[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Monday, June 12, 1995
.1530 
[English]
The Chair: Ladies and Gentlemen, I assume that there's no need for me to introduce myself, but I'm Bill Rompkey, and for my sins, I was chosen to chair the Standing Committee of the House of Commons on National Defence and Veterans Affairs.
We're very pleased to meet with our colleagues from the North Atlantic Assembly this afternoon. I propose that we begin by going around the table and having each person identify himself or herself.
Mr. Anders C. Sjaastad (Leader of the Delegation, Committee Chairman, North Atlantic Assembly Committee on Defence and Security (Norway)): I am Anders C. Sjaastad from Norway, and I'm the chairman of the full committee on defence and security of the North Atlantic Assembly.
Onorabile Alberto Di Luca (Member, North Atlantic Assembly Committee on Defence and Security (Italy)): My name is Alberto Di Luca, I come from Italy. I work in Italy on the defence committee.
Senator Paolo Riani (Member, North Atlantic Assembly Committee on Defence and Security (Italy)): I am Paolo Riani. I'm an Italian senator on the defence committee of the Senate.
Mr. Jacob (Charlesbourg): I am Jean-Marc Jacob. I'm a member of the House of Commons. I am the official opposition critic of national defence, as well as a member of the national defence committee.
Mr. Proud (Hillsborough): I'm George Proud. I'm the vice-chairman of the Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs and Mr. Rompkey's assistant.
.1535
Dr. Peter Corterier (Secretary General, North Atlantic Assembly, and Member, North Atlantic Assembly Committee on Defence and Security (Federal Republic of Germany)): I'm Peter Corterier from Germany. I'm the Secretary General of the North Atlantic Assembly.
Mr. José Lello (Ex-North Atlantic Assembly President, and Member, North Atlantic Assembly Committee on Defence and Security (Portugal)): I'm José Lello from Portugal. I have two colleagues that are perhaps missing in action; I don't know. I am from the defence committee of my parliament.
Mr. Iahir Kose (Member, North Atlantic Assembly Committee on Defence and Security (Turkey)): I'm Kose from Turkey. I am a member of the committee of foreign affairs and ex-minister of industry and trade.
Mr. Florian Gerster (Member, North Atlantic Assembly Committee on Defence and Security (Federal Republic of Germany)): Florian Gerster, member of the German Bundesrat, the second chamber, and deputy chairman of the German delegation in NAA.
Mr. Peter Zumkley (Member, North Atlantic Assembly Committee on Defence and Security (Federal Republic of Germany)): I am Peter Zumkley, a member of the German Parliament, from Hamburg. I am on the defence committee and the budget committee.
Mr. Mifflin (Bonavista - Trinity - Conception): I am Fred Mifflin, member of Parliament. I am the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of National Defence and Veterans Affairs and a member of the Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs.
Sir Peter Emery (Member, North Atlantic Assembly Committee on Defence and Security (United Kingdom)): I'm Sir Peter Emery, a Conservative member of Parliament, a fairly new member of Parliament, as I've only been in the House of Commons for 35 years.
Mr. David Clark (Vice-Chairman, North Atlantic Assembly Committee on Defence and Security (United Kingdom)): David Clark, a member of the British House of Commons, the shadow Defence secretary.
Mr. Robert Banks (Member, North Atlantic Assembly Committee on Defence and Security (United Kingdom)): I'm Robert Banks, member of the United Kingdom House of Commons. I've been in the House for 21 years.
Ms Ranja Hauglid (Member, North Atlantic Assembly Committee on Defence and Security (Norway)): Ranja Hauglid, Norway. I've been a member of the Storting since 1981 and on the defence committee since 1989.
Senator Lambert Kelchtermans (Member, North Atlantic Assembly Committee on Defence and Security (Belgium)): I'm Senator Kelchtermans from Belgium. I am the head of the NAA delegation of Belgium and I am also a member of the Assembly of the Council of Europe and of the Assembly of the Western European Union.
Mr. Manfred Opel (Member, North Atlantic Assembly Committee on Defence and Security (Federal Republic of Germany)): My name is Manfred Opel. I'm a member of the German Bundestag and member of the defence committee of the German Bundestag as well.
Mr. Bertrand (Pontiac - Gatineau - Labelle): Hello, my name is Robert Bertrand. I'm a member of the House of Commons, a member of the Liberal Party, and also a member of the national defence committee.
Mr. Frazer (Saanich - Gulf Islands): My name is Jack Frazer. I'm the member of Parliament for Saanich - Gulf Islands on Canada's west coast. I'm the Reform Party defence critic and a member of the Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs.
Mr. Richardson (Perth - Wellington - Waterloo): My name is John Richardson. I'm a member of the Liberal Party and I'm a member of the national defence standing committee.
The Chair: We had some who people who ... please come in ...
Mr. Pedro Campilho (Member, North Atlantic Assembly Committee on Defence and Security (Portugal)): I was outside smoking a cigarette, something we can't do here. I am Portuguese. I'm a member of the Social Democratic Party. I have been in Parliament for eight years and I'm a member of the defence committee.
