our NATO partners in particular, have said we're just not delivering enough in terms of the military, and that if we're going to be part of NATO, we had better start acting like it, providing what we've committed and what's really expected from a country like Canada. With that in mind, not coming out and committing to or saying we need a larger military seems like a strange position.

Prof. David Bercuson: I'm sorry if I've misunderstood myself. I certainly advocate—

Prof. Jack Granatstein: It's not the first time.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

Prof. David Bercuson: No, not for the first time, as my friend and co-author never fails to point out.

Mr. Leon Benoit: I appreciate your comments, by the way.

Prof. David Bercuson: We go back a lot of years.

Anyway, I certainly advocate a larger military, but I have also said putting more money into the military is not going to solve all of the military's problems. We need to look at force structure, we need to look at role, we need to look at mission, and we need to look at tasks.

When I said I don't know if the military needs to be larger or needs to be smaller, what I meant is that some people in this country probably don't agree with that, but they can't have it both ways. If you want your military to be some sort of mother or nanny to the whole world and to feed everybody, to provide them with fresh water, and to do all the good things that people do in the world, then it has to be a bigger military.

Mr. Leon Benoit: But is it important—

The Chair: Your time has run out, Mr. Benoit. I'm sorry.

Mr. Dromisky, for five minutes.

Mr. Stan Dromisky (Thunder Bay—Atikokan, Lib.): Five minutes only? Okay, I'll get right to the point.

Either one of you can answer this, and I'm sure both of you will.

I can recall reading a lot of articles in the 1980s that were very critical of the military at the time. What stimulated this direction of questioning is the question regarding a colonial attitude, which you introduced. Who knows? Maybe you even wrote some of the articles I read in the 1980s. I can remember one statement that we had more generals than we had tanks that were operable at that time.

The point was made very clearly about the attitudes prevailing in the military, especially the higher you went in the hierarchy. The higher you went, the more important these people became as far as their own egos and their relationships with other people lower down in the hierarchy were concerned. It got to the point at which they were practically omnipotent, at which they had absolute powers. They nurtured strategies and communiques in such a way that they maintained their isolation from the general public. In other words, the military was really operating in an isolated manner and it was absolute in itself—and Parliament gave them those absolute powers.

Has there been any change regarding...? You talked about cooperation between military units, between and among members of NORAD and everything else. Do you really, truly believe that, because of the attitudes prevalent in the past, because of the colonial attitudes that might even prevail to this very point, the high-ranking military officers in our system are going to abdicate total control and responsibility over their troops, over their units? Are they just doing it in a superficial manner, in a sense? Is it sincere? Is it honest? Is it sustainable?

• 1620

As you go further down the hierarchy, I know the troops become more effective, more efficient, and more versatile. They're just dynamic. It's amazing what they can do with the equipment they have. What I'm saying is that, as far as the Canadian public is concerned, you get a bigger bang for the dollar at the lowest levels than you get at the highest levels. That's how simple it is. Do you have any reaction to those kinds of criticisms?

Prof. Jack Granatstein: I think it's not unknown in politics that people at the top become omnipotent or think they're omnipotent, and that people at the bottom tend to think they're underappreciated. It's probably true in many large organizations, not simply the military.

I think you're forgetting in those comments, sir, if I may, that the forces passed through a time of trial after the Somalia crisis. A host of studies, commissions, reports, and examinations have dissected, probed, and pushed at the military, and particularly the senior officers.

I think the military today is in fact very different from what it was ten, fifteen, and twenty years ago, but I don't think it was ever quite as bad as you painted it. It's a very different place now. It's different because it doesn't have the people and it doesn't have the money, but it's also different because it has a quite different mindset or different attitudes, it seems to me, than it used to have. I think these areas have seen major changes, and I'm by no means as pessimistic as you sounded.

Mr. Stan Dromisky: So there's hope.

Prof. Jack Granatstein: There's hope.

Prof. David Bercuson: I agree with that. I think the high command is far more aware of public attitudes, far more aware of the necessity of making sure the public understands what they do, of sharing information with the public, and of trends going on in our society—greater education, more small-d democratic values, and so on and so forth. They are constrained, of course, because they have tough jobs to do and limited resources to do them with, but I do think a change has taken place in terms of their attitudes toward their place in society over the last five or six years.

Mr. Stan Dromisky: A perfect example to show such a change has taken place in the last ten years, especially where the community and community leaders are concerned, is in the public's work with the military in a very effective manner in many of the disasters we've had, and in other ventures.

Thank you very much. Those were good answers.

The Chair: Mrs. Wayne.

Mrs. Elsie Wayne: Recommendation 8 in your report says:

Canada should undertake a thorough re-evaluation of the costs and benefits of Canadian participation in peace support operations.

Would you elaborate on that for me, please?

Prof. David Bercuson: We believe the existing international regime under which most peace support operations take place—that being the United Nations—is not effective, pure and simple. We can discuss the various reasons why it's not effective, but blaming the United Nations is kind of like blaming a crowd of people. What goes into the making of the United Nations—power politics, manoeuvrings between members of the Security Council, etc.—are not good things or bad things, they just are. We need to start recognizing that.

Prof. Jack Granatstein: I agree with that, but I also think the thrust of that recommendation goes beyond the United Nations. It implicitly includes other organizations such as NATO.

It's very important that we look at the whole range of our peace-support operations. If we look at that, we might decide, for example, that we will only participate in NATO-run things or only in United Nations-run ones, that we'll be open to both or that we'll only participate if we have enough troops that we can send them and give them a proper time to recuperate when they come home. In other words, let's look at the whole process, so that we can make some intelligent judgments and not do as we do now, regrettably, which is to play ad hoc games over and over again.

• 1625

Unfortunately, we have always thought in this country that peacekeeping simply can't happen without Canada. I don't think that's true, and I don't think it was ever true, but it's an article of faith for a lot of Canadians. I think this has driven our policy, instead of policy driving our participation.

Mrs. Elsie Wayne: That's right, Mr. Chair. When we listen to the people who come to talk to us, they say, “Why are you sending these men over to Afghanistan? They're just peacekeepers.”

Today, right here on the Hill, a gentleman came to me and said he had relatives in the armed forces who have gone over for peacekeeping duty. They just came back, and they said they were never so embarrassed in their lives, because when they were there, they had absolutely nothing when compared to the other peacekeepers who came from other nations. They didn't have the resources the rest had. This man said we have to do something, that this committee has to do something. I told him we're trying. And I'll tell you another thing. I'm not talking about boots when I say this. That man had a list of things our peacekeepers did not have but should have had. The others who were there had them, and the Canadians were borrowing things from the others. So I have to say we have a lot of work to do, because we're not going to correct everything overnight.

