Speeches

February 26, 2004

Chief of the Defence Staff General Ray Henault Delivers an Address to the 20^th Annual Conference of Defence Associations Institute Seminar Entitled "The Way Ahead for Canadian Foreign and Defence Policy"

PRINCIPAL(S)/PRINCIPAUX: General Ray Henault, Chief of the Defence Staff

Gen. Ray Henault: Thank you very much for that introduction, Don. General de Chastelain, General Evraire, distinguished members of the CDA and the CDAI Institute, of course general and flag officers, other senior and other officers who are here today, both serving and retired, ladies and gentlemen, it is always a great pleasure to join this group and to take advantage not only of the opportunity to give you some of my views but also to hear what you have to say and to obviously participate in some of these great conferences and discussions that go on across the spectrum of this activity.

C’est ma troisième occasion maintenant comme chef de Défense de pouvoir assister à cette conférence alors comme toujours ça me fait un grand plaisir d’être là. De plus, je dois dire que c’est toujours un plaisir pour moi de parler avec des gens qui appuient les Forces canadiennes et des gens qui connaissent le bouleau que nous essayons d’accomplir et qui connaissent plus particulièrement les défis dont nous faisons face dans l’exécution de nos tâches au profit du gouvernement et des Canadiens et des Canadiennes. Alors toujours, comme j’ai dit, un grand plaisir.

And it is a great pleasure to represent the men and women in uniform, something that all of us here in headquarters always remember very specifically and that is that what we’re here for, quite frankly, is to ensure that the men and women who are doing the job that Canada asks them to do, either here at home or abroad are being given all the possible support that they can.

Now first I want to talk about a few things that are near and dear to my heart but I will talk a little bit about transformation as well and I will talk, in a bit of an extension of what you’ve just heard from Admiral Giambastiani about what transformation means to us here in this organization, what it means to us in the Canadian Forces. We are very much on the path of transformation, have been for some time already. As you heard this morning, we have General Mike Maisonneuve and many other Canadians who are in Strategic Allied Command Transformation and participating very intimately in what’s being done. And here at home, as you will discover as I speak a little bit later on on this, transformation is not an option, it’s an absolute necessity for us.

Now of course I also appreciate the chance during this session to meet with and also talk to younger Canadians and I saw some of them this morning. I see we have others who are sitting down here with us from the colleges. I know we have representatives from the high schools - good question this morning, by the way, from the high school student who -- I think it was a high school student this morning. And I am very encouraged to see that young people are taking the interest in defence issues that we think is vital to this nation and so if the young people of Canada are also interested, that bodes well for the future.

Now those of you who were here last year, and I suspect there were many since the faces look awfully familiar from the last time around although in different seats in some cases, I did talk about sustainability and that was the key issue that I really focussed on last year as well as some of the challenges that we were facing, indeed continue to face in terms of sustainability.

Over the past year I do have to admit that we overcame some of those challenges with sustainability - not all of them, obviously. But certainly the confidence that was displayed by government in the December budget of increasing our baseline has gone a long ways towards helping us to move toward sustainability and again that is very encouraging for us in uniform but should also be encouraging for you who are supporters of uniformed people.

Now this year, and again in keeping with the topic of your seminar, quite frankly, I’m going to talk about what lies ahead for the Canadian Forces to a degree and specifically about transformation itself.

Before I do that, though, I would like to make a few comments, nonetheless, about some of the things or the events that have affected us and come to challenge us over the last 12 months since we’ve been in this room together.

Now first, I’ve already mentioned it but Defence did receive that significant increase in the last budget. We’re talking about an increase of $800 million to our baseline budget. That new money has helped to stabilize the defence program and don’t forget that defence program is quite wide ranging. It goes from infrastructure and environment, personnel programs through capital equipment and operations and maintenance and so on, personnel particularly. That has helped us to start to move towards stabilization in both the short and the medium term. It means that we’ve also been allowed to plan ahead to a degree with a certain degree of confidence and also to commit resources where it’s absolutely essential to ensure that the top priority items are receiving the attention that they need.

Another development of course involves our people and I think we have stressed this continuously. You’ve seen it in my annual reports. You’ve heard me say it on many occasions. We’ve been quite successful, I believe, and that with the help of SCONDVA and other organizations as well to ensure that administrative quality of life was well taken care of. I think we’re on a pretty good path. We’re on a sustained path now with administrative quality of life and that includes things like military pay, health care, the renovation or the renewal I should say of the health care system, support for our military families, compensations and benefits - a wide range of things which I know you’re all very familiar with.

We’re now I think on a very good path to administrative quality of life and one that we can sustain in the much longer term. We now have to embark on what I like to term as operational quality of life because it goes hand in glove with administrative quality of life and it means something slightly different but nonetheless the same outcome. Operational quality of life includes everything from equipment to in-theatre support to training for army, navy and air force personnel in our joint staffs as well as readiness and the whole spectrum of activity that we have to undertake.

Un bon exemple des efforts que nous avons entrepris tout récemment a été l’exercice Resolute Warrior que je pense plusieurs d’entre vous sont quand même familiers qui a réuni l’année dernière une composante d’environ 4 000 soldats et surtout aussi des aviateurs tactiques et d’autres supporteurs. Et cet événement a quand même marqué pour nous un événement très spécial, c’est-à-dire un retour à des exercices à l’échelle de brigade après une pause tout près de 10 ans, c’est-à-dire l’entraînement collectif qui est tellement important pour une force telle que la nôtre dans laquelle on peut exercer l’entraînement opérationnel avec l’armée de terre, la marine et l’aviation dans le contexte de la composante qui est appropriée à ce moment-là. Ça nous a permis en plus de nous préparer pour plusieurs missions qui peut-être n’étaient pas visibles à ce moment-là mais surtout notre déploiement en Afghanistan qui a été aidé beaucoup par cet exercice.

