:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to provide you with a briefing on the Canadian Operational Support Command, in particular on the role pertaining to force readiness.
I'm Major-General Mark McQuillan, commander of Canadian Operational Support Command, or CANOSCOM.
CANOSCOM was first created and stood up in early 2006 as part of the first round of CF transformation. It has matured and, from my perspective, has provided outstanding support to Canadian Forces operations, domestic and international, over that timeframe.
[Translation]
What I would like to do is walk through a very short deck of slides, to provide some context of how CANOSCOM, and, more importantly, its superb professionals, enable operations.
What I hope to underscore are the force generation and force employment responsibilities executed by the command and speak to its overall readiness, flexibility and capabilities.
[English]
My first slide provides an overview of where CANOSCOM fits within our operational focus. Clearly it has both strategic influence and tactical effect. The CANOSCOM mission is to provide effective and efficient operational support to CF operations, be they domestic, continental, or expeditionary.
Operational support is the delivery of a specialized support function that is not unique to the special air, maritime, or land component commands but rather would be seen as providing joint or cross-service capabilities that have an enabling impact on CF operations. In many respects we act as a coordinating body, linking functional support policy and authorities at the national level to the provision of operational capability reaching down to the task force support organizations.
Our primary roles are to coordinate the generation of task-tailored operational support organizations for employment in theatre opening and activation, mission sustainment, and finally close-out. We support the operational commanders--Expeditionary Force Command, Canada Command, and Special Operations Forces Command--in the planning and preparation of operations, and we provide reach-back and coordinate the provision of national and strategic support as appropriate.
The second slide depicts one of the great advantages of CANOSCOM, which is that it groups a range of support activities under one commander. I'm responsible to force-generate specialists from across a variety of support disciplines. These include logistics--which encompasses materiel management--as well as movements, finance, and food services. Additionally, CANOSCOM provides a range of personal services such as those used in the capabilities and third-line decompression for troops returning from Afghanistan.
Military engineers are essential for the tasks assigned, and we have professional engineering advice and capability to coordinate force bed-down during theatre activation. We also have strategic and operational level communications and information services, which, among other things, establish communications and provide information technology in theatre while providing essential rear links to Canada.
We also coordinate and deliver health services in conjunction with the health services group.
Lastly, CANOSCOM provides military policing and close protection in conjunction with the Canadian Forces provost marshal. In short, we're a one-stop shop for the coordination and provision of general support for operations.
[Translation]
CANOSCOM has both force generation and force employment responsibilities. This third slide depicts some of the tasks associated with an international deployment.
In general terms, once a new mission or operation is being considered, CANOSCOM's role is to assist the supported command, normally Canada Command or Canadian Expeditionary Force Command to develop the overall mission support plan. We will assist with the planning for the activation of camps, coordinate and commence the movement of materiel into the theatre of operations. Additionally, in developing the overall support plan, we will participate in the creation of support arrangements which ultimately will be managed by the deployed force.
[English]
CANOSCOM will establish what we call the strategic lines of communication and take responsibility for the tasks associated with its execution. CANOSCOM will assist in the projection of the force into a theatre normally defined as a joint operating area and through coordination of the strategic lift, both air and surface, and assist in sustaining the force by ensuring the provision of an efficient operational supply chain.
CANOSCOM's readiness framework has been driven by the Canada First defence strategy and six core missions that fall out from that. CANOSCOM drives tasks and maintains a level of readiness and capability to support both planned events, such as the Canadian Forces support we provided to the winter Olympics, and unplanned events, such as our disaster response provided as a result of the earthquake that devastated Haiti in 2010.
The backbone of our material and distribution network is provided by the Canadian materiel support group, which manages the six ammunition and material depots across Canada. The deployable capabilities within CANOSCOM consist of the Joint Support Group that has expertise in movements, supply, and postal services; and the joint signals regiment, with deployable strategic and operational communications packages. As indicated earlier, CANOSCOM has engineering and security services that maintain a level of readiness to support CF operations.
It's also important to note the operational support provided by the Royal Canadian Navy, the Canadian Army, and the Royal Canadian Air Force and their organizational departments. For those general support capabilities required from the services, I'm responsible for helping define the training and equipment requirements and maintaining a level of readiness. To meet these requirements, the environmental chiefs' support is vital.
The next slide speaks to the command's capability development. The Canada First defence strategy states the intention of the Government of Canada to strengthen CF readiness to deploy and sustain operations once deployed.
CANOSCOM actively participates in our force development process by identifying requirements for operational support, both current and future. This process looks at future capability requirements influenced by operational lessons learned from CANOSCOM's extensive support of CF operations at home and around the globe since its inception.
We have established a program office that is mandated to address a number of operational support requirements. This slide portrays one specific operation support capability requirement where our analysis has resulted in identification for improved operational-level fuel handling capability. This issue is currently undergoing options analysis, including a benchmarking of the best fuel handling practices of close allies and NATO. This will result in the development of options and recommendations for future investment in leading-edge deployable fuel-handling equipment processes, including specific attention to be paid to the challenges associated with deploying and handling fuels in the Canadian Arctic.
