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37th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION

Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs

COMMITTEE EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Tuesday, February 19, 2002

1535

The Chair (Mr. David Pratt (Nepean--Carleton, Lib.))

Colonel Patrick M. Dowsett (Project Manager, Future Strategic Airlift and Strategic Air-to-Air Refuelling Project, Department of National Defence)

The Chair

Mr. Rob Anders (Calgary West, Canadian Alliance)

Col Pat Dowsett

1540

Mr. Rob Anders

Col Pat Dowsett

Mr. Rob Anders

Col Pat Dowsett

The Chair

Mr. Rob Anders

Col Pat Dowsett

1545

Mr. Rob Anders

Col Pat Dowsett

The Chair

M. Plamondon

The Chair

Mr. Louis Plamondon

1550

Col Pat Dowsett

Mr. Louis Plamondon

Col Pat Dowsett

Mr. Plamondon

The Chair

Mr. David Price (Compton--Stanstead, Lib.)

1555

Col Pat Dowsett

Mr. David Price

Col Pat Dowsett

Mr. David Price

Col Pat Dowsett

Mr. David Price

Col Pat Dowsett

Mr. David Price

Col Pat Dowsett

Mr. David Price

Col Pat Dowsett

Mr. David Price

Col Pat Dowsett

Mr. David Price

Col Pat Dowsett

1600

Mr. David Price

Col Pat Dowsett

The Chair

Mr. Peter Stoffer (Sackville--Musquodoboit Valley--Eastern Shore, NDP)

Some hon. members

Col Pat Dowsett

Mr. Peter Stoffer

Col Pat Dowsett

Mr. Peter Stoffer

Col Pat Dowsett

Mr. Stoffer

Col Pat Dowsett

Mr. Stoffer

Col Pat Dowsett

The Chair

Some hon. members

Mr. Peter Stoffer

Col Pat Dowsett

Mr. Peter Stoffer

Col Pat Dowsett

Mr. Peter Stoffer

1605

Col Pat Dowsett

Mr. Stoffer

Col Pat Dowsett

The Chair

Mr. Stoffer

Col Pat Dowsett

Mr. Peter Stoffer

Col Pat Dowsett

Mr. Stoffer

The Chair

Col Pat Dowsett

The Chair

Mr. Peter Stoffer

Some hon. members

The Chair

Mr. Peter Stoffer

Some hon. members

Mr. Stoffer

The Chair

Mrs. Elsie Wayne (Saint John, PC/DR)

Col Pat Dowsett

1610

Mrs. Elsie Wayne

Col Pat Dowsett

Mrs. Elsie Wayne

Mr. John O'Reilly (Haliburton--Victoria--Brock, Lib.)

Mrs. Wayne

The Chair

Mrs. Elsie Wayne

The Chair

Mrs. Wayne

Col Pat Dowsett

Mrs. Elsie Wayne

Col Pat Dowsett

Mrs. Elsie Wayne

Col Pat Dowsett

Mrs. Wayne

The Chair

1615

Mr. Rob Anders

Col Pat Dowsett

Mr. Rob Anders

Col Pat Dowsett

1620

The Chair

Mr. Bryon Wilfert (Oak Ridges, Lib.)

Col Pat Dowsett

Mr. Bryon Wilfert

Col Pat Dowsett

Mr. Bryon Wilfert

The Chair

Mr. Stan Dromisky (Thunder Bay--Atikokan, Lib.)

Col Pat Dowsett

1625

Mr. Stan Dromisky

Col Pat Dowsett

Mr. Stan Dromisky

Col Pat Dowsett

The Chair

Col Pat Dowsett

The Chair

Mr. Peter Stoffer

Col Pat Dowsett

Mr. Peter Stoffer

Col Pat Dowsett

Mr. Peter Stoffer

Some hon. members

Mr. Stoffer

The Chair

Col Pat Dowsett

1630

Mr. Peter Stoffer

Mr. Brison

Mr. Stoffer

The Chair

Mr. Peter Stoffer

The Chair

Mr. Peter Stoffer

The Chair

Mrs. Elsie Wayne

Col Pat Dowsett

Mrs. Elsie Wayne

An hon. member

Mrs. Wayne

Col Pat Dowsett

Mrs. Elsie Wayne

Col Pat Dowsett

Mrs. Wayne

The Chair

Mr. David Price

Col Pat Dowsett

1635

Mr. David Price

Col Pat Dowsett

Mr. David Price

Col Pat Dowsett

Mr. David Price

Col Pat Dowsett

Mr. David Price

Col Pat Dowsett

1640

The Chair

Mr. Rob Anders

Col Pat Dowsett

Mr. Rob Anders

Col Pat Dowsett

Mr. Rob Anders

Col Pat Dowsett

1645

The Chair

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant (Renfrew--Nipissing--Pembroke, Canadian Alliance)

