[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Thursday, November 30, 1995
.1537 
[English]
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Richardson): Order, please.
My apologies to the committee members and our guests today. I was ambushed by Mr. Manley and a group of people in my office. My birthday is tomorrow, and I never dreamed there would be a party there. I had to sing ``Happy Birthday'' and grab my kit and try to get out in time for this. That's my excuse, believe it or not.
It's my pleasure to invite you here, Rear Admiral Crickard. Your name precedes you, your deeds precede you, and your commitment precedes you. On behalf of the committee, I welcome you and invite you to make your presentation.
Rear Admiral (Ret.) Fred W. Crickard (Vice-President, Naval Officers' Association of Canada): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, it's a great honour and privilege to be here to speak on behalf of the Naval Officers' Association of Canada. We are a non-governmental organization of about 2,600 people, comprised mostly of former naval officers, reserve and regular force, but also with some serving officers from time to time. Our role, aside from the fellowship role, is to try to raise awareness amongst the Canadian public and their leaders, the leaders of Canada, as a maritime nation, about the role the navy and maritime air forces play in the preservation and protection of our national vital interests.
This presentation today represents the NOAC position on the naval reserve. I believe you have before you a blue-covered book called The NIOBE Papers, volume 7, which is the proceedings of a conference entitled The Reserves, Society, and Operational Roles: Comparative Perspectives. This conference was put on by our organization this year in Windsor, Ontario, on the occasion of our annual general meeting. We were very fortunate to have a rich variety of speakers.
We're very proud of that publication because I think it does present at this time a very good history of how the naval reserve has developed, starting ten years ago, and how it is developing. It will take another ten years, as I will try to explain in my brief, to realize its potential as part of the total force.
In this paper are speakers from the United States navy, the Australian navy, and the royal navy, to give a perspective on how those navies operate their reserves. We also had a number of speakers from the militia whom we purposefully asked because we felt that of the four primary reserve elements, the naval reserve and the militia, by their size and funding, should have a comparison.
I think you will see some comparisons there. You identify yourself as much by how you differ from others as by how you are yourself, so this comparison illuminates the differences between the two reserves, which I think we must all bear in mind as we try to proceed along a unified policy. There are fundamental differences in outlook between the primary reserves and the militia, and there are some clues to that in here.
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So I commend that to you as a reference, and I apologize that it's not in French. We couldn't afford the translation costs as an NGO, so my apologies for that.
Thank you, sir, for the opportunity to talk. I'll be using overheads and I think you may also have a copy of my briefing notes. I will be covering the reserve's operational roles, a brief history of the naval reserve, its current employment as planned, its availability for duty, and training and capability levels. I'll conclude with a few observations on the naval reserve and total force.
I think the most important thing to bear in mind is that the naval reserve has a clear operational role in the defence of Canada. As you may be able to see on that overhead, the Canadian maritime areas of responsibility are vast. In fact, they exceed the land mass of Canada. Those are patrol obligations that we have under Canada-U.S. defence agreements. Until the advent of the new maritime coastal defence vessels, for thirty years we have had no capability of inshore coastal patrol other than using our expensive destroyers for that purpose. But with the maritime coastal defence vessels, manned by the reserves as part of the total force, Canada will have regained for the first time a coastal defence as well as a deep blue water type of defence.
As a keynote I'd like to make the point that the naval reserve contributes to the fundamental maritime operational requirement of defence in-depth. This is defence against anything from poachers and smugglers to people laying mines in our waters - a full spectrum of possible threats, not just military but non-military as well. So by the time the reserve are up to speed and are manning completely the twelve maritime coastal defence vessels, we will have for the first time since the mid-1960s a two-tier maritime security capability, which is very important as these non-military threats loom larger in our consciousness.
That's the operational point upon which everything else flows, in my view and in the view of the NOAC.
It has not always been this way. From the end of the Second World War up to about 1981-82, when the naval reserve restructuring in the context of total force began.... It has been under way for a decade. During the first part of the Cold War, from 1945 to the 1960s, there was no problem. The naval reserves were largely World War II-experienced people. The types of ships we had from 1945 to the 1960s were World War II types of ships. It was an easy matter for reservists who had been regular force to be slotted back in and go to ships as individual augmentees because the equipment was the same as they knew in the Second World War.
However, from the late 1960s, 1970s and 1980s the fleet wore out and a new fleet came in, with highly computerized missile technologies and so on. Therefore, those skills were dropped. The naval reserve dropped behind and fell out of any meaningful operational role except in tasks like basic bosun's tasks, basic seamanship tasks. The technology just raced ahead of the ability to train the reservists to man it, because the reservist was twice the citizen - had his own job and just didn't have the time to get up to speed in all this high-tech sort of thing.
With the DDHs, with the tribal class destroyers and the modernization of the destroyers, the ability for reserves, except in the isolated cases of certain trades, to fill the seagoing billets to replace regular force sailors who were sick or something diminished. The reserve gradually descended into what we call the gate vessel navy, because gate vessels from World War II were all we had left. They had a pretty raw deal, but they were tremendously dedicated, those bright young men and women - just as they are today - who came to sea on weekends on their own time in leaky World War II gate vessels to learn basic seamanship and navigation and so on.
This started to change in the early 1980s. Even the gate vessels couldn't go on forever, so there was a need to replace those basic training ships for reservists. However, the strategic situation also changed, and it was felt that we should get back up to speed on a mine countermeasure capability. A number of other strategic as well as training factors called for the replacement of the small vessel fleet.
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A project called the naval reserve modernization project was cranked up, and the maritime coastal defence project was cranked up. The 1987 defence white paper actually declared for the first time the intention of the government to restore a coastal and inshore naval capability, which has evolved around the maritime coastal defence vessels.
