NDDN Committee Report

This Supplemental Report reflects the views of the Conservative Members of Parliament who serve on the Standing Committee on National Defence (“NDDN”): MP James Bezan (Selkirk-Interlake-Eastman), MP Cheryl Gallant (Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke), MP Pat Kelly (Calgary Rocky Ridge), and MP Dean Allison (Niagara West).

Introduction:

As referenced in the report, the study examined the increasing frequency of civil authorities, primarily provinces, territories, and municipalities, requesting assistance from the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) to respond to natural and humanitarian disasters domestically. When the CAF deploys in response to a Request for Assistance (RFA), it does so under Operation LENTUS, except for deployments related to COVID-19 assistance under Operation LASER and Operation VECTOR.[1]

The most important message conveyed to the committee is that disaster response is the responsibility of the provinces and territories, not the federal government. While Part VI of the National Defence Act outlines how the CAF can provide Aid of the Civil Power, it is always intended to be used as “force of last resort, but more frequently [it’s] being called upon as the force of first choice.”[2] It is imperative that provinces and territories invest more in their own emergency management, disaster mitigation and response assistance.

Therefore, we strongly support Recommendation 5 and Recommendation 6 in the report.

Observations:

This report failed to adequately address how increasing RFAs impact the current state of readiness of the CAF.

The Canadian Armed Forces are currently suffering from a recruitment and retention crisis,[3] which resulted in the Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS) issuing a Directive for CAF Reconstitution. It reads, “Personnel and staffing issues, combined with a changing demographic and expectations of our existing and potential work force, continue to challenge both the strength and the readiness of the CAF.”[4] While the CAF will always do their best to respond to assistance requests for domestic relief, these deployments add strain to the overall readiness of the CAF to fulfill their primary purpose of defending Canada.

CDS Gen. Wayne Eyre was blunt in his assessment, “The demand signal for those primary tasks we're responsible for is only increasing. However, our readiness to do that is decreasing, due in part to the incessant demand for these types of domestic operations.”[5]

This is supported by the following table from the annual Departmental Results Report released in January 2024.[6]

Conservatives understand that Aid to the Civil Power is only one of many factors impacting the overall readiness of the CAF. However, it should have been more directly addressed as a contributing factor in the report.

The global threat environment is increasingly precarious, with ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, and growing tensions in the Indo-Pacific. This combined with increasing domestic RFAs, results in significant concerns about the ability of the CAF to respond to concurrent operations.

Therefore, we support Recommendation 1 in the report and additionally recommend:

That the Government of Canada reverse the defence budget cut of a billion dollars a year over the next three years announced in September 2023.

Finally, Conservatives disagree with how Minister of Emergency Preparedness Harjit Sajjan misrepresented the statistics about RFAs for the period of 2020 to 2023. His quote was paraphrased in the report, but this is the full quotation:

Before 2020, the government operations centre would coordinate between five and 12 RFAs per year. From January 2020 to August 2023, it responded to more than 230. These numbers clearly show that we are in a climate crisis. It is here, and it is happening now.[7]

As shown in Figure 1 of the report, only 39 of these requests led to the deployment of the CAF under Operation LENTUS and other domestic responses. Another 118 resulted in the CAF deploying in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and 43 did not result in any CAF deployments. Additional information about the Operation LENTUS deployments between 2010 and 2023 can be found in Table 1 of the report.

Canadians, including elected officials in provinces and territories responsible for emergency management, disaster mitigation and response assistance, need accurate information to plan for the future.

Additional Recommendations:

That the Government of Canada take comprehensive measures to increase youth involvement in aiding and assisting with volunteer disaster relief.

That the Government of Canada support Private Members Bill C-386, An Act respecting the establishment and award of a Special Service Medal for Domestic Emergency Relief Operations.[8]

Conclusion:

In providing our observations and supplementary recommendations, the Conservative committee members thank the House of Commons analysts and clerks for their hard work in adding to the completion of this report. This supplemental report is by no means a way to cast doubt on their work but rather to highlight the shortcoming of the report adopted by a majority of committee members.

Despite the report failing to address our observations and additional recommendations, we hope that this supplementary report reinforces the understanding that the CAF will be there to aid provincial and territorial emergency response organizations when they are overwhelmed by the scope of a disaster or in need of respite, but should not be relied upon otherwise. The CAF’s Aid to the Civil Power must remain a force of last resort.  This supplementary report provides the Government of Canada with additional insight, and recommendations to improve Canadian responses to wildfires, floods, and other disaster relief missions.  

Respectfully,

James Bezan, MP Selkirk-Interlake-Eastman

Cheryl Gallant, MP Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke

Pat Kelly, MP Calgary Rocky Ridge

Dean Allison, MP Niagara West