NDVA Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL DEFENCE AND VETERANS AFFAIRS

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE LA DÉFENSE NATIONALE ET DES ANCIENS COMBATTANTS

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, November 1, 2001

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[English]

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

We're pleased to have Dr. David Charters here. Dr. Charters is from the University of New Brunswick's Centre for Conflict Studies.

Before we get to you, Dr. Charters, we have had a request from several members of the committee to deal with a motion Mr. Benoit tabled with the committee yesterday.

Mr. Benoit, do you want to address your motion?

Mr. Leon Benoit (Lakeland, Canadian Alliance): I do, Mr. Chair, and I would hope everyone has a copy of the motion. The motion is that the committee report to the House that the government response to the committee's unanimous report on defence procurement was inadequate, and that the committee instruct the government to prepare a second, complete response.

I think anyone who looked at the government response to that motion would recognize that it took over a year for the government to respond. Then, in areas in which the committee had asked for further information, the government response was that we already had enough information. It is absolute nonsense for the government to show that kind of lack of seriousness in regard to an issue coming from this committee. They should show more respect than that for this committee. That was a slap in the face for this committee. In several areas, that was the response—that we had enough information and didn't need any more—in spite of what the committee had asked for.

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Particularly in light of the events of September 11, of the seriousness of the issues that this committee is dealing with, and of the importance of procurement right now, I would hope I could get unanimous consent to pass this motion, which would ask for another response from the government, with it being a serious response to the committee's report this time.

This was a unanimous report. It was supported by every member of the committee. I doubt any of you would argue that government should be responding that we got all the information we needed, and that it should not give us any more.

I would hope we have unanimous support for this motion, Mr. Chair, so I move this motion.

The Chair: We have had a request for unanimous consent.

Before we get to that, Mr. O'Reilly, you wanted to speak.

Mr. John O'Reilly (Haliburton—Victoria—Brock, Lib.): I certainly wouldn't grant unanimous consent. I'll let you know that right away. But I would entertain a revisit by the witnesses we have had here. If we missed something in our list of witnesses, perhaps the steering committee might recommend that we rehear the ADM and anyone else, in view of the response of the government.

The report was written before the events of September 11, and we have been taken on quite a different track since then. Perhaps the steering committee could take a further look at recalling some of the witnesses we had in prior to September 11. We could revisit their portfolios and expertise in light of those facts, instead of asking the government to do something that is really out of order.

So there is no unanimous consent, and I would ask that you call the question.

The Chair: It sounds to me like you're suggesting that we have in, as an example, the ADM for matériel, Mr. Alan Williams. Is that your suggestion?

Mr. John O'Reilly: I think it would be a start, because it would take us to the top of the list of witnesses we were looking for.

The Chair: Okay.

I don't want to prolong this discussion, because we do have a witness here. Very quickly, though, we'll go to Mr. Benoit and Ms. Beaumier.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Mr. Chair, I fully support having this witness come back. That's great. But what I'm looking for is some respect for this committee. It was a unanimous report, but the government response says we have all the information we need, even though we, as a committee, have unanimously asked for more information. It should be clear that we should ask the government to respond respectfully to what this committee has reported. I don't see how anyone could possibly be against that.

I fully support what Mr. O'Reilly has said. We should also ask for the ADM for matériel to come back. But the fact is that the issues we're dealing with aren't just being dealt with because of September 11. For eight years, this military has been run down by this government, Mr. Chair, and the time has come for us to get some serious responses from the government.

The Chair: Mr. Benoit, we are dealing with the issue of Mr. O'Reilly's suggestion at this point, in terms of—

Mr. Leon Benoit: Why are we dealing with that? I have a motion on the floor, Mr. Chair.

The Chair: You were responding to his comments. That's why I'm saying we were dealing with his comments.

I'm going to hear Ms. Beaumier and Mr. Anders very quickly. I don't want any repetition of points, because we do want to hear from Dr. Charters as soon as possible.

Ms. Colleen Beaumier (Brampton West—Mississauga, Lib.): Mr. Benoit, when you make those kinds of comments, you unfortunately lose a bit of support. We all work very hard, and we all want to be treated respectfully. You don't have the monopoly on that desire.

Perhaps your motion is a little premature. If we have the government officials back before us, perhaps that would be a better time.

The Chair: Okay. Thank you, Ms. Beaumier.

Mr. Anders.

Mr. Rob Anders (Calgary West, Canadian Alliance): I would just like to say that I was here when we put out a report with regard to the living conditions for the military. I'll let you know that I was pleasantly surprised and shocked that this was one of the rarer committees I'd ever served on in the House of Commons that was actually willing to address issues in a way that wasn't just going to shine the government's apple. I respected the work of this committee on that issue, and I know members of the Canadian Forces respected the work of the committee on that issue. I've seen it when I've gone to visit them on their ships and at their places of work. Likewise, if we want to maintain that type of rapport with the troops in terms of showing that we actually do care, I think this motion does make sense.

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I realize many of you are part of a government and that you will have the carrying say on this today when we vote. But the last report of this committee did get some real work done on it, and it had some real response. That was because people serving in your roles today were willing to take a stand and say things that were sometimes uncomfortable, but they nonetheless really got things changed for the forces. I think that if you lay back and take what is an unsatisfactory response from the minister in this case, then we are not doing our forces the service they deserve.

The Chair: Okay.

We're going to call the vote on the motion at this point. We've had a request for unanimous consent. Obviously unanimous consent is not present, based on Mr. O'Reilly's comments.

Mr. Leon Benoit: I'd like a recorded vote, Mr. Chair.

(Motion negatived: nays 8; yeas 5)

The Chair: Mr. Stoffer.

Mr. Peter Stoffer (Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore, NDP): On a very quick point of order, Mr. Chair, I'd maybe say a word to Dr. Charters to apologize for the delay of twenty minutes before he was able to make his presentation. Our committee normally doesn't cause that type of delay for a witness, so this is just a word to say it's not normal practice, and to apologize for his inconvenience.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Stoffer. I have already apologized to Dr. Charters twice for the delays. We're anxious to hear him.

Dr. Charters, you have the floor.

Dr. David A. Charters (Director, Centre for Conflict Studies, University of New Brunswick): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I have issued a prepared brief, which I believe has been translated, but I would like to read it into the record, if I may. I have entitled it “Terrorism in a New Century: A Perspective in Light of the Attacks on 11 September”.

Terrorism is not a new phenomenon. It has been with us in a variety of forms, conducted by a variety of states, groups, and individuals, for at least two millennia. But it is not a static form of political violence. It is dynamic and evolving. Its users have adapted it to the circumstances and resources of their age. I submit in this brief that the events of September 11 represent not just an adaptation, but the cutting edge of a quantum breakthrough in terrorist capabilities.

First, let me start by saying that I do not regard terrorism as a pathology, like a disease. Rather, I see it as a method of fighting, a form of warfare. It is one of the preferred ways of warfare for the weak, who don't have the means to fight the state on its own terms. Rather than play to the strengths of the state, especially its military power, terrorists use these unconventional and asymmetric techniques to attack its vulnerabilities. So, asking what causes terrorism is to pose the wrong question. It is like asking what causes knives. The more pertinent question today is, in what ways do the attacks on September 11 demonstrate a significant change in this form of warfare?

First, they use the tools of globalization—open borders, international transportation, electronic banking, the Internet—to attack the very heart of globalization, America itself. This is the new wave of warfare in the 21st century, “terrorism.com”. In this case, they used America's greatest strengths against it, and turned them into vulnerabilities.

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In fact, they did more than that. They turned them into weapons. Airliners and skyscrapers by themselves are benign. Bring them together at speed, guided by the world's most sophisticated computer—the human brain—and driven by that most powerful source of motivation—the human will—and you have a binary weapon of mass destruction.

