:
Thank you. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. First, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you and the members of this committee for allowing me to speak today.
I know that you have heard from a number of officials from the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Forces. I hope to add some insight into the Canadian Forces' readiness, domestic and continental operations, and the role that Canada Command plays.
[English]
Let me begin by saying a few words about the responsibilities of Canada Command. Within Canada, North America, and the western hemisphere Canada Command's mandate is to defend against threats and hazards and, when requested, to support civilian authorities to enhance the safety, security, and stability of Canadians anywhere at any time in Canada.
Of the six Canada First defence strategy missions mentioned by previous speakers, Canada Command has a lead role in four: conduct daily domestic and continental operations, support major international events held in Canada, respond to major terrorist attacks, and support civilian authorities during domestic crises such as natural disasters.
In 2010 alone Canada Command had to fulfill three of these four missions simultaneously. We provided assistance to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police security operations at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, helped restore damaged infrastructure in Newfoundland after Hurricane Igor, and conducted our daily routine operations, including maritime sovereignty patrols.
Canada Command's mandate is to oversee routine and contingency operations in Canada and continental North America. Situational awareness and good planning are critical aspects of successful contingency operations. Working with federal partners such as Public Safety Canada, Canada Command drafts contingency plans for a whole-of-government response to a range of scenarios, from a potential influenza pandemic to a major earthquake. In fact, Canada Command is the military entity responsible for supporting civilian authorities in case of crisis or emergency.
As part of these responsibilities Canada Command sits on the assistant deputy ministers national security operations committee. It meets every week and brings together key representatives from security and intelligence operational bodies. It is responsible for ensuring a coordinated federal approach in security matters.
The assistant deputy ministers committee on emergency management, which Canada Command co-chairs with Public Safety Canada, meets every six weeks with senior-level representatives from 36 government departments and agencies to discuss emergency management priorities and challenges and provide situational awareness on ongoing hazards or issues.
These committees are just one example of how the command works as part of an integrated system that relies upon the mandates and expertise of departments across the Canadian government to keep Canadians safe.
Canada Command is also responsible for bilateral relations with its equivalent organizations south of the border, both United States Northern Command and United States Southern Command. Moreover, we work closely with North American Aerospace Defence Command, or NORAD, a binational Canada-United States treaty organization responsible for monitoring and defending North America's skies.
[Translation]
As part of these activities, Canada Command is responsible for surveillance and sovereignty patrols, air and maritime search and rescue; assisting civil authorities during disasters or other emergencies; and when authorized, supporting law enforcement agencies.
[English]
On any given day the Canadian Forces have some 10,000 men and women on standby, enabling Canada Command to be ready to defend Canadian sovereignty, assist Canadians in need, or help our neighbours to the south. To put the scope of our domestic activities into perspective, the domestic area of operations is almost 10 million square kilometres--twice the size of Europe.
Now that you know what we're mandated to do, let me explain to you how we do it.
Canada Command is what we call a force employer. As General Natynczyk already mentioned to you, as a force employer Canada Command deploys military assets built and maintained by what are called the force generators--Royal Canadian Navy, Royal Canadian Air Force, and the Canadian Army. These force generators provide us with both capabilities and personnel that Canada Command packages, uses, and then returns to their respective organizations once a mission is complete.
Canada Command continuously monitors developments across the country and continent and stands ready to deploy the Canadian Forces when and where needed. Maritime, land, and air intermediate response teams located in all regions of the country are ready to move on short notice, and thousands of regular and reserve military personnel can quickly be mobilized as needed. With 10 regional subordinate organizations, Canada Command is structured for the timely and efficient coordination of domestic and continental operations.
The most essential assets of Canada Command are what I call the jewel in the crown--its six regional joint task forces that are across the country. The regional joint task forces all have assigned regional responsibilities for domestic operations and work closely with provincial and territorial authorities. They are located in Halifax, Quebec City, Toronto, Yellowknife, Edmonton, and on the west coast in Victoria. These six headquarters report to Canada Command on a daily basis. They provide us with regional situation within their area of responsibility and feed the command with situational awareness.
