NDDN Committee Meeting

38th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION

Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Á

1110

The Chair (Mr. John Cannis (Scarborough Centre, Lib.))

Mr. David Rudd (President and Executive Director, Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies)

Á

1115

The Chair

Mr. David Rudd

Á

1120

The Chair

Mr. Ernie Regehr (Senior Policy Advisor, Project Ploughshares)

Á

1125

Á

1130

The Chair

Mr. Gordon O'Connor (Carleton—Mississippi Mills, CPC)

Mr. David Rudd

Á

1135

Mr. Ernie Regehr

Á

1140

Mr. Gordon O'Connor

The Chair

Mr. Gordon O'Connor

The Chair

M. Claude Bachand (Saint-Jean, BQ)

Mr. David Rudd

Mr. Claude Bachand

Mr. Ernie Regehr

Á

1145

Mr. Claude Bachand

The Chair

Mr. Claude Bachand

The Chair

Mr. David Rudd

Mr. Claude Bachand

Mr. David Rudd

Mr. Claude Bachand

Mr. David Rudd

The Chair

Mr. Ernie Regehr

Á

1150

The Chair

Hon. Keith Martin (Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, Lib.)

The Chair

Mr. David Rudd

Hon. Keith Martin

Mr. David Rudd

Mr. Claude Bachand

Mr. David Rudd

Á

1155

Mr. Ernie Regehr

Â

1200

Hon. Keith Martin

The Chair

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant (Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, CPC)

Mr. David Rudd

Â

1205

The Chair

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant

Mr. Ernie Regehr

The Chair

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant

Mr. Ernie Regehr

The Chair

Hon. Larry Bagnell (Yukon, Lib.)

Mr. Ernie Regehr

Hon. Larry Bagnell

Mr. Ernie Regehr

Hon. Larry Bagnell

Mr. Dave MacKenzie (Oxford, CPC)

Hon. Larry Bagnell

Mr. Ernie Regehr

Â

1210

Mr. David Rudd

Â

1215

Hon. Larry Bagnell

Mr. David Rudd

The Chair

Mr. Gilles-A. Perron (Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, BQ)

Mr. David Rudd

Mr. Gilles-A. Perron

Mr. David Rudd

Â

1220

Mr. Gilles-A. Perron

Mr. Ernie Regehr

The Chair

Mr. Anthony Rota (Nipissing—Timiskaming, Lib.)

Mr. Ernie Regehr

Mr. David Rudd

Mr. Anthony Rota

Mr. David Rudd

Mr. Anthony Rota

Mr. David Rudd

Mr. Anthony Rota

Mr. David Rudd

Mr. Anthony Rota

Mr. David Rudd

Mr. Anthony Rota

Mr. David Rudd

Â

1225

Mr. Anthony Rota

Mr. David Rudd

Mr. Anthony Rota

Mr. David Rudd

Mr. Anthony Rota

Mr. David Rudd

The Chair

Mr. Gordon O'Connor

Mr. David Rudd

Mr. Ernie Regehr

Â

1230

Mr. David Rudd

The Chair

Mr. Ernie Regehr

Â

1235

The Chair

Mr. David Rudd

Hon. Keith Martin

Mr. David Rudd

The Chair

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CANADA

Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs

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NUMBER 054

l

1st SESSION

l

38th PARLIAMENT

---

EVIDENCE

Thursday, October 27, 2005

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

*   *   *

Á  (1110)  

[English]

    The Chair (Mr. John Cannis (Scarborough Centre, Lib.)): Colleagues, I'll call this meeting to order.

    Good morning. We'll open up our meeting. I'd like to welcome you to the Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs as we do our review of defence policy.

    We have with us today, from the Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies, Mr. David Rudd, president and executive director. From Project Ploughshares, we also have with us Mr. Ernie Regehr, senior policy adviser. Gentlemen, welcome to the committee.

    The way we do things here is that you'll have your opening statements of no more than 10 minutes, if you will, and then we'll go to questions from the members of the committee. The first round of questions is seven minutes between questions and answers, and then we go into a second round of five minutes, and a third round of five minutes as well.

    Mr. Rudd is speaking first. The floor is yours, sir.

[Translation]

    Mr. David Rudd (President and Executive Director, Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning everyone.

[English]

    If there are no objections, I'm going to leave my remarks on NATO to the Q and A period, as I wasn't exactly sure what angles and issues the committee wanted to explore. I believe there might be a paper of mine in front of you someplace, but again, if you would like to fire at me during the Q and A, I invite you to do so.

    I'll just say a few things about the defence policy statement—and please, these remarks are my own views and should not be construed as being representative of my organization. This is Dave Rudd speaking and nobody else.

    Having said that, I was very gratified that the government not only released a defence policy statement, after several fits and starts, but also officially recognized the link between defence, diplomacy, and development. The framework I think is very simple. The security provided by robust, well-equipped military forces in strife-torn lands opens the door to reconstruction of government institutions and begets economic and social development, which in turn reinforces security. Of course, I suppose there is also a domestic angle to that as well.

    My impression of the policy statement is that it's a generally well-reasoned document, although I would have liked to have seen a bit more intellectual backup to some of the decisions and observations that were made therein. Our British cousins, when they released their last defence policy, brought out with it, for the public's inspection, a series of supporting essays in which the intellectual backup to their policy was laid out and opened to public scrutiny.

    Having said that, there seems to be a lot of consistency here in the chief objectives of our defence policy. The chief objectives of our defence establishment are to defend Canada, to defend North America in cooperation with the Americans, and to contribute to international security. What has changed is that chief international duty seems to be the stabilization of failed and failing states, which I think is a very reasonable objective. Forgive me for using this term, but it leads me to conclude that we are, I suppose, essentially developing a “niche” in the international realm of expertise and activity.

    We talk about a combat-capable armed forces, but did anybody notice that the word “war-fighting” never appeared anywhere in the defence policy statement? I believe that was quite deliberate. So while we recognize that the stabilization of failed and failing states might require the countering or defeat of, let's say, an armed insurgency, the fact that we don't talk about inter-state combat at all, or war in its traditional sense, I think was very, very deliberate. It's almost a post-modern approach to international relations. I also think it was done deliberately to perhaps give a signal to Canadians that their military is certainly trying to serve the national interest, the national interest not in the parochial sense, but in the sense that there were greater international interests to be served out there; thus we're only talking about taking and holding territory so that we can hand it back intact, better than it was before, to a government, for example, that had been unstable or had fallen.

    Of course, the other two tasks of the policy statement are intact. We will cooperate with the Americans, and there is the prospect of the expansion of the NORAD relationship to include maritime operations—which might be virtuous insofar as it allows us to leverage our rather modest defence resources, pooling them with the Americans and therefore achieving objectives that we might have found too expensive to achieve on our own. Now does that require the forfeiture of any degree of sovereignty? That is a question we can debate.

    My chief concerns about the policy statement are several.

I'd like to talk very briefly about human resources. I believe they are the trap door, dear members, underlying all the government's plans. We can talk about equipment, we can talk about a number of other things, but unless policies about people.... If you don't have enough people, or you don't have enough trained and well-led people, both in the regular and reserve components, then none of this is going to come off, whether you agree or disagree with this thing. Whether you believe the armed forces should be doing other things, you need people.

