NDVA Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL DEFENCE AND VETERANS AFFAIRS

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE LA DÉFENSE NATIONALE ET DES ANCIENS COMBATTANTS

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, March 2, 2000

• 0900

[English]

The Chair (Mr. Pat O'Brien (London—Fanshawe, Lib.)): I will now call to order the meeting of our Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs.

Colleagues, I will recall for you that the committee decided that its next most urgent matter to be concerned with was the RMA, the revolution in military affairs, a major sub-theme of which, of course, is the possibility of participating with the United States in a missile defence system—emphasize defence.

We had a briefing last week from defence department officials on the potential missile defence system and the possibility of Canada being involved in such a system.

Today we have officials here to brief us on the overall umbrella theme, if you will, or the major theme of our hearings at this point, and that, of course, is the revolution in military affairs.

I'm very pleased today to welcome Captain Daniel McNeil, Dr. Scot Robertson, and Dr. Elinor Sloan, to assist us with this topic.

Before we go to our witnesses, Monsieur Laurin has a point of order.

[Translation]

Mr. René Laurin (Joliette, BQ): Can we hear from the witnesses without a quorum, Mr. Chairman?

[English]

The Chair: Yes, we can hear witnesses without quorum.

Unlike the military, this committee is not always as prompt as we'd like it to be. We can proceed and hear witnesses. The other members are just joining us now.

Captain McNeil, are you going to begin?

Captain (N) Daniel G. McNeil (Director of Defence Analysis, Department of National Defence): Yes, I am, sir.

The Chair: Thank you. Welcome.

Sorry about that. It's colonel. I have “captain” on the information here.

Capt (N) Daniel McNeil: You can call me colonel, sir, or you can call me captain, as long as I get paid.

The Chair: Whatever the title, I know you have expertise to share with us. Please begin. We're happy to have you here.

[Translation]

Capt (N) Daniel McNeil: First of all I would like to say that I'm very pleased to be here today. I have a presentation to make.

[English]

I believe it's been distributed en français et en anglais. I'm going to speak to the presentation that has been distributed, with a lot of preliminary remarks beforehand.

[Translation]

First of all, I must thank the committee for its good work in helping us improve our quality of life.

[English]

I was captain of the flagship on the west coast when the committee began its deliberations on quality of life. I was extremely impressed at the work that was done and at the reaction of our people in uniform.

Following the deliberations of the committee over the years, it was a real pleasure to see parliamentary democracy in action. It did work. You've made a significant contribution to those of us in uniform, and I must thank you for it. Again this week, with probably the largest budget increase in defence in 20 years, this committee once again had a large contribution, and especially once again in terms of quality of life. For that, I will thank you.

It is in that context, of course, that I can talk about the revolution in military affairs, because these things do cost money, and I'm sure you will be asking me where the budget increase fits in with the revolution in military affairs.

First of all, I'll enhance the introduction a little bit. I am representing Vice-Chief of Defence Staff Admiral Garnett, who is responsible for this issue in terms of force development. My boss is the director general of strategic planning, General Pennie, once again with overall responsibility for force development and where we assign our future dollars for our buying capability.

• 0905

In looking at this item on the agenda, I did invite another director to accompany me, because I thought it extremely important. Dr. Elinor Sloan has done a lot of research and analysis on the revolution in military affairs in the context of our allies, including studies on Britain, France, and the United States. She has also done some excellent work on how the NATO defence capabilities initiative fits in with the revolution in military affairs. She actually works for the directorate of strategic analysis, under Dr. Calder, ADM policy.

There is a link between strategic analysis and the work they produce. One of the fine pieces of work they produce on an annual basis is the strategic analysis. I would recommend to you the 1999 strategic analysis. It provides a foundation for building upon where the department is going.

Also with me is Dr. Scot Robertson, who works on my staff in defence analysis, which allows me to talk to you a little bit about what we do and where you can get some of your research material to follow on from this presentation.

The directorate of defence analysis is a fairly new organization in the department. It was restructured and re-engineered with the downsizing of headquarters over the last five years as a result of the 1994 white paper policy telling us we should reduce headquarters. The former organizations were called the directorate of force concepts and the directorate of force structure. Because of advice provided to us by the Auditor General, among other bits of advice, we determined that we needed to be more rational in how we looked at our future requirements.

That allows me to talk to you about the three sections of the directorate of defence analysis. The first one is what we call the strategic planning operational research team, SPORT. I'm going to tell you where to find all of this on our website, which is available to any Canadian or anybody internationally. SPORT is a team of seven defence scientists. They're all civilians. They're what we call hard scientists, and I mean no disrespect to my colleagues at the table here who we sometimes call soft scientists. The hard scientists have degrees in math and physics and they do operational research. Operational research has a history in terms of the study of warfare. Applying correct intellectual rigour in a mathematical linear sense to warfare operations has reaped huge benefits, and we are applying this kind of intellectual rigour to our future development. That is SPORT.

The second section that works for me looks at future options. They do future analysis. It's also a mixture of military and civilian. The ticket to entry is a post-graduate degree in some subject area. Once again for the most part looking at the future, we looked at political science, international security studies, and that kind of thing.

The third section that works in defence analysis connects that very important tie to our allies. They do the NATO planning, the NORAD bilateral planning, and Asia-Pacific studies in terms of how the development in our force structure and in our department ties in with the developments of our allies and, quite frankly, in terms of commitments we have made to NATO under article 5 and how we propose to live up to those commitments.

I'm going to table en français and en anglais pages from our website that will allow your researchers to find them much more quickly. The DND website is, of course, dnd.ca. It's very simple to find.

But after that it's layer after layer after layer, and it's very difficult to find the material. So I am providing you with the layers that represent the revolution in military affairs and defence analysis.

As I go down through the layers, which I've printed out here, my beginning point is to tell you about a May 21, 1998, DMC record of decision. I apologize for continuing to use abbreviations. That's the defence management committee record of decision. That's our level one deputy minister. In May 1998 DMC agreed on the development of a Canadian perspective and supported the convening of various symposia, with representation from all of the level ones and outside expertise, to assess the effect of the revolution in military affairs on the future of the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Forces. That was two years ago.

• 0910

That symposium on the revolution in military affairs did take place last year. It was a public symposium. We invited academics and experts from other countries. The results of the symposium are posted on our website and are available to your researchers. A document that arose from that symposium has been tabled. It is called the Document de conception de la RAM.

My beginning point is to assure you that within the department we're not starting from zero on our study of the impact of this thing called the revolution in military affairs. It has been two years now, and there's quite a bit of work going on. Your biggest problem, I foresee, is going to be reaching out and touching the amount of material on this subject that is out there.

This leads me to the next important point about the revolution in military affairs. It's not something you can reach out and touch and clearly identify. It is subject to perspective. It has no clear definition, although in the Canadian documentation we do provide a definition. It causes quite a bit of academic controversy, which actually is very helpful.

I recently have been talking with Dr. Douglas Bland about some of the work he has been doing. He has a paper called “A Perspective on the Revolution in Military Affairs as Purpose: Who Gets What?”, which will be published in a book this spring. In typical Douglas Bland style—and I do like his style—he kind of accuses us of using this trend du jour to justify expenditures. To some extent, he's right, and I'll be talking about that. You can use the revolution in military affairs to say that one should expend all the money on air power or on the information revolution and computer command and control. But once again, I'll be speaking to that.

I want to let you know that this is not a solid subject with a solid answer. There are many perspectives out there.

Once again, in the context of the work you have been doing—and my staff has been following it because it's very good work—there's no direct link between NMD, the national missile defence, and the RMA. There is a link, of course, in terms of technology, expertise, and interoperability, but there most certainly is not a direct link between those two subjects.

With that as a start, I have this presentation to go through. This presentation was actually developed for the minister to prepare him for last year's symposium on the RMA, so it is in fact a little bit dated. I will use it as a document to explain the RMA, but we have moved farther since this document was produced.

What is the rationale behind the idea of a revolution in military affairs? The international security environment having changed post-Cold War is obviously one of the clear reasons, together with a changing strategic calculus and technological possibilities that are out there. I'll speak a bit more about that. We're looking at future changes and better ways of doing business.

In the literature there is open talk of the revolution in business affairs. If you read the Toffler books and look at societies, there is the growing understanding that the world is really changing in fundamental ways from an industrial age to an information age and of what that means to all aspects of society. So it logically follows that military activities must change too. Therefore you put a framework around it and say, is there a revolution in military affairs? I'm going to start off by telling you selon moi, non.

• 0915

Actually I think there is an evolution in military affairs—not a revolution—but that just adds to the controversy.

The definition in our Canadian documents is:

...a Revolution in Military Affairs is a major change in the nature of warfare brought about by the innovative application of new technologies which, combined with dramatic changes in military doctrine and operational and organizational concepts fundamentally alters the character and conduct of military operations.

We do pin it down so we have something to work from.

The idea of revolutions in military affairs is not new. My good friend here, Scot Robertson, does quite a bit of historical study, and historical analysis is very useful. There are some examples on the slide here: railroad, telegraph, air superiority, carrier aviation. The nuclear revolution was certainly a fundamental revolution in warfare, and now information technology.

