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Minister's Speeches Archive
Speech to the Empire Club of Canada
Toronto (Ontario) - April 22, 2005
NOTE: The following transcript is presented in the language(s) in which it occurred. There is no translation available. We are providing the transcript for your information.
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PRINCIPAL(S)/PRINCIPAUX: Bill Graham, Minister of Defence
Bill Graham : Thank you very much Mr. President for that very kind introduction and thank you very much members of the Empire Club for being here today. To Aird and Burlis, thank you for looking after the head table today and for those other law firms in the audience take note as to how generosity is excellent. I couldn't help but say to our guests from Aird and Berlis when I joined my old firm of Atkins, and there are some of them here in the room, there were only seventeen of us in the firm at that time. So it shows you both how old I am and what size of a city Toronto was in those days. The law firms are all gigantic now but in those days it was still a profession where we could talk to one another and actually have human relations with one another but I'd better not go down that road, I could get into a lot of trouble already but I just want to thank you very much for coming distinguished guests and ladies and gentlemen and I'd like to thank you Mr. President and the Empire Club for inviting me to speak today.
I appreciate that this club has had a proud tradition of extraordinary speakers. I went through the list, I had the privilege of just singing the book in the next room. I mean the names of Winston Churchill, Viscount Montgomery, the list goes on and on, the Dalai Lama, great great Canadian leaders, great foreign leaders are there but I think that the Club's diversity was demonstrated by the fact that yesterday you had speaking to you a nine year old young woman who inspires Canadians by having taken up the cause of homelessness. I think it just says something, volumes about our country that someone of that age could bring together people, raise that kind of money and challenge us to deal with one of the great social problems of our time. So congratulations to the Empire Club for having organized such an important opportunity for us to hear from that remarkable young woman.
Ladies and gentlemen, it's been nine months since I had the privilege of being named your Minister of National Defence and I feel very fortunate to be at the helm of an institution that features so prominently in the government's overall agenda and to be a part of an organization that has such a significant impact on the lives of Canadians and tens of thousands of people around the world. It's an exciting and in many ways an historic time for the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Forces. With our new Chief of the Defence Staff, General Rick Hillier, and his senior management team, we have a vibrant new military leadership with innovative ideas rooted in recent operational experience both here in Canada and throughout the world and our senior military leaders are responsible for some of the world's most dedicated, professional and skilful men and women in uniform.
Over the past few years, as Canada's Foreign Minister and now as your Minister of Defence, I've had the privilege of seeing first-hand the outstanding work performed by the men and women of the Canadian Forces in challenging environments like Bosnia, Haiti and Afghanistan and in all of these instances when I saw how they were managing extremely complex and dangerous missions and heard the gratitude of the people for whom they were providing security and stability, I can tell you I was a very, very proud Canadian. It was these same young men and women that many of us were thinking of when the Finance Minister announced nearly 13 billion dollars in new funding for the Canadian Forces in the recent federal budget, the most substantial funding increase for our military in more than 20 years and Jake who is here with us at the head table told me as we were standing in the next room, he said he wants to go to RMC.
There's a future for our Armed Forces, and there's an investment being taken into our Armed Forces that I think is very, very important. I think that budget was a clear demonstration of the government's commitment to re-invest in the Canadian Forces and in our men and women in uniform that provides nearly 3 billion dollars to expand our military by 5,000 regular force members and 3,000 reservists and I'm very pleased that General Cameron is here and General Bruce Lake who have had tremendous experience with the reserves and I hope that will be helping us as we frame that important expansion. It provides more than 3 billion dollars to address some ongoing sustainability issues facing the Canadian Forces. It also provides the Canadian Forces with more than two and a half billion dollars to immediately acquire new equipment including medium-to-heavy lift helicopters, new trucks for the army and utility aircraft for use in the Arctic. There's also money to invest in specialized new facilities for our elite counter-terrorism unit the JTF-2.
Finally, the budget provides us with nearly 4 billion dollars to implement the new vision for the Canadian Forces that we released earlier this week. This budget and our new military leadership team at Defence represent a real turning point for the Canadian Forces and they will provide us with the solid foundation that we need to make some of the most significant changes to our Armed Forces in more than a generation. This government's new Defence policy statement to which you referred Bart, lays out a bold new course for the Canadian Forces, a course designed to meet head on the security challenges of the 21 st century. Today's world is far different from that of a decade ago. The terrorist attacks in the United States demonstrated very clearly that the dangers of the Cold War have been replaced by new and evolving threats, threats caused by failed and failing states, by global terrorism, by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and by instability.