Secondly, the conventional wisdom thirty years ago was that terrorists want a lot of people watching, not a lot of people dead. The aim of terrorism was to publicize a cause and to mobilize supporters for it—the Palestinian issue, for example. Groups that carried out attacks claimed responsibility for them in very public ways—on radio, on TV, through communiqués, and through spokespersons. Casualties and fatalities generally were low. Hostages usually were released. To do otherwise could alienate potential supporters, delegitimize the cause, or provoke severe counter-measures that might destroy the group.

Since the early 1980s, things have changed. Many terrorist incidents have gone unclaimed. While the reasons for this are not clear, I believe this represents a change in motivation, from mobilization to punishment. Some groups no longer feel the need to publicize their cause and rally supporters. Instead, their primary motive is to strike a major, damaging, physical, and psychological blow against their enemies. The result of this has been a much higher level of casualties. In the 1980s and 1990s, many incidents caused hundreds of deaths and sometimes thousands of injuries, but the most recent attacks represent a quantum leap in lethality that is right off the scale. Now we have a lot of people watching and a lot of people dead.

These two changes—globalization of terrorism, and mass casualties—mean a well-funded, well-organized terrorist group can now do something that was not possible for them before. They can create weapons with the destructive power equal to the major weapons of a state, use them to strike at the centres of gravity—what the military calls a “decapitation strike”—and thus inflict catastrophic human, psychological, political, and economic damage on a state, with major ripple effects on global security and stability. It levels the playing field and puts the most effective terrorist groups on a par with the states that are their enemies.

If this is correct, then what happened on September 11 was not just a threshold event, but a breakthrough event. It demonstrated the power of an exponentially higher level of terrorist capability. I am concerned that this has raised the bar, that it has set a new standard by which all subsequent terrorist attacks will be measured. If so, then all bets are off. There are no limits. Anything is possible.

The only positive aspect of this prognosis is that the number of groups and states that have the means, the motive, and the opportunity to conduct such attacks, is finite and relatively small. If the al-Qaeda network was responsible for this attack, its track record suggests that it may take some time before launching another major attack. It does not have unlimited resources, and the current heightened level of security, investigations, and military operations against its base area probably will make further operations more difficult. But having been surprised once, we should not lapse into complacency and assume we cannot be surprised again. As the IRA remarked after its attack on the British cabinet, “We only have to be lucky once; you have to be lucky all the time.”

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How, then, do we deal with this problem? Deal with it we must, for it will not go away. If we ignore it, it will strike us again and again. Are we indeed engaged in a war on terrorism? If so, how much of that war is military?

It is true that the terrorists probably believe they are at war with the United States and perhaps with western civilization as a whole, but that does not oblige us to respond in kind. Declaring war on terrorism may be good public relations rhetoric, but it carries some potentially unwelcome baggage. First, it grants the terrorists, whoever they may be, greater legitimacy than they deserve—status equal to the soldiers of a state, rather than the criminal actors they really are. Second, defining the struggle against terrorism as a war may colour our expectations of what can be achieved, how, and how soon.

To most westerners, war denotes military battles and quick, decisive victories. But if this is a war, it probably will not be like that. Rather, it will be mostly a war of raids and skirmishes, investigations, and arrests and trials. It will be fought—indeed, it already is being fought—largely in the shadows, by police, secret services, special forces, and forensic accountants, in many countries. It is likely to take years rather than months. It may never be possible to declare a final victory. The victory may be simply that the western democracies endure, prevail, and survive.

Clearly, as the current campaign in Afghanistan shows, there is a role for conventional military forces. Naval forces provide a power projection capability, and air forces can attack certain fixed and moving targets when they present themselves. It is possible that if evidence points to the direct involvement of a state in addition to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, this campaign could widen to include attacks on the military forces, government, and infrastructure of that state. Failing that, a clash of massed, mechanized armies looks less likely than the current mix of limited conventional and unconventional operations.

The problem is that the enemy does not present a military target in the conventional sense. These terrorists operate in small groups and networks, hidden amongst many populations, using false identities, secrecy, and security. Hiding in plain sight, they go to great lengths not to draw attention to themselves, nor do they appear to stay long in one place. We are confronted with a nearly invisible moving target that dwells among us. Attacking this target is not a job for the armed forces, but for police, intelligence, and security services. That certainly has implications for the allocation of resources for Canadian counter-terrorism programs, and for the role of the Canadian Forces in those programs.

That completes my statement. Thank you.

The Chair: It's obvious that you put a great deal of thought into that presentation, Dr. Charters. On behalf of the members of this committee, I'd like to thank you. We have a number of questioners who would like to pursue some of your thoughts a little bit further.

Mr. Benoit, for seven minutes.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for your presentation, Dr. Charters. I was fortunate enough to attend a conference that you co-sponsored in Fredericton a couple of weeks ago. I must say it was a top-notch conference, and I encourage you to keep up the good work. It's important to the military to have the involvement of people who really support a strong military, and to have them saying what they think we have to do to improve the military.

Your presentation today on terrorism was fascinating, and I do appreciate it very much. Several questions come forth from the comments you've made here.

You're considered an expert on counter-guerrilla and counter-terrorist operations and those types of things. You have already said you expect this to be a long war. Have you managed to narrow that down at all? How long could we be talking about? Is it in terms of three years, or in terms of twenty to thirty years?

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Dr. David Charters: That's a tough question to answer, but I'll be quite honest. I don't think I've come up with any particular estimate. It is possible the United States and its coalition partners could get lucky. They might be able to break the will of the Taliban and persuade them to hand over bin Laden. Or perhaps by putting special forces in, they may be able to locate that individual themselves.

Also, some progress clearly has been made in many countries of the world in terms of rounding up some of the networks. What we don't know is how many we have missed. Are intact networks still out there that are in fact capable of further operations? We don't know, so we have this problem of this moving and somewhat invisible target among us. These people tend to be very patient. If the heat is on them now, they may not be able to conduct operations for a while. They may choose just to lay low, and then strike us again a year from now or two years from now.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Will we really know when it's over? If it's something to which there will be an end, it won't be easy to define, will it?

Dr. David Charters: No, it won't. I don't think we'll ever be able to have some kind of victory parade down Wellington Street to say that we have beaten the terrorists.

Mr. Leon Benoit: With that in mind, the Prime Minister has been talking about peacekeeping in Afghanistan after the victory. Maybe that's why he can suggest that we can be involved in peacekeeping after the victory. It may be ten, twenty, or thirty years from now, and maybe we can rebuild the military by that time—although I don't think that's what he had in mind.

Realistically, in talking about peacekeeping after the victory in Afghanistan, even if the Taliban were defeated and even if bin Laden were captured, would they not most likely just resort to guerrilla activities again? You know it happened with Russia for ten years.

Dr. David Charters: It would depend very largely on how it was presented. If the Taliban was only defeated after a long campaign in which a lot of Afghans suffered greatly, bringing westerners in to keep the peace might be very unwelcome. If we were able to remove that regime fairly quickly and put in forces that clearly didn't participate in the operations, it's quite possible they would be welcomed.

Bear in mind that Afghanistan has never been an easy country to govern. Even when there has been a government in Kabul, its writ often has not extended into the countryside. It's a village- and clan-based society, and whether or not blue-beret-wearing peacekeepers would be welcome in any part of the countryside is a moot point at this time.

Mr. Leon Benoit: What kinds of troops or what kinds of people do you think Canada needs in the forces to deal with the situation over the next few years, first of all? And what about if we do get to this time when we can declare some kind of peace, if we do get into a period of trying to maintain stability and to establish a government?

Dr. David Charters: Let me answer that with a couple of ifs. If we're actually able to bring the conflict in Afghanistan to a close in some fashion, if there is a peacekeeping mission, and if Canada is asked to participate in it, we would have to have the kinds of forces we have now, but more of them. If we were going to sustain even something as relatively small as a battle group of perhaps 1,000 or 1,500 troops, we're talking about a pretty ambitious undertaking in a very remote part of the world. It would require a fairly lengthy logistics chain and a lot of transport. We're talking about a very remote area, so we would need more engineers, medical personnel, signallers, technical support people, etc., as well as the sharp end.