To give you an idea of how the debate continues, one of my favourite things in my analysis work is from my colleague, General Dempster—who I hope you've met or you will meet some day—who does a lot of the budget planning and who constantly uses the Royal Navy as an example of where the Canadian Forces must go today. He uses the example of the dreadnought revolution and Admiral Sir Jackie Fisher, who in the early days of the last century, 1900 to roughly 1914, revolutionized maritime warfare with the introduction of the dreadnought class of ship. General Dempster uses this as an example because if you do the historical analysis, what you will find is that Jackie Fisher did not introduce this ship as a new capability to spend money to get ready to take on Germany. In actual fact, in the civil-military's relations context, he was mandated to reduce the defence budget, and with the introduction of the dreadnought the Royal Navy withdrew its smaller ships from across the globe and saved considerable amounts of money. It was a budget-cutting exercise to produce the dreadnought.

General Dempster likes to use that example. I also like to use that example these days, because if you read a recent work on that revolution in military affairs by Nicholas Lambert, you will find out that the revolution had nothing to do with dreadnoughts. The new analysis, almost 100 years later, is it had everything to do with the introduction of submarines.

I tell you this so that you know the debate can last 100 years, that our work on the revolution in military affairs generates considerable debate, and once again there are no solid answers. But in the context of examining where the Canadian Forces is going for the future, debate is very healthy, and we in defence analysis virtually post all the analyses and research we do so that we can get some critiques and some criticism, because it's very helpful.

To continue with the revolution in military affairs, there are some assumptions. The material I'm now going to present to you is fundamental material as you examine the RMA. Most of it comes from the United States, because in terms of force development, most of the academic work comes from security analysis down in Washington. We must pay attention to this and do our own analysis, but I must tell you right off that I'm going to talk about some of the terminology. The terminology, by the way, is ni anglais, ni français. It's typical jargon.

Assumptions. Technology can substitute for mass and numbers. There are changing notions of modernization, and we should not look for one-for-one replacement ships, aircraft, and tanks; we should look at what those capabilities provide to the battlefield and look for innovative ways of providing the effect without doing simple platform regeneration. We should consider that those new capabilities will entail organizational and conceptual development changes, including people changes.

• 0920

The current RMA has a little bit of a history. In actual fact the terminology and the concepts began with the Soviet Union, with Russia in the 1970s, with the advent of new technologies, some of which seem to have been applied in the Vietnam War. That's where precision weapons first came into operational use.

In the late 1970s the west began examining the Soviet notion of a military technical revolution, an effort at integrating new technologies to achieve enhanced capability. And of course most recently looking at the work of the Tofflers, looking at the RBA and society, information technology....

The next slide is key components of the RMA. This is where you get into some very interesting terminology. Boiled down to basic components, what we're talking about is battle space awareness and battle space knowledge. I prefer the term “situational awareness”.

Read in its extreme—and if you read some of the literature, some of it is pretty extreme—the Americans talk about a system of systems, a grid not unlike the Internet, where information is immediately at hand. At its extreme, what you're talking about is god-like information—knowing what is going on.

At certain levels of knowledge, you have the ability to put the right weapon in the right place at the right time to achieve the right effect. You don't have to worry about having mass capability, large numbers, because you have the knowledge to apply small capability at the appropriate time in the appropriate place—precision application of force.

Following the precision application of force, you have an assessment, which is part of that situational awareness—an immediate knowledge that the action you took created the reaction you wanted, and therefore what further action is required. It's past the level of today's command and control. It gets to the level of knowledge.

The next Venn diagram talks about this battle space awareness in the context of applying the precision force, and here is some of the terminology you will continue to see: C⁴I, which means command, control, communications, and computers, and “I” is intelligence. Computers are the facilitators, and command and control information is the grid that provides you this situational awareness, and you get what is called near-perfect mission assignment.

To do these things, the next Venn diagram shows you there has to be a mix. The RMA is not simply about technology; it's about doctrine and it's about people. To achieve the effects of an RMA I have just described, there has to be a correct mix of the right use of the right technology, the right changes in doctrine, and the right application of the most important resource: people.

I'll move on to battle space awareness. “Collection platforms” is another shorthand term. We're talking about satellites, air vehicles, ships, trucks, and tanks. Collection platforms of all types provide more comprehensive coverage geographically across a wider spectrum with a faster revisit time in terms of surveillance and more precise coverage. Once again, the idea is you have complete knowledge of all military targets.

I guess I should stop here once again to tell you why I don't particularly like all of this terminology. At the high end, if you read about the revolution in military affairs, it seems to only apply to conventional, face-to-face warfare, and not to peacekeeping, peace enforcement, the kinds of operations you see in Bosnia or the Middle East or that we saw in Cambodia or any number of places in the world.

• 0925

I would submit that the use of some of this terminology is misleading, because the technology and the changes in doctrine also do apply to everyday circumstances, including humanitarian aid. This situational awareness rather than battle space awareness also tells you where the refugees are, where they're moving to, and how many of them there are. Or regarding casualties injured in an earthquake scenario, we're talking about technology that can detect through the infrared and find out where the people are trapped.

So the effect of the technology is not just on battle space per se; it also applies throughout the spectrum of activities of military forces these days. That's an important aside. The tendency in the American literature is to immediately go to the high end of warfare.

I think I'll just skip over battle space knowledge. I've talked about it: precise application, knowledge, situational awareness. I'll go down to page 15, “Net Result”.

In terms of conventional warfare, not peacebuilding or peacekeeping or humanitarian aid, when you have an enemy, you do have a decision cycle, and you do work on the weakness of the enemy.

There are other important aspects of the RMA you should be aware of in the literature. Some of it you may understand from last year's Kosovo operation. One of the ultimate results of a correctly applied RMA, maybe twenty years from now, is the ability to wage warfare without casualties.

First of all, one would like to wage warfare without casualties on your own side. Therefore you get into air superiority and how you can apply force without putting your own men and women at risk. Ultimately, though, with precision weapons and precision applications in the cyber-world, the real objective of the RMA at the end is waging warfare without any casualties on anybody's side.

The whole idea of warfare, you must understand, and of militaries as a tool of government, is to achieve objectives. Once again I would tell you, at the high end of the RMA literature, we're talking about ways to wage war without casualties. Cyber-war is a part of that.

We're into security policy and the RMA. With all its aspects, there are legitimate and valid questions about how we will apply RMA-type forces to the future security environment. I've already alluded to it in terms of conventional warfare versus the very muddy kinds of operations we get involved in today.

“Major competitors” is an American term. In the new world environment, there really is one superpower. However, it's not as benign a world as we all dreamed it would be when the Cold War ended. In the American context they're looking to make sure they continue to have superiority in the application of technology and that this technology does not get misapplied by competitors.

OOTW is “operations other than war”—peacekeeping and transnational threats.

I would submit to you that in your further deliberations, you might want to call upon the technology experts in the Department of National Defence. I would submit that the current chief of research and development, Dr. John Leggat, would be a wonderful guy to talk to. As an offshoot of the RMA and our studies of it, Dr. Leggat and that whole area of research and development have been elevated to what we call a level one. In April Dr. Leggat will be the chief of science and technology, and he will be a level one in the defence management committee. I say that as an aside, but I want to talk about technology for a minute, because there is a new paradigm in technology within the context of the RMA you should be aware of.

• 0930

In the Cold War, militaries produced technologies to achieve their ends. Industry picked up the technology and used it in the military-industrial complex in the Cold War, but also applied the same technologies to commerce.

That whole thing has been reversed these days. We in the military, in the west and elsewhere, are not producing technology so much as we are tracking the changes. New technologies, new capabilities, are being fielded commercially without input from militaries. I would submit some examples to you.

Satellites: I believe that in the year 2000 we have crossed the point where more money is spent on military satellites than on commercial satellites. I believe now, this year, that more money is being spent on commercial satellites than on military satellites, some of which have extremely important military applications: radar imaging, Canada's own RADARSAT 1; commercial communication satellites, which we use in the military for communications; and the international maritime satellite, INMARSAT.

Anyway, this aspect would be a good avenue to look at in the context of the revolution in military affairs, and certainly Dr. Leggat would be able to talk to this much better than I could.

On page 17, we talk about security policy in the RMA. The United States is actively supporting the idea of an RMA and supporting the tracking of technology to ensure that they continue to have superiority in military forces.

I'm going to skip through some more so we'll have a lot of time for questions.

Page 19 is still on security policy and the RMA because there are some aspects here that are of some importance—the darker side of the RMA. With this technology, which I have already told you is not strictly military any more—it's more commercial than military—there is a spread of technology, which can have some pretty important military applications, like WMD, or weapons of mass destruction, and things like nuclear weapons, biological weapons, with genetic engineering today, and chemical weapons.

All of these provide very serious threats, we believe, to our future security, in the context that you don't have to be a superpower to use them. With the spread and proliferation of technology, the impoverished, the poor, the oppressed—or those who believe they're oppressed—can use these weapons against that high-technology RMA force.

