NDVA Committee Meeting

37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION

Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Thursday, March 27, 2003

¿

0910

The Chair (Mr. David Pratt (Nepean—Carleton, Lib.))

Dr. John Leggat (Assistant Deputy Minister, Science and Technology, Department of National Defence)

¿

0915

¿

0925

¿

0930

¿

0935

¿

0940

¿

0950

The Chair

¿

0955

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant (Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, Canadian Alliance)

Dr. John Leggat

Dr. Robert Walker (Director General, Research and Development Programs, Department of National Defence)

Dr. Ingar Moen (Director, Science and Technology (Policy), Department of National Defence)

À

1000

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant

Dr. John Leggat

The Chair

The Chair

Mr. David Price (Compton—Stanstead, Lib.)

Dr. Robert Walker

À

1005

Mr. David Price

Dr. Robert Walker

À

1010

The Chair

Mr. Claude Bachand (Saint-Jean, BQ)

Dr. John Leggat

Mr. Claude Bachand

Dr. John Leggat

Mr. Claude Bachand

À

1015

Dr. John Leggat

Mr. Claude Bachand

The Chair

Mr. Claude Bachand

Dr. John Leggat

The Chair

Mr. Joe McGuire (Egmont, Lib.)

Dr. John Leggat

À

1020

Mr. Joe McGuire

Dr. John Leggat

Mr. Joe McGuire

Dr. John Leggat

Mr. Joe McGuire

Dr. John Leggat

Mr. Joe McGuire

Dr. John Leggat

Mr. Joe McGuire

Dr. John Leggat

Mr. Joe McGuire

Dr. John Leggat

Mr. Joe McGuire

Dr. John Leggat

Mr. Joe McGuire

Dr. John Leggat

Mr. Joe McGuire

Dr. John Leggat

Dr. Ingar Moen

À

1025

The Chair

Mrs. Elsie Wayne (Saint John, PC)

Dr. John Leggat

À

1030

Mrs. Elsie Wayne

Dr. John Leggat

Dr. Robert Walker

Mrs. Elsie Wayne

Mrs. Elsie Wayne

The Chair

Dr. John Leggat

À

1035

The Chair

Mr. Ivan Grose (Oshawa, Lib.)

Dr. John Leggat

Mr. Ivan Grose

Dr. John Leggat

Mr. Ivan Grose

Dr. John Leggat

À

1040

Mr. Ivan Grose

The Chair

Dr. John Leggat

The Chair

Dr. Ingar Moen

The Chair

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant

Dr. John Leggat

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant

À

1045

Dr. John Leggat

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant

Dr. John Leggat

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant

Dr. John Leggat

The Chair

Mr. David Price

Dr. John Leggat

Mr. David Price

Dr. John Leggat

Mr. David Price

Dr. John Leggat

À

1050

Mr. David Price

Dr. John Leggat

Mr. David Price

Dr. John Leggat

The Chair

Mr. Claude Bachand

Dr. John Leggat

Mr. Claude Bachand

Dr. John Leggat

Dr. Robert Walker

Mr. Claude Bachand

Dr. John Leggat

À

1055

Mr. Claude Bachand

Dr. John Leggat

Mr. Claude Bachand

Dr. John Leggat

Mr. Claude Bachand

Dr. John Leggat

Le président

Mr. Claude Bachand

The Chair

Dr. John Leggat

The Chair

Mr. Claude Bachand

Mr. Claude Bachand

Dr. John Leggat

Mr. Claude Bachand

Dr. John Leggat

Mr. Claude Bachand

The Chair

Dr. John Leggat

The Chair

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CANADA

Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs

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NUMBER 017

l

2nd SESSION

l

37th PARLIAMENT

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EVIDENCE

Thursday, March 27, 2003

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

¿  (0910)  

[English]

    The Chair (Mr. David Pratt (Nepean—Carleton, Lib.)): I'd like to call this meeting of the Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs to order. Today, we're very pleased to welcome a number of representatives from Defence Research and Development Canada. The group is led by Dr. John Leggat, and with him are Dr. Robert Walker and Dr. Ingar Moen.

    Just to provide committee members with a little bit of background, I would draw your attention to a press release that was sent out on January 22, 2003, entitled “Government of Canada announces up to $172.5 million in new marine security projects”. The announcement was made by Transport Minister David Collenette—you don't have copies of it; I'm just providing this by way of background information for our guests—and part of the background for that announcement included a reference to the fact that

the Department of National Defence will adopt radar systems that follow the curvature of the oceans’ surface, as opposed to emitting waves in a straight line, thus significantly increasing the range over which these radar systems can operate. Two High Frequency Surface Wave Radar systems were developed by Defence R&D Canada and additional systems will be developed by the department.

These initiatives, in addition to the related surveillance initiatives, will significantly improve Canada’s marine domain awareness.

    Just by way of comment, I should say that the development of this system—the initials are HFSWR—is unique in the world, thanks to the foresight and imagination of Dr. Leggat and the staff at DRDC. Over the course of HFSWR's fifteen years in development, cooperation with Canada's radar experts at Raytheon Canada Limited, in Waterloo, Ontario, has made this program a success. Canada has become a leader in this field and the system enables us to lead the world in real-time surveillance of our 200-mile coastal limit. I think I speak for all committee members in making this comment, when I say Dr. Leggat and his organization are to be congratulated by all Canadians for their contributions to enhancing the maritime security of our nation.

    With that introduction, Dr. Leggat, I'll give you the floor. I understand you have a presentation that you'd like to make to us.

    Dr. John Leggat (Assistant Deputy Minister, Science and Technology, Department of National Defence): Thank you, Mr. Pratt. Let me say that it's a great pleasure to have the opportunity to spend a bit of time with the committee this morning. The last time we were before the committee was perhaps about two and a half years ago. At that time, we talked about the formation of Defence R&D Canada and some of the issues facing the department and the agency at the time in terms of science and technology. We have a short presentation this morning, but before I start, I'd just like to introduce the two people who are with me.

    Dr. Bob Walker is our director general of programs. Bob is my principal executive officer who looks after the content of the science and technology program. He is very much concerned with the coordination and resourcing of that program.

    Dr. Ingar Moen is my director for policy. Ingar deals very much with our international links, not only with the United States, but with European countries and Australia as well. Ingar has a good background in terms of our strategies with respect to international science and technology cooperation and some of the issues that we face today and in the future, both with the Americans and with other countries, although this morning we'll be talking specifically about the relationship with the United States.

    We have a number of our staff here. Colette Cibula is on our public affairs staff, and she has been responsible for putting this particular piece together. She has had a fairly significant role in terms of the presentation this morning and in terms of the coordination of the event, so I'd like to thank Colette.

    We'll start with just a bit of an outline of what we're going to be talking about this morning. One thing that I think is a bit of a cultural difference between people who come from, say, the arts communities as opposed to those in the science and engineering communities, is that people in the arts communities will normally stand up and give a presentation without slides. However, it seems people in the engineering and science community cannot give a presentation unless they have slides, so this is something we're going to do this morning.

    We'll start off with a bit of context for the agency, for Defence R&D Canada, and go through some of the strategic issues that face us in defence and security these days; carry on with some of the Canadian and defence perspectives on science and technology; and then finish off with the collaboration strategy, some examples, and solutions. We'll walk through those fairly quickly, because I don't want to spend a lot of time with a structured presentation. I also hope we'll have plenty of time for questions after the presentation.

¿  (0915)  

[Translation]

    I would simply like to provide a brief history of Defence Research and Development Canada. Our origins date back to the Second World War, at which time we were part of the National Research Council of Canada. In 1947, we became a separate agency here in Canada, the Defence Research Board.

    In 1974, we became the Research and Development Branch within the Department of Defence. At that time, this branch reported to the Assistant Deputy Minister (Materiel), who is now one of my colleagues.

    In 2002, the Department decided to create a defence research and development agency, following which we became an agency within the Department of National Defence.

    Among the many photos in this frame, we can see in the center a man who looks surprised. These are the experiments conducted during the Second World War, where we accomplished a great deal of work on the effects of G forces on men in order to develop the technology for protecting pilots against these G forces. This work in still ongoing at the Toronto laboratory. We are recognized worldwide for the work we accomplish.

    There is also a photo of the Canadian Forces patrol frigate. During the 1970's and 1980's, the agency accomplished a great deal of work with the Navy to develop systems for this frigate. These systems include sonar, radar, communications, and counter-measure systems, and all kinds other systems of this nature. We had at that time, and still have today, very close links with the industry, which is why it was very easy to transfer the technology we developed in our laboratories to Canadian industries .

    To the right, there is a photo of a CF-18 aircraft. Here it is about the CRV7 missile that was developed in our Valcartier laboratory and which is operated by Bristol Aerospace in Winnipeg.