Mr. Leon Benoit: What about right now, over the next couple of years? What kinds of people would Canada need to take part in the operations there? Would the Canadian Airborne Regiment, for example, be something that would be really handy to have right now, or an expanded JTF2? What types of forces would we need to be able to really contribute in a meaningful way, on the ground, right now?

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Dr. David Charters: Let me come back to one of the points I made earlier. This is not primarily a military campaign. In fact, the lead is being taken on a number of fronts, and police and intelligence play a more significant role in some ways. We're focused on Afghanistan because that part of the campaign has a military dimension, if you like, but it may not be the primary dimension.

If we were to contribute ground forces to an ongoing campaign in Afghanistan—say, the next six to twelve months or more—if we started with the JTF2 contingent that we have already contributed, that's a pretty small contingent and we could probably support it. If we were to move up the scale and put in an infantry battalion group or battle group, or if we moved to something like a brigade, we would need a lot more of what I would call straight, conventional combat forces. In order to support a battalion group in Afghanistan, we would need two battalions behind it, back home, to handle rotation, reinforcement, casualty replacement, and so on. If we up that to a brigade, we're really looking at two brigades' equivalent back home to support that. We have to do the math that way. If we're looking at 1,000, we need 3,000. If we're looking at 3,000 to 5,000, we're looking at 9,000 to 15,000 behind them.

Would the Canadian Airborne be of particular value? Not necessarily. We did see one airborne raid a few weeks ago, but that won't necessarily be the pattern. Well-trained, well-disciplined, good combat soldiers—which we have always been able to produce—would be quite sufficient, but we would need lots of them, and they would have to be well-equipped.

The Chair: Thank you, Dr. Charters.

[Translation]

Mr. Bachand.

Mr. Claude Bachand (Saint-Jean, BQ): I will begin by thanking you for your presentation, but I must tell you that I was startled by some of the things that you said.

First of all, you said, and I quote:

Declaring “War on Terrorism” may be good public relations rhetoric, but it carries some potentially unwelcome baggage.

And you went on to talk about the negative consequences.

I believe that the first weapon we should take up in a war—even if it is a war on terrorism—is public relations. I think that introducing the expression “War on Terrorism” is very significant for public opinion, even if it is only to reassure people. It seems to me that after we have had two airplanes plow into us, we cannot sit back like saints and do nothing.

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When you are attacked like that, you have to launch a public relations campaign. Moreover, the other side did not hesitate to do so. I think that it was not by coincidence that the first airplane crashed, and that all the media then had time to get set up before the second airplane crashed. I think that this was a public relations battle from the start and that this war does not have only negative consequences. It also has positive consequences, and the Americans have said as much. Up to now, the conflict is unfolding much as I expected.

It began with military retaliation. Of course, there were some unfortunate mistakes, and not all of these mistakes are explained to us. CNN tells us about all kinds of things, but where does the truth lie? The people in the field perhaps know more. We listen to CNN or RDI and we have to take the information that they give us. In my view, public relations are the first weapon. They did a good job, and they continue to do a good job.

Militarily speaking, I think that the Americans have played their cards well. They built themselves a coalition—appealing to the UN Security Council which said that this was self-defence—and also appealing to their traditional NATO allies, who said that this was an action covered by article 5 of the Washington Treaty and that they would be on the side of the Americans.

Therefore, up to this point, I believe that the counterattack has been a measured one, from both the military point of view and the point of view of public relations. It is being conducted in fields that are not traditionally military fields. I think that the financial battle, which consists of cutting off the terrorist's financial resources, is also a very important initiative and I think that we have to discuss such things in this type of war.

We must not forget diplomatic means: the regime must be isolated. All of the western democracies currently agree that the Taliban regime makes no sense, so the regime is completely isolated. There is not a soul on earth who would be upset if the Taliban regime fell tomorrow morning. Diplomacy is therefore an important weapon also.

However, there is one thing that has been ignored by everyone since the beginning, and I believe that you raised it. If I find myself in a back alley at 3 o'clock in the morning, facing a fellow who is six feet, six inches tall, and if I see a stick lying on the sidewalk, I would likely grab the stick to defend myself. Those people have perhaps been driven to extremes. I am not trying to justify their actions, but I think that we have to look at the distribution of wealth. Last week, I was asked for my opinion on the new American jet that will cost American taxpayers $300 billion. If they set aside only one tenth of that to help those countries... In other words, the military, financial and diplomatic counterattack against those people may not be sufficient.

I would like to hear your views on that. Should we focus more on providing assistance to help those countries thrive? Right now, they are a perfect breeding ground for terrorists. They can mobilize public opinion on their side, point the finger at the evil enemy that wants to exploit their reserves and resources and say that the only weapons they have against this enemy are the actions they carried out on September 11, 2001. For example, Mr. Martin was talking about an international equalization program between rich and poor countries. It seems to me that we need to emphasize that more in our discussions.

[English]

Dr. David Charters: Your points are well taken. Let me respond to the first one.

I agree the United States was attacked and that they have to respond. There's no question about it. The question I raise is whether the term “war” is an appropriate term. It may not be. All I was suggesting is that our use of the term “war” may be inappropriate because it can raise expectations that we might not be able to meet. Those expectations, if they are not met, could undermine support for the longer-term campaign that this clearly will involve.

So I agree that we have to respond. We have to respond vigorously, and the response has to be effective. I have tried to suggest that military means are part of the solution, but we have to move on these other fronts. That raises the question you brought up toward the end, and that is whether or not there are ways in which we can address, if you like, the underlying causes. I would say, yes, if we can determine what those underlying causes are, and if they are indeed solvable. I'm not entirely convinced this is a battle simply between the rich nations and the poor nations.

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Let me address some things we have learned about bin Laden himself. He has identified at least three things that motivate his war against the United States and the west. The first is the Arab-Israeli dispute over Palestine. The second is the presence of American forces in Saudi territory. The third is his desire to remove from power what he sees as a corrupt Saudi regime.

On the face of it, these might appear to be manageable problems. The United States could perhaps base its forces elsewhere, or just keep them offshore so that they're not in Saudi territory. That's an easy problem to manage. However, the other two are more problematic. If bin Laden was able to topple the Saudi regime, he would not replace it with a liberal democracy, but with an even harsher Islamic, theocratic state that would probably look like the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. On the Palestine issue, bin Laden's solution is not a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, but the destruction of Israel. Among other things, he is virulently anti-Semitic. Therefore, two of his three objectives are antithetical to western interests, and are thus unsolvable. In any case, those are only the visible manifestations of what I think is a much deeper problem, and one that may be much harder or even impossible to resolve.

We need to look at this struggle—again, I hesitate to use the word “war”—as a struggle perhaps between the Islamic world and the western world. We don't see it that way, and many Muslims would agree with us. Osama bin Laden and the Taliban don't speak for the whole Muslim world, and not even for all of the Middle East, Pakistan, or Afghanistan. But we shouldn't be complacent about that, because bin Laden sees that his appeal has a powerful resonance amongst a minority in the region. I don't think that has a lot to do with poverty. It has a lot to do with a sense that a culture—in this case, Islamic culture—is seen as or is portrayed as being under siege by the west, and not just militarily, but economically and culturally. Some people in parts of the Middle East and central and south Asia are perhaps concluding that, with their belief system, there is no way in which they can compete with the western world and perhaps with globalization.

The Chair: Dr. Charters, I'm unfortunately going to have to cut you off. Mr. Bachand is well over his time, and we want to ensure that other members of the committee have an opportunity to ask some questions. Maybe you could revisit the conclusion of your answer when Mr. Bachand comes back on another round.

Ms. Beaumier, you have the floor, for seven minutes.

Ms. Colleen Beaumier: Thank you.