If the world community, and to a large extent the industrialized world community, determines through a United Nations resolution that it must act somewhere for humanitarian or whatever reasons, one must appreciate that if you're dropping bombs on people, some of those people aren't going to like it and they're going to look for ways to get back at you.

The RMA, as I've already told you, applies most easily to conventional high-end warfare. It applies less to guerrilla warfare and terrorism. That same technology used in the context of chemical weapons and biological weapons is extremely frightening in terms of where we are going. I would submit to you that this is the foundation of the concern over North American security that we find prevalent in the United States these days. This translates into border security, concern about illegal immigration, and concern about drug smuggling, which generates funds. There are large funds in drug smuggling that can be applied to high technology and can create a drug cartel RMA. The RMA does not only belong to us. If you have the money, it can belong to the terrorists as well.

The dark side, then, is the concern, particularly with the United States, about the asymmetric aspect. Asymmetry is a word you'll find in the RMA all the time. Asymmetry refers to the fact that you can spend tens of billions of dollars on military force and yet a drug cartel can spend a couple of hundred thousand and have a pretty severe impact. That can apply to warfare in some remote part of the world too.

• 0935

On page 21, I jump right into what the RMA offers us. It offers us risks and opportunities and therefore a real need for us to understand, to do analysis, and to do research about what this revolution is. Let's not split hairs about whether there is or is not a revolution. We're in a world of extreme change and we must determine what this change means to us. Technology might not deliver everything we think it will. We might not be able to have a war without casualties. Systems integration is a big part of what the RMA is, and it might be much harder than we think. We must acknowledge that we are in a transition period.

What we have, even in the Canadian Forces, is very much a legacy system. We have some really good things, and I'm going to talk to them in a minute, but they are a legacy. The wonderful Canadian patrol frigates, which we built in your riding, are world class and are very reflective of where we stand in the RMA, but they were designed and conceived in the Cold War. They have great application in the post-Cold War, fortunately, but we have a lot of legacy.

Page 22 shows our approach, the DND-Canadian Forces approach to the RMA. Without speaking to this too deeply, once again I would remind you that the research material is out there for your researchers; it's available on the website. Last year's symposium on the revolution in military affairs is followed up this year by another symposium, which we are calling “Concept Development and Experimentation, Modelling and Simulation”. I believe all the details on that symposium are available on our website. It's a symposium sponsored by science and technology, the VCDS, and the DCDS because....

You're going to see all this terminology, so I might as well as well introduce it to you.

Joint experimentation. The Americans are spending billions—and I did say “b” for “billions”—of dollars on a thing called joint experimentation. It is the use of battle labs, the use of operational research to determine the best use of new technologies and to develop new technologies, force structures, the integration of force structures, and command and control systems, the whole mass of what is the RMA.

NATO is using concept development and operational research to determine the way ahead in its defence capabilities initiative. We in Canada have not formally developed our way ahead with this subject. We hope to take a giant step with this symposium, which will be held on April 27 and 28.

If you go to our website now, you will see a reference to the working group on the revolution in military affairs. In fact, that working group does not exist any more. That working group is working on this symposium, and we have a new working group, which is on the website and is called the strategic capability plan. We've jumped one step past the RMA.

The Vice-Chief of Defence Staff, Admiral Garnett, last summer challenged his staff. He said he was sick and tired of trying to produce a long-term capital plan that doesn't seem to go anywhere and doesn't seem to have any coherence in the new world. He said he wanted to start by examining where we need to be in the year 2020 in terms of capabilities: what Canada should have in terms of capabilities—not in terms of planes, trucks, and aircraft—to do what the government wants to do for Canadians.

So the first step the staff took was to look around. Does any other country have something called a strategic capabilities plan that looks 20 years forward? Nobody does, but we're trying to.

• 0940

The work is on our website and is totally related to the revolution in military affairs. We have sent all of this work out to.... Part of the mandate in the VCDS staff in terms of this planning is to be open and transparent and to work with academics, with the analysts, out there in Canada. We have sent all this work to the security and defence forum, and we're receiving some pretty interesting feedback, which we will apply to a rewrite and eventually to a look at what we need to have in 2020. It will make us more coherent in where we're going to spend money on capability in the next five years.

However, one should not declare defeat at any point. We can declare some pretty good victories. On page 24, I look at some current Canadian Forces competencies.

I've already referred to the Canadian patrol frigate, which is perfectly capable of integrating completely with the United States battle group. It's the kind of capability other countries wish to have, and plan to have, but don't have. In Aviano last year, our CF-18s, with the upgrades we've given them, proved that they're at the leading edge. Most of the other 19 NATO allies do not have the capability represented in the updated CF-18. We are fielding army equipment that is the envy of our allies and is even being examined by the United States in the context of their land force reforms.

And I refer to, out of your riding, Chairman—

The Chair: The great riding of London—Fanshawe. They're aware of the plant—

Capt (N) Daniel McNeil: Absolutely. The light armoured vehicles and the family of vehicles that are coming out of there are of extreme interest to our American allies.

So we have significant success in the context of the RMA, which we can build upon.

Competencies. We are examining, and you will be familiar with, General Dallaire's work in terms of officer professional development, in terms of where we need to go with people and training and education. In our organization, we are way ahead in terms of this thing called “jointness” because we do not have a navy, army, and air force in Canada, although we bandy the terms about from time to time. We only have the Canadian Forces, so we are truly integrated at the headquarters level, and our capabilities are becoming more integrated.

I would submit to you that research and development, not in DND and the military but in Canada, the Canadian competency in research and development, is world class and is of direct application to the technology that is being applied to the RMA. Of course, with our small “l” liberalism and Pearsonian internationalism, we are very closely tied to allies, not just in NATO but in Asia-Pacific and hemispheric security.

We can leverage on some of our technologies we are fielding today. I refer to RADARSAT 1, not a military system, not a DND system, but a commercial system. There's ongoing development of RADARSAT 2, which we have applied to military uses. In the small diagram of RADARSAT 2, the letters shown are GMTI, ground-motion target indication. It's a software technology more than anything, but it's an ability to detect targets that are moving on the ground. It's very applicable to satellite systems and to any airborne system, and it is a Canadian competency.

The delivery of the Upholder class submarines this year, and the Canadianization of them in terms of command and control technology, will make them world class and of extreme importance to our allies and to us. Also, once again, the LAV III reconnaissance capability is the envy of our allies.

What we need to do: we need to do more analysis and more research because we have to be more educated about where to spend our money.

You already know that I don't like the terms “battlespace awareness” and “battlespace knowledge”, so I'll jump past that.

We do need to apply some analysis to the precision strike. We've done that with the CF-18, and some of our naval systems are extremely capable. We need to do some more analysis in terms of joint capability, putting the right weapon at the right place at the right time, when it's needed.

• 0945

Strategic mobility is certainly something we have to look at more closely. We have legacy systems in terms of mobility now—the Hercules aircraft, the resident capability in our AORs, and HMCS Protecteur going to East Timor.

If you look at our programming, I think you'll see that post-Cold War we're not forward-based any more. We're here in Canada. Canada is a huge country, and we'd better pay more attention to mobility, the ability to get from A to B within both a domestic context and internationally, and to protection.

Protection alludes to this business of war without casualties. The starting point is in our force development. You'll see it in our strategic capability planning. We're not going to put Canada's young men and women in harm's way without doing the best we can to give them the protection they deserve. That means everything from armour to the information network in order to know where the threats are. So it's force protection and then application of force.

On page 30, I'm looking at the third part of the section entitled “What We Need to Explore”, which includes battlespace assessment; situational awareness; real-time imaging; satellite imagery; unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs; computer processing; knowledge management; and rapid dissemination of information.

By the way, in terms of competencies, once again, not in DND or the military but in Canada, information technology is a real strength. The integration of systems is a real strength. That's what this is about.

The fourth part of what we have to explore is people. As I've told you, the RMA is not simply about technology, it's about the application of that technology—changes in doctrine, changes in operations, and certainly paying attention to our people. It certainly ties in very well with the quality-of-life initiatives in education.

We have challenges. How do we attract and retain the best and the brightest? I think we should pay more attention—and we're trying—to flexible career patterns. This has everything to do with the continued integration of women and minorities into our combat capability and reserves.

I'll now look at, under “Next Steps”, page 33, “The How”. We are taking stock of where we stand. I hope this presentation makes that clear to you. With last year's work and this year's work, when you go and visit our own research, we are really trying to determine what this means to Canada.

I won't go into the detail of taking stock here. Again, there's a whole bunch of acronyms.

I will refer to the joint space project mentioned on page 35. It's an omnibus project. It involves everything from intelligence collection to environmental observation. You must understand, of course, that situational awareness also involves a real understanding of the terrain. It has everything to do with weather. It has everything to do with topography, hydrography.

All of those things are becoming software-based. They're based on ones and zeros. The fact that now they're all based on ones and zeros means they can be more carefully integrated. Put on top of that the global positioning system, another example of technology that is out there in the commercial world. Go down to Canadian Tire, buy yourself a GPS, and you'll have the same capability I have in the fleet flagship on the west coast.

