[Translation]
Mr. Chair, members of the committee, it's a pleasure to be here. I am accompanied today by Brigadier-General Gregory Loos, Commander of Joint Task Force North, headquartered in Yellowknife.
[English]
I'm here to talk about the Canadian Armed Forces role in continental disaster relief operations.
It's well appreciated that disasters of both natural and man-made origin are a persistent challenge to countries and governments around the world. The effects of these calamities are widespread, most notably the human toll on every individual affected. With almost no warning, lives and homes can be lost in the blink of an eye with periods of recovery lingering from weeks to months or even years as in the case of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. As recent memory shows, hurricanes, floods, and forest fires are but a few of the most common natural disasters our country faces on a yearly basis.
Our provincial and territorial partners have well-tuned, capable means at their disposal to mitigate and respond to the effects of disasters at any location throughout our country. Periodically, however, the effects of a particular disaster can become so great they overwhelm the capabilities of our civilian authorities.
[Translation]
That's where the Canadian Armed Forces can come into play. As part of the Canada First Defence Strategy, the Canadian Armed Forces are prepared to provide critical assistance in support of civilian authorities during a crisis in Canada, whenever and wherever required.
[English]
While we are not the lead when it comes to disaster relief, we can rapidly surge resources and unique capabilities at critical moments to complement and enhance the resources of our civilian partners.
At all times we are in continuous liaison with Public Safety, the lead for federal emergency response, as well as with provincial and territorial authorities and other federal partners. This liaison is a critical piece of our joint planning apparatus with Public Safety and our civilian partners, which is intended to allow us maximum forewarning of an impending request for assistance to the Canadian Armed Forces. Even before such a request is made, our regional joint task force commanders and staff actively collaborate with our civilian counterparts. This ensures civil decision-makers have realistic expectations of CAF capabilities, limitations, and deployment times.
During this whole-of-government planning process, a key factor in deploying the Canadian Armed Forces is the ability of civilian authorities to manage the situation without our support. This is an important determination to make, as any support provided to civilian authorities by the Canadian Armed Forces is always one of last resort.
[Translation]
When it becomes clear that the situation may overwhelm the capacity of civilian authorities to respond to the crisis, and usually in response to a formal request for assistance, the Minister of National Defence can direct the Canadian Armed Forces to provide support to complement and enhance provincial and local efforts already under way.
[English]
This is facilitated through Operation LENTUS, the Canadian Armed Forces contingency plan for the provision of humanitarian and disaster relief support to provincial and territorial authorities during a major disaster. Under Operation LENTUS, the Canadian Armed Forces' intent is to have strategic effects in the affected location within 24 hours of receiving a request for assistance.
There are instances, however, when particular disasters such as floods and forest fires can occur without sufficient forewarning to engage in the normal whole-of-government planning cycle. In such cases our regional joint task force commanders can initiate an immediate military response if they determine this is needed to save lives, alleviate suffering, and protect critical infrastructure. Known as a regional rapid response operation, this critical fail-safe in our response capability does not have to wait for a formal request for assistance. Among the many capable and unique resources and assets we can bring to bear from across our force generators are engineering, health services, force protection, transport, aviation, and logistics, among others. Once in location, our personnel work collaboratively with civilian authorities to assist in organizing the joint response to the crisis at hand, including effective command and control of the response.
As we saw during the intense flooding in Manitoba in 2014, this support equated to 500 Canadian Armed Forces members working alongside provincial authorities and volunteers in tasks as simple but important as sandbag production, which was key to protecting property in affected areas.
Four CH-146 helicopters out of Edmonton were also employed in this operation as well as a CP-140 aircraft for information, surveillance, and reconnaissance of the situation.
We also saw the provision of Canadian Armed Forces disaster response to flooding on three other occasions in 2014. Between May 7 and 8, the Canadian Armed Forces, the Canadian Rangers, two CC-130 Hercules, and five Griffon aircraft successfully evacuated 90 people from Kashechewan and Fort Albany in northern Ontario. Between May 10 and 12, 730 people were successfully evacuated from Kashechewan by military resources, and between May 17 and 20, Canadian Rangers and two Hercules aircraft extracted 165 residents of the Attawapiskat First Nation.