Col Pat Dowsett

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant

Col Pat Dowsett

Mrs. Gallant

The Chair

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant

The Chair

Mr. John O'Reilly

The Chair

Mr. Peter Stoffer

Col Pat Dowsett

Mr. Peter Stoffer

Col Pat Dowsett

Mr. Peter Stoffer

Col Pat Dowsett

1650

Mr. Peter Stoffer

The Chair

Mr. Peter Stoffer

The Chair

Mr. John O'Reilly

An hon. member

Mr. John O'Reilly

Col Pat Dowsett

Mr. John O'Reilly

Col Pat Dowsett

Mr. John O'Reilly

Col Pat Dowsett

Mr. John O'Reilly

The Chair

1655

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant

Col Pat Dowsett

The Chair

Mr. David Price

Col Pat Dowsett

An hon. member

Some hon. members

Col Pat Dowsett

Mr. David Price

Col Pat Dowsett

Mr. David Price

Col Pat Dowsett

The Chair

Col Pat Dowsett

1700

The Chair

Col Pat Dowsett

The Chair

Col Pat Dowsett

The Chair

Mr. John O'Reilly

The Chair

Mr. John O'Reilly

The Chair

Mr. John O'Reilly

Mr. Anders

The Chair

Col Pat Dowsett

The Chair

Col Pat Dowsett

The Chair

1705

Col Pat Dowsett

The Chair

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant

The Chair

Mr. Stoffer

Col Pat Dowsett

Mrs. Gallant

The Chair

Mr. Rob Anders

1710

Col Pat Dowsett

Mr. Rob Anders

Col Pat Dowsett

Mr. Rob Anders

The Chair

Some hon. members

Col Pat Dowsett

The Chair

CANADA

Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs

NUMBER 043

1st SESSION

37th PARLIAMENT

COMMITTEE EVIDENCE

Tuesday, February 19, 2002

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

¹ (1535)

[English]

The Chair (Mr. David Pratt (Nepean--Carleton, Lib.)): I'd like to call to order this meeting of the Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs.

As our witness today, we have Colonel Pat Dowsett, who is program manager for DND's future strategic airlift and strategic air-to-air refuelling project.

Colonel, I would like to thank you for being here today. Given the fact that we had a cancellation from one of our other witnesses, we do appreciate it that you prepared a presentation for us and came here on very short notice. Without any further delay, I'm going to give you the floor.

Colonel Patrick M. Dowsett (Project Manager, Future Strategic Airlift and Strategic Air-to-Air Refuelling Project, Department of National Defence): Thank you very much, sir. It's a privilege to be here, and a real pleasure on my behalf.

Let me say that I joined the air force in 1970. I got my wings in 1975. With respect to military air transport, I've been a part of that since 1976. I've had the privilege and pleasure of flying many of Canada's transport aircraft, including the Hercules and the Airbus. I was the commanding officer of the Airbus squadron from 1995 to 1998, and I had the pleasure of transporting several parliamentary delegations throughout the world. In October 2000, I was appointed project manager of the strategic airlift project.

The project itself was started in July 2000, by and large on the recognition of a deficiency that has evolved over the last decade and a half, with the change of the situation in the East Bloc, and with the change that resulted from closing our bases in Germany. At those bases, we had an enormous amount of equipment prepositioned for what it was thought would be a major land battle in Europe. We had an airlift that was more modestly scaled for that purpose. However, with the Berlin Wall having come down, and with our bases having closed in Germany in 1993, we're now in a situation in which all of our equipment resides in Canada.

With a Canadian government desire to play on a global scale, we now have to approach issues from a Canadian perspective. In other words, we have to take our gear and equipment from here and be in East Timor, Rwanda, Kosovo, or Afghanistan in a reasonable amount of time. But given that things have unfortunately evolved and changed over the last ten or fifteen years, the equipment that we had and that was satisfactory at an earlier point, has now been judged to have a modest carrying capability when compared to what we require now in terms of what the army really needs carried to these locations—Rwanda, Kosovo, and Afghanistan.

