NDDN Committee Meeting

     Good morning, everyone. We're going to continue our study on readiness.

    Joining us today from the Department of National Defence is Lieutenant-General Walter Semianiw, Commander of Canada Command.

    General, I will open the floor for your comments.

    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.

    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.

    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.

    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.

    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.

     Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you very much.

    Thank you for your opening comments, General Semianiw.

    Let me say that from a Manitoba perspective we really appreciate the help the Canadian Forces gave in flood relief efforts across the province, including in my riding. I know residents in the municipalities and the province were greatly indebted to the Canadian Forces for showing up and helping out in that terrible situation.

    With that, we'll go to our first round of questions.

    Mr. Christopherson.

    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 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.

     Very good. Thank you very much.

    Moving on, the issue of search and rescue is always a big issue for Canadians, for obvious reasons. Having I believe the largest coastline in the world on our borders, there never seem to be enough resources, and there's always the political argument whether it's a crisis situation or merely another area where funding is needed because there are pressures but not necessarily a crisis. Give me your thoughts on our readiness for search and rescue, especially with a view to going forward, when you may have even fewer resources. I would expect our search and rescue needs are going to remain at least the same, if not greater.

    Thank you for the question.

    First, to put a little context around the question, the lead minister for search and rescue for maritime and air is the Minister of National Defence. When it comes to ground search, that's the responsibility of the RCMP. That's the framework.

     Secondly, where we have assets located is very much dependent on data. What I did bring with me, and what I am prepared to provide to the committee, are SAR incidents in proximity to Canadian SAR regions over the past ten years. We take a look at the data to see where these events likely happen and when they happen, to ensure the search and rescue assets are located in the right regions. You'll quickly see—again, I am more than prepared to provide this to the committee—that they are located where the incidents have happened over the last ten years. When you look at search and rescue, it is at the top of the priority list for the department and the Canadian Forces. I receive updates on a daily and even an hourly basis on ongoing search and rescue, what is happening on either coast or anywhere within our mandate.

     I'm unaware at this point that I'm going to have fewer resources. I have not been told by anyone that there will be fewer resources for search and rescue as we move ahead. Clearly, if you take a look at the responsibility, the mandate, it remains at the top.

    Thanks so much, General, for the full answers. I appreciate them.

    Thank you, Chair.

    Madam Gallant, you have the floor.

    Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our witness.

    How do Canada's SAR capabilities in the high north impact on our Arctic sovereignty?

    Thank you very much for the question.

     I would throw out for the committee to look at the word “sovereignty”. Sovereignty is expressed in many different ways. It's something I deal with every day. The military is only one way in which you express sovereignty. Another way is through search and rescue, because clearly what you are staking or saying very publicly is that this is your territory and you are prepared to support. When it comes to search and rescue in the north, we provide the assets and capabilities that are needed, as we do based on the incidents—as you will see here, most of those are located on the far eastern side of the north—to ensure we are maintaining and guarding our sovereignty.

    Thank you.

    How does a vessel having a distress radio beacon impact on the rescue time?

    If you look at the whole search and rescue construct and framework, we're starting to find the word “search” is becoming smaller with the addition of more beacons. In many cases, if you have a beacon very little search is required to find an individual. We know where it happens.

    From a process point of view, once either a maritime or air beacon is triggered, it immediately goes to a centre, and then action is taken by a number of different agencies. If everyone were to have a beacon, response would be even quicker. You'll find in some cases there is no mandate to have beacons when travelling in the north; it's left up to individuals. From my perspective, I would encourage anyone going into the north to have a beacon, which would help make things much easier for everybody.

    Last week we were told by the secretary of state from Norway that the F-35s were necessary for the patrol of the north, and that Russia is increasing its defence budget by 60% in standing up an Arctic force. He also said that NATO cooperation is necessary for our respective countries' Arctic sovereignty. From the standpoint of Canada Command, how does the alliance benefit from our ability to guard our Arctic sovereignty?

     When you look at our Arctic sovereignty, it is clearly our Arctic sovereignty, and we use all available means to express that in the north. The Government of Canada has an Arctic strategy with four pillars. One of them speaks to sovereignty, and the others speak to economic development and governance. We are moving ahead very quickly.

    As the committee discusses the north, I throw a comment out to you that has kind of struck me, as somebody who has been to the north. Someone in the far north told me once to never forget that a footprint in the north lasts 40 years. What does that mean? It clearly means that before you do anything in the north, think it through, because whatever you do in the north will have long-term ramifications.

    Clearly, as we move ahead to build our capabilities in the north working with our other partners.... We are working, for example, in search and rescue. The Arctic Council met some time in May, and Canada volunteered to run our first search and rescue Arctic Council tabletop exercise, which we did. We were in Whitehorse for that event, where all eight of the different Arctic Council nations sent delegations, where we talked about how we could work with each other and assist each other for search and rescue in the Arctic, in the high north. It's an example of a forum or a body that works together on the issue of search and rescue to ensure we're doing better than what we already are and we know where we need to improve.

    My question is specifically with respect to national defence and our alliance partners through NATO. Do you see a direct benefit in having that available, or are we able to patrol our waters all on our own?

    We can patrol our waters. If you look at the north, and it's worth the committee actually looking at the geography, clearly when you use the words “patrol our waters”, we do already. Canada's coast guard is in the north, so we do patrol our waters and we do express our sovereignty every day through the coast guard. The Royal Canadian Navy is with the coast guard, and does support them throughout the year. With the Arctic offshore ship coming on line, that will only add to our capabilities to be able to patrol even better in the north.

    In the past we had struck up a special regiment specifically to respond to a threat from Russia during the Cold War. Is there an equivalent regiment ready to go, given the fact that Russia is standing up its own force by increasing their defence budget 60%?

    As mentioned in my comments up front, we have these entities called immediate reaction units—350 personnel that can be built very quickly. We can put them into the north extremely quickly. For example, given that we now have C-17s in the inventory of the Canadian Forces, we can move forces into the north within four or five hours as far as Resolute.