We are now seeing for the first time in thirty years the return of a very important coastal defence capability, more important now than we would have dreamed thirty years ago because of turbot wars, illegal immigration, oil spills and all the other non-military challenges besetting our coasts and elsewhere in the world.
So there is not only a question of finding new ships for the reservists just so they can have ships, but a real role, a role that exists today regardless of whether one is at war or not. This was consecrated, if you like, in the 1987 white paper and certainly is reaffirmed in the 1994 defence white paper.
A further development occurred in the 1980s, which was the Osbaldeston study on amalgamation of government fleets. As you're aware, that study called for much greater rationalization of the coast guard fleet, the Fisheries and Oceans fleets, and the DND fleets. That was a very wise move. Today, our navy and our maritime air forces are in a position of working very closely with these civilian-manned fleets against challenges to our maritime sovereignty.
So all those things came together. We've seen the start and we're halfway through it, I would argue. Ten years ago marked the start of a revitalization of the reserves in the context of total force, and also fulfilling a real operational need in terms of maintaining our maritime sovereignty.
Now we come to today. I'd like to talk basically about the employment of the naval reserve and point out some of the similarities and differences. This is elaborated in the briefing notes that I think you have before you, but there are some points about the employment of the naval reserve in the context of total force that are important, and different perhaps from the way the militia is going.
I'm no expert on the militia, but in the naval concept of operations, we're talking unit augmentation, not individual personnel augmentation or a platoon or subsection. We are talking ship augmentation; that's the reserves role. It's a unit augmentation, not an individual augmentation. That's one point.
The second point is that the naval reserve is not contingent on the mobilization policy. The mobilization policy, as you're aware, was laid out in the 1994 defence white paper - force generation, force enhancement, force expansion, total mobilization.
Unlike the militia, unlike I would suggest the air force reserve, more like the communications reserve but almost unique on its own, the naval reserve has a day-to-day role even before we think of mobilization. So it is not dependent on mobilization, but it is responsive to it, as I'll show in a later slide. I think this is an important distinction to bear in mind when one thinks globally of the reserve. I think that some of the fundamental differences are the reserve elements I've roughly covered.
The naval reserve, as I've said, is different from other elements. It's unique. Unlike the other elements, it has its own unique operational roles, which are not filled by the regular navy. Those roles are coastal operations, including harbour defence and shipping control operations. If the reserves weren't doing it, it would not be done. It's not a question of instead of the regulars; those are roles unique to the reserve.
They have the unit deployment concept in peace and war, as I mentioned, and are not contingent upon mobilization policy but responsive to it.
The next slide shows the four stages of mobilization. As you know, the special commission report was tasked to re-examine the restructuring of the reserve in the context of mobilization. As I've already said, the naval reserve is unique. It's not dependent on mobilization. It works on its own without it but is responsive to it.
Down the left-hand side I mention force posture, normal day-to-day operations, and then we start the mobilization process going down the column, force generation, enhancement, expansion, and total.
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The reserve has a job to do before mobilization. In routine national operations it will operate, in the formation commanders on the east and west coast, on a day-to-day basis, two reserve-manned maritime coastal defence vessels. They will be operating around the clock like the bigger ships - day in, day out; week in, week out; year in, year out. They're part of the order of battle. Mobilization has nothing to do with this, and they are reserve-manned.
A further eight MCDVs will serve as back-up and will also be used in the summertime to handle the surge of reserves that appear then. The reserves are still drawn from university students essentially, although the navy is trying to broaden that recruiting base. There will still be cases of individual augmentation - that is, individual sailors in the reserve being posted to higher major warships like patrol frigates and tribal class destroyers where trades permit - bosuns, signalmen and things of that nature. So they have a job to do right here and now. We haven't even mobilized.
Now, in the force generation stage - which is sort of like peacekeeping operations and peace and stability operations - reserve-manned units, still working as units, will and can be deployed as units in contingency operations in the column in the middle, either in home waters or overseas in a mine countermeasure capacity by patrol vessels. I think you're aware that the patrol vessels have modules and you can have a mine countermeasure module or a route survey module. A container is buttoned on - that's the mine countermeasure module. In a week's time, if it's doing route survey, you can button on the MCDV and either take that container off and put it up - that whole modular concept.
So in contingency operations the reservists will be used in future - and have been already, as I'll point out - in coastal patrol operations, harbour defence, naval control of shipping and convoy commodore units in a force generation mode.
At this point I should point out that the navy has had, since 1989, two mine-sweeping auxiliary vessels, former offshore supply vessels bought off the shelf, which have been manned and operated by reservists for the last three to four years and are being manned and operated now as training vehicles for the maritime coastal defence vessels. These reserve-manned ships do yeoman duty. For example, in the turbot conflict with Spain and the EU, one of those maritime support auxiliaries was off the Grand Banks, fitted with a stern refuelling rig. It was refuelling naval ships, and I think coast guard ships, but it was adapted to refuel our ships on-station to keep an eye on the Spaniards. So they're doing an operational job now. That's technically force generation mode, but it was normal day-to-day.
Another example is the harbour defence units, which are teams of divers and sailors who control movements in and out of the harbour. The navy activated a harbour defence unit in Halifax with trained divers and so on, working alongside the RCMP on the occasion of the G-7 summit in June last year, working against sabotage and terrorist threats. These are force generation capabilities that are being put into play day to day - real live examples of what the reserve is doing.
The table goes on to suggest how the reserve units would be used as we crank up into more serious modes of mobilization - force enhancement, force expansion and national mobilization. I think the table is self-explanatory.
The most important point of that table, however, is to re-emphasize the point that the naval reserves have an operational role here today before mobilization even starts, but they are still responsive to mobilization and will be trained for it. These are not just artificial exercises, but real live training. That's the nature of their employment.