The other question I had was with regard to your recommendation 12:

In the context of a defence and security review, the Government of Canada should evaluate the implications of emerging security threats in the Asia-Pacific region and the diplomatic, economic, and military roles Canada can realistically play to enhance the region's security.

We're not doing that now, are we?

Prof. David Bercuson: We don't have the resources. The point we're trying to make is that in an overall review of security policy, we would have a forum for people to say it's really important for us to get more involved in Asia-Pacific security issues, and we need to therefore put more resources into this area. That's the point.

Is it an extremely important area for Canada? Obviously and absolutely. So is the western hemisphere, I have to say, and we put very little military resources into the western hemisphere, although I understand we've just opened up two new military attachés in South America.

To me, the issue is that we have to look at these as areas of importance, and we have to ask ourselves if they are important enough for us to commit resources, yes or no. If they're not, let's not pretend. If they are, then let's put new resources into these areas, not take existing ones away from where we're already overstretched.

Mrs. Elsie Wayne: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

The Chair: Mr. O'Reilly.

Mr. John O'Reilly: Welcome, again. When I see you two gentlemen, I remember the 1994 white paper and the restructuring of the reserves, and I feel very old. I don't know how you kept your hair and so forth.

It doesn't seem that long ago that we were dealing with something we thought was very important—and it certainly was. A lot of the recommendations that were made led to this committee establishing the report that became known as “quality of life”, and I think that made a lot of improvements. So I always welcome your input, and I know part of it is followed up by the committee. I hope you realize a lot of the input you provide is taken very seriously.

I want to go back to the new white paper process for a minute. My understanding is that a white paper is something devised by a government in a review of its foreign policy. That foreign policy is then fed into the system, through DND input, and then to the various committees, like the joint committee on foreign affairs. Of course, the Senate now has a military committee. We welcome that. They've done a lot of really good work, and they have a great volume of talent to deal with and to draw from. But I just want to make that point. The white paper does not start with this committee. It actually comes to this committee after it has started. That's really the process we're dealing with, and I think you agree with that.

• 1630

I want your comments on something in particular. Since your report came out, two omnibus bills have been introduced into the House—one of them just today. The first one dealt a little bit with the military, but not a lot with the National Defence Act. It actually made some changes to bring it more in line with the Criminal Code in terms of due process and so forth.

I don't know if you're aware of the one introduced today, or if you've had an opportunity to look at it, and I don't want to blindside you. Six items in it deal with national defence. Three sections deal with reservists, and the first term means a reservist can be called up in something other than an insurrection, a riot, an invasion, or a war. In other words, the words “armed conflict” have been added. First of all, I would want to know if you agree with that.

The second section deals with military justice. New military judges would automatically be called upon if needed.

The third section is one dealing with reservists. It guarantees reservists their jobs if they're called up by the government—not necessarily as they do today, because they serve in many parts of the world with our regular forces. The fact is that civilian employers would be required to have jobs available for these individuals. That provision is part of that omnibus bill.

I'll deal with those first, and then I'll go to the balance of the six items.

Prof. Jack Granatstein: I obviously haven't seen the document, but from what you've said, it sounds to me that the two of them that I understand—the system of call-up and the job protection legislation—seem to be very important, very useful, and very necessary. At the present time, call-up can only be done by an Order in Council, and the sense always was that it would never be used except in the case of an all-out war. It seems to me to be very important that we have the ability to call up reservists in an easier and more immediate fashion.

The job protection legislation was something called for by the Special Commission on the Restructuring of the Reserves, of course. It was turned down flat by the government. Frankly, even in the way you phrase it, which is as a slightly qualified position, I'm delighted to see it, because it's a major step forward. It will at last let reservists think they can serve their country without losing their jobs, and that's very critical. This may actually help the reserves get the recruits they need.

The Chair: You have thirty seconds left.

Mr. John O'Reilly: I thank you for those comments, but it deals with reservists who are called up by the government specifically in an emergency situations. However the term “emergency” has also been expanded, in that legislation. An emergency could be devised in many ways, obviously, so expanding “emergency” and then making sure people who are compelled, who are called up, have their jobs protected is part of that new legislation. I hope the opposition supports that, because it was a recommendation you both made in the 1994 go-round. I'm sure we'll have some discussion on it, but it is part of the bill.

I'll get to the rest of them in my next round, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: Fair enough, Mr. O'Reilly.

Mr. Benoit.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Gentlemen, let me get back to the white paper. The parliamentary secretary, Mr. O'Reilly, said the white paper isn't something this committee can call for. I totally disagree with that. This committee has the power to call for a white paper if it so chooses.

Maybe he was indicating that we have to have a foreign affairs review first. That's something I've had thrown at me from different sources. I've had other people say that if this committee were to start a defence white paper review on its own, the foreign affairs review would in fact start very quickly, and that they could be done concurrently quite successfully, with back and forth between the two. I'd just like your comments on whether or not that would be an effective way to handle things. If we wait for a foreign affairs white paper, I think we would be looking at a minimum of eighteen months before we could start a defence white paper review at this committee.

• 1635

Prof. Jack Granatstein: If I recollect rightly, the 1994 white paper was followed by the 1995 statement on foreign policy. It wasn't quite a white paper, but it was a statement. In other words, the defence review preceded the foreign policy review.

The position the Council for Canadian Security recommended—having a security review that would bring together defence and foreign policy, and other areas where they intersect—might be the proper way to go. If I understood the parliamentary secretary, he wasn't saying this committee could not call for a review, he was saying this wasn't the place to do the review. If that's what he said, I agree with it. But I think this committee could and should call for a review.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Then where is the place to do the review?

Prof. Jack Granatstein: I think the review is probably done in the department, as most of our reviews have been done. But you bring in outside people and you expose to the public what is done through this committee and through other committees, generating a genuine debate.

Prof. David Bercuson: Can I add something to that?

Mr. Leon Benoit: Yes, please.

Prof. David Bercuson: In ways in which we all know things sometimes, especially in this city, I know of some reaction to our report inside the department. It has gone along the lines of, “Well, we're already doing that.” To me, that misses the point entirely. You may already be doing it, and it may even be a good thing to do, but on what basis have you made that decision to go ahead? You haven't listened to the Canadian people. You haven't gathered evidence from experts and from ordinary citizens as to where they want you to go, so on what basis are you going ahead with that?