Mr. Ali Eser (Member, North Atlantic Assembly Committee on Defence and Security (Turkey)): I apologize for my delay because of ticket problems.
The Chair: You weren't smoking; that's good.
Mr. Eser: Yes, I was smoking.
My name is Ali Eser from Turkey. I belong to the True Path Party, which is in office now as a partner of the coalition. Thank you.
Mr. Angelo Correia (Member, North Atlantic Assembly Committee on Defence and Security (Portugal)): My name is Angelo Correia. I've been a member of Parliament since 1975. I'm chairman of the Portuguese delegation to the North Atlantic Assembly and CSC Assembly.
The Chair: Thank you. One of our colleagues, Francis LeBlanc, has just joined us.
Mr. LeBlanc (Cape Breton Highlands - Canso): My name is Francis LeBlanc. I'm a Liberal member of Parliament from Canada. I am directing the Canadian contingent to the OSCE parliamentary assembly and we will be hosting the OSCE parliamentary assembly the first week of July.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
On behalf of the Canadian defence committee, I would ask Mr. Sjaastad to make some opening remarks on behalf of his committee.
.1540
Mr. Sjaastad: Thank you, Bill. I'll just tell you why we are here and what we have been doing earlier today.
It is tradition that every year one of the five standing committees of the North Atlantic Assembly visit North America. This year, it was time for the committee on defence and security to come here. We are very pleased that we are able to bring so many people to Canada and, afterwards, to the United States.
Today we have had very good and instructive briefs on your new foreign policy, your new defence policy. We are not quite sure what is new, but at least we know this is the current policy of Canada.
There are some outstanding issues that are of mutual interest. One is, of course, the national policy of all our countries. The second is our mutual policy within NATO, and one very important issue in that respect is the enlargement of the Alliance.
These days, it is impossible for anyone who is interested in defence and foreign policy not to discuss the tragic situation in the former Yugoslavia and our involvement there. These are two issues we have actually been discussing since morning.
So I would think these few issues I mentioned are things we would like very much to have your views on, and then we might have an exchange of opinion. I guess we have close to an hour at our disposal.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Yes, we have about an hour and we have no fixed agenda. Anders has identified several topics that are prominent.
Before we get into the topics that are prominent, though, let me just say that this morning, in addition to having briefings from Foreign Affairs and from Defence, we also had lunch hosted by the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of National Defence, and in fact the minister came by and said a few words.
But if we didn't say thank you then, Fred, let us say thank you now for hosting us for lunch.
Mr. Mifflin: Thank you.
The Chair: Now we are wide open.
We have with us our colleague, Francis LeBlanc, who chairs the OSCE, a group in this country, and they will be hosting, as you know, the OSCE conference in July, to which some of us I hope will be able to go. So we have a good cross-section of Canadian parliamentarians of all parties, and we're really wide open, whether you want to start with the enlargement of NATO or the situation in ex-Yugoslavia now.
The chair is open for hands, and I am actively searching for hands around the room. Sir Peter Emery.
Sir Emery: Can I then start off with something that must concern all of us, not just the Canadians; that is, whilst we are all looking for the ultimate expansion of NATO membership, are we absolutely convinced, should we be convinced, and what should be our view about the extension of article 5 of the Washington Treaty, which guarantees the borders and the defence of any new member that should be welcomed into NATO? Do we have to carry out article 5 for all of the new members, or do we not, or should we?
It's something I think we're all concerned with, and I wonder whether the parliamentary secretary, as an old serving officer, would like to give us his views as a start.
The Chair: Mr. Mifflin.
Mr. Mifflin: Thank you very much for that opening, Sir Peter.
On the whole business of the expansion of NATO, I think we have to go back to the end of the Cold War and I suppose the year or eighteen months of doubt of NATO. I remember at that particular point in time the discussions in Canada were about whether or not NATO was going to be what it used to be. How is it going to realign itself? What about the CSCE, or the OSCE as it's now called? Will this take the place of the European pillar, and how will NATO relate to it; and those kinds of things?
.1545
The impression I had as a North American, if I could use that expression in a generic sense - and I still have it, to a certain extent - is that if I remember the pattern - and we all remember the pattern from 1945 to 1951 - it took us about five or six years to get into the groove of the Cold War. We slipped out of that groove in 1990, and I'm not sure we have yet found the groove we're supposed to be in now. I think we're getting there.
But one thing is sure, and I don't think anybody in this room could deny it. Instead of a more stable world, which we all expected...and really the Gulf War, although it was a bad thing in itself, gave us some hope that maybe this was the world order. But of course the world order we had hoped for didn't materialize whatsoever. So we're left with a situation where we now live in an increasingly unstable world compared with the years of the Cold War, and we're left with what it is we're going to do about it.
Well, is the groove going to be more tribal wars? Is the groove going to be more ex-Yugoslavias? Is the groove going to be peacekeeping? We all are aware of the agenda for the Secretary General of the United Nations: a standing force that can be used in a peacekeeping role. I have problems with that myself, really. I can't visualize the rules of engagement, the command structure, and the command control situation with that.
