National Defence Committee on June 17th, 2024

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

How much time do I have, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You went for three minutes and two seconds, so you have two minutes left.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Okay.

I'll go back to questions for witnesses, although I have to say I'm completely disgusted by the decision of Minister Blair to allow our ships to sit in dock alongside Russian warships.

Let's talk about this, Mr. Perry: You are critical of the lack of funding or long-term plans for some major procurements like submarines and air defence systems. Can you drill down on this? How is this going to impact not only how badly we're going to be perceived at the Washington NATO summit but also our ability to meet the threats that are currently challenging Canada?

[Dr. David Perry]

In terms of how we'll be perceived, I think it's no simpler than 1.76%. Even if we hit that, it isn't the 2% we committed to. I think there are serious implications when we don't live up to what we said we would do.

In terms of what that money would be spent on and what would come with it, despite it being a generational investment and the low start state, “Our North, Strong and Free” is only funding to keep some of the lights on. It will not keep the lights on in a submarine capability, for example, and for many other platforms. It doesn't even continue the same type of Canadian military we have today. It doesn't invest in other much-needed capabilities, like an integrated system for air and missile defence, or systems that would enable digital transformation.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Mr. Cormier, you talked about the recruitment crisis and not using reserves to augment the forces to help get some of those numbers up. What are the recommendations from CDA on fixing the recruitment situation we have?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Answer very briefly, please.

[Dr. Youri Cormier]

Is there a specific thing—

[VAdm (Ret'd) Darren Hawco]

Youri, I'm sorry.

What I would offer is this: We need to treat this as a system-to-system issue. You can create a digital platform to bring people in. You can address aspects of getting faster medical screening or security clearance screening. However, unless the services themselves adapt their ability to take a large inflow through the various military occupation training structures—which is always a challenge—you will just have a bottleneck at a different place.

The point of view needs to be one of taking a step back and looking at it system-to-system, not simply transferring—

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Admiral Hawco.

I apologize insincerely for cutting people off, but I have 25 minutes left and a couple of rounds of questions that I want to get in. I know Mr. Collins will be very religious about his time allocation.

[An hon. member]

[Inaudible—Editor]

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Okay. She will, as well.

Thank you.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thanks, Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for being here to answer some questions today.

You both spoke a bit about this, but I think, Mr. Perry, you made specific mention of how our allies might see this defence policy update. I'm wondering if you can speak a bit more on that.

What parts of it are appreciated, which ones are less so and what is the expectation of our allies at this point?

[Dr. David Perry]

I think they would appreciate all the things we've pointed out as an assessment of the world, what should be done about it and what we've enumerated in terms of things we need to acquire to be in a better position to operate in that world.

Where they have expressed a lot of concern and skepticism is in our identifying a whole lot of things we need and providing no funding for them. We don't actually hit—and have no plan to hit—our committed NATO investment pledge target of 2% of GDP spending.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Cormier, you said something specific: We're the ninth-largest economy on the planet, but we're not the ninth-biggest player in terms of defence spending and what we contribute in that way.

I'm wondering what factors you think should be taken into account when looking at those numbers and our ranking. Canada is the second-largest country in the world. I imagine that plays some kind of role. If not, you can correct me. What is it that makes it more difficult for us to believe we should play a more important role in defence funding?

[Dr. Youri Cormier]

There are a lot of layers here. I am going to start off by saying that with regard to our allies, at the CDA, we had the opportunity to meet with military attachés and ambassadors around town. On a day-to-day basis, there's the sense of a level of dissatisfaction that's been hanging in the air here in Ottawa for a while now. There's no escaping it.

With regard to where Canada sees itself, there's a bit of disconnect with the reputation we have as the founders of peacekeeping. If you go back 50 years, 60% of all peacekeepers on the planet were Canadians. We used to field tens of thousands of people there. Now, if you look at the numbers, it's something like 30 individuals out of 120,000 peacekeepers on the planet. There's this disconnect; Canadians think we're that country that's out there doing good in the world, but we're mostly staying at home, with the exception of the battle group in Latvia. There's more to be done here.

Whether it's with regard to the submarines or just the fact that we have a very large land mass and the largest coastline, where's the equipment to create that surveillance and that capacity?

There are a lot of questions that are not being asked here.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Do you think that it might be more difficult to prioritize because of these factors, which other countries don't necessarily have to take into account?

[Dr. Youri Cormier]

The policy actually does a pretty good job of setting certain priorities and speaking to them. However, when you look at when the money's coming in, if you see it's being punted to 10 to 15 years from now, you wonder what the sense of urgency is. I think that's what the policy really misses. It's the sense of urgency and the need to play catch-up on 30 years of underfunding the military.

I don't think we have to look at one side of the room or the other. There's been a systemic failure to keep the Canadian Armed Forces up to par with our needs and requirements and what we're supposed to do for allies.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. Perry, you spoke a bit about the equipment target, how much we're going to be procuring and how we don't reach our target of 20%. However, in the DPU, the defence policy update, there is mention of working more with industry, and I think the goal for Canada is to make sure that we're involving it a bit more.

Do you think that this could account for why there is a delay in that? Can you speak a bit about what your thoughts are on that?

[Dr. David Perry]

I think that's part of the dynamic.

There are a number of things that we need to improve with our defence procurement system. The policy mentions several different initiatives, which might all end up being great if they're actually implemented. I'd note that the last defence policy had a number of good initiatives around defence procurement reform, and I'm not sure what actually happened with a lot of them.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Madame Lambropoulos.

We'll go to Madame Mathyssen for five minutes, please.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Isn't it Madame Normandin?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I'm sorry. It's Madame Normandin.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I thank the witnesses for being here. It's always a pleasure to have them.

My questions are about our allies' perception, among other things, and they are for all three witnesses.

To begin, I would like to provide some context. I would like to bring up a passage from an article published this weekend whose title focuses on military expenditures and Ottawa's claim that it will meet the NATO target by 2029.

According to the article, Bill Blair said that he expects Canada's defence spending to reach at least 1.75% of GDP by 2029, but that other investments, such as replacing the country's aging submarine fleet or purchasing integrated air and missile defence systems, would probably push this number beyond the recommended 2%.

Minister Bill Blair also said that he thinks that inevitably brings us to over 2% in defence spending, but that he has work to do to be able to convey that to both his own country and to our allies.

Aren't these statements an attempt not to show up completely empty-handed at the Washington summit in July?

What message does that send when the minister has to publicly mention that he has to convince his own department to reach the 2% target?

Does that not give the impression that, at the end of the day, it is not credible as a comment, as an approach to the 2% target?

[Dr. Youri Cormier]

The first reaction of anyone in the field would certainly be to make the following comment:

We'll believe it when we see it.

If the replacement of the submarines were announced in a few days, we would probably reach the target. It's a huge expense. However, there is no clarification indicating that we are going to move forward with this approach. Also, if we do that, we don't know if we'll turn to traditional equipment or if we'll opt for nuclear. There is still a lot of uncertainty about that.

Perhaps Mr. Hawco would like to add something.

[VAdm (Ret'd) Darren Hawco]

I would just add that even if the major expenses you cited and the minister referred to were brought in, with the timing of bringing them in, based on projections that Mr. Perry spoke about, ultimately the dollar value we would see would probably still not necessarily be 2%. The dollar value we're talking about to achieve 2% is quite significant. I think that would make a big difference, Madam.

I think more needs to be done than just those two projects to reach the 2% target.