I think both actions—the war and the anti-terrorist bills that we're having to put through—are unpalatable to most Canadians and Americans. I disagree with you that expectations are raised, because I don't think any of us have expectations over this war. I don't think anyone has been fooled into thinking this is going to be a war in which there is a victory.

The big thing is that we all ask what else we could have done. Action definitely had to be taken. I want your opinion on whether or not there was an alternative way. The Taliban wanted us to show them proof. We ignored that. They offered to let a third party take bin Laden. I don't really think they would have found a third country that would have taken bin Laden any more than they want to capture bin Laden alive, because it presents terrible problems once you have him.

You commented that we have two theatres of war right now. One is the propaganda war—which I'm not sure we're winning—and the other is the ground war. Would a foreign intelligence agency perhaps strengthen our fight in the future?

Dr. David Charters: Thank you very much. I agree with you. At the moment, we're not faring very well in the propaganda war, if we call it a propaganda war. At the moment, this is a war of images, and the images don't look very good.

Could we have found this other option, like presenting the evidence to the Taliban? I don't think the Americans could have presented any evidence that the Taliban would have accepted. The mere presentation of it would have been part of the game. I don't think that was a serious offer on the part of the Taliban. If the Americans had tried to present information that was sufficiently detailed enough to actually bring prosecution, they would have compromised sources and methods. They would have simply given information back to the Taliban and to bin Laden about how much they knew. So I don't think that was a viable option.

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As for handing him over to a third party, the World Court, or whatever, the Americans could quite justifiably say they are very sorry, but these crimes occurred within a certain jurisdiction within their domestic law, and that they will be tried in the U.S. and nowhere else.

Coming to your issue of a foreign intelligence service, before you make that decision, I think you have to decide what it is that Canada needs in the way of an independent information capability. How much sovereignty in the information field do we need as an independent nation? Are we content that we can get by with whatever the CSE and CSIS are able to pick up with their limited external mandates, along with some reporting from our embassies, or do we need something more than that? We're also very heavily dependent on our allies. Is that a good way to go? I would argue that the events of September 11 should at least focus our attention on these questions.

I think a good case can be made for creating a Canadian foreign intelligence service. But let me say that having that service as a collection service alone would not be sufficient. What it really needs to go along with it is a very robust and high-quality analysis and assessment office or bureau—whatever you choose to call it—because that's where you produce the value added. It's not so much what you can collect overseas, it's how you interpret it and analyse it that makes it useful to policy. It would only be useful to policy if cabinet, the Prime Minister, and others are prepared to use it.

You have to create, if you like, a climate that is receptive to using intelligence, not one that is merely simply reacting to what's on the news or what the latest crisis is. In fact, it must be a long-term commitment to the use of information. If you don't have that, then creating either a foreign intelligence collection service or an independent analytical and assessment bureau really would be a waste of resources.

I think you have to ask some of those questions first.

Ms. Colleen Beaumier: Thank you.

The Chair: Do you have any further questions, Ms. Beaumier?

Ms. Colleen Beaumier: No.

The Chair: Mr. Dromisky, Ms. Beaumier has two minutes left in her time. Did you want to ask some questions in that time?

Mr. Stan Dromisky (Thunder Bay—Atikokan, Lib.): I can use her two minutes plus my seven minutes?

The Chair: You can use her two minutes to get started on some questions.

Mr. Stan Dromisky: Very good.

I'm very impressed with your presentation. This is the kind of article that should appear on the editorial page of every newspaper in the country, for several reasons.

Your perception, your vision of this whole scenario, is really enlightening. Since September 11, a tremendous amount of pressure has been exerted by people screaming for huge increases in the defence budget and other budgets in order to prepare ourselves for a war of the past. They want a tremendous increase in planes, tanks, and everything else you can think of—the typical conventional toys of war. In your last paragraph, you have a dynamic...that last paragraph is fantastic. That is where the emphasis should be. I made a statement regarding what I consider to be a push in the traditional spending patterns—which could be a misappropriation of tax dollars—instead of going in the direction you are advocating in that last paragraph.

What are our chances of success in terms of going in the direction you're recommending, versus the kind of pressure we are getting from all over the country regarding the purchase of traditional equipment?

• 1635

Dr. David Charters: I can see some value in re-emphasizing our armed forces along some of the traditional lines. Whether we need tanks or not is probably not a question I'm qualified to answer. I would say we need people first. We need well-trained people, and we need a lot of specialists who we are not getting, such as engineers, signallers, medical people, and so on. So if I was to place my investment, I would invest in people first, but you can't put people out on the battlefield alone. They have to be well-equipped in other ways.

We may need to consider moving into some areas, including unmanned aerial vehicles for reconnaissance and surveillance, since that extends the eyes and ears of the battlefield commander; probably updated artillery, but artillery that's highly mobile, can be moved around from place to place on the battlefield, and uses terminally-guided precision ammunition; and helicopters, lots more helicopters, and perhaps armed helicopters. These are the things that are going to be part of the modern battlefield. I'm not saying the tank is extinct, because it may not be in some circumstances.

The Chair: Again, Dr. Charters, I'm going to have to cut you off, because Mr. Dromisky is over the time limit. We will go to Mr. Stoffer right now, and perhaps you can again revisit those issues with Mr. Dromisky.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I agree with Mr. Dromisky. This should appear on the editorial page of every newspaper in the country, because the truth sometimes hurts. In the way in which you have presented your brief, it is very simplistic in its detail, when you think about it. If you take a plane and a building, then within a human mind in the head a destructive man, you have a weapon of mass destruction. Prior to September 11, who would have actually thought of that? To be able to put that...when you hear it, it's very simple in detail, but very deadly. But when we think about it, we shouldn't be that surprised, because Timothy McVeigh filled a Ryder truck with fertilizer. The Unabomber had some simplistic little things in mail bombs.

Again, you mention right off the top, “Terrorism is not a new phenomenon.” It's simply not new, yet as a nation and as a society, we react like this is new.

I'm surprised at the concern being expressed about anthrax in the States, when the Unabomber had stuff going through the mail all the time. Yet it's now that they're taking precautions about it. Again, there's Timothy McVeigh. I'm surprised that after Waco, the United States didn't do more domestically to increase awareness of terrorist acts. But they're doing it now, and I say they're doing it now because they have a visual enemy who is easy to pinpoint.

Still, there has been absolutely...the first thing they say about any war or terrorist act is that the first casualty is the truth. We still don't know. With our best guess, we can assume it's bin Laden and his group—more than likely, it is—but the only evidence I've ever seen is in the Globe and Mail. That goes for you and anyone else, for that matter.

My concern is that it's not just this group that uses terrorist acts. We had the Japanese one, with chemical warfare in the subway. We have the IRA—and what a chilling statement that was. I remember when they said, “We only have to be lucky once.” I remember Margaret Thatcher was quite shaken by that.

Sir, my question to you is, why are we so stupid in not learning from historical events? Why does it take something like this to finally wake us up to the realization that this thing has been going on and will continue on forever? This so-called war will never really end, because it's not just international terrorism, it's domestic terrorism as well. Why are we so reluctant to learn that lesson?

Dr. David Charters: Boy, that's a tough one to answer.

I don't think it's an issue of stupidity. You have to recognize that most societies, most of the time, are not under threat. Canada is a good example. We are able to function as a regular society, if you like, 99% of the time. We have priorities that interest us. We are interested in medical care, in education, or in the social safety net. Those are the things that are important to us, so we pay attention to those, because those are the things that matter most on a day-to-day basis.

• 1640

Fortunately, this kind of event doesn't strike us very often. Perhaps because it doesn't strike us very often, once the initial shock is over, we're able to put it on the back burner and not obsess about it. Maybe that's a good thing.