I'd like to make a couple of my own observations having to do with the availability of reservists, which we will cover next. I believe that with the 4,000 reservists the navy will end up having assigned to it, it will indeed be possible to conduct normal day-to-day and any force-generation-type of ops that may occur, blips like another turbot war or blips like a special harbour defence requirement for a big event.
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I'm not sure if we got into another Gulf War lasting a long time whether, given the current volunteer part-time nature of the reservists, we would have the staying power to stay on-station using reservists without some training obligation. If we got into another Korean War in the expansion stage, I don't think the mobilization would do us much good. This is my own opinion, but I personally think we're looking at a Korean-type special force being raised, which may or may not be from the reserve. So this is my personal view. I haven't checked this out with my colleagues in the NOAC.
I think the system that is working will be fine from day to day and for a fair number of instances that may crop up in a fourth generation. But if we get into a prolonged limited war anywhere in the world in the future, for example, I'm not sure whether the present part-time, all-volunteer system will provide the sailors when you need them. You have to bear in mind the need to rotate ships if they're based offshore, or possible casualties and so on. We may be into quite a different thing. I'm not even sure whether the mobilization concept laid down in the defence white paper would work either.
I don't know for sure, but I think we may want to take another look at our mobilization contacts. That's not a recommendation; it's just a concern I have. Is a new concept required? Would this concept really fill the bill if we got into a prolonged Korean War or a Gulf War that lasted any length of time, where someone was actually shot at and damages might occur?
Moving on to availability, we have in the navy, as in the rest of the reserves, an all-volunteer system with part-time service and, at the moment, no training obligation. As you're probably aware, there's quite a rich 9:1 manning ratio used by the navy to man the maritime coastal defence vessels. Over half of the 4,000 establishment will be allocated to this manning. But this is not a figure out there. It is naval historical experience over the years. With the all-volunteer system, you can only count on about a 10% to 15% turnout because it is volunteer. So given this historical reality, you need a 9:1 ratio to keep two MCDVs operating on each coast as well as during peak periods in the summer. This is expensive, but it's the price of doing business. The admirals have, within the quota of 4,000 reservists, worked it out so it will work that way.
I would wonder, though - and this doesn't apply to the naval reservists, but to all the reservists in the primary reserve - whether or not we shouldn't be looking at some sort of training obligation period. The Australian ready reserve system is described on page 59. I won't go into it, except in question period. They have such a system. In their case they have a reserve that has a year's training, and then the reservist moves into the ready reserve system. Also, regular force sailors can shift to the ready reserve. They have obligated service to provide 50 days or more of part-time service for two years after they've left the regular force.
This is not new to the Canadian forces. We've had this sort of training obligation in our officer-cadet schemes for some years. Cadets going through the services college have had to serve an obligated time of three to four years. This is nothing new to us, but it's something we should think about.
At the moment, however, I think the special commission hasn't suggested major changes to the all-volunteer or part-time system. This being the case, the 9:1 man ratio is what's required to make it work. That's all I have to say on this right now.
Finally, on training and capability levels, I think most of the observations in the Auditor General's report of 1992, which was a very valid one, are being addressed as far as the navy is concerned. The navy's training plan should eliminate most of the inefficiencies noted in this report. I'm told that in the naval reserve divisions, of which there are 24 across the training, they've already started to install computer-based training methods on a continuous learning basis. So the sailors who are going to an MCDV on either coast will be able, through computer-based training systems that will be set up - they're not all complete yet, but they will be by 1999 I'm told - to get in-unit training using simulation and all the rest of it for the types of jobs they will be doing when they get to their ship, be they bosun, communicator, diesel mechanic or whatever.
.1600
Having maintained a core proficiency after basic training using computer-based training systems in the divisions, in the summer - still assuming that most of those in the reserve come from the student population - ships' teams in each division will have to man so many ships. The plan is that ships' teams will go to the fleet school in Quebec where they will undergo, as a team, fleet and refresher team training in the trainers there. Then they'll go to sea.
The navy estimates that this will reduce the gap between acquiring knowledge and applying it at sea, in the case of the young sailor in the reserves, from three years, which is what it takes now, to about one year. Right now it takes about three years for young sailors to get their basic bosun training. They can't really finish their sea requirements until three years later because it's part-time and they only work a few weeks here and few weeks there. It is estimated that this new system will contract that, so young sailors will get their training and get to sea as quickly as possible. That's very important for motivation. It will be expensive, but I believe that was one of the major observations in the Auditor General's report.
I'm told this new system will take four to five years to set up, from 1995 to about 1999. By that time we should see quantum improvements.
I would like to come back to the point made earlier that what we are seeing today is a restructuring of the naval reserve into the total force context that started in the 1980s. It's on track today. There's a role, a strategy, and thanks largely to the maritime coast defence vessels, a matching force posture that will be in place by 1999.
We will be looking at an almost twenty-year evolution of the naval reserve. It takes that long to get the ships and the roles and alter course. It's like a VLCC tanker in many ways; it takes a long time. That's something we should all bear in mind when we have those very necessary snapshot audits or snapshot reports. You may conclude from our report that this is bad. I would conclude, tongue in cheek, that if you think we're bad now, you should have seen us ten years ago before we got our act together.
I'm just trying to say that these changes take a long time to implement - institutional change does. Curiously enough, by the year 2005 the navy will in many ways resemble the navy of 1945 again. At the end of the Second World War we had the second- or third-largest navy in the world, or something of that nature. It was the reservists who were manning the corvettes and it was the regulars who were manning the bigger ships. Curiously enough, I think we're going to see the same thing again. We'll see the reservists manning the inshore coastal defence vessels and primarily the regulars manning the blue water fleet.
