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]

Tuesday, October 30, 2001

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[English]

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

I'm very pleased to welcome Lieutenant-General George Macdonald, who is here to speak to us on capability-based planning.

Lieutenant-General, you've been before this committee before, so you know the drill. We're pleased to have you back again. You have the floor. I understand your presentation is going to take about twenty minutes.

Lieutenant-General George E.C. Macdonald (Vice-Chief of the Defence Staff, Department of National Defence): That's correct, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much.

With me today are Colonel John Turner and Commodore Dan McNeil, who are both experienced officers in strategic planning and force development at National Defence.

Thank you for the invitation to come before your committee to provide an explanation of the relatively new way of strategic planning underway in the Department of National Defence. As I'm sure you can all appreciate, planning the future of the military and security requirements is a challenging problem in today's complex world. The range of situations in which the Canadian military and defence team might be called upon is very broad indeed.

The events of recent weeks have highlighted the growing threat posed by what we refer to as the asymmetric threat. DND is only one of several government departments with a role in the fight against terrorism. The scale of such tragedies requires that the defence team be prepared to respond appropriately and within a larger national security framework.

My primary role as Vice-Chief of the Defence Staff is to conduct strategic planning and to coordinate resource allocation. This involves addressing the pressures on our defence budget and finding the very best ways in which to invest our resources. It involves prioritization of our modernization programs, and ensuring that we identify the necessary numbers of people to do the tasks that we have to do. It involves ensuring that we set aside enough money to pay for training and operations. Overall, it's a bit of a balancing act to determine the best possible formula to provide the capabilities that we need in the military today.

We have been asked today to speak about capability-based planning. This is a complex area, and it can get fairly involved. Let me say outright that it is simply a reorientation of our planning focus to one of capabilities from one of response to specific threats. We feel this is a more relevant approach in today's environment, and I'd like to give you a sense of what it is. Throughout the presentation, I will refer to the slide package that you have before you, by slide number.

Department of National Defence and Canadian Forces strategic planning is described in its most basic terms at slide 2, entitled “Strategic Planning Definition.” The search for optimal ways to employ the available means or resources to achieve the ends or objectives set by government is shown here. This is a conceptual construct that assists planners in determining how various activities relate to overall corporate objectives and priorities.

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[Translation]

The most important objectives of DND and the Canadian Forces continue to be the defence policy and the defence team mission defined by the government in documents like the 1994 Defence White Paper. Slide 3 also alludes to this fact.

We here at DND have established specific objectives to follow the course set by the government, and we have published these objectives in a document entitled: Shaping the Future of Canadian Defence: A Strategy for 2020.

Strategy 2020 proposes that we use long-term and five-year objectives to help us develop the capabilities we will need to carry out the policy and mission of DND.

[English]

The federal budget determines the means or resources available to the military. Our annual defence plan assigns defence tasks and allocates resources to implement these tasks. Defence tasks include both domestic responsibilities such as search and rescue, critical infrastructure protection and preparedness, and support to other government departments, such as Fisheries and Oceans and the Solicitor General, as well as international commitments, including military forces earmarked to respond to crises involving our NATO and NORAD allies, or in support of UN emergencies. The adoption of what we call capability-based planning and the introduction of capability programs into the defence plan allows strategic planners and external audiences to better link defence spending to defence policy.

Capability programs provide a common, integrated planning framework by establishing five areas encompassing all defence tasks. To ensure that the appropriate types and amounts of military capability are ready when required, we use a capability-based force development process. Force development is defined, at slide 4, as comprising the entire range of considerations associated with creating, maintaining, and adapting military capability, and it is one of the ways in which we connect the means to the ends. Capability-based planning, for its part, is simply a force development methodology.

The development of a capability-based planning approach within National Defence has actually been underway for several years, and it evolved from the more familiar threat-based methodology of the Cold War era. Ironically, while the threats characteristic of the Cold War era were clearly dangerous, they were predictable and, hence, easier to plan for. Today the threats may be equally formidable, but they are less specific and, as a result, very difficult to anticipate. Canadian Forces force developers describe the current strategic planning environment—depicted on slide 5—as volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. This slide shows a comparison of then and now. Given these characteristics, a more flexible force development methodology was clearly required.

Our adoption of capability-based planning was not done in isolation. Indeed, it mirrors developments in the United States. In fact, the Quadrennial Defense Review Report recently published United States and issued in September of this year notes that the U.S. transition to capability-based planning, and describes it well. Specifically, it states that

defense strategy is built around the concept of shifting to a “capabilities-based” approach to defense. That concept reflects the fact that the United States cannot know with confidence what nation, combination of nations, or non-state actor will pose threats to vital U.S. interests or those of U.S. allies and friends decades from now. It is possible, however, to anticipate the capabilities that an adversary might employ to coerce its neighbors, deter the United States from acting in defense of its allies or friends, or directly attack the United States or its deployed forces. A capabilities-based model - one that focuses more on how an adversary might fight than who the adversary might be and where a war might occur - broadens the strategic perspective. It requires identifying capabilities that U.S. military forces will need....

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As indicated at slide 6, capability-based planning provides defence planners with a holistic framework for both establishing and communicating what the Canadian Forces do, what their goals are, and how recommended options or courses of action will achieve stated goals or address gaps. Capability-based planning requires a common understanding of what capability means and how capabilities relate to each other. In its most simple terms, “capability” can be defined as the capacity to act in a specific way to achieve a specific end.

The Department of National Defence and the Canadian Forces report to Parliament on an annual basis in terms of five capability programs. These are shown on the left-hand side of slide 7, and they include command and control; the conduct of operations; the sustainment of forces; the generation of forces; and the provision of corporate policy and strategy.

The five capability programs shown on this slide cover the spectrum of possible defence and security activities that National Defence may have to undertake. They are considered timeless in nature. Each capability is comprised of common capability components. These capability components are also displayed on slide 7, on the right-hand side, and they include personnel; research and development; infrastructure and organization; concepts, doctrine, and collective training; information technology infrastructure; and equipment, supplies, and services.

Determining the optimal allocation of effort and resources to these components and between capabilities in order to achieve corporate goals is the fundamental challenge for strategic leaders and planners.

Each of the five capabilities is supported by a comprehensive list of tasks known as the Canadian joint task list. This list enumerates roughly 450 tasks that are grouped together according to capability. This system offers a means of describing the range of tasks that lies within each capability, no matter what degree of detail is required.

[Translation]

Simply knowing which tasks might be performed within each capability is not enough, however. Strategic planners also need to have an understanding of the types of situations in which DND might be used and how we might be used within each of these situations. To address this issue, we use a series of force planning scenarios, developed within the framework of capability based planning, which are defined at Slide 8.

[English]

The scenarios are described on slide 8. They describe the realistic range of operations from peacetime search and rescue to combat operations, from peace to war. We also work with the concept of employment, which is described on slide 9.

The Canadian joint task list, force planning scenarios, and the concept of employment, in combination, are used to translate government direction into more specific capability goals. The result is a capability goals matrix—illustrated at slide 10—which is used to provide broad direction and to identify the trade-offs or balance of effort and associated risks between different capability programs. The five capability programs are across the top of this slide, against the levels of military activity, from strategic to tactical, on the left.

The matrix allows decisions to be traced back to government direction more readily, and provides the rationale for various departmental initiatives. The H, M, and L on the slide stand for high, medium, and low capability goals. These goals are best distinguished by the level of autonomy required, or the degree to which Canada could assume a leadership role in each of these areas. A high goal suggests that an independent Canadian capability is considered necessary. A medium goal indicates that Canada requires sufficient capability to assume a leadership role in a particular capability area. Those goals designated as low indicate where a certain level of capability is required, but not to the extent that Canada could assume a leadership role amongst alliance or coaliton partners.

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The complexity of the problem associated with determining the right balance between capabilities is very significant. While capability-based planning assists in identifying the critical issues, determining the right balance in building a modern military requires detailed analysis. For example, leaders and planners within the military had identified the potential challenges and threats posed by terrorism long before the events of 11 September of this year. This is not to say anyone anticipated the specific events, but rather that efforts were ongoing to address the many issues associated with a potential terrorist attack. I'd like to elaborate on two specific areas.

The first evidence of efforts to assess the possible implications of a terrorist attack was the incorporation of a terrorist aspect in the force planning scenario dealing with the defence of North America—and for this, I can refer you to slide 8 if you wish, on which we have a defence of Canadian and U.S. territory. This specific scenario, first developed in 1997, posits a possible threat from state-sponsored terrorism and provides a conceptual framework against which specific force structures and military capabilities can be evaluated.

The second example follows from the asymmetric threat study initiated in DND in 1999. This study was broken into four phases because of its complexity, and it is still ongoing. As part of its review, the asymmetric threat study employed the force planning scenarios to scope the challenge of responding to a terrorist threat, and identified 26 significant initiatives to improve our capability to respond to terrorism. The final phase of this study, which has now assumed greater urgency, is to determine which of these initiatives should be developed, and to what extent.

There are many other ongoing initiatives designed to improve the way in which National Defence builds military capability for the future, including an aggressive effort to harness web-based information technologies to accelerate the planning involved in delivering major components of capability. Our capabilities initiative database is just one example in this regard. This database is still in the process of being populated, but it ultimately will provide strategic leaders and planners with desktop access to every major initiative in the department. Initiatives are grouped by capability, and they are formatted to demonstrate links to the capability goal and specific task to which they contribute. Clearly, this is a powerful tool, as it provides immediate insight into the degree to which we are pursuing capability goals and/or addressing gaps.