    Throughout its history, the agency's policy has always been to work very closely with Canadian industries to ensure that the research and development program within the department meets Canadian Forces key needs.

¿  (0925)  

[English]

    Just to give you a bit of an idea of what we're all about, our mission is to ensure that the Canadian Forces are technologically prepared and relevant. That mission addresses providing advice on science and technology; conducting defence research and development; assessing technology trends, threats, and opportunities; supporting the Canadian defence industrial base; and conducting science and technology projects with national security partners—and that, of course, has been an increasingly important priority since September 11.

    We have six research centres across the country. Starting in the west, we have our lab in Suffield, which is close to Medicine Hat. I think many people will know Suffield from the work they do on chemical and biological protection, but they're also very well known in terms of their work on mine warfare.

    In Toronto, we have our human factors lab, which used to be called the Defence and Civil Institute of Environmental Medicine, but is now DRDC Toronto. As I mentioned, it has been engaged in many aspects of human physiology and human factors since the Second World War.

    Work at our Ottawa lab consists of work in radar, space systems, electronic warfare, and communications. We also have our operations research organization in Ottawa. It is very closely connected with the operational elements of the Canadian Forces, and it provides immediate scientific support and advice to operations.

    Our lab in Valcartier is the largest federal presence of science and technology in the province of Quebec. It's the largest bilingual research organization in Canada, and it provides science and technology expertise in areas of command and control, munitions, propellants, and electro-optic devices.

    Finally, our lab in Halifax is very much engaged in maritime activities and deals with the whole issue of undersea warfare and maritime elements of command and control and ship and submarine technology.

    That's a bit of a context for DRDC. Let's move on to the strategic context we find ourselves in today. The next slide really talks about three things that tend to be pushing the technology in different ways right now.

    The first of all is the complex conflict spectrum. The complexity of that conflict spectrum has been increasing, perhaps in a linear way, perhaps exponentially, since the end of the Cold War. Many aspects come into play during conflict, and we've seen a broad spectrum of conflicts in which Canadian Forces have been involved, from relatively mild peacekeeping duties to fairly intense operational situations like the one that took place in Afghanistan.

    I think the second issue is the whole issue of the globalization of technology. Certainly, with the demise of the Soviet Union, much of the technology that was held there has had the potential to proliferate to other countries. We suspect that has happened in terms of where we understand certain capabilities to be right now, as opposed to where they were, say, fifteen years ago. That has had large impacts in terms of our understanding of who has what, where the threats exist, and what we need to do to ensure the protection of our forces.

    Finally, related to that is the whole emergence of asymmetric threats. These would include such things as chemical and biological weapons, of course, the whole issue of cyber-security, and finally, the general area of explosives and enhanced munitions. Those are three elements that play out now but perhaps didn't play out so strongly fifteen years ago. When we're looking at the present and future of our R and D program, it's very much related to addressing these kinds of situations today and in the future.

    Just to give you a bit of an idea as to how things have changed, time doesn't seem to be quite as long as you get older in life. However, when we go from 1990 to 2003, that's indeed quite a long time. A number of changes have taken place in that timeframe in terms of how we view conflict and how we view security in the world. In the 1990 context, the Cold War was the driver. Today, we're looking at a much broader spectrum of conflict and a much broader range of national security issues. In the 1990s, we had a fairly stable Canadian Forces doctrine and force structure, based on our understanding of the Soviet threat. Today, we're very much influenced by the revolution in military affairs, by asymmetric threats, and by the evolution of the threats on a global scale.

    Our planning in the 1990s was threat-based, whereas our planning today is very much more capability-based. We had a narrow view of R and D outcomes in the 1990s, but we have a much more diverse view today, from the point of view of being able to address a much broader spectrum of Canadian Forces needs.

    Perhaps quite interestingly in the post-Second World War era, up to about 1985, defence sector technology led in most areas. We understood where technology was going, where the next breakthroughs might be, and what impacts those breakthroughs might have on defence. Today, it's not that way as much anymore. Civil sector technology leads in many areas, most notably in areas such as communications, computers, and computing, I would say, but also in biotechnology, nanotechnology, and so on.

    All these technologies are having significant impacts on military operations and military doctrine, but the difference is that, because many of these science and technology areas are being pursued by the private sector, we don't necessarily understand as well where they're going, where the next breakthroughs might be, and perhaps most importantly, what impacts those breakthroughs will have on defence.

    In the 1990s, of course, we saw growing investment in defence R and D. Certainly up until 2003, we've seen reduced R and D investment, and that has caused us to look at different models for delivering on the science and technology needs of the department. In the 1990s, we had a one-dimensional relationship with industry. It was fundamentally a relationship between our defence labs and our defence industry, whereas in today's timeframe we have a much more diverse relationship and engage broadly not only the defence industry, but all kinds of industries in all kinds of sectors across the country.

    That's a little bit on Canada. Let's move on to what's happening in the States. Since the change of administration, the U.S. has come up with some new priorities for science and technology. Science and technology in the States is seen very much as an enabler of transformation, and the transformation attributes are shown in the green bubble on the slide. They deal with knowledge, agility, precision, speed, and lethality. In terms of the operations that we see being carried out in Iraq today, I think we can gain an understanding of the importance of each one of those attributes in terms of how the United States and Britain are carrying out the operations.

    The transformation is being driven by jointness; much closer cooperation among navy, army, and air force elements; experimentation; taking new ideas and moving them into the field quickly; understanding what the implications are for operations and doctrine; intelligence of broad capability to understand what's going on; cutting through the fog of war; and gaining precision in terms of what needs to be done and where. Science and technology, from the point of view of science and technology, is one of the key elements that is making all of this happen, although certainly not the only one.

    The transformation areas that the American defence science and technology community are concentrating on really involve three specific things. The first is the National Aerospace Initiative, which deals with hypervelocity, mainly for unmanned systems or missiles and the like; access to space; and surveillance from space. Secondly, the Advanced Surveillance and Knowledge Architecture Initiative really looks at continuing the high rate of science and technology development in the whole area of computers, communications networks, and enabling and using those technologies to enable defence capability. And the third one is the whole issue of energy and power technologies initiatives. It goes from things as small as personal power for the combat soldier to energy systems that would be able to power the all-electric ship, for example.

    On things that are service-specific, we have such significant programs in the United States as the future combat system for the army—which is providing for a much lighter, much more agile, much more portable combat capability in the future; directed-energy weapons for the air force; and the all-electric ship for the navy.

¿  (0930)  

    In terms of what the Americans actually spend on research and development, it's shown on a vertical bar graph here. We move from the bottom, starting with some of the fundamental and applied research and development, through developmental activities, including engineering, manufacturing, development, testing, and evaluation, and finally through to operational systems development. The total amount of money spent on science and technology and on research and development in the United States is about $54 billion annually, and it's likely to increase to close to $60 billion in the next budget. So they do spend quite a lot of money on research and development.

    In terms of where we link in, our program equates more or less to what is at the bottom of the slide called “U.S. Defense S & T Investment”. The Americans spend in the order of about $10 billion, compared to a Canadian annual investment of about $200 million. Right there, then, we have both a dilemma and an opportunity facing us at the same time, in terms of how we interact with that particular program.

    Let's look a little bit at the Canadian defence perspective.

[Translation]

    First, we will briefly discuss the reactions of the Department of National Defence and Canadian Forces to the new strategic context. Almost four years ago, I believe, we developed or created Defence Strategy 2020, and since then this strategy has somewhat directed all our actions at the department. We have adopted planning based on capacity, which represents a change from the past. In the past, we devoted a great deal of efforts in terms of planning on platforms such as aircraft or ships, but now, we focus more on capacity issues such as intelligence, the protection of forces, and other similar activities.

    Furthermore, we have institutionalized the development and experimentation of the concept within the Canadian Forces. We now have an experiment centre at Shirley's Bay, here in Ottawa, and we are reforming acquisition. In addition, we have created Defence Research and Development Canada.

¿  (0935)  

[English]

    Our relationship with the United States in this period is driven by some of the statements in Strategy 2020. We want to strengthen our military relationship with the U.S. to ensure that Canadian and U.S. forces are interoperable and capable of combined operations in key selected areas. Secondly, the white paper on defence affirms the need to maintain multi-purpose, combat-capable sea, land, and air forces, and also cooperation with the United States in the defence of North America that is consistent with today's strategic and fiscal realities. So certainly our relationship in terms of defence and defence science with the Americans is fairly key from the point of view of the interoperability of the Canadian Forces with others around the world, and also our ability to contribute to the key security and defence needs that this nation faces.

    In terms of how we actually link to that by providing the science and technology given the reductions in budgets during the 1990s, we adopted a policy and a strategy that was directed very much toward enhanced networking and enhanced partnering across the Canadian science and technology infrastructure, but also internationally. We therefore have strong links with other government departments. We work closely with the labs at Health, at Environment, at Agriculture, and so on. I would say this has increased dramatically since September 11, and we have very strong horizontal links with these organizations in specific areas, such as chemical and biological defence.