    Is it possible that we will get those extra 5,000 regulars or 3,000 reservists? I don't know. That's a very ambitious goal, especially for the next five years. We talk about defence, diplomacy, and development—the three Ds—but I'd like to suggest that the committee should be concerning itself with the three Rs, recruiting, retention, and re-engagement—re-engagement being about those who have left the service and perhaps want to come back, either to a regular service or reserve service. We need to break down the bureaucratic barriers to allow them to do so.

    But human resources, I believe, is the number one issue. It doesn't matter if we replaced all our clapped-out aircraft or not; if you don't have the pilots and the airframe technicians, you're not going anywhere.

    Sorry, Mr. Chair, how much time do I have left?

Á  (1115)  

    The Chair: You have about five and a half more minutes.

    Mr. David Rudd: In terms of individual capabilities, I believe the government's inclination to look to the logistical support of Canadian military operations, whether it be domestic or international, is a very good one. I believe it's right that the government and the CF emphasize the hastening of those recapitalization programs that emphasize logistics—trucks to the army, support ships for the navy, transport aircraft for the air force—and not only because they have utility and overseas operations. Let's not forget that General Hillier, I think very rightly, has a “Canada first” strategy. We see that in the establishment of Canada Command. We need to match that with the material resources that will allow us to discharge our top responsibility, which of course is the security to our own country.

    So as the forces develop their first ever defence capabilities plan, which I believe is going to be tabled in the December to January timeframe, I would encourage that this committee take a very close interest in what capabilities are promoted to the top of the list. If I had my way, if I were the puppet master pulling the strings, I would be emphasizing those capabilities that first had a domestic relevance, but that also overlapped with an international relevance, those capabilities that allow us to pull off the aid to the civil power missions back here and also the stabilization missions overseas.

    Looking ahead, again, I believe the defence policy statement has set the right philosophical tone, and I believe it's a policy that is achievable. I believe also that the initial appropriations that were put forth in the last budget will get us on our way; however, I don't think the committee should be under any illusion as to the depth of the human resources and recapitalization problem. Therefore, that extra $12.8 billion, certainly a very formidable figure on paper, probably should be looked at as an initial step of a much larger and ongoing effort that's going to have to come about if these admittedly worthwhile yet modest objectives are going to come to fruition.

    I believe, however—and, again, I'm not casting stones—that DND and the CF have read the political landscape very well, and they sense that. The government has put up this money not simply because the rotation schedule is too hard on our troops; they put forward this money because they feel that after 10 years, the underfunding of the forces has become a domestic political liability.

    I'm going to say that again to make sure I'm clear. The extra money that's been put forth and the political interest that has been put into this file is because there is a domestic political liability that has been sensed. I fear that the next government, whether it be a minority government or a majority government--whichever party is in power--having appreciated that they may have put out the fire by putting this extra money in, is going to stand back on its heels and become somewhat complacent again.

    So it is possible in the medium term—I'm talking perhaps at the five-year term, the six-year term, from where we stand right now—that we could be going through this whole rigmarole again. In other words, we have this initial bout of optimism, this initial bout of government interest, but then we sort of retrench back into our status of semi-complacency.

    As a last remark, we are behind the curve on the recapitalization front. We're very much behind the curve on the human resources front. I believe the latter will be the number one obstacle to the accomplishment of these objectives.

Á  (1120)  

    I believe the objectives are generally well thought out. I believe this serves both Canadian interests and a larger international interest. I think we have to keep a very close eye on our security relations with the States and see how that relationship serves our interest. We're not talking about placating Washington; we're talking about undertaking initiatives and maintaining and expanding relationships if they serve the national interest.

    However, again, there are recapitalization and human resources issues that need to be sorted out. Again, if the world deserves more Canada, we probably are going to have to do a bit more than we've committed ourselves to doing in order to see that happen.

    Thank you.

    The Chair: Thank you Mr. Rudd.

    Mr. Regehr.

    Mr. Ernie Regehr (Senior Policy Advisor, Project Ploughshares): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I also appreciate the opportunity to participate in these hearings on the international policy statement.

    I want to make a comment, primarily, as David did, on the general policy, the appropriateness of the policy generally, as the invitation said. In that, I'm going to focus on the role of defence in contributing to international peace and security rather than on the domestic and North American scenes.

    I want to emphasize three points in particular. One is that we need to improve the relative funding for the non-military security measures that address the roots of state failure. Second, it's important to adapt military capability and methods to meet the priority of protecting people in peril internationally. And third, there needs to be a much more intense focus of diplomatic attention on developing timely and credible international decision-making on intervening to protect people.

    The failed and failing states are rightly a prominent focus of the policy statement, including the defence section of it. Such states do affect the interests of Canada, because they are a threat to the stable, rules-based, international order on which Canadian security ultimately depends. Just as important, they are the locations of acute human insecurity, and they concern Canadians for the simple but compelling human fact that--as the defence statement says--the suffering that these situations create is an affront to Canadian values.

    The sources of state failure are not primarily military, and military preparedness is not the primary response. When there is a necessary military element to emergency responses, as there increasingly is to acute instability and efforts to protect vulnerable people and re-establish basic order, much more than a military capacity is needed in order to make those interventions effective.

    Furthermore, as the national security policy of April 2004 emphasized, Canada is focused first and foremost on prevention--through development strategies, support for human rights and democracy, diplomacy to prevent conflict, and contributions to build human security.

    It's correct to understand all of these as security measures: economic security; promotion through development; governance that respects the rights and has the confidence of people--democracy, in other words. Control of arms, especially small arms that transform political grievance and lawlessness in particular locations into overt violence--disarmament, in other words--is another security measure. And more effective diplomacy to ensure attention to these other items and to peaceful resolution of conflict is essential.

    Those four are security priorities essential to addressing state failure. They are not, however, global security spending priorities. Already 50 years ago, Lester Pearson, in his Nobel speech, lamented what he called the grim fact that we prepare for war like precocious giants and for peace like retarded pygmies.

    Are they Canadian spending priorities, these security measures? The February budget was welcomed for its promise of defence spending increases. Its management of the balance among the full range of security measures, however, was less impressive.

    Look, for example, at our defence to development spending ratio. It now stands at about four to one--in other words, four times as much on defence as on development. And one would expect defence to be much more expensive because of all the logistic and human and equipment resources that are there.

    If we actually were to meet our national target of ODA at 0.7% of GDP while still allowing increases in military spending from the current 1.1% of the GDP to somewhere in the neighbourhood of 1.4% or 1.5%, it would significantly expand the overall security spending envelope in Canada and it would shift the defence to development ratio much closer to two to one, which is the ratio it obtains in most of the Nordic states--Sweden, Norway, Denmark. It's two to one in the Netherlands. It's a ratio that would provide a more relevant response to the contemporary security imperatives that the international policy statement is quite good at setting out.

Á  (1125)  

    Instead, in the February budget, the plan is to hold ODA spending to .33% of GDP by 2010, to increase defence spending to about 1.6% of estimated GDP at that time, and thus to increase the defence to ODA ratio to over four to one. That's the question we have to ask ourselves: is this a trend that is conducive to a more effective response to failed and failing states and to the declared commitment to prevention?

