21 March, 2002

Introduction
Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of the Committee: Good afternoon. I am honoured to address you today on the subject of operational readiness of our nation's Navy.

I represent the 2000 members of the Naval Officers Association of Canada. Formed officially in 1950 our mission is to promote interest and awareness of Canada's naval forces. We have 15 Branches across Canada and one in Europe which provide a senior naval voice in the community, supports the Navy League and Sea Cadets, the Naval Reserves and honours the naval legacy. Over the years we have spawned a Maritime Affairs Division which produces a quality quarterly journal on maritime security issues. We also launched a Maritime Awards Society that, in partnership with four Canadian universities, raises funds for post-graduate maritime studies. We are particularly proud of our contribution to the founding of the Canadian Naval Memorial Trust-HMCS Sackville. Our member's collective experience spans eight decades through peace and war which has given us a unique view of the flood and ebb of our Navies capabilities.

I have asked to appear today to bring forward several considerations that we feel are important to these hearings.

Invest now-dividends later
Some of our members joined in the years leading to World War Two and saw a Navy of six destroyers and five minesweepers and 1,800 permanent personnel and 1700 reserves multiply by a factor of fifty to reach 100,000 men and women and over 400 fighting ships. The war's end brought a rapid descent a peacetime force of some 16 ships only to expand again for action in Korea. The Cold War saw a more sustained building program that peaked in 1965 with a fleet consisting of an aircraft carrier, replenishment ships, ASW frigates with Sea King helicopters, submarines and ASW aircraft. We were making a meaningful contribution to NATO. Even though the cold war was to continue on for another 25 years, the will to maintain a combat capability in the face of a growing and evolving threat faded. With the exception of four Tribal Class destroyers built in the early Seventies declining capability became a full scale rust out by the early Eighties.

As the Captain of a destroyer at the time, I recall the de-moralized state of the fleet. Getting a Task Group of ships to sea on any given day fleet was a major challenge. Machinery and equipment breakdowns often curtailed scheduled operations and even functioning equipment was obsolete and of little help to our NATO partners and no match against our most likely adversary.

The one bright spot was that a Cabinet decision had been made in 1977 to re-equip the Navy with the Canadian Patrol Frigate. Six years later in 1983 the contract for the CPF was finally awarded. A modernization of the four Tribal Class Destroyers was also approved. The need to replace the aging Oberion Class submarines was also agreed. An interest in providing an Arctic present caused the government to flirt with the idea of nuclear submarines but by the late Eighties this had been abandoned and the long process of acquiring replacements for the aging Oberons was initiated. A more promising project initiated in the late Eighties was the Maritime Coastal Defence Vessel that was to revive a long dormant capability and mission of our Naval Reserves to detect and clear mines in our harbours and ocean approaches. The Sea King helicopter which first saw service in Canada was finally to be replaced by a contract signed in 1992.

On August 10th 1990 the Canadian Government decided to join like-minded nations in the Persian Gulf to confront Iraqi aggression against Kuwait. The most available response was a three-ship task group that at the time of the Government decision was ill prepared to deploy in harm's way. What made the mission possible at all was the Cabinet decision made thirteen years earlier to build the CPF. Modern sensors and weapons destined for the new ships were available in the builder's warehouses. In a heroic effort a hodgepodge of equipment was fitted on the ships and the task group sailed two weeks later. The book "The Persian Excursion" recounts the can- do attitude and ingenuity that permitted Canada to fulfill its responsibilities on the world stage. Canada's presence in the Gulf throughout the conflict was more than symbolic. Even the $100 million spent to ready the Task Group only provided the bare minimum to permit the ships to enter the Gulf given Iraq's potent capability. Decade's earlier decisions to ensure communications and procedural interoperability with the United States Navy earned Canada important tasks throughout the campaign. The first dividends of that 1977 Cabinet decision had been paid.