At the same time threats of a more traditional nature such as intra-state or inter-state conflicts now exist alongside newer destabilizing factors such as environmental crisis on a global scale, civil strife and pandemics such as HIV AIDS. I hardly need to remind a Toronto audience of the challenges associated with the SARS outbreak of three years ago. The challenges that still remain today as an important threat or problem for our theatre and hospitality industry in the country as they struggle to manage the consequences which still remain with us. Simply put, the lines between security and defence have been blurred if not disappeared altogether. In today's security environment there is no home front and we cannot retreat within our own borders in a belief that the conflict is somewhere over there. The Prime Minister captured that challenge when he said today's front line stretches from the streets of Kabul to the rail lines of Madrid to cities across Canada.
More than any time in recent history, ladies and gentlemen, events and instability far from our borders are a threat to the safety and security of Canadians. In the face of these new security challenges the first priority of our military, as set out in our new Defence policy, must be the defence of Canada and of Canadians. This priority builds on our 2004 national security policy, which states there can be no greater role, no more important obligation for a government than the protection and safety of its citizens. This is not an academic notion. It's a fundamental responsibility of government and today it must be met in extremely complex and uncertain conditions. I know that many of our stellar citizens believe that there is no real threat to our security in Canada and do not see the need to invest extensively in Defence. I have to share with you that this is not what credible sources tell us and it is not being alarmist to prepare for quite realistic threats that we must take seriously and evaluate.
So in order to better protect the safety and security of Canadians, we will expand the presence of our regular, reserve and ranger forces throughout the country to respond more effectively to events across Canada including in our Arctic. We'll improve how we gather, analyse and use information from all sources including satellites, unmanned aerial vehicles and radars across Canada. Accurate information is the key to understanding and countering modern terrorism in all of its sophisticated forms. Our maritime and air forces will place greater emphasis on protecting our coasts, our territorial waters and our airspace. We will enhance our national counter-terrorism response force, JTF-2, to deal with emergencies in different parts of the country and we will increase the reserve forces' role in protecting Canada and Canadians by expanding their numbers and focussing their expertise on, among other things, chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear responses to domestic emergencies that we could well have in our cities.
To better protect Canada and Canadians we will also change the way that the Canadian Forces approach domestic operations. In the past, Canada has structured its military primarily for international operations while the domestic role has been treated as a secondary consideration. At home, the military's response to domestic crises has been to assemble a temporary force drawn from existing structures designed for other purposes. White the Canadian Forces have always been there to assist Canadians in their time of need, as we saw in the Saguenay and Manitoba floods, the 1998 ice storm, the fires in British Columbia and the hurricane in Nova Scotia, however the current ad hoc approach, which requires a new operational structure every time the Canadian Forces are called into action, is no longer sufficient and as a part of the government's new vision for the Canadian Forces. The military will now view Canada as a single operational area with a single national command structure called "Canada Command".
This new command structure will be able to bring the best available military resources from across Canada to bear on a domestic crisis quickly and effectively wherever it occurs nation-wide. Canada Command will also be able to provide more effective support to other government departments as required. The impact of our new command structure will also be seen in our North through a combination of enhanced surveillance from satellites, unmanned aerial vehicles and radars, a more visible military presence and other improved capabilities. The Canadian Forces will be better able to respond to northern emergencies and the government will be able to more strongly assert Canada's interest in this vital region of the country, a region that today is experiencing such unprecedented change and is calling for our renewed and increased involvement. So the first priority of our military will be the defence of Canada and the protection of Canadians.
Of course, in today's security environment this also means working closely with our American neighbours to defend our shared continent and our respective countries. Indeed, a key priority in our new defence policy statement is to develop a more sophisticated approach to our relationship with the United States, including strengthening our collective capacity to defend North America. The centerpiece of our defence partnership with the United States remains the North American Aerospace Defence Command or NORAD. Its importance was underscored on September 11 th when it helped to restore control of our continental airspace shortly after the terrorist attacks on Washington and New York. Of course, you may recall that it was a Canadian who was in charge of the Cheyenne Mountain Operations Centre at NORAD on the morning of September 11 th and that officer, in consultation with the Deputy Commander of NORAD, who was also a Canadian, worked to assess the threat to the United States and secure the skies of North America.