However, hope springs eternal. What I see in fact is what is happening now. The Partnership for Peace I think was a brilliant move. It has, I believe, given hope for a different kind of peace from what we knew pre-1990.
Of course the big question there is what is happening with Russia - we all are aware of what happened at the end of May between the President of the United States and Mr. Yeltsin; I'm not sure whether that was a NATO-contrived kind of action; I somehow doubt it was - and indeed the reaction of Russia as a single country on the future of ex-Yugoslavia and what happens there.
Let me go back and summarize what I've said.
We are far from in a pattern where we can develop the kind of NATO that we had and that maintained peace for so many years. I don't think anybody's exactly sure where we're heading. As a North American, I believe we have to continue. We have a presence in Europe, but - and I've talked to your chairman about this many times - I believe, and I think an initiative has been taken byMr. Rifkind, that we should have a strengthening of the trans-Atlantic ties. I think we see one example of this here today.
The Partnership for Peace...we are very keen on this in Canada. Membership for NATO...I think we're more cautious, quite frankly. The Soviet Union is the big question there. Where are we going with Russia? What will it mean to their military if they become a member of NATO? What will it mean to the other, non-Russian countries with an extension of the Partnership for Peace?
I've raised a lot of questions. We don't have answers to these things. But what I do see happening is an evolution. I don't see a big change next year or the year after. Until we get into whatever that groove is going to be, then I think we're going to have to evolve, as opposed to revolve.
The Chair: Thank you.
Mr. Gerster.
Mr. Gerster: Thank you. Canada has a lot of experience with peacekeeping missions. Other member states of NATO have to learn their lessons; for example Germany, which was in a special situation for a long time.
My question to our Canadian friends and colleagues is that. If we have to define what the lessons from the three years of the war in former Yugoslavia are, independently of the further development of this terrible war, could one very simple lesson, one very simple truth, be that peacekeeping missions are only - exclusively - possible where peace is to be kept? In all other cases, where there isn't a peace, we should find a way to have missions with enforcing elements - not exclusively enforcing missions, but with enforcing elements. That could be the lesson of the first three years of the war in the former Yugoslavia.
.1550
Mr. Frazer: I believe that you've put your finger on the nub of the problem. We are trying in Yugoslavia to keep a peace that never was and that, in the short term at least, seems to be beyond our grasp.
I don't know how many of you from Europe might be aware that there's a divergence of opinion on Canada's participation in the former Yugoslavia. I represent a party that has taken a position that the UN should declare its intention to withdraw from the former Yugoslavia, because as long as we are there the mandate that we went there to perform is unachievable. We are not able to provide the humanitarian assistance that was there, because it is blocked. The aerodrome at Sarajevo has been closed for nine weeks now. When it is open, the convoys we try to escort are often held up, for questionable reasons.
As long as our troops are where they are, they are always vulnerable to the hostage-taking that is taking place at the moment and that has occurred on at least two previous occasions for Canadians.
If we are to withdraw into buffered compounds, then we're not doing the job we were sent there to do. If we are out escorting convoys or in observation posts to report violations, then we are very vulnerable. As long as we are vulnerable, we can't bring force to bear to ask the participants to abide by the agreements to which they have been privy.
I realize that withdrawing is not an easy option. It's one that would be very difficult. But if we don't declare our intention to withdraw, then it will never happen, and in fact our foreign policy is being dictated by the people who are in the former Yugoslavia: the Serbs, the Muslims and the Croats.
The Chair: Would anybody from the other side of the House like to comment on that? No?
Then we have Mr. Clark from Great Britain.
Mr. Clark: Earlier today we were given a very clear exposition of the way in which you had devised your new defence review here in Canada. We were very interested to hear how the standing committee of the House and the Senate put forward their points of view.
Earlier we heard Major-General de Faye make the point that there was to be a force of 60,000 in the Canadian forces. I know that in your evidence from your standing joint committee you actually said that a figure of 66,700 was ``the minimum capability required for Canadian forces''.
How do you square the circle in that respect, in that there's going to be a 10% reduction in what you thought was to be a minimum capability?
The Chair: Who would like to reply from our side, as it were?
Mr. Proud: I'll try to.
I believe we said during our hearings and all of the evidence we had put before us that the minimums we recommended were the minimums we felt we couldn't go below. Now the government has seen otherwise. It believes we can operate efficiently and sufficiently with the 60,000 number.
Right now, in conjunction with all of this, a study is going on of the reserves in Canada. I'm not prejudging that, but I'm supposing that the reserves are going to play a bigger role in what was stated here this morning by some people, that some of the commitments we have in the former Yugoslavia, for instance, were 20% reserves.... One got as high as 40%.
Personally, I'm not comfortable with the 60,000 number, because I think we are getting into the bone, so to speak. That's the policy now; they're going to go with it. Of course, military forces have always done what they were asked to do. They've been able to do that, and we believe we can do this. I am very anxious to see at the end of this fall - and it's going to be brought to our committee - the recommendations by this special group that's studying the reserve forces to see how they're going to fit into this whole spectrum.