In summary, as noted at slide 11, capability-based planning is based on a conceptually sound and internationally accepted analytical framework. Overall, it is an attempt to focus on the capabilities we feel we need, and in a balanced way. Capability goals are derived from government policy. By detailed analysis of key capability goals and existing deficiencies, we can use capability-based planning to make reasoned choices for the future. We can't predict all scenarios or threats, but we can anticipate a potential range and be prepared to respond flexibly and effectively. At the end of the day, the risk of not delivering the requisite capability at the right time and place is a failure in operations.

I'll end my formal presentation here by quoting part of a report prepared almost exactly a year ago by the Office of the Auditor General, reflecting departmental progress with respect to the capability-based planning process. Specifically, in October 2000, the Office of the Auditor General observed:

The Department has taken steps to improve its processes for capital equipment planning and budgeting. These steps substantially address our recommendations and those of the Public Accounts Committee that the Department complete its force employment scenarios, force development framework and strategic assessments.... This framework is based on a “Canadian Joint Task List”.... It also provides explicit links back to policy goals.

Indeed, we're confident that capability-based planning will be a powerful tool to provide rigour to our options analyses and resource allocation. We have at hand the ability to trace resource decisions to a specific capability and to understand their relative impacts. With this short, intense description of the process, I'm only able to give you an idea of how it works. The key message here, however, should be that we do have a considerable amount of carefully developed rigour and logic behind our resource decisions.

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With that, we would be pleased to take your questions on capability-based planning or on any other issues that you wish to address.

The Chair: Thank you very much for that detailed presentation, General Macdonald. I'm sure we're going to have lots of questions from the committee members.

We'll start with Mr. Benoit, for seven minutes.

Mr. Leon Benoit (Lakeland, Canadian Alliance): Good afternoon, gentlemen. It's good to see you here this afternoon.

General Macdonald, just toward the end of your presentation, you said, “Capability goals are derived from government policy”, yet when I look at this matrix on page 10, it doesn't seem to match up at all with government policy as laid out in the 1994 white paper. In many areas, it seems at odds with government policy as it was laid out in the 1994 white paper. If you could, just explain how the capability goals were derived from government policy.

LGen George Macdonald: That could be a very complex question, but I'll try to address it as best I can.

If you take, for example, the top left-hand corner of the capability goals matrix, in the row called “Military Strategic”, under the column “Command & Control”, one of the things the policy of Canada has stated is that Canada's military must have the independent capability to determine where and when the Canadian Forces can best be committed to achieve government objectives. That's an example of where we've drawn from the policy and directly into a capability goals matrix item.

If you take the next subcolumn, “Info & Intel”, one of the policy statements is:

The policy and intelligence capabilities of the Department and the Canadian Forces will ensure that the Government has access to independent Canadian advice as the basis for sound decisions.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Okay, but let's look at the matrix under “Conduct Operations”. “Mobility” is the middle subcolumn. If you then go to the row labelled “Operational (Int'l)”, then under the 1994 white paper, we're supposed to be able to deploy a full brigade overseas, as well as support. Maybe you could explain how this works, because you have that as a low priority or as a low capability on this matrix. How do those two jibe?

LGen George Macdonald: As I indicated in my presentation, the H, M, and L are the degrees to which Canada would assume a leadership role in each of these areas. If you take the policy itself from a broad, strategic perspective, and you reduce it to the capability components that we have here, against the various strategic, tactical, or operational levels, then we can draw to each one of those a requirement that we can identify. By an H, M, or L, we've allocated a degree of leadership that Canadians would be involved in.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Okay, I understand.

Turning to our forces to sustain our current involvement overseas—we have about 2,000 men and women overseas in various types of NATO and UN operations—and the new deployment of about 2,000 men, women, and equipment, in terms of being able to sustain that and putting out another rotation or rotations to carry out those commitments for another two years, I would like your comments, General, on whether or not you think Canada can in fact do that. If we're asked to sustain these current commitments, without adding any new ground forces—something the Prime Minister and the defence minister have both referred to—how are we going to carry out and maintain those current commitments, even for two years?

LGen George Macdonald: If I go back to where the defence white paper talks about the commitments the Canadian Forces are responsible for carrying out, one of the items identified in the white paper is a vanguard force of about 4,000 personnel. If you look at the current situation, we have about 1,650 personnel deployed to Bosnia, we're about to deploy the 2,000 you mentioned, and we have about another 300 located at other UN and NATO missions. That comes out to about 4,000 personnel. One of the commitments that we have, and one of our fundamental responsibilities within the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Forces, is to sustain that level of commitment deployed on operations.

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When the white paper was written, it was anticipated that these people would be deployed in bulk to one area. That's clearly not the case in the current circumstances. In fact, that has not been the case since the white paper was written, given the eventualities of having various operations globally located and the need to deploy bits and pieces of that 4,000-person commitment to different areas.

Mr. Leon Benoit: Are we going to be able to meet those white paper commitments and sustain these commitments? As I understood it, the commitment would be larger than 4,000. I read the white paper as saying to look at a commitment of something more like 6,000 to 7,000.

LGen George Macdonald: As I was saying, the vanguard force is a 4,000-person commitment, and the requirement is for us to sustain it indefinitely. Even though we have had to make adjustments to our capabilities to address the support requirements for commitments in more than one area, we have made those adjustments, and we feel we have the capability to continue to sustain the commitments you have addressed—those that we have in the field now, and those being deployed for what we call Operation Apollo to support the campaign against terrorism. We will be able to sustain that.

Mr. Leon Benoit: What about support for those groups? Again, it seems like this is a different commitment from what was in the white paper. In the white paper, it mentions a brigade and support, which would lead to numbers between 6,000 and 7,000.

LGen George Macdonald: Again, the white paper refers to a vanguard group of 4,000. The requirements that are different relate to the capabilities that we have. In my presentation, I indicated that we've gone from a threat-based to a capability-based planning module. The capabilities that we have to support operations have been adjusted over the years since the white paper was written, to ensure that we can respond to forces in various locations. The support for those things—the logistics support, the maintenance of the support of the equipment itself, providing the spares, rotating the people, and so on—is a significant challenge, but that's what we have essentially been doing in the Balkans, for example, since the early 1990s.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Benoit.

Mr. Bachand.

[Translation]

Mr. Claude Bachand (Saint-Jean, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would first like to extend my greetings to General Macdonald whom I met in NORAD last year. I can testify, after that visit, that General Macdonald did excellent command work because, to me big surprise, Cheyenne Mountain, where the NORAD headquarters is located, is a shared command and the General took us on an excellent visit of the mountain. I could see that he had many responsibilities at the time, and I wanted to congratulate him.

He has now been promoted in the military. He is now Vice-Chief of the Defence Staff, which means that if our Chief of Defence Staff were to be ill, or to have some problem or disappear, he would be in charge of our Forces.

However, I have to tell you, General, that I am somewhat unimpressed by the type of presentation which you just made today. I can understand that the international situation has changed and that we used to be able to identify potential foes which were a direct threat for us. As the events on September 11 showed, everything has changed now. We are no longer able to identify potential attackers. We have to deal with a sort of unpredictable scenario, and it is not easy.

As far as I am concerned, crumbling under documents and looking at the capability goals matrix... This could be my first question. Is this capability goals matrix based on the 1994 policy, and is this matrix determined by you, the military?

You are the ones who draw this matrix and say that with 58,000 people in the Canadian Forces, with all your equipment, some of which is quite obsolete, especially the Sea Kings, this is the matrix that will guide your actions and which you will be focussing on in dealing with a context of unexpected events. Am I wrong in this assumption, General?

[English]

LGen George Macdonald: First of all, Monsieur Bachand, thank you for your comments about your visit to Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs. We have been very pleased to host members of SCONDVA there on more than one occasion, and we always welcome the opportunity for the committee members to visit any part of our Canadian Forces. It is only by going out to see the operations and the people in the field that you can get a truly wholesome or holistic appreciation for some of the professionalism and dedication of each and every one of our members.

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You're quite right in saying as well that the international situation has changed dramatically since the white paper was written in 1994. In the 1990s, I don't think we had any expectation that we would have deployed to as many missions as we have, and to as many different areas as we have. Recognizing that we were fairly static during the Cold War, it was a dramatic change for all militaries in the west to accept the need to deploy—in small numbers in some cases, and in larger numbers in others—to as many missions as we have.

The capability goals matrix does very adequately address the issue that you raise. This is not a capability goals matrix that is based in 1994. This is a living document, if you will. It's one that changes regularly in the identification of the tasks that we assign to each of these capability components, and it is one that allows us to keep up to speed with the times. It allows us to develop a capabilities matrix and to assess our capabilities and our resource allocation in a way that is topical for today's military.

Putting aside the white paper of 1994, and even today's situation, our job in the Canadian Forces and the Department of National Defence is to address today's situation, but to also look to the future. Our job is to do strategic planning and to define the projects and the requirements that we will have in the next ten and fifteen years. Our focus is therefore not even on today's situation, it's on the ten- or fifteen-year time period in the future, in order to meet the demands of the Canadian government in providing the defences and security for Canadians that are in our mandate.

[Translation]

Mr. Claude Bachand: Mr. Macdonald, my present concern, which is also a concern shared by many Quebeckers and Canadians, is with the domestic security of Canada and Quebec. I have already put this question to the Chief of Staff. With 58,000 members and sometimes obsolete equipment, I believe that we are stretching the capacities of the Army as well as the Navy or the Air Force very thin.

We have rising demands within NORAD, we have peacekeeping missions, we have 2,000 people out there on peacekeeping missions, we have Operation Apollo, we are already sending 2,000 members of the Forces and some ships, we have ongoing training, and we are adding to that a series of other responsibilities which will now be assumed by the Canadian Army, including the protection of essential infrastructures, here, in Quebec and in Canada. And the terrorist threat keeps growing. In fact, the Attorney General of the United States mentioned it yesterday.