We are actively looking at institutionalizing the RMA, increasing R and D, increasing the capital budget. I hope you're familiar with Strategy 2020. We're trying to achieve 23% in capital. We're down around 17% right now. Thank you very much for the budget increase. I think about a third of that will be applied to capital, but a third to quality of life and about a third to current operations, keeping the tempo going.

I can't speak more to it other than that it certainly will be applied to capital, or some of it will, and it will certainly aid our efforts in the RMA.

I'm on page 37, “Experimentation”. This is an old slide. If you're interested, we have a symposium on April 27 and 28. It actually will be tied into a meeting of the Security and Defence Forum as well, looking at our future in terms of experimentation.

The Chair: Where is that symposium?

Capt (N) Daniel McNeil: I believe it will be at the Congress Centre, sir.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

• 0950

Capt (N) Daniel McNeil: Actually, I've been told it will be held at the Government Conference Centre.

I'm now into my summary, page 39.

There are cost issues, of course. All of our allies are aiming the same way we are, to increased capital. I would warn you that artificial numbers like 30% or 23% are sometimes misleading, because different countries call capital different things. We spend a whacking great amount of money on what we call “national procurement”, sustaining such things as aircraft. A lot of that buys equipment, but it's not capital spending in our context. In other countries some of that money is capital.

So you can't compare apples and oranges here. Suffice it to say that we know that sustaining a capability with capital down around 17% is a no go. It won't work.

In terms of “getting it wrong”, I hope I've shown you this morning that with our work we're trying not to get it wrong.

In terms of asymmetric threats, you'll see more of our analysis on that issue. I don't like the idea of “Fortress North America”, but it's not just military. We must work more closely with the Americans in terms of smuggling, policing, drugs, illegal immigration, and future asymmetric threats. It's inevitable.

Is technology integration problematic? Well, yes and no. Technology integration is a Canadian strength, and this is where we can help our allies.

With regard to a doctrinal versus organizational mismatch, one should acknowledge that large organizations have great inertia. It's very hard to change, although much work has been done.

I'm on the last page.

Understanding of the RMA is improving exponentially. I think my colleagues here will support that. In the last year, in national defence headquarters, the terminology and the understanding of where we must go has really dramatically increased. The RMA, in its conceptual entirety, must deal with not just the capital program and technology and equipment but also people, doctrine, and organization.

On my last point on page 40, I don't want to overstate it but I want to tell it to you in a different way.

There is a cost delta. Everybody in the department these days will tell you that it's not all about new money; it's about the correct application of some old money. It's not all about new capability being bought; we have to get rid of some old capability, which costs money to sustain.

We have to examine ourselves very closely and ask ourselves some questions. What are we doing? What are we planning to do? How is the world changing? What do we have in our inventory that we're not using? Because it costs a lot of money to sustain that.

So it's not about more new money. This is no plea for any more new money. Thank you very much for the money you've given us. We have to be smarter about how we spend it.

I've talked far too much. I am going to try as much as possible to defer to my colleagues when you ask your questions.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Just for the record, sir, is your rank captain or colonel?

Capt (N) Daniel McNeil: It's captain—in French, capitaine de vaisseau.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Captain McNeil, for your very interesting presentation. I know it has to be a challenge to talk to a bunch of lay people, elected or non-elected, about such a complex topic in a short time. I think you've done a very good job of that.

We're certainly going to have questions from probably all of us here, so we'll go right to those now, starting with Mr. Hanger for seven minutes.

Mr. Art Hanger (Calgary Northeast, Ref.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I apologize, Captain McNeil, for walking in on your presentation late. I did glance through your slide presentation to pick up on some of it. I may ask a question you've already touched on, but I would like clarification on it, if you wouldn't mind answering.

The Chair: You'll have to stay after school for that.

Mr. Art Hanger: Can I have an excuse?

You mentioned that the Vice-Chief of Defence Staff, Garnett, said that he was sick and tired of trying to develop a long-term capital plan that doesn't seem to go anywhere. Why doesn't it seem to go anywhere?

Capt (N) Daniel McNeil: I am very guilty of providing you with a quote that's not really a quote. Perhaps I can set the record straight.

That's a feeling all of us in the department have these days in terms of capital planning. It's very difficult in this very new world I've described to you. Any words I've ascribed to Admiral Garnett I will take for myself.

• 0955

All of us—Director of Defence Analysis Captain McNeil and company—are concerned that our capital planning is not coherent enough. We've been told it isn't by the Auditor General. It's not the Vice; it's all of us. The work I've described to you today is an attempt to be more coherent and to achieve more success with capital planning.

The tendency in the past has been.... We've changed. When you downsize a headquarters by over a third and you go through successive budget decreases, which every single one of our allies has gone through as well, I would submit that every single one of our allies would say the same thing I've said about the difficulty in future capital planning. We've gone from the Cold War, with legacy systems, to a whole new world order and a changement d'esprit with regard to what are the wise investments for the future.

So any frustration I've ascribed to Admiral Garnett I will ascribe to everybody in his position amongst our allies.

Mr. Art Hanger: Yes, I guess there are some differences as to the solutions to those problems, and I guess that's what I'm asking you. It may be that change is frustrating for anyone, whether it's the military or any other organization. But I think there are other solutions.

I'm going to refer to a statement that Colonel Hug, who is with the Vice-Chief of the Defence Staff, wrote in a paper entitled “Interoperability—The Challenge in 2010”. His statement is this:

If the [Canadian Forces] is going to operate effectively with our preeminent ally, we will need to be able to operate with forces which have adopted RMA initiated changes or advances. Interoperability with the US must be our top priority.

I think you've alluded to that already. In some areas there is interoperability, but the bottom line comes down to dollars and cents. I believe the Auditor General struck the chord very effectively in his 1998 report, where he stated that defence equipment requirements exceeded the planned budget by $4.5 billion.

Wouldn't it be the case that you can sit back and draft up all kinds of plans for the future, but if you don't have the money to do anything with it, in the words of Garnett, it's not going to go anywhere?

Capt (N) Daniel McNeil: I would really love to defer to my colleagues, but I don't feel I can at this point, not with that question.

I've been involved in departmental force development for a number of years now. I was the director of maritime force development through all of the budget reductions and attempts to buy things like submarines. In any organization that has the kind of budget DND deals with, and one-, two-, five-, fifteen- and twenty-year planning, the only real planning is what you're going to spend next year. Everything after that gets fuzzier and fuzzier.

We have different staffs with different perspectives and different priorities. The system allows people to put into the fifteen-year program things you can't put into next year's program. You purposely have to overbudget in a fifteen-year program. You have to provide flexibility and options. As you go through the years, one after another, you have to mould the plan, which will always be over-programmed. By how much is a factor. How much the leadership allows you to over-program is important, because that's the constraint on the planning priorities of the individual staffs.

So I have no critique of the Auditor General and his work. We have found it very useful. However, over-programming is a fact of life. With my perspective as a former director of maritime force development, I can look at some of the air force programs and laugh, and say, well, that'll never happen. But they think it will happen. Maybe I'm wrong and they're right.

The world will change year after year. If there's one thing you can be sure about, it's that when it comes to the future, it's going to change. You're going to be surprised, and you're going to have to have options open to you. Over-programming is a fact of life.

• 1000

Mr. Art Hanger: I guess you can use that as an excuse and not do anything if you don't plan for the future, but there seems to be another step that's missing in the whole process. Really, there's a political solution to the problem. The political solution is that the matter of long-term planning as to where the military is going to go must be clearly stated. If it's not clearly stated, then how can you plan at all?

The defence department has responded, in a way on its own, with the Defence 2020 document. Really, I think it's a good document, because it does deal with future considerations and where the military should be in 20 years. If you don't have that plan, what are you going to do? You're going to be planning, as you say, one year to the next, not really knowing where the future is going to be.

The Defence 2020 document was not driven from the government side down but by the military to try to put some semblance of order into what is happening right now. Without it being driven by the government down, where's that document going to go?

Capt (N) Daniel McNeil: Mr. Chairman, I think that's a very political question—

The Chair: I agree.

Capt (N) Daniel McNeil: —but I will attempt to provide some kind of answer.

The government of any country expects their national defence department to develop strategy to meet government policy. Government policy is the 1994 white paper. It's “the policy”. Within that policy constraint we are mandated to do some thinking and analysis and research and to come up with a strategy.

The Chair: Thank you very much. I think you've said it well. This committee is part of the governing process, and your presentation is I think addressing Mr. Hanger's concern, which we all share. We're holding these hearings so that we can get a better sense of where we ought to go as a military.

[Translation]

Mr. Laurin, please, for seven minutes.

Mr. René Laurin: In your presentation, Captain McNeil, you stated the principles and referred more specifically to the 1994 White Paper, which contains the directions of the Forces. Do you think the Revolution in the Military affairs means that the White Paper on National Defence should be revised or at least reconsidered to see whether it meets the new requirements of theatres of war? Should we be restating our philosophy and our direction in this regard?

[English]

Capt (N) Daniel McNeil: That's another very political question.