    We have the forces that we need to be able to deploy and have them in the north, given the additional capabilities with air movement to be able to express our sovereignty when needed, as well as what was announced. There are also Arctic response company groups across Canada. These are reserve organizations that provide that second-tier responder focused on training, working, and having expertise in the north. They could come and provide additional support to any issue that occurred in the north.

    How does Canada Command interact with NORAD?

    Commander NORAD reports directly to the Chief of Defence Staff, as does Canada Command, as does Commander CEFCOM. The three of us report to the Chief of Defence Staff. When one looks at NORAD, it has many Canadians in it. On a day-to-day basis, our two staffs speak. We have ongoing discussion between our staffs. We conduct trilateral staff talks with all the commanders.

    I see Commander NORAD quite a bit. For example, over the last four months I've been with him at least four or five times. We have been able to discuss things; we have an open dialogue. I talk to him and he talks to me as we need. There's a very open dialogue: the staffs talk, we have staff discussions, we work together in very much an integrated approach.

    Thank you. And on your comment about a footprint in the Arctic lasting 40 years, I was up at Churchill, where the old forces base used to be, and tracks made in the tundra from the fifties and the sixties are still very visible today.

    Mr. McKay, it's your turn.

    Thank you, Chair.

    Last year I had the opportunity to be in Greenwood and to go out in helicopters. There we were in the Hercules, and I actually participated in a search and rescue, which was unanticipated on our part. I was shocked by the amount of territory that has to be covered from Greenwood and from St. John's. It's just extraordinary.

    I wanted to relate to the apparent drawdown of resources in St. John's. I'm just curious as to how the drawdown of resources and the limitations that are apparently being imposed in St. John's can actually speak to readiness for what appears to be in your map the most concentrated area of search and rescue. I was wondering if you could speak to that, please.

    Monsieur le président, perhaps I could get a clarification.

When you talk about the drawdown in St. John's, which drawdown are you speaking about?

    I'm speaking about the limitations on the timeliness of the ability to respond.

     The drawdown speaks to the issue of the coast guard looking at its centres. It's a question you're going to have to present to the coast guard and pose to them.

     I would come back and tell you that as we mentioned here earlier, as we move ahead in time what we are finding is that we can get to where we need to much quicker, given that more and more vessels and vehicles are carrying beacons. So we're confident that where we are located we can provide the support that's needed.

     From a drawdown perspective from the Canadian Forces, as I mentioned, I haven't been advised of any drawdown when it comes to search and rescue, to reducing the resources. We've been told to continue to provide that support to Canadians in the future.

    Thank you for that clarification.

    The opening up of the Arctic presents the government with quite a dilemma. You rightly say that any impact in the north is a long-lasting impact. Yet you want to assert sovereignty. You also want to assert your ability to defend. You also want to assert your ability to do search and rescue. When you look at the coastline, particularly the east coast, but also the west coast, it seems to me that the utility of drones becomes a bit more obvious.

    I'd be interested in your comments on the utility of drones.

     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--

    Just out of curiosity, what are the legal constraints on the utility of drones?

    The legal constraint is the issue of gathering information that may have been used in the case of a crime. So we're working with the RCMP to ensure that perhaps as we do this we try not to gather that information, which we're not, but if somehow we stumble into it we have the right mechanisms in place to be able to get that information where it needs to go.

    You're concerned about the expansion of a footprint, and yet you're still concerned about the necessity of not only surveillance but also situational readiness, etc. The more boats and ships, etc., that start going up there, the more you're going, almost inevitably, to be there.

    What is the military's thinking in terms of actually opening up a modified base, or working with other authorities to have a presence? It seems to me you should be well north of St. John's. St. John's is a long way from Baffin Island.

    Again to provide a framework, the first is that we actually have a headquarters in Yellowknife. It is one of the regional joint task forces commanded by a general, and he's responsible for that big area and responsible to maintain good and effective relationships with his territorial counterparts across the north. The Department of Public Safety is in Yellowknife as well, so there actually is a framework in place, and the RCMP and others.

    Building on that, in the last number of years we have actually put a detachment in Whitehorse and a detachment in Iqaluit to build on an even deeper relationship. As you may be aware, the government did announce that we are building a northern Arctic training centre in Resolute, which is moving ahead. We actually used it last summer as part of operation Nanook. Resolute is very far north. If you look at Resolute, I believe you'll see that it's the second most northern community in the world, the most northern being Grise Fiord.

    We are already very north. We're there throughout those busy periods, as is the government; it's not just the military. If you go into Resolute, NRCan and other federal departments and agencies are there and are ready. We're one of a number. We actually have this centre built. It will be fully completed by the end of this year. It will have—and already has, in part—the capacity to put 200 to 300 soldiers in place with communications. If you take a look at the Resolute landing strip airport, you'll see it can accept C-17s—we had them there last year—Hercules aircraft, the J models, and helicopters we brought up. We already have that node, that far northern node, developed and ready to be used if needed in whatever scenario were to arise.

    As we saw last year, we were there during the tragic event up in Resolute with the crash, again because we were up there training at that time.

    Thank you.

    We're going to go to our five-minute round now, with Mr. Opitz.

    Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    General, thank you. It's good to see you again. Welcome.

    General, what were some of the precipitating circumstances that led to the creation of Canada Command? In essence, why was it deemed important to have a centralized command structure?

     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.

    Thank you.

    Just focusing on the reserves for a second, how integrated can they be? We've been through the ice storm, floods, and so forth. I'd like you to elaborate a little bit on the integration of the reserves, especially with lessons learned from deployments to Afghanistan, and how much more closely now regular forces and reserve soldiers are aligned and how they fit in overall with the plan today and in your plan for the future.

     It's an interesting comment. What we find with our men and women in uniform is that when they're at home supporting this home game, you'll find their morale is very high, as it is on any mission around the world, but they're very happy to be supporting Canadians. They really do love that.