    None of this is to deny that there are urgent military dimensions to advancing security and to enhancing the safety of people in their homes and community. It's probably redundant to remind ourselves that there are no quick fixes to state failure—either military quick fixes or diplomatic ones. The toxic mixtures of soil depletion, water scarcity, the absence of health care and basic infrastructure, political exclusion, religious and ethnic competition, plentiful arms--all of these together accumulate to produce failed states. They all require long-term peace-building measures.

    What about the military requirements in the meantime? The defence statement says that “the ability to respond to the challenge of failed and failing states will serve as the benchmark for Canadian forces”. So the question is, what constitutes relevant military preparedness for that kind of a mission?

    The 2001 report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty has some responses. It's quite emphatic about identifying the particular roles and objectives of forces deployed to protect vulnerable people—those vulnerable people who are waiting for the long-term peace-building activities to change their true security environment. On the responsibility to protect, the ICISS report said that the military challenge is to develop “tactics and strategies of military intervention that fill the current gulf between outdated concepts of peacekeeping and full-scale military operations that may have deleterious impacts on civilians”. Another point, it says, is that “Military intervention for humanitarian purposes involves a form of military action significantly more narrowly focused and targeted than all out war-fighting”. Then it says:

Winning the acceptance of civilian populations means accepting limitations and demonstrating through the use of restraint that the military operation is not a war to defeat a state but an operation to protect populations in that state from being harassed, persecuted or killed.

    The defence statement seems not to disagree. It also notes, “Our soldiers, sailors and air personnel must increasingly operate in environments where the lines between war and peace have blurred”. It then identifies a variety of required tools, “from negotiation, compromise and cultural sensitivity to precision weapons”. But I think it needs to explain more fully how Canadian Forces' training, equipment, and the rules of engagement must be adjusted in order to privilege, as the statement says they must, “the sanctity of human life”. That's part of that defence capability plan that David was telling us about.

    Unfortunately, military preparedness, including the NATO response force, does not guarantee early action. The world's egregious failure to respond adequately to the desperate conditions in Darfur and elsewhere is not due to a lack of military capacity; it's due to the international community's incapacity for timely, consistent decision-making.

Á  (1130)  

    I fear that the international policy statement largely ignores this fundamental problem about responding to failed states. In fact, in the prominence it gives to NATO alongside the United Nations, it almost implies that NATO can set up a response force and rely on its own decision-making. There's almost an implied equivalence in the statement between NATO and the United Nations. The two are regularly referred to together as the two international organizations important for Canada.

    But NATO, of course, is not a regional organization within the UN system. It is not like the African Union or the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. It is not a geographically inclusive body that has the mandate to make decisions for and politically represent regional interests. Rather, on the world stage NATO is really a coalition of the willing. This is the key point. It cannot be the author of its own legitimacy. It requires external confirmation of its legitimacy, and it relies on the United Nations charter on the right to defence. It relies on the Security Council itself, and in some circumstances on the decisions of bona fide politically inclusive regional organizations.

    It is confident and timely decision-making in these organizations in the United States and in regional organizations that is the key to timely action, intervention, and support of people in failed and failing states. That's a fundamental problem that all of the military realignment, rehabilitation, and development in the world is not going to change if we don't have the means for timely and responsible decision-making.

    Thank you very much.

    The Chair: Thank you, sir.

    We will go to members. We'll start with Mr. O'Connor.

    Mr. O'Connor.

    Mr. Gordon O'Connor (Carleton—Mississippi Mills, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    I guess I could ask both of you to answer this, but Mr. Rudd brought it up. On the expansion of NORAD, the binational negotiations going on now, I wonder what your opinions are about the future of this activity and where you think it should go.

    Mr. David Rudd: I must admit I'm a bit of an agnostic on that. The most prominent permutation or suggestion about the future of NORAD has involved the expansion of the mandate to cover the maritime sphere, in other words, aerospace and maritime.

    If it can be shown that Canada's maritime approaches can be better protected by pooling resources with the United States...and as we know, their resources are considerably larger than ours. I refer, for example, to their Deepwater project, which is going to re-equip the entire U.S. Coast Guard, one of the largest navies in the world. If it's judged appropriate that Canadian and U.S. ships operate in each other's territory, albeit at the service of both governments, perhaps that's something we would be inclined to approve.

    I sense, though, that debate over the future of NORAD is going to be coloured to a great degree by the fact that there's a certain degree of apprehension about the foreign policy predilections of the administration to the south. Any effort to expand the mandate of the organization, even in a way that by any objective standard might be very much in Canada's interest, is going to suffer a setback, simply because we don't want to put anything in front of the Canadian public that would lead them to believe that we're forfeiting sovereignty to the Americans.

    I'm cautiously optimistic that not only will the organization survive, but its mandate will be modified somewhat so we can leverage American resources to a greater extent than we are. The alternative might be rather expensive--a recapitalization program among the maritime arms of the national security apparatus.

    Beyond that, I'm not sure which way NORAD is going to go. In fact, aside from looking at the internal picture, I'm not sure where it necessarily could go. It's all well and good to look at the future of NORAD, but let's also remember that another reformation of the command arrangements is being instituted right now, and that's the establishment of Canada Command. Here is an organization that is going to look at taking care of the home game, but it will probably have an institutional counterpart in the U.S. Northern Command.

    So as we talk about cooperative arrangements with the United States, let's not just simply talk about NORAD; let's talk about the interplay between CANCOM and NORTHCOM, for example, if there's some sort of incident, be it an earthquake or a dirty bomb, in the border areas. I think we need to start talking about how our new command arrangement is going to interface with their new command arrangement, because if something does happen, the Canadian public is not only going to show its impatience that something be done, but it's going to demand very effective action. If those institutional arrangements are not worked out, that's going to be very politically damaging for whomever is in power.

    I hope I've answered that and expanded on your question.

Á  (1135)  

    Mr. Ernie Regehr: Thank you.

    In general terms, in kind of broad principle, it's obviously very important for neighbouring states--Canada and the United States, Mexico, and in particular North America--to have cooperative security arrangements, to cooperate with each other in a meaningful way.

    One of the fundamental commitments we make to the United States is to give them credible assurance that threats to their security will not emanate from our territory, and we expect the same in return. So there needs to be cooperation. I don't think that necessarily translates into joint command arrangements. If we were starting NORAD today, I don't think we'd have a joint command arrangement; we would have means of cooperation between, as David said, Canada Command and NORTHCOM. I don't know a compelling reason to develop joint command arrangements at sea.

    I think the fundamental principle is that you cooperate with your neighbour, but you do it within the context of retained independence and the capacity to act independently and abroad. It's very important that Canada is developing this threat assessment centre. Canada needs to have the capacity for an independent threat assessment in North America and internationally to understand the security environment particularly from a Canadian perspective. We need to have interoperability that is multilateral, that is able to work collectively not only with American forces but with forces internationally, because when we intervene in failed state situations, it's not likely to be together with American forces. Chances are it's going to be with other forces more so.

    So interoperability needs to be not North American but multilateral, with independent threat assessment and the capacity to function independently in the world, without being too closely tied to the particular whims or priorities of a particular American administration.

Á  (1140)  

    Mr. Gordon O'Connor: Do I have any time left?