Commanders of the six RJFs are responsible for military planning and response in their geographical areas of responsibility during emergencies, working closely with federal, provincial and territorial, and municipal partners. Regional joint task force commanders can task all available Canadian Forces resources within their region--in either Pacific, west, central, east, Atlantic, and north. The commanders conduct operations as tasked by Canada Command, such as support to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, support to Fisheries and Oceans Canada patrols, avalanche control in support of Parks Canada, as well as sovereignty patrols in support of the federal government. Should any regional joint task force need additional resources to fulfill a mission, they come back to Canada Command headquarters, at which time we assign additional capabilities to them.
The land force areas--that is west, central, east, and Atlantic--all have at their disposal a 350-person immediate response unit, or what we call IRUs. These units are deployable within 24 hours, with the initial reconnaissance team ready to deploy in just eight hours anywhere across Canada. Three search and rescue regions maintain dedicated search and rescue aircraft and crew in standby around the clock. Their respective joint rescue coordination centres are located in Victoria, Trenton, and Halifax. They coordinate air and maritime response.
Two maritime component commanders in Victoria and Halifax and a joint force air component commander co-located in Winnipeg provide maritime and air capabilities to Canada Command.
The Royal Canadian Navy is responsible for generating ready duty ships for the east and west coast. These ships must be capable of sailing in response to emergency situations within any Canadian waters within eight hours. We'll let our colleagues from the Royal Canadian Navy and Royal Canadian Air Force respectively speak to their capabilities.
Canada Command's national and regional staff total more than 300 personnel and are supported by thousands of navy, air force, army, and special operations forces personnel who stand ready to deploy when and where needed. During serious crises all available Canadian Forces personnel, including more than 20,000 reservists, stationed across the country can augment Canada Command's resources, as members of this committee saw in the last six months with the floods and with fighting the fires.
But what does this all mean? It means that Canada Command is ready. As we always say at Canada Command, the home game--defending Canada--is a no-fail mission. It's non-discretionary. With the resources provided by the navy, air force, and army we can assure the members of this committee that Canada Command continues to successfully fulfill its mandate to protect and defend Canadians at home.
Over the past six months we saw how the Canadian Forces can be called upon to help Canadians. Indeed, Canada Command has been responsible for supporting government efforts in three separate flood-related events in different regions of the country, one in Quebec and two in Manitoba at the same time, and for evacuating over 3,600 residents in seven communities in northern Ontario due to wildfire threat. In all cases, the Canadian Forces were delivering effects on the ground within 24 hours of the request of assistance from either the province or the territory.
[Translation]
Let me conclude by saying that in its short history Canada Command has delivered strategic effect at home with each and every one of its operations, and every time with positive outcomes. This could not be done without the men and women of the Canadian Forces who stand at the ready across the nation to support our civilian partners and help Canadians in need.
[English]
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you very much.
:
Thank you very much, Chair.
Thank you, General. It's good to see you again.
My first question is, I confess, more of a personal interest than anything deeply strategic. Nonetheless, on page 4 you state:
In fact, Canada Command is the military entity responsible for supporting civilian authorities in case of crisis or emergency.
In a past life, as the Solicitor General in Ontario responsible for pretty much all emergencies, one of my duties early on was to have a meeting with--and I don't know the proper title--the Ontario commander of the armed forces. The purpose was to ensure that there was a pathway between the provincial government and the military, should they be requested to assist in the case of natural disasters, usually, but in anything--some of the other domestic issues that can happen.
In this case, of course, we're not talking cross-jurisdictions; it's one government. The premier would make the decision that there was a need to request the military to come in and the Solicitor General was the vehicle by which that would happen. The operational matters would be dealt with at a senior decision-making level between me and the counterpart I was meeting with, and then of course it would be handed off and those decisions would be made by senior military people.
In this case, of course, we don't have that. But you're referencing other civilian authorities that I'm assuming would likely include provincial governments, territorial governments, not unlike matters our chair has raised. I'm simply curious: how does that actually happen? What is the interface between the military, our minister, and the Prime Minister, and then other civilian authorities? How would that work? Should something happen, what kicks into place in terms of the communication that's happening, to give the appropriate bodies the authority to act appropriately?
:
Thank you very much for the question.
Underlying all of this is that there must be a request from the province or the territory. Then what would happen in the current construct is that the request would go to the Department of Public Safety. Public Safety would look at it, not only from a military perspective but a whole-of-government perspective, to say what tools of the federal government could be used to assist.