Internal reviews are very appropriate and they have their place, but every now and then, as I said earlier—and I think this is precisely the time: after September 11—you have to let the Canadian people in on the process. It's their security that we're talking about.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Can't we do that through a joint committee of the Senate and the House of Commons?

Prof. David Bercuson: That's the way it was done the last time, wasn't it?

Mr. Leon Benoit: Yes, exactly.

I do suggest, though—we won't get into this now—that some reform is needed in terms of the way committees operate, but I think we can make this committee and a joint committee extremely effective.

What I'd like to get to next is an issue in your second recommendation. You talk about the need to initiate a comprehensive review of domestic security concerns. I would just like your thoughts on whether the Canadian Forces, as they are now.... First of all, our regular army force is down to about 18,000 or something like that, and the militia is between 11,000 and 14,000. If we had a major earthquake in British Columbia next week, would we have the capability in our military to respond to that, as would be needed, as a backup for us to the first responders, the police, firefighters, and so on?

Prof. Jack Granatstein: The answer is, no, we would not. We are dreadfully lacking in personnel. As a minimum, we need to go back to the level we were at a decade ago.

Mr. Leon Benoit: To me, it has always seemed like we've been missing out on such a resource by not using the reserves to the...I shouldn't say “maximum”, I guess, but we should be using them much more than we do now. Certainly, it is very cost effective. You end up with some extremely committed and capable men and women, particularly when you're looking at homeland defence and exactly that type of thing. Sure, they play an important role in missions to the Balkans and elsewhere right now, but this is another role that has perhaps been ignored. To me, it just seems like a very efficient place to focus when looking at natural disasters and civil unrest: as a backup to the first responders.

The Chair: Mr. Benoit, you're well over your time, so I think we're going to have to get a response to that in the next round.

Mr. Wood.

Mr. Bob Wood (Nipissing, Lib.): Gentlemen, we all talk about doing great things for the armed forces. Everybody wants to do it, but one of the obvious implications of taking the problem seriously can't be escaped, and that's money. Fixing this problem is obviously is going to require some substantial allocations of public funds. Dennis Stairs, a colleague of yours, was here, and I asked him the same question. How much money do you think it's going to take to fix this over a period of reasonable time?

• 1640

Prof. David Bercuson: I would just ask you, sir, to look at your own recommendations of last June. If the government acted on them, it would make me a very happy man, and a lot of other people would be happy, too.

You recommended $3.7 billion, wasn't that it? I can't remember what it was precisely.

Mr. Bob Wood: It was something like that, yes.

Prof. David Bercuson: You did the investigation. If I remember correctly, this committee was unanimous in its recommendations. I can't think of better evidence than that for what the armed forces need and how the government should go.

Prof. Jack Granatstein: I agree entirely. We need a substantial sum of money, and it must be built into the base. It can't be a one-off, because that will simply be used to pay for sending the people to Afghanistan. As this report recommends, we need long-term financial commitments so that equipment planning can be done in a proper way. That's absolutely essential.

I know that flies in the face of the way governments like to work, but we did do something like that in the mid-1970s. The Trudeau government committed to a process of increasing defence expenditures over the last half of the 1970s, and they carried through on it. So it seems to me that it is possible to make those kinds of commitments. We must.

Mr. Bob Wood: Professor Granatstein, earlier in your comments, you talked about the missile defence system and how the Americans obviously are going to go ahead with this because of the September 11 situation. In my mind—and in yours, too, I'm sure—missile defence couldn't have stopped what happened on September 11. Rogue states wanting to do harm to North America are obviously going to find different ways to do it other than just evading missile defence. Do you still think it's that important after what has happened in the last little while?

Prof. Jack Granatstein: The important thing, sir, is that the President of the United States thinks it's that important. There is no doubt that he has made clear that he intends to have a system in place by the end of his first term, and that's going to require a massive expenditure of funds. Whether we think it's correct or not in the assessment of threat is almost immaterial, frankly, because he does. He's going to do it, and he has the capacity to do it. So the question then is what we will do. How do we do it? How do we get the maximum influence on what happens?

Mr. Bob Wood: Just as another quick question, the nature of peacekeeping operations has changed fundamentally. Some people say it has caught Canadians off guard. Do you think it has been that sudden?

Prof. David Bercuson: Yes, it was that sudden—and the change—

Mr. Bob Wood: Have we been caught off guard?

Prof. David Bercuson: We were caught off guard in the early nineties, especially in the Balkans, because we thought we were going into the Balkans in a traditional, chapter 6, blue-helmet, peacekeeping role like the one we played for many years in places of which you are well aware—the Sinai, the Golan Heights, Cyprus, and so on. We thought that was what we were getting into, but our troops came under fire. In some cases, they fought battles. That was probably the first of the major international conflicts in which the UN intervened after the end of the Cold War, and in which everyone all of a sudden woke up to the fact that the end of the Cold War was really going to have consequences for peace enforcement and peacekeeping operations.

Are we ready today? We're a lot more ready today than we were before. I've had occasion to see preparations for rotos that have gone into Bosnia. They're very well prepared for going into Bosnia, but Bosnia is certainly a specific kind of an operation. They prepare specifically for it because they know it's coming. When they go, they're ready for it. They do have the equipment, they do have the right kind of training, and they do have the right kind of rules of engagement. To me, that's not the issue, because you can foresee it. They're planning right now for roto 11 and roto 12.

But what happens in the operation that is going to come and bite you three days after tomorrow? Who could ever have forecasted September 11? Three months ago, who would have believed there would be a war in Afghanistan? You couldn't have forecasted the outbreak of the Korean War a week before it happened. Most wars are like that. You cannot foretell consequences, the circumstances you're going to be under a week from now, or how you're going to need to use your armed forces. To me, the issue is how you respond under those kinds of circumstances.

Prof. Jack Granatstein: Can I just add one thing to that? That's why it's critical to have trained professionals who are well equipped. You can then adapt and be flexible. If you don't have people who are trained and equipped, then you lose the ability to respond when an unforeseen crisis comes along.

• 1645

You can take a well-trained soldier and make him do many things, from blue-helmet peacekeeping to fighting a war. If you don't have that well-trained soldier, you can't do much at all. You can't really send Mounties or Ottawa policemen. It won't work.

A voice: The Ottawa police have an area like that.