Thank you very much, sir.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Richardson): Thank you very much, Admiral.
We will now move to the question portion of the afternoon. I would like to call on Jim Hart to lead the questioning. Oh, sorry, Jim. We'll have to get back to you.
Mr. Leroux.
[Translation]
M. Leroux (Shefford): Thank you very much, Admiral Crickard. On behalf of my party, I am glad to welcome you to our committe. I have a question for you, but first, I would like to make some comments to which I would like you to respond.
.1605
Some people argue that it would cost almost as much to maintain reserve forces as to have regular forces. What would you answer to that, Admiral?
[English]
RAdm Crickard: I don't know the answer to that, quite frankly, in terms of how you measure expense. I guess I would have to ask whether it is more expensive for regular force sailors to man all 12 coastal defence vessels than reserves.
Leaving aside the cost of the vessels themselves, we're now into the question of training costs, I suppose. With the 9:1 ratio you would have to train more reservists to man an MCDV than you would a regular force. On the other hand, the regular force has remuneration packages that at the moment are different from the reserves, although that's narrowing.
I don't know the answer to that, quite frankly. I'd just be waffling if I tried to carry on. It's a good question and I'm sure the accountants could work out something, given parameters and assumptions. I apologize, but I don't know the answer to that and I don't want to speculate on it.
[Translation]
Mr. Leroux: That's alright. In your opinion, what advantages - and I am sure there are some - can be derived from maintaining a naval reserve in Canada? I think that the naval forces should concentrate their operations mainly on the Pacific and the Atlantic coasts.
I would like you to explain to our committee what are, in your opinion, the advantages of maintaining a naval force like the one we have now in Canada.
[English]
RAdm Crickard: The history of the naval reserve has been based on World War I and World War II major mobilization contingencies. The navy expanded in World War II, for example, from about 1,400 people to over 100,000 officers - men and women. That could not have been done without a core element of reservists from across the country.
If we do find ourselves in that final stage of a mobilization, gearing up for a major conflict over the next two years, then the reservists would be rather like the militia in this particular case. The advantage of the reserve is that it is broad-based for mobilization.
The second advantage is more of a sociological one that applies to the militia as well. It is the roots of the reservists with the community, which is an important aspect. Those community roots served us well in the Second World War and are serving us well today too, in the ability of reservists to man the maritime coastal defence vessels against challenges to Canadian maritime sovereignty on both coasts, be they illegal fishing, immigration or other challenges of that nature.
There are two advantages to having a reserve. One is insurance in case you are - and you can never be sure - caught with a major crisis on your hands for which you require fairly quick mobilization of a lot of manpower. The second is that very important link with the community, which works both ways.
[Translation]
Mr. Leroux: In your opinion, Admiral, can a well-trained naval reserve officer assume any function an officer from the regular forces is expected to assume? Can he do everything that officer of the regular forces does in his day-to-day duties?
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[English]
RAdm Crickard: With regard to the seaman officers, yes. The reserve officer is trained at the same level of bridge watchkeeping competency as the regular force officer. He is as qualified as a regular force officer to be the officer of the watch of a ship at sea and to command a ship at sea.
[Translation]
Mr. Leroux: At the present time, when we take part in peacekeeping missions, there are a certain percentage of the forces assigned to those missions which come from the reserves.
How are those reservists treated by the regular forces when they take part in a peacekeeping mission? Do you have any comment to make about that?
[English]
RAdm Crickard: No, I cannot comment. I'm not qualified to comment on that as far as the army and land forces are concerned.
As far as the navy is concerned, be it on naval peacekeeping missions or not, to the best of my knowledge, at the moment no minor war vessels manned by the naval reserve have been deployed on any of the peacekeeping operations in Haiti, the Adriatic and so on, although they could be in the future. However, individual reservists of the trades that fit, such as bosun and signalman and so on, do indeed join ships from time to time on these types of operations. By and large they fit in very well, as I'm told reserve soldiers appear to do.
Mr. Leroux: Merci, monsieur le président.
Adm Crickard: I'm sorry I couldn't answer your question on the cost thing.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Richardson): Mr. Hart, please.
Mr. Hart (Okanagan - Similkameen - Merritt): Thank you very much.
Mr. Mifflin (Bonavista - Trinity - Conception): Do you want to come over to our side first?
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Richardson): Oh, I'm sorry. We missed Mr. Mifflin's side.
Mr. Hart: That's the second time you've given me a false start.
Mr. Mifflin (Bonavista - Trinity - Conception): It's just that he had so much time yesterday. I have great respect for my colleague across the way, but I mean, really.
Admiral Crickard, I want to welcome you to this committee. I've been looking forward to it personally, and I want to thank you very much for a very excellent presentation, which certainly put the naval reserve perspective against the other aspects of the report we've been studying. Of course, in the report there are only two pages on the naval reserve, so it's nice to have some augmentation.
I have a number of questions. First, I gather from your comment that the driving factor to have the naval reserve arrive in such a fairly advantageous position with respect to future restructuring and equipments, roles, tasks and organizations, was primarily the difference in technology, the complexity of technology, and the inability to get reservists long enough to be able to train them to cope with these technologies. Were there other factors involved besides the gap in technology that stemmed from World War II?
RAdm Crickard: Yes, you're right to observe that. The reserves became less relevant between the 1940s and the 1980s because they fell behind in the technology gap, not because they weren't competent but because they just didn't have the time to be a full-time technologist and a full-time civilian as well.
I think there was also a strategic impetus to the revitalization of the reserve. That was certainly driven by the change in NATO doctrine, which departed from a fleet-in-being concept and called for reinforcement and resupply of forces in Europe to hold the line. So there was a need for a surge capability there. The other point was that internally it was recognized, with the divergence of threats and with the growing possibility of mine threats, that we and our shipping were indeed vulnerable in not having an inshore or two-tiered defence capability. So there was a good national strategic reason and there was a NATO strategic reason that caused planners to look towards the reserves.