    The Chair: You have about 33 seconds.

    Mr. Gordon O'Connor: I won't take it because my question is too long.

    The Chair: All right. Thank you very much for keeping within the time.

    Mr. Bachand.

[Translation]

    M. Claude Bachand (Saint-Jean, BQ): First of all, I'd like to thank you for your presentation. It's clear that you're very knowledgeable about this subject. In my view, it's important for the committee to hear from individuals like yourself so that we can get a clear idea of the direction in which this country's defence policy is heading.

    I'd like to focus on NORAD, because there is one area that we have not looked at. I am favour of expanding our maritime forces. I think we should be monitoring traffic off the coast of North America, and so forth.

    However, I'd like to hear your views on NORTHCOM and the recent changes at NORAD. As a result of changes made in August of 2004, NORAD can now send information to NORTHCOM which of course is linked to the missile-defence shield. When we toured NORAD installations, we were told that if Canada had signed on to the program, a seat at the command table now taken up by an American would in fact be filled by a Canadian.

    Regarding NORAD, there are two schools of thought. Most likely Mr. McKenna sides with one group in believing that if Canada signs on to the anti-ballistic missile detection initiative, that means it is not taking part in the missile-defence shield project.

    In my opinion, Mr. McKenna was trying to say that Canada is already part of the missile-defence shield initiative, because we're involved in detection operations. However, Canada will not be the one to push the button to launch a counter-attack. The button will be pushed by the Americans at NORTHCOM, not by NORAD.

    Therefore, I'd like your opinion. Are we, or are we not, participants in the missile-defence shield program? I'm inclined to think that we are, since detection operations are conducted on Canadian soil and we maintain that NORTHCOM is responsible for these operations.

    Mr. David Rudd: I'm not sure what the French equivalent for “plausible deniability“ is. In my opinion, Canada is part of the missile defence program, because anti-ballistic missile detection is one component of the mission to destroy them. Therefore, I think the government is wrong to say that this is not our responsibility, but rather the sole responsibility of the US Air Force. I doubt that's the case.

    Mr. Claude Bachand: I'd like to get Mr. Regehr's opinion. You represent churches, social groups and so on. I would imagine then that you oppose the missile-defence shield initiative.

[English]

    Mr. Ernie Regehr: I think it's at best an area of ambiguity, but there is a distinction. Throughout the cold war Canada was always part of missile detection. That information got fed to the U.S. Strategic Command, and it was then a U.S. decision about what to do with that information. We were not part of the decision in the cold war about how the United States would retaliate in the event of a missile attack, nor would we realistically be part of the American decision now on how to retaliate, whether through a retaliatory attack or an attempted interception. That's an American mission. In fact, the August amendment to NORAD was a bit redundant because the United States commands always had access to all NORAD information. It didn't require an amendment to NORAD to give NORTHCOM access to it. That was a bit of theatre at that time.

    Canada is part of the process of detection and understanding the threat environment, but it's a national decision on the part of the United States how it responds to that. It's a national decision on the part of Canada whether it wants to have a joint command on a missile defence operation or whether it doesn't want to be part of it.

    Incidentally, the U.S. enthusiasm for the ground-based system in Alaska is declining rather markedly.

Á  (1145)  

[Translation]

    Mr. Claude Bachand: I have two brief questions for each of you.

    Mr. Rudd, you have some reservations about the $13 billion price tag. As you stated -- or as I'm about to inform you -- this represents a fairly limited outlay for the first few years. What is your view of the long-term strategic planning process? MPs, on the other hand, are required to approve a defence budget every year. We can always say that the budget will increase by $13 billion over five years, but what happens if the current government is no longer in power in two years' time and the new government has a change of heart? Is a strategic planning approach consistent with the type of Parliament we have where budgets must be approved every year?

    Mr. Regehr, you talked about a ratio of two to one. Is this based solely on northern countries, or is this the general ratio? You're talking about the ratio of defence spending to international aid. I'd also like to hear your views on diplomacy as well.

    Currently, in terms of the EPR in Kandahar, 99 per cent of the spending is on defence versus one per cent for diplomacy and international aid. I think the spending ratio needs to be revisited. How does the duty to protect fit into the overall picture? Some action is needed. Can we act alone, given our duty to protect?

[English]

    The Chair: We'd like to squeeze in time for a response.

    Mr. Claude Bachand: Well, maybe in the second round he can answer.

    The Chair: No, please, let's have some quick responses.

[Translation]

    Mr. David Rudd: I want to be certain that I understand your question. You asked if defence budgets must be approved each year?

    Mr. Claude Bachand: We do approve the defence budget every year.

    Mr. David Rudd: Members of Parliament do?

    Mr. Claude Bachand: Yes. How do you reconcile that fact with long-term strategic planning? Is it possible to do both?

[English]

    Mr. David Rudd: I think it would be more in the multi-year assessments, because there's something called the “vagaries of politics”—which I wish I knew how to say in French, because I love the expression. These vagaries are so pronounced in our political process—and that's an observation, not a reproach—that I think there's probably too much political whim. Instead, it's through stability of the budget over time that we stand a much better chance of realizing these worthwhile and modest objectives. So tearing ourselves apart every year over this I think would open up the possibility that a budget, for example, would be held up simply because the forces wanted to buy, let's say, a piece of kit and it became a very controversial subject. I would not like to see the budget held up over, let's say, a line item. That would be very counterproductive.

    The Chair: Mr. Regehr, a quick response, sir.

    Mr. Ernie Regehr: Thank you.

    If I could just respond to the vagaries of politics, I think one of the big advantages of annual assessments is that they force the political process to produce and build an ongoing security consensus. You need to engage everybody in an ongoing sense of what the security priorities are. I think that's the discipline that annual funding imposes on you.

    On the two-to-one ratio, that's a comparison of northern OECD countries that contribute development assistance. It's an arbitrary comparison, but it's one way of comparing relative commitment.

    I think, too, there's a lot that could be said about the provincial reconstruction teams and the advantages and pitfalls of those. As I said in my opening comments, it's very often that diplomacy and the promotion of democracy and development require military support, in the sense of building a secure environment. It's also true that for the military to act effectively in building a secure environment, it needs the very active support of diplomacy, financial rebuilding, democratic institutional development and so forth; the two go hand in hand. In failed states, that balance had better be there.

Á  (1150)  

    The Chair: Thank you.

    We'll go to Mr. Martin.

    Hon. Keith Martin (Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

    Ernie, and Dave, it's great to see you here. Thank you very much for spending the time.

    David, I'll ask you the first question, dealing with the most important priority or issue you addressed, and that is, how do we deal with the human resources deficits we have? Perhaps you could provide us with some very specific and constructive solutions as to what we can do to improve recruitment, retention, and re-engagement in the forces. If you don't have them now and you'd like to think about them, perhaps you'd like to come back and submit to our researchers some very specific solutions, because we as a committee are really engaged in trying to deal with this.

    Ernie, you and I have known each other for 10 years at least, and we've grappled with the major failing of the international community: how do we put teeth in the right to protect? You and so many of your colleagues have worked hard on how to do this. We saw the difficulties Canada had in simply getting the adoption of the RTP into the recent UN negotiations, so I'd ask you if you have any specific solutions on two fronts.