Il est certain qu’une meilleure qualité de vie opérationnelle, représentée en fait par cet événement et par le changement que ça amène, améliorera notre capacité opérationnelle et d’entraînement et à remplir nos obligations aussi bien domestiques qu’internationales. Mais cet exercice, qui, encore de nouveau représente la qualité de vie opérationnelle, permettra aussi à nos hommes et à nos femmes en uniforme, parce que c’est pas la dernière fois que nous allons le faire, de retirer encore plus de fierté d’être connaissant de la magnitude de qu’est-ce que nous devons faire mais sachant que nous allons supporter l’entraînement nécessaire et nous aidera aussi à exposer les Forces canadiennes comme étant une carrière de choix.

In fact, I sincerely believe that the Canadian Forces is a career of choice. I wouldn’t be here after 36 years if I didn’t and I think that the Canadian Forces are on a tremendously good path to what I think will be a career that many young people - those that are in the room, I hope you’re listening to me - will look for as a career to which they can dedicate themselves. That career is going to be flexible in the future. We’ll have different terms of service. We’ll have different attractive ways in which you can serve your country and perhaps not serve it in a continuous fashion but go in and out or do it the way that you feel is best for you and best serves your own objectives as well as ours.

And I think with some of the things that you’ll hear me talk about in a few minutes here regarding transformation and modernization, the impact of new professional development programs, education, distance learning, compensation and benefits, family resource, support to operational stress injuries, you name it, I think you’ll see that this outfit is well on the path to what I would consider to be that much better excellence in the long term.

Now a third important development, if I go back a little bit to my original subject, has been the conclusion of - and this is over the last year - have been the conclusion of Operation Apollo. Now you’ll remember this mission started back in October of ‘01, very shortly after the bombings or the attacks. And it started with the army deploying a battle group to Kandahar. We had other elements in the region as well. We had the air force conducting a number of operations, airlift operations, maritime patrol operations, onboard ship operations. And our navy ultimately in the two years that followed that commencement of operations deployed 16 of our 18 warships into the Arabian Sea and a little better than 95 percent of all the deployable naval assets or naval people that could be deployed. And we deployed most often with maritime helicopter detachments onboard those ships. And I can tell you that those detachments did some outstanding work. And I do remember one particular detachment flying more than 500 hours with their Sea King in the six-month period that they were at sea, providing some unparalleled capability in terms of reconnaissance and surveillance and contributing to what we call the recognized maritime picture for the naval forces that were in the region, not just for the ship that it was supporting. So it may be old, that Sea King, but it does some pretty good work when it’s able to get out there and ply its trade. And the people who fly it and maintain it do tremendous work in working with what they have.

Now our members, whether they were army, navy or air force or joint staffs performed exceedingly well in all aspects of Op Apollo, wherever it may have been on land, at sea or in the air. And we have certainly received praise from all of our allies, senior commanders, partners of many kinds and earned I think, I believe the profound admiration of Canadians for what we have done -- what our forces, our troops have done out there in support of this operation.

Now I talked about the end of Operation Apollo. That doesn’t mean that’s the end of the campaign against terrorism - far from it. Canada has certainly continued its operation but under different operation names. And you’ve heard them - Operation Athena for our forces in Afghanistan, other operations which are ongoing, continue to on go like Operation Altair which is our current ship to the Arabian Sea and so on.

Now in fact in that context as we wound down Op Apollo and particularly the naval component of Op Apollo we concurrently prepared to launch another ship and that was Op Altair. In fact, it’s currently HMCS Toronto which is in the Arabian Sea and has now started operations in the very recent few days. And it’s integrated into a U.S. navy carrier battle group, something that we have been doing for many, many years already back into the early ‘90s and will continue to do as part of the campaign against terrorism on a periodic basis for the foreseeable future.

And last August of course we returned to Afghanistan with the UN-mandated, NATO-led International Security Assistance Force where you I know have seen many reports and have seen the kind of things that we’re doing in that context.

Now Minister Pratt talked about this this morning but he and I with Joe Clark and the Canadian Forces Chief Warrant Officer went off to Afghanistan just a few weeks ago and visited our troops there and had a chance to visit with a number of the local dignitaries including President Karzai and their Minister of Defence. We also participated of course in the change of command in which General Rick Hillier is now commanding and oversaw what I thought was a very good changeover to what is a very proud moment for us from a Canadian point of view having command of such a prominent mission.

Now, having been in Afghanistan -- this is my third time now in Afghanistan. I’ve seen Kabul go from bad to not a whole lot better but it is improving. And things are, nonetheless, with the kind of influence that we’re having and the kind of support that we’re giving to the city of Kabul and its people and to the president’s Transitional Authority, we are making a difference.

Now the section of Kabul for which we’re responsible, which is on the southwest side of the city, was the most lawless part of the city - a difficult place for anyone to go and certainly that’s where we ended up. In the short time that we’ve been there, though, by the presence that we’ve had and despite the unfortunate and tragic loss of life which we always and will always regret, crime has decreased. People are moving around the streets that much more and they’re moving back into their homes slowly but surely, rebuilding them where they can. Shops are opening. We see activity. Life is coming back again to what is normal to Afghans and that’s the most important thing. We are not trying to make Afghanistan downtown Ottawa; we’re trying to make Afghanistan stable, secure and safe Afghanistan. I’m not sure Ottawa’s all that safe sometimes but nonetheless it’s a different state.