.1555
The Chair: Fred Mifflin.
Mr. Mifflin: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'd like to make three points. The first point is that you're absolutely right, sir; we did recommend that as a minimum. But we also recommended that $1 billion be taken from the defence estimates over a period of three years - in fact, $2.8 billion - because it was dictated by the finances. We have a fantastic deficit. I don't have to tell any politician what deficit means. So the two are related. It was a regrettable thing, but that's the way we had to do it.
The second point I want to make is that we approached our deliberations and at about mid-point in our deliberations we decided that instead of an input quantitative document that you could look at and say that could apply to a force of 120,000 or a force of 50,000, as often happens in white papers, we said we are interested in output terms.
So, for example, we have for NATO an output term of three battle groups: a battalion, depending on the circumstances involved; a naval task force with a fighter wing; and a transport squadron. We in fact worked the output terms so that we.... I wouldn't say we wanted to tie the minister's hands, but we wanted to make very clear the kind of force we anticipated and foresaw as a result of the consultation with so many Canadians. That's the second point.
The third point I'd like to make, and George made reference to it, is that I think we have what every force has, and that is called a total force concept, where we make perhaps better use of our reserves. It would be of interest to the group to know that at one point in time three years ago, when we had 49,000 peacekeepers deployed, the most we have ever had deployed, in one case the major part of one battle group consisted 40% of reserves. Now, in any man's language that's high, perhaps higher than it should have been. It's higher than it should have been. Now we are down to around 10%. The average is 1 in 10, which we think is a workable thing.
However, I don't want to miss the point. Actually, we started to look at the militia and the naval and air reserves as part of our study, and we found we were getting sidetracked. We felt we would detract from the overall macro approach of our deliberations, so we recommended that a separate study be conducted into the reserve structure. That is taking place now. You might find it interesting that the gentleman who is chairing that is a former chief justice of Canada, and he has two equally prominent Canadians on board. So that, in essence, is the answer to the question.
I want to make a last point, and it really bears on something the Prime Minister talked about. We had no givens. NATO wasn't a given and peacekeeping wasn't a given when we went into our study. We very quickly decided, from the response of Canadians and academics and all the people we spoke with across the country and outside the country, that NATO was very important. I think most of us were believers, but we wanted to hear the message from Canadians.
The second point is perhaps more difficult, and certainly more judgmental. Were Canadians prepared to see their young men and women outside the country risking their lives when Canada was not at war? We had an experience in World War I and World War II that was different, but we were somewhat surprised that the majority of Canadians believed we served a national interest by having Canadians in places like Bosnia, Somalia at the time, and that kind of thing. There's no question about it; that resolve is not as strong as it was last year at this time. It's still strong, but that's the way of the world, I suppose.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chair: Thank you.
Mr. Campilho from Portugal.
.1600
Mr. Campilho: Thank you, Bill. This afternoon, we listened to the Prime Minister talking about the idea that in perhaps six months we must be prepared to withdraw from the ex-Yugoslavia. We listened to our colleague here saying that he's proud to defend the idea that you must come out of Yugoslavia.
My question is very simple. What is your opinion? What is the way to do it? What is the modus operandi for taking your troops out of Yugoslavia at the present moment? How are you going to do it?
Mr. Frazer: I believe it's fairly well accepted that there is a NATO plan and a U.S. contingent willing to assist the withdrawal of those troops. When I suggest that we recommend a withdrawal from Yugoslavia, we don't recommend washing our hands of the area by saying, we're out of here, we're away, just leave them to it. What I do think, though, is that once it has withdrawn, the UN would then be able to make a decision on how to address the situation.
Again, we recognize very clearly that it would not be a simple matter to withdraw the forces, but we do think that while we are there in our present configuration and in our present locations, the UN and NATO will be hamstrung in their desire to accomplish the aim of the game in Yugoslavia, which is, I think, to achieve a peaceful resolution and to ensure that everybody is willing to achieve it.
The Chair: John.
Mr. Richardson: I'd just like to make one point. It's not part of the Canadian psyche to be the first ones out, to leave others to hold the line. The Canadian forces are employed with allies and we would want them to think they can count on us in bad times, so we're not going to turn tail and run. There is some feeling, an ambience in society, but I still think the majority of them would be upset if they saw our forces turning and running, leaving others to do the battling. I think this is still very firmly in place in the Canadian psyche. There is a commitment to do the support but there is also the concern that we don't put our soldiers in a situation where they can't defend themselves. Having been in Visoko, I can say that it's not a defensible situation by any stretch of the imagination.
The Chair: Mr. Frazer.
Mr. Frazer: Again, I would like to address one of the statements that Mr. Richardson has made. I don't perceive this as Canadians cutting and running, or as running out on our friends. I wouldn't advocate that in any way whatsoever. I see this as a withdrawal from a situation where goals are, as is rapidly becoming evident, unachievable. We are not able to fulfil the mandate we were sent there for. We are spinning our wheels. We are not accomplishing the aim of the game. Canadians would not be, in my estimation, retreating. We'd just be accepting the fact that what we're doing now is not working. We must find another way to address the situation in Yugoslavia, and that's what we're advocating.