Finally, there was just the straight business of giving the reserves a reasonable chance. Their ships were wearing out under them. It was a question of either packing up the naval reserve totally or providing new ships for basic seamanship and navigation training. So there was very much a need to be fair to the reserves. If we're going to have these good people, we have to give them the tools to do their job. I think all those psychological and strategic factors came into play.
Of course, in many ways technology now is easier. For example, the reservists in these new ships will be operating with electronic charts, and they're quite user-friendly. The maritime coastal defence vessels will be the only ships with them, when they commission. In many ways technology is making it easier for competent, intelligent people to come up to speed quite quickly.
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Mr. Mifflin: Modular replacements and that sort of thing....
RAdm Crickard: Yes.
Mr. Mifflin: Still on the business of the new task and the relatively advantageous position the reserves would have with respect to manning the MCDVs, for the benefit of the committee I want to juxtapose a militiaman who trains for 100, 80, or 60 days - whatever the case may be - who goes to parade twice a week and who maybe goes off to join a NATO peacekeeping mission for one tour and then comes back and keeps a low profile except for training, against a naval reservist who serves in a ship that is on patrol or operational on a 24-hours-a-day, 365-days-a-year basis.
How do the naval reservists cope with the time they have to spend? How can we organize the naval reserves in such a way that they can actually spend enough time and have enough continuity to keep the ships operational on an around-the-clock basis?
RAdm Crickard: The whole thing depends on the availability of the naval reservists. That's number one. The attitude now is not that the naval reservist must fit the navy way of doing things. It's the other way around: the navy way of doing things must fit the reservist. He or she might have two years or two weeks.
I think the navy is adjusting to this. Certainly in the bad old days this was not the case. Reservists had to conform to the navy's way of doing it. That's not so now, to the best of my knowledge, because the mine-sweeping auxiliaries, the two that are available now that are manned by reserves, are manned by people on contracts of various periods. I think the plan is also for the maritime coastal defence vessels, starting with HMCS Kingston. You'll have people in there under contract for a period as short as maybe two weeks and others for under two years.
Also, the training system is now being modularized into smaller two-week bites to take into account the availability of reservists who have civilian jobs.
I'm glad to see that the navy is now moving in the direction of adapting its way of doing business to the availability of the reserves, rather than the other way around. It won't work otherwise, unless you get some obligated training service or something. If you do get obligated training service, then you could argue, why not just have a regular force?
These are very good issues and they should be discussed as we go along.
Mr. Mifflin: It's a good point and it's one that we can take note of with respect to other aspects of Canada's reserves.
The commission took poignant notice of the relationship between reserves and the regular force, as you will recall from reading the report. Could you explain to the committee just how, from your perspective, the relationship is between the naval reserve and the regular navy person?
RAdm Crickard: The commission calls it the two-cultures approach, I think, or something along that line.
Mr. Mifflin: The two-cultures approach, yes. And softening the membrane.
RAdm Crickard: Really?
Mr. Mifflin: Yes, really.
RAdm Crickard: In this publication, this is alluded to in one of the articles by Lieutenant-Commander Struthers. It's also alluded to, in the army's case, in another paper by Colonel Gibson. Both give vivid examples of rivalry, and sometimes competition and sometimes hostility, if you like, between the regular force and the reserves. Certainly a bit of good-natured competition is to be expected.
I wouldn't wish to comment on this division in the militia. From my own experience when I was serving in the navy, reserves would join and they would get a fair amount of bantering aboard ship. But after a while - and it didn't take very long - they proved their mettle very well and they fell in as part of the ship's company. There is no question about it. So there's that on the individual basis.
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Lieutenant-Commander Struthers' article points out.... This is all anecdotal. No survey has been done of that nature, but I think there is a concern amongst some naval reservists that these small vessels are nice little ships they can get command experience in. There might be a concern by some reservists that they will be taken over by the regular force and the reserves will be out in the cold again. There is a feeling there, no question about it.
But we are talking total force, after all. It's not a question of who gets the ships, the regulars or the reserves; it is total force. These ships have two positions that are regular, but whatever it takes to make them steam will have to be the case. Based on the MSA experience, the mine-sweeping auxiliary experience, reserves are doing it and doing it well.
I think you will always get this competition between the two, but I don't think it's deep or divided. I don't think it's going to -
Mr. Mifflin: It's not harmful.
RAdm Crickard: - affect operational efficiency, quite frankly. But there is sort of a custodial feeling with reservists: these are my vessels and you regulars keep out.
Mr. Mifflin: To complement that, in addition to the MCDVs do we not have naval reservists who complement ships' companies when they go off with the regular force ships, the CPFs and the tribal class destroyers?
RAdm Crickard: That is correct, where the officer classification or trade fits and where the training level fits - bosuns, communications, signalmen, watchkeeping officers and so on.
Mr. Mifflin: I have one final question and it's not meant to be loaded. From your experience, both your time in the navy and your time in the NOAC, could you give us the reason why the naval training centre and the headquarters of naval reserves is in the province of Quebec, in Quebec City?
RAdm Crickard: I retired ten years ago, in 1985. My last job was as deputy commander, maritime command, working for Vice-Admiral Wood at that point. There was no doubt in our minds that naval expansion in Quebec was a naval-motivated thing. We were losing out on good sailors, good material. Quebeckers have the sea in their veins. The army was there and the air force was there, but there was no naval presence. There is no question in my mind that we wanted to get into Quebec and entice Quebeckers to join the navy, because there's a good tradition of seafaring in Quebeckers.