    In particular, if I take a look at Hurricane Igor, which was supporting Newfoundland and Labrador during the most recent cases of tragedies that happened there last year, many of the elements of that organization were from the reserves, so we could very quickly mobilize and bring reservists into those areas, in large part because they're already there. By having reservists across the country--as many call it, the footprint of the Canadian Forces--it allows us to get men and women in uniform on the ground where we need them very quickly. Hurricane Igor in Newfoundland and Labrador was a good example.

    Another example was in Manitoba during the most recent floods, where we pushed a reserve company in very quickly to support that situation. We also have domestic response company groups. These are reserve companies that are ready to go to be able to support any type of activity. It's all part of a framework that, if needed, we can call on them, as we've seen in Operation Igor or throughout the summer and the spring in Manitoba in the flooding.

    Great.

    I have a particular interest in maintaining military education in a lot of various facets. You were just leaving CFC when I came to work there as a planner. So from your perspective, because you've been on Capstone, you've been on Warfighter, and the NATO general officers course, and of course you are a graduate of CFC and then commandant of CFC, how has that impacted your ability to do what you're doing today and what you've done in the past? And what do you see as the future for military education in terms of developing people like you and other officers in specific roles?

    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.

    Mr. Kellway.

     Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    Thank you, General, for coming to talk to us today. I'm thrilled to hear more about Canada Command.

    To date, my questions of other witnesses have really focused on the role of projecting leadership abroad. The gist of the question, in this context of readiness, is this how do you get ready or ensure that you're ready for such an ill-defined role?

    What's interesting in what you have told us today is that you have really focused my attention on the enormous breadth of tasks Canada Command has to take on here at home. In that context, you defined the mission here at home as a no-fail mission, which I appreciate. It's an absolute standard. I wouldn't expect any other standard. But I wonder how you ensure here at home that it's a no-fail mission. That's broadly the question. More pointedly, within military command, given that this one's described or defined as a no-fail mission, and in light of finite resources for defence, is there a way for priority to be given to the no-fail mission here at home?

    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.

    Thank you for that.

    On the issue of forces on standby and being ready to go, there has been some press about the departmental performance report that suggested that Afghanistan has taken the middle ranks of the military forces away from the home game. Is that affecting Canada Command at all?

    Well, I—

    The time has expired, General, so if you could have—

    Yes, Mr. Chairman.

    I was only aware of what you raised when I read it in the paper as well. What I can tell you from the Canada Command perspective is that I haven't seen it. We've always had the troops we needed. Even if there are middle-level individuals, they're always there when we need to be there.

    Thank you.

    Mr. Chisu, you have the floor.

    Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

     Thank you very much, General, for your presentation.

    I understand that Canada Command conducts operations to deter, prevent, pre-empt, and defeat threats of aggression aimed at Canada within its area of responsibility, so I will focus a little bit on the terrorist activities.

    In your opinion, how ready to respond is Canada Command if there were to be a major terrorist attack on Canadian soil? What would be the process to respond, and how quickly? I'm asking about the quickness because we saw, ten years ago in the attack on the twin towers, that our friends in the south were absolutely not prepared, and the response time for the air force was something that was not in the books.

     When it comes to the issue of terrorism within Canada, that's clearly the responsibility of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Department of Public Safety working together, so it's a question you'd want to pose to them in detail about how ready they are.

    From a military perspective, we do provide support to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on an ongoing basis. That wouldn't change; whatever is required would be provided immediately within this context or framework. All of these assets would be brought together and provided—be it naval, air, or land assets—in any type of support.

    When you look at what Canada Command is expected to do, it's across a broad spectrum. It's not just about terrorism. All of these capabilities can be used all the way from an oil spill, for example, to any other type of activity, and we would provide the same level and capability in exactly the same response time: we would be there immediately.

    In the same context, for the effects of unconventional methods of warfare—for example, bio-weapons, nuclear arms, IEDs, and cyber warfare—is there any specialized training Canada Command provides to respond to these new threats?

    The effects of these new types of threats and terrorism are not the same as fire, or something that you know in time. These effects can be devastating, so I think that our readiness for them should be much greater and much quicker.

    Yes. When you look at the threats and hazards raised, yes, we are very deeply involved when it comes to issues of cyber. Canada Command maintains a watch, but we are not the lead agency and department, nor within the Department of National Defence are we the lead organization. We are supported in any issues or concerns over cyber.

    On IEDs, these are issues we are openly discussing within our military: how we can ensure that we are ready and able if these types of threats and issues were to come to Canadian soil.

    So we do have discussions and we do have the capability to be ready, but I'll just remind the committee again that when it comes to the issue of terrorism, it is the role and responsibility of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. We would be in support of them, given that they have the lead as a lead department with the Department of Public Safety.

    Okay.

    If I can ask you another question, General, what were the lessons learned from the natural disasters that occurred this summer? What are the lessons learned in how we can improve our reaction time?

    If I could share the lessons learned grosso modo, the first lesson is to ensure that you have strong relationships with your provincial and territorial partners, which we did. So for us, it's a lesson that we need to continue what we're already doing well in that area.

    The second lesson was to have forces on standby ready to deploy, which we did, so again that spoke to the success piece. In a broader context, it also showed that the current framework the Government of Canada has in place for dealing with these issues across the country is the right one.

    What am I speaking to? That we have an emergency management committee of senior government officials who meet every six weeks to talk about upcoming and ongoing issues of hazards and crises that are happening, who maintain a dialogue, and who can pick up the phone and speak to each other to do one thing very quickly—and that's to get resources, authorities, and capabilities where we need to.

    What it did for us over the summer was it kind of came back and showed that what we were doing was the right thing, and we need to continue doing what we're doing and strengthen it even more.

    Thank you.

    Mr. Chisu, your time has expired.

    Mr. Brahmi now has the floor.

    Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    To our witness, previously you talked about the importance of education and training to operational readiness in the Canadian Forces.

    In my riding of Saint-Jean, there is a lot of talk, and increasingly so, of restoring the two years of university at the Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean.

    As you were the head of military personnel until 2010, I would like to know your opinion on the fact that superior officers are no longer receiving bilingual training within the Canadian Forces. What do you think are the consequences of that for readiness?

    It's a question that will have to be posed to the new chief of military personnel. I haven't been in that portfolio for about a year and a half, and I'm not very current on the details or the facts.

Secondly, I can tell you from a bilingual point of view that the leadership of the Canadian Forces is bilingual. Its command is expected to be bilingual. It's always been an issue for us and what we have to do. As we deploy men and women across the country, their bilingual capabilities become very much an asset and have proved to be very effective for us.

    My next question concerns another aspect. In his report on the transformation of the Canadian Forces, Lieutenant-General Leslie suggested a two-division structure: one would consist of the regular force, and the other, the reserve force. The regular force would focus on international operations, whereas the reserve force would be focused on domestic operations.

    Last week, we heard from Lieutenant-General Devlin. When this aspect was raised, we got the impression he did not share that two-part vision of the organization of the Canadian Forces.

    I would like to know your opinion on this issue. Should we maintain a more integrated vision, as Lieutenant-General Devlin suggested, or should we have a two-part vision, as suggested by Lieutenant-General Leslie?

    Issues of transformation would need to be raised to others, because that's not my area. What I can tell you is that when you look at the domestic scene in a situation when it comes to these crises, we've always been able to put together the forces that we've needed, both regular and reserve, to be able to deal with these issues. If you look at all of our operations here, the ones that became a crisis in which we had to deploy forces immediately, there was a mix of regular and reserve. In particular, if you look at Operation Igor in Newfoundland and Labrador, there was a mix of the two.

     To say that you can only take a force and organize it for the home game and a force for away may not prove to be the most effective way, in the sense that who knows when something is going to happen? What you need to have is forces, men and women in uniform, who are ready to be deployed across the country at a moment's notice, either regular or reserve, in whatever they're required for. We've seen this in the past. We've had both regular and reservists deployed on operations and it has been successful.

    The potential separation between the reserve and regular forces raises an issue of perception.

    In that connection, as the member for Saint-Jean, I witnessed a curious incident that occurred last spring. When we asked the Canadian Forces to intervene on the ground, we saw that the military personnel who intervened in Saint-Jean came from Valcartier. There were military personnel who came from Valcartier, which is about two hours away by road, to intervene in my riding. At the same time, on the highway, we saw military personnel coming from Saint-Jean to Valcartier to engage in manoeuvres.

    Those movements resulted in a perception by the public, which does not necessarily understand these matters. It saw two forces crossing paths on the highway, whereas a lot of military personnel were available in Saint-Jean.

    How do you believe that these incidents influence the perception the public has of the Canadian Forces?

     When you look at the capabilities of the men and women in uniform in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu at Montérégie at the time, clearly the capabilities needed were there, which is why they came from Valcartier--to have mobility and vehicles to move around.

    The issue and challenges in that region were looked at. The decision made by the commander on the scene at the time was to bring forces out of Valcartier instead of the local forces, because they may not have had the capability that was needed. They were put into place very quickly after the Province of Quebec asked for their support.

    Again, it's not either/or, one or the other. It depends on the situation, when it's going to happen, who's the closest, and who has the capabilities to provide that support to meet the challenge. For example, in Manitoba there is a continuing challenge with flooding. We deployed a reserve company because it was the closest and had the capabilities. So from the perspective of time and space, it met the requirements.

    Coming back to the situation in Quebec, forces from Valcartier had that capability, with vehicles and heavy equipment that may not have been locally located.

    Thank you.

    Mr. Strahl, it's your turn.

    Thank you very much.

    It's good to have you here today.

    I want to talk about British Columbia, my home province. I was looking around the room and realized that I'm the only member from west of Selkirk, Manitoba.

    I want to talk about our province specifically. As you know, there is no land forces base in British Columbia. CFB Chilliwack was closed in the mid-nineties. We have the Royal Canadian Navy and the Canadian Air Force there. The Canadian Forces have assisted with forest fires and flood threats--the slow-moving threats you can see developing. It's not a problem to get people from Edmonton to drive to Kamloops, for instance, to help.

    When CFB Chilliwack was closed, the concern was what would happen in the event of a catastrophic event--the earthquake we're always told is coming within the next 100 years in the Vancouver area. What would happen now that there is no land forces base there, should there be a problem coming through the Rocky Mountains? How quickly could the Canadian Forces land troops respond in the case of a major catastrophe that we couldn't see coming?

     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.

    What was left behind in a military footprint when CFB Chilliwack closed was an area support unit. Can you expand on what their role is and how you use them day-to-day, and certainly in the case of an emergency?

     What is quite critical to all that we do across Canada is sustainment, and sustainment is all about support. That's to ensure that as we have men and women on the ground in uniform doing what they have to do, they have the accommodations, the food—all the support and medical support they need. In many cases that comes from support units and bases across the country. That location actually provides support to a number of different agencies, organizations, and military in its geographical area of responsibility, which it does on a day-to-day basis. Again, we could use that as a staging area. We could bring troops into that area and then deploy them forward, if needed, for any additional support. There are area support units across the country, as well as bases and wings, that provide that support structure and framework to support men and women in uniform anywhere across the country and in the north as well.

     When there is an event, let's call it, and the Canadian Forces are deployed, what does the command structure look like? Obviously I wouldn't expect civilian authorities to be directing the operations of individual members. How do you integrate those two different command structures in case of an event?

    From a military perspective, we turn to whichever of the regional joint task force commanders is responsible. One is responsible for B.C. and he's located in Esquimalt. Another is responsible for the west and he's located in Edmonton, so he's got Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba. One is in the north for the three territories. We also have one in Ontario, one in Quebec, and one in Halifax for the east coast. Their job is to maintain those strong relationships, which is why they become the commanders of those operations.