The Chair: I just want to make sure everybody is clear on the fact that Jack is enunciating the view of his party. It is not the view of the government.
José Lello, Portugal.
Mr. Lello: Thank you, Mr. President. As the second Portuguese, I promise I'm not going to raise any particularly difficult questions.
I'd like to tell you that in reading your report of the Special Joint Committee on Canada's Defence Policy, under your key recommendations I just located that you stress that Canada should maintain unified, combat-capable, multi-purpose, properly equipped armed forces, etc., so that they are able to operate together at home in defence of Canada's territorial sovereignty, and so that they are able to operate abroad in support of Canada's multilateral peace and security interests, meaning in a role in the United Nations and on other multilateral peace and security questions.
On the present United Nations mandate, I really have doubts about whether a peacekeeping force must have the same skills and training as normal combat forces, or even peace enforcement forces, because if they are going into those places to act with the mandate of the United Nations they have to fulfil, I would say perhaps other types of forces, maybe some kind of a gendarmerie force, are better able to deal with the population, to deal with internal security.
.1605
On the other hand, we'll have further difficulties with all those forces coming back from those missions when we have to relocate them at home, because they are really another type of nation they are not prepared for.
I would like to hear your assessment of this.
Mr. Frazer: I can only speak for the Canadian forces, and briefly of the French forces we visited when we were in Bosnia on our committee's tour there. We determined that in fact the only credible people you can put into a situation such as the peacekeeping effort in Bosnia are combat-capable armed forces members. To act as an intermediary between two hostile armed forces you must understand what they mean when they are talking about giving up a hill or making concessions. You must know what one side gives up will benefit the other and what that means to the whole situation.
If you go in there...and of course the reason we went in there in the initial stages was that the non-governmental organizations that were trying to deliver the humanitarian aid were being prevented from doing that. That's why the armed forces went in: to back it up. We also found - and again I'm speaking only for Canadians - that our people are very good at establishing relationships, not only with the military but with the civilian population. They are seen to be even-handed, unbiased, and willing to listen and advise where advice is asked for. I would suggest to you that a constabulary force would not have the ability to establish credibility in the eyes of the protagonists in a situation such as the peacekeeping effort we are involved in in Yugoslavia.
Mr. Lello: I'm not saying non-civilian police, I'm saying gendarmeries. They are military forces acting at a higher stage of policing.
Mr. Frazer: I understand that.
The Chair: Mr. Opel, from Germany.
Mr. Opel: I'd like to come back to force planning. Actually, I was somewhat urged to put my questions before you because the parliamentary secretary referred to financing the forces. I wonder whether this is the normal way of doing it.
First of all, force structure is a long-term exercise, isn't it? If you lose something, you hardly get it back. Secondly, if you change the structure, you make a lot of turmoil in the forces and actually don't know where to go and what to do. Therefore you need a steady, long-term process. If you start to do something, it is for ten, twenty, and even thirty and forty years, in particular for the navy, in the forces.
Therefore if you have a national economy with a very high unemployment rate, it's different from an economy where you have probably an unemployment rate below 3%. So if you have an unemployment rate that is very high, then the fiscal argument is probably not valid. You need a national economic argument, which simply means if you reduce the spending for the forces it may well just increase the unemployment rate and bring you nothing in your national economy.
That's my question, sir. I wonder whether you have argued in your joint committee.... The government has decided to go below 66,700. Was the argument primarily a fiscal argument or was it primarily a national economic argument, which would be by far more complicated and probably would have an input-output analysis as a basis for the decision?
.1610
Sometimes it's even better to have a higher quality of forces - quality includes training and equipment - in order to get a higher national income, which is more or less self-financing the forces. I wonder whether you would have some experience in these arguments or not?
Thank you so much.
The Chair: I think I'll call on the parliamentary secretary to deal with that.
Mr. Mifflin: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
The points you raised are certainly very valid, but there's one thing I have to point out, which at our point in history certainly makes it slightly different for the Canadian forces, and that is that until four years ago we had the infrastructure in Canada for a force three times the size that we had at that time. That's when we were around 72,000. The political difficulty of closing a base is known to everybody in the room. However, I have to give credit to the previous government; they decided they'd tackle the infrastructure, but only on the periphery.
When our turn came to be on watch, we couldn't deal with the periphery. We had to get inside to the meat of the infrastructure, and we closed bases like they've never been closed before. That way there were some savings, but the savings are not today or tomorrow, they're somewhat downstream. The big savings were in personnel.
We also totally realigned our headquarters. We had 80 different types of headquarters in Canada. We're a large country but we're not a large force. We could not afford to have that. One of the things we recommended in our report, for example, was that the method of command and control for the country and the force size should be different from what it presently is.
One of the major initiatives stemming from our recommendations, and indeed the recommendations of the white paper, is that the command structure is going to be totally revamped and that the commanders of the air force, army and navy, instead of being out in the field, will be back in Ottawa where we believe they should be.
We also made certain recommendations regarding operational control. We were maybe a little bit out of our bailiwick there, out of our expertise, but that was taken by the experts and they're looking at that, as well.