We've been working hard to identify what we need to do. We're in the middle of the project. We're advancing very nicely, in my opinion. We're getting to a stage at which, if things come to pass as I think they may, we'll make some very real progress and get some light on this over the next year or so.

It's a pleasure for me to be here, and I'll be delighted to take your questions.

The Chair: Mr. Anders.

Mr. Rob Anders (Calgary West, Canadian Alliance): Sir, during the ice storm in 1998, U.S. heavy-lift transport aircraft were brought in to lift troops and supplies from western Canada to eastern Canada to deal with that crisis. Do you have any significant concerns that there may be an occasion in the future when U.S. aircraft or rented aircraft may not be available on a timely basis?

Col Pat Dowsett: This situation has occurred at least three times over the last five years. We did have the Americans coming through eastern Canada to support the movement of goods and equipment to Manitoba during the flood. These pieces of equipment won't fit on the aircraft we have now. By and large, the Airbus can't carry vehicles. The Hercules can carry vehicles and is very useful in that role as long as the vehicles are of a modest size and weight. So if we have a requirement such as you've mentioned, the first thing we do is have a look—there's an office at DND that does this—at how to get the equipment from A to B.

Will it happen in the future? Absolutely. We're going to have a requirement to either borrow airlift from the Americans, lease airlift from the former East Bloc—which is really the only supply of large transport aircraft and cargo aircraft—or, perhaps borrow it from the rest of our NATO allies when they have brought in their strategic airlift programs, if we have not in fact instituted our own capability.

The army and our disaster relief team have identified equipment that is over and above the carrying capability of the aircraft we have in our inventory right now, so this is part and parcel of the requirement that we have.

¹ (1540)

Mr. Rob Anders: Heavy-lift transport aircraft have been identified as a desirable Canadian military requirement since at least the 1964 defence white paper. I understand that the Pearson government looked at acquiring the C-141 transport aircraft, but we bought the 707s instead because we didn't have the money for the C-141s.

We have a small military that must deploy to meet emergencies over a vast territory. Why is it that the heavy-lift transport aircraft have never been acquired?

Col Pat Dowsett: As I mentioned, the situation has changed over the last ten years or so. I might add, though, that the acquisition you're addressing there, the C-141 Starlifter, was an acquisition that was in fact approved by DND and the Canadian government, but unfortunately just a little bit too late, because the production line closed down. Again, it was realized at the time that we did need heavy lift, but when we lost that opportunity when the line closed down, that was when we went for the 707s. So there was an opportunity there as well.

We were or have able to make do—I'll use that term—over the interim period, from 1970 to the present day, at least until the socio-political situation changed in Europe. With the refocusing of our defence policy and government policy, this has highlighted a need to be able to go quickly and to have airlift at our disposal so that we can get there and, just as importantly, get ourselves back out without having to rely on somebody else.

So it really is something that has evolved at quite a pace over the last decade.

Mr. Rob Anders: Thank you.

Can you address the issue of battlefield tactical heavy lift? We presently have no heavy-lift helicopters, because we sold our Chinook helicopters to the Netherlands. How would you assess the impact of that absence of tactical heavy lift as impeding the ability of the army to respond to emergencies in Canada or overseas?

Col Pat Dowsett: I must confess that you're well outside my area of expertise there. That's army doctrine. I haven't been schooled in that, so I'm afraid I don't have the background to answer that question.

The Chair: Rob, do you have any further questions?

Mr. Rob Anders: Sure.

Of our 32 C-130 aircraft, 19 are more than 35 years old. Do you have any information on what percentage of those aircraft are normally airworthy? We have information suggesting that at least 25% of our C-130s are normally in routine maintenance. Is that about correct? How many of our C-130s are flying right now?

Col Pat Dowsett: I think your figure is pretty accurate. We do have a fleet of 32. Of those, 19 aircraft were procured in approximately the 1965 timeframe, I think another 4 of them were procured in the early 1970s, and the rest of the fleet is newer and will last well into the 2020s, and perhaps even the 2030s.

In terms of their serviceability rate, we have 32 aircraft, and we're able to produce approximately 15 missions a day with those, including training at the operational training units. It used to be more than that, but we have several refurbishment programs going on at this point for that older fleet. Those programs in and of themselves are...

We have an excellent estimate of how much we're going to be expending over the next 10 or 15 years on that fleet. To say it's perhaps getting to be time to do something about that would not be inaccurate. Once aircraft get to 35 and 40 years of age, there's a very real concern about things that are not obviously wrong with them but are going to pop up from time to time. So it is a concern.