I apologize for responding in English, sir. I understand your question very well, but I'm afraid of my inability to answer you properly en français.

Does the white paper withstand the extreme changes that have taken place, particularly with respect to the RMA that I have described? Government policy documents like the white paper are designed to be sufficiently broad that they can withstand the ravages of the changes of time. We spend a lot of time examining other nations' policies that change with certain periods of time.

It's remarkable; there is sufficient flexibility within the white paper words today, within Strategy 2020, to continue to do proper force development with that policy guideline. The white paper refers to things like “contingency forces” and “vanguard forces”. It talks to commitments to the United Nations and Canada's internationalism. It speaks to the fundamentals of who we are.

• 1005

Right now we are having no problems continuing to develop strategies based on it. That's not to say.... There are extreme changes and policy always has to be re-examined, but that's a government decision. The policy is a Canadian policy. It's not a DND policy or a military policy and it's not for us to determine if it needs changing. It's for us to live within it.

[Translation]

Mr. René Laurin: At the end of your presentation, Captain McNeil, you said something that made me think: “We have to be smarter about how we spend”. The government has just given the Forces an additional $2 billion. Does that mean that if we had better studied the way we spend the $10 billion the Forces already received, we could have avoided having to provide an extra $2 billion? Perhaps that means that there is still a great deal of room for savings in the management of National Defence. I would like you to be more specific.

Capt (N) Daniel McNeil: Before the budget, there was a major review of the needs of the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Forces with a view to improving the quality of military life, for operations such as the one in Kosovo, for providing support to the UN and for meeting our obligations to our allies.

[English]

There will never be enough money for health care or education or defence or anything. Everything is about decisions. A deep examination was conducted of the needs of the department and the Canadian Forces before the budget. You will always find people who will say it's not enough. It doesn't matter if it's not enough; it's what we have and we will make the best of it. It's not for me to speak about the perennial question of guns or butter. We're far beyond guns or butter these days. When you are participating in humanitarian aid operations, it's not guns any more.

[Translation]

Mr. René Laurin: I am going to stop you there, because my question is not political in nature. I'm not asking you to make a choice between spending on health care, education or the military. You made this comment, and I'm sure you had a reason for doing so. You said that we had to be smarter about how we spend money. That means something. Under what circumstances was money spent less smartly? Do you have any examples of cases where money was not spent very intelligently? What are you thinking of, when you say that we should be smarter about how we spend?

Capt (N) Daniel McNeil: There's a fundamental difference between the Cold War and the world today.

[English]

With our NATO alliance in the Cold War, it was easy to do threat-based planning. We spent our money, along with our allies, on equipment whose capabilities we collectively thought we needed.

[Translation]

In the new world, there is no specific threat. Of course, for Canada, there is no specific threat.

[English]

We have to do capabilities-based planning. I've described to you how the organization has changed in terms of education levels and skill sets. We must apply more intelligence because it is a more complex problem. The world is more complex, technology is more complex, interactions are more complex. The information age is totally different from the industrial age. The context of applying more intelligence to the spending of the money has to do with making choices in a more difficult milieu.

• 1010

[Translation]

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Laurin.

Mr. René Laurin: [Editor's Note: Inaudible]

[English]

The Chair: It was seven minutes, even extra.

Colleagues, we're coming to this side, and I'd just say that maybe if we shorten up the questions, we'll get more in. It's seven minutes for the questions and answers. You're free to ask what you want, obviously, but I think we are getting into some questions that maybe we should put to the minister when he's here. These people have great expertise in the RMA specifically.

Coming to this side, I have on my list Mr. Proud, Mr. Peric, Mr. Pratt, and Mr. Bertrand, so I think you can see the level of interest in your presentation, Captain. Mr. Proud, if you want to start, please.

Mr. George Proud (Hillsborough, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome, lady and gentlemen.

I have several questions. I'll start off with one on space and space systems, as they are becoming synonymous with effective operations. Some people say we must dominate the space dimension of military operations and continue to integrate space forces into our war-fighting capabilities. How well we do this in the future will be a major determinant in how effective we are in providing for our security needs. How well can the Canadian Forces integrate space systems into our present military, and how well are we preparing for it? That's one question.

This is the other one I'd like to ask. The way in which the Department of National Defence acquires and supports its equipment and materiel may be impacted significantly by RMA. Recently, we've been examining the procurement process. What have the Canadian Forces done to ensure that materiel acquisition and support challenges resulting from the RMA are dealt with?

Capt (N) Daniel McNeil: This time I defer to my better-educated colleagues.

Dr. W.S. (Scot) Robertson (Director Defence Analysis 3-4, Department of National Defence): Sir, in the context of the RMA, space is the medium for the acquisition of information and intelligence and for the transmission of much of that information over the information networks. In that context, our allies, the United States and the U.K. and throughout NATO, in fact, all recognize the importance of space and of communications systems. We're all striving to find the means to take advantage of that.

With regard to the joint space project, which was referred to in the presentation, a considerable component of that is in fact designed as an information and intelligence network. We're fairly well connected, obviously, through our NORAD arrangements with the United States for continental issues.

It's hard to say at this point how far we can go in this area, but clearly space is an issue we're wrestling with. We have some considerable competencies in that area, especially in the commercial sector, with RADARSAT, for instance, and some of the communications satellites that are being put up. Militarily, it's still an issue to be resolved from the Canadian Forces' point of view. We're doing some significant R and D work in the area, and with Canadian commercial competence in that area, we have a good start on space.

Mr. George Proud: We're not there yet.

Dr. Scot Robertson: No.

Dr. Elinor Sloan (Directorate of Strategic Analysis, Department of National Defence): I just want to add that the Canadian Forces has developed the CANMILSATCOM capability, which will be deployed on an American satellite. It's a software system that will give the Canadian Forces its own dedicated military communications system for operations around the world. I think the timeframe is about 2003, but I'm not certain on that.

Mr. George Proud: What about the question I asked on equipment and materiel?

Dr. Scot Robertson: I'm not sure I caught the gist of the question. Could you repeat that?

• 1015

Mr. George Proud: I said that the way in which the Department of National Defence acquires and supports its equipment and materiel may be impacted significantly by RMA. Recently, the committee has been examining the procurement process. What have the Canadian Forces done to ensure that the materiel acquisition and support challenges resulting from the RMA are dealt with so that the equipment we order and the equipment we get are still relevant for the job?

Dr. Elinor Sloan: None of us here are procurement experts, and that's our problem. Someone you may want to consider asking to speak to you would be the assistant deputy minister of materiel, who would be able to speak directly to that question.

Mr. George Proud: I have another question. New technology, a new doctrine, and a changing battlefield call for a serious re-examination of the principles that underpin how we manage our human resources within the forces today, and in the future, of course. What has DND done to ensure that we can attract, retain, develop, and lead men and women who will be fully able to respond to all of DND's commitments? Can we focus on the multiple talents of the reservists to meet the challenges of the RMA?

Capt (N) Daniel McNeil: I think it's time for me to speak to that question, because I can see the series of questions that are going to come. The right answer to all of those that deal with materiel or personnel is, ask the person responsible for those issues. But I think that's a cop-out, so I'm going to try to give you an answer.

Within our strategic capability plan, the very small staff that belongs to the Vice tries to facilitate the coherence within the RMA of all of those issues. In the strategic capability plan we deal with the future of human resources and the future of materiel acquisition. As a matter of fact, in the SCP, which is going to be changed, I think we say something really extreme, like military equipment is almost obsolescent the moment you field it.

Let me speak to that for a minute. Before I went away on my last command, I left my family here in Ottawa and I bought the most up-to-date computer system you could buy. That was two and a half years ago. I came back, and it's a piece of—it's not very good any more.

You have to realize that all the military systems in the RMA that I'm talking about are computer-based and software developed. I have a computer on my desk at work, and it's wonderful. It was wonderful last year, but this year the computer weenies filled it full of new software that it can't handle. That's the world. That's the world of the RMA with the technology I'm talking about.

We in the military are not driving this in any way. We are receiving it. In the revolution of military affairs, with acquisitions, human resources, and everything else, we also have to pay attention to the revolution in business affairs, more flexibility, terms of engagement, you name it.

So I can't give you an answer, but I can tell you that we're sure looking at it. If you want a solid answer, then you have to ask the experts. We're facilitators, and we're bringing to everybody's attention that this RMA means something to you, in structure, in materiel, in human resources, in every aspect of what we do.

The Chair: Just before we go to the next questioner, could you just comment briefly on Mr. Proud's question on the reservists? We're engaged in that issue as well.

Capt (N) Daniel McNeil: Let me give you my first thought, with a little bit of danger attached to it. We—the collective we—are looking to make sure that reservists have more involvement in our strategic planning. Particularly on my staff, I'm looking to get at least one appropriately skilled reserve, preferably an army officer. I've put out the word, and we're starting to collect names. Reserves have to be part of the futures planning. That comes from the top. We have to do that. Mobilization, reserves, all of those issues have something to do with futures planning and force development, so all of those issues touch me and my staff.