    As in all of the cases, what we found in the flooding was that the commander of the joint task force west in Edmonton was the military commander responsible for the military operations throughout that area. His demand, then, is to work closely with the territorial, if needed, or provincial and other federal partners to come together in a whole-of-government approach. Clearly, the military is only one part to that response, but in the case of the joint task force west commander in Edmonton, he flew into Winnipeg, located himself there, and then worked closely with the Province of Manitoba to be able to show what he could provide in support. As well, he works with--and this is very important--the Department of Public Safety, which has federal representatives from their department across the country, who also work closely with the departments. They kind of interface for us as we work with the different territories and different departments in each of these issues.

    Thank you. Time has expired.

    Ms. Perreault, you have five minutes.

    Good morning. I've watched your progress through the Canadian Forces. Your record is really impressive. I want to thank you for sharing your knowledge with us.

    You mentioned operation NANOOK in the Arctic, and the fact that you conducted some tests there involving drones, that is to say unmanned aerial vehicles. I recently met some veterans from the Royal Canadian Legion in Mascouche, in my riding. We wondered whether it was possible to obtain the results of those tests. If so, we would like to know whether it will one day be possible to ensure Canada's aerial sovereignty solely by means of these types of drones or whether that's a crazy thought.

    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?

    People do need to be at a headquarters in order to receive the data.

     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.

    Earlier we talked about security. Unless I'm mistaken, you're also responsible for Canada's defence. I'd like to know whether the main threats are currently known and, if so, who or what you have to be ready to face.

    Thank you.

    When we look at major threats, it comes back to the definition of a threat. Clearly, every nation needs to be prepared, and I think Canadians would expect Canada's military to be prepared as a force of last resort to deal with any threat or hazard that could happen. We have capabilities in place across the Canadian Forces, as we see in the case of NORAD, where if an aircraft tries to interdict our space, we send up aircraft to see what that is before any other action is taken to ensure that those that do come toward our airspace know that this is Canada, this is Canada's sovereign territory. So we have that capability for that type of threat.

    Thank you.

    I know this is a somewhat controversial topic, but the F-35s are currently said to be specialized ground attack aircraft, that they are slower than aircraft currently on the market and that there are also problems of communication between those aircraft and land bases. I'd like someone to explain to me how those aircraft could really be effective in protecting Canadian territory.

     I remind the committee that you'll have other force employers here. Our job as force employers is not to figure out what's coming next; it's to take what we have today and be able to use it. So when it comes to the F-35, it's a question that you're going to have to pose to the Chief of the Air Staff, who is responsible for bringing in capabilities. But from all my readings, clearly it will provide the support we will need in the future, given the generation of aircraft that it is, the technology that it has, to be able to protect and defend Canada.

I throw out for the committee that none of us knows where the world is going to be in 10, 15, 20 years. We know where it will be perhaps in the next number of years. It's something I would expect Canadians would expect us all to ensure, that we are ready not just today but in the future for anything that could happen.

    Thank you.

    Mr. Norlock, you're up.

    Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

    Thank you very much, General, for coming today.

    My questions will centre around the Canada Command component. As we're looking at the global readiness of the Canadian armed forces and how it's measured against the Canadian armed forces' ability to carry out six core missions simultaneously, using this as a measure of readiness, would you say that Canada Command is ready as a force employer?

    In short, Canada Command is ready as a force employer. If you look at the last year in particular, it was the first time that each of our regional joint task force commanders was involved in a domestic operation. This is probably the highest tempo we've seen. And in all of those cases, Canada Command, the Canadian Forces, the Department of National Defence, and the government provided the capabilities and support needed to be able to address them, as I'm sure you've seen in the news: floods, hurricanes, supporting the Olympics, supporting any other type of activity.

    Thank you very much.

     In that context, how many Canadian armed forces members or soldiers would be available at any time and specifically on standby to address any domestic or continental emergency?

    We have a framework that clearly says that for any issues, challenges, threats, or hazards that evolve in Canada, the entire Canadian Forces are available to the Chief of the Defence Staff for any of those issues. It is not just the ready duty ships, the aircraft and personnel that I mentioned. That's the first wave; that's the first piece.

If it were required, the entire Canadian Forces, all its capability, would be mobilized by the Chief of the Defence Staff to address any issues that came up.

     Thank you very much.

    I always try to ask a question the average person wonders about, such as why doesn't the army just go in and do this, or why doesn't this happen, or how come that doesn't happen.

    Would you go through the steps taken when an emergency occurs in a particular area of Canada? What are the steps and what needs to happen before the Canadian armed forces take action? Usually you folks are the last people to be asked when the civilian component is not able to handle the enormity of the situation.

    If there were a crisis somewhere across Canada, first, at the municipal level, municipal first responders would try to deal with the issue. If they wouldn't or couldn't and can't, then the province or territory would be asked to come in. If a province can't or doesn't have the support it needs—and in some cases, as we saw in the last year, it may not have—it will then come to the federal government. It will come to the Department of Public Safety and the Minister of Public Safety will look at the request.

    Throughout that entire period, to be very clear, the Government of Canada, the Department of Public Safety, the Canadian military, and other departments and agencies are already well aware of what's going on at the local level. We have that awareness. We're already starting to do some type of contingency planning of what if we were to be asked for this event. What should we have ready to be deployed?

    The Department of Public Safety looks at that request—a request for assistance, in many cases—and is talking very quickly throughout the night with different federal agencies and departments to see how quickly we could bring it together. Then the Minister of Public Safety would come to the Minister of National Defence and ask for that support. Then we would move on and provide that support as requested by the territory or province.

    Clearly, the province or territory is in the lead. They ask us to come in, coordinated and integrated by the Department of Public Safety for all federal assets. The key to success here is an integrated approach, not just the military. By having all of the assets together, it leads to much longer-term solutions to the issues.