¹ (1545)

Mr. Rob Anders: This is my last question, because I'm running out of time.

The U.S. is lifting the bulk of our troops and equipment to Afghanistan. What percentage of our personnel and equipment would U.S. or rented aircraft be lifting?

Col Pat Dowsett: I can't discuss the people issue, because it's not the problem, quite frankly. Movement of personnel is relatively easy. It's the equipment that goes with the people that presents the real challenge. If we're talking about equipment, 100% has been moved by the Americans.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Anders.

Monsieur Plamondon.

[Translation]

Mr. Louis Plamondon (Bas-Richelieu--Nicolet--Bécancour, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome to the committee.

The auditor general was quite critical regarding certain repairs, parts replacement. For instance, with respect to the Hercules avionics upgrade program, he said that the Department had begun to upgrade a fleet of 32 aircraft and then realized that it had spare parts for 12 only. The Department undertook a study to determine why there were spare parts for 12 aircraft only. This study took 18 months. The aircraft were out of commission for 30 months.

With respect to spare parts for Iroquois destroyers, which they carried on board—

[English]

The Chair: Monsieur Plamondon, if I could interrupt, destroyer parts would clearly be beyond the scope of the expertise of our witness today, so if we could stick to the air issue, it would be helpful.

[Translation]

Mr. Louis Plamondon: Fine, let's go back to the Hercules. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

This proves that it was not just aircraft, but both. One ship carried parts for 57 months, while the others had none.

Has there been any improvement? Have you done anything about this, or is it part of the aviation culture to have this sort of supply or ordering problem in connection with the classification of spare parts?

¹ (1550)

[English]

Col Pat Dowsett: Let me just say that it's not part of our culture. During my time in the air force, we have certainly operated as safely as—if not more safely than—almost anybody else's air force in the world.

When issues of serviceability arise, such as what we have had with the Hercules fleet lately, they're of very great concern for us. The Hercules in and of itself is an extremely popular airplane in the world. There is, by and large, a good supply of parts.

I apologize, but I don't know the particular instance that you're referring to. This may be part of the avionics update program, and we did have some problems before we updated our aircraft in Edmonton. As I say, though, I apologize, but I'm not aware of the specific instance to which you're referring.

[Translation]

Mr. Louis Plamondon: It was an auditor general's report giving examples of major repairs involving serious problems with respect to the supply of parts and planning. I will give you the text in a minute.

What I wanted to know, because it seemed to be a serious problem, was whether steps had been taken to correct the situation in the future.

This brings me to another question. The American and British forces lease some transport equipment rather than buying it. Have you looked into whether it would be more advantageous to lease equipment, since service would be included, than to own and repair it yourselves?

[English]

Col Pat Dowsett: We've had three major studies now, all of them oriented toward the future of strategic airlift in the Canadian air force. An operating method of ours for the last ten years has been to lease aircraft or to rent aircraft, and we have been doing that. There has only been one source for that, and it is the Antonov-124 from the former Soviet Union. We've solved a lot of our airlift deficiency with that solution, and we're having a look at retaining that as one of our option in the future as well.

By and large, we have three principal options: the purchase of a new aircraft; the lease of a new aircraft or lease-to-own of a new aircraft; and some sort of improved charter solution. The improved charter solution would see us entering into an agreement with a commercial company that would guarantee us the airlift that we need. In other words, they will have aircraft in Trenton on 48 hours' notice, guaranteed, for example. It doesn't matter who else wants them, that would be the arrangement we would enter into. But companies don't really like that kind of an arrangement. They very much enjoy the arrangement of demand, as that allows them to increase their prices on the spot market for airlift. But it is one of the options we'll continue to have a look at, along with lease and along with the outright purchase of aircraft.

Basically, those are the three roadways that we might go down for a solution.

[Translation]

Mr. Louis Plamondon: Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Plamondon.

Mr. Price.

[English]

Mr. David Price (Compton--Stanstead, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Colonel, I have all kinds of questions, but I don't really know where to start. Maybe I'll start on the C-130.

Recently, I was at Spar, in Edmonton, looking at the upgrades they're doing, particularly the partially glass cockpits. I happened to see a real glass cockpit about two weeks ago. I got to ride in a brand-new C-130J. It was quite an experience. It took off in less than 600 feet.

But we are refurbishing. We're building up most of the older part of our fleet. I didn't really get a chance to ask a lot of questions, but I did see one plane that was really quite torn apart. I was wondering what was happening with that particular plane.

¹ (1555)

Col Pat Dowsett: Did you say you were referring to Spar in Edmonton, sir?