Now when I and the minister and Joe Clark of course went off on patrol, it was clear that there was another thing that was important to note and that was that it was clear that the people of Kabul were no longer living in the type of fear that was certainly evident even back in the summer of last year and that they were determined to rebuild their life. It was also clear to me that they were very appreciative of the peacekeepers that were there, the folks supporting peace support operations, ISAF in general and there are 32 nations at the moment involved. About 22 of those actually patrol the streets but the Canadian flag is a significant draw for the people of Kabul. They trust Canadians. They trust what we represent and they actually come up and talk to us fairly regularly and are showing that their appreciation is profound.

And those efforts are not lost on anyone, quite frankly. Now, the truth of the matter is 95 or 98 percent of the people in Afghanistan, specifically in Kabul, are very happy to have us there. That three to five percent that isn’t happy, though, can make our life pretty miserable. But that’s why we’re there. We didn’t go there because it was an easy mission.

President Karzai himself when we met with him was full of praise and the minister talked about that this morning. He did very sincerely express his appreciation for what we do. And more importantly I think he expressed those views on the behalf of the average or the regular Afghan. And I know the minister specified that but I repeat that because he made it very clear that the average citizen of Afghanistan was finding that his or her life was a little bit better because of what the international community was doing, especially in Kabul. And of course you’ve seen all the reference to expanding the International Security Assistance Force outside of Kabul. One Provincial Reconstruction Team is in a pilot program at the moment in Kunduz which is to the north about a hundred miles. There will probably be many more under ISAF ultimately and of course we’ll keep an eye on that in the longer term to determine what we can do but it’s not in the offing for us in the immediate future.

Je dirais que la force que nous avons en théâtre, particulièrement précédemment sous le commandement du Major-général Andy Leslie et maintenant sous le commandement des forces au sol du Colonel Alain Tremblay avec le commandant de brigade, un officier général du 22^ième, Général Lacroix et le Général Hillier qui commande la force a une tâche quand même assez importante devant elle.

The force really is going to have an influence on the success of elections in Afghanistan. It’s going to have an influence on maintaining the stability that will provide for free and fair elections and who will also have an important influence on how this expansion of ISAF actually takes place and how safely and how well it takes place in the longer term. So enough said about that.

Je dirais aussi que nos troupes dans l’ensemble, en fait la force, la composante que nous avons envoyée en Afghanistan convient parfaitement à la mission dont nous avons confié notre force en théâtre. Mais ça ramène encore en fait au point initial et primordial de ma présentation, c’est-à-dire le contexte de transformation.

Now we all -- we’ve said this so often now it almost seems like it’s a repetitive statement but the world has changed since the end of the Cold War but more so since September 11^th and those events that we all know so well. New threats have appeared. The security environments in every nation on every continent have changed. We don’t express how we do business purely in military terms anymore, even for us in uniform. Our mission now encompasses a wide range of things including economic, ethnic, demographic, health and environmental factors. I mean we have to be soldiers. We have to be politicians and we have to be humanitarianists when we go on these missions.

Perhaps more importantly, the distinctions between the domestic, continental and international spheres in which we have traditionally operated have become less clear. In fact, the opposing side, the bad guys are not as obvious as they used to be anymore. It’s a much more difficult environment to operate in wherever you’re operating these days. And the last 10 years have made it clear to us that that’s going to be a continuous challenge and certainly over the next decade we know that we have to adapt. And that’s why transformation is so important because if we don’t adapt, we won’t be that 21^st century force that Admiral Giambastiani talked about and nor will we satisfy or serve the needs of Canada in defending Canadian values the way that we sincerely should.

And indeed the defence of Canada - and I remind you that the White Paper has three primary roles and that is to defend Canada, defend the continent in cooperation with the U.S. and to contribute to international peace and security - the defence of Canada is now seen more than ever as having continental as well as international ramifications. It’s a very important element for us.

To prevent a problem from showing up on our doorstep specifically, we have to be able to take the problem to its source, as we’re currently doing in Afghanistan, but at the same time we have to be very conscious of the needs that this nation demands in terms of domestic security in its broadest sense. And like all militaries - and you’ll hear this from any military leader is my sense - the Canadian Forces in this case need to adapt and adapt as quickly as it reasonably can to this new environment.

We need to be able to face these evolving threats and understand them. We need to integrate these new technologies and they are significantly changing technologies and ones which we have to put the investment into that’s required. We need to be able to integrate those into the news ways of conducting business because I can remember when I started in this headquarters in 1996 calling the commander of a ship who was off on a mission in support of a DCDS or CDS task was difficult or calling a contingent commander somewhere in Bosnia or Golan Heights or wherever it happened to be. Today, I or the DCDS or any of the environmental commanders or anyone who needs to get in touch with our commanders out there can do so in almost a heartbeat. And not only can we talk to them, we can transmit data, we can receive data, we can transmit images, we can do videoconferencing. We can do all the things that are so essential in this environment of C4ISR - Command, Control, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance - which has made the way we do business much different than it ever was in the past.

So for us, and I come back to it again, transformation is not an option, it’s a necessity. So what does that mean for the Canadian Forces? And I come back to that just for a moment because I do remember last year there were discussions of what transformation meant and how it would affect us overall. Well, for us it means changes in our doctrine. For example, the army, navy and air force, as you heard Admiral Giambastiani talk about just a short while ago, need to much better and increasingly learn how to operate and fight together. In other words, we need to enhance yet again, and we come back to it, our jointness.