    Thank you very much.

    You have about 30 seconds.

    I was going to lead into this, but I'll go directly to the question.

    Regarding the floods in Quebec, there were some decisions made, or decisions not made, with regard to remaining there after the fact and with cleanup. I'd like you to discuss what criteria decide how long the forces will remain at any given site; if you could walk us through that quickly.

    There is a set of criteria laid down from the federal government and from the Department of Public Safety of when federal assets would be used. For example, one of those is would we be competing with local businesses. Clearly, it's the last thing, I think, Canadians would want, that we're competing with local industry. That's not what it's about. If the capability is on the ground to do it, use it. That's the message that's passed, and that's what we look at when we go into these issues.

    When you look at what happened in the Montérégie region, the Canadian Forces were asked by the Province of Quebec to come in to provide assistance. We were in there, I believe, within 12 hours from any location to provide that support, based on the requests and the demands from the province.

    One point to note is that there is a new factor that has emerged. When you look at us working, we do work in Quebec now with a new agency that's in Quebec that provides emergency management support. We work for them. It was the agency that, in this case, told us every day what we should be doing and what jobs we needed to do.

    It was very different during the ice storm, where we worked directly with cities, towns, and the like. The new construct in place very much mirrors the federal approach, that we work for the emergency management organization in the province of Quebec, which laid out for us exactly what they needed us to do, day by day, until the job was done.

    Thank you.

    Could I just follow up on that before we go to our next questioner?

    We had a similar situation in Manitoba. As the flood event changed—first, it was flooding along the Assiniboine River and the forces were building up the dikes and going into communities sandbagging to protect them from the imminent flood. The same thing occurred along the Souris River in the towns of Souris and Melita—the forces were there.

    Along Lake Manitoba, though, as waters slowly rose, there was a call for help. We did have some troops come up, and a lot of sandbagging happening in Winnipeg moved up, but not to the same degree of manpower that we experienced along the Assiniboine and the Souris.

    Who made those decisions as to the deployment of the members of the Canadian armed forces for sandbagging operations?

     That would have come from the province. In the end, the province decides how to use the assets and resources available based on the criteria in place. The commander of joint task force west was in Edmonton, flew to Winnipeg, and worked closely with the province. At that time the province felt they had the ability and capacity to handle that issue as we stayed focused on the Souris. Many may not be aware that we remained on alert for a much longer period after the crisis was gone, with forces ready to go, which was the primary area of effort. The province focused on Lake Manitoba at the time.

    My conversation with the premier was a little bit different from that, but thank you.

    Mr. Alexander.

    Thanks, Mr. Chair.

    It's great to have you with us, General. Our colleague Madame Perreault mentioned your distinguished record. I can't help noting for all of my fellow members of the committee that you are the third witness we've had in uniform from the Canadian Forces who commanded our forces in Afghanistan in one way or another, at one stage or another. The others were General Vance and General Devlin. It's great to be with you again for that reason as well.

    With forest fires, floods, avalanches, and--God forbid--earthquakes, obviously it was a very busy year for Canada Command in most of those areas. Three or four provinces were looked at or supported in one way or another.

    Predicting the weather is an imperfect art at best, and probably impossible over the long term. But was there any way for you, in conjunction with 36 other agencies and departments that look at this, to predict that 2011 would be a particularly tough year? Was that a surprise to some extent? How does the need to surge into Manitoba, the Assiniboine and Souris areas, and the Richelieu affect readiness for other tasks? Looking ahead, is there any way to predict whether this kind of demand will be greater, lesser, or the same in the years to come?

    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.

    Drug enforcement is primarily a task for police and law enforcement, but you support it. We know that in parts of Mexico it is a deadly business. Sometimes hundreds and thousands of people are killed every year. One of the tasks of Canada Command, if I understand correctly, is to deter the impact of those networks inside Canada as they try to manufacture things here or move products in and out of the country.

    How ready are we for those tests? I know we've sent ships as part of task groups to the Caribbean and elsewhere. I see that you interact with U.S. Southern Command, which I presume is related to a lot of things, but among them the drug threat. How good is our understanding of what is happening in those networks and how the threat to us is likely to evolve?

     First, we have a very good understanding of what is ongoing and what's happening, driven in large part by the relationships we have across the western hemisphere, and not just with U.S. NORTHCOM and SOUTHCOM, but with different federal departments. The Department of Public Safety is connected to the Department of Homeland Security and across the western hemisphere to different agencies and departments. So we actually know what's going on.

    As to acting against the challenge, you touched on our task groups. Actually, it's much deeper than that. It's an ongoing task called Operation Caribe, where we provide ships and surveillance aircraft—and it has been in the newspapers already—to a multinational organization that is fighting the TCOs, transnational criminal organizations, the transnational cartels both in the Caribbean and the Pacific. We do it for about seven or eight months of the year, provide ships and surveillance aircraft to differing degrees. Their task is to interdict any drugs moving up in the maritime environment. It's been extremely successful. Those ships then are packaged together with other nationalities—be it U.K., be it Dutch, be it French—in those regions, to be able to stop and deter any movement of drugs north into North America.

    We continue to do that to actually be successful. We have that situational awareness of what's going on, as other federal departments have that awareness with their counterparts.

    Thank you. Time has expired.

    We have time for a third round.

    Mr. Christopherson.

    Thank you, Chair.

    I didn't know if I'd get a chance to ask this or not. Assuming there is a situation where you have two needs, both pressing, and both involve Canadian citizens' lives being at risk, and you, the armed forces, cannot physically respond to both, somebody has to make a horrible decision. First of all, can you tell me who, ultimately, would make that decision and bear the responsibility? Just as important, what are the critical factors they would go through in making that decision, recognizing that normally there isn't the luxury of a lot of reflective time to call committee meetings and consult when a decision has to be made. General, who does that fall to, and what is the process that person needs to go through to reach that decision?