Prof. Jack Granatstein: You do need professionals, and you do need well-equipped professionals, or else you're stuck.

Mr. Bob Wood: If I could just add a quick question, do you think that's why—

The Chair: Mr. Wood, your time has long expired. I'm going to have to go on to Mrs. Wayne.

Mr. Bob Wood: No problem.

Mrs. Elsie Wayne: I only have one question, and then I'll give Mr. Wood the rest of my time. I have to go to another meeting.

Recommendation 22 is one that I have to say is very important:

CF pay, base housing, and other fixed costs to CF members, family benefits, educational opportunities, pension allowances, and family support services should also be monitored

—as you state—

by the minister of national defence with recommendations made directly to Treasury Board to ensure that there is no slippage in the members' quality of life.

We are having a difficult time recruiting people, as you know. We've been making offers to them. I can tell you that because I sat on the committee, chaired by John Fraser, at CFB Gagetown. Because of the fact that a lot of the men were taking their families to the food banks, I have to tell you that is not an encouragement. It was the same thing at the naval base in Vancouver when we went to Vancouver. The sailors took me to the food bank they had to go to and take their children to. That is not an encouragement for anyone to sign up, so this is a very important issue. We know we have to have more troops. We know we have to have more people who are interested.

When they got the increase in pay, they got an increase in their rent within sixty days. That took back the increase in pay, so they were still at the same level. So, as I'm sure you are aware, this is very serious situation.

Prof. David Bercuson: I would respond by repeating what I said earlier. As a result of the good work of this committee, things have improved.

The reason we address this issue in this report is that, in its own way, quality of life is as much a defence question as what sort of direct-fire vehicle you're going to buy for your military is. In a democratic society with an all-volunteer military, in terms of quality of life, you must maintain at least the same standards for your military personnel as they could expect outside of the service. Otherwise, you will not attract the people you require. You require people today who are highly intelligent, highly trained, highly aware of the world and what's going on around them, and all of that. You just won't get them if their families are going to be struggling or if they are not going to receive the sort of pay they would receive in the civilian sector. In our opinion, that's why it has to be addressed in a white paper review.

Prof. Jack Granatstein: I agree.

Mrs. Elsie Wayne: I just have to say that as the only female honorary gunner of the 3rd Field Artillery, I'll take a gun if I have to before I'm through to get them what they need.

Mr. Chairman, I thank you very much, and I thank the professors for being here.

The Chair: Mrs. Wayne, we are the defence committee, but we don't condone violence to achieve our objectives.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

The Chair: Mrs. Wayne was going to give Mr. Wood another two minutes.

Mr. Bob Wood: I'll just go back to what we were saying about the sudden change and how we were caught off guard by the various changes to peacekeeping measures.

I know it's a hypothetical question that we could all all argue, but do you think that's one of the reasons why our troops are seeing no action in Afghanistan right now? Is it that we didn't want to get caught in the same situation we were caught in before? They were on a 48 hour call-up, but, all of a sudden, they didn't go. Something happened, but probably none of us on the ground will know what, right?

Prof. David Bercuson: I think that's clear. To me, the danger that we were running before was getting in the middle of a situation that was highly unclear and highly fluid. War is unclear and war is fluid, but if you're going to war, then you're going to war. You accept the lack of clarity, you accept the fluidity of the situation, and you accept the risks.

• 1650

As I'm led to understand it, we were not supposed to play any sort of cutting-edge role in this war. Therefore, the placing of these troops needs to be done under certain circumstances that are absolutely settled from the beginning, not under the kinds of conditions we were in in Somalia, or the kinds of conditions we were in in Yugoslavia.

Mr. Bob Wood: Fine. Thank you very much.

The Chair: Mr. Benoit, then Mr. Provenzano.

Mr. Leon Benoit: You've talked about missile defence a couple of times already, but I'm still looking for a statement from you about what you clearly believe the price Canada might pay will be if we don't get involved in missile defence fairly quickly. On the other hand, if we don't make any definite statements and just let things slide for another couple of years, what might the cost be in that type of a situation?

The Canadian Alliance has taken a position that we support missile defence even though it hasn't been clearly defined, because we think the benefits would be great, while the costs would be great if we don't. I'm not looking for you to comment on the position of the Canadian Alliance, but I'd like you to really give a statement—as much as you could—about the possible costs and benefits of taking a position now that is in favour of giving the United States the political support they need, as opposed to just letting things go.

Prof. Jack Granatstein: If we go in now, if we say we support the American position on missile defence, it is very well possible that control of those missiles will be put under NORAD. That is in our interest, because we have a well established position in that military command. We have the second-in-command, and we have lines of communication that have been open for years that work and can be used to ensure that our voice is heard.

If we say we will not participate, the likelihood is very strong that command of ballistic missile defence will go somewhere else, to another command in the United States, and we will have no influence. If we want to have influence—and we do—if we want to have the capacity to help persuade the Americans to do the things we think they should be doing—and we have always tried to do that—then we have to be on the inside. You can't do that if you're not in the tent. It's very simple, and that's the argument.

Mr. Leon Benoit: But whether we're in NORAD or not, why should Canadians care?

Prof. Jack Granatstein: NORAD may not exist if it doesn't have control of missile defence.

Mr. Leon Benoit: But why should Canadians care whether or not NORAD exists?

Prof. David Bercuson: If NORAD didn't exist, we would have to build our own system, at a cost of who knows how many tens of tens of tens of billions of dollars. We have to know what's going on in the airspace above this country.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Why can't we just depend on our neighbour to the south—and you do realize I'm playing the devil's advocate, right?.

Prof. David Bercuson: Yes.

Mr. Leon Benoit: I fully support this, but a lot of people do say—some in the House of Commons—that we really don't have to worry about defence because the United States will protect us, because our neighbour to the south would never let anyone attack us.

Prof. Jack Granatstein: It's probably true. The United States will protect us, but it will decide how, when, and in what way. We will have no influence at all in helping to determine how we are to be defended. That's a total abdication of sovereignty.

Prof. David Bercuson: The day after we let the United States protect us, we should also start letting them legislate for us. And then they can also tax us, too.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Before that would happen.... Any country loses sovereignty when it lets its military go down to a point at which it just can't defend itself in any way or can't be involved in alliances in an effective way. History has shown that, and I frankly don't believe that has changed.

Are there or could there also be more immediate economic penalties as a result of not giving the United States the political support for missile defence that it desperately wants from Canada?