As our forces are extremely stretched at this moment, if there were a terrorist attack on Canada and if there were attacks on the basic infrastructure of Canada, would we have the capabilities, according to this matrix, to support the Canadian people and infrastructures?

[English]

LGen George Macdonald: The requirements for us to deploy to the operations that we've discussed are being met, and we feel we can sustain those. But clearly, as you have identified, that brings to mind whether or not our capabilities domestically are adequate. There are several parts to the answer.

Generally, we have to accept and understand that national security for Canada and Canadians is not strictly a National Defence responsibility. For the kinds of terrorist acts that we're talking about, of course, the RCMP, Customs, and Immigration participate, and the intelligence community participates. First responders in various municipalities and communities across Canada have direct responsibilities in this area as well. While we have the capability to assist them, to be called out to assist in a crisis, to protect vital points, as you suggest, we can certainly do that using our regular forces or our reserves. But that's only part of our overall capability, and that kind of task is embedded in this capability goals matrix to which I referred.

You should not forget the NORAD contribution that we are making, too. Ever since 11 September, we have had an augmented—or “robusted”, as the Americans would say—NORAD contribution that is much more broadly sweeping than it was prior to 11 September. We are providing that aerospace defence on a continuing basis as we speak, and we are able to sustain that as well.

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The Chair: Thank you, General Macdonald.

Mr. Wood.

Mr. Bob Wood (Nipissing, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Speaking of NORAD, General, in an article you published about a year ago this past summer, you talked about the future of NORAD in relation to the American national missile defence program. You talked in that article about a rogue country such as North Korea nearing strategic reach in the missile aspect. With so much attention now focused on Afghanistan, do you think a rogue country might try to take advantage of the situation and launch an attack?

LGen George Macdonald: The article you refer to, of course, relates to the ballistic missile defence project that the United States has. They have not yet decided to field that system, and they have not specifically asked Canada to participate in it, of course. We're not sure exactly where it will end up.

Certainly, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction has been a concern for a number of years, and North Korea has been clearly identified as the country closest to developing a long-range ballistic missile threat. There are limitations to what progress they can make, or to how quickly they can make progress in developing that technology. They will probably continue to try to find that capability, but I don't personally think the threat from ballistic missiles from North Korea will be dramatically different in the current circumstances from it was projected to have been beforehand.

Mr. Bob Wood: In that article, you also talked about, as you say, the ballistic missile threat during the next fifteen years. The U.S., and possibly Canada, would likely face some threats from Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, and Iraq. As a military man who has been there a number of years, were you surprised that the Taliban led the September 11 attack?

LGen George Macdonald: Most of us were surprised at what happened on 11 September. We have always talked about the asymmetric threat being a ballistic missile, a cruise missile, or a bomb in a suitcase somewhere. I don't think we contemplated the horror of having an airliner full of passengers and flown by suicide pilots actually crashing into a large building and causing the havoc and the horrors that followed thereafter. Generally, I think the intelligence communities and the citizens of the world were surprised by that particular attack.

Even though we didn't specifically predict that event, we have certainly projected asymmetric threats and the need to deal with them for a number of years. That's something we had before 11 September here in Canada. The Canadian Forces and the Department of National Defence paid considerable attention to them, as we are doing now, of course.

Mr. Bob Wood: Do you think this non-traditional attack method is an indication of how future wars may be fought?

LGen George Macdonald: Certainly the effects that the terrorist organization achieved through the attack have been fairly dramatic. Whether they're sustained or not, and whether we are the victims of further attacks, remains only to be seen.

We in the world of the 21st century have to recognize that the opportunities presented to terrorists or state-sponsored organizations that mean us ill will will probably be sought more and more often. I think that was predictable, and the asymmetric aspect of the threat could be realized more frequently in the future than it was in the past, unfortunately.

Mr. Bob Wood: Will this leave a greater role for NORAD to play? It's already playing a fairly high, significant role now, but it this something in which it would obviously play a more significant role?

LGen George Macdonald: Potentially, but we have to remind ourselves that NORAD is for the protection of aerospace defence. Only a limited number of threats truly come from the air. The airliners crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, of course, were one of those threats. A cruise missile attack could be another, where a country develops a capability to launch from a ship, for example, a cruise missile that may carry a high explosive or a weapon of mass destruction. Those are clearly within the mandate of North American Aerospace Defence Command.

Mr. Bob Wood: You also monitor every aircraft that comes into Canadian airspace, don't you? Can that be expanded in any way to find out if there is a threat? If this is the way they do it, some of those aircraft could be leaving Europe. We could be tracking one and not even really know it.

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LGen George Macdonald: The challenge here, of course—and think it has been fairly clearly identified by other government departments—is a matter of security for the people and materiel aboard those aircraft. If we have proper screening procedures so that people don't have weapons or explosives aboard the aircraft, that's one thing. If air marshals are on the aircraft, that's another thing. In some areas, of course, there are air marshals.

It's difficult for us in NORAD to identify a hostile aircraft other than through the transmissions made by the pilots aboard the aircraft or through their use of their transponders to signal that they have in fact been highjacked or have some sort of an emergency. At that time, of course, NORAD forces are prepared to do whatever is necessary to protect the citizens of Canada and the United States.

Mr. Bob Wood: I want you to elaborate on something you talk about in your brief. You talk about the Canadian joint task list and five capabilities, and you say, “This list enumerates roughly 450 tasks which are grouped together according to capability.” This seems like a lot of tasks for the five.... How do you separate them out? Or do you?

Colonel John Turner (Director, Defence Analysis, Department of National Defence): Actually, the joint task list was based in large part on similar lists developed in both the United States and the U.K., which both have similar numbers of tasks. It's actually quite easy to distinguish the tasks by the capability to which they contribute.

The beauty of it is that when a new project comes in and is looking for resource allocation, the project champion must indicate the tasks toward which that particular project is going to be able to contribute. As that project gets rolled up into the capability goal, we can see if it's a high-priority goal or we can assess what the current deficiency is, and the senior leadership can then make more intelligent decisions as to whether or not they should allocate resources toward it.

Mr. Bob Wood: How long does that take to do?

Col John Turner: That doesn't take very long at all, because the tasks are fairly specific and the project management staffs are well aware of the task list. When they bring forward their task, they cross-reference it to the various tasks under the various capabilities, and they can indicate that a particular project might contribute to the execution of fifty or sixty tasks and three or four different capability areas. Of course, the more multi-purpose these projects are, the more value the taxpayers get for their dollar.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Wood.

Mr. Stoffer.

Mr. Peter Stoffer (Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, gentlemen, for your presentation.

Sir, how many regular troops do the armed forces have now? What's our regular strength right now, within about 500?

LGen George Macdonald: The current strength of the Canadian Forces right now is about 59,000 people.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: It's 59,000.

LGen George Macdonald: That's regular force people.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: The 1994 white paper said we were to have 60,000 in 1999.

LGen George Macdonald: Approximately 60,000.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: I mention that because on page 2 of your brief, under “Strategic planning”, you say:

The most important objectives of DND and the Canadian Forces continue to be the defence policy and defence team mission defined by the government in documents like the 1994 Defence White Paper.

And you even stated yourself that the 1994 white paper didn't anticipate our troops being in so many arenas at the same time.

But I refer to the 1994 white paper again. When Minister Collenette was then Minister of National Defence, he said:

There is an urgent need for robust and capable new shipborne helicopters. The Sea Kings are rapidly approaching the end of their operational life. Work will, therefore, begin immediately to identify options and plans to put into service new affordable replacement helicopters by the end of the decade.

We have three clear examples in which the 1994 white paper arguably is out of date with today's reality. Would you not agree it's time to either revisit the 1994 white paper or to introduce a new white paper that meets today's reality?

LGen George Macdonald: Clearly, the fundamental missions that the white paper assigns to the Canadian Forces remain valid. The defence of Canada and Canadian interests is clearly our primary mission. Cooperation with the United States and other allies in the defence of North America is a clear mission. The projection of our capabilities internationally in cooperating with coalitions or UN missions is our third mission. Those fundamental things are equally as valid today as they were in 1994, or indeed in 1974. Those are enduring missions that will continue.

• 1615

Having said that, circumstances have clearly been changing as a result of the changing world order since the end of the Cold War. The examples that we have of deploying forces to the Balkans while deploying them to Ethiopia and Eritrea at the same time are some kinds of things that were unanticipated when the 1994 white paper was written. The challenge that's presented to us is to ensure that the capabilities we provide are equally balanced in the ways in which we assign our resources, and that they meet the topical demands and future demands required by the citizens and the Government of Canada. Perhaps the most difficult job that we have in the jobs we do here is to find the balance between the equipment and personnel and the level of activities that we have.

Let me use a fire hall analogy. If you buy a nice, new fire hall, but you don't have enough money to spend on anything else to conduct firefighting, then you have obviously misapportioned your money. If you can buy the fire hall and the fire engines, then you may have some capability, but without spending the money on the people and on training and equipping them, you're not going to be able to go to a fire. Ultimately, if you don't have the gasoline to run the fire trucks, the fire retardant materials, and so on, you can't actually fight a fire. The challenge is to make sure you spend your money in an appropriate way in order to support the infrastructure, the equipment, the people, and the training in the activities that they perform. That's our challenge today.

The white paper said we would have about 60,000 people in the military. We have about 60,000 people in the military today. Whether or not that's the right number for the future remains to be seen. Some adjustments will obviously be needed, because we don't want to pay for more people than we can afford to equip or can train. We don't want to have equipment that is so modernized with high technology that we don't have the people to operate it. Finding that balance is always the challenge for us.