It was often said that it was a political decision jammed down our throats, and I would constantly refute that. It wasn't jammed down our throats; we sought it and it made sense. This is my personal view on it.
Mr. Mifflin: Is it working?
RAdm Crickard: Yes, it is. The statistics do show that. A francophone, not just a Quebecker but a francophone, today is at home in the Canadian navy. He certainly wasn't...there was no she 25 years ago, but he or she today is at home. It is a Canadian navy. That was not the case 25 years ago. It has worked.
Mr. Mifflin: Thanks very much, Admiral Crickard. I appreciate your frank and forthcoming answers.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Richardson): Thank you very much, Mr. Mifflin.
Last, I am going to get to an ancien marin in Jim Hart. Jim, we're finally getting to you.
Mr. Hart: Are you sure, Mr. Chairman?
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Richardson): This time it's a go.
Mr. Hart: Welcome aboard, Admiral. It's nice to have you here today.
The other admiral across the way has asked most of my questions, but that's okay.
Mr. Mifflin: You can ask me a question if you want.
Mr. Hart: I did want to ask you a few things. What is your feeling about the job protection legislation that the commission discussed?
RAdm Crickard: I support the points that have been made. They've been made before, and it's one more important body making the point again. I get a feeling that the present system is a success on the older National Employers' Support Committee approach. I think it's something we must pursue, so I support what the commission has said on that.
Mr. Hart: Does the naval reserve in particular require such legislation in order to fulfil the new mandate we see in front of the naval reserve?
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RAdm Crickard: In normal, day-to-day operating, around the clock, all year long, with two maritime coastal defence vessels on each coast - four altogether - and juggling reserve availability from two-week contracts to two-year contracts, we can probably get by without that job protection. We could probably get by if, on top of routine operations, there were incidents such as more turbot wars or more harbour defence types of things. We could cope with incidents and crises up to a certain extent at the force generation level.
But if we got to a force enhancement level in a Gulf War situation again and it lasted any length of time, if it required rotating crews and was not at the availability of the reservist, this is where not only do we need employer support - I'm speaking for the navy - but we might have to consider some training obligation. If we got into a Korean War situation, we'd be talking about raising a special force all over again, and it could be right from the street as well as from the reserves.
I would imagine the army has a much more difficult problem in this one than the navy.
To sum up, without job protection the naval reserves, as part of a total force, will be able to do the job of manning four MCDVs year-round, plus another six or eight - probably four to six in the summer. That's possible. If we had to deal with more than one crisis at once for a length of time, then we'd start feeling the pinch.
I would suspect the army is quite different. It probably needs it more than the navy if we continue to peacekeep at the current rate. I would think so. I don't know.
Mr. Hart: I'm just asking in the context of the navy at this point.
In today's naval reserve, who are these people? What do they look like? What are their ages? Are there people who are employed, let's say, from the interior of British Columbia who are members of the naval reserve and who travel to Esquimalt?
RAdm Crickard: Yes, and they are men and women of practically all ages. They join one of the 24 reserve divisions, as you know, all the way from St. John's to HMCS Malahat in Victoria.
As far as the non-commissioned members are concerned, the younger ones are basically still students. Their average service tenure is two or three years. Not all that many stay to go up through the ranks. On the officer side it's much the same. The officers who stayed in the reserve in the past have moved into the naval-control-of-shipping side of the house and eventually have risen to senior rank. The commodore of the naval reserve now, Commodore Beaugniet, is a reservist, for example.
In the future, however, the officer classification will be changing away from heavy reliance on naval-control-of-shipping classifications back to what they call MARS, maritime surface qualifications. The shifting establishment shows a significant increase in bridge watchkeeping and command-qualified officers at the expense of naval control of shipping, which makes sense because they have a fleet to man.
But to answer your question, reservists come from all sectors of society, male and female, and are a broad cross-section of Canadian society.
Mr. Hart: Has the force reduction plan in the navy increased the numbers in the reserve? In other words, have the people who have taken advantage of the force reduction plan transferred over to the naval reserve?
RAdm Crickard: I don't know. I can't answer that question because I just don't know to what extent.
The Australian ready reserve relies a lot on that. Mind you, in the Australian ready reserve, if you have a chance to look at it, there are some considerable incentives. In the Australian ready reserve, ex-permanent naval force go into the ready reserve and are required to serve 50 days or more. But they get, for example, a bonus of $1,500 tax-free on completion of each year, and tax-free pay at about 80% of the PNF equivalent rank. So there are a lot of good inducements for an ex-regular-force sailor to join the Australian ready reserve.
Mr. Hart: So the recommendation in the report that a regular force person signing on would also commit to a period in the supplementary reserve would also pretty much be in agreement with you.
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RAdm Crickard: It would be. It would be nice if they had a few sweeteners like the Australians have. I think we'd get a lot more people. That might be a cheaper way of finding reservists than continuous training and having them serve for three years and then leave because of the pressures of other work. That goes back to the cost question that I couldn't answer. These are the studies I think we should be looking at.
I did suggest to the special commission when I appeared that we should be looking at some sort of training obligation. Even though it doesn't come cheap, it may be cheaper in the long run than the volunteer system and the quick turnovers. This is a continuing thing we should examine.
Mr. Hart: You mentioned in your presentation that the naval side doesn't really depend on the mobilization plan, the supplementary reserve list. Is that correct?
The reason I'm bringing this up is in regard to technology. We have a new frigate program and the TRUMP class destroyers, and technology is very modern and up to date, but our supplementary reservist on the naval side of things right now is based on age. You're in the supplementary reserve until you're 65. What I'm getting at is whether it should be based on age when really what we're talking about is whether these people are able technically to be mobilized to bring on board a TRUMP class destroyer or a frigate.