• 1655

Prof. Jack Granatstein: I have no idea whether or not there would be any direct economic cost. On the other hand, I have no doubt at all that we have seen the Canadian government move in directions that it would not otherwise have moved after September 11 without American pressure. We are highly dependent on the United States for our economic well-being. If we ever get into a position in which we're fighting a cold war with the Americans, I know who the loser will be. It's not going to be the Americans. We matter to them, yes, but they matter to us in absolutely critical ways.

The only way we can protect our sovereignty is by working within the tent, by exercising our influence, by recognizing the fact that we can win the political battles with the United States, but we can never win a political war with the United States. They always have bigger guns than we do, and they will always get their way on something of absolutely critical importance to them. We have to pick and choose, be careful, and think about how we want to play our limited cards. That means we must sometimes do things we don't want to do in order to protect our chances of getting something we do want.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Benoit.

Mr. Provenzano.

Mr. Carmen Provenzano (Sault Ste. Marie, Lib.): First, let me indicate how much I, as one member of the committee, appreciate it that you gentlemen have come to give your comments to the committee. You come with great credentials, and some of the things you're saying are very interesting.

On one of the things I twigged on, I'm not sure it's fair to ask the question, because it probably begs a much larger discussion. However, you made reference to the fact that many Canadians—perhaps the majority—have a notional attitude toward the military and self-defence, in that a belief has somehow developed over the years that someone else is going to defend us and we're not prepared to do it ourselves. Basically, here's where I'm coming from: I'd like to know how you determine that's notional, as opposed to some very profound statement about the attitude of Canadians toward self-defence, toward all these questions we're attempting to deal with?

The statement has been made that perhaps the people are ahead of the politicians. I'm asking you to consider if that is a profound statement. When we sweep away all of the dust and get into some of these other layers, we find out isn't notional, it's completely profound. That's the attitude of Canadians—with all its disastrous implications, by the way. But if that's what it is, is it appropriate to proceed on the basis of an assumption that what Canada needs to do is have a combat-ready and -capable force that more or less meets the standards of its allies? Is that the right road to go down? If we don't satisfy ourselves that this is not a notion but is where Canadians stand on national defence, how can we go forward?

Prof. Jack Granatstein: The difficulty, sir, is the opinion polls. The same polls that show high support for defence also give people choices: Do you want to put money into defence or health care? Do you want to put money into this or that? Invariably, people will say health care. So the support is very broad for defence, but it's not always very deep. It may be that September 11 has changed that to some extent. If it has, it's probably a short-term change. Unless the world situation continues to be very troubled, it's not very likely to last, to be honest and to be frank. In other words, the time to move is now. Seize the opportunity provided by the sudden shock to the political system, to the global system, that September 11 provided. Take some action to get the money needed to make the repairs to our military that are essential.

• 1700

Those repairs, in my view, must be aimed at giving us combat-capable forces. As Professor Bercuson said earlier, there's no other point in having a military. A military exists to fight wars. That's its prime task. That is, by definition, combat capability. It can also do other things, but it must be trained for that role.

Mr. Carmen Provenzano: How comfortable are you, sir, in that notion? That may be notional as well.

Prof. Jack Granatstein: All of my notions are notional, but that's one notion I'm very comfortable in.

Mr. Carmen Provenzano: If the political will is in step with the will of the majority of the population, what flows from that really is something very different from what we're talking about.

Prof. David Bercuson: Is the political will there? This gets back to Mr. Benoit's very first question. We need to accept the fact that democracies are never ready for war. Even the United States, as a democracy and with all of its military power, is taken by surprise, because the fundamental principles of democracy are based on principles of human decency. We don't like to admit that some really bad people out there want to do us a lot of harm for all kinds of reasons, so we don't prepare for war. However, the most important responsibility that a government has is to make sure that, in the event of a national emergency such as a war, the people of the country, its commerce, its innocent passage, and what have you, are protected. That's a duty of the government.

It seems to me that the government does have to play a role in rallying support by saying, yes, it is going to take a few bucks away from health care and education so that the country can have a decent military, because if we don't have a decent military, we're not going to have health care, we're not going to have education, we're not going to have anything. Government needs to explain that to folks when it goes out and levies taxes on them. It needs to do that. City governments have no problem telling people in cities that we have to have police and fire departments, and that they're going to cost money. But for some reason, governments—and I mean all governments of whatever political stripe in this country—have seemed to have had a problem with telling the citizenry that we need to do the same thing at this level.

The Chair: Thank you, Professor Bercuson, Professor Granatstein.

Mr. Benoit.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Going back to missile defence, we get different ideas from different people on this. It has been pointed out to me that if Canada decides to get involved very quickly, we could see some big payoffs in the high-tech sector. We may really get more industry as a result of getting in early, than we will if we hesitate and go in kind of kicking and screaming. We will go in; I believe we have no choice. As you've said, the President has made it crystal clear that it's going to happen, and I think any government in Canada would recognize that we have to maintain NORAD and remain a part of it.

But the other side of it is the trade problems we have with the United States from time to time. Thank God we have our free trade agreements, or we'd be in big trouble. Softwood lumber is one of the more recent problems. The Americans to the south of us are great protectionists, not free traders. If we didn't get involved with them, if we didn't remain involved with them in NORAD, and if we didn't support them on the missile defence thing, I couldn't imagine that we wouldn't be having a lot more problems with trade issues. Amongst the people in the U.S. who are supportive of us in terms of working for free trade, we wouldn't see the will that we see now. That connection is a very real connection, and I'd just like your thoughts.

Some 83% of our exports are to the United States. We have a $40-billion a year trade surplus with the United States. We're important to them because we're their largest trading partner, but we're not nearly as important to them as they are to us. Could I just get some thoughts on the possible connections there?

• 1705

Prof. David Bercuson: I think you're dealing with that intangible thing called influence. I don't think the Americans are interested in playing games of linkage any more than we are or should be. We should not be doing linkages with the United States on these issues. It would be disastrous for this country, and I don't think they're interested.

In a specific sense, I don't know whether or not we'll get a better break on softwood if we go into missile defence. I don't know, because I'm not an expert on that. I hate to think we would. But in the intangible area of influence, there's no question we have to worry about losing our place in line, as it were, to others in the long run, especially the republic of Mexico, if I may so. I can say Canadian fighter-bombers were in the skies over Yugoslavia in 1999; no Mexican fighter-bombers were there.