You have to recover from psychological blows, there's no question about it. But there's no question that we could look back and say there are some aspects of this that we should have seen coming. In fact, the idea of putting a plane into a target goes back to World War II. That's exactly what kamikaze pilots did during the air and naval battles of World War II. The most immediate previous example of this was in either 1994 or 1995. A group of Algerian hijackers had hijacked a plane to fly to France, and they were going to actually crash it into Paris. So these guys weren't the first to try it.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: On that note, sir, you mentioned that it may not be stupidity. It has to be ignorance, then, because we had Air India in 1983. By all means, somehow a bomb got on that airplane, either through cargo or through baggage that was unchecked. They then started screening international baggage. Today, you can go on an aircraft and not know the contents of the suitcases or cargo in the belly of that aircraft. It doesn't take much to put X-ray machines at baggage counters and to X-ray the luggage and cargo that goes on the aircraft. So I think we are stupid. We haven't learned a thing yet.

I think we're stupid because we base it on economics and so-called risk management. Because we're not under threat, we don't have to do these things. Something has to happen first. It's like putting a sidewalk on a street or erecting a stop sign in a subdivision. If some kid gets killed on a bicycle, you see the stop sign put up the next day. We're a reactionary group of people, we're not proactive. By your statement, I think you're basically giving us a wake-up call and are telling us to be more proactive in the future, through issues of security, intelligence, the RCMP, or whatever it takes. Am I correct in that?

Dr. David Charters: Yes, we could be more proactive than we are, and perhaps September 11 was a good wake-up call. In a sense, it was tragic in so many other respects, but if it woke up Canada without having to impact on us directly, too much, apart from those who were killed in the World Trade Center towers, then it has probably been a good thing.

But we've also had a couple of other wake-up calls along the way that I think have helped us. One was the ice storm, and the other was Y2K. Because of those two things, we had already begun to move in the right direction of beginning to think about the security of things like our critical infrastructures. The fact that the government set up a new agency to look after that was, I think, an indication that we're beginning to move in the right direction. But September 11 was the wake-up call of all wake-up calls.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Mr. Chairman, this is my last question, if possible.

The Chair: Very briefly.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Yes, sir.

For organizations like CSIS and the CSE, which are two different departments but which work in close conjuncture, would it be better if they were actually under one roof, working together internationally and domestically for the exchange of information?

Dr. David Charters: I'm not sure I would agree with that, no. I see the two roles as being somewhat distinct, but there may be a gap that still needs to be filled.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Stoffer, Dr. Charters.

Mr. Anders, for five minutes.

Mr. Rob Anders: Thank you.

Dr. Charters, Benjamin Netanyahu edited a book called Terrorism: How the West can Win. It contains a number of articles, but two that I remember off the top of my head are by Paul Laxalt and by Jack Kemp. I had the chance to scan that book just after the crashes at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. I'm surprised some of the ideas contained in those pages haven't made it into the public debate yet.

One of those ideas was that the missions or consulates of a number of various states or countries—about a half-dozen in the Arab world, like Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Syria, and Afghanistan, although there may be some others in terms of varying roles—have, in one way or another over the last decade or two, been used to further terrorist aims, whether that was by providing travel documents, visas, passports, money, safe houses, diplomatic immunity, diplomatic pouches, or whatever. For those countries that have been directly or indirectly aiding these types of organizations, this book suggests that we should severely curtail the diplomatic privileges of those states that have been involved in this type of thing. I want to get your thoughts on that.

• 1645

And I have a second question for you that is based on the response you were making to Mr. Bachand earlier with regard to the nature of al-Qaeda. I'm wondering if you're aware of Samuel Huntington's essay on the clash of civilizations in his book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. If you are, can you comment on your thoughts on Huntington?

Dr. David Charters: Let me first address the Netanyahu book and the points he was raising. In the 1980s, there certainly was what I would call—to use a legal term, if you like—circumstantial evidence that linked a number of foreign embassies to terrorist operations. We had a number of cases. At the Libyan embassy in London, shots were actually fired out of the embassy. The Libyans also seemed to be directly involved in the Labelle discotheque bombing in Berlin, and so on.

I'm not sure I would necessarily agree with everything Mr. Netanyahu says, because he can be fairly extreme. But a case can be made for closely monitoring what foreign embassies do if you have reason to believe they may in fact be involved in supporting unwelcome activities. Countries have a number of tools at their disposal to do that.

It may well be that it becomes necessary to shut an embassy down and ship all the people out. I don't have a problem with that if the threat seems to be serious enough. I don't regard diplomatic immunity as a suicide pact, and I don't think any country should. Using the diplomatic bag to smuggle in some kinds of weapons and so on shouldn't be permitted.

So I would say, yes, if you have reason to believe an embassy is involved in those kinds of activities, then you should take the appropriate measures. If necessary, you throw everybody out. There's no question about it.

Can you remind me of the second part of your question?

Mr. Rob Anders: It was on your awareness of Samuel Huntington's book.

Dr. David Charters: Right, yes.

I'm sure that, to some extent, my ideas are not exclusive to me. We all read a lot of the same materials, and after a while we begin to wonder where our ideas come from. Huntington did talk about essentially what he saw as a clash of civilizations between the Islamic world and ours. Whether or not my thoughts have been shaped by that particular reading or others, I don't know.

What I was trying to suggest is to look at it from the perspective of some elements of the Islamic world—and I'm not saying this would represent the whole Islamic world. Those elements do see their culture or their civilization as being under threat, perhaps because in some ways they don't feel it can compete with the incredible power, the globalized power, that western culture has.

Western culture penetrates every reach of their society. If one really believes one's society should be guided by both the letter and the spirit of the Koran, there's no question that our culture would be seen as very threatening. We have to at least acknowledge that such a perception may be out there, and it may be what is driving people like bin Laden. It's not just that he's upset about the Palestinian issue, or just that he's opposed to the Saudis. It's what those things represent to his culture. That's probably threatening, and I'm not sure we can do anything about it. We can't change who we are in such a way that we would ever meet his criteria. We are who we are.

Mr. Rob Anders: If I still have time, Mr. Chairman—

The Chair: No, you're out of time, Mr. Anders.

Mr. Bachand.

[Translation]

Mr. Claude Bachand: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Charters, you are the director of the Centre for Conflict Studies. A conflict always has causes, and people need to work to settle those issues. We may well have not caused the conflict, but when these things happen we need to resolve them.

• 1650

I would like you to summarize for me how you think the United States and the International Coalition are doing. Do you think that we are moving toward a settlement? Are people looking to settle this, or is it still too early for that?

Secondly, I would like your opinion regarding the fact that all the other democracies are reacting much like Canada, that is, with anti-terrorist legislation, which may be a public relations exercise aimed at showing that governments are serious and willing to take the bull by the horns.

I do not know whether you have had the chance to read Bill C-36. We of the Bloc Québécois have some reservations about it, because if rights and freedoms are too restricted, then the terrorists win. That is perhaps what they were looking for, maybe they wanted to create a climate where the western countries would be forced to discipline themselves and be tougher from now on.

We are asking ourselves a number of questions, among others, about how the bill defines who is a terrorist, the possibility of wiretapping without having to go through a judge, preventive detention and restrictions on access to information. Do you believe that Canada's approach with Bill C-36 is the way to deal with the problem of terrorism?

I have the same question at the international level. Do you believe that the Americans and the international coalition are reacting effectively and are well on their way toward a potential future resolution of these problems?

[English]

Dr. David Charters: Let me answer that question first.

As I said at the beginning, the military campaign is only part of the solution. I don't think the United States is unjustified in taking some kind of military action. I think they had the right to do so under the United Nations charter, which allows them to take actions in self-defence. As long as those actions are proportionate, discriminate, and directed at preventing further attacks on the United States, they are certainly legally justified under international law.

The problem that I see—and I don't think I'm alone in this—is that even though the scale of American operations in Afghanistan is relatively limited so far, those actions are enough to allow people in the region to feel threatened. The problem is that even the minimum the Americans do is going to upset some people. That's unavoidable. If that was the only thing the Americans and the coalition did, it would get us into a lot of trouble. The fact that our own foreign minister, Tony Blair, American diplomats, and the American Secretary of State are spending a lot of time on the diplomatic front is a good thing, because you have to move on that front as well. The problem is that we're not going to be able to win over the people who are going to be offended no matter what we do.