At the same time, we’re changing our approach to operations by focussing on results and I use the same terminology that you heard just a short while ago and that’s through effects-based operations or the effects-based approach that we take to these things. The CF will aim to achieve the desired outcomes through some very focussed actions. With every action, though, there’s a reaction and that’s what we have to be conscious of. So simply put, we’ll be putting -- we’ll be using, I should say, scalpels rather than bludgeons or sledgehammers. We’ll be using smaller amounts of resources, we believe, either human or otherwise. We’ll be minimizing collateral damage and certainly we’ll be minimizing to the extent possible the risks.

Now this could mean a number of different things and it could mean something different to each element of the service or whoever is operating in this environment and it could mean using a simple precision-guided missile, for example, to destroy a target rather than the greater number of conventional munitions that we would look back to not all that long ago. Or it can mean - and this is where things have changed quite a bit again - it can mean careful negotiations with the local community leader, could mean negotiations with a local warlord for that matter, to convince their followers to disarm and achieve the same result through negotiation that we would otherwise through the application of military force. And that’s a reality. We’re doing that. We’re doing that today.

Of course we’re also embracing new concepts and we have many, many initiatives underway and where resources are available we’re applying them. We’re using computers as well as advanced communications and sensor technology to do the job that I talked to you about just a moment ago and keeping in touch with our people. Right down in fact even in land force operations down to the individual soldier on the ground, man or woman, they have communications systems, the ability to link back with their section commanders, platoon commanders, company commanders, indeed back to headquarters. They’re able to navigate using global positioning systems. They’re able to maintain situational awareness in the operations that they’re undertaking in a way that’s probably not even that conceivable just a few short years ago.

And that means we’re connecting our people on the ground wherever they may be at sea or in the air with each other and we’re allowing decision makers, very often far removed from where the frontline is, to be able to influence the operations in the appropriate way. That doesn’t mean we’re micro managing operations, by the way. It just means that we have much better situational awareness and a much better ability to provide the national guidance that’s essential to success in operations wherever they may be. And this concept, as we term it, is called Network Enabled Operations and that gives us that situational awareness that’s so important to us, that faster decision-making process and ultimately that much better operational effectiveness.

Now second, transformation means new equipment but it isn’t just equipment and that’s often the failing of transformation or the idea of transformation. It’s not just modernizing or buying new pieces of equipment but it is part of it. We need to keep up with technology change, again within the resources available to us. And we need to be able to maintain an ability to operate effectively alongside our allies, especially our U.S. allies. They are almost always going to be an ally or a component of a coalition-based operation.

Now the new equipment offers us, though - and that’s important to army, navy and air force and joint activity across the spectrum - with a much better range of capabilities and of course it allows us to also ensure that we remain very relevant on the battlefield and that is, after all, our primary objective is to remain effective and relevant well into the future.

Now this is illustrated by a number of things. These projects or activities that are underway are probably well known to most of you in this room but I’ll just rhyme off a few of them. But we have a few things that are coming up in the near future and those are obviously the decision on the Maritime Helicopter Project which we’re looking forward to in terms of the selection of the maritime helicopter winner after the Request for Proposals process has been completed and the selection process.

We’re doing experimentation not only with the tactical unmanned aerial vehicles, the UAVs that we have in Afghanistan now which, arguably, have had some teething problems but quite frankly now that we’ve got most of those out of the way are doing good work. And I can assure you that the UAVs that we’re operating are a generational leap beyond what was being used in Afghanistan before, perhaps even a two-generation leap. And they provide tremendous effectively operational information for the commanders on the ground and have provided us with absolutely sterling intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance information - not only for us but also for ISAF headquarters.

We’re now experimenting with - and we have already done a little bit of this - with strategic unmanned aerial vehicles for coastal or northern surveillance and what we will do with those air vehicles will undoubtedly be revolutionary in the longer term.

And of course we’re also looking at a number of other things including rationalizing our air and sea lift capabilities and so on.

Now third, transformation means changes in the roles and responsibilities of the Canadian Forces and how we do business because with the issues of domestic security which we’re all very conscious of and that means not only regular force but also our reserves, by the way, the Canadian Forces will need to reinforce its ability to support government and certainly to respond not in a first responder context but to respond to domestic emergencies.

Je dirais, par exemple, que nous avons renforcé notre capacité opérationnelle de notre Force opérationnelle inter-armée 2, JTF2 for those that wonder what that meant. L’unité des forces, c’est-à-dire notre unité de forces spéciales et en créant le Centre de technologie antiterroriste. En effet, je vous dirais que du côté chimique, biologique, nous avons aussi fait plusieurs choses incluant le fait que nous avons collaboré et nous avons été parties d’expérimentation du côté chimique, biologique avec l’OTAN.

In fact our centre out west represents one of the unique capabilities to do live agent training in the NATO context and so therefore we are contributing very high value for what is a very small organization.

Nous avons également amélioré notre capacité à répondre à des attaques d’armes de destruction massive ou WMD en participant à des initiatives de recherche et de technologie chimique, biologique, radiologique et nucléaire et incluant l’expansion de notre capacité dans ce genre à Trenton.

Et, par la suite, nous allons, et nous sommes en train de le faire, nous allons confier à la réserve une plus grande responsabilité en matière de protection de la population contre ces types de menace.

Fourth, the transformation means new ways of conducting operations. And, as you know, and I described a little bit of this before, but the battlefield is no longer the exclusive domain of military members. And we do find ourselves working now much more closely, much more integratedly with other government departments. I mean for us horizontal -- enhancing our horizontal relationships is not just enhancing our ability to do operations outside the country. It’s also enhancing our ability to do operations right here at home.