Mr. David Price: Yes.

Col Pat Dowsett: Spar and, in former times, Northwest Industries and some other organizations, have owned that facility at Edmonton. On a periodic basis of every three to five years, our aircraft go in for a major teardown. This is a normal function for this kind of aircraft. You would have seen one that was in a very torn apart state, I would imagine.

Mr. David Price: Very much so, yes.

Col Pat Dowsett: Yes, well, they're checking for corrosion, cracks, and anything that might affect the ability of the aircraft to operate safely. That's a very normal function for us.

Mr. David Price: So it was just a teardown, it wasn't an actual upgrade or a complete changing—

Col Pat Dowsett: I think not.

Mr. David Price: There's no question that the C-130s are really the backbone of our... they're our workhorse pieces of equipment. As you were saying before, if we look around the world, everybody's using them. They're a good piece of kit. They're really the best on the market, and our fleet is not that old. We're in pretty good condition—at least for part of it.

Col Pat Dowsett: The majority of our fleet is a leader in time. That is to say, the age of the aircraft is one thing, while the hours on the aircraft are a different thing. Our aircraft are therefore fleet leaders. Some people may take pride in that, but the fact of the matter is that we've gotten more life out of our Hercules than any other air force in the world, and we've done so safely.

Mr. David Price: Yes, and if you talk to the pilots and the people flying in them, they say they'll fly them anytime. I've talked to pilots who have come out of fighter aircraft and they say they'll fly a Hercules anytime. They don't even care if three engines aren't running. They'll still fly a Herc. But they won't—

Col Pat Dowsett: Not for very long.

Mr. David Price: You won't take off with it, but you could land with it.

Col Pat Dowsett: Well, I echo what you said—

Mr. David Price: Anyway, I'm getting away from things.

You talked about the Antonov. I know the Ukraine has been asking quite a bit about why other countries aren't even coming to them to look at it. They feel as if they've been pushed aside. They didn't mention Canada. They were talking more about the European NATO countries that are getting together and are looking at quite a few other aircraft. In fact, they're really down to one now. Has Canada looked at the Antonov?

Col Pat Dowsett: My team visited Kiev in April of last year, and we were very nicely hosted in Kiev. Oleh Bogdanov, who is the deputy designer general for the Antonov Design Bureau, gave us a very good factory tour. He gave us a tour of an airfield outside of Kiev that, until about ten years ago, I think, would have been a forbidden facility for a Canadian military officer to visit. We saw some things there that were amazing.

Antonov is very much a can-do organization. The have an extraordinarily impressive background of accomplishment in producing large transport aircraft. And all of that is on top of the fact that they have a very different way of approaching the manufacturing of an aircraft. As impressive as their aircraft are, they don't follow the same manufacturing techniques, the same techniques for recording how they build aircraft, the same certification techniques.

But the Antonovs could be modified and we could adapt. For example, an AN-70 is an aircraft currently under prototyping, and it could meet our needs if we could westernize it. The inside of the aircraft is replete with cyrillic writing. The instruments are in cyrillic. They have a different approach to how to show information in the cockpit. The AN-70 is very impressive in its own regard; however, for our use, we would have to change all the avionics, change major systems in the aircraft, and go through a very lengthy certification process. It was those things that... in fact, it was an active contender in the European project. The Germans were very high on it. However, these things became just too much of an obstacle.

Quite frankly, we may be interested in it, but we would be the lead customer. We would take all of the risk. We would take on all of the expense, which is considerable. It's very steep—to say nothing of the risk itself—and although I would never describe it as a black hole, there's so much in there that we don't know, so much risk associated with it, that we have perhaps unfortunately put that to one side.

º (1600)

Mr. David Price: Yet it is an option used on leasing. When we do need some heavy lift, that option is there, with them operating it.

Col Pat Dowsett: The AN-70 is a smaller aircraft, sir, than the one you're referring to, that being the AN-124, which is approximately the size of a 747. Yes, we do lease that aircraft. It has been successful for us in the past on a limited basis. But it's expensive. On average, it cost half a million dollars per lift, for what we refer to as a “chalk”, or taking a piece of equipment somewhere. And we're playing the spot market when we do that, of course.

They're not certified for operation in Canada. They receive waivers for that. They have received waivers in the United States as well, and in western Europe.

The longer-term health of that as a solution is really suspect. The companies operating this are small companies in the former Soviet Union. We don't know where the roots of those companies go—I'll leave this statement at that—so the fact of the matter is that the asset may or may not be there for us in the long term.