So we feel that, fundamentally, we're still responding to the main tenets of the 1994 white paper, and we're looking toward the future to make sure we can be flexible for the future.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Thank you.

Sir, yesterday the head of the CSE was before us. Although no one has really indicated how much money they would like to have in an increased budget—I'm sure every department, no matter who you speak to and regardless of the committee, would like to see more resources in their budget—he clearly stated the CSE needs more money to do its job effectively in intelligence gathering. Obviously, that person eventually reports to DND, and his report eventually would land on your desk, I would imagine.

If I may ask a fairly direct question, General, how much...? The budget's coming up on December 4, if I'm not mistaken. Obviously, the military will be in line for some increased funding, hopefully. How much are you suggesting to the minister that he should apply for or at least try to get in order to meet the demands we face today? Is it possible to put a dollar figure on that?

LGen George Macdonald: It's very difficult to do that. Clearly, we would like to see an increase in our defence budget.

I should clarify the relationship between the Canadian Forces and the Communications Security Establishment. While it's part of the portfolio of the Minister of National Defence and the resources come from the National Defence budget, CSE is kind of off to the side, dealing with the minister. We don't deal with them directly from the point of view of resourcing.

The funding pressures that we have, as I said, are dealt with in the balancing of resources between people, equipment, and activity levels, and using tools like our capability goals matrix, the task list that we have, and so on. We must continue to ensure that we provide the best possible value for the defence dollar.

It's not just about money. It's about meeting the requirements in a changing world, such as addressing the recent resurgence in the recognition of an asymmetric threat, for example. We have identified a number of initiatives that we could undertake to address more specifically the asymmetric threat, and we put a dollar figure beside some of those initiatives. Eventually, we will put these together in a package for the consideration of the minister and the government, in order for them to determine whether or not they would like to pursue those. But we also have to ensure that we continue to look to the future and identify the anticipated capabilities that we will need, and then the requisite resources that go with those capabilities.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: So you have no precise figure at this time, is that correct?

LGen George Macdonald: It would be very difficult for me to identify a specific figure right now that would be useful to you.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Okay.

My last question for you, sir—

The Chair: Actually, your time has expired, Mr. Stoffer.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: I'll get to it in the next round.

The Chair: Mrs. Wayne.

Mrs. Elsie Wayne (Saint John, PC/DR): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

• 1620

On page two of your presentation, you refer to a document called Shaping the Future of Canadian Defence: A Strategy for 2020, and you state:

Strategy 2020 proposes that we use long-term and five-year objectives to help us develop the capabilities we will need to carry out the policy and mission of DND.

In view of what happened on September 11, I would assume your strategy for 2020 is one now...you have to have an immediate strategy to meet the needs of our armed forces not only to protect Canada and the people in Canada, but also to play the major roles that have to be played, such as is being requested of our forces with regard to Afghanistan.

I have major concerns—I'm sure you're aware of them—when it comes to sending Sea Kings over on our frigates. We need to have the new helicopters, and they really should have been in place before this. There's no question about that.

I am concerned that we do not have a national shipbuilding policy in Canada. We continue to build the ships for our people, for our navy, on a rotation basis, not that you.... In Saint John, we did have a contract for eight or nine frigates all at one time, and we both know they'll all have to be refurbished at the same time. If you rotate things, that doesn't happen.

I'm wondering just where you are with regard to putting forth a program to get our government.... Because of what happened on September 11, our government now sees the need for you to have more money, for you to have more resources. That's going to be dealt with in December.

I see one of our retired colonels is here with us today, and from the proposal that the CDA brought forward—Caught in the Middle—you know they have major concerns. They're not trying to be negative, they're trying to be helpful, and that's what we're here for as well. Everybody on both sides of this table is here because we have concerns about you and about the rest of the people who wear those uniforms. We also have concerns for the people here in Canada right now, in view of what came up today in regard to the situation in Toronto, and in view of the fact that in 1999, we had already apparently been told by CSIS that we have 350 terrorist groups in Canada. So we have major concerns here, too.

The strategy was for 2020. Is that still what you're looking at? Is the strategy still for 2020, or are you now looking at a new strategy? You have from now until some time in December to come forth with a strategy to give to the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance, and the rest of us, to show us that you need more money and you need it right now, that you have to have the resources to do your job.

LGen George Macdonald: Thank you very much for your comments, Mrs. Wayne.

Shaping the Future of Canadian Defence: A Strategy for 2020 is a document that we produced internally to help to provide internal guidance to the application of defence policy and how we do it. Clearly, it's directed toward the longer-term future in terms of how we will maintain our capabilities, how we will evolve our capabilities, to meet the fundamental defence mandate that we have.

Before and since 11 September, we have focused on asymmetric threat issues in some areas. Since 11 September, as all departments in Canada and elsewhere have done, we have identified some initiatives in which we could assist further, in which we could use our existing capabilities or enhance them to provide a contribution to the national security of Canadians in Canada. You've heard of some of these initiatives.

The capabilities of the Joint Nuclear Biological and Chemical Response Team augmentation could be expanded, and we could deploy it to more than just one place in Canada. The Disaster Assistance Response Team could be augmented or expanded to deal with domestic disasters in a more timely or robust way. The idea of increasing our intelligence gathering and cooperation capability with the United States and our allies is something we have already done and continue to do. The NORAD contribution that we have for defending Canada is also something we have augmented since 11 September. In addition to those, we have proposals like increasing the capacity of Joint Task Force 2, for example, to provide an additional capability for counter-terrorism.

• 1625

We have developed a number of initiatives, a number of ways in which we could enhance our current capability, and we are putting them into a package for consideration by the minister and government. We have some cost figures assigned to each initiative, but it will be for the government to decide whether or not they ultimately choose for us to implement those and increase our budget to accommodate them.

We have to make sure the longer-term planning is not inappropriately skewed by shorter-term concerns, as well. We must maintain our fundamental traditional capabilities, as well as providing a contribution to national security issues. We're working on both of those in a two-track way, if you wish.

Mrs. Elsie Wayne: I asked a question in the House today that had to do with our reserves. In my question to the minister, I asked that our reserves be guaranteed that they would be paid. According to the report we had, if they were called to duty because of what's happening with our peacekeepers—who we hear are pretty well burnt out right now and have been away from their families for a long period of time.... In view of September 11, there will perhaps be more work for our peacekeepers. We'd like to see our reservists given a guarantee that they will still be able to pay their mortgages, feed their families, clothe their children, educate their children, and so on. That is not the case, although the reply I got from the minister was that some businesses do pay.

When I was mayor of Saint John, if someone applied for a job in Saint John, New Brunswick, and they were part of the reserves, they'd be number one because of the training that they get. I found they were excellent employees. We did pay them, but not everybody did. About half of them were paid, and the other half were not. That's the way it was.

I feel very strongly that we have to find some kind of a program whereby their pay will be guaranteed. Other countries guarantee it. Other countries make sure that if the reserves are called up, they are going to have a paycheque. There's no hesitation. So I'm wondering—

The Chair: Mrs. Wayne, perhaps General Macdonald could respond to those comments on the next round. You're well over your time with that.

Mrs. Elsie Wayne: I'm well over? I'm sorry. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

LGen George Macdonald: Mr. Chairman, excuse me, please, but I wonder if I could just clarify if Mrs. Wayne's concern about the reservists being paid is in fact about making up the difference between an employer's salary and the salary that a reservist receives. Reservists do get paid. It's just the difference between—

Mrs. Elsie Wayne: Yes, it's the difference between the two.

The Chair: Mr. Anders, for five minutes.

Mr. Rob Anders (Calgary West, Canadian Alliance): General Macdonald, like Mr. Bachand, I'd like to once again thank you for the tour you gave us at Cheyenne Mountain. It was wonderful. I know some others on the committee who attended, such as Mr. Wood, etc.

I have three questions for you.

First, how many combat-ready CF-18 pilots do we have?

Second, how many forward-looking infrared targeting systems do we have? I understand we had thirteen two years ago, at the time of Kosovo, so I'm wondering where that number stands today.

Third, in the future, we will need to replace the CF-18s, of course. I'm going to run three scenarios past you and ask you which one is the best. The first is to spend money on upgrading the CF-18s. The second is to go ahead and purchase joint strike fighters at a cost of around $30-million each—and the big news in the last little while, of course, has been the awarding of that contract. And the third is whether or not the faster-flying, more sophisticated Lockheed F-22 Raptor would be a possible replacement.

Those are my three questions, and on the third one I'd like you to tell us what your thoughts are on what the best choice is.

• 1630

LGen George Macdonald: I can't tell you right now the number of combat ready CF-18 pilots we have. It fluctuates regularly. We do have enough to fill our defence mission right now, and we will maintain a level necessary to ensure that we can do that.

Similarly, I don't know specifically the number of forward-looking infrared systems that we have, but I suspect it's a number similar to the thirteen you identified.

I believe you had previously asked a question regarding these FLIR systems and the fact that we had borrowed some from the Australians when we were engaged in the Kosovo conflict. Those are systems that enable a CF-18 pilot to properly identify targets and use his precision-guided munitions against them. The fact that we borrowed them from an ally like the Australians is not unusual at all. We have an arrangement between the U.K., Canada, the Americans, the Australians, and in some cases the New Zealanders, to share military equipment from time to time. We borrow and lend various pieces of equipment back and forth, and this was simply an extension of that agreement, albeit used in combat in this particular case.

With regard to your question about the future of the CF-18, we first procured the CF-18s in 1982, and we have done considerable work to establish the repair scheme and the maintenance required to fly them for about 6,000 flying hours, which is considerably more than they were originally intended to fly. We feel confident we can maintain the aircraft for that length of flying time, and that equates to an eventual phase-out year of 2015 for the CF-18.