    One, what specific initiatives can Canada take to convince the international community, because this is a matter of political will, as to how we can put teeth into the right to protect, so that it's not just another document sitting there impotently on a shelf, looking pretty but unable to actually prevent the carnage that occurs in the world to this day in front of us?

    The second part of that is the UN registry for small arms. Do you have any solutions as to what Canada can do to try to support and buttress it, so that that becomes a muscular body that can actually deal with the trafficking of small arms? If there isn't enough time and you want to think about that, we'd be very grateful if you sent your suggestions to the committee.

    Thank you.

    The Chair: You can send it to the clerk and we'll make sure that all members receive a copy. If it's in the two official languages, we would appreciate it, but if not, we'll make sure it's translated.

    Mr. David Rudd: Keith, can I share with you some points that I made to Senator Kenny last week with regard to—

    Hon. Keith Martin: With anybody else, it would be okay, but....

[Translation]

    Mr. David Rudd: Fine, sirs, I'm going.

[English]

    Mr. Claude Bachand: I call him the non-elected minister.

    Mr. David Rudd: I'm not bringing you the same song sheet I sang last week when I was here.

    Recruiting, retention, re-engagement: the three Rs. How do we do it? I cannot say to you that I am fully acquainted with all the bureaucratic and administrative barriers to, for example, re-engagement or the cross-component transfer, i.e., the transfer of someone from the regular forces who wishes to enter the reserves--let's say a certain class of reserves. If, for example, a 30-year-old woman who is a regular service member wants to have a family or pursue a civilian career, but doesn't want to leave the forces, what are the barriers to her transfer to the reserves? I believe the Chief of the Defence Staff has looked at this and has negotiated with the appropriate parties, so that instead of this taking five or six months, they get it down to three or four weeks. Again, I'm not sure what those barriers are, but I think it would be worthwhile if the committee looked at what they are.

    I think one of the chief challenges here, and one of the most important things the committee could encourage, is that in our effort to deploy worldwide to discharge our responsibilities, we realize that we need to generate forces. We generate those forces through the recruiting system and the training system. Let's not forget the training system.

    First, we need to advertise better. We need to connect with communities better, including the various visible minority communities. I live in Toronto, and I see reservists who are certainly not Caucasian getting off the subways. They're one of the best recruiting tools out there, but when I ride the subways in Canada's largest city, I don't see advertisements on the subway. Someone told me—and I got this second-hand, folks—that it was the fear over the Gomery allegations that caused the government to withdraw all recruitment advertising for the armed forces. I've only seen a couple of television adverts recently, and I've cynically remarked that they came back only because the NHL was back in action. But advertising is a very big thing.

    Second--and please, I can't emphasize this enough--we need to leave the training system alone. Stop raiding the training units to fill out the units that are being sent overseas. If you're doing that, you're eating your young. Stop doing that. You can't rob Peter to pay Paul. Leave Peter alone. Give Paul more resources, or don't send him abroad. So leave the training system alone.

    Coming back to cross-component transfer, if we can get the cross-component transfer dynamic correct, allowing people to fairly seamlessly go from reg to reserve, reserve to reg, then I believe the third arc, re-engagement, will not be necessary. If we can keep them in the reserves as class A or class B reservists, then we don't need to worry about bringing people back who have left the service, because we will not have driven them out of the service; we will not have given them a choice of either a military or a civilian career. I think that's a Hobson's choice, and it benefits no one.

    Sorry, I took a little longer than I should have.

Á  (1155)  

    Mr. Ernie Regehr: Thank you.

    I have one suggestion related to how to make responsibility to protect a real commitment, which is that I think it's going to become really by virtue of practice, by precedent, more than by declaration. I think one of the great services Canada's Integrated Threat Assessment Centre could do would be to do detailed analysis and monitoring of situations of failed and failing states where civilian populations are in great danger and to specifically invoke the thresholds that are called for in the R2P document--the World Summit's formulation of that was a little different--and then interventions at the Security Council. There can be cooperation with the non-governmental world too. There needs to be a kind of Security Council watch backed up by informed intelligence and informed research, pointing out the areas where civilians are in peril or are in developing peril, and calling for the Security Council then to meet its responsibility to take measures to protect the vulnerable. I think the Threat Assessment Centre has a role to play there.

    On the small arms, I think there are a couple of things. One is disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration--DD and R. As you know, it's a very expensive proposition but an absolutely essential one. If there is not effective demobilization of the ex-combatants in southern Sudan now and in Somalia--God willing that it becomes a little bit more stable--but in southern Sudan, which is stable, where there is no fighting now, if there isn't effective demobilization there, if the arms floating around that area are not collected, that area of the world will be so susceptible to destabilization that prospects for it are not very strong.

    That's a lot of money, because it will mean development projects to give former combatants something constructive to do and so forth. So a lot of on-the-ground resources are the big thing needed there. The UNDP has a whole plan for southern Sudan right now, but it's not funded. So that's a very key thing, funding for DD and R, making sure that in places where peace operations function, the collection of small arms is part of that.

    Then I think, on the diplomacy level, we have to do something about continuing to feed arms into those regions. July 2006 is the date for the review conference of the small arms program of action. One key element there is to introduce into that program of action a set of criteria for limiting the international transfer of arms and for putting some clamps and restraints on that.

  (1200)  

    Hon. Keith Martin: Thank you very much.

    The Chair: We're just about out of time.

    We're in the second round now. We'll go to Mrs. Gallant.

    Mrs. Cheryl Gallant (Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, CPC): First of all, l'd like Mr. Rudd to explain and give examples of what taskings for a military would be considered of national interest. How do you interpret a tasking that would be of national interest? For example, explain how deploying troops to Haiti was in our national interest, how deploying to Darfur is in our national interest? Is that translating to votes for the government? How is it our national interest?

    Mr. David Rudd: I can't speculate as to what the government's exact motivations would be.

    In Haiti, I think the interest goes beyond simply looking out for our own hemisphere. I don't think geographical proximity or non-proximity enters into it at all. If it did, we would probably have never gone to Afghanistan or helped alleviate the Somalia famine or the effects of the tidal wave that laid waste to the Indian Ocean basin. Haiti is a major conduit, if I am not mistaken, for illegal narcotics, and the ongoing fragility of that state is of demonstrable concern to this country, if for no other reasons than drugs can go through there.

    In East Timor, I was rather surprised by our deployment there, not because we did not support the birth of a new state through a democratic process, but rather because we went and made such a small contribution, based on reasons that I found, at the time, to be somewhat specious. I think there was a lot of strategic crying in front of CBC television cameras, which perhaps moved the government to send about 150 soldiers for a very short amount of time. We can't be everywhere, so I think it was reasonable that the Australians took the lead there.

    I do not want to give you or the committee the impression that cynical realpolitik should determine when we deploy, any more than mindless moralism should. I think the national interest is expansive: there might be a demonstrable threat to the security of this country, i.e. from drugs going through Haiti, and from the possibility that Afghanistan could slip back into anarchy and therefore become like an incubator or aircraft carrier for international super-terror.