[Translation]
These are just several recent examples where the unique capabilities of the Canadian Armed Forces were successfully utilized during relief operations to extract Canadians out of harm's way.
So far, I've focused on domestic disaster response operations. I'll now briefly touch on our continental capability.
[English]
Since 2008, Canada and the United States have maintained an important bilateral framework for the provision of military support of one nation to support the military of the other nation, either during or in anticipation of a civil emergency, known as the CANUS civil assistance plan. This plan allows for scalable deployment of military personnel and assets from one nation to the other to respond to a myriad of crises and events such as flooding, earthquakes, forest fires, and even the effects of a terrorist attack. This is just another way we can save lives, mitigate human suffering, and reduce damage to property.
Already, this plan has been successfully activated on two occasions.
During USNORTHCOM's response to Hurricane Gustav in August 2008, Canada provided a CC-177 Globemaster aircraft to help evacuate medical patients from the southern United States, and two Hercules aircraft for humanitarian assistance efforts.
In 2010, when Canada hosted the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, USNORTHCOM was proactively prepared to provide support for liaison teams and chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear response forces should the unthinkable have occurred.
[Translation]
The men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces remain dedicated to the safety and welfare of their fellow citizens and bringing relief to our communities, wherever the need may arise. I believe Brigadier-General Loos has a few remarks he would like to make, after which I will be pleased to respond to any questions you may have.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Chair, members of the committee, I thank you for the invitation to join you today.
Joint Task Force North, or JTFN, encompasses a vast region, including over 4 million square kilometres, about the size of western Europe, and including over 75% of Canada's coastline.
[English]
Our role in JTFN is to prepare for and conduct operations in the north. These may be defence of sovereignty operations or they may be safety and security operations in the service of other government departments, based on their requests for assistance.
In terms of our organizational assets to accomplish this role, we have several units based primarily in Yellowknife. We have JTFN headquarters and its area support unit with the mandate to maintain situational awareness for the region and to have the capacity to plan, coordinate, command, execute, and sustain operations. As well as maintaining a small liaison presence in both Whitehorse and Iqaluit, our region also possesses NORAD infrastructure such as the north warning system and CFS Alert.
[Translation]
Additionally, there is 440 Transport Squadron, generating its four Twin Otter aircraft to provide vital tactical air transport support for many northern mission profiles.
There is a Canadian army reserve unit, C Company of the Loyal Edmonton Regiment, that is based there as well.
[English]
Finally, 1 Canadian Ranger Patrol Group headquarters commands its 60 patrols from Yellowknife. These patrols, including some 1,850 rangers, based in 60 of the 74 communities found in the JTFN area of responsibility, are our eyes and ears throughout the region, and mentor and guide southern-based military elements when they come north to train or operate.
1 CRPG headquarters also administers the Junior Canadian Rangers patrols in 41 communities.
To be ready for our assigned role and missions, we monitor our region, plan and execute operations to train and improve our capabilities, and foster great working relationships with a number of northern partners.
Regional situational awareness is accomplished via a number of means: our Canadian Rangers, using a number of military systems; by carrying out specific air and maritime surveillance and presence missions; and by sharing information with partners from other military units, allied military formations, and other government departments.
To improve our readiness and foster partnerships with all regional, federal, territorial, and aboriginal and first nations stakeholders—and amongst other goals—we routinely plan and execute four main operations a year, primary of which are Nanook and NUNALIVUT.
[Translation]
Of course, there are many challenges to operating in our Canadian north. Mother Nature challenges us with great geographical distances to cover and monitor and with many different types of challenging terrain in which to operate.
[English]
An evolving climate is raising new concerns for many communities in the region, which in some cases may translate into future issues requiring military disaster assistance response. Similarly, human activity in the region is increasing, which may also lead to high tempo for military responses to certain scenarios.