The twelve new frigates came into service during the first half of the Nineties and the now modernized Tribal Class destroyers re-joined the fleet. The benefits of this capability have been of immense benefit to Canadian interests abroad. As the Chief of Maritime Staff testified before you, your Navy has been involved in nearly every major multilateral peace support operation that Canada has participated in since the end of the Cold War-including Cambodia, the Persian Gulf War, Haiti, Somalia, the Balkans, East Timor and the Arabian Gulf. Beyond responding to crisis the fleet has been an important messenger not only of Canadian technology but also of values and ideals. I have had Canadian diplomats tell me a short port call of a ship with 250 young Canadians onboard had a far larger impact on the host country than years of an embassy presence.

In our own waters the major combatants were joined by the twelve coastal defence vessels (MCDVs) by the mid -Nineties. These fine small ships have been in the in the forefront of operations such as the Swiss Air 111 disaster and have filled shortfalls in capability of other government departments in search and rescue, illegal immigration operations, fisheries protection and counter narcotics activities. Unfortunately, the full potential of these ships has not been realized as a result of funding rollbacks which prevented the planned mine hunting and detection capabilities to be fitted beyond a few vessels.

A Decade of Neglect
The rollback of approved projects in the early 90s had impacts beyond the reduced capabilities of the MCDVs. The full impact of the helicopter replacement fiasco is yet to play out-the navy's readiness and effectiveness will be reduced for most of this decade as a result of the 1993 decision to cancel the EH101 and the failure to approve a new program. While the impact of reductions in the defence budgets of the 90s on equipment and operations has been the subject of considerable public scrutiny there is less awareness of the consequences to the young Canadians in uniform that serve our country. Just at the time we acquired the ships capable of global operations which called for extended deployments to inhospitable waters we imposed a freeze on salaries that was to last six years; salaries which had already been permitted to deteriorate in relation to established benchmarks with respect to the civil service. Six-month deployments put financial and other strains on families. Further budget cuts in the mid-nineties required a Force Reduction Plan -an euphanism for layoffs. Medical services were reduced, sometimes with tragic consequences. Yet in high cost regions such as my own -Maritime Forces Pacific-Treasury Board policies to continue rent increases in substandard housing were relentlessly followed. Military families qualified for social assistance. Sailors looked to their leaders to provide relief and when they could not, trust eroded. Trouble ahead could be clearly seen in demographic trends.

By 1998 some relief was in sight; a fact that I attribute to the work of this committee in its hearings on the social conditions in the Forces, a Chief of Defence Staff who made people a priority, and a Minister who, as I understand it, overrode the objections of Treasury Board bureaucrats to provide some relief in the form of a cost of living allowances in high cost regions and some restoring of wages. However the damage has been done and the evidence in the Navy is a major combatant, HMCS Huron, unable to put to sea as a result of personnel shortages. As it takes more than a decade to build a ship so too does it take a decade to train a skilled operator or technician to the higher levels. The consequences of this neglect of the navy's human resources during much of the Nineties will almost certainly have consequences throughout most of this decade.

Since September 11th our ships and their men and women have once again answered the call. HMCS Charlottetown, just returned from the Persian Gulf, has spent 11 of the last 14 months deployed. Operational tempos of this intensity cannot be sustained and a heavy price will be paid in increased attrition.

When on October 8th 2001 the Government announced that Canada was deploying 2,000 land, sea, and air forces to join the war effort it was no surprise that the bulk of our contribution were maritime forces. The inherent capability of a Task Group of ships with embarked aircraft to deploy immediately (within ten days) to a crisis was once again demonstrated. Not only was a significant maritime capability deployed but also powerful political and diplomatic messages of our determination were conveyed. The Government earned instant credibility for its assertion that Canada was prepared to carry its share of the burden. Canadians could also be assured that their men and women being sent into harm's way had the capability and readiness to accomplished whatever was going to be asked of them- the Sea King helicopter being a sad exception.