This goes back to something Jack was saying earlier, and that's the ability to participate and what you get out of it. In my opinion, participating allows you much greater influence than not participating. That goes for missile defence and it goes for all other areas of defence preparedness. This is just a fact of life that we have to face up to.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Okay, thank you.

With regard to budget, you've said in your report that the budget has to be increased. You said it again today. You've suggested it should be legislated so that it's not easy to back off from it or to not follow through on the commitment. Do you have any process or any particular mechanism in mind that might be used to tie a commitment of money to a white paper on defence, with the updated defence policy?

Prof. David Bercuson: I don't think it's hard to do. The Australians did it just recently. You basically make the commitment. If you adopt a white paper as a defence policy, and if the white paper contains certain formulae within it—let's say, with regard to capital funding or with regard to the amount or percentage of the budget that goes to quality of life, for example—then you've made a commitment that as long as that white paper is in effect, you're going to have so much of the budget set aside for capital replacements, so much set aside for this, so much set aside for that. Quite honestly, I don't see much value in doing a white paper if you're not going to attach budgetary figures to it.

Mr. Leon Benoit: I think that's an excellent point.

In terms of.... I had a follow-up question, but it's getting late in the week. This happens every Thursday night. It was a really important, pivotal follow-up question, and I've just completely lost it. I'll just wait until the next round.

The Chair: Mr. O'Reilly, for five minutes.

Mr. John O'Reilly: If I could, I want to again go back to visit the legislation introduced today. I guess we would call it omnibus bill 2.

We covered three things involving the reservists and the changes that apply to them. The section of the National Defence Act pertaining to aid to the civil power would also be changed so that the Chief of Defence Staff could consult with the minister if a province requests assistance under the section. As you know, the municipality in which a disaster occurs requests help from the province, and the province requests it from the national government. It is then distributed accordingly. The change would mean the Minister of National Defence and the Chief of Defence Staff would decide almost entirely where troops or help would go. Let me give an example.

Right now, if troops are dispatched to shovel snow in Toronto and a major disaster occurs somewhere else, they can't be pulled out. This legislation would change that. The minister, in consultation with the CDS, would have the ability to do that, although that may create some political problems somewhere along the line because of the situation we're always in politically.

The other section dealing with the Privacy Act is one of interest to me, because I think it will be the most controversial. It allows the department to intercept any private communications sent or received, such as e-mails, and anything that comes through a DND computer. As you know, the protection system now is such that it's not continuous. While DND operates seven days a week, 24 hours a day, other departments of government don't, so it is in fact taking DND's system and making it stand-alone in order that it can be protected. Because we have interoperability with our allies, we require that.

• 1710

When you're protecting computers, though, you're also opening up e-mail and other private communications, because lots of people communicate with DND. So that's going to be a controversial section of the act. Do you think strict criteria are enough for protection of critical infrastructure and the protection of private communications, or do you think that might be a civil liberties problem?

Prof. Jack Granatstein: Sir, I'm sorry, but I'm going to say I can't answer those questions until I've seen the draft legislation. But it's certainly going to be a civil liberties question, there's no doubt of that.

Mr. John O'Reilly: Let me go to another one then.

The sixth section of the act dealing with the military allows the government to establish military security zones. A military security zone would include any defence establishment, federal government property, visiting vessel, or aircraft of foreign armed forces. Any place or any property the Canadian Forces have been directed to protect could become a military security zone, and the Canadian Forces would have legal authority to deal with anyone entering that zone.

A good example would be the USS Cole. It was in an area thought to be safe, but it was attacked. That same thing could happen almost anywhere in the world, so I think our allies are looking for the establishment of these types of security zones. Whether it's a nuclear facility or whatever, that could be done. I just wondered what your opinion on that might be. Do you think it's going the right way?

Prof. David Bercuson: On the face of it, I would have to say it is. Again, though, I haven't seen the draft legislation.

What would be important to me as a citizen is the right of people to hold silly signs outside of military bases, to paint their faces red, white, and blue, and to do whatever they do to protect against this, that, or the other thing. As long as that right is protected, I can see no objection to it. But that has to be fundamental to anything we do in this regard.

I want to address your first question to Jack regarding the call-up procedure. I haven't seen the draft legislation, but I did see a summary of the changes in the call-up procedure. I think we need to revisit the call-up procedure.

Militia acts in themselves, and the basic structure of militia acts and the means by which we in the parliamentary system have called out militias, have fundamentally remained unchanged for hundreds and hundreds of years. They do not allow the kind of rapid response one needs today in times of national emergency.

In the United States, for example, we've seen extensive use of the National Guard and, to a certain extent, the U.S. Army Reserve, following September 11, in ways in which we could not use the reserves in this country. If we did, it would be very convoluted to be able to apply them in those ways. I therefore think the call-up issue has to be revisited. I don't know if the current legislation does it, but that again is something else we called for in the report.

Mr. John O'Reilly: I think it follows along with that, because in the current act “emergency” means insurrection, riot, invasion, or war. The term “armed conflict” has now been added to that, so maybe the interpretation of an armed conflict is something you could deal with when you review that legislation in terms of how that covers it. Adding “armed conflict” expands it to a different degree in my mind, although, once again, I don't want to belabour the fact that I was privy to some of this information. It was tabled today, though, so I'm able to talk about it, of course.

I'll be interested in what your feelings are on this legislation. Maybe you can report them to this committee, or maybe we could call you as witnesses during the discussions on that legislation if some of it does in fact come to this committee. Although I expect it will go to the justice committee—as has been the case with most of it—I do think some of this legislation should come to this committee, and we should be prepared to deal with it. At that time, perhaps we could look to your expertise on that. Of course, calling up the reserves on an expanded basis is a big increase in operational tempo, so it creates other problems.

• 1715

Prof. Jack Granatstein: The other question that needs to be addressed, sir, is the fact that we don't have very many reserves. We have under 20,000 all told between the three services. We have approximately 12,000 militia in that 20,000. It's great to have the power to be able to call people up, but you have to have the people in order to be able to do so. The reserve also loses about a third of its people every year and recruits new people, so the expertise does not stay very long in the reserves. This is a very critical problem.

Mr. John O'Reilly: Just as a short point on that, the campaign to recruit is going on right now. The reserve section actually has a thousand more people than they were looking for, so the reserves are experiencing growth.

Prof. Jack Granatstein: That's a function of unemployment, sir.

Mr. John O'Reilly: Is that number too low?