    We maintain our strong links with Canadian industry. We have a very active allied research and development program. We're one of the key players in the NATO Research & Technology Organisation. We work closely with Britain, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand through the technology cooperation program. And we have bilaterals with six principal countries—the United States, the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Australia.

    Our organization is very highly networked. We bring value to that network through the expertise of our scientists and through our world-class capability in the niche areas in which we choose to do research and development.

    Let's very quickly move on to our collaboration strategy. We'll work around one of our diagrams. The strategy is based on four elements that are backed up by effectiveness measures: compatible objectives; an innovative system for engagement; collaborative models; and, finally, mechanisms and agreements that allow those to take place. I'll say a few words about each one.

    Starting off with compatible objectives, when we work with the Americans, we're very interested in working with them on new approaches to technology for defence. We want to engage in innovative thought, both military and scientific. I think that's a very important part, because it's very important to get the military people who deal with the doctrine in the operations interacting with the scientific people, so that you get those synergies going that are so important between the operational and scientific staffs. From that collaboration, we gain great access to facilities and people.

    Canada generates less than 5% of the world's science and technology across the broad spectrum of S and T. I can also tell you we generate a lot less than that on the military side simply because of the huge American investment in science and technology and the lead that the Americans have in many areas that are key to defence.

    I think the Americans value the diversity of views that we bring to certain issues. We solve problems differently in Canada because we don't have the same resources that the Americans have. We have a lot of bright people here who drill down on problems in different ways. We can come up with solutions to some fairly complex problems, and those solutions will be quite different from ones the Americans have thought of. So they do value the diversity that we bring. We also provide and exploit the access to industry that our relationship with the Americans provides, and the access that we can give to our industry in terms of American programs, through the relationship that we have with the Americans on science and technology. Finally, we share a lot with the Americans on science intelligence, understanding where technology is going, and understanding what impacts it might have on military operations.

    Moving on to the next area, engagement systems, it's really quite simple. We have government labs, we have university labs, and we have industry labs. We engage the Americans across that spectrum. We see those as the three principal elements of engagement. When we do work with the Americans, we work closely with those three elements, and a number of our projects basically engage communities of those on both sides of the border.

    On the mechanisms, we have lots of multilateral and bilateral agreements with the Americans. There's no shortage of ways to work with them. It's not a question of having the mechanisms, it's a question of having the good ideas that we can link and of getting the people together. We're in good shape there.

    And on the collaborative models, we're dealing mainly with three issues. The first is information exchange. We basically get together, talk about what we're doing, and trade information back and forth, and that's helpful. The second is shared effort, in which we decide that we should take on something together. Money doesn't actually cross borders. We divide the project into pieces and decide which pieces we're going to do. We do those pieces together, and then we share the results. And the third is joint investment. We actually put money into one another's countries, depending on the situation, and fund research and development in each other's labs, industries, or universities.

    So those are the elements around the outside, and the effectiveness measures really impact on how we can influence CF decisions and how we can contribute to those, looking at the field and at capabilities that come out of the collaboration with the U.S., and finally looking at how our efforts in working with the Americans strengthen the North American industrial base.

    So that's a bit of an overview. I thought we might next spend a little bit of time giving you three examples to put a little bit of meat on the bones of this, just from the perspective of some of the things we've accomplished. We're going to look at this in a little bit of a model here. We're going to start off with defence capabilities and the C4ISR. That's command, control, computers, and communications for the “C4”, while the “I” is intelligence, the “S” is surveillance, and the “R” is reconnaissance. That's about the longest acronym we're going to deal with this morning, I'm afraid to say.

    We work on C4ISR in conducting operations, force protection, and force generation. On the technology side, we break our program down into the three big areas of information technology and sensors, human systems, and combat systems, so we'll throw those in there. And finally, the collaboration model is the one I've talked about, the information exchange, the harmonization or sharing of effort, and then the joint investment.

    The first project we can look at—and I'll just explain what we're doing with a quadrant display—is laid out on this slide. On the left-hand side is a picture of what we're talking about. Underneath that are the objectives or what we're trying to achieve with this bigger project. At the top, on the right, is who's involved, how much money is coming to the table, and some of the contributions from other organizations that are significant. Finally, you can see the key scientific outcomes that we're trying to influence from the point of view of doing the work.

    The first project that I'll talk about deals with force protection against enhanced blast. This is technology that we were made aware of some ten or twelve years ago. It was developed in the Soviet Union, and it deals with fuel-air types of explosives technologies to provide for enhanced blast weapons. In this particular area, we have done a fair amount of work over those years with the Americans and with the British. It became increasingly relevant following September 11, with the focus on explosives and blast weapons.

    Our work in this area is to help the army from the point of view of hardening their systems against blast weapons. We've been able to do a fair amount of work on demonstrating the impacts of these weapons and in looking at the whole human physiology situations in a blast environment. We've also demonstrated personnel protection equipment and strategies for mitigating the effects of blasts on people.

¿  (0940)  

    Recently, we've entered into a collaborative agreement that looks at this from the point of view of not only defence, but also national security and anti-terrorism. We're working with two agencies in the United States and our lab in Suffield. The work is being carried out in Suffield. We have a contribution of about $5 million from the U.S, and we're putting in about $6 million here in Canada, with the idea of contributing to work that has already led to changes in the doctrine and tactics of the army. We're establishing substantial engagement with the U.S. by allowing access to an otherwise controlled technology base, and we're complementing soldier protection against blast, which is work that we're doing under another project. So that's one example of something we're doing with the United States that is very timely and relevant.

[Translation]

    We now have a second joint project with the United States, i.e. the Joint Defence Network and Management System. This project is currently at the planning stage. The objectives of this project are to provide the decision makers of both commands with an integrated network representation of the knowledge of the situation. Our goal is to enable operations to know what is going on in the network and take the necessary steps to ensure security and the ongoing operations of the command and control networks.

    Here in Canada, this is an effort by DRDC, our Ottawa and Valcartier laboratories, the Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Preparedness, the Communications Research Centre, an Industry Canada organization, and the Communications Security Establishment within the Department of Defence. We have invested $5.5 million here in Canada, and we closely cooperate with science and technology elements in the United States, and also with operational elements. Our goal is to provide analysts of the Canadian Forces Network Operations Centre with a common support environment installed on an interactive and adaptable workstation ensuring network surveillance, analysis and protection. This is directly linked with the protection of communications networks, with applications not only for defence but also for civilian networks.

¿  (0950)  

[English]

    And just to finish off, the next one is the future armoured vehicle system. This is work that has been going on in Canada for several years now. It's based largely on modelling and simulation techniques. We're looking to demonstrate and validate new armoured vehicle crew concepts using virtual immersive environments.

    We've developed a revolutionary operator–machine interface. We're also interested in developing and integrating armoured-vehicle, war-winning technology, such as active camouflage—that's camouflage that would act as a chameleon would act; it would be able to adapt to the environment in which it finds itself—automatic target recognition; and defensive aid suites—and defensive aid suites are systems that provide automatic defence against both surveillance targeting and weapons delivery from a potential adversary. And we're also looking at optimization from a systems perspective, and we're doing demonstrations with other modelling and simulation devices being developed under our tactical aviation missions simulation system.

    A broad range of participants are here from both government and industry, and we have listed them. I won't go through them all, but certainly the Chief of the Land Staff is very much engaged, as is the organization of the assistant deputy minister for matériel.

    Some of the key outcomes of this project—and this has been a really successful project, I think—have led to the concept of the multi-mission effects vehicle for the army. This would be a vehicle that would be able to provide different elements of firepower from the same vehicle—in other words, direct fire, indirect fire, and surface-to-air fire from the same vehicle. And we've also certainly developed the world's most extensive database of armoured vehicle crew performance by using the simulator that's here in Ottawa, at General Dynamics.

    We've positioned Canadian industry for support to national and international markets. There's a great deal of interest in this work from the Americans and others. We've also certainly contributed to the establishment of Canada–U.S. cooperation broadly in the whole area of future combat systems, but also in their objective force as well, which is one beyond that. So it has helped immeasurably in terms of building a relationship with the U.S. Army.

    So those are a few examples. Now, just to give you a bit of an idea of where we impact the Americans, Mr. Pratt talked about the high-frequency surface wave radar to start with. The Americans are using that system right now. It's a portable system. The Drug Enforcement Agency within the United States is actually looking at that as a potential mobile capability for carrying out surveillance around the United States and on their coasts.

    Our lab in Toronto has worked with the U.S. Navy for many years on the STING anti-G gravity suit, a suit that protects pilots against G-forces. This is undoubtedly the best suit in the world, and it was developed right here in Canada.