    I mentioned in my opening, and perhaps in the paper that you might have read, that enlightened self-interest seems to carry the day, and that there's a recognition that a lot of these crises engage us on a variety of levels—perhaps on a material level with drugs or terrorism, but also because it is in our interest to see a region get on its feet, because it could be a destination for Canadian investment at a later date. If we do leave these crises alone and let problems fester, they could create refugee flows, not only into neighbouring states but also into this country.

    I believe we just arrested a gentleman from Rwanda recently, who came to this country, I assume, by legal means, but who has been convicted of war crimes. Had we been a little faster off the mark in Rwanda, not only would we have saved a lot of lives, but we also would not have been dealing with these non-traditional and below-the-radar-screen problems, refugee flows being one of them, and another the flotsam and jetsam who come out of these countries and try to set themselves up in ours and live a normal, unblemished life, escaping the justice that should deservedly await them back home.

    I'm sorry, but that's probably a lengthy way of saying that the national interest I think is a fairly expansive thing. Resources are tight, and, let's face it, the political span of attention of our governments is fairly short. I cannot articulate to you any firm criteria for when we should deploy or when we should not deploy, because, historically, governments have done that and have broken those criteria within years.

  (1205)  

    The Chair: I must say, time really lapses.

    We're going to be flexible.

    Go ahead.

    Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: Mr. Regehr, I'd like to hear your definition of failed states. Would they include an absolute dictatorship as well?

    Mr. Ernie Regehr: Generally, we understand failed states to be states in which people have lost confidence in the public institutions of their country and can no longer rely on public institutions for basic security and for meeting basic needs and have to act on their own, sometimes in competition with other communities, to provide their own security arrangements, whether through getting hold of guns...and so forth.

    That's an interesting question. In the national security states of Latin America of the 1970s, where there was absolute power over the instruments of the state and full control, and so forth, but in which thousands of people were “being disappeared”, the people obviously weren't secure. Those are certainly states that failed in their responsibility towards their citizens, but I'm not sure they are within the definition of the current usage of failed and failing states. I think those terms refer more to a lack of capacity in states to develop national institutions and services that are actually responsive to the needs of people.

    The Chair: We have to go on.

    Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: Would Iraq fall into the definition of “failed states”?

    Mr. Ernie Regehr: The pre-invasion Iraq? I would say not by common current usage, no.

    The Chair: We will go to Mr. Bagnell.

    Hon. Larry Bagnell (Yukon, Lib.): Thank you for coming.

    Mr. Regehr, you said Canada is four to one, roughly. What's the United States?

    Mr. Ernie Regehr: It's twenty-four to one.

    Hon. Larry Bagnell: So we're doing quite well in that.

    Mr. Ernie Regehr: Luxembourg, if you're interested, is one to one.

    Hon. Larry Bagnell: I have one question for each of you. I'll give you both the questions and leave it at that.

    Mr. Regehr, obviously the primary role of the defence department is to defend Canada, and we have to have great skills and abilities there.

    I have a couple of comments first in relation to the 0.7%, just to get them on the record. They're still working on the definition of that, because Canada makes a lot of contributions towards the international community, depending on how we calculate that, but I'm fully supportive of the fact that we're increasing our percentage faster than most countries in the world.

    I totally agree with you on the root causes. In fact, I was on Capitol Hill in Washington when the plane hit the Pentagon, and I was on the news an hour later saying that's what we have to work on, eliminating the root causes that determine things like that.

    You spoke to us about the international community's inability to react. I think you're obviously speaking to the converted. I think Canada is out in front leading, recognizing that concern and trying to do things about it, either through other institutions, where we can't through the UN, or.... I was at the UN in September and we had a great celebration with the Canadian delegation when we got the RTP in. So I totally agree.

    My question for you is this. About five years ago I was toying with an idea. It was just brainstorming with myself; this isn't a government idea--

    Mr. Dave MacKenzie (Oxford, CPC): That's scary.

    Hon. Larry Bagnell: Yes, that's very scary.

    It has nothing to do with the north. That's my second question.

    Say you had two departments, one for war and the defence of Canada and another one for peacekeeping, with our expanded role as we define peacekeeping, including aid and everything in a more comprehensive and very good role for the military. David, my question for you is, can you briefly describe your organization and the percentage of time it spends on part A, war, and part B, peace?

    Most importantly, what are your organization's views on what we need to do in the military related to sovereignty in the north? I've been leading a crusade for the last few years--my poor colleagues putting up with it--on increasing our capacity related to sovereignty in the north, especially because of the melting ice cap.

    Mr. Ernie Regehr: I'll do the department of peace and the department of war question.

    My inclination, my brainstorming, goes in the other direction. What we really need is a department of security, an approach to security that integrates all of these military and non-military elements to make an effective, holistic response to situations of failed states. I'm not persuaded when someone says we'll put the war fighters here and the peacekeepers there. That's not the kind of security environment we face, in which we have it very clear that here we need tanks to fight other tanks and here we need different kinds of things.

    There are some people around who have been advocating for a department of peace. You'd think I would be supportive of that, but I'm not really. It's not that we should have a department of peace separate from a department of defence. A department we could call the department of human security, I suppose, would make some of us happy, but there needs to be greater integration of the security effort across these things rather than a bifurcation of it; that would be my inclination.

  (1210)  

    Mr. David Rudd: If I can, I'll just add something quickly to that.

    We've been doing some research on defence diplomacy and development and the interplay between the two. Some of our research, as far as Afghanistan is concerned, suggests that there's been a degree of success on the ground in Afghanistan. What is lacking is the end to the stovepiping that takes place here in Ottawa among Foreign Affairs, CIDA, and DND. In other words, people may not be able to agree on anything back here at headquarters, but they play very well in the sandbox when they actually get over there because they're all pushing in the same direction. So if there are any reforms, I think they need to take place back here at home.

    With regard to northern sovereignty, I'll just repeat what I said at the outset; these are my views. There's no institutional view in the CISS on how best to pursue northern sovereignty. Certainly, what the government has already done to extend Canadian law to the high Arctic is a good thing. I'm unaware of the exact legal demands our claims to the Northwest Passage and the high Arctic place on us in terms of having a permanent presence there. Keep in mind, this is not simply a military function; it's a whole of government function.

    I will say one thing about northern sovereignty. Let's remember one thing: the Arctic ice cap is not going to disappear like that. Hopefully it won't, and if it does get smaller, it's going to be a very gradual process; therefore, let's not expect that this place is going to open up to commercial shipping any time in the foreseeable future. If the ice breaks, there will be a lot of these small growlers, these small icebergs floating around, which will be very dangerous even to double-hold commercial ships.

    However, one thing I have not seen as far as DND planning goes is a slightly more comprehensive approach to establishing and maintaining that presence in the north. We can talk about how many flights our Aurora aircraft take, and we can talk about whether it's more cost-effective to do that with unmanned air systems, and it might be. Of course, it's all well and good to monitor what's going on, but actually being there, being able to do something about it, is another matter.

    I would, for example, counsel General Hillier, as he develops the defence capabilities plan, to elevate the importance of having the navy and the coast guard operate in the high Arctic. The recapitalization of the coast guard is arguably as important as the recapitalization of certain naval capabilities, and I think we've forgotten that. Remember, this is not just a military function; it's a whole of government function.

    A recapitalization program for the navy should include some ships with ice-capable hulls. They would have to be very modestly armed, and they would probably spend more time policing our exclusive economic zone than they would in international operations. Perhaps they would never be sent outside our territorial waters.