In the case of some of the most recent tragedies and natural disasters, when you look in a little bit more detail, it wasn't only the military that was there. There were other elements of the Government of Canada in that location.
So it goes to the Department of Public Safety. Public Safety looks at that and at the same time they're talking to all the different federal partners. If it's a disaster it would be very much through the committee I mentioned, the emergency response management committee. We'd quickly come together to talk about how we would deal with it.
That request would go to the Minister of Public Safety. The Minister of Public Safety would then go to his ministerial colleagues to ask for their support, and then we'd move ahead to provide that support.
Again, this is all contingent upon a request from the province or the territory, as in the case in Quebec. It was the province that asked us to come in, and then we were in place within 24 hours.
To put a finer point on it, there are two types of events here we need to be clear on. One is that if it's a natural disaster, that works.
As you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, if it's an issue of support, aid to the civil power where the military may have to come in and provide some type of law enforcement support, there is a possibility--not only a possibility but an actual authority--where the Solicitor General can come to the Minister of National Defence directly to ask for that type of support.
All of the different processes and all of the different mechanisms are in place to ensure that if a province or territory asks, they will get support or an answer immediately.
:
First, to provide a little bit more context, if you take a look at the entire spectrum of what we need to do, it covers from safety and security into defence.
Most of our effort right now is focused on that safety side, and that's supporting other government departments and agencies, being it a fuel spill or the like. For example, in Operation Nanook, in 2010, we worked with the coast guard on the scenario that was focused on oil spills. So there are many different scenarios that could happen across the north. That's what we're trying to do to ensure that we provide that same support in the north that we do in the south.
When it comes to drones, one way to have better situational awareness is through UAVs, or through drones. We did actually bring a drone up to the last Nanook--the Nanook 12. We brought a drone up to Nanook 12. I was there. Actually, I watched it being launched. It was used to provide reconnaissance--iceberg reconnaissance, some reconnaissance out in the areas. We found it to be very useful and beneficial to what we needed to do. Given the broad expanse of the area, given that, as some would say, 40% of Canada's terrain is actually in the north, many people have never stepped on much of it.
So drones, UAVs, could provide a good capability to support our different requirements. It's something we are looking at as we move ahead, as perhaps a capability that could better support us in the north.
As you look at this issue on UAVs, the challenge, I would throw back to the committee, is that there are certain laws and regulations that bind the use of UAVs within a civilian construct. So when using them within a city, there are clear laws that have to be respected. In the north there have to be as well. But given population expanse, with very few people, they do and have provided us with some real benefit in the north, as we saw in--
:
I will answer the second question first.
As we note in Canada Command—and I think it very much drives home the point of the question—what you have is individuals, men and women in uniform, who come to work every day not just in Ottawa but across the country in regional headquarters, focused on one thing: Canada. The view was that perhaps it was time the military had an organization that was focused on the home game, focused on Canada, focused on providing effective support to all of the civilians in different federal, territorial, and provincial departments across Canada, and to be prepared to be there if needed, given the changing nature of what happened after 9/11 and in different areas. Bringing it together has proven to be very effective. Again, as I state, you have individuals who come to work every day doing one thing, focused on Canada.
For example, if I may, we have morning update briefings, and they are focused first on weather in Canada, what's happened across Canada from an incident point of view on the civilian side, train derailments and the like, any search and rescue, ongoing operations. What we have right now, for example, is Operation Palaci at Rogers Pass. We have artillery guns that are there supporting Parks Canada to ensure that goods and services can continue to move through Rogers Pass, which supports the movement of goods and services across the country. Canada Command was put into place for that real reason, to have Canada focused as a theatre, an area where people came to work every day and focused on it, so when the call came, we were there as quickly as we could be because we had good situational awareness and we had contingency plans ready to put into place.
:
The first one speaks to the strength of the military education training system, which is focused on producing individuals, men and women in uniform, who in the end can think on the spot. That's what we're moving towards. Where we're moving towards and where we have moved is that, clearly, education has become very important. Why? Because with education we can take our men and women in uniform, as we've seen in Afghanistan, put them in the most complex and difficult situations, and they can come up with solutions that work.