The sixth slide highlights the fact that when deployed, specifically internationally, we normally do so in a coalition environment. As such we need to be mindful of other nations' capabilities and work together, where practical, to create a support solution that works effectively for those involved. Ultimately we're always striving to provide the best support at the least cost, in terms of both dollars and deployed personnel. We work with our allies in a number of fora to ensure that we have the best practices in place based on shared lessons learned in the conduct of operations.
We also leverage existing agreements specifically with NATO nations, and in particular with the U.S., where we can take advantage of their capabilities to provide a range of support on a cost-recovery basis. For example, we have entered into an acquisition cross-servicing arrangement with the U.S. in order to provide real-life support for the training mission in Afghanistan.
In addition to CF support capabilities and coalition support arrangements, we have had a degree of success in the past with the Canadian Forces contractor augmentation program, or CANCAP capability. These are DND contracts that were competed through PWGSC to provide augmentation to deployed logistical services, such as construction engineering, materiel management, and distribution. CANCAP services were extensively used in Afghanistan to help reduce the stress placed on various support trades. Between 2007 and 2011, for example, upwards of 300 civilians at any given time were working at the Kandahar airfield.
In short, when we design or improve a support concept we try to use a range of tools to ensure that the commander on the ground has an effective and flexible range of support capabilities to complete the scope of missions that he or she will be assigned.
Lastly, I'd like to speak briefly to a concept you're probably already aware of, and that is the operational support hub initiative. This hub concept speaks to the need for rapid-force projection and sustainment of a force, usually in a time-constrained environment. We have modelled deployment scenarios and mapped what we consider to be an effective concept that relies on the movement of CF capability by strategic air and sea lift, and then potentially transship to more tactical means of transport for onward movement to a specific mission or joint operating area.
The hub concept requires agreements with friendly governments that would agree to support temporary positioning and movement of CF personnel and equipment through the country. It is worthy of note that these nodes, when established on the strategic lines of communication, should not be seen as CF bases. They are hubs, to be activated when and if required, providing logistic support for transitioning elements.
The hub concept has a number of advantages in that it is flexible, responsive, and cost-effective when conducting sustained operations over a lengthy timeline.
The hub concept would also allow us to potentially embrace more fully the whole-of-government approach and enhance key relationships in a region.
Ladies and gentlemen, in summation, the Canadian Operational Support Command is an effective enabler for the conduct of CF operations. It has great people, military and civilian, with a demanding mission, but one I believe they have done exceptionally well.
Mr. Chair, I would be happy to respond to any questions at this time.
Thank you.
:
Sir, thank you for the question.
The amplification of the strategic line of communication, in simplistic terms, is essentially the sustainment route that we use to maintain and support a force. So it is primarily based on materiel movement, equipment movement, and personnel movement.
Of course, there are some enabling pieces on that strategic line of communication in addition to the sustainment piece, and I can come back to that.
Specifically with respect to what a hub is, it's probably best to use an example. For instance, when this concept was put forward I was given the authority to trial the hub. The reality of doing operations essentially necessitated that we do that. So I have what I call a hub in Spangdahlem, Germany. We have good cooperation with the Americans. We're on an American air force base but very much hosted by the German government. We had an agreement in principle to operate sustainment from that base.
As an example, while the Afghan mission was running, we're all aware we had a capability in Camp Mirage, but in addition a lot of our materiel sustainment came through this hub. The importance of the hub is that while we are doing sustainment operations, it is there. Today it is about four people, and it does transshipment--relatively small, very agile, but it saves money.
The simple principle is, depending on the priority of demand--i.e., how time-sensitive things need to get to the operational area--if I can use a ship, that's cheaper. And if I can use the ship, cross-load it, and move it across to an air head and then fly it in for that last leg, that is the more effective way. So that is an example of how an existing hub is being used, as we speak.
You can also add other activities to a hub. So when you are doing a relief in place, a rotation of troops every number of months, you will end up putting a team in place to provide augmentation to that capability. And then based on the levels of activity, you will ramp up to provide additional capability or capacity. When you have a battle group rotating through for about a six-week time period, it is a pretty intensive timeline to do that.
One other aspect of the strategic line of communication is that we will also put other activities on that strategic line of communication. I mentioned rotation of troops. For instance, I mentioned the term, “third location decompression”. In the troop rotation piece we see a need to ensure that we have an opportunity for troops rotating from a high-combat, high-stress environment coming back to the normalcy of a Canadian domestic environment to have a period of days to transition and decompress. But it's really seen as part of the redeployment process. We will stand up a capability on the strategic line of communication to assist in the mental health and education piece, a little bit of relaxation, and very much a decompression intent.
Sir, I hope that answers the question.
:
Thanks for the question.