    Does that help?

  (1215)  

    Hon. Larry Bagnell: You didn't describe your organization.

    Mr. David Rudd: The organization is a non-profit, member-driven organization that conducts research and analysis on a very wide variety of security issues, not simply defence.

    In point of fact, I do a lot of media work, and I've found that a very large portion of my time these days is not related to the external security picture or the demands placed on the Canadian military. We're getting more and more inquiries on the domestic picture, counter-terrorism legislation--

    The Chair: We have to move on. I have to apologize.

    There's an interesting article on the coast guard today in the National Post, if you want to pick up on it, Larry. It covers some of the stuff David was just touching upon.

[Translation]

    Go ahead, Mr. Perron.

    Mr. Gilles-A. Perron (Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, BQ): Last Tuesday, the committee heard from Dr. Bland from Queen's University. In answer to one of my questions, the witness stated that percentage wise, the strength of our Canadian Forces was approximately 2 per cent that of US Forces. Considering that Canada has about one tenth the population of the United States, should we be looking at increasing the size of our armed forces to 10 per cent of the overall strength of US Forces? If so, do we have the financial resources to accomplish this feat?

    Mr. David Rudd: No, I don't think so. We have neither the means, nor the will, to accomplish that.

    It comes down to foreign policy and to defence policy. Our policy is radically different from US policy. We have different political and military cultures.

[English]

    Frankly, I don't think we need to latch onto any specific numbers or compare ourselves to any specific countries. Ernie made the comparison to some of the Nordic countries. You can compare us to other countries in terms of the level of defence versus overseas development.

    I believe--and I hope this came out in the paper I gave you, Monsieur Perron--that Canadians seem to be satisfied with a modest defence effort. Being staunch multilateralists, we rely on other people to pick up slack that we are not able to pick up, and I believe we are adherents to the adage, to paraphrase Theodore Roosevelt, walk softly and carry a big stick. I think maybe our stick needs to be a bit bigger, but saying that we need to have a certain percentage of the population in uniform is I think a non sequitur.

[Translation]

    Mr. Gilles-A. Perron: In that case, you're somewhat in agreement with me. You would be more in favour of a specialized army, with a specific mission, for instance, Canadian forces that would be more actively involved in domestic security. However, there is virtually no mention of Canadian domestic or homeland security in the statement.

    Do you have anything to say about that?

[English]

    Mr. David Rudd: I believe a flexible service member is our best defence against a range of eventualities. I believe one of the reasons General Hillier adopted this so-called “Canada first” strategy is because he's absolutely convinced that unless the relevance of the Canadian military is demonstrated to Canadians--not necessarily on a day-to-day basis, but unless that relevance is more clearly articulated--public support is going to wain, and with public support gone, any chance of rebuilding or recapitalizing the forces is going to be lost.

    I believe we are making some progress as to what capability should be resident in the reserve units that live near the local communities--CIMIC operations; civil-military relations; psychological operations; nuclear, biological, chemical defence. I think these are very appropriate, homeland security-type roles for the reserves.

    Getting back to what Ernie was talking about earlier, I don't think we need to bifurcate and have troops for homeland security only and other troops for international security.

    Mr. Bagnall asked me what our organization studies, and I mentioned that we get more calls these days on the domestic security picture. I could tell you a lot about the international picture. I could tell you a lot about the domestic picture. It's that overlap between the two of them that is really interesting, and I think that's where more research needs to be done. But a service member who can cross that line and go both places is I think our best investment.

    I hope that answers part of your question, sir.

  (1220)  

[Translation]

    Mr. Gilles-A. Perron: Would you care to comment, Mr. Regehr?

[English]

    Mr. Ernie Regehr: I have just a brief comment.

    Canada is a very wealthy country. We enjoy a high level of stability and security at home. I think it's in our interests to contribute to an international order that is stable and secure. I think there is capacity for Canada to enhance its contribution to international peace and security consistent with the domestic and North American needs. I think we have the wealth.

    One of the great privileges of this country is that we don't have to devote huge resources to the military defence of our homeland, which means that in turn, we have the opportunity to make more of our contribution to international peace and security, to attending to those root elements, root causes, of failed and failing states, which in international terms is radically underfunded compared to the amount of funding that goes to military responses to them.

    I think that's where the opportunity, where the value-added for Canada, can go.

    The Chair: And that's just about our time, almost right on, actually.

    We'll go to Mr. Rota.

    Mr. Anthony Rota (Nipissing—Timiskaming, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    Thank you for being here. I was listening earlier to Mr. Regehr talking about the department of peace and the department of war. There's almost an Orwellian overtone. I'm kind of worried about one thing that's coming up now. You mentioned consolidating everything, and it sounds like a good idea. We're moving towards Canada Command and transformation.

    On the transformation, the intentions are there to bring everything together. Do you feel we're going in the right direction? Are we heading down the right road? How do you feel we're doing, and would you do anything different from what the military's plans are?

    Mr. Ernie Regehr: I'm going to defer to David on the specifics of the integration of the services and so forth in the context of Canada Command.

    The part of the integration I'm particularly interested in is the integration of the military, social, economic, and political elements of security policy. Those are all elements of security policy, and they need to be integrated and supportive of each other.

    Mr. David Rudd: Sorry, could you repeat your question?

    Mr. Anthony Rota: There's a transformation going on in the forces, in which you're consolidating or bringing together better information, better transmission, and better use of the existing forces.

    There's a big plan out there. It's not exactly clear. From what you know of it right now, do you agree with where it's going? And where do you see it going? Will it achieve what it has to achieve? If not, what do you see us doing differently?

    Mr. David Rudd: I'm wondering if you're referring to the alterations to the command structure of the Canadian Forces.

    Mr. Anthony Rota: Exactly.

    Mr. David Rudd: Okay. Actually, I didn't bring any props here, but just to inform my comments, I'm going to see if I have--

    Mr. Anthony Rota: That's on the three Ds. In that case, it makes it a little bit easier.

    Mr. David Rudd: Oh, it's on the three Ds, not on the command structure, but--

    Mr. Anthony Rota: Does the command structure take into account the three Ds?

    Mr. David Rudd: I don't think it does necessarily. The chief aspects of the changes to the command structure involve the establishment of Canada Command, the Canadian Expeditionary Forces Command, the Special Operations Group, and the support units. Those are the operators, the people who are actually going to get out and do the operations.

    On the other side of the house, you have the people who are generating the forces, who are responsible for the institutional health of the three armed services. We still have the chiefs of staff.

    Mr. Anthony Rota: There's a connection between the two.

    Mr. David Rudd: Yes. Actually, what they do is.... It's like radio, and I'm trying to do something visual. It's terrible. The operators are here, the force generators are here, and of course everybody is accountable to the CDS at the top.

    The change on the operator side of things is that there's going to be a commander of force development who's going to be, I guess, superior, at least in appointment, although not in rank, to the three environmental chiefs.

    How will this serve the cause of defence diplomacy development? I think the defence portion of the three Ds is served chiefly by actually having people to deploy and training them in a way that I think we are doing right now, which is to know when to level their weapons and also when to point them at the ground and engage a potential adversary in dialogue.