That speaks also to the second component, which is working with other federal departments, other whole-of-government departments, which we call in some cases a combined or whole-of-government approach. Also, in Canada that's important. Education and training very much touched on much of that, how to work first, who are the different federal, provincial, territorial, municipal partners, how do we work together, what do we need to do to work together? For example, they do have a course that's conducted in the spring every year at the Canadian Forces College where we bring in all different individuals from federal departments and agencies and provinces and territories for two weeks to talk about these types of issues. Also, on our training we invite representatives from different federal departments and agencies in the provinces and different organizations, be it the OPP and others, to actually come and join.
It speaks to the training being focused in part on this issue of a whole-of-government approach, which is what I would throw out to the committee, that this will be demanded and needed more in the future. Why? There is no one department, federal agency, territorial-provincial agency, or municipal agency that has all the authorities, mandates, or capabilities to deal with any of these issues. They need to all come together very much in a coordinated and combined effort, quickly, to be able to do it.
What helps us here federally is the emergency response management committee, which comes together to be able to discuss these issues. They'll look at them, what's happening. For example, prior to the flooding in Manitoba, we'd already sat down as a committee with 36 different agencies and departments to talk about what was upcoming, the flooding. What are we going to do? How are we prepared? So we talked through what we would need to do in those cases. We very much focused on the education, and focused on what is working with whole-of-government and other government departments in the future.
:
Thank you for the question.
First, when you look at how to be ready, there are two aspects. The first is to have what we call situation awareness: knowing what's going on across Canada. What that speaks to is a need to have relationships and to be connected with the provinces, territories, and municipalities.
As was mentioned here already, we have our commanders in each of the geographical areas. We're mandated to maintain those relationships. They keep in close contact with the provinces, territories, and municipalities. They push that information up. And whatever information we have, we push down. So we actually have a command that has a common operating picture, or situation awareness, of what is going on across the country.
At the same time, to be prepared to deploy forces, if needed, you need forces on standby. I have a chart, if the committee would like to see it or would like to have it, that lays out exactly what we have ready to go. We touched on it in the speech. If something were to happen, what we would have ready to go, for example, as stated, would be the immediate reaction units, which are men and women from the land forces, which we could put anywhere across the country, if needed. We have ships on each coast ready to go. We have aircraft ready to go. As we saw with the forest fires throughout the summer, we can push aircraft where it is needed once we have a request from the province. In this case, it was from Ontario.
First, we have that awareness. Second, we have the forces on standby, ready to go, which has ensured that if needed, within 24 hours, we can put forces where we need to across the country if asked to by the provinces and territories.
There is also that second layer, which is whether this is where the federal government wants to go. The federal government, in the end, will turn to the Canadian Forces and the minister and say that this is what we want you to do as part of that issue.
On the second issue, which is very much discussed in other contexts as an either/or discussion, there is no either/or. You will find, as you go into this matter from a Canada Command perspective, that a lot of resources are needed or used by Canada Command to achieve its mission, if you look at the numbers. Last year 6,421 personnel were deployed across all of our operations, and days deployed were entered at 65. But in a broader context, it actually is pretty small.
When you take a look at it, it's very much a whole-of-government approach. For example, if something were to happen across the country, the municipalities would be the first responders. They would provide capability. After that, the province or the territory would come in and do what it needs to do. The federal government might then put in other responders before it came to the military. Clearly, when you look at the numbers, the numbers aren't huge, and the percentage of the commitment by Canada Command isn't huge, which is why it's never been an either/or discussion.
I would throw out to you that whenever I've asked for or needed capability, I've always had it within the time I've needed it. There has never been a case when I was not provided or my team wasn't provided with what was needed to support Canadians.
:
If I can provide a context to this first, remember the Canadian Forces have men and women in uniform in Comox, Esquimalt, and Vancouver. There are regular and reserve forces throughout that area--navy, army, and air force.
In the case of a domestic response, not just land forces have provided that response. As we saw with Hurricane Igor, naval personnel actually went out and provided support on the land. It's not just about having land forces in the location. There are already a number of forces in place, and we have a two-star naval commander on the west coast who maintains close relationships with the Province of British Columbia, and has exercised with them as part of their pre-planning for an earthquake or event. That's the context.
We have found throughout all of these events, activities, and exercises that we have been able to put the forces where we needed them if there was any type of issue in the Vancouver area. I would throw out to you from purely a scenario point of view that we have discussed this issue. If something happens in that area, it's probably not where you would want military people to be, because they'd be part of the crisis, not outside bringing support in.