For these potential challenges, our deliberately planned operations permit us to better prepare for them by anticipating them, exercising through those scenarios, and learning valuable lessons along the way.
[Translation]
Thank you for the opportunity to share our approach to military operations and readiness for Canada's north.
I would be pleased to attempt to answer any questions you may have.
Thank you.
[Witness speaks in native language]
:
I think the air force would be a better witness to this, but I did have an opportunity to fly the new Chinook very recently.
Having started flying helicopters more than 25 years ago, this new aircraft is night and day in terms of what it will afford in terms of a capability for Canadians, the Canadian Forces, and all those—certainly in the disaster response sense—that we would aid.
Interestingly, the aircraft can self-deploy to anywhere in our country, with an incredible range of more than 1,000 kilometres. Using fuel that already exists at major centres, it can reach up north very, very quickly. Unfortunately, the aircraft is not at full operational capability yet. We've not employed it yet in a disaster response operation, although it was on standby for one of the ones I mentioned earlier, the flooding in northern Ontario last year. We did have them on standby just in case, but they weren't even at what we would call initial operational capability at that time.
I think the promise that they offer to us will be transformational. It will allow commanders to function by compressing time and distance in ways that we've not been able to do before.
I don't know if that's too generic for you, sir.
:
The DART has about five functional areas. The first would be its medical element. It provides primary medical care, triage, and some limited evacuation capability, ambulance capability.
It's a small detachment of about 45 or so medical people. That doesn't take you very far. It can be very focused, but it's limited.
Then there's an engineering capability involving about 60 people. It provides for basic construction—horizontal and vertical—as well as some route clearance, engineering assessment, and water purification. Route clearance was the big function in the Philippines.
We have an aviation capability for mobility that can also deploy as well as a CIMIC capability so the coordination of support, specially trained individuals who are good at assisting and prioritizing and matching needs to resources in disaster zones.
I don't know if I got up to the five. I think there are five.
In addition there's a support element that keeps the DART functioning, another group of people who keep the DART going.
That's more or less, those are the capabilities that make up the DART.
:
Certainly, we have a lot of interaction with all of these partners. Our main partners in most activities end up being the three RCMP divisions in each territory. They have presence in many of the communities where we have presence. There's a lot of sharing of information and challenges. Sometimes we help each other out with transport. Certainly, they're part of our Arctic security working group as well.
With the coast guard, there are connections with search and rescue, but as well, they, the RCMP, Fisheries, and others regularly come to Operation Nanook where we ramp up whole-of-government scenarios specifically to understand roles, responsibilities, and organizational structures, and how we would come together as a team, and to learn lessons and figure things out.
We also have Operation Nunakput, run every summer, where with Fisheries, part of coast guard, and the RCMP we do coordinated patrolling from Great Slave Lake all the way up the Mackenzie to the Beaufort.
Again, that's another opportunity to have presence, to build partnerships, to learn lessons as we go, and to share our approach to those responsibilities.
I'm going to ask about two different things. One of them is how the defence budget cuts and the delays in capital replacement are affecting your responsibilities. The other is to find out more about the issue of readiness for a potential disaster, particularly on the Pacific coast. I'm a Vancouverite and I'm always interested in the risks and the preparedness for that.
With the first question, I'm sure you're aware of the Conference of Defence Associations Institute's recent report from last week. It's highly critical of our situation with respect to budget cuts and national defence. Capital spending has dropped to 13% of budget where normal was always 20%. Their analysis suggests that the funding is, on an inflation-adjusted basis, down to 2007 levels, so it's far below what was promised in the defence strategy. In fact some $32 billion is being pulled out of the defence strategy from the promised trajectory. I just want to put on record their quote here:
The reality is that we are entering a period of continued decline, diminished CAF capabilities and capacities, less training and lower output, with consequently reduced influence on the world stage and weakened contribution—
—and this is the part that is specifically relevant to our discussion—
to our own security, domestic and international.
How do you deal with these budget reductions, some of which are transparent and you can plan for, but some of which are backdoor cuts like lapsing and freezes and so on? What's the process for taking an unplanned budget reduction that might affect supplies, training, or maintenance and making sure that you can focus it where you are the most effective, and cut out things that are not as necessary? What's your process?