We have a number of people seconded to other government departments. We have a number of people who are directly linked into those operation centres. We have much more in terms of committee work with other government departments. In fact, it even spreads down to the provincial level and in some cases municipal. We work with a number of international organizations including CARE and UNICEF and so on. We work with aid workers, media, non governmental organizations and of course civilian contractors - all, quite frankly to good benefit.

And so with all that we need to ensure - and this again from a transformational point of view - that we can continue to successfully operate in all of the environments in which we’ll be challenged.

Cela signifie, comme de raison, pour les trois commandants de la marine, l’aviation, l’armée de terre et le sous-chef dans le contexte inter-armée, que nous devions travailler encore plus étroitement ensemble. Cela veut dire que c’est essentiel pour nous de nouer les liens et de travailler avec tous les acteurs impliqués dans une opération, comme, par exemple, dans ceux que je viens d’énumérer.

I will go back to one thing that the minister mentioned this morning because it fits right into this as well and that is that from the context of the operation in Afghanistan, one of the key elements of success in my view in Afghanistan is that it has been a holistically developed and holistically supported mission when it comes to the Canadian approach to this - defence, diplomacy and development. And in fact, we work very closely with the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and also the Minister of International Development as well as with the Minister of Trade which has been an extension of that 3D, that triple D policy that we talk about. And in keeping that whole government approach to it at least in that context, we are seeing a much more concentrated and well-orchestrated support to a place like Afghanistan where, instead of the defence element being the only element that becomes an important key to success, the development and diplomatic side of it also contribute quite significantly to how well that’s done.

Et comme de raison, j’en dirais pas plus, il faut être absolument capable d’opérer de façon complètement intégrée dans toutes les opérations de coalition ou dans les opérations multinationales.

Now we’re also emphasizing, and again the minister did comment on this this morning, the concept of forward presence which really and essentially means that we want the CF to be, to coin a phrase, out and about on the international scene. Now forward presence is very important for us because it allows us to gather knowledge and it’s important to have that intelligence information that guarantees or at least provides the best possible guarantee of force protection. And it’s quite valuable in future operations. And of course it allows us when the operation is undertaken, of course, to take the problem to the source.

Now we do a number of things on the international scene and those include training and exercises, visits to our counterparts wherever they may be. And of course establishing good working relations, whether it’s in the NATO forum or any multinational coalition that we become engaged in across the spectrum. That means, though, that we can not only have good familiarity with their equipment, with the types of systems they operate with their communications systems but also their doctrine and their ways of doing business and that is key in my view to the success that we’ve enjoyed over many years.

And we’ve seen the effects of that interoperability that we’ve really worked at for quite some time now in a number of different ways and if you look back not that far back, you can see how seamlessly we integrated into the air campaign in Kosovo with our CF-18s. It was almost -- it was a seamless operation in which not only did we contribute to the air campaign, we led many of the missions into Kosovo. Our ships, because of their operations with the carrier battle groups beforehand and in the Arabian Gulf and in the training exercises that they do quite routinely can operate not only alongside American carrier battle groups but integrated fully into and replacing American ships in carrier battle groups. And the army of course has proven itself quite capable of integrating into land force operations whether they be peace support operations or combat operations indeed in Kandahar. And to extend that one step further, our joint capability, especially with our joint headquarters and the capability we had down in Tampa, especially at the height of Op Apollo, demonstrated that we are fully interoperable with our allies in that context.

So what we’re trying to do - and I think this is what you would assume - is to make the Canadian Forces a truly knowledge-based institution, one that takes advantage of and uses to maximum benefit all of those systems out there and that new technology that’s available to us.

Now to do that effectively, there’s one more step to this in terms of transformation and that’s ensuring that we increase the educational opportunities for our members, that we increase the proportion of university-educated Canadian Forces members - not only officers, by the way, also our non commissioned members, of course our reservists - and improving our professional development system across the spectrum both by enhancing the scope of that system and also by finding ways to allow our people to increase their education while they’re serving and that means distance learning opportunities and so on. Of course we have done much of that through the establishment of the Canadian Defence Academy which is headquartered in Kingston and it is paying off, in my view, in spades so far.

And most recently we’ve published a professional development manual for all CF members and one which really clearly defines what the profession of arms is all about and duty with honour, as many of you have seen. What it does is it gives all of our men and women a clear indication or definition of what it means to be in uniform, what we expect of them and what Canadians expect of them. And I can tell you in some recent travels around southwest Asia and into the South Pacific, having passed that book on in both its pamphlet form and in the book itself, many of our allies are quite envious and are now trying to develop something similar themselves because it really does give people a sense of belonging when they see that type of -- when they see how the military profession is expected to perform, be put in print in that very capable way.

Now, talking a little bit about this kind of thing, I’d like to go back to Afghanistan just for a few moments before I wrap up here. I go back to it because it really is an excellent example from my perspective of the type of missions the Canadian Forces and our allies indeed are going to be called upon to perform over the foreseeable future. It involves increased interoperability as I’ve already talked about, increased jointness, the integration and the use of new technologies and many, many different actors as we’ve already talked about.

In many ways, if you think about all of that, it drives you to the realization that Afghanistan is really a transformational mission. For us, deploying some 4,000 Canadians -- we’ve just rotated, by the way, and that was a significant rotation when you figure that we brought out close to 2,000 and took in close to 2,000 over a very short period mostly with our own assets, in fact almost exclusively. And that’s literally halfway around the world. And we sustained them in that very difficult part of the world where nothing gets in, at least not in a reasonable time frame, unless it goes in by air. And in that context in Afghanistan and in the surrounding region in southwest Asia, all of our environments and the joint element have all been working very intimately together. And they’ve been very, very successful, not the least of which has been the success that we’ve had in logistics provisions for operations in that part of the world.