     I would draw your attention to the fact that we had that case this spring, when we were fighting floods in two different areas, in both the province of Quebec and the province of Manitoba, and it proved extremely successful.

    We've never had to be involved in an either/or discussion, as mentioned here, of providing support either here or providing it there. But again, from a federal response, that is a good question to be posed to the Department of Public Safety. As I stated, requests from the territories and the provinces come to the Department of Public Safety, who then look at it, determine what could be provided, and then come to different federal departments and agencies to determine who will provide what.

    So there is no situation you could imagine where that would happen?

    I have not seen that situation, having been in this position, and having read all the historical data in the last four or five years. If you look at supporting the Olympics, where we had so many troops there at the same time, and fighting floods and threats back home, we have always had the capability, from a Canadian Forces perspective, to be able to deal with any of the threats and challenges that came.

    Okay, thank you.

    In terms of readiness, there has been some reference to our allies, particularly our NATO allies, and their review of where they're at vis-à-vis what's going on in the world, and some of the fiscal realities that virtually everyone in the world is facing. In terms of that kind of review—that readiness review, looking into the future—where do we fit in the scheme of that, both in terms of the planning of it, but also in the shaping? What are your thoughts on that, to give us some comparison?

     It's a question you'd have to pose to other commanders--Commander CEFCOM, because he's the one who deals and works with NATO. I'm more back here in the home game.

    What I can add from the perspective of North America is that with both U.S. SOUTHCOM and NORTHCOM, which are the commands south of the border, we are inextricably linked. We talk to each other. The commanders know each other. We have staff talks. What does that mean? Our teams come together twice a year to talk about ongoing issues, challenges, and to talk about the way ahead, and not just where we're at or what we have to do. So we are intimately involved, north and south of the border, with likely challenges and threats that we see we need to be prepared to address.

    But from a NATO perspective, I do not get involved in those discussions. You'd have to address those to the Commander of the Canadian Expeditionary Force Command.

     Very good. Thank you, General.

    Thank you, Chair.

    Thank you.

    Mr. McKay.

    The Americans, for reasons best known to themselves, run drones along our border. Do we have access to any information that's generated from those drones?

     I don't have access to that information. I really don't need that information either. That's clearly a police issue. It's a question you probably want to raise either with the Department of Public Safety Canada or the RCMP. I don't have that information, nor do I need to have it.

    Is it in fact simply limited to police information? If Canada Command is involved in situations involving terrorism, maybe drug interventions and things of that nature, surely to goodness the information going south is as important as the information going north.

    But that information would be with the police, and if the police need us, they would then come to us. There is always a concern about jeopardizing any investigation. So who needs to know needs to know it.

     If the Canadian Forces' capabilities are required, then it quickly comes to us. We have standing memorandums of understanding between organizations whereby we can quickly pick up the phone if they need that support, but again, through the Department of Public Safety and through other....

    So basically it's on a need-to-know basis.

    When I was in Greenwood I was rather stunned and impressed by the SAR techs, watching them being winched onto Canadian Coast Guard vessels from helicopters and jumping out of the rear ends of Hercules and things of that nature.

    You had to be a pretty special person to be a SAR tech, from what I could see, both physically and psychologically. I could see how the physical limitation basically runs out at, I don't know, 35--pick a year. It's pretty tough work.

    What are your challenges with respect to recruiting and retaining and training SAR techs?

    Again, I haven't seen any. It's a question to be posed to the Commander of the Royal Canadian Air Force, because he looks after the SAR techs from a force generation point of view--training, looking after them, and providing them to me. I've had SAR techs whenever I've required them.

     I would like to broaden out the question. A lot of times we forget that the SAR techs are in an aircraft with technicians in the back who are in as dangerous a situation. So it's really the whole package. It's those aircraft commanders, their technicians backing the SAR techs, who come together. And those SAR techs do find themselves in the most perilous situations, which is why so many have been awarded medals of bravery for their heroic actions.

    Again, as we saw in the most tragic incident up in the north where a SAR tech lost his life, they are prepared to do what they need to do to help Canadians.

    But I go back to the issue of do we have enough? It's a question you have to pose to the Commander of the Royal Canadian Air Force. I haven't seen it.

    But from your standpoint of the Canada Command, your supply is adequate for you.

    It's adequate, yes, sir.

    Okay.

    The final question is with respect to the difficulties the Cormorant has had. Are you impacted at all with respect to delays with respect to the Cormorant?

    No, not all. If you look at our readiness statistics and our ongoing readiness requirements, what I need are aircraft to provide a capability, and I get those every day, every hour, every minute from the Royal Canadian Air Force. So it has not impacted Canada Command or our ability to provide search and rescue in any way. We watch this very closely, and it has not.

    Thank you.

    Thank you.

    Mr. Chisu.

    Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

    General, training exercises are important, as we all know, to keep up readiness. In your training exercise operations, how do you incorporate the involvement of all three environments to ensure enhanced interoperability? Are there any specific training operations that you can name off the top of your head where there has been joint participation?

     From a Canada Command perspective, for example, we just completed a major exercise called Exercise Vigilant Shield. That exercise focused on activities, hazards, threats across Canada that involved all the navy, army, and air force and all of the headquarters.

     Operation Nanook is a joint exercise. It includes navy, army, air force, special forces personnel, civilians, military, regular and reserve. It happens every year.

    We are always conducting what we call joint exercises, because we believe that if you want the real effect, you need to have the joint team there, all of the different four environments known.

     When are these exercises conducted? At which period of the year?

    What we do is every fall we conduct our Exercise Vigilant Shield and bring our teams together at different headquarters. As well, if you had the opportunity to speak to our regional joint task force commanders, you'd find they also conduct joint exercises at their levels.

    So we do it here, and they do as well. For example, in the province of Quebec, commander of Quebec region actually took his troops into the northern part of the province last year, and it was a joint exercise; there was air force and army. So that happens throughout the year, depending on when the commander wants to put it together. We have a domestic training plan that clearly shows when all the activities take place, and they are in most cases joint activities.