The fact of the matter is that we had no choice. We came to government with the express business of reducing the deficit and controlling the national debt. National Defence and every other department in government suffered the same fate. It was an unfortunate exercise, but the operational review of each department was immutable, as far as the Minister of Finance was concerned.
Is that the way to do defence? You asked me what we need. I would say we probably need a little more, but that's the way it is.
The Chair: Thank you.
Mr. Kose, from Turkey.
Mr. Kose: The United Nations is not successful. The war has continued for three years. This problem is continuing. What are the mistakes of the United Nations according to you? Do you think a military operation by NATO is necessary in Bosnia-Herzegovina? My third question is, what suggestions do Canadians have with regard to solving the problems of Bosnia-Herzegovina?
The Chair: Would any of our people like to address that?
I think it's fair to say that our finding on the special joint committee with regard to the UN is that they did not move fast enough in the beginning in implementing the security council resolutions.
Secondly, the criticism we've heard from Major-General MacKenzie and from others who had been on the ground was that there was a weakness in command and control. For one thing, the UN didn't have an adequate information flow. When we were in New York as part of our hearings, the information room we saw was really laughable, and it was in its infancy. This was about a year and a half ago and it was really just beginning to be put together. So if you don't really know what's going on, you're not in a position to control events.
.1615
One of the problems, I think, with the UN, was simply information flow and keeping an up-to-date account in New York of what was going on.
Thirdly, I've talked about command and control, but I think within the UN itself it did not have the kind of military structure at the secondary level that it should have had. It wasn't getting day-to-day advice from capable military people. These were the observations that we made as a committee with regard to the UN.
There are wider problems, too, and that is the mandate itself. Our people went there with one mandate and we found the mandate changing as we were there on the ground. Were we peacekeepers? Were we peacemakers? The mandate seemed to shift as we were there.
So there were five or six different problems or weaknesses, if you like, with regard to the UN. I hope that's helpful in identifying some of them.
I don't know if any of our people want to comment.
George.
Mr. Proud: I think another part of the gentleman's question was NATO's involvement with the UN.
I personally believe, from what I've seen travelling around this world and listening to others who are expert in this area, that if we hadn't had NATO at this specific time we probably would have had to invent it. It plays a very definite and very needed role in the situation we see in the former Yugoslavia now, and certainly I see it playing further roles such as that in other areas that are certainly sure to flare up. I think it's very greatly needed. I think we found that as we travelled around the country and the world in our special joint committee.
NATO, to me and to others, is one of the most successful organizations in the history of the world at keeping peace. Now we have to change it to make sure it can evolve the way it has to in the future.
The Chair: Thank you. I don't know if that's helpful, but....
Let me go through the list. I have Anders, then Robert Banks, and Mr. Eser from Turkey.
Mr. Sjaastad: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First of all, I would certainly echo what Bill Rompkey said about the weakness of the UN Secretariat concerning command and control information and intelligence and what have you. I think it's necessary to redress some of these weaknesses if the UN is going to play a more prominent role in the future.
I would caution, though, against trying to build up a second integrated command of a semi-NATO type because I don't think that would work. I don't think we need such an establishment. But we certainly need to do something with the lack of capability that we can still observe in New York.
I was actually going to address two different issues. I guess we can all agree that in former Yugoslavia there are absolutely no easy solutions and we have to choose between bad and very bad actions. So I'm going to try to look beyond former Yugoslavia. We talked about this earlier today. We will probably in the future have more conflicts and demands on our forces than we can accommodate. I would envisage that all of us would look for involvement that makes sense. We may want to participate in those actions that are likely to succeed, which may, after all, be more of the traditional peacekeeping operations, if they should occur.
.1620
I think operations that look more like peace enforcement contingencies will be harder to face up to and to get people to subscribe forces to such contingencies. Let's face it, there are countries who might want to participate who shouldn't participate because they lack the necessary capabilities, discipline, training. Apart from the NATO countries, I think there are a few more countries in Europe and a very few countries outside Europe that could really play a meaningful role in the more demanding operations.
So I really wonder, if we look beyond the former Yugoslavia, would you, the various Canadian colleagues, be ready to subscribe Canadian forces to new contingencies, something like another Bosnia?
My second issue deals with your new defence strategy and program. If I'm not mistaken, I believe 43% of your defence budget will be devoted to personnel costs. That is a fairly large amount. I sympathize with your problems of closing bases. I think, as the parliamentary secretary said, we have all had difficulties with that issue. But particularly with the shrinking budgets, it seems to me that 43% of your defence budget is a lot to devote to personnel costs. I would ideally think that one-third would look more promising. So I wonder if I could have a response to that issue. Thank you.
The Chair: Who would like to respond? Bud.
Mr. Mifflin: You're absolutely right, Mr. Chairman. Ideally, we'd like to have 35%, 35%, and something more for equipment. It's a difficult battle to fight once you get in that sort of area. For the longest time we fought the battle of old ships and old aircraft, and we still have some. The Sea King helicopter needs replacement as soon as possible, and our APCs need updating and replacing.