I would submit that in any scenario where there is any type of natural disaster, it's better to have forces coming in to provide support. In this case they would come from either Calgary, where there are forces, or Edmonton, which has all the capabilities. In that case Canada Command would turn all of its efforts and energy to providing all the capabilities needed on the west coast to deal with the situation.
So we already have men and women in uniform across the area. We've exercised with the province any likely scenarios. We don't foresee any issues with being able to put additional men and women on the ground if needed to deal with any issue there.
:
If I can provide a framework, when you look at the need for situational awareness, the framework is that it's not just these unattended aerial vehicles that are flying around. At the top you would need satellites, because it's very much a layered approach. You would need satellites, UAVs, surveillance aircraft, going all the way down to somebody on the ground providing that overall view. Just having UAVs will not answer the mail, will not ensure that you will have situational awareness. You need to have this very layered approach.
When it comes to the issue of sovereignty, in the end what you will need is to be able to have someone in a plane flying, who actually can provide that eyeball on the ground to see what is going on. That's what we're looking at. How could we have that framework, develop that framework, to be able to have full situational awareness across the north?
When it comes to the testing of the UAVs, we continue to look at how it has worked and how it hasn't worked. We've only looked at it once, up in Resolute, for a short period. We continue to examine the challenges of using them in the north. It's an issue I'll bring back to the department, and leave it up to the department to decide if it can get you the information.
The testing was very much focused on the technicalities of getting the UAV into the air. What were the challenges flying around in the north? What was the value that it then provided to the ground station?
[Translation]
People do need to be at a headquarters in order to receive the data.
[English]
The information is coming from the UAV that's flying around. So we looked at all the technical aspects of it, the first time to see whether or not we could continue to use it. We got some very positive results, but again, not to be too premature, we've got to look at it in some other ways.
:
First, there were no predictions about the level of activity we had over the last year, not just here at home but around the world, when you see what is going on with natural disasters and the like. At Canada Command we track the natural disasters that happen around the world. There's a lot going on from a weather, meteorological, and natural disaster point of view. It's something we noted.
However, once we realized that perhaps this was the new normal we didn't understand why, because nobody could tell us why this was happening. In the end we maintained even greater vigilance. We maintained that vigilance throughout that period, not knowing that something was going to happen, but knowing that given there were so many things happening, the likelihood or probability was probably greater. We maintained that vigilance. We actually had discussions at my morning meetings that there were greater levels of activity. We couldn't explain why, but we needed to be more vigilant than we had been in the past, because the trend could be that more was going to happen.
We had land forces in Manitoba at the time that we could deploy very quickly. They could be in the affected area within two hours, which facilitated our support.
Looking into the future, it's difficult to say what's going to happen. However, we have learned from the past that we need to further strengthen our relationships with all of our different partners and have forces ready to go. The last year has proved that by having troops ready to go and being aware of the situation, we can provide the support to Canadians when it's needed. The question is, will this be the future? I don't know, but we are ready to deal with that issue.
It comes back to one of the questions. If we need more, the Canadian Forces will provide more troops. At one point we had almost 2,500 to 3,000 men and women in uniform in the home game supporting issues at home. We got them from where we needed them. Regular and reserve forces came out and organized into groups to do what they had to do.
:
The first thing is to have awareness of what's going on across the country. Second, we have to clearly understand what the likely scenarios are. So we do those. We have those across government. The Government of Canada across different departments is using a common threat and hazard scenario framework, so we understand that.
The next step is training for those. For example, in the north, in 2010, we picked a scenario. A likely scenario in the north could be a fuel spill. So we practised it. What could we do if there were a fuel spill? The Canadian Forces, Department of Public Safety, and the Canadian Coast Guard came together to work on that.
What then happens is we actually have a Government of Canada training program where all departments join in for three or four exercises a year. We ensure we have a whole-of-government approach. That then allows each of the departments and agencies to conduct their own activities. As we've seen, we've gone through and practised scenarios for the pandemic, post and prior, to ensure we're ready.
So it's situational awareness, very much having policy, process, and machinery in place. We've got the policy in place through what's called the federal emergency response plan. It's a plan that brings all the departments together. We've got the committee that talks to these scenarios, stays connected, talks about them, talks through them, and has plans ready to go, contingency plans. So when something does happen, we can very quickly come together to be able to act in the best interest of Canadians.