Prof. David Bercuson: Sir, that is true, but the problem is the retention, not the recruitment. That has always been a problem with the reserves. We do get a lot of people walking in the door. We lose them between the time they walk in the door and the time they attest.

Mr. John O'Reilly: Yes, and as a former reservist—as I told you before—I never did get my last paycheque in 1995, so I understand that.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly.

Mr. Benoit.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Actually, I have no more questions at this time.

The Chair: Maybe your long-suffering chair could ask a question, then.

Mr. David Price: I actually wanted to clear one thing up.

The Chair: Sure, go ahead.

Mr. David Price: We keep hearing that we don't meet our NATO commitments. Leon said it again earlier today. I just wanted to clear that up and get your comments on it, too.

We receive a list from NATO every year, telling us what we are supposed to supply. A verification is done. We have to show proof we can supply it, so we do in fact meet our NATO commitments all the time. We always do. Granted, as is the case with other countries, some countries in the background are saying Canada should do this or that. In actual fact, though, we meet our NATO commitment every year. I just want to make that clear, and I'd like to hear your comments on that.

Prof. David Bercuson: That is technically true. In terms of the expectations of what our commitments will be, though, are they made with the view that we can meet them? I'm not going to give you a history lesson, but in its early years, NATO had a committee that they used to call the “committee of the wise men”—and they did say “men”—that basically went to every country and told each one what it ought to be doing, what it was doing, and what its deficiency was. Sometimes we met the bill and sometimes we didn't, but it was all a process that was basically NATO not imposing its will, but it was certainly imposing its view on countries in terms of what it felt they ought to be doing. NATO does not do that today.

Mr. David Price: I beg to differ. They do it in a certain way. They look at what we can supply, they list it out, and then they go to—

Prof. David Bercuson: Yes, but they don't fundamentally tell us, for example, what percentage of GDP they expect us to spend on defence.

Mr. David Price: No, not on that.

Prof. David Bercuson: That's what the issue is, as far as I'm concerned.

Mr. David Price: No, in terms of people and equipment, there's a list.

Prof. Jack Granatstein: The other thing is that we have lowered the bar quite dramatically with NATO. We cut our NATO commitment in half in 1969-70. We pulled our troops from Europe in 1991-92. The bar has come down a long way. A real commitment to NATO would see us restore that troop commitment in Europe. In fact, it seems to me that it is in our national interest to do that, and that is where we should be trying to go. It's still a very unstable world, and that's a very useful commitment for us. It's a very useful commitment for the armed forces, because it allows them to train with the people we might have to fight with somewhere down the road.

Mr. David Price: Yes, I agree totally. Their goal is to talk of a partnership and everything else we're talking about. The thing is, what we do have to be clear about is that we do meet our NATO commitments as demanded by NATO at this point.

Prof. Jack Granatstein: The other point about partnership is that this is a way to diffuse the bilateral Canada-U.S. partnership. If we have people in NATO, it gives us an extra kind of partnership that can get us support when we need it in our sometimes difficult bilateral relationship. To me, that seems to be another reason for trying to keep up that commitment and to use NATO to the fullest.

• 1720

The argument used to be that you couldn't have rape when a dozen people were in the bed. That was our reason for NATO. More than a dozen people are now in the bed, but the principle still holds true.

An hon. member: Leon can take that one home.

Voices: Oh, oh!

The Chair: The question I wanted to address to both of you actually was a follow-up question to one Mrs. Wayne asked with respect to the United Nations. I believe your report calls for a review of those sorts of commitments, but it seems to me that as far as United Nations engagements over about the last ten years are concerned, there is absolutely no question that problems have arisen. I think the Brahimi report pointed those problems out in very clear terms. I think it has been one of the most important reports to come out of the United Nations in some time in terms of their critique of peacekeeping operations.

One of the things identified quite clearly is the fact that western and northern nations have not been involved to the extent that they should have been in some UN peacekeeping operations. Certainly, the one I'm most familiar with is Sierra Leone. Right now, Sierra Leone has about half of the UN's peacekeepers. The UN has about 36,000 worldwide, and about 17,000 or 18,000 of those peacekeepers are in place in Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone seems to be a classic case in which the UN had, for instance, the Jordanians, the Indians, the Ghanaians, and the Nigerians in place, when the militaries of those countries were not, in some respects, really up to the complicated task of peace enforcement in that particular milieu.

On the other hand, you had a situation like the Gulf War, in which the United Nations, through a resolution, went in with the full force of the military power of the United States and a coalition. It was a question of the political will that was attached to a particular UN resolution. Although I find a lot to agree with in your report, I have some difficulty with that from the standpoint of Canada's traditional role in terms of encouraging multilateralism. It seems to me that even though the UN is a very flawed institution, it's flawed because, in some respects, people in the north and in the west have not provided it with the support it needs to get the job done.

In the big scheme of things, when we're talking about a Canadian military in terms of the white paper objectives that deal with things like the defence of Canada, the defence of North America, and promoting international peace and security, the promotion of international peace and security cannot just be via NATO and/or ad hoc coalitions that arise. As Canadians, as people who were involved in the founding of the United Nations, we have an obligation, along with all of the other G-8 and industrialized countries, to provide the support necessary for the UN to be able to do the job mandated to it.

Prof. David Bercuson: I think you're right in general, and I think we have tried to do our part to fix the UN military command structure. But I think it's unfixable.

I've read the Brahimi report. I am a supporter of the Brahimi report. I do not believe for one minute that the Brahimi report will ever be wholly adopted by the United Nations, because I don't believe the permanent members of the Security Council will allow themselves to be bound by it in any way.

Maybe I've done a little bit more reading on Rwanda than I have on Sierra Leone, but I know the problem with Rwanda was probably caused in Washington—at least in part—because of the failure of the administration to react for whatever reason, or because of its unwillingness to act. I deplore it, but that's the reality we face when we allow ourselves to be, in a sense, tied to the United Nations.

What I'm saying is that we need to be realistic about the limitations of the United Nations. This is an organization that, in many instances, has proven itself unable—I didn't saying unwilling, I said unable—to act to save the lives of millions of people. We have to recognize that. In my opinion, our chances of reforming the United Nation are virtually zero.

The Chair: Do you have any comments, Professor Granatstein?

• 1725

Prof. Jack Granatstein: We do try to reform it. We have probably been one of the most active nations in terms of trying to reform peacekeeping and trying to develop ways of doing peacekeeping better, and I think we deserve great credit for our efforts. Unfortunately, they have not worked.