I would suggest to you friends that there are few if any countries in the world that have such confidence and trust in one another that they entrust a key element of their defence to a structure where bi-national command puts their fate into the hands of a joint operation run by their joint military officers who work together as a seamless whole but that's exactly the way NORAD does. When I visited NORAD headquarters, if ever you have an opportunity to do so it's extraordinary to walk in there and you see Canadians and Americans just doing their jobs.
Their badges tell you what nationality they are but it is their function that determines what they do, not their nationality, and this is a remarkable organization for Canada and one that we are dedicated to preserving and strengthening. And so we believe at this time it's appropriate to consider the possibility of expanding our current defence cooperation to include maritime and land-based elements as well. NORAD's mandate is to respond to aerospace threats for our continent. It doesn't have at this time the authority to counter maritime threats such as ships carrying a dirty bomb into New York or Halifax Harbour or to deal with the aftermath of a terrorist attack on North American soil. Given the current international environment, we believe that the current arrangement between our two countries therefore needs to become more comprehensive. It's unclear at this time whether these issues are best tackled within a renewed NORAD or by some other means.
But we are committed to exploring new ways to work with the United States in the defence of our shared continent. We know that our American partners are looking for ways to expand our collective capacity to work together, a capacity that they have seen reinforced by our recent budget and our new defence policy statement. In the end, increased security capacity at home in Canada translates into increased credibility in the United States thus reinforcing another basic element of our foreign policy and that is to say an excellent working relationship with our United States neighbour and in spite of what you hear from some critics who will say that means is we are incorporating ourselves into the Americans, that we're turning over our sovereignty to the United States because we will be incorporating our military into them, that is not at all what it is about. It is about two neighbours working together.
Canada is a strong and independent country that is now better able to manage its own defence working with the United States as an equal partner in the defence of North America and we can never forget that North America is a united whole. We cannot ever forget that an attack on Seattle will be an attack on Vancouver or a nuclear attack on Rochester will not leave Toronto unscathed or visa versa and that must be our motivation at all times to work with the Americans for our joint security. So as we consider the way in which the world has unfolded since the September 11 th terrorist attacks on the United States, we've got to focus more efforts on protecting Canada and Canadians here in the North American context but I have to assure you ladies and gentlemen that that will not be done at the expense of our ability to meet threats outside of North America as well.
And so in his report, in speaking of Canada's role in the world, the Prime Minister expressed it well when he said that we cannot change the world single-handedly but we can play a role far greater than our size might suggest. Our parents and grandparents, accomplished throughout the past century in the First and Second World Wars, with the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and with the invention and practical application of United Nations peacekeeping, enormous challenges as we went out and faced them in the world. And Canadians are proud and rightfully so of the role that our country plays in the world and of the people that are, some of them here, that have contributed to that role. And this is the driving force behind our new vision for the Canadian Forces.
We're committed to having a more significant and influential presence in the world, one in which our voice will be heard, our values seen and our efforts felt. The government recognizes that a strong, capable, professional military is essential to the impact that we as a country can have in the world. In fact, we've seen over the past decade in countries around the world that the face of Canada is often that of the men and women of the Canadian Forces. It's been my privilege to see that face in Bosnia, in Afghanistan, in Haiti and with the DART in Sri Lanka. It's a face that is welcome wherever it goes.
I was at an extraordinary event the other day, I was in Ottawa and the Finance Minister of Afghanistan was there and he said to a group of development people, he said the single greatest contribution to the development in Afghanistan today, there was sort of a hushed expression and my colleague the Minister of International Cooperation was smiling happily if he was going to refer to CIDA, said are the Canadian Armed Forces in Afghanistan that are giving us stability and a sense of a new society. And that is true in so many countries and so with our new defence policy statement Canada remains as committed as ever to working with our allies and partners in multilateral institutions such as the United Nations and NATO. We also remain open to participating in less formal coalitions of like-minded states as we've done in East Timor and in the international campaign against terrorism. However, the ability to respond to the challenges of failed and failing states will serve as the benchmark for the Canadian Forces. Failed and failing states pose a dual challenge for Canada. They may seem a long way to us but in the first instance the suffering that those situations create is an affront to Canadian values. Beyond this, they also plant the seeds or threats of national, regional and global security.