The message I would like to leave in this section of my statement is that the capability that has served Canada so well through the Nineties and the early years of this decade is the result of investments by the governments of the late Seventies and early Eighties. Those investments were based on compelling arguments that the Soviet threat was continuing to escalate and that it was in Canada's interest as a trading nation to keep sea lines of communications open against a growing Soviet threat. We were obliged to meet our NATO commitments. In contrast, the decisions of government of the Nineties; the cancellation of major equipment programs and failure to approve new ones, the reduction in the personnel strength of the forces and neglect of the human resources were an expedient to capture a peace dividend. Events of the Nineties and the beginning of this millenium provide strong arguments that claiming a peace dividend was premature. World events make it clear that we must now put military capabilities much higher on our list of national priorities.

How Much Capability is Enough?
The publication LEADMARK-the Navy's strategy for 2020 provides in its close to two hundred pages a cogent description of a navy for Canada for the decades ahead. To quote the final paragraph: "it offers nothing less than a medium global force projection navy that will serve Canada as a multipurpose, interoperable force, capable of joint and combined operations worldwide." Much of that navy is already in place; the current capability has, with the exception of the replenishment ships and the helicopters, been completely renewed since 1990. The Navy has a Force Development Plan which will deliver the remaining capability described in Leadmark. Given the lengthy lead times in developing and deploying capabilities that Plan needs to be funded sooner rather than later. Fixing the human resource shortfalls and approving the helicopter replacement program are the most urgent priorities.

In my own study of Leadmark and other documents proposing present and future capabilities I don't think that the full import of what maritime forces are doing on a day-to-day basis to secure the defence of our homeland comes through. While constabulary roles and assistance to other government departments are mentioned, it is only the Navy that is providing a fully integrated picture, through its operations and intelligence centers on the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts, of the activities on, over, and under our maritime approaches. And it is only the navy that can bring the full range of force and other capabilities to bear on illegal activities, search and rescue, disaster relief, port security etc. While other government departments have the lead for many of these constabulary duties the Navy's capabilities are an essential contribution. A number of these roles such as port security and control of shipping missions are assigned to the Naval Reserves; a vibrant and fully manned Naval Reserve is an integral ingredient to the home security matrix.

The Navy's LEADMARK and supporting Force Development Plans provide a clear statement of required capability and the price of obtaining it. Our nation's most reflective institutions have identified the serious shortfalls in resources that are being allocated to National Defence. Most recently the Senate Standing Committee on National Security in its report entitled "Canadian Security and Military Preparedness" released on March 1,2002 identified that the Canadian Forces need at least 75,000 trained effective personnel; an immediate increase of $4 billion to the DND baseline budget and annual budget increases that are realistic, purpose driven, and adjusted for inflation.

The Senate's Committee's report is in line with the conclusions of recent reports from numerous other sources; the Finance Committee's reports of November 2001; the Auditor-General's annual report for 2001; and the studies of the CDA and the Council for Canadian Security in the 21st Century. Interested and knowledgeable Canadians have made a convincing case in pointing out the urgency with which Government should act to address the serious shortfalls of the Canadian Forces. We hope government will listen.

In a National Post opinion piece of 22 February 2002, the respected historian J.L. Granatstein wrote: "I suggest it is long past time for Canadians to act like a sovereign nation, and that means having a substantial military with well-educated, well-trained people, modern high -tech equipment, and the necessary funds to guarantee both. That is very much in the national interest."

I contend that this is indeed what Canadians want. In the course of my 36 year naval career I have never encountered any opinion other than full support to the view that Canada should have a robust, capable navy to protect our maritime interests at home and to carry our fair share of the burden of common defence on the world stage. Canadians are, I believe, ready to pay their fair share and look to our political leadership to provide the vision of what needs to be done and assign the necessary portion of our national wealth to fulfill our sovereign responsibilities.

Rear Admiral (retired) Russell Moore, CMM, CD

© Copyright NOAC 2002