Is there a long-term solution to this? That's really your bottom-line question. To be honest, I don't think I can give you an answer, because I'm not sure. I wish I could be sure and could say that if we only did this and this, we would find some way to resolve this great dispute. But if it is indeed a clash of civilizations, or at least a clash of cultures, that's much harder to resolve, particularly if elements in those cultures believe the two are not compatible at all, that they cannot live side by side.

I made the point earlier that I don't think a lot of Muslims see the west in those terms, that they do see a modus vivendi as possible. But while we're responding to those who take a more extreme view, we end up doing so at the risk of alienating even those members of the Muslim community who would otherwise side with us.

So, I wish I could say, yes, there is an answer to this.

On the second—

The Chair: Dr. Charters, I'm going to have to cut you off. We can come back to it again later.

At this point, we go to Madame St-Jacques.

[Translation]

Ms. Diane St-Jacques (Shefford, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

This is the first time that I have attended this committee, and I was very impressed by your presentation, which I found very informative and very realistic.

• 1655

In your presentation, you stated:

If the al-Qaeda network was responsible for this attack, its track record suggested that it may take some time before launching another major attack.

I would like your opinion on that. This week, there were rumours that other terrorist attacks might be imminent. It was said that they might even come this week, but nothing has happened until now.

My question also extends to biological attacks using anthrax. Do you believe that same network is responsible for those attacks, or was it a network within the United States which might extend to Canada in the future?

[English]

Dr. David Charters: First, let me say that I think there is a continued risk of attacks, but I don't think we can say for certain that further attacks will occur next week, next month, or next year. It may be possible to know that, but I certainly don't know it. I'm not that well informed. I'm not part of the intelligence collection community. But given what happened on September 11, we should assume some capability exists to do that kind of attack again. It may take a different form. You could see a car bomb going off in Washington, a bomb on a ship in San Francisco, or some kind of attack in London, Paris, or wherever. So, yes, further attacks are possible, but I don't think it's possible for us to know exactly when or where they will occur.

On the question of anthrax, I have been puzzled by the anthrax attacks, because they don't look like the work of al-Qaeda. They might be, but something about them doesn't feel quite right. The past attacks by the bin Laden organization have tended to be fairly direct, open, and spectacular, such as the Khobar Towers bombing, for example, or their involvement with the previous World Trade Center attack. These were large-scale attacks with dramatic effects.

The anthrax attacks look more like something the fellow known as the Unabomber would have done—that is, a sort of a pathological individual. Or they might be by some extreme, right-wing, white supremacist, anti-government group in the States that is capitalizing on the fear created by the September 11 attacks. And another possibility is some kind of apocalyptic cult. So I think there are a number of possibilities.

In some ways, then, this doesn't look like an al-Qaeda attack. The targets are odd. The dispersal method of the anthrax is strange. The attacks are creating fear, but they're not actually affecting very many people.

The Chair: Is that it, Madame St-Jacques?

Ms. Diane St-Jacques: Yes.

[Translation]

The Chair: Mr. Carignan.

Mr. Jean-Guy Carignan (Quebec East, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Charters, I am going to play devil's advocate concerning the strategy used by the terrorists, which you often denigrate by using pejorative language. I will explain.

I am going to refer to three or four parts of your presentation, make a few comments and end with a single question. For example, you said that: “Terrorism is not a new phenomenon.” You also said that the recent incidents were “the cutting edge of a quantum breakthrough” and that terrorism is “one of the preferred ways of warfare for the weak.” The way these things are put seems to me to be pejorative.

Certain commentators have even suggested that the terrorist strategy was actually brilliant. A little further on in your text, you said that they used the means that they had to strike targets that were important to Americans.

During the Second World War, the French used resistance fighters. How many acts of sabotage did they carry out? How did they unnerve the Germans and how did they pave the way for victory? Sabotage has always been a military strategy to prepare the way, just like these terrorists are using the destruction of airplanes.

You say further on that this new terrorist act has “raised the bar” and set a new standard. “If so,” you say, “then all bets are off. There are no limits. Anything is possible.” What difference is there between that strategy and the few privileged nations who have nuclear arms and who can obliterate all the other nations or push them into a corner and keep them living in fear?

A little further on, you say:

Declaring war on terrorism may be good public relations rhetoric, but it carries some potentially unwelcome baggage. First, it grants the terrorists, whoever they may be, greater legitimacy than they deserve—status equal to the soldiers of a State, rather than the criminal actors they really are.

• 1700

In the same paragraph, you state: “To most Westerners, war denotes military battles....”

I come back to my question now. Why is the strategy of these people not a good one, in comparison with what we know and what we do in wars? Is our method the only good one?

You also say that if we learn that other countries have taken part in these attacks alongside the Talibans, we can attack them and have a good conventional war.

In your last paragraph, you say that everything has changed. The way you describe it, it seems very much like sabotage or guerilla warfare, which has always existed as well.

So why is the strategy used by these people weak in comparison with our conventional strategies?

[English]

The Chair: Dr. Charters, I'm going to ask you to respond to that very quickly, because Monsieur Carignan went on for quite some time with his question.

Dr. David Charters: I'll see if I can respond very quickly to all those points.

When I use the term “weak”, I don't intend it to be pejorative. I'm merely attempting to recognize that groups carrying out these kinds of attacks are usually very small and don't normally have power equivalent to that of a state. In relative terms, they are weaker in that sense. They don't have as much power, whether it's military power, economic power, or political power. They are weakened in relation.

Is there a difference in the strategies the major powers exercised, say, with respect to nuclear weapons? You're right, in a sense. In fact, what I say in the paper is that we are seeing the terrorists acquiring capabilities that put them on par with the power of a state. What I'm saying is that terrorism is not new, but the capabilities that terrorists have demonstrated change the relationship and put them up. They actually can now wield power equivalent to some of the weapons of power that are held by a state power.

Why would their strategy be invalid? It's not invalid for them. They see it as the only way in which they can fight. Having said that, we have to recognize that the kinds of things they were doing fall within the jurisdiction of criminal law within the countries in which they carried them out. Also, they violate all of the principles of international law on warfare. There was no formal declaration of war, they are not recognized actors under international law, and they did not wear uniforms. There are a whole range of things that they did not do that are required of armed forces engaged in combat, and their attack could not be described as being discriminate, proportional, or necessary. Under those terms of international law, you would have to say their actions are legally invalid.

That's probably the best answer I can give you.

The Chair: Thank you, Dr. Charters.

Mr. Stoffer, for five minutes.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Sir, have you had an opportunity to read Bill C-36?

Dr. David Charters: I've only just started reading it. I got my copy last week, but I was busy preparing for this. I did not have a chance to read it in any detail at all.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Very good.

I just want to compliment you again on what I think is a very good brief. It's going to go a long way toward helping us in our report, especially when you mention that they use the tools of globalization against us. Our strengths on the economic basis are our weaknesses on the security basis.

I want to give you as much time as you like. What is the most valuable lesson that we, as a western society, can learn not from previous attacks like Air India, the Unabomber, or Timothy McVeigh, but the horrific events on September 11? Everyone's saying the world has changed, and I suspect you're saying the world is going to change, probably in a tighter sort of sense. I'd like to give you an opportunity to tell us what, in your view, is the number one thing we will get out of this at the end of it all.

• 1705

The Cold War with Russia went on for a long time, but communism was finally declared defeated. This particular war—I don't like to use that word; perhaps I should say “battle”—is going to go on for an.... You said terrorism has been going on for two millennia now, and chances are it's going to go on a lot longer. What are we going to get out of this? It's not going to end, so what change is going to happen to Mr. and Mrs. Canadian on Main Street?

Dr. David Charters: I would like to hope that, in due course, we will be able to get back to life as normal. That is possible. Walking through the streets of Ottawa today, you see that most people are doing what they always do. They're going to work, doing their jobs, and whatever. I think that will continue.