It's a very difficult issue. If you look out 20 years, as I say, next year is pretty clear, but 20 years is pretty fuzzy. But we're looking at the lessons of our allies and how they use reserves. We're looking at our current operations, and we're saying something has to change. There has to be change. Exactly what that change must be I couldn't tell you right now, but change must occur.

The Chair: Now we'll go to Mr. Earle for seven minutes, please.

• 1020

Mr. Gordon Earle (Halifax West, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Captain McNeil, for your presentation. It has been helpful to me with respect to understanding this whole concept of RMA.

I do have a concern, though. You talked about the battlespace knowledge and the precise application of force. If I'm correct, you used the term “god-like information”. I guess it always concerns me a bit when I hear us kind of equating ourselves to God and all the authority that implies, particularly when we're talking about warfare.

What I want to come to is how you talked about the precision application of force and how, ultimately, the goal is to have war without casualties. My feeling, I guess, is that as long as there's war there will never be a war without casualties, no matter how precise the technology may be. Witness the devastation in Kosovo and places like that where smart weapons were used. But we've seen the environmental outfall and the kinds of casualties that result afterwards, even with respect to our own men and women coming back from these battlefields and the casualties that we see following that. I just would like you to comment further on how you perceive this RMA leading to war with no casualties.

My second question also ties in to people, because you talk about people as one of the most important components of this RMA. On the one hand, I heard you talk about attracting the best and the most qualified, but on the other hand, when you talk about how technology can substitute for man and for numbers, it almost sounds like a downsizing: the more technology we have, the fewer people we have. It seemed like a bit of an inconsistency there in terms of the people aspect of it. On the one hand, we're saying we need the best and the brightest to build up our military, and on the other hand, it sounded as if as technology improves we need fewer people. I'd just like a comment on that, if you please.

Dr. Scot Robertson: If I may, sir, I'll take those questions.

In terms of casualties, indeed, some of the more extreme advocates in the debate on the RMA make reference to bloodless war. Nobody who has studied that seriously accepts that proposition. At any time in any conflict, there are going to be casualties. One of the issues sort of driving the RMA in terms of minimizing casualties is in fact this question of precision force. I recognize that in the Kosovo campaign there were some discussions about how precise is “precise”.

From a future RMA perspective, what's really in play is trying to escape the old model of attrition warfare to move to something beyond. That has been a bit of a Holy Grail for the last several centuries, but with the new information systems and the potential ability to apply that kind of force more precisely and target it more accurately, you can do these things from a greater distance. You don't need to get into the close battle. In fact, a colleague of mine in the land staff says that if you get into the close fight, you have lost, you have made some fundamental errors. The idea is to try as much as possible to apply force from a greater distance to a greater effect, in fact shortening the conflict.

In terms of people, recruiting and retaining the kinds of people will be a significant challenge in the future. We'll be competing with Silicon Valley North, in fact, for many of the same people with the same skills in terms of information systems.

We'll also be required to find people who have perhaps a higher degree of geopolitical awareness than in the past, given the sense that most conflicts in the future are going to be more transparent. The CNN factor is much ballyhooed, and in effect at a tactical level can have strategic consequences. We'll be compelled to try to recruit people who have a greater geopolitical strategic acumen than in the past, who have a greater understanding of international affairs, and who have a greater understanding of the act of conflict.

• 1025

Dr. Elinor Sloan: On the people side, I think it's important to put it into an overall organizational context. What are the organizational changes of the RMA? There are a number of them: the professionalization of forces; better-educated troops; perhaps smaller forces; and a lower hierarchy of decision-making. There are a number of different organizational changes.

As for the specific question of a smaller number of troops, that depends on what baseline you're already starting from. You need to look at what you need your military to do and what kinds of numbers you need for sustainment.

If you look at what our allies are doing, for instance, Germany and France had very large forces. We're talking 500,000 troops in the case of France, moving towards a professionalized force of about 350,000, so when you're talking about smaller forces, you're talking about starting from a much higher baseline. This may not be applicable to Canada. We're talking about moving from conscripted forces to professional forces.

Mr. Gordon Earle: Under the section about what we need to explore further, Captain, you talked about protection and protecting our troops, about not sending our men and women into situations where they're without protection.

I would say that going along with this would be the idea of vaccines and so forth. Is the military changing its culture in the RMA to allow, if a person is concerned about their health and safety and doesn't want to go into a situation accepting a vaccine that they feel is going to cause problems...? Is that a part of not sending people off unprotected or is it just solely the battlefield you're looking at?

Capt (N) Daniel McNeil: A loaded question; therefore I will take it.

Mr. Gordon Earle: It's intended to be direct. I want to know—

Capt (N) Daniel McNeil: Oh, it's direct. It's extremely direct.

Mr. Gordon Earle: I want to know what the military is looking at in terms of overall culture for our men and women.

Capt (N) Daniel McNeil: I don't want to quote the Chief of Defence Staff, but I think he said, in terms of the health services controversy and the changes in our health services, that in our downsizing we have made some real errors.

I know that we are applying significantly more resources to the whole issue of health care of our people. I—this is personally from me, use it as you wish—was very upset when we determined that the health standards for the Canadian Forces should be the same as those of the Province of Ontario. That's not saying the Province of Ontario's standards aren't high. They most certainly are, perhaps the highest in the world, but the Canadian Forces' standards should be higher. We put people in harm's way overseas, in some of the worst conditions you'll find in this world: heat, temperature, humidity, disease, pestilence, and starvation. Their health care had better be better, and I think that's where we're going.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Earle.

Mrs. Wayne, for seven minutes.

Mrs. Elsie Wayne (Saint John, PC): You are referring to the quality of life. This week there was an article in the paper that had to do with the pay, the wages that are paid to our men. I was truly shocked. I want to know if this is accurate or not: do some of those men and women only receive $17,000 to $18,000? Is that their pay, their wage, for a private? Is it?

Mr. Robert Bertrand (Pontiac—Gatineau—Labelle, Lib.): It's higher than that.

Mrs. Elsie Wayne: That was in the paper. This was an article written in the paper. I want to ask—I'm asking them, not my colleagues—is that accurate?

Capt (N) Daniel McNeil: I don't know, but I've read the same kinds of articles in the paper that you've read. I read them too. For example, the front page of the Ottawa Citizen last weekend told me that the generals were stealing pay from the privates.

Mrs. Elsie Wayne: I didn't get into the part about—

Capt (N) Daniel McNeil: Last time I looked, I didn't have my hand in anybody's pocket. I live a normal life. I have a wife who is a health care professional in the province of Ontario. She has a university degree and post-graduate qualifications, and she doesn't get paid what a master corporal gets paid. So don't be misled by things you read in the paper.

I can't answer your question without going to the pay guide, but that can be answered very easily with your very good research staff.

Mrs. Elsie Wayne: The reason, Mr. Chairman, that I'm asking this question is that I happened to have been out in Vancouver and I happened to go to the naval base. They also took me to show me the food banks their people had to go to. They were very concerned.

• 1030

And I have to tell you: this was not the corporals or the privates that were taking me there but the men right at the top, because they were so concerned about their men. I'm saying to you, sir, that if this is the case, then, we have to turn it around, because there should not be a need for any of our people to go to food banks to feed their children or their wives when they are giving of themselves for us in Canada. So if you don't know, I would ask you to look into that to make sure that this situation, if it is there, is corrected.

[Translation]

Mr. Robert Bertrand: I cannot let that pass without commenting. When we submitted our report on the quality of life, returning soldiers got an increase. If I remember correctly, it was between 10 and 15%. It is true that the situation mentioned by Ms. Wayne did happen. We all saw that during our travels. However, I can tell her that with the salary increases, such things will not happen again. At least we hope not.

[English]

Mrs. Elsie Wayne: Okay.

Mr. Chairman, my other question—

Mr. David Pratt (Nepean—Carleton, Lib.): Mr. Chairman, on a real point of order—

Mrs. Elsie Wayne: —has to do with—

The Chair: I have a point of order, Mrs. Wayne.

Mr. David Pratt: —we do not have the ADM of personnel in front of us here to talk about quality of life issues. We're talking about the RMA, and I think it would be helpful if we stuck to that discussion.

The Chair: Mrs. Wayne.

Mrs. Elsie Wayne: Mr. Chairman, please, he referred to the quality of life—he, himself. Well, I'm referring to it.

I want to talk about capital planning. I was told by a retired colonel that there's a new way. He feels we should be looking at it and that all of our armed forces should be looking at this, and that is because of the technology and the change in technology from year to year. He said it advances within every year. So if we were to replace—and we will probably have to—the frigates we bought, the sad thing is that they were all based on the same technology so they'll probably all be grounded at the same time.

He suggested that in the future, if we were to have replacements, and I'll just use frigates as an example, that we do maybe one or two frigates. Then you wait four or five years and do two more, because the technology continues to change. He referred to that. I'm very concerned—and I'm sure our people are concerned—about the helicopter situation and the refitting of our CF-18s. Well, the CF-18s just have to be refitted the way they are, according to the minister, who answered the question in the House. I'm wondering if you have looked at and done some research on that type of capital planning in the future, for replacing some of what is already there.