    Looking at our chemical and biological defence products, you can see a picture of something that looks like a filing cabinet with some stacks on top of it. That is the world's best biological detection system. The Americans have taken the fluorescent laser aerodynamic particle-sizing technology from that and are using it in the development of their own systems. Our lab in Suffield developed that in collaboration with industry, and it's known worldwide as the best and perhaps only system that's able to consistently detect a biological agent with any degree of accuracy.

    Finally, work is coming out of our lab in Valcartier in the area of pyrophoric decoy flares. That has led to bilateral work with the United States in terms of tests and evaluations of that particular flare against certain combat situations.

    So I think Canadian technology has made some good impacts in terms of U.S. needs.

    Let's just finish off with some of the issues we face when we work with the Americans in science and technology. First of all, in the post-September 11 era, there have been significant changes in the U.S. security and defence posture. We've seen the development of the Department of Homeland Security. I would say that, in the last year, we've been spending a lot of time at understanding how that works and at looking at how we can develop relationships with that particular organization.

    In the months following September 11, we actually went to the United States and met with the President's science adviser, Dr. John Marburger, and told him about some of the things we were doing in Canada that were specifically related to public security and anti-terrorism. That has helped immeasurably in terms of building those relationships that we need to have with the national security elements in the States.

    I talked about the relative scale of investment. This is really a tough one to deal with, because compared to us, the Americans have very deep pockets and have a program that is much broader than ours. Our strategy here is quite simple. We have to be very selective about what we do, and when we decide we are going to be working in a particular area, we have to be the best—not the best in Canada, but the best in the world. That particular strategy, I think, has played out very well. It has allowed us to maintain credibility and relevance in term of the United States' and other allies' programs.

    The whole issue of world-class, Canadian, niche technology plays very strongly in our strategy, and it certainly also plays very strongly in the integration and utilization of the North American industrial base. It's really not only our capabilities that are good, but the capabilities that are spread across this country in the industries and the universities, as they apply within the context of the North American security equation. And Canadian industry also has excellent niche technologies that it markets very capably into the United States and is able to sell to both Canadian and American defence interests.

    The defence industrial base in the United States experienced a high degree of rationalization during the 1990s. The same thing happened in Canada, but rather than happening in clusters or consolidations as happened in the States, in Canada the effect has been a sort of vertical integration with the American parent. I would therefore say it's a little bit more difficult to bring consortia together in Canada, because oftentimes you're dealing with relationships that don't necessarily naturally happen because of certain things that are going on with the parent companies in the States. It's difficult, but it's not impossible.

    Finally, we're not very far down the road of emerging issues of defence and homeland security, science and technology, and the whole issue of the defence of North America, not only from the point of view of DND, but that of the broader aspects of national security and the envelopment, if you like, of the total capability within the countries insofar as it relates to the security needs of North America and the coordination of those with the United States. We see it very much as a priority for us, and we see ourselves very much as an enabler from the science and technology perspective, in terms of providing the federal leadership needed to bring that relationship to a point at which both nations will benefit from the coordination of activities on both sides of the border.

    So, ladies and gentlemen, I think that's about it for the presentation.

[Translation]

    I greatly appreciate the opportunity of speaking with you this morning. I hope we will have time for questions.

[English]

    The Chair: Thank you very much, Dr. Leggat.

    At the start of your presentation, you made a reference to the fact that arts people deliver presentations in a particular way and scientific people deliver presentations in another way. I think the committee has benefited today from your very informative, structured, and very comprehensive outline of the issues you face as an organization. I also again offer my congratulations for the impact you've made with a relatively thin budget, in terms of the work you have done and are currently doing.

    Let's get the questioning started with Mrs. Gallant, from the Canadian Alliance, for seven minutes.

¿  (0955)  

    Mrs. Cheryl Gallant (Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, Canadian Alliance): Thank you for such a well articulated and informative presentation.

    First, do you have any idea of the percentage of commercial-sector origins that came about as a result of research done through National Defence?

    Dr. John Leggat: That's an interesting question. In terms of dollars, it's not one we've actually worked out from the point of view of how much commercial benefit Defence R&D has had from the point of view of our technology transfer activities. A number of businesses and business elements within Canada owe their origins to Defence R&D Canada, and a number of scientific organizations had their roots in the agency or in defence research. I'm going to name a few, and then I'm going to ask my colleagues to name a few. My memory is good, but it doesn't necessarily cover them all.

    I mentioned the work on the Canadian patrol frigates. One of the systems that we developed for the frigates was the integrated machinery control system, which is basically an automated machinery control system that keeps everything on the ship running the way it should and which provides monitoring and fault detection and so on. That was done in conjunction with CAE Marine Systems in Montreal. CAE has a significant business element right now that deals with the whole issue of marine automated control systems, which they sell internationally mainly to other navies, and they have done pretty well in that respect.

    Another set of systems that we developed very closely with the Canadian Forces, with the navy, was the sonar systems for the frigates. The sonar technology that we developed was transferred to what used to be Computing Devices Canada, but is now General Dynamics Canada, in Ottawa. GDC now has a significant contract with Sweden for providing sonar systems into their corvettes.

    So we transfer the technologies, and the companies that bring in that technology exploit it and develop it over longer terms and find business opportunities as a result of having that know-how. At some point, then, we let go of the reins.

    And there are many other examples. Maybe Bob would like to mention a few.

    Dr. Robert Walker (Director General, Research and Development Programs, Department of National Defence): One of the most definitive studies that has been done was actually done for the high-technology sector in the Ottawa region. It was actually done by members of the high-tech sector, and it traces the success of that high-tech sector back to investments that were made jointly by the National Research Council and then by the Defence Research Board, throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, in the Ottawa region. It gives an interesting case study of how that dynamic exists between government investment in high-risk, high-payoff research, and how that spin-off often curves into the private sector and establishes the seed for clusters of capabilities to move forward. That has been a very excellent example of how we've had an impact. Across the country, there have certainly been a number of companies, situated in the various regions of the country, that trace their roots back to us.

    I would suggest the key point is not to think in terms of dollars, because it tends to be about bright ideas and bright people and how you then seed those bright ideas and get the spark of innovation occurring in people in order to take what comes out of our research and carry it through into the private sector and innovation. Probably many companies, from Bristol to CAE, from General Dynamics to Lumonics Research, and from Bell Northern labs—which became Nortel—to companies like Entrust Limited, for example, do trace their roots back to us. However, it would be very difficult to put a dollar figure on the number.

    Dr. Ingar Moen (Director, Science and Technology (Policy), Department of National Defence): I'll just give two examples of two companies that I worked with when I was working at Suffield. One of them is a small mining company in Kingston called MREL Group. We got them involved in some of the work that we're doing on explosives. They have recently been involved in mine clearing, and they've used some of the technology that we developed with them in their mining operations.

    The other company is Combustion Dynamics, which we basically grew while we were at Suffield. That company has done extensive worldwide consultation on blast and effective explosives. They've also spun off another company that looks at control systems for UAVs, which are unmanned aerial vehicles or uninhabited aerial vehicles. They're actually marketing some of their expertise to the U.S.

    Those are two examples of small companies that have been developed as part of our operations.

À  (1000)  

    Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: In terms of human resources, how do you attract the scientists? Are there scholarship programs or grad school initiatives? How do you get the people to work for you?

    Dr. John Leggat: We basically hire them right out of grad school. We do have programs whereby we can send people who have a bachelor's degree back for a master's or a PhD, but we identify top scholars, if you like, in our graduate programs in Canada and from among Canadians studying abroad, and we hire them. A few years ago, we were having a bit of difficulty getting the quality persons we needed. Today, that's not really so. With the changes in the economy with respect to the high-tech sector, we're getting some superb scientists coming into the organization right now.

    We've had a rejuvenation process in place for three years, so we've been hiring aggressively for three years. We've brought about 150 science and technology workers, I would say—these would be scientists and technologists—into the organization during that time, and it has had a very positive impact on the organization, because we were all getting to look at little bit like me. That's okay for somebody who runs the organization, but I think it's generally known within science communities that people's most productive years, from the point of view of being innovative in science and being clearly at the leading edge, are probably those years leading up to about 35 years of age. After that, I wouldn't say you're toast, but those are the most productive years.

    So it's important to get those young people with the good ideas and the energy into the labs, and we've been quite successful in doing that.

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Leggat, Mrs. Gallant.

    I think for parliamentarians the age is between 25 and 30.

    Voices: Oh, oh!

    An hon. member: We're all in big trouble.

    The Chair: Mr. Price.

    Mr. David Price (Compton—Stanstead, Lib.): Thank you for being here. I've taken many notes and have many questions to ask, actually.

    I'd like to start with you, Dr. Walker. I see it says in your CV that you came right into the defence industry and that you worked in underwater acoustical signal processing and sonar systems. I imagine you were very involved in all the work around the frigates and the maritime helicopter project that should have been attached to the frigates to make a complete system. Since the helicopters aren't on board, could you maybe tell us a little bit about the loss we're suffering there?