And furthermore, we’re operating alongside some 30 nations - 32 at last count. A good number of these are NATO nations and so we know how they operate and we have a pretty good sense but not all of them are. So it means a little bit of adjustment there as well.

Et dans ce contexte il y a plusieurs nations dont nous ne connaissons pas tellement bien de près leurs méthodes d’opérer mais nous apprenons et c’est en fait à notre avantage de comprendre un peu mieux comment les autres nations, même s’ils ne sont pas membres de l’OTAN, opèrent, surtout dans le contexte international.

It’s not a first for us, by the way. We’ve operated with many non NATO nations in the past whether it’s the Pakistanis or the Indians, the Guineans, a number of other nations in either the multinational force and observers in the Sinai or in many other operations like Haiti, in fact back in the mid-‘90s time frame.

La flexibilité et la capacité d’adaptation pour nos gens est quand même capitale et c’est particulièrement important maintenant que nous sommes au commandement de la Force internationale. Et c’est dans ces situations sincèrement que l’avantage et le bénéfice de notre système de développement professionnel et d’entraînement et d’éducation porte fruit. Et aussi les bénéfices qui retombent de l’entraînement que nous faisons, surtout à l’échelle internationale.

We’re also fielding some of our newest and best equipment in Afghanistan. I’ve already talked a little bit about UAVs. The Coyotes - our reconnaissance and surveillance vehicles - are doing tremendous work there. We’re using counter bombardment radar in Afghanistan. We’re using night vision and optics devices which are quite sincerely leading edge, cutting edge. And we’re doing a number of other things that really are proving that the Canadian Forces can be the best in any operation that they do undertake. And quite honestly, when you talk to the international commanders, they do consider us to be if not the best, amongst the best. And quite frankly they do usually say we’re the best but that’s presumptuous on my part. But quite frankly we are making a difference and a significant difference despite the fact that we’re a small nation.

Finally, our mission in Afghanistan does require us in a transformational sense to cooperate very closely with other government departments. I’ve already talked about this and not the least of which are Foreign Affairs and CIDA. But we have done in this the past but we’ve never done it in the very concentrated and coordinated way that we have this time and that 3D approach in my view is sterling. And we’ll see more of that and I would predict that we’ll see even more of it as we see the National Security Policy embedded in Canadian thinking.

Now as you can see, the Canadian Forces are fully engaged on the path to transformation. It’s a bit of an extension of what you heard at lunchtime. I will say, though, that the process is not easy and the path to transformation and continuing transformation will take some time. There will be challenges. We don’t have unlimited resources as all of you will be only too aware. We have to manage the requirements of today and balance them against the needs of tomorrow. We have an operational tempo which is high. But we do have very professional people and that’s really the strength of what we do in fact. We know that they’ve been working exceedingly hard over the last little while, perhaps over the last decade - very hard over the last few years. And they are overworked and quite sincerely overstretched.

We have tried to emphasize the fact that we now need an operational pause and government has heard that request. We do hope to reduce the scope of our missions across the spectrum, especially those that are outside the country, and give our people - all three elements and the joint side of the House - a little bit of a breather. We’ll do that based on what the needs are, obviously, from an international and a national perspective.

Et nous croyons fermement que la réduction de notre tempo opérationnel, la cadence opérationnelle nous permettra de régénérer de la façon nécessaire pour se remettre sur un pied très capable et très opérationnel dans le futur et avec autant d’importance il faut assurer que les gens aient la chance de reconnecter avec les familles et recharger leurs batteries.

Now finally, I’d only say a short bit about this but financial constraints are nonetheless a challenge. I mentioned the fact that we had a fairly significant injection of money last year - much appreciated and well distributed I can tell you. We did receive that additional funding. We don’t know what this year will bring; the budget will tell. But we know that we won’t get a windfall; I don’t think anybody would expect that. Government has to be prudent in how it disburses its money. And so we know that there will be challenges in terms of the limits of what we’re going to get. And we’re going to have to make those tradeoffs that we have always been making and balance off today’s needs against tomorrow. I come back to that because that really is the crux of what we do. My job is to do the best job I can do with the resources that government gives me to do them with. And that’s what we in the senior leadership and across the spectrum of the force will continue to do. And in the meantime and in the context of all that, we’ll continue to do everything we can to transform the force as well.

So, all that being said, ladies and gentlemen, transformation is a very important task for us. We know that it won’t be easy. But we in uniform, I can assure you and those in the department, the non uniform side of National Defence are fully supportive I can assure you. We’re all fully committed to it. We all understand that what’s most important is for us to be able to support those troops which are - whether it’s army, navy or air force - operating outside the country to the best of our ability. We want them to operate effectively, interoperate effectively with their allies and do things as safely as possible with the right force protection, the right equipment, the right training and obviously the right leadership. And if we don’t do it, quite frankly, we will lose the ability to do what we do so well both here and abroad.

Et ça veut dire que nous avons beaucoup de choses à faire. Je suis convaincu que la révision de la politique de défense va nous donner une idée plus claire évidemment. Le ministre l’a mentionné ce matin. On est déjà dans le processus de développement de la nouvelle politique avec les Affaires étrangères et d’autres qui sont impliqués et d’ici l’automne nous aurons, j’espère, un document très bien raffiné et supporté par le gouvernement.