Capt (N) Daniel McNeil: Madam Wayne, I had the extreme pleasure of visiting Saint John and your office and you in 1987. You won't remember me, but I have your picture with me and—

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

The Chair: [Inaudible—Editor]...with Elsie's picture.

Capt (N) Daniel McNeil: I was driving perhaps the oldest steam destroyer in the fleet at the time, the first one we were going to retire to prepare for HMCS Halifax. That's why I was there. It was HMCS Assiniboine. I paid her off. She was built in about 1952, and when we paid her off after about 33 years she had the exact same capability she had in 1952, which wasn't very relevant.

Last year I commanded the west coast flagship HMCS Huron, which had been updated with the tribal class update modernization program, TRUMP. It was hard for me to believe that I was on the missile firing line with AEGIS cruisers, with a command and control system equal to theirs, with information technology that told me, if I wanted to know, where things were in the Persian Gulf, with command and control capabilities and information systems of the best order. That ship, in fact, was 28 years old. That's right, 28 years old. And if you look at our strategic capability planning, you will see that we're very much looking at this thing called “technology insertion”. The platform can last a very long time. You must have an open architecture and make sure you can insert and replace technology, the elements and components. That's a part of our futures planning.

Does that help answer your question?

Mrs. Elsie Wayne: That helps.

• 1035

Capt (N) Daniel McNeil: I'm sure your retired colonel is a very intelligent person. What I'm trying to convince you of is that they're still intelligent before they retire. They don't automatically become more intelligent when they retire. I don't know. I'm hoping maybe I get more intelligent when I retire.

Voices: Oh, oh!

An hon. member: [Inaudible—Editor].

Mrs. Elsie Wayne: Yes, and there's hope for refitting right in the shipyard.

Thank you very much.

The Chair: Mrs. Wayne, thank you very much.

I think Monsieur Bertrand said there's a temptation at these committees, when you have people from the military—and it's understandable—to go into any and every military question. This committee did a lot of work, which you acknowledged, Captain McNeil, in a non-partisan way on the quality of life. That's gone a long way to address the concerns Mrs. Wayne raised.

We certainly intend to continue to monitor that on a regular basis to ensure that those changes, those 89 recommendations this committee made, are being implemented by the government. The CDS will be here on a regular basis on that, as will the minister. So we share the concerns of Mrs. Wayne.

The feedback we've had since that report and since the start of the implementation of it by the government is that it's made a significant improvement in this situation. I won't touch the pay raises, other than to say the committee will recall we insisted that the lower ranks get the highest increase. So the feedback has been very positive, which you yourself noted. I just wanted to comment on that.

We're going to go to a second round of questions.

Mrs. Elsie Wayne: Can I have the rest of my time?

The Chair: Yes. Sorry.

Mrs. Elsie Wayne: I just want to ask a really short question about the reserves. I've noticed that at our HMCS Brunswicker back home, the numbers have declined substantially. I think it's the best training in the world for young people, and those men and women are there also to serve. Are we looking at increasing the numbers, or continuing to decrease? Do you know, sir?

Capt (N) Daniel McNeil: There's a reserve study going on. I don't know what conclusions they're coming to. I don't think they've reached the point where they're coming to any conclusions. There will be change.

The Chair: Maybe I can help with that, Mrs. Wayne. The minister has asked a former Speaker, John Fraser, to take on the issue of the reserve. He is actively looking at that right now and will advise the minister.

The minister has told probably all of us on the committee that he's very concerned the proper decisions be made. He doesn't want to rush into it for the sake of making any decision. So he's very actively engaged in the issue as minister, and he's put a person of some great experience and calibre, Mr. Fraser, to lead the analysis.

We will be hearing again from the reserves. The reserve officers, if you will, the top people involved, have already requested to me as chair if they can come back and meet with us. So we'll be dealing with that as a committee in the fairly near future too. Okay?

Thank you.

Mrs. Elsie Wayne: Mr. Chairman, I have to leave. I'm filling in at HRDC today.

Thank you very much, Captain.

The Chair: We'll start a second round, colleagues, with Mr. Hanger for five minutes.

Mr. Art Hanger: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Captain, what would you say is the most urgent piece of military equipment, or military equipment in general, that would be required for the forces to keep pace with the revolution in military affairs?

Capt (N) Daniel McNeil: Go ahead.

Dr. Elinor Sloan: I won't speak to Canada specifically, because my area of expertise is the revolution in military affairs as it relates to our allies and what the United States and NATO are doing.

Generally speaking, there are a number of key things our allies are focusing on. They include, for example, increased strategic lift, unmanned aerial vehicles for both tactical and strategic reconnaissance, and precision-guided munitions, which of course were demonstrated to be very useful in the Kosovo operation. Those are the things that come immediately to mind in terms of what our allies are doing to respond to the revolution in military affairs at this juncture.

• 1040

Mr. Art Hanger: That's a tall order, in a way. You're talking about strategic lift, unmanned munitions, or was it—

Dr. Elinor Sloan: Unmanned aerial vehicles.

Mr. Art Hanger: Unmanned aerial vehicles?

Dr. Elinor Sloan: Yes, for reconnaissance.

Mr. Art Hanger: Okay, and guided munitions.

Dr. Elinor Sloan: Precision-guided munitions, yes.

Mr. Art Hanger: Right, which is basically what was used in Kosovo this last time around.

Dr. Elinor Sloan: That's right.

Capt (N) Daniel McNeil: Perhaps, Elinor, you could tell him how much was used. I mean, it wasn't all precision warfare in Kosovo.

Mr. Art Hanger: No, I'm aware of that. I'm just looking for the equipment needs for the future if we were to keep pace with the revolution. If we were to keep pace with that, the needs would be this list, basically. That's what you're saying.

Dr. Elinor Sloan: Those are the key items that are the focus of the RMA.

Mr. Art Hanger: Yes, okay. If we don't keep pace with the revolution in military affairs, how will that affect our ability to operate in areas like Bosnia, like Kosovo, say in ten or fifteen years' time?

Dr. Elinor Sloan: Just before I answer that question, I should say I left perhaps the most important thing off the list, which is advanced command and control systems.

Mr. Art Hanger: Okay.

Dr. Elinor Sloan: They're called command, control, computers, and communications and intelligence correction systems.

Mr. Art Hanger: That sounds like a lot of satellite equipment.

Dr. Elinor Sloan: You can have unmanned platforms for that, strategic and tactical. You can have manned platforms—for instance, the American J-Stars aircraft and the NATO AWACS aircraft. And you can have satellites, GPS systems, too.

Mr. Art Hanger: All right. So where will we be in ten years' time if we don't invest in the revolution in military affairs?

Dr. Elinor Sloan: Do you want to take that?

Mr. Art Hanger: I want them to say that.

Dr. Scot Robertson: Sir, that question is impossible to answer.

I could use a historical analogy if you'd like. At the end of the First World War, the Canadian corps was one of the most advanced, capable formations in the entire Allied force. Yet in 1940, when it deployed to England, it went and did trench training. In the meantime, the German forces had developed their notion of mobile warfare to such a degree that while the Canadians were doing trench training, the panzer groups were cutting through the defences of the French line.

That is one of the risks we run if we don't embrace the RMA. I don't say we have to embrace it in its entirety, but we must keep pace in certain areas—and Elinor has referred to some of the most critical ones—if we're not to suffer a similar fate. One can't say what the consequences would be definitely in ten years' time, but historical analogies can be useful.

Mr. Art Hanger: Dr. Sloan mentioned this whole aspect that we need to be interoperable with our allies. That is the key point, I would suggest; at least that's what it sounds like to me.

Colonel Hug—and again I'll refer to “Interoperability—The Challenge in 2010”—also stresses this in a real way, especially with the United States, because of the superpower status they have in the world. So there is clearly a need recognized by DND. But something bothers me out of the whole affair that's not recognized elsewhere. To get my point across, I'm going to make a quick comparison.

We spend 1.1% of our budget in defence—that is, the country of Canada—and that amounts to $6.8 billion American. We'll use U.S. dollars. Britain spends $37 billion, France spends $40 billion, Italy spends $23 billion, and of course the superpower south of us spends about $250 billion and growing. I'm not really comparing us with them, but there's our status.

Where on earth are we going to be, with a $6.8 billion budget, when it comes to the revolution in military affairs? I don't know how we're going to be able to operate in a unified fashion with our allies with a budget like that. Can we?

• 1045

I'm not asking this to put you in a position, because it's dollars and cents. There's a price tag attached to all of these items here, which are considered the most critical.

Dr. Elinor Sloan: I'll just say a short piece before Captain McNeil answers.

The fact that there's an RMA out there doesn't mean you have to buy into every aspect of it. For instance, I just gave you the C⁴I example, one element of which is the J-Stars aircraft. I'm not saying Canada will ever consider buying J-Stars aircraft; I'm simply saying that's part of it. There are other parts to advanced command and control—for instance, unmanned aerial vehicles—that are much less expensive.