:
It would be really challenging. In the worst case it would be really challenging, so it's a great question.
I mentioned earlier that we have six regional joint task forces and there is one headquartered in Victoria, Joint Task Force Pacific. Our rear-admiral, who is the commander of Joint Task Force Pacific, maintains very close contact with his provincial emergency measures counterparts. They hold frequent exercises. They usually do it in September or October after some personnel changes have taken place. They did another one again this year where they actually went through what the response would be.
I mentioned earlier that we have Operation LENTUS, which is our disaster response operation. There is a subset to that which deals with response to a Vancouver, west coast earthquake.
If a problem occurred, would I hear about it from Rear-Admiral Truelove, who would give me the call to say that we had just had a really bad earthquake and that we were responding? Or would he be cut off? Would we hear about it on the news? We don't know, but we've put measures in place that would account for that. It could be that he would hear about it from his emergency measures counterparts who are the lead at the provincial and federal level. If he were able to respond, then it would be under him that we would flow resources and assets into the province in order to respond and assist our provincial and municipal counterparts.
We have a plan that if he were unable to communicate with us, the commander in Edmonton, Joint Task Force West, would assume that function for us. We do practice that, and if he were cut off, Edmonton takes over and we start to flow in the forces through that direction.
:
Yes, but if you will allow me, I will answer in English.
Ms. Élaine Michaud: No problem.
BGen G.D. Loos: That way, my comments and answers will be clearer.
[English]
In terms of risks and threats, there are evolutions in the climate. That's changing a number of things. Whether you're travelling in the summer via maritime means or travelling in the winter, as the weather patterns are changing, it affects almost everything you do. In terms of the impacts on the individuals in the communities, whereas before we might have relied on community knowledge for when the ice was good and we could go out and travel on it, they don't know as well as they used to what it's going to be like. That may show up in terms of incidents, or it may show up in terms of restricting certain activities or patrols that we ordinarily would have done.
We're also seeing increased activity. I would say it's on a linear progression as opposed to geometric. We're not seeing great numbers of additional cruise ships, but there are more, and there are bigger ones coming. There is more activity, with more adventurers going up in winter and summer, which we try to keep track of through open source information just so we're aware of what's going on and how we can respond.
How do we get better at that? We try to circle those areas. We discuss them at our Arctic security working group with all of our partners to see if we're seeing the same increases in risk and if we have the same appreciation that it may be a problem for one or more departments.
Then, where and when we can, we try to introduce those ideas into our scenarios for things such as Operation Nanook. We'll go out and simulate a cruise ship grounding down the bay in Frobisher Bay, and we'll all go through our respective parts to practise how we would call in for federal help: what the steps are, what the procedures are, who would integrate into whose team, and how that would play out. It really is quite an excellent collaborative approach.
:
I'll separate your question into two parts, if I may: my operational intent, and then the other part with respect to the north warning system.
The north warning system is part of NORAD's suite of equipment. I'm certainly not in a position to comment on the future evolution of its capability development, improvement, or recapitalization. Lieutenant-General Parent down in NORAD would best answer that question.
From my perspective, I take a bigger view of infrastructure. It's about the facilities I have for my units that are based in the north. It's about the infrastructure, in terms of communications, that I need to command and control, either permanent installations or forces as they are deployed out on the land. We have an emerging concept whereby we establish northern operational hubs as launching pads. We bring forces from the south strategically and move them out tactically from a number of different locations in the north.
When I say “infrastructure,” that could be a standing contract for a certain amount of support or services based on that concept. We use some of the infrastructure we have. We have contracts in place. We bring forces and ready kit from the south. By “infrastructure” I mean all of that, such that we are better positioned to launch, command, and control operations.
:
Within the scope of the tri-command, we have about six working groups focused on areas of mutual interest. Communications would be one, for example. Our activities hemispherically, our partnering activities with Mexico, for example, could be another one.