Based on that information and the capabilities for which we use the CF-18, we have come to the conclusion that an upgrade program is clearly the best choice for us. In fact, an upgrade program is underway to enhance the radar and the avionics capabilities of the CF-18 to allow us to continue to use it advantageously for the next fifteen years or so.

The joint strike fighter that was recently announced by the United States could well be something we will want to procure, but I would suggest it as a probable or possible replacement for the CF-18, not something we would undertake to do in the near term. Even though you cite the cost as being $30 million each, when you start to undertake the procurement of the necessary support equipment, the infrastructure, the software, the training, and everything else, it's invariably much more than just the number of airplanes times their unit cost.

While it's a wonderful aircraft with stealth capabilities and supersonic cruise capabilities, the F-22 Raptor is not something for which we have a specific capability requirement. Yes, militaries would like to have the very best and the very leading-edge capability in some certain areas. But when you talk about balancing the people, the equipment, the training, and the activity levels, we can't afford—nor can we really justify—an aircraft like the F-22 Raptor.

The Chair: Thank you, General Macdonald.

[Translation]

Mr. Bachand.

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

Looking at this capability goals matrix, I understand that the levels go from high to low, including medium, of course. But I would like to hear a little bit about "interoperability" or complementarity. There seems to be a slight distinction here. "Interoperability" refers to our capability to operate in conjunction with another group, as our Navy does on a regular basis with the US Army, I believe.

But there is also the issue of complementarity. I know that there are agreements among various European countries under which some of those countries specialize in a specific area and ask their neighbour to provide a complement.

I find your fire hall analogy very appropriate, but I would like to push it a little further. Sometimes, if a community cannot afford to buy the fire hall and the fire engines, and the firemen, and the gasoline, the mayor and his councillors may meet with the people in the neighbouring city and say: We are going to take care of the fire hall, and in return you might look after the fire engines expenses. Then they would turn to another community to provide the firefighters, and they will all pool their resources to pay for the gasoline. But sometimes also, the mayor of a city may not want to accept the deal because he is afraid that his city will loose its sovereignty. He wants to have a whole fire hall.

I for one believe that it is impossible for us to cover everything, considering the people and the equipment that we have in the military.

• 1635

What I would like to know is this: in order to raise our involvement capability to “H”, does the Canadian Army consider dropping some “Ms” and replacing them by “Ls”, and asking the Americans, whose military budget is anyway twice as big as all the military budgets of all countries on the earth, if we could have an arrangement. We would for instance deal with peacekeeping missions, focussing on the army—and I know I may disappoint you, General, because I know that you are a great airman—, and regarding the air space, we would retain some responsibilities, based on our responsibilities within NORAD, but with respect to the Navy—and I do not wish to hurt the feelings of the Commander on your right either—, we would somehow reduce our commitments in order to focus on what we could do and what they could do for us. But I know that Mr. Mayor, that the Prime Minister, has some concerns about his sovereignty if he goes that way. Is that a workable approach in your opinion?

[English]

LGen George Macdonald: Mr. Bachand, those are excellent points, and you have quite capably enunciated some of our main principles of operation. It is critical for us to be interoperable with the forces with whom we participate, especially given today's modern technology. We do not anticipate that the Canadian Forces will undertake a large mission, an international mission, on their own. We will always be with our allies, as we are currently in the campaign against terrorism, so it is critical for us to be able to be interoperable with them.

The best example right now is the Canadian task force currently sailing to join its American counterparts in the Arabian Sea. We have demonstrated repeatedly that Canadian frigates and other ships can join American task forces and be totally interoperable with them. If you take a U.S. task group and apply a Canadian ship to it, an American ship can actually be removed and contact is the same. If they apply another country's ship, they won't necessarily be able to do that. We are totally interoperable. We have demonstrated that on both the east and west coasts, and we will during this Operation Apollo. So that's critical to us.

The term that you used, “complementarity”, where we share responsibilities, is also a fundamental principle that we have. If you refer to the NORAD visit that you had, clearly we both provide some radars within NORAD and we both provide some fighters, but the Americans provide the airborne warning and control system aircraft from Oklahoma City, for example, and they cover all of North America when the need arises—and those are the large aircraft with the radar domes on top, and they are used for surveillance and command and control. The Americans provide the Cheyenne Mountain complex that you visited, and they provide some space-based capabilities. We provide some of the maintenance for the northern tier of radars that we use in Canada. We provide the maintenance and sustainment of the forward operating locations in Canada that could be used by Americans and Canadians. So we already share the capabilities in many cases.

In the Canadian Forces, we certainly do not aspire to having all the capabilities that are possible. We do not have any sophisticated reconnaissance aircraft that can be used over land to detect the movements of army columns or movements on the ground. We do not have the types of aircraft with the capability of suppressing enemy air defences. We do not have some of the specific weapons that can be used. But we do have niche capabilities that are multi-purpose, combat-capable forces that the government's policy dictates us to have.

It's important that we continue to maintain that balance between equipment, people, activity levels, interoperability concerns, and making sure we don't provide something that duplicates what an ally might have. What we want to maintain is something we can bring to the battle, if you will, or bring to the fight, or bring to the peacekeeping operation, something that will ultimately be a contributing factor.

The Chair: Thank you, General Macdonald.

Mr. Wilfert.

Mr. Bryon Wilfert (Oak Ridges, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Through you to General Macdonald, first of all, I want to thank the general for his presentation, because it certainly clarified a number of things for me. It also raised a few questions.

General, warfare in the 21st century seems to me to be about messaging, about getting the message out. I said to the minister a few weeks ago that I thought we had done a very poor job in getting our message out.

In slide 5, you show us the Cold War and the post-Cold War. I must say much of public thinking still seems to be back in the Cold War, in the sense that we should be all things to all people. You have clearly indicated today that this is not possible, nor is it realistic, nor is it even desirable.

• 1640

I want to talk about the asymmetric threat study. I just want to ask you two quick questions first, though, although I don't know whether they fall into your purview or not.

We know there has been a great deal of anxiety since September 11. Stress levels have gone up among the general public, particularly in Canada and the United States. Do the armed forces and/or DND evaluate or do any measuring with regard to the psychological implications of September 11, with regard to the impacts those implications might have on civil society, possibly resulting in civil unrest, depending on whether there are, God forbid, future strikes?

LGen George Macdonald: The simple answer to your question is no. It is not part of our mandate to conduct Canada-wide studies in this area. Having said that, we have become more and more aware over the years of the stresses that these sorts of situations cause for our military members and their families. For example, in Halifax last week, when the sailors were getting ready to leave Halifax to join their colleagues and head off to the Arabian Sea, our Military Family Resource Centre had a number of programs to help the families adjust to that reality, to help the individuals with their own situations in preparing to go, to help the families adjust to the consequences of having their breadwinner—or their military member, at least—away for an unknown period in an unknown situation. We have become much better at doing that in the past few years.

Of course, we have military members returning from peacekeeping missions or missions of this sort who suffer from increased stress. We have issues to deal with, and we have stress centres across the military that deal with this sort of thing, both for them and their families. We continue to enhance and approve those.

But from the point of view of addressing the Canadian population at large, no, that's not our direct responsibility.

Mr. Bryon Wilfert: Mr. Chairman, through you to General Macdonald, with regard to messaging and public expectations, initially the President of the United States in particular indicated that this could be a very long and protracted conflict. It would seem to me, Mr. Chairman, that to some degree, we're now starting to see in the media.... As we know, Vietnam was the first living room war. Except for Grenada, everything seems to be displayed on television. As you would expect, we're starting to see those doubters, those who are now saying the Americans and British don't seem to be getting very far as far as the bombing in Afghanistan is concerned, for example. The issue of expectations is here, yet what seems to be deliverable is far from that.

As you obviously know, General, in any conflict without public support, things can go very sour very quickly. Again, I'm wondering if anything exists in terms of even a notion that the war may widen to other states such as Iraq, and what the possible implications of that are. Are you or your colleagues involved in anything with regard to those issues? Is there anything there in terms of the intelligence community?

You talked about this issue of sending troops. Do we know what we're actually sending them to? Without a foreign intelligence service, the problem is that we're relying on others for information, in large measure. What kind of problem, if any, does that pose for you and your colleagues as we send our men and women out to the theatres of conflict?

LGen George Macdonald: Thank you very much for those questions.

We have not conducted what we would call specific operational briefings on this particular undertaking, such as we did during the Kosovo campaign a few years ago. The Chief of the Defence Staff and the Minister of National Defence have been out in public, have been interviewed, have made speeches, and so on, regarding what we're doing, but we intend in the not too distant future to begin a more regular update of what's going on.

The public expectations are difficult to answer. it's unrealistic to think the campaign against terrorism could be terminated after a couple of weeks of air attacks. We really do have to listen to the words of Secretary Rumsfeld and the President when they say this will be a long, protracted undertaking and that public support will be important throughout. I think Canadians, Americans, and others have to realize the enormity of what has happened, and they have to realize the importance of dealing with it, and, God help us, hopefully no other attacks take place in the meantime.

• 1645

It will be up to the government to decide whether or not we have anything to do with any expanded involvement beyond Afghanistan if it indeed takes place. Clearly, that's not for us to decide. We will simply respond to the direction of the government.

With regard to your last point about intelligence, we have an extremely close relationship with the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, especially vis-à-vis intelligence gathering, analysis, and sharing. From my recent position in Colorado Springs, where I was working with the Americans in an integrated headquarters, I can say unequivocally that the level of sharing is very high indeed, and that even though we may not specifically contribute to the intelligence gathering in some areas, we enjoy the collection that's shared among all of those countries. I have no qualms whatsoever that we're getting appropriate, valid, and timely intelligence information for this operation.