They generate refugee flows that threaten the stability of their neighbours and create new political problems for their regions. We've seen this in Kosovo, we've seen it in the Balkans, we've seen in Afghanistan, we've seen it in our experience around the world. More ominously, the impotence of their government structures makes them potential breeding grounds or safe havens for terrorism and now organized crime. We've seen this all too clearly today in countries like Afghanistan. One thing however in dealing with these issues that I would like to insist on, because this is an issue that comes up regularly, robust, combat-capable military forces are indispensable for Canada to make a real difference in failed and failing states around the world. There are those who think we should become the world's policemen and leave the heavy lifting of actual combat duty to others but I have to tell you that in failed and failing states the mission is what is often described by the experts today as the Three Block War.
You have to have a military that's capable of meeting combat conditions, defeating an enemy that is determined to kill you and destroy the society that it's operating in on the one hand and you have to be able to at the same time have the diplomacy, the ability to reach out and work with the local population so that they in turn will come on and then you have to sometimes be delivering humanitarian aid. The result is an extremely complex mission for our Forces today. They're called upon in an environment where they have very highly technologically advanced weapons to actually act in three capacities and there are those who say well, they shouldn't have to do all of those things, that it would be simpler if you were just the warrior and somebody else was just the policeman but the fact of the matter is in these failed and failing states, and we've now had a tremendous operational experience there, people like Rick Hillier would tell you if he was here, in those failed and failing states the mission itself depends on being able to accomplish all of those.
And so, in many ways I personally believe that Canadians in these forces are particularly apt to do exactly that because they represent basically our collective values. When they deploy around the world they bring our understanding and compassion for others along with them. I believe that as Canadians we have a deeply held respect for human life and property. We've embraced our responses to protect those people who cannot protect themselves and we have strongly urged other countries to do the same and we expect our Armed Forces to act within the rule of law to ensure that no life is threatened beyond what is absolutely required in the situation and I've seen that happen.
I remember being in Kabul once and talking to a young sergeant who told me about having a youngster point a machine gun at him when he was out on patrol and I said “what did you do?”
He said I reached over and just took it away from the young man. I said well that was kind of risking your own life wasn't it? He said yes, but it was more important for me to risk taking a bullet than for me to shoot a child which in the circumstances was right, because the weapon was an imitation weapon but he couldn't have known that when he acted that way. But the fact of the matter is what that story told was that our soldiers know that when they're patrolling on the streets of Kabul or when they're on one of these missions that their job is to make sure that they engage the local population in a way that the mission is successful, to shoot first and ask questions later may be the safest thing to do but the mission depends on getting the population on your side and as you were saying Bart in your introduction, you have to be able to make sure that you create conditions that create the peace as well as winning the conflict and this is very, very complex stuff but I have to tell you that in my view our soldiers are uniquely qualified to do this and are some of the best in the world.
So in addition to the significant new equipment and the regular forces that I spoke of we're going to basically be able to double our capacity to intervene in these foreign situations thereby lifting up Canada's capacity and its role in the world. And our new defence policy also calls for the creation of a Standing Contingency Force to respond rapidly to emerging crises. This high-readiness task force will be made up of existing, designated maritime, land, air and special operations elements organized under a single integrated command structure. It will be ready to deploy within ten days' notice and provide an initial Canadian Forces presence to work with security partners to stabilize a crisis or facilitate the deployment of larger follow-on forces.
We will also create a Special Operations Group to respond to terrorism and threats to Canadians and Canadian interests around the world. This group will include JTF-2 our special operations aviation capability centred on helicopters and supporting land and maritime forces. Of course, in all of our international military activities we will continue to work very closely with other government departments and agencies such as Foreign Affairs Canada and the Canadian International Development Agency in order to maximize the impact and effectiveness of Canada's involvement in the world. This is an ambitious agenda, ladies and gentlemen, and what it means is it's not just about a statement, it's not just about changing what we do, we're going to change how we do it. We're going to fundamentally change the Canadian Forces to make them more effective, more relevant and more responsive.