    On the systems that you did work on in terms of designing them, were we able to at least sell off some of that technology to other countries? You did mention Sweden, but have the Americans picked up on any of it? I think the system was designed such that we were going to be working with the Americans very closely on doing submarine detection. And there's another part to that question. Since there's less of a need for submarine detection, since the threat seems to have lessened, do you tend to back off on research on that type of thing when the threat is lessened?

    I'll start off with those.

    Dr. Robert Walker: Perhaps I could start with the last part of your question and come back to some of the earlier ones.

    There's no question that anti-submarine warfare was one of the primary areas of defence research during the Cold War. It was considered one of the primary threats. Interestingly, it was also one of the areas in which the Canadian Forces, through the navy, determined that they would maintain a world-class, niche capability, and they have done that to this day. Certainly, the programs in which I was involved in defence research were very much in positioning the sonar capability to support that undersea warfare capability at a world-class level.

    There's no question that we've seen a diminishing importance of that role in the time since the end of the Cold War, but we've also perhaps seen a change in its complexity. During the Cold War era, it was basically a blue water problem. The navies operated on the open oceans. The problem now is that the navies of the world often operate in the littoral areas close to the shores, where the acoustic environment and underwater environment are quite different. As a consequence, the complexity of the sonar problem is considerably different.

    We've actually changed the research program in two ways. Number one has been a backing off from the scale of investment given the relative priorities, but there has also been a change in focus, to one dealing with the littoral challenges that are present.

    With regard to the capability at sea today in regard to the sonar systems in a Canadian patrol frigate, they are the best in the world bar none, in terms of the passive towed-array sonars that have been developed, the hull-mounted sonars. I actually had the privilege of leading the development of those programs in the research labs in Halifax through the 1980s.

    During the 1980s, I was a scientific adviser to the new shipborne helicopter program at the time, and the definition of the acoustic fit that needed to be on the helicopter. Largely, those remained by and large the acoustic requirements for that helicopter in that particular role. That said, what we have managed to do is provide upgrades to the systems on the Sea King to try to maintain their capability to prosecute the sonar contacts picked up by the long-range sensors on the frigates.

    In terms of spin-off benefits, the consequences for Canadian industry have been profound. They have not seen enormous success in going into the U.S. marketplace, but marketing these capabilities internationally has been enormously successful. They've taken capabilities into Sweden, as Dr. Leggat indicated. In terms of the spin-off benefits for the acoustic fits on the long-range patrol aircraft—which are another dimension we supported—those systems have been sold to South Korea, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, and I'm probably missing a few.

    So with what we've managed to do is achieve a spin-off benefit by positioning a number of Canadian companies to work with us to develop a solution for the Canadian navy through the 1980s and to then take those technologies worldwide, and they continue to do so. Now and then, they've seen a home in the U.S. marketplace, particularly in the sonobuoy development area, but I can't say American ships out there right now are actually working with Canadian towed-array sonars, for example.

    So I think it has been a success story. In fact, it's the model we often refer to in terms of where the success of targeted, niche expertise required by the Canadian Forces is backed up by targeted, niche capabilities in defence research that establish a capability in Canadian industry that not only meets that need, but opens up marketplaces more broadly. The benefit to the Canadian navy is that once that industry achieves that world-class capability, continued investment in the upgrade of that capability is now accessible and is returned into the Canadian Forces.

À  (1005)  

    Mr. David Price: To continue in the same vein, we are acquiring new subs. These are diesel subs, of course, and there was a lot of talk at the time that the Americans were quite happy about this, because we'd be able to do a lot of exercises together. Most of the threats that we could possibly have to our shores today would not be from nuclear subs, they would probably come from third-world countries buying old diesel subs. Since the Americans don't have any of those left, this gives them the chance to do a little work. Are you involved in this? Will you be doing work in defence science and technology to look at our new subs and develop ways of making them quieter and that type of thing?

    Dr. Robert Walker: Indeed we will. We have been advising the Canadian navy on the upgrades to the combat systems going into the Victoria-class submarines, particularly in the context of the acoustic fits on the submarines. A number of our ideas are actually going in as the rejuvenation of the submarines is underway. Our program in submarine hydrodynamics at our lab in Halifax is also fundamental here.

    We are looking at technologies for air quality in the subs. We're looking at enhanced escape technologies as well. So, yes, we did in fact beef up our program in submarine technologies at our Atlantic lab once it became clear Canada was going to commit to the Victoria class.

À  (1010)  

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Price, Dr. Walker.

[Translation]

    Mr. Bachand.

    Mr. Claude Bachand (Saint-Jean, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I found the presentation very interesting; I note that many issues were addressed. But I would first like to discuss agency issues.

    The government creates agencies and obviously wishes that these become independent. I would like to know what the agency's budget currently is, what kind of financing it receives, and how it is distributed.

    You have contracts with the Department of National Defence, but I imagine that they would want you to become increasingly independent, which may require you to bid on private sector contracts. Describe how the funds are distributed and what the current budget of the agency is.

    Dr. John Leggat : Thank you. I can give you a few numbers. The amount we receive each year from the Department of National Defence is about $200 million. We receive it as a lump sum, and there is no contract between us and the Air Force of Navy. We receive the money allocated for the program, but we have for this program a planning system that very closely involves members of the Canadian Forces, operational members and members of the engineering teams. Each year, we jointly prepare a research and development plan for the next three years.

    As for the relationship between the agency and the Department of National Defence, we are indeed an element of the department, somewhat as are the other department agencies, such as OCIPEP or the Communications Security Establishment.

    I report to the deputy minister, and my colleagues include the Canadian Forces unit heads and the Assistant Deputy Minister (Material). Our goal is to establish a client/service provider relationship between the research and development group and the Canadian Forces clients.

    Mr. Claude Bachand : As I understand it, Mr. Leggat, you receive $200 million per year from the Department of National Defence. Do you also receive money through contracts with the private sector?

    Dr. John Leggat : Indeed. Upon establishing the agency, we developed a strategy based on a partnership with industries and universities. We determined at the time that we needed to receive or generate revenue from the private sector in the order of $10 million. This year, we obtained $15 million in this way.

    In addition, we have a cooperation system with industry sectors. We share research and development activity costs with them.

    These approaches have enabled us to allocate $30 million for our programs--this amount comes from Canadian industries--, as well as $40 million which comes from international organizations across the world.

    Mr. Claude Bachand : Thank you very much. We carefully reviewed this Looking Forward Staying Ahead 2002 report, whose introduction was signed by you. You mention that you support de deployment of the Canadian Forces, including in Afghanistan.

    Is it standard practice to support the overall operations of the Canadian Army? In closing, I have to ask you if you support the Canadian troops which are currently in Iraq.

À  (1015)  

    Dr. John Leggat : No, not the troops which are currently in Iraq, because they are with forces of other countries. But I can discuss the deployment of land and sea forces in Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf. With the maritime forces, we accomplished a great deal of work before the ships left to ensure they had all the counter-measures required for sea mines. Scientists in Halifax worked closely with the maritime forces members before they left.

    For troops in Afghanistan, we accomplished something that seems a little more simple: we designed new combat boots for the soldiers. This is very important for soldiers, as they are often on foot. These boots are more comfortable and really very efficient on Afghanistan's rough terrain; they protect their feet.

    Mr. Claude Bachand : Do I still have time?

[English]

    The Chair: You have half a minute.

[Translation]

    Mr. Claude Bachand : Do you develop weapons? Do you do any research on offensive weapons? You rather seem to specialize in defensive weapons?

    Dr. John Leggat : In fact, we do not develop any at all. Our role is rather to understand the effects of modern weapons. Normally, the Canadian Forces buy their armament from the United States or European countries. For this reason, it is difficult to develop relationships with industries. In fact, here in Canada, there are no industries dealing in the production of weapons.

    In my opinion, among our achievements, the closest thing to a weapon is probably the pyrophoric decoy; it was developed in Valcartier and is now produced by Bristol Aerospace in Winnipeg. It is not a weapon but a decoy that is a target similar to a fighter; it warns in case of missile attacks.

[English]

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Bachand, Dr. Leggat.

    Mr. McGuire.

    Mr. Joe McGuire (Egmont, Lib.): I wonder if you could expand on the high-frequency surface wave radar system that you're planning to set up on the east and west coasts. Who are you connected with? Is it the RCMP? Our coast guard? Our navy? How is that going to help our anti-terrorism issues?

    Dr. John Leggat: I'll give you a quick word on how it works. We have two sites right now. They're experimental sites, but we're very quickly turning them into operational sites.

À  (1020)  

    Mr. Joe McGuire: Where are they?