The Chair: Thank you, General, and thank you, Mr. Wilfert.

Mr. Stoffer.

Mr. Bryon Wilfert: Can I get a little leeway, Mr. Chairman?

The Chair: I'm going to have to bring the gavel down hard in this case, Mr. Wilfert.

Mr. Bryon Wilfert: Well, Mr. Chairman, I'm going to have to complain to the chair that, so far, it's six for them to two on this side in terms of the questioning.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Mr. Chair, I'll allow one minute of my time to go to Mr. Wilfert.

The Chair: Okay, one minute.

Mr. Bryon Wilfert: Actually, it follows up on Mr. Stoffer's question.

Very quickly, Mr. Stoffer raised a point on an issue that the general talked about, and that was long-term capabilities. But there's an immediate threat. Mr. Chairman, we have moved from state-sponsored terrorism to these non-state actors.

General, the concern that I have is that, in your asymmetric threats study, you talked about 26 initiatives to improve capabilities in terms of responding. You're obviously going to have to speed this up, so how does that affect what you need in terms of the resources that Mr. Stoffer, my good colleague across the way, talked about in terms of dollars? How has this changed your perception and your response to the government in terms of what you need?

That's all through you, Mr. Chairman, whom I'm recognizing as usual.

LGen George Macdonald: Some of those asymmetric threat initiatives are some that we will introduce within our own capabilities as a result of providing the necessary force protection for our own forces, for example. Some of the others were the very initiatives that I indicated before, about the Joint Nuclear Biological and Chemical Response Team and about augmenting our Joint Task Force 2 capability. And there are also some less visible ideas about bringing together our command and control and data fusion in National Defence Headquarters to make them more effective.

Many of those projects are ones that we have underway or have had underway for some time. A few of them are some specific initiatives that we have put together specifically as a result of 11 September, and they again will be considered by the minister and government. It is to be determined whether or not they're worthy of funding and continuation, recognizing that we only make up a small part of the overall national security contribution.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Wilfert.

Mr. Stoffer, you're on.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: I have three statements and a very quick question for you, sir.

Mr. Wilfert is absolutely correct. Public support for the actions is very much needed and required for Canada in the long-term objective to stamp out terrorism. One of the dangers comes, of course, when United States Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld says they will not rule out the use of tactical nuclear weaponry. That is something that sends a shiver up the spine of most civilized people in the world. When he won't rule it out, that scares the hell out of an awful lot of people, so I'd like your comment on that, please.

Most tours of duty are six months, if I'm not mistaken. If this goes longer than six months, do we have the capability to rotate those troops on a basis similar to the one we us in the Balkans now?

LGen George Macdonald: Thank you, sir.

The participation in the coalition or the campaign against terrorism is something we clearly do voluntarily. We have been and expect to continue to be consulted on any initiatives that are undertaken, so that we're very clear about the elements of the campaign we're participating in.

• 1650

We also maintain command and control of Canadian Forces by Canadians, through National Defence Headquarters and the Chief of the Defence Staff. We will therefore proceed very knowingly on any elements of this campaign that we participate in. That's something that is our prerogative as a sovereign nation, and we will maintain and support the government in doing so.

Vis-à-vis the rotation question or sustainment question that you asked, I indicated in an earlier answer that we do in fact have the wherewithal to sustain this operation for some time. One of the saving graces in this particular construct, as opposed to an increased augmentation to Bosnia, for example, is that we are not only providing army, we are also providing naval and air forces as well. We're fairly evenly spread out in the contribution of forces when you take the Bosnian contribution into consideration. We now have about 1,650 people in Bosnia, with about 300 elsewhere, and they are predominantly army. The 2,000 we're adding on will be predominately navy, with some air force. The sustainment is therefore less of a challenge for us, given that we're using all three arms of the Canadian Forces, as opposed to just changing army for army in a large way.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: My last statement, through you, Mr. Chairman, is—

The Chair: Very quickly, Mr. Stoffer.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: —for the committee as well.

I continuously ask you how much money you anticipate requiring for the needs not to be political and not to chastise or be critical in any way, but so that we, as a committee, can assist the defence department in achieving the additional resources it needs. By working cooperatively, we can tell the minister we will support your call to the finance minister for additional funds, if they are indeed what is required.

An hon. member: Hear, hear.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: That's why I continuously ask that question. It's not to be critical, it's to be helpful in a way, to assist, as Elsie had said. It's so that we can work as a committee and make a recommendation—our report is coming out soon—to the fiance minister, telling him that we believe x amount of money would be sufficient in the short term to assist the military in its new role.

LGen George Macdonald: We very much appreciate your support. As a military member, I can say—and I'm sure my two colleagues here would agree—that the members of SCONDVA are well know among the Canadian military for, for example, your work in assessing the quality-of-life issues that concern the military. We've made a number of changes for our military personnel and their families that have been very positive, largely because of the kind of support you have given us.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Stoffer.

Mrs. Wayne.

Mrs. Elsie Wayne: You were just saying we're well known. We certainly are, because I just received a call at my office.

As I stated, I was up with regard to the reserves today. Not all reserves are guaranteed that their jobs will still be there for them. We're certainly looking for job security and equal pay.

My understanding is that at a meeting today, a number of them were demoted. They were told the reason they were demoted was that we cannot afford to pay these reserves. It appears a large number of them are going to be required if we continue with the peacekeeping programs that we have, and with the numbers that we have doing peacekeeping work at the present time.

They said this was something you were looking at earlier, but it just came into effect today. They were told the reason they were being demoted was that you didn't have enough money in your budget for the reserves. Were you aware of that, General Macdonald?

LGen George Macdonald: To be honest, ma'am, no, I'm not. We clearly do have a number of pressures on the National Defence budget, but shortchanging anybody, reserves or regulars, on pay is not a way to deal with those pressures. That's counterintuitive, to us. I just mentioned our quality of life initiatives and the need to ensure that people are dealt with fairly. I can't imagine the circumstances you are referring to.

Mrs. Elsie Wayne: Well, the call was just there, so I have to check it out.

LGen George Macdonald: If you're willing to share the details with me afterwards, I'd be happy to look into it for you.

Mrs. Elsie Wayne: I certainly will.

The other thing is with regard to the Military Family Resource Centre in Nova Scotia. I had an opportunity to visit it. It is absolutely wonderful, but the biggest problem I had when I went to visit it was that they had to go out and raise the funds themselves. Once again, because of the budget restrictions, the men and the women went out and raised the funds in the community in order to put their Military Family Resource Centre together. That just tugged at my heart, it truly did, and I think we have to make sure we support and continue to support you in order that you get the funds you require to give them the quality of life they need and the resources that the families of our people need.

• 1655

You referred to the 4,000-person vanguard that you have now. You say it can be sustained, but some 50% of those trained soldiers are deployed now, so how can you possibly do that? You were just saying you have 1650 in Bosnia, 350 elsewhere, and 2,000 more in peacekeeping. How do you feel you can sustain that 4,000-person vanguard?

LGen George Macdonald: First of all, with regard to your comments about the Military Family Resource Centres, they are an initiative that we started about ten years ago, and they've been a tremendous success. Every one you go to is a little success unto its own that is serving the military members and their families in that particular community. Those are publicly funded—the people there are paid by the Crown—but there are sharing arrangements in which the individual communities do raise money for some purposes in some areas. I think that's what you are referring to. It's a shared arrangement.

The vanguard force is at the level...I should correct myself. The number of people we have deployed or anticipate deploying is at the level of the vanguard force that we can continually sustain. As I indicated, if we were talking strictly about predominantly army personnel and about sending them to Bosnia instead of to the campaign against terrorism, for example, just increasing our 1,500 or so in Bosnia by another 2,000 predominantly army personnel would be very difficult indeed. We have done some of that in the recent past, but we have found that the operational tempo that we have experienced as a result has been depleting our personnel resources in the army. We are now more or less approaching the capability that we feel we can sustain within the army on a long-term basis. With the deployment to Operation Apollo, we're predominantly sending navy and air force people. As long as we can maintain an approximate balance like that with the existing peacekeeping resources, we're in a sustainable situation.

The Chair: Thank you, General.

Mr. Macklin.

Mr. Paul Harold Macklin (Northumberland, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

General, I want to thank you for being here with us to share your knowledge today.

I'd like to go from more current issues and back to your planning model, because I don't necessarily understand a couple of things with respect to that model. First of all, you have that matrix that you establish, the capability goals matrix that is on slide 10. Of course, you have assessed high, medium, and low levels of readiness that you'd like to establish. What criteria do you use? Are we talking about simple numbers criteria that you are using, or are you using something beyond that? In other words, is there some subjectivity as to whether or not, for example, you're covering off corporate policy and strategy? In particular, in regard to command, are we simply looking at numbers, or are we doing something more significant than that?

LGen George Macdonald: I'll ask Colonel Turner to respond to this one more specifically.

Mr. Paul Macklin: Certainly.

Col John Turner: Let me just quickly repeat the definitions that the general gave earlier for high, medium, and low. High is an independent Canadian military capability. Medium is the ability to assume a leadership role in a particular capability. Low would be an adequate level of capability, but not necessarily the ability to assume a leadership role.

The goals that you see in that matrix were all derived from either the white paper or other government direction—and the general cited a couple of examples. For example, the high goal in command at the military strategic level is derived from the fact that the government of Canada deserves independent, Canadian military expert advice. It therefore has to be a high level of capability.