We'll become more effective by better integrating maritime, land and air and special forces and changing our command structure. We'll become more relevant by adapting their capacities and force structure to deal with the threats of today and tomorrow particularly for those originating from failed and failing states and this of course means obtaining new capacities such as the mobile gun system and medium-to-heavy lift helicopters that we are now discussing in the military. And finally, the Canadian Forces will becomes more responsive by enhancing their ability to act quickly in the event of a crisis whether in Canada or around the world. Our military will be capable of arriving on the scene faster, making a rapid transition to operations once there, moving more effectively within a theatre of operations and sustaining deployments in some cases for extended periods. This new vision for the Canadian Forces will lead to a fundamental transformation of our military in the months and years to come and will ensure that the Canadian Forces will be capable of protecting Canadians here and abroad while playing a more significant leadership role in the world.
Ladies and gentlemen, as I said several times I think during this speech, it's a historic time for the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Forces and it's a great privilege to have the opportunity to be the Minister of National Defence at this particular time. Everything is now in place for real and lasting change for our military. With the recent federal budget, we've got the resources we need to strengthen our presence and our capacity to defend Canada and Canadians as well as to play a more significant role in the world. We also have the resources and the visionary leadership in the Canadian Forces. I mentioned Rick Hillier but there are others, young general officers, colonels that have seen unparalleled operational experience that are now at the helm. They intend to fundamentally transform our military into a relevant, responsive and effective team, a team that's made up of some of the world's most dedicated, professional and skilful men and women in uniform and with the new policy statement we've got the intellectual framework required to guide and shape the Canadian Forces to face the defence and security challenges of the 21 st century.
So it's with great pleasure that I introduce our defence policy statement to Canadians. I look forward to the discussions that it will engender both in Parliament and across the country. Through the combined efforts that I have outlined I believe that we are building a national institution that Canadians can continue to be proud of and one that will contribute significantly to Canada's security needs for years to come. And I want to thank you for inviting me here today and I'd like to conclude by a personal observation if I may because there are many of you here in this room who are constituents and who are friends and who will have watched the Prime Minister's statement last night and who are watching what is happening in our nation's capital today and I'd just like to leave you as a political representative of Canada, as a politician, somebody who has worked to become a politician and one who believes strongly in the calling of politicians and of the importance of it in a democratic society and who is somewhat sorrowed to sit in the House of Commons today and watch the chaos that goes around us and the accusations going back and forth that basically are threatening in some respect the very nature and notion of what we're doing in politics and I think as a citizen and that's all we all are, just a citizen like anybody else.
I happen to be the Minister of National Defence but I'm a citizen first and foremost. We want to look at what we can do in this situation. I personally was attracted to the Liberal Party, its history, great leaders like Mr. Trudeau, Mr. Pearson and others, its social policies that are my view forward looking, its fiscal policies which create the right economic framework that seems to me for our country. I was attracted to that. There are other colleagues of mine in the House of Commons in other parties, all of them, even the Bloc Québecois for whom I have personal respect. They are people many times of great integrity on all sides of the House but it concerns me at the moment that the way we're going is a tremendous loss of respect that we're having not only for one another but for the system which is the foundation of our democracy and I believe that's why the Prime Minister spoke last night and trying to put things into perspective. His personal dedication, his acceptance that things will happen on the Liberal watch that we have to take the responsibility to deal with, the fact that he personally stepped up, I have to tell you in a courageous way.
Not many people would have called that inquiry. He cancelled the program, the sponsorship program. He introduced new ethics and when the Auditor General reported, he called on Mr. Justice Gomery to do this report and I have to tell you my personal respect for him went up a great deal. I believe that he put the integrity of public life ahead of party concerns. I personally as I said chose to be a politician. I know that people will decide the appropriate consequences of all this conduct for the Liberal Party, for me personally and I'm ready for that eventuality, confident that I'll be able to meet my electors with pride in what I did, what my party has done and with humility for whatever faults we have committed. But my experience as a lawyer, as jurist and as a citizen suggest to me that justice, equity and common sense dictate that we get the whole story before making a determination, that ultimately will shape our future and perhaps challenge the very foundation of this country that we love so much. So I'd like to end with that and I'd like to say I'm proud of the Prime Minister. I'm proud and grateful that I chose to become a politician. I'm disturbed by the present conditions but I swear to you I believe that Canadians' basic sense of fair play and justice will guide us all as we go into the days ahead. Thank you very much. (Applause)
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