One of the working groups is focused on chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear response. There are a couple of reasons for it. The United States has a very well developed, highly developed, system in place. Ours is less so on the military side. But in Canada, the primary response to a CBRN incident is under Public Safety. Along those lines, with Beyond the Border there is a nexus for CBRN as well. CJOC sits on a committee with Public Safety on CBRN. It's part of ensuring that, as a whole of government, our two nations, each nation, can respond most appropriately.
I don't think that there's anything magical about what we're doing. We're just looking at the resources and capabilities on both sides of the border to try to maximize what we can each do.
What do I see the threats are? The vector is probably not in ICBM, but we've done fairly robust analysis of where we think threats could come from. The most likely threat in Canada is what we would call a TIM, a toxic industrial material. We think that an accidental exposure is the most likely threat that could affect Canadians domestically in a CBRN sense.
How ready is Public Safety? Well, it would be good to ask them. We are preparing ourselves to be ready to assist them, if needed, where we think they might require assistance. We've looked at the scale of the various threats. We've looked at what we think should be and could be our response. We've talked under the tri-command with our American counterparts to learn any lessons they've got, to see if there are any holes in each of our capabilities.
:
It's a really big question and I'll try to compact an answer into the time available.
The process consists of two parts for responding domestically. There's either a planned response and it receives approval at a high level, potentially from the minister, down to the direction of the CDS to respond. What happened in Calgary was that the commander in Edmonton saw the situation developing, was in close contact with his provincial counterparts, who work on the north side of Edmonton, actually, was aware of what was going on, and started to move his troops down.
He called us and we were aware of what was going on, but it was on his authority. We didn't wait for a request from the Alberta minister of public safety across to the federal , and down. It was apparent that wasn't going to be needed in that case.
If he was responding to an earthquake scenario, Rear-Admiral Truelove...we would expect all commanders, whether they're at the base level, the formation level, or nationally, to take those actions necessary to respond to Canadians in immediate distress. It's under that philosophy that he would respond to an earthquake scenario.
I can only imagine....If there was a structure remaining, if we were able to communicate very quickly after the earthquake, there would be national oversight of what was going on. We would be thankful for whatever initial steps he took, but then we would superimpose a national structure on that, a little bit like what happened with the floods in Calgary as well.
I can come back to that, if you'd like, but I'll quickly answer your question about international.
What exists under the Canada-United States civil assistance plan, CANUS-CAP, is a framework plan, and really just says to NORTHCOM and CJOC the factors that need to be considered, the command and control that would be put it place. It allows us to start having an initial conversation if, for example, in the case of Katrina—I wasn't around, but I can imagine if we had to do that again today—NORTHCOM would say to me or one of my officers, “We could use a couple of your Hercules”.
That request would go up to our minister and we would say, “They requested a couple of Hercules from us”. The same request would probably go over on the political side. Then we would get directed to provide; we would not respond unilaterally in that case. CANUS-CAP just provides the framework.
I enjoyed this discussion. It's interesting.
I wanted to ask a question about threat assessment and how you arrive at threat assessment.
Recently I was listening to a Freakonomics program, and they had brought on four experts on terrorism. And the question was, if you were invited to President Obama's recent meeting, which I think our public safety minister went to, what advice would you give the President on threat assessment? And they talked about the efficiency of terrorism, that you get a lot of bang for the buck, for want of a better of term, and the inverse, which is that we pour a lot of resources into coping with the threat of terrorism with sometimes questionable results in the end, and so it's a reverse.
Interestingly, they made the same comment that you made, which is toxic chemicals or the spread of toxic chemicals is probably the most significant terrorist threat. Their argument was it's really more good luck than good management and maybe just the stupidity of terrorists to not realize that this is actually the most significant threat to a large population.
Mr. Chisu's talking about the Pan Am Games where there will be a large gathering of people and so a smart terrorist wanting to do really serious damage would use an event such as that and would use chemicals rather than other forms of terror.
I just would be interested in your thoughts on whether that is in fact an appropriate threat analysis, that it is, if you will, the chief of your worries.