So in order to respond effectively to the RMA, it's a matter of picking out those aspects that will get you the most bang for the buck and still allow you to operate with your allies.

The Chair: Could you answer briefly, Captain, please? We're way over Mr. Hanger's time.

Capt (N) Daniel McNeil: If I didn't believe it possible, sir, I wouldn't be here. I'd find another way to make a living.

Economics fascinates me. It's such a soft art. I tried to study it for a while, and it was too tough for me. I call it voodoo economics or fun with numbers. It seems you can make the numbers say anything you want to. Our NATO allies this year have decided percentage of GDP is a pretty fine way to show Canada how it's not living up to its obligations. Well, our GDP is climbing. What they don't acknowledge is we have a huge debt. Our GDP could change in a heartbeat, and the results of having that huge debt could change things remarkably. So comparing one country to another is really comparing apples to oranges in terms of how they come up with the numbers and what they really mean.

One must also acknowledge geopolitical reality and history. We're not Italy, we're not Britain, and we're not France. We are Canada. Some of my scholarly friends, such as Dr. Joseph Jockel, will tell us we don't have to spend a single plugged nickel on defence, because there's no threat. Everything we do is discretionary. It's discretionary within the Canadian cultural context.

I love my Canadian liberal democracy. Canadians decide what they will do and to what level, and it's simply for us in uniform in the department to make the best of what we're given. I love my boss from time to time when he says to our American friends: “Our disadvantage is we're small. Our advantage is we're small.” Take a look at them closely. When there's a problem, they spend megabucks on it and search for technological solutions. We can't afford to do that. They come to us because we're much smarter and much poorer and we solve problems in different ways.

Voices: Oh, oh!

The Chair: I don't think there's much more we need to add to that. We will keep pace and we will continue to play an important role in the world.

[Translation]

You have five minutes, Mr. Laurin.

Mr. René Laurin: I would like to make a brief comment, Mr. Chairman. Captain McNeil was hesitant earlier to comment on situations he considered political. His last comment was unequivocal.

I would like to come back to a statement you made in your presentation about technology integration. You said that it presented some problems, and that it may be one of Canada's weak points. Are the problems raised by technology integration found in the three services: the navy, the air force and the army? Could you clarify what you mean, by giving us some examples?

Capt (N) Daniel McNeil: Here in Canada we have some good examples of technology integration, particularly with

[English]

the TRUMP destroyers and the frigates, where, for Canadian reasons and allied reasons, we reach out and buy different radar systems, different radio systems, different weapons systems, and we totally integrate them with Canadian technology—hardware and software. We're world leaders at that, and the future is bright for that reason.

• 1050

One must look at joint experimentation and the RMA in the American context. They are the world leaders because they acknowledged, with the Goldwater-Nickles Act and legislation on their services, that they must operate together more jointly.

What is the biggest air force in the world? The American navy. What about the American air force? The navy, the marine corps, and their land forces all compete for resources in their own way. As I just alluded, they spend a whole bunch of money on technology. We cannot, in the Canadian navy, follow only the American navy, and the Canadian air force follow only the American. We can't do that. We have to monitor the whole integration of technology.

With the revolution in military affairs, the American forces are being told that they're to have one command and control system, one communication system that works with all of them together, and one doctrine, a joint doctrine, so that they could all go somewhere and do a job together.

That works to our advantage in terms of technological integration as well, but we have to be very smart in terms of watching how they're moving forward with this.

[Translation]

Mr. René Laurin: I do not understand the witness's statement. In his presentation, he says that technology integration presents some problems, and in his answer to the question I just asked, he said that Canada is a leader and that everything is fine. Is there a problem or not? If there is a problem, I would like you to identify it and tell me about it.

Capt (N) Daniel McNeil: In the written presentation, we say that technology integration is problematic.

Mr. René Laurin: Yes, that is what you say on page 37.

Capt (N) Daniel McNeil: It is problematic.

Mr. René Laurin: In the French version, on page 37 or 39, depending on the way—

Capt (N) Daniel McNeil: In the context of the revolution in the military affairs, in a global environment, with our allies, we may have some integration problems. However, as I said, Canada is a leader.

Mr. René Laurin: Mr. Chairman, I find that the witness is answering our questions rather strangely. He does analyses at Defence. If, in his analyses, he gives the Minister answers—and I don't know whether he makes recommendations to the General or to the Minister—similar to the ones he is giving us here today, the Minister will have a very difficult time when he is asked to make a decision.

Certain things exist or not. He states that technology integration presents some problems, and yet, when we ask a question about that, he hesitates to recognize that that is the case and to identify where the problems are. He even said that it was one of Canada's weak points. I did not make that up. You said it. In what respect is this one of Canada's weaknesses? Can you give us an example? We are here to help you, not to corner you. You seem to simply want to praise the armed forces. We are not here to do that, because there are other times for praise. We are here to study the problems the armed forces may encounter in the revolution in the military affairs, and to ensure that Canada adapts and is part of the G-7.

Once again, I find you hesitant. Are you uncomfortable testifying about this?

[English]

The Chair: Just briefly, Captain McNeil—Mr. Laurin's time is up—I think he's looking for an example of where Canada's lagging behind or where Canada has a weakness in proceeding with the RMA. That's how I understand his question. Is that your understanding?

Does anybody else have an example to offer?

Dr. Elinor Sloan: I apologize if I haven't understood properly, and I apologize for answering in English, but one of the key doctrines of the RMA is increased “jointness”. During the Cold War this was not something Canada focused on a great deal because of the nature of our operations. The navy worked with the U.S. navy in the North Atlantic, the air force through NORAD, and the army was in Germany.

• 1055

So we were more “combined”, if you like, working with other countries, as opposed to “joint”, which means the three services working together.

Now, in the post-Cold War era, being joint has become more and more important. Our three service elements are looking at working more closely together. We have done so in the past four or five years on a couple of operations, certainly domestic operations but also in Somalia to a certain degree. Now we're just looking at joint communications systems that will allow the air force, the navy, and the army to communicate well together, because that hasn't been a focus up until quite recently.

The Chair: Thank you, Monsieur Laurin.

We have to stop at 11 a.m. sharp. We have another committee.

Before I go to Mr. Peric, we have a motion moved by Mr. Pratt. You have it in front of you, colleagues. It's been discussed with some of the members already by the clerk. It would be very useful for the clerk and I to attend this international symposium in Washington. That's what the motion speaks to. The opposition will be represented. Pairing has been arranged, etc.

Is there any discussion on that motion?

Mr. Hanger.

Mr. Art Hanger: I have one question. It's an invitation from the Centre for Legislative Exchange, is it?

The Chair: Correct.

Mr. Art Hanger: Who are they?

The Chair: Mr. Clerk, can you help us on exactly who they are?

The Clerk of the Committee: They're a foreign affairs lobby group stationed here in Ottawa. They do symposiums and stuff like that. They work basically out of Ottawa and Washington. They were formerly called the Centre for Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade.

Mr. Art Hanger: I see. So we'll get a broad view of security issues?

The Chair: It actually relates quite well to the topic we're talking about today, how the RMA will impact security.

The Clerk: They're going to send more stuff, and I'll feed it on.

The Chair: If in fact we go, we will obviously report back to the committee.

[Translation]

Mr. Laurin.

Mr. René Laurin: I'm wondering whether we can make a decision on this motion, Mr. Chairman. I don't think we have quorum at this time.

[English]

The Chair: I guess you're right. Thank you for noting that. We'll hold it until the next meeting. Consider it tabled, then.

Mr. Peric, we have time for at least one question from you.

Mr. Janko Peric (Cambridge, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Captain, from what I have been hearing from my riding, the most popular Canadian today is the Minister of Finance. Just a minute ago you sounded just like him—fiscally responsible.

You mentioned that we are examining other nations. Can you expand on that, in the few minutes left? As well, do you have an opinion on what is the position of the new members of NATO? How would you compare them with the rest of the membership?

Finally, with your experience in the forces, would you today encourage young cadets to continue on and pursue a career in the Canadian Forces?

The Chair: It'll have to be just a brief answer, because we have to adjourn.

Capt (N) Daniel McNeil: There is a NATO forum on best practices for force development. My defence scientists attend this annually and submit papers. So there is an exchange of ideas on best practices for developing forces, where to make the best investments, operational research tools, and methodologies. We're very much helping each other to develop new strategies on how to spend wisely and get the best capabilities.

In terms of people, I have not managed, with my own two daughters, to convince them that my career is something they should consider. About a year ago I asked my 16-year-old daughter if she would seriously consider joining the forces, because it really is interesting. Her response to me—and this is only for a joke, by the way—was “Dad, you don't get paid enough.”

The Chair: Captain McNeil, Dr. Robertson, and Dr. Sloan, thank you very much for sharing your expertise today.

• 1100

As chairman of this committee, which on a non-partisan basis has done some persistent work on quality of life and on insisting that there has to be more funds for the Canadian Forces, I want to thank you very much for your very complimentary remarks to the committee on the quality of life report and on our successful effort to see some increased funding in Monday's budget.

Thank you very much for being here. We appreciate it.

Committee adjourned.