Afghanistan, as you can understand, is a challenging mission. I don't think we could pick any more demanding from a logistics perspective in terms of how you sustain a force that is in combat, or it was up until the summer and now we're transitioning to a training missing, so the sustainment of peace is real.
It does highlight the earlier question when you talked about how we coordinate with others. Very clearly, as we went into the Afghan mission—and getting back to the point that Afghanistan, in the 2001 moving forward timeframe, was very basic in terms of its capabilities from an industrial perspective. Therefore, when we go in, and we understand that, for us to have the effect that government wants, of course we have to be operational. In simple terms we need to ensure that the support to the soldiers is coordinated.
An example of what we ended up doing ISAF-partner specific is the fuel. Fuel is a huge commodity in a mission such as this. It's not resident in Afghanistan; we have to move it in. That ended up being--or it is today--a NATO-managed contract through headquarters that runs from one of the task forces, the ISAF task force headquarters, that manages the fuel delivery into ISAF. Millions of litres of fuel in a year are being consumed. That is an example of how, instead of all independent nations working independently to bring in their own fuel, which would have challenged each and every nation, working collectively to come together, to have a construct together for that, works. In addition you end up with contracted solutions. For instance, Kandahar, where the Canadians were employed...in the evolution of that support, you ended up actually giving a contracted solution for some of what we call real-life support, so the feeding, for instance, and some of the other basic services in and around the air field.
That combination of complex contracting, or coalition contracting, in line with agreements with other nations as you come together to solve problems is really important and essential in today's dynamic, and specifically in coalition ops.
:
Sir, thank you for the question.
You're quite right that in this operation two services primarily did the force generation, the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Royal Canadian Navy. What was different from Afghanistan, in simple terms.... The air force, of course, has a very specific characteristic that allows it to do things more rapidly: it's got aircraft. So its ability to get into a theatre, to have effect, to be in place quicker is just self-evident by its capability. Likewise, the navy has always had a readiness capability that allows it to deploy. Again, this is a CEFCOM activity, so it would be best if you talked to the commander of CEFCOM in terms of his views.
In my view, from a sustainment perspective, just back to what we did to assist, the reality—not challenges—of operating in Libya was that a lot of the air force basing was in Italy. There was goodness in that because it was a NATO nation. In fact, I had previously signed with Italy what we call a mutual logistic support arrangement, which means in essence that with NATO nations we can use—not barter—services and on a cost-recovery basis pay for those services. In fact, I ended up augmenting the task force going in, very much air-force-centric, based on the Italy piece, and just added capability to them as they put in place such things as the fuel agreements, contract agreements, and then the basing agreements and housing agreements and such. So that was probably primarily where I would have provided assistance at the front end.
And then, very clearly, there is the sustainment piece. So once the operation is up and running, for the most part, again focused more on the air force—ships tend to be very self-sufficient, except when they come alongside to refuel and replenish—it was the sustainment piece of the air force elements that became the focal point for that operation.
Again, it was very dynamic. One of the things I have learned is that the pre-existing agreement structure is—I won't say essential—very beneficial for being able to stand up and operate in a very complex and demanding environment. So even though it was a NATO nation, even though it was in Europe where we have worked on occasion, I'm sure it was very challenging for those on the ground.
But, again, I would suggest comments from the commander of CEFCOM would be more appropriate, in terms of views.
:
It is a challenging environment in which to work. In simple terms, if you were to take an overlay of the map around Afghanistan, ISAF over the last number of years has made great advances in terms of expanding ground lines of communication in from the north by rail. A lot of those are bilateral arrangements--the U.S. with other countries, the U.K. with other countries--but it is inflow, as we speak. Clearly, we all understand that as we look to do mission transition, the collective nations are looking for opportunities for outflow, and again, there are significant nation-to-nation engagements that are happening.
I only say that the north, and you have alluded to it...and that part of the world can be very difficult. It's long in terms of negotiation. NATO, because it doesn't bring anything to the table per se on the collective voice of nations, has a bit of a challenge right now, as it is trying, for instance, to establish treaty-level agreements with various northern nations and provide an exit strategy for materiel and such. Therefore, the south ends up being the primary ground line. Again, Pakistan, from my perspective, has worked reasonably well. It has its challenges, but in terms of cost and in terms of our ability to do business, we have essentially established a framework that allows us to use ground lines of communication.
Likewise, the air force...and it's probably a good question for them. But where I get involved is watching the overflight approval process that ends up being very dynamic. Again, it is country-to-country approval, so you find for the most part that the Pakistan overflight route is probably the primary one that we use, and then once you get outside of that, another challenge exists.
All that is to say that we have maintained reasonable relationships with Pakistan, but we have to respect how they operate. For instance, in terms of ground lines, they do not allow foreign militaries to move through. Therefore, our support arrangement for movement of materiel has been a contracted support arrangement that we've had in place for years, and it's relatively effective. So the short answer is that while challenging, it is workable.