    So for example Maple Guardian—

     It could be Maple Guardian. It all depends on the scenario. Maple Guardian is another example. We are looking at whether we could use Maple Guardian in the domestic context and have a domestic scenario. So it's an example of what we could do.

    And going to the international, let's say the defence of North America, in your area of activity, have there been any combined exercises with our American counterparts? We know very well that we have also other NATO countries in proximity, such as Denmark, Greenland, and Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, in proximity to Newfoundland. Do they have some cooperation or coordination in this area, common exercises, or do you envisage something in the future?

    We already conduct exercises with my counterpart south of the border, with U.S. NORTHCOM, and will in the future with Southern Command. It has already been happening for three years, maybe even four years, where we conduct exercises. As I mentioned, Exercise Vigilant Shield was part of a broader exercise where we worked with Northern Command and NORAD at a broader complex issue. So we already do conduct exercises, and not just exercises; we do operations with multinational partners in the Caribbean and the Pacific already. So we do more and more with our partners. In particular, Canada Command is very closely linked to its partner south of the border in exercises it's already in.

    General, I think most Canadians always see the role of Canada Command. They may not know what Canada Command is, but they see that as being the primary mission of the Canadian armed forces, which is, as you said, the no-fail mission of Canadian sovereignty, of being there in times of need, whether it's a natural disaster or otherwise. So the burden you must carry and the responsibility you and your staff have in coordinating all the assets of the Canadian Forces for defence of country and support of civilians is incredible. I really thank you for that.

    In your training and, as Mr. Chisu was just saying, working with our North American partners before Canada Command was even set up—Hurricane Katrina, 9/11 in New York and Washington—you have the whole issue of training and keeping all the forces ready in case we have a terrorist attack like that, a major civilian situation where we have hundreds of people hurt or killed. It's rapid deployability. How do you actually prepare for something like that?

    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.

     General, you referenced a couple of maps earlier. Are they in both official languages?

     I will get them in both official languages and bring them back to the committee.

    We'd appreciate that very much.

     Mr. Alexander.

    Can I ask a very quick question? I think it's of interest to all members.

    When we talk about search and rescue, General, we know that historical and current incidents are still concentrated on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. That's what the statistics show. But we expect more traffic in the north; we expect some evolution in the share. What preparations are being made to ensure we're ready to deal with additional search and rescue requirements in the north?

    When you look at Operation Nanook 2011, it was focused on search and rescue in the north. We brought all of our assets together to see what we would have to do to have the capabilities in place in the highest part of the north if needed. So we actually do the training and exercising. We continually look at what the challenges are in the area in the north. Do we have the assets needed to be able to provide that support? We continuously examine the changing and evolving nature of what is going on.

    From a purely data set point of view, it is clear that you can't have men and women in uniform located everywhere across Canada. That would be impossible. You need good situational awareness to be able to queue forces to get them where they need to go, and we have that in place. As we've seen in the tragic case of Sergeant Gilbert, his team got there in time to rescue that father and son, but tragically and sadly Sergeant Gilbert lost his life doing that.

    So it is in place. We continually monitor and look at whether we will need additional requirements in the future.

    Mr. Kellway, you may have a final question.

    Thank you, Mr. Chair.

     General, thank you very much for being with us today.

    With respect to forces on standby ready to go for the home game, you commented on personnel. Are there equipment shortages or needs that you have identified for the home game?

    There are no equipment shortages. We actually have more than we need. In many cases what is needed at home are men and women who first provide a lot of that physical support. Beyond that, in a lot of cases engineering support is needed--backhoes and the like--which we do have across the country.

    We have found that from a domestic point of view we have all the capabilities we need. Particularly now that we have C-17s, we can move capabilities and men and women in uniform across the country easily and much more quickly than we could in the past. We have everything we need to be able to get the job done.

     General, I really appreciate your comments and candour with the committee today on our study on readiness. Hopefully we'll be able to put together a report that will provide value to the Canadian Forces, the public and government, and of course to our colleagues in Parliament. Thank you, General Semianiw, for joining us.

    As a reminder for the committee, on Thursday Minister MacKay will be appearing. He has cabinet at 9:30, so I'm going to call the meeting for 8:15 so we can have a full hour with the minister and accommodate his schedule. It's a little bit earlier for all of us.

    On December 6 we have the Royal Canadian Navy booked, and we have the Vice-Chief of Defence staff on December 8. The 15th is not confirmed yet, but I'm hoping to have the air force. Then we will get into the directions for drafting the report.

    Mr. McKay.

    The subcommittee has not met for quite a while. I wasn't going to say anything about the Norwegian minister, but I was caught by surprise. It would have been nice to know in advance that the Norwegian minister was coming.

    Similarly, with Minister MacKay, this is generally an opportunity for the opposition in particular. As it turns out, I won't be in the country at the time. It would have been nice to have at least accommodated opposition colleagues and given the dates he was available. I would have liked to have some input into that, because as it turns out I won't have any input. I don't think that's a collegial way to operate.

    I apologize for that. We only had one date given to us by the minister, and we have to report back by December 6 on the supplementary estimates if it's going to be of any value to the House. If we're going to be providing that input, we had to do it before December 6, and the only day he had available was Thursday.

     We all have schedules to accommodate here.

     In particular, the minister's appearance at any committee is generally regarded as an opportunity for the opposition in particular to ask questions of the minister. As it turns out, it's a missed opportunity.

    Yes, unfortunately, but that's the way things bounce sometimes.

    On the Norwegian minister, that also came at us fairly rapidly. That's when we were supposed to actually have the commander of the Royal Canadian Air Force--

    With an active subcommittee or some collegiality, we might have actually figured this out.

    With that, I'll take a motion to adjourn.

    An hon. member: So moved.

    (Motion agreed to)

    The Chair: We're out of here.