If you look at the envelope of defence expenditure, however, over the life of the white paper, you will find that the personnel costs will go down. The maintenance costs will remain about the same, but the equipment proportion of the defence budget will go up and the personnel costs will come down. We're hoping the reserve structure will help that, and we're hoping the reduction in the number of headquarters from 80 to something like 52 that we will end up with should address that issue.
The Chair: On the question of a second Bosnia, I think the first point to be made is that we cannot do any more than we're doing now. We, Canada, are stretched to the limit in terms of the displacement we have around the world. We have 2,000 in Bosnia, and we have people committed to other peacekeeping operations, small though they may be. Even with the additional 3,000 soldiers that have been allocated, primarily because of peacekeeping responsibilities, we're stretched to the limit right now.
Now, with regard to the other question, about whether you do or you do not go into a peacekeeping situation, our recommendation was that we have criteria in this country against which we judge each situation that comes along. We didn't spell those out specifically, but I think in future our committee probably would say that you have to be very careful which ones you pick to go into. You must first of all judge what capability you have. Secondly, you must judge if the objectives are in line with what Canada thinks they should be and whether they're achievable and whether we can make a contribution to the multinational force that is going in.
.1625
If we were faced with another Bosnia today, then there would be a whole set of new criteria that we probably haven't used to judge situations before.
Mr. Proud: Just to follow up on that, one of the things we say, just as you said there, is that we would look at another situation differently, and yet we don't. We have a situation that is right on the front of this paper, Burundi. We knew this thing had been going on for a very long time, but when you mention to them, ``Why don't you do something about it now?'', well, it's just the same old story.
The question of whether we would participate has been asked. I believe that Canadians will participate. If we have the manpower and if the situation is one that other countries are going into, then, yes, I believe Canada will participate, because we always have and I don't see anything out there that would change our mind on it.
We were in New York last winter. Sir Brian Urquhart said about the United Nations: ``Everybody owns it, everybody likes to take a kick at it, and everybody likes to take credit when it does something good''.
We have to change some things - I say ``we'' meaning the world - with this organization.
I believe that as Canadians we'd be only too willing to continue to do our part in world affairs as these terrible situations erupt.
The Chair: Robert Banks.
Mr. Banks: Just as an aside before I talk about what I want to talk about, which is the future role of NATO, on Bosnia I think the danger of the present situation is that we are increasingly being seen as NATO forces in Bosnia doing a peacekeeping type of operation, whereas it is a United Nations operation. Our discussions should be taking place within the forum of the United Nations. If we allow this to continue, then we will be sucked into a war scenario that, as the Americans are so terrified of, could be another type of Vietnam. So I think we've got to be quite clear about putting it back into the United Nations speaking operation.
It is the future of NATO on which I'd like to say a few words, because I thought Fred Mifflin, who opened our proceedings in his reply to Sir Peter Emery's question, really touched on something that is important, which is how NATO should evolve. We have until quite recently been fixed by seeking to find a new purpose for NATO. What we have to do is to establish the black and white areas that we can set out as being the strengths of NATO.
For instance, NATO in my view is the linchpin of the North Atlantic alliance. We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for NATO. It is a remarkable example and a record of achieving common security. It achieves close cooperation and interoperability. We're now wishing to expand that process and that ethos to the other nations who have come in on a partnership for peace, and that is a probationary period for them before, as I think most of them hope, becoming full members of NATO.
I think Sir Peter Emery's question about whether we should make an amendment about achieving common security for each member is an important one. I don't believe we should have a two-tier system of membership. If you are regarded as a full member, then we've got to weave into that all the support and regulations that we've always understood NATO to stand for, the obligations of membership.
If we look at what our role is, it surely should be for cooperation and for peaceful coexistence between the member countries of NATO, enlarged as it will be. To go beyond that is impossible, because we are actually trying to create a situation that we're not sure about and that doesn't exist. Why do we bother about it? Why don't we just get on with the job of keeping NATO as NATO?
The point I most want to make is that, in doing that, we have to do a fundamental review of the military structure, of the bureaucratic structure. We can't expect our people to look towards the Soviet Union, which doesn't exist any longer.
.1630
We have to actually reorientate it. I'd be very happy to hear from our Canadian friends and colleagues, whether they support that as a concept, to actually rejig the way in which our military set-up operates the military arm of NATO.
NATO must never be a peacekeeping force; it is not equipped to do that. It is a military force and that's what its strength is. So we actually have to not confuse the two.
The Chair: Thank you.
Mr. Richardson: I would like to pick up on the last comment that there is a tremendous reliance on the only combat-capable organization in the world. That's why people who are in dire straits are turning to NATO.
It's easy in hindsight to point the finger. The UN has been in operation for a long time. I can remember in 1956, during the Suez Canal crisis, we were to go there and undertake operations in that zone in the separation after the British and the French left. It was, quite frankly, really hazardous to the health of the troops to be under the control of the United Nations.
There was a reluctance on the United Nations' part to even think of having any standing operations centre that could communicate immediately with the troops in the field and be reactive and supportive.