And I’m sure that that document, as we look at the whole IPR or the International Policy Review, which, by the way, has to ensure that it doesn’t lose sight of the domestic requirement of defence and security, will give us that much better a headlight, if you like, to guide us through this transformational process that we’re going through.

So, with that, we know we’re going to have to make some tough choices. We’ve already made some, by the way, and we’ll continue to do that. Again, I come back to it, it’s up to government to decide what it wants us to do but it does it with folks like you and like us. It does it with the Canadian public. And we know that they already have. They come to the Canadian Forces and the leadership for advice and assistance and we’ll provide that for them. And surely I can commit to you that we in the headquarters here and those others who support us across the nation here will do everything we can to ensure that we have what we need to make a difference in this new dynamic security environment that we’re in and will be in for the foreseeable future.

I’ll close just by saying that we also appreciate what CDA and what the Institute does for us. We know that you contribute to the process. We know that you help to inform the Canadian public about what we are and what we do. Many of you have been in uniform before. And we know that you help promote debate on various defence issues and you will have an opportunity to make your voices heard when it comes time to do the policy review from a public sense.

With all that, thank you very much for your attention. Don, I know you have a crook back there somewhere that you’ll pull me off the stage with when the period ends up. But in the meantime, I’m happy to take questions. So thank you very much. (Applause.)

Moderator: Well, we have time for two questions. Mr. Blais first on microphone one and Mr. Deckerkoff on microphone two.

Question: Monsieur le général, merci beaucoup de vos commentaires. Ce matin et le ministre et vous-même cet après-midi avez parlé des PRT avec une certaine distance. Lorsque j’étais en Afghanistan en effet j’ai été fort impressionné par l’évolution de ce concept et effectivement les Néo-Zélandais, les Allemands, les Anglais l’ont adapté. Et puis en plus de ça il me semble c’est un concept qui fait -- qui utilise au maximum des ressources qui sont quand même limitées.

So I was surprised in effect there was a certain distance that was taken relating to that concept. And I made some inquiries and I was advised that it could be that there was a perception that we didn’t want to put Canadian troops in PRTs because in effect they would be hostages our could be constituted as hostages and they would be distant from any sort of supporting troops. But as I understand the concept of PRTs, it is that the troops that are limited within a CMIC context, or Civil-Military Context, are supported by the availability of troops who -- that are in a position to respond on an emergency and that basically it is the maximization of the use of forces and it is also back-up of a capacity to intensify the application of force. So I would like to know what the attitude is of the forces relating to it.

Gen. Ray Henault: Merci, monsieur Blais. So you would like me to talk about PRTs, I can tell. And you know it only too well, monsieur Blais, having been there quite some time in Afghanistan itself so I thank you for the question. I’m very conscious of the importance being placed on PRTs at this point in time and certainly in the fullness of the discussions that we had not only with ISAF and other commanders in Afghanistan but also the transitional government and others, it’s clear that there is a desire, and NATO has already expressed that desire, to spread the influence of NATO and certainly the stability and security that that brings to more than just Kabul. And that really is being seen as a way -- the way it’s seen to do that is through the use of PRTs.

I would come back to the original premise, though, of PRTs. They are Provincial Reconstruction Teams. Most of them are relatively small in number, at least from the American context. But you have to remember that PRTs are not military organizations. PRTs are nation-building, reconstruction and rebuilding organizations which require in a first premise the ability to do exactly that - to rebuild schools, rebuild aqueducts, to rebuild the judicial systems, to construct roads and bridges, dig wells, do all of the things that come with getting the nation back on its feet.

That means that you have to have a very solid component of those types of NGOs if you like and those types of nation-building capabilities which are complemented by the security element and that security element determined by the area that you’re going to be working in, the way in which the local authority, if you want to call that person that, and in most cases it’s warlords, are willing to support you or how the Afghan National Army is willing to support your PRT activity and provide for you some measure of confidence that you can operate in security and with a certain amount of force protection.

As you know, monsieur Blais, there are several PRTs already in Afghanistan. There are several up to the north. Kunduz is the first one that’s being undertaken by NATO as a pilot PRT for the NATO force. That one has a fairly, I guess I can call it, military heavy component. It’s somewhere between 350 and 450 people at whatever count it comes out to which means that the security situation there that you would derive from that is probably not as solid as you would like it to be if you need that much security. Others are down to 70 or a hundred people. But always remembering that those 70 or a hundred men or person PRTs are often backed up by thousands of troops which are in very close reach and which can provide the extraction or the support capabilities required if things go awry.

So in our view, PRTs are not discounted by any stretch of the imagination. We know they’re important. We know that that’s what the international community would like to see more of ultimately. We are exploring what PRTs are all about. We’ve encouraged very strongly that our other government department partners like Foreign Affairs and Agriculture and Customs and you name it have a part to play in this because we see it primarily as another government department initiative. We need Government of Canada objectives, goals, involvement and commitment to PRTs before we would want to launch anything. And our view is that once that’s been determined, then we, depending on the area that’s going to be gone into via PRT, if Canada chose to do that, we will determine what’s required from a security point of view. So all of that is being worked at the moment. So we certainly agree with your view, by the way, monsieur Blais.

I would add, though, there’s one more part to this and that is that we see in the immediate future for ISAF a requirement to ensure that ISAF does not fail. And what ISAF needs to not fail is to ensure that the core of ISAF which is in Kabul in Afghanistan is fully resourced and fully staffed from the Statement of Requirement point of view. That hasn’t happened up until now and we know that there’s going to be a transition as we end our six-month period. Especially there will be a transition to more PRTs undoubtedly, more operations outside Kabul, more operations in parts of the country which are quite volatile. And you can’t actually assure yourself that you’re going to be able to support those PRTs unless you have a strong central core.