    Dr. John Leggat: One is in Cape Race and the other is in Cape Bonavista. They're just north and south of St. John's, Newfoundland.

    They project a fairly long-wavelength wave, and because of the conductivity of the ocean's surface, the wave kind of hugs the ocean. It bends with the curvature of the earth, and we're able to project that wave out to quite a long distance. We're able to get ship detections out to about 400 kilometres and low-flying aircraft detections out to about 200 kilometres. We're able to maintain what we call “a 24 and 7”. It's 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week surveillance of a particular coastal area. The pie shape that this radar will actually sweep is quite large. It would encompass about one-third of the east coast of Newfoundland, I would say, so they're very capable systems.

    This is not a new technology. It's been around for a long time. Where we've made the difference is in developing signal processing to deal with the noise issues that come in at low frequencies like that. When you turn on your radio at night, you can get stations from a long way away because of the ionospheric bounce. Well, that's a signal for some people, but that's noise for our radars. The signal processing actually allows us to deal with the ionospheric interference quite effectively.

    The maritime security plan calls for five or six of these systems to be installed on the east and west coasts of Canada. Those will be installed by the navy—the navy is developing them as a project right now—and they'll be integrated into a maritime security command centre, which I think will be specifically located in Canadian Forces buildings. They will be available to all maritime security elements through a network system that we call CANMARNET, the Canadian Maritime Network, which is currently operating in Halifax. The experimental systems are actually linked into CANMARNET at the present time and are available to the other national security partners from the point of view of providing that kind of information to them.

    Mr. Joe McGuire: Does the Department of Fisheries and Oceans use this system? Is it connected to DFO for foreign fishing trawlers at the 200-mile limit?

    Dr. John Leggat: DFO actually does use the information. It's still early days in the experiments that we've done, but we've had DFO engaged in those experiments. They are aware of the system and will be using it.

    Mr. Joe McGuire: How would that help DFO?

    Dr. John Leggat: As I understand it, when DFO maintains a surveillance over the Grand Banks area right now, let's say, they do so mainly by using small aircraft that they launch to go out and keep an eye on who's doing what. They'll probably still need to do that, but they won't need to do it as often, because the radars will be able to tell us who's where and who's doing what, and whether they're inside or outside the economic zone. The radars will be able to provide us with a much clearer, much more up-to-date, much more precise picture of what's going on in our ocean approaches.

    Mr. Joe McGuire: And in your maritime strategy with the U.S., would the information be fed into a central...?

    Dr. John Leggat: I expect that will be the case. I think the question of sharing information in terms of coastal activities is a developing area with the U.S. I'm not up to speed on exactly where we stand on that, I'm afraid to say, but I am aware of a dialogue going on between Canada and the U.S. in this area. How that's actually going to work, though, I don't know. On the navy-to-navy side, there's a superb exchange of information between the U.S. Navy and our navy on coastal issues, but how that plays out more broadly, I don't know.

    Mr. Joe McGuire: Does the U.S. see any need for this system in the Arctic also?

    Dr. John Leggat: That's a good question.

    Mr. Joe McGuire: Who owns the Arctic anyway?

    Dr. John Leggat: One of the projects that we have on the books right now is to take the portable system up to the Arctic to see how well it works in broken ice. It won't work over a frozen landscape, if you like, but we're not sure whether it'll work or not over broken ice.

    Mr. Joe McGuire: When you're talking about North American defence initiatives, you never mention Mexico. Are there any bilaterals or multilaterals that have Mexico involved?

    Dr. John Leggat: We have no contact with Mexico on science and technology.

    Mr. Joe McGuire: So it's strictly between them and the U.S.

    Dr. John Leggat: If anything goes on, it would be between the two of them, yes.

    Mr. Joe McGuire: I was wondering how you distill, how you come to your final choices in the projects you want to use. I imagine a lot of cuckoo ideas are floating around. When you have a budget like the Americans have, there should be tons of cuckoo ideas. How do you distill what's practical? I see the Americans using dolphins in the Persian Gulf, and they go from there to precision bombing and everything in between. How do you determine what you're going to do to get that niche expertise in that area?

    Dr. John Leggat: I'm going to ask Dr. Moen to say a few words on that. He looks after our technology watch activities and is very much concerned with which of these kooky ideas are really worth pursuing.

    Dr. Ingar Moen: Let me start off by saying that we do have a technology investment strategy that has been developed with input from our scientists, with input from our military clients, and also internationally. We determined what kind of expertise we needed in our organization in order to respond to the future, and that defined where we're going to put our efforts for the next five or ten years.

    In terms of the kooky ideas that come in, I'm responsible for a technology watch program, for looking out to see what's out there, and for making assessments of these technologies to see what the potential impact is on the Canadian Forces, both from a positive and a negative aspect. In fact, in doing that, we hold symposia and workshops and we work with our clients to do that. We have one coming up in mid-April, called “Potentially Disruptive Technologies”. Some of our colleagues from the U.S. are coming in with some of our people, and we'll be looking at technologies out there that could possibly change the way National Defence does business.

    We have a process for dealing with what you call kooky ideas, and for determining what the impacts of some of those are going to be. For example, in either symposium, we're talking about nanotechnology, biotechnology, cognitive technology, and information technology, and how these can work together to produce systems. So we do have a process for dealing with those kinds of new technologies as they come along.

À  (1025)  

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. McGuire.

    Mrs. Wayne.

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

    I saw the résumé of Dr. Walker . He was born in Nova Scotia, so it's nice to have someone from the Maritimes with us.

    Dr. Leggat, you didn't tell us where you were born, and we don't know where Ingar was born, but I have to say I'm pleased to have all three of you here today.

    As you know, we built the frigates in Quebec and in Saint John. I understand that you played a major role in the technology that was installed in those frigates. I wish we were still building them. Dominic LeBlanc's father, Romeo, also played a major role in making sure Saint John built them and that Quebec did as well.

    On the submarines that we have, the used submarines that were grounded and that we bought from Great Britain, could you tell me if you have had any input into updating the technology that is inside those submarines? Or are they just old-style submarines with old technology in them? Have we made any changes at all?

    Dr. John Leggat: Yes, I can say a few words, and then maybe Bob would like to say a few words, too.

    And just for the record, I'm from Montreal.

À  (1030)  

    Mrs. Elsie Wayne: That's all right. That will do.

    Dr. John Leggat: Our involvement in the conventional submarine area goes back to the early 1980s. Until that point, we didn't do much in submarines. We had the Oberon class, but when it became apparent that we were going to replace the old boats, we ramped up our program in that area.

    I'll talk about what I call the technology side, because that's what I looked after when I was in Halifax. Bob can look after the combat systems side, because that's what he looked after when he was with the lab in Halifax.

    On the technology side, we concentrated mainly on the dynamics—the dynamic performance of submarines, the structural integrity, the material aspects, the hyrdodynamics, and the noise, and particularly the noise from a non-discretion point of view. I don't want to stretch this one out because I know you may have more questions, but we did approach the Americans for assistance in many of these areas but were turned down. They viewed these as being highly strategic technologies that impacted one of the legs of the strategic triad. They were reluctant to talk structures with us, and particularly noise—and they still don't talk noise with anybody—so we developed that technology ourselves. We're now using it to basically deal with some of the issues that we had with the submarines.

    In particular, I would say that where our organization is contributing strongly is in the whole matériels area, with some of the problems that we've noticed with valves and so on. Our people have contributed very directly to the understanding of problems and the proposing of solutions for dealing with cracking and those kinds of issues with the submarine valves.

    I'll pass it over to Bob, and he can talk a little bit about the combat systems.

    Dr. Robert Walker: The Canadian navy has developed a fairly comprehensive plan both for renovating the vessels as they come across the Atlantic, and for looking at where they will incrementally introduce technology in the vessels over the next fifteen years. We've been very much engaged in the consultations with the navy on the options they have and how to proceed with those. As Dr. Leggat indicated, we've adjusted our research and development program to allow us to do the front-end research to support those upgrades.

    In terms of the immediate consequence, we've been advising on the combat system upgrades that are going in. There is a fairly substantial reworking of the combat system, including its acoustics fit, to bring it up to 2003 standards. That's going on and is very much building on the expertise in Canadian industry that was developed through the frigate program.

    We're also providing advice in dealing with some of the structural issues. You've no doubt read in the press about the advice on welding and whatnot.

    In terms of the areas that we're looking at in moving beyond one of the key issues here—if I can use an American buzzword—the fact is that the submarines will operate in a very complex environment with other vessels, so we have this notion of “network centric” relationships. In fact, a lot of the technologies we're experimenting with are not so much technologies for the submarines per se, but for how the submarines communicate with other vessels; how one shares sensor information that may not be resonant on the submarines themselves but is provided by another asset, such as a helicopter or a maritime patrol aircraft; and how one integrates all of that into a capability and devises a platform.