Maybe the one thing we have to take away with us from the experience of September 11, though, is a recognition that we can't be complacent about activities going on in other parts of the world, because they can reach out and touch us. They can touch us in ways that bring incredible harm—physical and mental harm to people, and clear damage to economies—so we have to have a degree of awareness that these things can happen. Maybe that changes the way we look at our day-to-day procedures in the sense of being a little bit more security-conscious.

I don't think we should go down the route of living under emergency law all the time. That would defeat the process. Democracies have to remember not only who they're fighting, but what they're actually fighting for. We must never lose sight of that. Terrorists have yet to destroy a democracy, so we must not do their job for them. Terrorism only works when the target responds in the way that the terrorists intend, so we should not respond in a way that simply plays into what the terrorists are trying to achieve.

It wouldn't hurt us to develop a culture of safety and security, though. That is, we must be aware of what's out there in the world that could have some impact on us, particularly if you're involved in some kind of institution—for example, various kinds of critical infrastructures. Some of these take safety and security very seriously, but others don't. We may have to take a higher degree of awareness of safety and security, but I don't think we need to take it to the point at which we're living under emergency law.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Thank you very much.

What a great line that is to hear, folks: “Terrorists have yet to destroy a democracy, so we must not do their job for them.” I think that's fabulous. Another one says you don't protect your civil liberties by abandoning your civil liberties. I suspect you would agree with that.

Dr. David Charters: Absolutely. In fact, I think that was the point Mr. Bachand was trying to get at earlier.

Mr. Claude Bachand: And I'll come back to you on that later.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Mr. Chair, I just want to say that of all the committee meetings we've had so far, this has been the most fascinating.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Stoffer.

Ms. Gallant, for five minutes.

Ms. Cheryl Gallant (Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Before I get started, I would like to ask that I be able to say a few words at the end, before you close the meeting today.

The Chair: We have an established agenda at this point, so I would ask that you put any questions that you have to Dr. Charters.

Ms. Cheryl Gallant: To Dr. Charters, through the chair, we have many vital points in Canada that require protection: nuclear power plants, hydro-electric plants, airports, pipelines, dams, etc. At least in part, this seems to be a job that should have been given to the reserves, but the militia has only 11,000 to 15,000 people. As well, the International Atomic Energy Agency says spent fuel at decommissioned plants also poses a major threat. So how large should the militia be to do the job that's realistically required?

• 1710

Dr. David Charters: First of all, you have to have good threat assessment. If you don't have that, you're forced into a situation in which you feel you have to protect everything. That's unrealistic. Even if we took all the police, all the military, all sorts of volunteers, and whoever, we could never adequately protect every piece of critical infrastructure that is a vital point in this country. You have to have good intelligence collection and good intelligence analysis that together produce a threat assessment that should be able to narrow the range of targets that need to be protected.

Yes, a certain amount of risk management is involved in this. You say that, given the level of threat, this kind of target is more likely to be attacked than that kind is. If you have limited resources—and we all do—you put your resources there. We don't have unlimited resources, so we have to define where the high-risk targets are, and protect those.

Is there a role for the militia? Yes, but bear in mind that you can't call them out and leave them there permanently. Are you going to call out the militia for ten years? I don't know. I don't think you can do that.

You're going to have to find other ways of protecting those sites. That can be through target hardening, so that you don't have to have people there all the time. You can have surveillance cameras and all of those sorts of things. That will perhaps allow you to maintain a watch on certain points without actually having to have people right there, on the spot, as long as you have some means of responding in case of an attack.

Ms. Cheryl Gallant: Thank you.

Are we prepared to confront a major internal threat or disaster to Canada? Do the Canadian Forces have an adequate urban search and rescue capability?

Dr. David Charters: I'm not sure they would be the prime or first responder on that sort of thing. There's no question that we can call the armed forces in to support, but it seems to me that urban search and rescue, as you would describe it, is predominantly the responsibility of fire departments, police departments, and perhaps other emergency services. Can we draw on the armed forces to assist? Certainly. Look at what they did in the ice storm and so on.

Mr. Stan Dromisky: Removing snow in Toronto.

Dr. David Charters: Yes, removing snow in Toronto, and during the Winnipeg floods. It seems to me that we have a body of people who can be drawn upon, yes, but they shouldn't be considered the first responders.

Ms. Cheryl Gallant: Do we have an adequate bioterrorist response capability in the event of an attack, in your opinion?

Dr. David Charters: I'm afraid I'll have to pass on that. I don't feel I know enough about it. I've heard a few reports in the media, but that doesn't tell me enough to make me feel I'm qualified to respond to that question.

Ms. Cheryl Gallant: Thank you, Dr. Charters.

[Translation]

The Chair: Mr. Bachand.

Mr. Claude Bachand: I have here a study by John E. Finn from Wesleyan University, which you no doubt know, Mr. Charters, because he seems to be criticizing your book The Deadly Sin of Terrorism.

I want to come back to my earlier questions. There is a passage in Mr. Finn's study that I find very interesting and that I am going to read to you. Unfortunately, the book is not translated; it is only in English. He says:

[English]

Charters go beyond conventional wisdom, noting that the definition of “success” implicit in it is unduly narrow. If we broaden the term to include forcing the state to adopt a wide array of responses, including changing public attitudes in “favor of less democratic means of government,” or adopting measures that undermine democratic principles..., then certainly terrorism “succeeded” to some extent in each of the countries studied in this volume. This is most obvious in the adoption of antiterrorist laws and policies, that might be judged undemocratic. Here Charters wisely returns to the definitional issues raised early on, noting that many of these policies...were adopted primarily to counteract domestic terrorism.

[Translation]

I asked you a question earlier about Bill C-36, which defines “terrorism” in a very broad way, allows wiretapping with only a minister's signature, authorizes preventive detention, and restricts access to information. Do you not think that if Canada adopts this type of legislation, the terrorists will have won?

[English]

Dr. David Charters: The point I made to one of the other members was that I have not had a chance to read all the way through Bill C-36, so I cannot comment on it in detail.

• 1715

But Finn is right, and I think our book made that point—as did one of our others. The adoption of emergency powers is something democracies should approach with real caution, because they are by their very nature undemocratic. The terrorists achieve some degree of victory if they force us into that.

That said, I don't think bin Laden's concern would be that Canada becomes less democratic in this case. His beef with us is such that he would want to see the destruction of countries like Canada, preferably in a violent way and not by them becoming less democratic.

As a general principle—and it comes back to what I said to Mr. Stoffer—democracies must remember what it is that they are fighting for, and not do the terrorists' work for them. If we do extend our law enforcement or intelligence and surveillance powers, if we increase the length of detentions without charge, etc., all of those measures should be expanded with real care. If we feel we have to do that, then those measures need to be subject to oversight, to appeal procedures, to due process, and ultimately to repeal. We cannot simply leave them on the books forever.

Mr. Claude Bachand: By “repeal”, do you mean sunset clauses?

Dr. David Charters: Yes, I would favour a sunset clause, or at least a clause that says we should look at this legislation again after a given period of time, to decide if we really need it or that it doesn't need to be extended for another year. Britain's Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1989, for example, was subject to limited periods of time. It would come up in the House of Commons and they would have to vote to continue it. I can't remember exactly, but I think it was finally voted out in 1992.

What I'm saying is that any new laws should be used with discrimination, so that they don't stifle legitimate exercises of fundamental rights. This is a very difficult thing to do. We're trying to balance better security with the preservation of our liberties. It's not easy. There's no perfect solution. You're going to err on one side or the other.

The Chair: Thank you, Dr. Charters.

Mr. Stoffer.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Actually, Mr. Chair, I'd like to give my time to you, in case you have any questions that you'd like to ask of our witness.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Stoffer. You're very generous today.

An hon. member: He's always generous.

An hon. member: He has always been like that.