• 1700

On other goals, there was a question earlier about mobility. For example, at the military strategic level, that's the ability to move intercontinentally. We need a high level of capability in that area because of government direction with respect to likely participation in multilateral operations. Once we get into the theatre of operations, we don't need the same level of capability. Obviously the ranges are less in theatre, hence the goals can drop.

To specifically answer the question, it's a subjective assessment, but it's based on a policy direction from the government that is contained either in the white paper or in subsequent government statements.

Mr. Paul Macklin: If it's subjective, then when we're looking at the particular conflict we are engaged in at the moment, it appears from a general layman's perspective that what we're looking at is a great demand on special ops forces and Joint Task Force 2. From my perspective, we appear to have a very limited capacity at the moment. As we look forward to more conflict that may be of a model similar to the one we have going on in Afghanistan, how do we go about changing our policy through this matrix process, this planning process, when we see something like this occur? As some of the discussion earlier suggested, this was likely not particularly anticipated. How would we go about making this change? Is it again strictly a subjective process, whereby you would simply reinstitute a review at command?

LGen George Macdonald: In the end analysis, virtually all defence policy has some degree of subjectivity to it. It's difficult to be really specific in some areas because the threat and the future conditions are essentially unpredictable in many ways. There is always a measure of making an assessment based on what you know has happened in the past, on the current circumstances, and on what you anticipate for the future. You then try to anticipate what kinds of capabilities you will need in the future. One thing we have come to a conclusion about is that basing that kind of estimate strictly on threat is not necessarily going to prove to be the best way of going about it, so we have focused on capabilities. Therein lies some of the flexibility that you seek.

From the perspective of providing improvements or changes in capabilities—some of them not perhaps precipitating a change in defence policy—we have been able to address some of the circumstances that occurred over the last six or seven years, in the new world order, if you will. We're adjusting our capabilities now to ensure that we can respond not only to the current campaign against terrorism, but to other challenges that may occur in the future. A major change in defence policy could direct us to abandon or fundamentally change some of these capabilities to address, as you would suggest, the requirement perhaps for a larger special operations or a JTF 2 capability. We feel we are making appropriate choices in resource allocations, and that we are being responsive to the government's need in ensuring that we can fill the bill, if you will, for today's and the future's mandate.

You have to recognize, too, that defence capability is not something you can manufacture over night. It often takes several years to identify and procure equipment. It certainly takes a considerable length of time to recruit and train people, especially the kinds of specialists we have in JTF 2. They are not people who are readily available, they truly are specialists.

The Chair: Thank you, General.

Thank you, Mr. Macklin.

Ms. Gallant, for five minutes.

Ms. Cheryl Gallant (Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, witnesses.

The conflict in Afghanistan is a special operations conflict. In the words of a previous expert's testimony, we have heard this before. This conflict

is about minefields, brief sharp firefights...impassable roads, bitter cold winters, and a foe who is largely inured to the extremes of combat...a conflict best waged by well trained infantrymen and special forces personnel.

Under the current leadership, the Canadian Forces have become a homogeneous force as a consequence of budget restrictions. While the flexibility to be able to respond to all situations in the face of budget restrictions may have been politically necessary, the sacrifice has been made in operational readiness. With all the facts that are before us, agreement among independent military observers for the need to bring back the Canadian Airborne Regiment, for example, is nearly unanimous. When will you make the tough but right decision to bring back the Canadian Airborne? That's my first question.

• 1705

My next question involves the supplementary reserve. Why was this program cancelled? In light of the realities of September 11, have you considered reinstituting this very successful program?

My third question involves the current reserves. The fact is that other countries like the U.S.A. and Switzerland protect the jobs of their reservists through legislation while those reservists are serving their country. The issue of reservists has been tossed around in this country for many years. What is the current thinking toward this aspect of the reserves?

Lastly, could you tell me whether or not a Leopard tank can stop a salvo round fired from a T-55 tank? I ask you this question because many of the tanks now available can, such as the Abrams and the Challenger.

If time permits, could you please give us more details on multi-purpose tasking? What exactly did you mean by that?

Thank you.

The Chair: General, you have less than three minutes to respond.

LGen George Macdonald: I'll do my best, Mr. Chairman.

The whole thrust of our defence capability is to provide multi-purpose, combat-capable forces, so to describe us as homogeneous is simply contrary to the facts. We have developed specific capabilities that address the mandate that we have to protect Canada, to defend North America, and to contribute to international security in the best way possible. In our forces—and I'll include the answer to the fourth point that you made in the context of this answer, that being the multi-purpose aspect of our forces—we train people in general military skills so that they can be used in a general military way, or we give them additional training to be used in a more specific way. We use the same people for that.

When we talk about having a frigate that can perform the kind of contribution that it will be performing the north Arabian Sea, that same frigate can be used for fisheries patrols off the coast of North America. We have multiple purposes in order to get the best value for the National Defence dollar.

The forces clearly have a foundation of common training in many cases, but they also have specialized areas to which they can contribute or can be trained to contribute. We do not sacrifice operational readiness to achieve this. We have selectively chosen the levels of operational readiness for selective forces to respond to the needs and the commitments that we have. We don't retain everybody on a seven-day notice to deploy wherever. Rather, we identify the commitment that we have and the unit that should be doing that, and we make sure it's ready and properly trained for a seven-day deployment, whereas the others may be on a ninety-day deployment readiness, depending on the circumstances. We tailor our forces to meet the demands and commitments that we have.

The supplementary ready reserve is a list of reservists who are generally people who have been in the forces and who have indicated a desire to continue to serve in some way. It has fallen into some disarray over the past few years because we have focused our efforts on the primary reserve—that is, the people who are actually being trained for and employed in places like Bosnia—with our objective being to employ about 20% of our forces in peacekeeping operations as reservists. Some reservists have now gone off to the north Arabian Sea.

The supplementary reserve list is an unpaid, larger, less-defined list. Some studies have been done in the last couple of years—in fact, a couple of weeks ago, I asked the same question that you just asked—and we have discovered that we have entrained quite a significant effort to further identify what the supplementary reserve should and can do in the future, and how we can bring a more coalesced focus to this particular aspect of our reserve forces. That's not to say we shouldn't concentrate on the primary reserve, but we have to take into consideration the supplementary reserve.

I can't answer the other question that you have about the Leopard tank's defensive capabilities.

The Chair: That's fine, General.

Thank you, Mrs. Gallant.

Mr. Dromisky.

Mr. Stan Dromisky (Thunder Bay—Atikokan, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'll be very brief. One of my questions has already been answered by the general.

• 1710

We're talking about meeting the challenge of a changing world. Much talk has gone on here, all the right keywords have been used, the right right buttons have been pressed, and everything else. Well, we had a witness in the other day who made a presentation that revealed, overall, some very critical aspects of the Canadian military. One was the education level of individuals within our military, as compared to the formal education levels in the United States. You probably heard or read this report, but I don't know.

When I look at your capability goals matrix here, and when I look under the different areas, when it comes to the kinds of tasks that I think might be involved, I'm wondering if there's going to be any kind of change in the criteria used by the military for selecting recruits for future development. Will recruiting continue using the same criteria we have been using for the last fifteen, twenty, thirty, forty, or fifty years? Or will there be a change?

I don't care what kinds of sophisticated materials you have for these men or women to operate with, whether they be tanks, planes, ships, guns, or whatever. It is the individual who is the key. I'm wondering if any change in criteria is being planned for the selection of recruits for the military in order to meet the challenges of the future, according to your matrix.

LGen George Macdonald: One of the foci of our attention over the last few years has been the professional development of military members and the educational requirements that you cite. I think we have made tremendous progress in this area. We have instituted various levels of professional development for officers and for non-commissioned members, and they address the fundamental background educational requirements that they should have.

Our capabilities translate to requirements for equipment, for infrastructure, for doctrine, and for people. Of course, the people have to be trained to contribute to those capabilities, so our recruitment standards, physically and so on, may be relatively much the same as they have been in the past. But the recruitment requirements that we have for individuals to perform specific roles change as our capabilities evolve.

We are in a fairly aggressive recruiting campaign right now, but because of the demands in the economy, we are having some difficulty finding technical specialists or people who have at least a bent or an aptitude toward a technical occupation. We have difficulty finding engineers we can employ in the future. We have specific requirements and we have to meet those requirements, so we have to make sure we concentrate not on the quantity, but on the quality of the individuals. I don't think there's any lack of appropriate standard, though. There's certainly no backing off, and certainly no entrenchment in our past standards in the recruiting that we're doing now and will do in the future.

Mr. Stan Dromisky: I like your answer.

I'm quite aware of the professional development programs that have been going on for some time. The witness that we had the other day was very critical of what was happening in the military, and talked about how low the morale level is in the Canadian Forces. I'm automatically assuming that through the professional development programs, the morale of people involved in them would be enhanced or uplifted. Do you have any proof at all to support a statement of that nature?

LGen George Macdonald: I would characterize the morale in the Canadian Forces as very high right now. Certainly, we had some difficulties throughout the nineties, and we have had difficulties with how we're perceived in the public. Right now, though, we're on kind of a high.

We have instituted a lot of the quality-of-life initiatives that I mentioned earlier, and that has been very positive for military members and their families. We made sure the pay they're getting is consistent with the pay in the public service. We have found ways to accommodate various different demands and benefits that military members feel are important—and I mentioned the Military Family Resource Centres.

The professional development program has instilled a sense of pride in the profession of arms. People recognize the need to have professional development, to be educated, to understand, and to be professional about what they do.

• 1715

In the current circumstances, we're clearly recognized as being an important contributor to national security, be it within Canada or deployed. That is a very positive event. We feel we're doing something very useful and appropriate, and we're doing it at the behest of the Government of Canada and the citizens of Canada.