We think, at least in the upcoming round of activity that we’re exploring with options and with government, that we can provide a very meaningful component or at least much more modest than we have now but a very meaningful element of that core requirement for ISAF in Kabul and in the process as we go through perhaps the August ‘04 through to the spring of ‘05 time frame, we will have a much better sense of how we as a Government of Canada - and I don’t say that from my perspective but from a national point of view - can develop and implement a PRT policy or a PRT mission for Afghanistan. So those are the considerations that we’re taking at the moment to PRT.

Moderator: Thank you, sir. Thanks very much.

Question: Mon général, vous avez fort bien décrit l’évolution de la situation internationale et l’évolution aussi de la menace qui affecte les forces armées. Vous avez parlé de leurs responsabilités. Évidemment une des menaces c’est le terrorisme. Et dans ce contexte, quand j’étais au commissaire au Pakistan et ainsi qu’ambassadeur en Indonésie j’ai eu la chance de voir une des preuves manifestes de l’horizontalité puisque j’avais des attachés militaires. Et je me suis rendu compte au fil des années que dans le contexte actuel nous avons de plus en plus besoin de ce qu’on appelle en anglais actionable intelligence, c’est-à-dire vraiment de l’information de base vérifiable et utile. Or dans ce contexte-là les attachés militaires sont des instruments essentiels et qui, dans le contexte en tout cas en Indonésie, m’ont servi de façon absolument admirable. Et la question que je vous pose c’est dans le contexte de l’examen est-ce que le rôle des attachés militaires à l’avenir allez-vous le réexaminer, le considérer et peut-être lui donner de nouvelles orientations? Mais les indéniables que je crois que dans le contexte actuel la notion de renseignements, la capacité de renseignement que peut fournir un attaché militaire et devenu indispensable pour le travail que nous faisons collectivement dans le contexte d’une menace changeante. Merci.

Gen. Ray Henault: Oui, merci beaucoup. C’était une très bonne éducation de la valeur de nos attachés. En fait le mot actionable intelligence c’est un très bon mot aussi alors je vous en félicite. That’s a word that’s used quite commonly in the context of very rapid, short notice missions. You have to have actionable intelligence before you can actually undertake them so I compliment you on that. And we do very much depend on that type of intelligence to undertake operations. And in fact, what we contribute to the force in Afghanistan even now is very much designed to do exactly that - provide actionable intelligence through both human intelligence sources and all of the various sensors that we have in Afghanistan, not the least of which is our Coyote and also the unmanned aerial vehicle. So that does provide very timely and very usable actionable intelligence. So I would emphasize that.

In terms of how attachés contribute to the mission and how they contribute to missions abroad, I can assure you that the attaché mission has changed. It has transitioned and transformed just the way the rest of the force has transformed over the course of the last few years and particularly since September 11^th.

En fait nos attachés sont impliqués dans toutes sortes d’activités. Ils sont moi je dirais clé à beaucoup des succès que nous avons connus, surtout dans le Moyen-Orient et dans l’Asie du Sud-Ouest. Je dirais que sans nos attachés qui fournissent une intelligence très profonde et puis une coordination -- il y a un lien avec les membres d’une ambassade et l’ambassadeur lui-même ou le haut commissaire ont été absolument crucial au succès de nos missions dans les années qui viennent de passer.

Thankfully, we had looked not that long ago at a redistribution of some of our attachés and in fact had taken some of the concentration of attachés that we had in the central European area, for example, and driven more of those attaché posts into South America, for example, into Africa and other parts of the Middle East and we’re doing that same sort of analysis again in a much smaller scale but looking at those areas of the world where we think we’re going to be engaged that much more over the next little while.

All that to say that the attachés are an absolutely critical element of our intelligence mechanism but they’re also a critical element of how we get into or out of a country or stage through a country in the context of these operations. I could tell you that if I think back on just a couple of attachés - won’t take too long, Don, I promise - but if I think about the Kosovo air campaign, we had an attaché who was in Yugoslavia when things went to corn flakes. He ended up going into Macedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia in the aftermath along with good old General Maisonneuve, who’s over there on the far side, and provided some absolutely invaluable information for us in the context of the build-up to the Kosovo air campaign and in the context of Albanian refugees and so on that were flowing into -- especially into the FIROM area. He actually put himself in harm’s way on many occasions to do his job and proved that the attaché job is not a sleeper job by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, it’s pretty close to the frontline in my view in these days and this day and age. And with the advent of terrorism, our attachés are very vulnerable out there and nonetheless do some tremendous work.

I would also say that as we went into southwest Asia that our attachés in that region as we went into Afghanistan, and as we contributed to ship deployments and so on, the attaché in Saudi Arabia and those in Kuwait and we’re now trying to realign some of that, Pakistan and elsewhere and India, were absolutely, again, critical to the build-up of our information bank and also to the provision of advice to us in terms of the status of forces agreements and the smoothing of deployments and flows of troops and equipment through their countries or through their host countries.

So if you’re asking me whether I think attachés are value-added, absolutely. Thank you.

Moderator: General, you’ve given us a very comprehensive overview of the transformation efforts in the Canadian Forces underway. You have also provided the individual service chiefs and ADMHR-Mil a great introduction to all of their presentations tomorrow and the questions that people can generate tonight to ask them tomorrow. So on behalf of everyone here today, sir, thank you very, very much indeed for a most interesting, most comprehensive presentation.

Gen. Ray Henault: Thank you, Don. Merci. (Applause.)

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