RAdm Crickard: The point I was making is that with the coastal fleet, which will be manned by the reserves - and these will be jobs done by primary reservists, not supplementary reservists, who are younger than supplementary reservists would be as a rule - they are doing work here and now in normal routine operations even before the first stage of mobilization starts. So they don't need mobilization as an excuse to do a job of work.
Mr. Hart: Do you think the MCDVs are going to meet the requirement to keep the naval reservists interested in staying in the navy reserve?
RAdm Crickard: Absolutely. They are fine ships, and I hope you'll have a chance, Mr. Hart, to tour one. I toured HMCS Kingston the other day, and they are really exciting ships. One disadvantage is that they roll on wet grass.
Mr. Hart: Speaking of the MCDVs now, I'm concerned that if there isn't an opportunity for the naval reservists to participate in a NATO patrol or a mission on the Adriatic, after a while the MCDVs won't keep the naval reservists interested enough. Is that a concern?
RAdm Crickard: One of the missions of the naval reserve continues to be individual fleet augmentation in the major ships. So they will not be cut off from an opportunity to serve in the patrol frigates or the tribal class destroyers or the support ships on exciting offshore duties. Their trade and skill qualifications have to fit, for example.
Mr. Hart: What trades do the naval reserves train in right now? That might be a difficult question.
RAdm Crickard: It's in this little book. I can dig it out, but it is in there. Roughly, on the officer side there's mostly the naval control of shipping cadre. There's the maritime surface cadre, chaplain supply and so on. On the non-commissioned members side there's a diesel mechanic trade that is unique to the reserve, and a shipping control operator trade that is unique to the reserve. Many of the other trades are very similar - bosun, for example, or signalman.
There are enough similar trades for the other ranks to make it possible, should the reservist have the time and wish to apply for a posting to a major warship. They are not cut off in that way. In the meantime they will have their own ships, modern, effective and doing effective work, the important work in terms of protecting our maritime sovereignty and our offshore interests.
Mr. Hart: How long will they be posted to an MCDV?
RAdm Crickard: It depends on the length of their availability, two weeks to two years under various contracts.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Richardson): We will switch now to Mr. Bertrand.
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Mr. Bertrand (Pontiac - Gatineau - Labelle): Admiral Crickard, you talked about incentives to the regular personnel to go into the reserves in Australia. I noticed here that there are also incentives for employers. Could you elaborate a little on what's written in your book here?
RAdm Crickard: On the Australian case?
Mr. Bertrand: Yes, the incentives for the employers.
RAdm Crickard: Unfortunately, I can't. That presentation was given by an Australian naval commander. Other than what you read in front of you, I can't elaborate further than what the written words say. I'm not familiar with the system other than what we've received there.
Mr. Bertrand: I'm just going to read it out to you, and I want you to tell me if you agree with it or not.
RAdm Crickard: All right.
Mr. Bertrand: It says:
- Broadly this allowed for employers to be paid the Male Full Time Adult Average Weekly Total
Earnings for a maximum of four weeks if they granted their employees leave to meet their
defence commitment outside their annual leave. This would be paid irrespective of whether the
employer paid the employee during their absence.
Mr. Bertrand: I see that. I'd volunteer myself.
RAdm Crickard: Yes, exactly.
Mr. Bertrand: Do you have any information about whether this is working down there or not? Do they meet all their needs for reservists?
RAdm Crickard: So far, so good. This was only introduced in 1991, I think, as the article may say. I haven't read it for some time. I think it was introduced then as part of the Australian force structure review. They came out with their defence white paper in 1987, as we did. They came out with another one in 1994, as we did. In 1991, though, they had a major force structure review based on the Gulf War experience. It was out of this that the Australian ready reserve force proposal was given. So it's only been under way for three or four years.
As far as the navy is concerned down there, speaking to my Australian colleagues, they like it. Whether the government will continue to provide these incentives both to reservists and employers, I don't know. I don't know what the numbers are like.
But I'm very glad you asked the question. We should take a look at the Australians to see what they're doing. I think there are a lot of attractive ideas in there from the point of view of the reservists. It's something that I think is worthwhile examining.
Mr. Bertrand: We've had a lot of people here, as I'm sure you're aware, who are against job creation legislation. Frankly, I was surprised at the number of people who have come out against this thing.
I have a couple of other quick little questions. Do the naval reserves serve on submarines?
RAdm Crickard: Not as a rule. There may be individual reservists who are former regular force people. That's if they have retired from the regular force, they fit the trade specifications and they are submarine-qualified. There is no sort of, if I can use the word, ``pure'' reservist who becomes a submarine-qualified person. All submariners were regulars at one point to get the submarine qualifications. Then they may go into the reserve. I'm sure there are individual cases I'm not familiar with.
Mr. Mifflin: I've seen it.
RAdm Crickard: They go to sea under a class C category, yes. But the answer is no. A submarine qualification is not a reserve qualification as such for someone who joins as a reservist from civilian street.
Mr. Bertrand: Here's my last question, Mr. Chairman. How many reservists does it take to man the new MCDVs?
RAdm Crickard: I believe it's 33 to 36, depending on the payload. As I say, they have various payloads. They have a route-survey payload for determining if there are any mines on the bottom of shipping routes. They have a mine-sweeping payload. They may well have a mine-hunting payload in the future. Then there's the straightforward coastal patrol and surveillance. As the payloads and these modules come on and come off, it varies. I'm told it's 33 to 36, of which two are - I've forgotten which trades they are - regular force, because those are not found in the reserves.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Richardson): Are there any other questions?
Mr. Cannis (Scarborough Centre): I have one quick question. I came a little bit late, Admiral. Welcome.