    So we are engaged. We're helping with the advice needed to bring the boats online now, and we've restructured our R and D program to provide the leading-edge research needed to deal with the upgrades that the navy is planning over the next fifteen years.

    Mrs. Elsie Wayne: I'm pleased to hear that, because I had a call from London, England, after we bought them. They said there was no way we should have bought those and that when they were docked in London, England, those subs were finished, and that we should be building new ones, not buying these ones and wasting our money. So it is going to take awhile, I have to tell you.

    And that call came, Joe, when they asked me to go over and run for the leadership of the Conservative Party over there.

    Voices: Oh, oh!

    Mrs. Elsie Wayne: Anyway, I do have some friends there.

    I'm worried a little bit about what you were referring to, and that's homeland security. You're probably aware that I very strongly support more money for our military. I want to congratulate you, and I think you should have a whole lot more money from DND for the work that you're doing as well. If we put more money into DND, I'm sure you'll get more.

    But on homeland security, I'm worried about port cities and I'm worried about my own port. You don't hear much about the Saint John port, which is an international port. We do hear about Halifax—and thank heaven for that—and out west and so on. But since they took the port police out of our port city—that was a very negative move—I've been very worried about homeland security particularly back home, because of the nuclear power plant that we have and because of the largest privately owned oil refinery that we have. If you were a terrorist in Canada and you wanted the closest city to the U.S. border, you would be looking right at Saint John, New Brunswick, and that area.

    So when you're talking about homeland security, Dr. Leggat, what are you looking at and what are you doing?

    The Chair: Can we get a relatively quick response to that question?

    Dr. John Leggat: Yes, Mr. Chair.

    Let me say that the flagship, if you like, of our homeland security R and D is the Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Research & Technology Initiative. That was a $170-million program that was approved and made available in the December 2001 budget as part of the public safety and anti-terrorism budget. Bob actually was taken out of his present job last year to bring that online.

    We have it up and running. It has put $60 million into federal labs, industries, and universities across the country so far, and it will put another $35 million in April. It's engaging the full capacity of Canadian science to address those particular issues. It's an excellent model. It's absolutely new in terms of how we do science in the federal government. It invokes a high degree of leadership from federal scientists who understand the business of defence and security in this case, but it could apply to other areas, such as health or agriculture. In fact, we are utilizing some of the techniques we developed there to bring communities together around specific areas of national interest. So we are moving out on that.

    I share your concerns about ports, about key installations such as nuclear plants and so on. Some of the solutions to those particular issues don't need science and technology, as I'm sure you'll appreciate. They just require planning and capacity being brought to bear.

À  (1035)  

    The Chair: Thank you, Mrs. Wayne.

    Mr. Grose.

    Mr. Ivan Grose (Oshawa, Lib.): Right off the bat, Mr. Chairman, I must admit that, having twice passed the 35 year-limit, I feel a little hesitancy in admitting that a lot of what has been said has gone over my head. But there are some things that I do understand. When you get down to footwear for soldiers, I understand that. I understand low-level radar. There'll be no more flying under the radar. I could always imagine I felt the wave tops lapping at my shoes.

    Let's talk about something I do understand, and that's money. In our contribution to you, how do we compare to other countries of our economic size and not necessarily our population? Let's deal the United States out of there. We know they're ten times our size and do everything ten times better than we do. Stick to other countries of our economic size.

    And before you answer, I'd like to tell you that I really do appreciate that you're picking niches where you can play. If you used the shotgun approach, no one would ever know what you're doing, not with the size that we are. But how do we compare?

    Dr. John Leggat: As an indicator of how we compare, we usually use what percentage of the defence budget is spent on R and D. In Canada, we have been fluctuating between around 1.7% and around 2% of the defence budget, and that gives us our $200 million. With the increases to the defence budget, we expect increases to the R and D budget as well, of about that order. So 2% of $800 million is about $16 million.

    Mr. Ivan Grose: You really didn't answer what I'm trying to get at, though, because the defence budget is arguably too low or too high, depending on who you're talking to.

    Dr. John Leggat: Well the British spend about £1 billion annually, or $2.4 billion Canadian. The Dutch, who are very active in defence science, spend less than us. They're probably at about $80 million to $90 million. They are on a rapid downhill slide in terms of defence R and D spending, and that's quite interesting. The Swedes spend about the same as us. Again, the Swedes have very close relationships with a well-developed industrial base. The Australians spend a little bit more. They spend $240 million Australian dollars annually, I think. The Australian dollar is valued less than the Canadian dollar, but in terms of what a dollar buys in R and D, because it's knowledge-based, if you pay a scientist $80,000 here in Canada or in Australia, you still get the same mind even though the dollar is not quite the same.

    So I would say we're on a par with countries that are about the same as us. We're smaller than Britain, we're smaller than France, and we're smaller than Germany, on both the percentage of the defence budget and on gross expenditure levels as well. So it's not all bad news, but I would say we're in the middle. We're not leading the world in terms of defence R and D expenditures, but we're not bringing up the rear either.

    Mr. Ivan Grose: Amongst our allies, if we did have a good reputation of being leaders in these niche areas, it would buy us influence and probably help our reputation with them. Although we can't match them with soldiers in the field, we could probably match them in scientific advancements. That's why I'm interested in just what our proportion is, because I think you're doing an excellent job, based on what you've said here.

    Dr. John Leggat: Thank you. I agree, and I'll give you an example of how what you're saying is absolutely right. I don't want to take credit for this entirely, but I talked about our relationship with the U.S. Army. The relationship between our navy and the U.S. Navy has always been very close, but it hasn't been of the same nature with the U.S. Army.

    We engaged the U.S. Army in discussions as part of our strategy about two years ago, and started doing the relationship-building and getting into their labs and proposing things. Last year, we had some of the senior executives of U.S. Army R and D up visiting our labs. Since that time, they've basically opened the doors to us. That has had a significant impact on the overall relationship between the two armies.

    When General Mike Jeffery, our Chief of the Land Staff, gets together with the U.S. Army Chief of Staff in the States, they talk about research and development. So I think it is a very positive enabler, and it's something we use to our advantage when we can.

À  (1040)  

    Mr. Ivan Grose: Thank you very much, Doctor, Mr. Chair.

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Grose.

    Just to elaborate on Mr. Grose's question, Dr. Leggat, would it be possible for you to supply us with information in terms of how Canada spends compared to other North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries?

    Dr. John Leggat: Absolutely.

    The Chair: Have any calculations been made about defence research as a percentage of GDP?

    Dr. Ingar Moen: I don't have that number in my head.

    The Chair: No, I can appreciate that. But if you have that in a filing cabinet somewhere in your organization, that information would be very helpful to the committee as well.

    Thank you.

    Mrs. Gallant, for five minutes.

    Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: How does the extent to which the Canadian Department of National Defence conducts technological research impact on our ability to manufacture equipment, as opposed to having to purchase it from another country?

    Dr. John Leggat: I'll give you a very short historical view. Let's go back to the 1980s and the Canadian patrol frigates. In that period, we had a developmental program. One of the casualties of the defence cuts of the 1990s was that developmental program, so a good percentage of our ability to work with Canadian industry and to position equipment and position capability for future acquisitions by the Canadian Forces was lost at that time.

    We've adopted a new approach that is basically based on technology demonstration. We work with industry to bring new and promising ideas forward using, by and large, a high degree of modelling and simulations to demonstrate those ideas, sometimes in a virtual environment and sometimes in a real environment. We're using immersive technologies and a lot of the sorts of stuff you might see not so much in the movies, but in virtual environments that have been generated using digital processes. We've engaged industry in that, thus allowing them to understand more completely the requirements of the Canadian Forces of the future.

    In terms of what industry doesn't do and what we're not doing with them anymore, we're not developing devices, enabling technologies, or systems that are specifically targeting the Canadian Forces. By and large, we're doing significantly less of that kind of work than we did in the past.

    Our approach has been driven by policies—the buy-off-the-shelf policy articulated by the department in the mid-1990s, for example—and quite frankly, it has also been impacted by the consolidation and integration of the defence industrial base in North America. Many products that Canadian companies work on derive their foundation capabilities from the American parent. For example, Raytheon Canada has a large parent organization in the United States, and they draw technology and systems from that.

    So we're not sure whether it's to our advantage to develop systems in Canada or whether it's better to gain a very specific understanding of what the requirements are so that companies in Canada can bring technology to bear on those requirements.

    Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: You haven't quantified the amount of money that goes into defence research, to the growth of the defence industry. Just knowing that as we cut, we cut the potential for a defence industry, but with no specific correlation....

À  (1045)  

    Dr. John Leggat: I would say that in the 1980s, in terms of a rough order of magnitude, probably 20% to 30% of what the navy bought came out of our labs. That's not in terms of ships or airplanes, but in terms of the subsystems that actually went into those ships and airplanes.

    Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: What is that percentage now?

    Dr. John Leggat: It's probably pretty low. It's probably down to less than 5% now.

    Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: Can you list various civilian applications—not necessarily industrial, but civilian applications—that everyday Canadians are benefiting from as a result of research done by your agency? For example, I understand the PADI tables for the Professional Association of Diving Instructors and for scuba divers arose from the research done through National Defence.

    Dr. John Leggat: There have been several spinoffs, and I guess there are more today than there were a number of years ago. A lot of them come out of our lab in Toronto, which is our human factors lab. That's where the diving tables came from.

    We're working with a company called Hemosol to develop a blood substitute. We developed it for battlefield casualty care, but it has substantial potential to provide a blood substitute for trauma cases that come into emergency wards or when people are actually dealing with the treatment of people on the site of an accident. So that's one situation in which we've done some work.

    We were also developing fire-retardant coatings to allow us to control the spread of fire on ships. The company we were working with has incorporated that particular coating, which is a paint, into fire-retardant doors and is doing quite well with that particular technology.

    There are quite a few, but I'm running out.

    Ingar or Bob, do you have anything?

    The Chair: I think we're actually going to have to wind up that answer, because we have some other questioners who are ready, willing, and able to ask a few more questions.

    Mr. Price, for five minutes.

    Mr. David Price: I just want to go back to how you pick and choose what you're going to be working on. We work a lot with our NATO partners. Would there be a clearing house at NATO so that you can sit down with our NATO partners and say that they're working on this, so we'll work on that, or that type of deal?

    Dr. John Leggat: Yes, very much so. We belong to the NATO Research & Technology Organisation, which is a group that has an office in Paris. It's an agency of NATO. NATO has money to run the agency, but no money to do the research and development.

    The contributing partner countries, of which there are seventeen right now, get together and plan projects together. There are seven principal areas of research that we carry out together: modelling and simulation; sensors; information technology; human factors; advanced vehicles; and so on. I would say we have several hundred projects underway within that agency, and Canada contributes to many of those hundreds of projects.

    Also in that are a fair number of mechanisms that encourage the exchange of information. Symposia are organized by the agency. There are training sessions to which experts from countries are brought in to basically give courses in other countries, so as to train the younger researchers and provide them with state-of-the-art knowledge in certain areas.

    It works well. Like everything in NATO, it takes a fair amount of work to get everybody doing things together, and it takes a little bit longer to get there, I guess. But in the end, in many of these areas, we derive a considerable amount of leverage on our investments. We bring away a fair amount, but Canada also contributes quite a lot into this particular forum.

    Mr. David Price: In your presentation, I noted one line that said “interoperable in key selected areas”. Why would it not be in all areas?

    Dr. John Leggat: In terms of our interoperability with the Americans?

    Mr. David Price: Actually, I'd go larger and say our NATO partners.

    Dr. John Leggat: When we're looking at the interoperability equation from an operational perspective, it is in all areas. In terms of where we can contribute to that broad interoperability need, we have to choose some key areas in which we are particularly good.

    One of the areas that we're concentrating on right now is the whole area of network security, for example. A particularly challenging issue in network security is the whole question of coalition. How do you deal with security in a coalition context? How do you move secure data around on a coalition network? Some coalition members are more trusted than others, so you have to have what we call multi-level security. You have to designate the information in such a way that it goes to some coalition partners, but not others.

    Another very interesting aspect of that is when partners are contributing information to an intelligence network. When you look at the different cultural aspects that come along with the interpretation of intelligence information, how do you assign a degree of confidence to the information that was actually put into the intelligence net? That's another thing we're looking at, and it's one of the key areas that we feel is important.

    Being what is a small player in the coalition—or a smallish player, let's say—we're interested in understanding how we can receive the kinds of sensitive information that our commanders need to make the decisions and the right choices in an operational theatre.

À  (1050)  

    Mr. David Price: On projects that you're working on, let's say you need a particular specialty in a particular field and you happen to know Germany has that particular person. Do you do many exchanges in that way, and bring somebody in?

    Dr. John Leggat: We have active exchanges with a number of NATO countries right now, and also with Australia. We bring people into our labs and we send our people into theirs. It's not something that occupies 5% or 10% of our staff, but we typically would have five to ten people annually engaged in the activities of other countries' labs.

    Mr. David Price: In the type of research that you do, in your research area, would there be a standard as far as NATO countries are concerned, as far as the way you do something is concerned? Has anything been developed in that line, or is that standard developed more as a Canadian standard and then as one for different countries?

    Dr. John Leggat: NATO develops common standards. They do so primarily from the point of view of ensuring the ultimate interoperability of systems, munitions, parts, and all the rest of it. There are volumes of NATO standardization agreements that affect equipments. We don't look after those ourselves. We contribute to some of them, but the responsibility for them rests with the matériels group.

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Price, Dr. Leggat.

[Translation]

    Mr. Bachand.

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

    I would like to go back to the Research & Technology Initiative. What you said earlier is true. It is indeed $170 million, but this amount is spread over five years. As I understand it, you will have $35 million this year from this fund. Do you use a large part of this fund?

    Dr. John Leggat : Here, within Defence?

    Mr. Claude Bachand : Yes.

    Dr. John Leggat : Bob, can you say a few words on this issue?

    Dr. Robert Walker : This year, our laboratories will receive about $10 million from this fund to cooperate in these projects. One of the criteria is the reinforcement of the cooperation between the federal government laboratories and those of the Canadian industry, the goal being to enhance technology marketing in the private sector, with the assistance of our federal scientists. We participate in approximately 20% of the projects related to this fund, and we receive approximately $10 million.

    Mr. Claude Bachand : One of the priorities mentioned by CRTI is public trust. As a representative of the people, I believe that transparency is one of the best ways to promote public trust. My question is the following : can I go to any one of your laboratories, at any time, to observe any project?

    Dr. John Leggat : As regards CRTI, currently, no project is classified secret.

À  (1055)  

    Mr. Claude Bachand : Are there any elsewhere?

    Dr. John Leggat : Yes, there are areas classified secret, including intelligence systems, and chemical and biological systems for military applications.

    Mr. Claude Bachand : Is it the Department of National Defence that determines what is classified secret and what is not?

    Dr. John Leggat : Indeed.

    Mr. Claude Bachand : I will not have time to get back to this issue, but I would certainly like to ask you other questions. I will call you.

    In the Biological and Chemical Defence Review Committee report, there is a recommendation at the end :

That DRDC establish a mechanism to ensure that Human Research Ethics protocols from Defence Research Establishment (DRE) scientists are evaluated consistently, expeditiously...

    I would like to know whether human research is conducted in your centres, and whether you followed up on this recommendation.

    Dr. John Leggat : Yes, at the Toronto laboratory, most research is conducted on humans; these are in extreme environments, very hot, very cold, or at very high altitudes.

    In Toronto, a committee evaluates each experiment. Their very accurate and stringent standards enable to determine the value of the experiment and the application of the ethics criteria regarding the use of humans as subjects, and also to assess the risks to the people who take part in the experiments.

    Le président : One minute.

    Mr. Claude Bachand : Do these human subjects volunteer to participate in these experiments?

[English]

    The Chair: Did you want to volunteer, Mr. Bachand?

[Translation]

    Dr. John Leggat : I think so.

[English]

    The Chair: I'm sure we could come up with an experiment.

    Mr. Claude Bachand: I know you would try an experiment on me.

    Voices: Oh, oh!

[Translation]

    Mr. Claude Bachand : I would like to know if there are experiments other than those on heat and cold conditions. Can it go further? I think, for example, of the assessment of the capacity to resist in specific biochemical environments. I would imagine that, unlike what the Chair suggests for me, you do not endanger the health of these people.

    Dr. John Leggat : No. When the experiments pose a risk to humans, we find other ways of doing them. It is increasingly possible to use simulation methods; we also use different types of organisms.

    Mr. Claude Bachand : Animals?

    Dr. John Leggat : Yes.

    Mr. Claude Bachand : I have no more questions. Thank you.

[English]

    The Chair: With that, gentlemen, I'd like to thank you for being here once again. I think it has been an excellent session before the committee today. There were lots of good questions and lots of very interesting answers. We'll certainly review your material. I think it will help us very much in our work in connection with the study of Canada–U.S. defence relations.

    I should advise committee members of something, just by way of information that I've received recently. The trip we were planning to the United States has been vetoed by the Canadian Alliance in terms of the Board of Internal Economy, so that's something we're going to have to work on. Hopefully members will come together to discuss strategies on how we might move that issue forward, because obviously that's a pretty vital component of the work we're going to be doing.

    Let me conclude once again by thanking our guests.

    Thank you for being here, gentlemen, and thank you for your very helpful presentation.

    Dr. John Leggat: It's been a pleasure. Thank you.

    The Chair: The committee is adjourned.