There was no foresight. There was no planning and no administrative staff in place because the UN foresaw these small crises popping up, and they will as long as human beings are on this planet.
Certainly, if we were to put the might of NATO into play - and in this case we have major players of the Warsaw Pact involved - we would have many participants in Yugoslavia who have had little practice in the craft of military warfare holding down key positions because it is a United Nations operation and we want to be seen as such.
Certainly, I think that if the United Nations is going again, and if they've learned anything from this, it wouldn't be a bad idea to use a little foresight. They should establish a planning staff that's on top of everything in the world, that has liaison with major agencies in the world outside of the UN. They should go in having fully reconnoitered the situation and done a full assessment of the good or harm that can be done by their participation.
I think they're in there now and it is a difficult situation in which to make a decision. It must be very difficult. They're relying on NATO, because for years they were interoperable and they worked one with another. The plans were there and it took years of good hard work to make NATO what it was and what it is. I just feel that there are two forces in Yugoslavia, the NATO forces and the Warsaw Bloc forces.
Some of the Czech operators and the Ukrainians are doing a good job, as far as I can see, and there may be others. Certainly other countries came and wanted to give support, but I didn't think they came prepared. That's my personal assessment.
The United Nations can't just have people join because they're members of the United Nations, nor can they just go to an independent bloc like NATO and ask it to take over for them. There are all kinds of pitfalls with that. They're going to have to sit down and come up with a plan using foresight and using the kinds of lessons we've learned in the past.
The United Nations is not a fighting force. It's never geared itself towards that. But it likes to be involved. It's dangerous to be involved when you haven't planned for this kind of involvement because we are sitting on a volcano in Yugoslavia.
That's all I wanted to say on that. I think the United Nations should be in, but they can't rely on NATO.
The Chair: Thank you.
Mr. Clark: Could I just say, on this subject, that surely it sums up the situation to say the United Nations and NATO must never go into a situation of a civil war, of civil strife internally within a nation, because there isn't an aggressor and the United Nations Charter is about the aggressor.
.1635
The idea that the United Nations can be do-gooders for every section of the community all over the world is complete nonsense. Surely the line of demarcation ought to be that the United Nations does not go into a civil war and does not get itself involved unless it is clear that there is an aggressor, and we go in in fact to deal with that aggression as one has done in the war in Kuwait and as one did in Korea.
But to believe you can go in and be shot at, not just by two sides but by three sides in Yugoslavia is absolute nonsense. We have to ensure that never happens again.
The Chair: Thank you. I'm told we have to bring the session to a close quickly. I haveMr. Zumkley on my list and Mr. Eser from Turkey. I wonder if I could give the floor to each of you briefly before we try to close, please.
Mr. Zumkley: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I'm afraid my question comes very late, but I will try to get the question out.
I'd like to come back to your key recommendations. There we read that Canada should give greater attention to the Pacific region and the Americas. Could you give us more explanation of that point? From the European view, this is a very interesting point.
The Chair: Could I just make a brief comment on that? I think it was addressed to a degree this morning. The same question was raised this morning in the briefings.
It was not our intention to de-emphasize the Atlantic. Canada is an Atlantic country; it has Atlantic ties, and most of the people who live in this country, at least most parts of the country I think it's fair to say, are of European origin of one kind or another. So we have strong Atlantic ties, and we are going to continue to be an Atlantic country.
However, having said that, I think it was the feeling of the committee that up to now we had not really focused sufficiently on the Pacific coast, because we are a Pacific country too. We had not focused on it in terms of security, we are beginning to focus on it terms of trade, and we certainly hadn't devoted the kind of equipment and personnel to the west coast that it deserved in terms of the emerging security situation. I think that was the feeling of the committee, and it was reinforced by Jack Frazer who happens to come from British Columbia.
I hope that answers the question briefly. Mr. Eser.
Mr. Eser: Thank you. I'll change the subject maybe to your domestic issue as I quote here:
- We are a large country with a small population but a major economy that affords us membership
in some of the world's highest councils, notably NATO, the G-7 and our periodic membership
on the UN Security Council.
The Chair: Our immigration policy has changed a little, but I think it's fair to say not significantly. We still take immigrants into this country every year. There is a quota of regular immigration into Canada apart from the refugees. We've taken in quite a few refugees from Somalia, for example, from Rwanda and -
Mr. Frazer: Vietnamese.
The Chair: That's right. But apart from the refugees we've taken in, there is a regular quota of immigrants coming into Canada every year. I think this year it was like 80 or 90 -
Mr. Frazer: It was 250,000.
The Chair: Yes, 250,000.
Now I'm told we have to draw this session to a close. So for my part, let me just say thank you for coming. You know, you don't come often enough. We have so little contact with our European friends, neighbours and allies, and we would like to have more. But we really do appreciate having this time to spend with you, and thank you very much for coming. I hope you have enjoyed yourselves.
Mr. Sjaastad: Bill, I would like to say that we have had a fascinating and very good day here in Ottawa. You have certainly made us want to come again. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, sir.
This meeting is adjourned.