You mentioned Sierra Leone, which is clearly a disaster of a major kind. Would it have made any difference had we been there, had Canada participated? Probably not. It's a disaster because it's a part of the world that is prone to disasters, regrettably. Are white troops the best ones to send into that area? Probably not. Is it better to use African states to try to keep peace in that kind of situation? Probably so. Do we have to participate in every peacekeeping operation? Do we somehow lose points if we don't? I don't think so.

We have to recognize that we have limited resources. We have troops that are overstretched, that are doing too much with too little. We have to pick the places where we can have the most impact, and those have to be carefully chosen. It seems to me to be critical, sir, that we have policy driving where we commit, rather than having our desire to commit shaping the policy.

The Chair: I'm going to take the chair's priority just to make one final statement on that, again on Sierra Leone.

I think what you did have in Sierra Leone was an obvious failure in terms of how the UN troops were commanded, especially when you had, for instance, the kidnapping of Indian soldiers. That was an absolute disaster for the UN, and I don't think anyone would argue with that. However, when some of the rebel forces looked as though they were going to destroy the entire UN force, the British government intervened very forcefully and very quickly, and we have had relative peace since then because the rebels got the message very clearly.

I think that's an indication of where the use of force in a particular circumstance—again, by a very sophisticated country with a very modern military—provided a very significant incentive for the rebels to behave themselves. As I say, it has been relatively peaceful in that country since then, with the understanding that, over the horizon, you could still have a small force of British troops who would be deployable very quickly if things got out of control.

Prof. Jack Granatstein: Obviously, you're right, but would anyone suggest we would have that capacity, or that we would exercise it even if we did have that capacity? Perhaps regrettably, that is not in the Canadian tradition. We wouldn't have sent in a couple of battalions of heavily armed troops to impose our will on Sierra Leone. We would have sent in the kinds of traditional peacekeepers that we have sent into peacemaking situations, and we probably would have taken casualties, arguably to no end.

The Chair: We could probably have a long discussion on this, but I know Mr. Benoit wants to ask a quick question before we finish up in a couple of minutes.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Gentlemen, I'd like to thank both of you very much for your presentation and for your answers to the questions today. I just want to ask one final question. I'll comment, then ask the question.

Over the last couple of months, I've heard a lot that Canada has done everything the United States has asked us to do when it comes to the war against terrorism. I hear often that Canada has met its NATO commitments. We just heard that today again. But in a way, isn't that really a very bogus way of looking at things? First of all, I doubt the President of the United States would ask Canada for anything he didn't know we could deliver anyway. I doubt NATO would be too critical too often. Although we had some pretty heavy criticism from that corner fairly recently on this, I wouldn't normally expect to hear a lot of public criticism from NATO.

Isn't the real issue that our commitments just aren't strong enough? We spend 1.2% of our gross domestic product on our military in Canada—the NATO average is 2.1%, which is almost twice as much—yet we're supposed to be a wealthy nation. We spend about half as much per capita as the NATO average. Isn't the real issue that we're just not committing enough to our military?

Prof. Jack Granatstein: Yes, it is. It seems to me, though, that if we are a nation, if we are a genuinely sovereign state with an awareness of our role and our place in the world, we ourselves should make the judgments about what we should do. Yes, we belong to alliances. Yes, we have friends who press us to do things—and rightly so. But if we are not a colony, it is up to us to decide what we must do. That should require that, as a minimum, we hit the NATO average. We should probably exceed it, because we are wealthier than most of the NATO nations.

• 1730

Prof. David Bercuson: The only real yardstick is whether or not Canadians feel, on an individual basis, that we are doing the very best we can to help defend ourselves, to advance the interests that we have, and to help defend that system that nurtures us, that system of the free flow of people, ideas, and trade. Some Canadians probably do think we're doing the very best we can, but I don't think we are. I don't think the majority of Canadians think we are, so, yes, we have to do more. We absolutely have to do more.

The Chair: Mr. Benoit, thank you.

Mr. O'Reilly, be very fast.

Mr. John O'Reilly: Whenever we come to GDP, I'm always drawn to the fact that I want to understand why you don't deal in real dollars. Our defence budget is $11.9 billion. It's going to be more than that this year because of the extra things being added. Turkey spends $7.7 billion U.S., and Greece spends $3.3 billion U.S. Let's be honest about GDP. We can go to some place like Luxembourg, which doesn't have an army, navy, or air force, and can use it as a comparison for GDP. That obviously isn't fair. If we're seventh in NATO in real dollars, I want to know how you feel using GDP as a barometer is going to get us anywhere if we don't use real dollars? I'm more interested in what we spend in real dollars as a nation, not the percentage of GDP spent by some place like Luxembourg when it's the same size as Oshawa, Ontario.

Prof. David Bercuson: Sir, I understand that. As you know, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics. To me, the question is not one of GDP, quite frankly. The question is whether or not we have enough service personnel to man all of our ships. No, we don't. In our air force, are our jets updated and modernized sufficiently to allow them to take part in the NATO military operations they might be asked to take part in today? No. And I can go down the whole list.

Mr. John O'Reilly: That would be a more valid argument than talking about GDP.

Prof. David Bercuson: Yes, I agree with that.

Mr. John O'Reilly: If you want to talk about the fact that we have 120 pilots and 60 aircraft, I'd love that in conversation—

Prof. David Bercuson: Absolutely.

Mr. John O'Reilly: —but when we get into this hypothetical GDP stuff, I have to react. I want to deal with real dollars, because then we can talk about how much money we should actually add to the budget to make it worthwhile. I don't want to argue too hard, though, because we do want more money in the budget.

Prof. David Bercuson: Yes, I know you do.

Mr. John O'Reilly: Obviously, everyone at this table agrees with that—

Prof. David Bercuson: Absolutely.

Mr. John O'Reilly: —but the gavel's going to go, so I just want to end with that.

Voices: Oh, oh!

Prof. Jack Granatstein: Sir, if it was at the 2.1% NATO average, we'd have enough money to do the things we need to do.

Mr. John O'Reilly: That would be the ideal situation, but keep in mind that it still is the largest budget in Ottawa. The larger the budget, the larger the target.

The Chair: I am going to have to wield the heavy gavel at this point.

Gentlemen, I'd like to thank you very much for being here. From the number of questions you received over the last couple of hours, you can tell it's a subject that continues to be of strong interest to this committee. Again, thank you for your comments today.

The meeting is adjourned.