    The command structure is to allow us to generate forces better and to employ them in a way that is wiser, given the security environment out there. But whether this works depends very much on things that are outside DND's control. I mentioned earlier the stovepiping that takes place here at home. I think there has to be a much greater, higher level of integration of, shall we say, policy or direction between DND, Foreign Affairs Canada, and CIDA. It seems to work well on the ground. I'm not sure it works well at home.

  (1225)  

    Mr. Anthony Rota: I guess that was part of my question. Do you see the stovepipes disappearing and having an actual amalgamation?

    Mr. David Rudd: That's a very good question. I don't think necessarily an amalgamation is--

    Mr. Anthony Rota: Maybe amalgamation is not the right word.

    Mr. David Rudd: Are you talking about a super-department?

    Mr. Anthony Rota: Exactly.

    Mr. David Rudd: I don't see a compelling reason for that. I think the necessity of some sort of mechanism whereby the activities are coordinated is necessary, but in terms of creating a super-bureaucracy, look what happened to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. That has been lambasted by even those who were initially supportive of its establishment as an unwieldy octopus that is having a lot of trouble finding its posterior with both hands, if you'll pardon the expression.

    No, I don't see that bureaucratic reform on a grand scale is necessarily going to solve our problem. I think it's much more pragmatic to try to coordinate things, perhaps with a high-level, yet influential, committee composed of representatives of the three departments.

    The Chair: With that, we'll go to Mr. O'Connor.

    Mr. Gordon O'Connor: This question is for both gentlemen. As was mentioned earlier by Mr. Rudd, the armed forces are coming forward with a list of capabilities. If you had your choices, both of you, what would you consider the highest priority capabilities the armed forces should have?

    Mr. David Rudd: On the human resources side, I would channel money into increasing the number of people in the specialist trades--the electronics technicians, medical staff, logisticians, carpenter. These are the people who are in constant deployment. We need more of them. Regrettably, it's those skills that make them attractive to the private sector. What incentives can we put in there to retain them?

    On the materiel side of things--you're familiar with the expression with regard to real estate that it's location, location, location--I believe it's logistics, logistics, logistics: airlift, sealift, the army's transport trucks, which are clapped out and desperately need replacement. I think this is where we need to put our money. And of course the advantage here is that this enables us to carry out international operations, but it also enables us to carry out domestic aid to the civil power operations as well. So those are the three.

    Mr. Ernie Regehr: In those things that David said, I'd certainly defer to his expertise there. I think on the matter of airlift or of lift capacity, my assumption is that this really needs to be a cooperative element. There are limits to the possibility of a totally adequate national strategic lift capability. I think NATO is doing some of that, so there's a cooperative element there. The policy statement says we have to have lift capability or access to it, and I think that's the wise way to go.

    I wonder about the training of the forces for operating in situations in which they have, as descriptions of the three-block war make clear, that part of an operation in urban or populated environments in which the objective is to bring some measure of stability and security in those areas where there are no police available and where small arms are in proliferation. Do the Canadian Forces have this kind of training, which is a little bit more related in some ways to a community policing function than it is to traditional combat functions? I think this is an area. The defence policy statement makes a great deal about functioning in those kinds of environments, those ambiguous zones between fighting a war and peace. That's the policy document I'm quoting; it's not me saying this. Functioning in that ambiguous environment I think is an important element, and it's important to the mindset of the young people who are sent there.

  (1230)  

    Mr. David Rudd: If I could add just one thing very quickly to that, I believe the army has a manoeuvre training area that it's standing up in Alberta. I'd be very interested to know--I'd be very interested to visit it--if it has an urban terrain component to it, because manoeuvring to get on your enemy's flanks is one thing, but if we're going to be in populated areas exercising the responsibility to protect, we need to create the physical infrastructure that allows us to train. Does that facility in Alberta include this? Is there one in Petawawa? I don't know, but if it doesn't exist, it should be created without delay.

    The Chair: And even if it does exist, as we close, we are restricted as to our travel based on a very busy schedule.

    Mr. Regehr, you made a comment earlier, and it was the second time I've heard it, back to back, in the previous committee and in this one. Canada is a very wealthy country. You're quite accurate today in making this statement, but I don't think you could have made this statement 10, 11, or 12 years ago when this country was in shambles, literally bankrupt, high debt, high deficit, high unemployment. If the same conditions had existed then as they exist today, post-9/11, Afghanistan, etc., I wonder how we could have faced these fronts. Would you just comment on that? If we had been in that position, what could we have done, taking Haiti out, for example, or Darfur, etc.? How would we address these international obligations, as they've often been described?

    Mr. Ernie Regehr: “In shambles”--that's a relative term. Canada in shambles looks a little different from Sudan in shambles, if you can get my point.

    Ten or fifteen years ago, Canada was a wealthy country, with one of the highest per capita incomes in the world, and all the rest of it. In relative terms, our position wasn't so much different then than it is now in global terms. So I'm not disputing that the economic house is in better order today. The military spending went down during that decade of the 1990s, but ODA spending went down at twice the rate of military spending.

    It's hard to speculate what we would have done then. It's easier to be a bit more concrete about what we need to do now. There's a lot of emphasis upon restoring our capacity to contribute effectively to international peace and security. I'm concerned--and David uses the term “all of government”--that it's not a comprehensive restoration of that capacity. We're funnelling too much focus into a restoration of a military capacity when we explicitly know that for military forces to be effective in places like Afghanistan, they need to be matched by competent and effective intervention in all of these other levels. So it's that balance that I have a particular concern with.

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    The Chair: David, did you want to comment at all?

    Mr. David Rudd: No, actually I quite agree. I don't know what the schedule is or whether or not we've actually changed our minds and recommitted to the 0.7% of GDP.

    We've been running surpluses for how many years now?

    Hon. Keith Martin: Four. It's seven years...balanced budgets.

    Mr. David Rudd: I certainly agree with Ernie's suggestion that success is not going to come from looking to only one pillar of the 3D triad. We need to look at all, which means, of course, that we haven't talked about our diplomats. Do we have enough of them? Are they stationed in the right places? Are the places where we are opening up consulates and embassies in the right places? Let's not forget that pillar either.

    We talked about infantry, armour, artillery. If you pull out one of the legs of the stool, the stool falls over. Underfund one of the other pillars of the three Ds and the stool is going to fall over.

    The Chair: Thank you very much for coming before the committee and giving us your views and answering the most important questions asked by the committee.

    I don't want to suspend, colleagues. I just want to remind you, if I may, that our 10 a.m. start will commence on November 3; our meetings will be starting at 10 a.m. and going to 1 p.m. So the meeting of Tuesday, November 1--and our witnesses our confirmed--will be in the regular hours of 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

    I received an invitation, and I just want to inform you of it. A delegation of various committee chairs will be visiting Ottawa, and I've been asked to attend. I just want to make you aware of it, and time permitting...and as this is still unfolding, I would ask that one of the staff members accompany me as well. They're just basically asking to engage...how our committees work, etc. So there will be committees from various departments. One is the committee of national defence of Bangladesh.

    If anybody has an interest, by all means you're more than welcome to attend, and that's just been confirmed. Are there any questions on that? No?

    Thank you very much.

    The meeting is adjourned.