Additionally, in some events over the recent past—the floods in Manitoba or the ice storm in Ontario and Quebec a few years ago—we have had tremendous numbers of military members contributing to helping Canadians in a time of crisis or in a natural disaster. That is uplifting as well. It's a demonstrated way in which Canadians are being helped by their Canadian Forces members.

I am very proud of the Canadian Forces members I know and have come in contact with. They're a professional, dedicated group, and I think we've turned the corner from the lows that we experienced in the mid-nineties. I think we do in fact feel we are fulfilling the defence policy of Canada. We're carrying out our mission responsibly, and we have made several improvements. That's not to mention that we don't have challenges to address in the future, but we're doing our job, and we're doing it well.

The Chair: Thank you, General.

Thank you, Mr. Dromisky.

Mr. Bachand, you have five minutes, but we seem to have more questions on the Liberal side than on the opposition side. Would you be interested in sharing any of your time, Mr. Bachand?

Mr. Claude Bachand: Not at all.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

An hon. member: How do you really feel?

An hon. member: No damned way.

Mr. Claude Bachand: I'm not planning on transferring to the other side, not at all.

An hon. member: We were looking for a young guy, anyway.

[Translation]

Mr. Claude Bachand: Seriously, Mr. Chair, I checked up the responsibilities, the mission and the tasks of the Vice-Chief of Staff in the 2001 Defence Plan. Those are fairly significant tasks, but one expression keeps coming up, “Strategic Capability”. Also, the in-thing, as they say, is the management of strategic resources.

So, there are a lot of responsibilities dealing with human resources as well as equipment because in a strategic framework, we have to deal with staff, as I said earlier, but also with equipment.

That same document identifies the priorities for equipment over the next few years. When I read that document, four strategic projects caught my attention. I would like you to tell us about them, because there is big money involved.

One of those strategic projects deals with the Canadian Military Communications Satellite. It costs $479 million. Since you were with NORAD, you must know what this type of projects is about. If you can, if this is not a state secret, I would like you to tell us if this is a good investment of Canadian taxpayers' money.

There is also the Joint Special Project. I guess that one is also related to our NORAD responsibilities. It is a $599 million project. That is again a lot of money.

I will stop at those four main projects, but I have a whole page of them.

There is also the afloat logistics and sea lift capability. I guess we do not want the GTS Katie incident to happen again. I suppose we want to have our own systems of sea transportation. This is a $1.62 billion project.

Finally, there is the strategic airlift capability. Presently, we have to rent US planes or even Russian planes to move our people. This is a $1.6 billion project.

In the short time remaining, I would like you to tell us, if possible, how much those projects have progressed. Are they vital projects? What is the purpose of those projects?

I must say, Mr. Macdonald, that if you do not have enough time to do so, I would appreciate very much if you would send me the rest of that information in writing, because you may not have enough time here. But you have to understand that it is very, very important for me.

You will understand also that I could not share my time with anyone because those were extremely important questions.

[English]

The Chair: General Macdonald, you have the floor.

LGen Macdonald: Thank you very much, Mr. Bachand. You have hit on a number of key priorities that we have identified, of course, as significant efforts for the future. You did not mention a couple that are already underway—for instance, the upgrade of our Aurora maritime patrol aircraft or the project I mentioned earlier, the CF-18 upgrade.

• 1720

The Canadian MILSATCOM project is one that very directly supports our globally deployed requirement, in that it affords us the opportunity or the capability to communicate with our Canadian Forces units wherever they might be internationally, whether they're in Bosnia, Eritrea, or, indeed, in the Arabian Sea.

We are not buying military satellites to launch and use on our own. In fact, we're buying capacity that exists on American satellites. They're in a number of frequency areas, so we're not just buying a particular communications band, but several that have been added on at the production of the American satellites, so that we can use these and have them available to us. It's a tremendous project. We were able to leverage an existing American program for military satellite communications by buying into it and getting the capacity without having to actually provide it ourselves. It's another area of interoperability, if you will, and one in which we're sharing capabilities.

The afloat logistics and sealift capability and the strategic airlift capability both respond to our requirements to have the need to deploy wherever globally, in a reasonable time and with reasonable capacity. The strategic airlift capability is one that purports to give us the large airplane cargo hold capability to put in large pieces of cargo and take them anywhere in the world in fairly short order. We do not have this capability right now. We have some transport aircraft, but they're limited either in the size of cargo they can take or in the distance they can take their cargo. The sealift capability is the same sort of thing, in that it would be a supply ship, if you will, but it also would have the capability to do command and control and to support our forces, be they on the ocean or onshore. So both relate to our global deployment capability.

The Chair: General, I'm going to have to cut you off there. Mr. Bachand is over his time, and we have some more questioners on the government side.

Mr. Wilfert.

Mr. Bryon Wilfert: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Wood wanted to know why I was always recognizing the chair. I said I think it's because we're coming up to your thirteenth anniversary in politics. Is it thirteen years?

The Chair: Close to it.

Mr. Bryon Wilfert: Pretty good, eh? I've known you all that time, too.

An hon. member: Not here, thank goodness.

Mr. Bryon Wilfert: Thank God for that.

The Chair: Mr. Wilfert, just to let you know, flattery will get your everywhere around here.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

Mr. Bryon Wilfert: Apparently.

Mr. Chairman, through you to the general, again, I go back to force planning scenarios. Again, I think this illustrates well the discussion we've had with regard to capability goals. Although much seems to be weighted on the peace side, clearly, in terms of the tools needed when the forces are called upon in conflict or in war, obviously the right balance is needed.

General, a number of presenters over the course of the last year or so—former generals, former colonels—have come before this committee. I know they've all served with great distinction, but they all seem to say something different after they leave the military. It always disturbs me that they mention all these deficiencies that we now have, when they obviously didn't recognize those deficiencies when they were still in the military.

I guess the question to you, through the chair, General, is this: In terms of the assessments that you're making, you mentioned in your report that although we are achieving certain goals, some existing deficiencies need to be addressed. Again, in light of the upcoming budget—we don't have a lot of time—when you put your best thoughts forward to the minister of defence and he, in his role around the cabinet table, is supposed to then articulate the needs of the military, what is the most glaring deficiency that you would assess currently, in terms of achieving the goals in the current conflict? What needs to be addressed from a budgetary standpoint?

LGen George Macdonald: Clearly, as I indicated initially, our job is to try to balance the various components of capability—the people, the equipment, the activity levels, the infrastructure, the doctrine, and so on—to ensure that we provide a responsible capability that can be sustained and is in balance with the other capabilities, in response to the realistic scenarios.

• 1725

Clearly, one of our fundamental priorities is to address the people area of the equation. Over the last few years, we have improved quality of life and we have addressed professional development, as I mentioned before. But we find ourselves in a situation in which we are below the manpower strength that we need to perform all our missions to the capacity at which we need to perform them. We are therefore conducting a recruiting campaign to build us back up to a level that we feel is appropriate.

One of the problems with that, of course, is that while we may have 60,000 people in the military at the end of this fiscal year, a higher proportion of those people than normal will be raw recruits going through their basic training, so they will not be operationally ready. For some time, we'll still be at a level at which we are not fulfilling all of the operational positions that we have, so that would certainly be high on my list of fundamental priorities.

Mr. Bryon Wilfert: If I might make a comment, through the chair to the general, I had the pleasure and the honour a few weeks ago to address my father's regiment, the Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada, which was founded in 1903. Reserves and their employers were there, and veterans were there. The oldest veteran was 95. I have to say, General, that seeing the community out in support of those in the reserves and in support of those people who are away was very impressive. Brigadier-General Michel Gauthier, the commander of Land Forces Central Area, was also there.

I have to say that more integration is extremely important—and I know this is something you and others are working on—so that we really do not see the distinction between those of the regular forces and those of the reserves in terms of what they actually do in the field. The mutual respect that I saw around the table for those reservists and for those from General Gauthier's perspective, from the regular forces, was truly impressive. I certainly was very pleased to see that, and I think you should do whatever you can to continue to push in that regard.

And Mr. Chair, since the general outlined the issue of the asymmetric study and more information is to come, I would certainly appreciate updates from time to time, if it is the will of the committee. In terms of those capabilities, I would hope either the general or whoever is designated could provide updates to us with regard to the outcomes being looked at in that study.

The Chair: General, did you want to make a quick response on that?

LGen George Macdonald: In my example, I used the regular force numbers, but we certainly recognize the contribution of the reserves to the Canadian Forces' capability. They would equally be included in my prioritization as our number one concern, in order to make sure the reserves are at the number and level they need to be at, and to make sure they receive the appropriate training, equipment allocation, and so on.

The recommendations of the asymmetric threat study include things like expanding our analytical and scientific cells within our intelligence capability; increasing our research and development resources to expand into things like nuclear, bacteriological, chemical, and non-conventional operations at our research establishments; creating a mix of high and low readiness to address things like force protection of our military forces and nuclear, bacteriological, and chemical recce, reconnaissance, and decontamination units; creating consequence management capability; and ensuring that we retain the appropriate capabilities to support civilian first providers as required. We continue to evolve this, but as we are able, we would be happy to provide the staff or the chair of SCONDVA with updates on our progress in this area, if you wish.

Mr. Bryon Wilfert: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: Thank you for that, General.

General, I had hoped we would be able to go to a last round from the opposition, but I think we've run out of time. I'd like to take this opportunity, though, to thank you and your colleagues for being here. Commodore McNeil, Colonel Turner, and General Macdonald, it has been great to get the responses you have provided. I'm sure the information is going to be helpful—especially some of the information you provided on capability-based planning—to our study of the readiness of the Canadian Forces.

Thank you very much.

The meeting is adjourned.