The Chair: Dr. Charters, just to pursue the issue of a foreign intelligence agency a little bit further, you were talking about an independent intelligence capacity. There is some question with respect to the whole issue of the fact that Canada is alone among G-8 countries in not having a foreign intelligence agency. Even some countries as small as Australia, for instance, have both a foreign and domestic intelligence gathering capability. If you would, I would like you to expand a little bit further on your earlier explanations. Also, if you believe it is important to keep foreign and domestic intelligence agencies separate, please tell us why, from the standpoint of contamination with respect to their methods of information gathering. If you have any comments on that, I'd appreciate hearing them.

Dr. David Charters: Let me say first that with reference to the specific problem we're confronting at the moment, intelligence is your first line of defence. If you're going to try to understand the problem of terrorism, if you're going to assess the threat properly, anticipate, and try to prevent activities, or identify, locate, arrest, and prosecute perpetrators, then intelligence is your first weapon.

Having said that, the point I was trying to make earlier is that you not only need a foreign intelligence capability—that is, the ability to collect overseas by more than just open-source information—you also have to have some kind of analysis capability that adds value to the data that you collect. In the short term, if we determine that we have a need for this capability, then we could probably extend the mandate and resources of CSIS on a temporary basis. That could provide a bridge to see us over the gap of time it would take to create a whole new service. This is not the most desirable way to go about it, but if we felt we needed something in the meantime, it probably is the route to go.

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But you're right. You would be taking a risk by creating a domestic and foreign service all in one body, and you would risk blurring the methods used by both. It would have to be monitored very carefully, because the lines between the domestic and the international would be blurred.

Let me say as well that when you're dealing with a problem like the bin Laden problem—if that's what we're up against—indeed, the lines between security intelligence and foreign intelligence are already blurred in a sense, because the enemy has blurred them. You have people operating inside a country and operating across borders. At what point does one service take over and the other get left behind? They have to talk to each other. Even if you have two completely distinct services—a foreign and a domestic—they have to talk. If they don't, the terrorist is going to slip through the gap between them. They have to be able to exchange information even if one is collecting it only externally and the other internally.

The Chair: Very quickly, a lot of us watched with some interest—and in my case, amazement—in terms of the announcement by Premier Harris that he was going to develop an anti-terrorist capability within the OPP. How do you see that in terms of the fact that we have all these agencies already that are perhaps not necessarily sharing information to the extent that they should? Now Ontario is talking of creating yet another capability. The Ontario government obviously is attempting to provide some assistance under the circumstances, but could it end up doing more harm than good?

Dr. David Charters: The more agencies you have playing the game, the more you risk a duplication of effort and of people tripping over each other's operations. There's no question about that. It may provide some value within the province. The police forces have had emergency response teams to deal with barricade situations, as have the RCMP. But yes, you can certainly risk having too many people in the game, which in turn creates a risk of poor coordination.

The Chair: Thank you, Dr. Charters.

Mr. Benoit.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Dr. Charters, I was interested in your comments on the sunset clause and your caution about the cure being worse than the disease when it comes to civil liberties. I know you said you're not that familiar with Bill C-36, but in that legislation, terrorists are targeted based on race and religion. I'm just looking for your comments on that issue before I go on to some other questions.

Dr. David Charters: Again, I don't think I can comment. If I read that portion of the legislation, I must have missed that. I didn't see that part or I didn't get far enough into it, so I had better not offer comment on something I haven't looked at.

Mr. Leon Benoit: We have been bringing up that concern. A terrorist is a terrorist. It doesn't make one any less bad if he or she is a member of a certain group or not a member of a certain group.

Dr. David Charters: I could say you're right, in the sense that anybody who is engaged in these activities, regardless of background, is a legitimate target for investigation. To single out a particular group would probably be a mistake. That said, if members of an identifiable group are engaging in that activity in any significant numbers, you can't ignore the fact that they are engaging in it just because you don't want to offend the group.

Mr. Leon Benoit: That's a different issue, though. That's a matter of...I forget what the term is, but the immigration department does it all the time. They target based on certain profiles, let's say.

Getting back to the issue of special forces and JTF2, I can't understand why there's such a high level of secrecy in Canada in regard to this organization, when the United States has said how many they have in their special forces and how many they've deployed. It's the same thing for the United Kingdom. Even though Australia is sending a very small contingent, they've said they are deploying 150 SAS operatives, with 100 front-line and 50 support troops. Here in Canada, though, we don't know how many are even in JTF2, and we don't know how many are going. We don't even know if we have enough left at home to protect the homeland. Why this level of secrecy in Canada?

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Dr. David Charters: The British first created the Special Air Service in World War II. It was briefly disbanded after the war, but was recreated in Malaya. The SAS has been around for the better part of forty to fifty years. It has had a number of opportunities to have its operations become a matter of public record—and not always favourably to the regiment, I might add. But I think it's simply a question of them being used to it now. There isn't that mystique of secrecy surrounding the SAS.

We haven't gotten there yet, because it's something new. We're probably still trying to figure out how to deal with this kind of unit, because it is unique. I think it's just a question of a learning curve.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Could it be because the force is embarrassingly small for a country like Canada? The number thrown out is 250. That's not much of a special force for a country with the GDP that Canada has.

Dr. David Charters: Bear in mind that the Special Air Service, as a whole regiment, is very small. The SAS is actually not that much bigger than JTF2. I think it has a headquarters and five squadrons, with roughly fifty to sixty people per squadron, plus various sorts of training elements, and so on. I think the figure for the SAS is somewhere in the 350 range. In a sense, then, perhaps ours is not disproportionately small. It sounds like very few people, and it is. But bear in mind that for the kind of mission for which it was established, it's probably all right in terms of its size.

Mr. Leon Benoit: You're talking about the Australian force, are you not?

Dr. David Charters: No, I was talking about the British.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Well, in terms of their special forces altogether, the British have quite a large number.

Dr. David Charters: Yes, because they have the Special Boat Service and so on. But if you look at the raw numbers on those, you'll find they're all pretty small. Do you want to include the Royal Marine Commandos? They could be considered a special force, I suppose, but I would put the SAS and SBS more on the line with JTF2.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Okay.

I would just like to thank you very much for your presentation. It has been fascinating. I also apologize. I don't think we should have to put up with the kind of politics we saw today. Your presentation was held up for 20 to 25 minutes by the government not showing up because they didn't want to face a vote. That's democratic, isn't it, Dr. Charters?

Dr. David Charters: No comment.

The Chair: Mr. Benoit...[Inaudible—Editor].

On behalf of all of the members of the defence committee, Dr. Charters, we really appreciated your thoughts today. I think it was a very stimulating discussion. We had some good questions and some even better answers. Your offerings will help us in terms of the study that we are doing. Thank you very much for being here.

Some hon. members: Hear, hear.

The Chair: I have an announcement in connection with some of the other business of the committee.

A motion has been passed with respect to the subcommittee on veterans affairs. It would be appreciated if the parties could provide lists of the members they would like to have on that subcommittee, because we would like to get the work of that subcommittee going as quickly as possible.

Mrs. Gallant, you had an issue. Could you tell us what that issue is about? We do have an established agenda here. If you tell us what the issue is about, I can put it to the committee in order to determine whether or not they want to deal with it.

Ms. Cheryl Gallant: Sure.

I have been reading with great interest your “Fostering Human Security: A Joint Canada-U.S. Brigade”, and I'm seeking unanimous consent from this committee to have it tabled in Parliament. I have spoken to Mr. Bachand, who has had a chance to look at it in English. He has indicated that he would accept it even though the document is only in English right now.

An hon. member: That sounds great.

Ms. Cheryl Gallant: It was a report prepared in October 2000.

The Chair: A request has been made for unanimous consent. Is there unanimous consent?

An hon. member: No.

Mr. Rob Anders: His work deserves recognition.

An hon. member: It's not ours.

The Chair: We do not have unanimous consent.

The meeting is adjourned.