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There was a comment made that by the year 2005 we'll have a navy resembling the one we had in 1945. Can you elaborate? Is that what we're looking for - to build and build, or in essence to maintain a type of force that is going to protect our waters from the various intruders, be they in illegal fishing or drugs, etc.?
RAdm Crickard: That was just my own observation as a history buff more than anything else. The Canadian navy ended the Second World War as the second- or third-largest navy in the world. It was a navy that ranged all the way from cruisers to aircraft carriers to destroyers to the small, famous corvettes that protected the convoys in the Second World War. But by and large, the way it turned out was that the regular force people were in the big ships, and the reservists who joined up for the war manned the small ships.
I was just making the observation that we're going to have a big-ship/small-ship navy for offshore blue water operations in support of the UN, and a coastal navy. In many ways, the way it will have turned is quite ironic. It was my attempt, sir, at some sort of visionary forecasting based on historical experience. It's interesting how things come around, but I don't think there was any deep, strategic significance to what I was saying.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Richardson): Mr. O'Reilly.
Mr. O'Reilly (Victoria - Haliburton): Admiral Crickard, thank you very much for attending. I must compliment you on your book. I'm very impressed, and I'm sorry I wasn't listening to everything you were saying because I was reading through it. Maybe I'll leave that for tonight.
In analysing the recommendations, I realize there's very little in the paper we're studying that concerns the naval reserve. Do you see any of the 41 recommendations in the report we're studying as very seriously flawed, or are they all?
RAdm Crickard: No, I don't. I think the lot of them are points that have been made before and are being made again. From the naval reserve point of view, I'm not upset by any of them. They're generally statements calling for action. They're things that the Auditor General has said there again. So from the naval reserve point of view, no, I don't consider them seriously flawed.
Mr. O'Reilly: Can you name the non-military functions that the naval reserves take part in? You talked about non-military functions. Are you talking about chasing drug runners or...?
RAdm Crickard: Yes, I'm referring to that whole range of maritime enforcement missions and tasks that have evolved in the last 25 years: oil spills, illegal immigration, drug running, gun running in some cases, fisheries violations, ocean dumping, things of that nature. As we're well aware, with the evolution of the Law of the Sea and with greater oceans use and conflicting oceans use, more and more policing and enforcement requirements are called into play. They are not strictly military in that sense, in that there's no enemy as such trying to attack you. They are nevertheless very real threats to our security and to our prosperity.
So when I said non-military, I was referring to that broad range. The navy plays a very important role as do maritime air forces and coast guards, and fisheries in our case.
Mr. O'Reilly: How much time do you think will pass before you need a complete renewal or update on the vessels you're currently using?
RAdm Crickard: Are you referring to the -
Mr. O'Reilly: The reserve.
RAdm Crickard: They're just coming into service now. The HMCS Kingston is the first maritime coastal defence vessel and she's doing her trials now. The Glace Bay is next, and they're still coming off the yards. But I think they should all have reached operational status by 1997-98 or somewhere thereabouts.
One doesn't see them being updated again for a while. Their hulls and their machinery will be good for a very long time. Shipwise -
Mr. O'Reilly: I'm just talking about the technology.
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RAdm Crickard: I guess that depends on what mission payload you're looking at. This is the important and interesting thing about these ships. You have a basic haul and basic machinery, and by containerization they can go out for different tasks each time. Those containers can be updated. The container that has the side-scanning sonars and the global positioning system information and the navigational fixing information required for detailed route survey or mine countermeasures operations is of a more precise nature than what is required for just fisheries patrol and response. Those technologies will certainly change, but they will come in the box. The black box will come aboard and will be plugged in.
Mr. O'Reilly: It's like upgrading your home computer.
RAdm Crickard: It precisely is.
And there is a wholly different notion of manning. Instead of a whole ship's company who are together for twelve months or fifteen months, you'll get some for two weeks and some for four weeks. Even the maintenance - those ships will be handed over to civilian maintenance for third line, an overhaul, as aircraft are today.
So there's a whole revolution in the way the navy is doing business, partially because the navy must fit the reservist rather than the reservist fitting the navy.
Mr. O'Reilly: With your estimation of 4,000 personnel?
RAdm Crickard: I believe that's the ceiling that the -
Mr. Mifflin: It's 4,300.
Mr. O'Reilly: Of course you're not talking strictly about vessels, but how many vessels on rotation could you keep active with that ceiling?
RAdm Crickard: If the person-power meets the ceiling, then I'm told that the naval staffs will be able to operate continuously two maritime coastal vessels on each coast, and in peak periods in the summer probably four or six more. There will always be one or two in refit, of course - plus naval control of shipping, convoy commander units when required for exercises, plus maintaining the support at the home reserve divisions and also deploying harbour defence units. The navy figures that if they can get those numbers, then they can do the job.
I don't know if that would apply if we got into a Korean War situation or a Gulf War that lasted for any length of time.
Mr. O'Reilly: I'm thinking mainly of the peacekeeping situations we're in now.
Admiral Crickard, thank you very much. I appreciate your comments. I shall close once again, Mr. Chairman, by complimenting the witness on the presentation.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Richardson): Thank you very much, Mr. O'Reilly.
I too, as we draw to a close and everyone has had some time -
Mr. Mifflin: There were no footprints mentioned.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Richardson): No, the sea just washed them all away.
Admiral Crickard, I want to say this sincerely, and you can take it back to the general Naval Officers' Association: this certainly was a literate brief with a comprehensive overview of the role of the navy. You covered the doctrine approach, how the navy is handling itself and working the problem out in its employment. You covered the personnel situation. You covered the training. You covered the equipment. Also, you had the force mix.
I congratulate you. This is the first time we've had such a balanced program put together for us in such a literate fashion. Thank you very much.
I close the meeting.