The Chair: Thank you, Colonel.

Mr. Stoffer.

Mr. Peter Stoffer (Sackville--Musquodoboit Valley--Eastern Shore, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Sir, did you spend any time at Shearwater?

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

Col Pat Dowsett: No, sir.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: It's not in his biography here, eh?

They knew that was coming.

Col Pat Dowsett: I have had the delight of flying in and out of Shearwater and staying overnight in Dartmouth and Halifax many times.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Just overnight? I was going to ask you a question on the future of Shearwater, but that's...

And I couldn't help but notice your daughter Kaleigh was born in Holland.

Col Pat Dowsett: Indeed she was.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Well, if she's not Dutch, she's not much, so there you go. Right on.

Col Pat Dowsett: She does have dual citizenship.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Excellent. Good stuff.

Col Pat Dowsett: Yes, sir.

The Chair: Mr. Stoffer, could we stick to strategic airlift questions?

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

Mr. Peter Stoffer: It's in his biography, eh?

I guess my first question is on the recent budget that came out from the government. How much of that budget will be allocated to what you want to do in terms of strategic airlift or air-to-air refuelling?

Col Pat Dowsett: The current stage of the project is development. We're in what we call the definition stage. The only moneys we have been allocated are moneys associated with developing the options and trying to see a clear way ahead for the project, so that we can offer these solutions to the department and to the government. To cut a long story very short, we don't have an allocated budget for capital procurement yet.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: As you know, the Sea King replacements are under what is called the split procurement process. Is there any chance that the purchase, lease, or acquisition of replacements for the Hercules, etc., would be under that same type of process?

Col Pat Dowsett: I would very much doubt it. What you have in an air transport aircraft is a unified system. The Maritime Helicopter Project is a little bit different. You have an air vehicle and then you have the systems inside it, such as the avionics and the radar. It's a very different setup from what we would have in a transport aircraft. So I guess what I'm saying is that the transport aircraft comes as a unit, and nobody I know has ever procured major pieces of the same aircraft in different locations. It just isn't practical.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Some people say that about the helicopters as well, but that's just my own little...

In that regard, you say you went to Russia to look at their... or to Ukraine, I should say—

º (1605)

Col Pat Dowsett: To Ukraine, yes, sir.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: —to look at their equipment.

I'm just thinking that if Canadian taxpayers' dollars are going to purchase new equipment, is there a strategic effort on your part or on the department's part to make it as much of a Canadian component as possible?

Col Pat Dowsett: The quick answer to that would always be yes. What we have—

The Chair: Colonel, if I could interrupt, perhaps you could describe the general industrial benefits approach with respect to it, rather than just the economic one.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: There you go. That's it.

Col Pat Dowsett: We have a situation with large, military transport aircraft—aircraft that have a ramp and door at the back, can take very heavy vehicles, and have a strengthened floor. We have a very limited number of choices. At this stage in the game, we may even have only one or two if we're going to procure the aircraft. None of them reside in Canada at this stage in the game. However, all of the companies that would be proposing to sell us aircraft are obligated for at least 100% industry-related benefits. Some have already offered more. We're a little bit in early days here in terms of describing exactly what those benefits would be, but the obligation is on the table for that.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Sir, you had also mentioned the various options in terms of leasing or going commercial, and you mentioned that the companies don't really like this 48-hour kind of commitment. Although it isn't part of your area, we had the incident of the GTS Katie. We went to a commercial carrier that had our equipment on board, and because of problems the commercial carrier had, they tied up our equipment. Is there not a possibility that we could end up in that same type of situation?

Col Pat Dowsett: By and large, the Antonov-124 is operated through three companies. In the past, these companies have been subject to having their aircraft seized and sold. That has happened. So I would agree with you, sir, that it is a possibility in the future, because we have no idea what their financial arrangements are. If our equipment is on board an aircraft when it stops for fuel in Mozambique or wherever, we could lose the capability of moving that equipment. Absolutely.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Do I have time for one more question?

The Chair: Colonel, would you happen to have the names of those companies?

Col Pat Dowsett: They are Volga-Dnepr, Antonov Airlines, and another company called Air Foyle, although Air Foyle is actually a broker for Antonov Airlines and is based in the United Kingdom.

The Chair: I'm familiar with that company.

Did you have another question, Mr. Stoffer?

Mr. Peter Stoffer: It's just a short one, since he's in an airman's uniform, which I'm always proud to see.

Is there any way you can put a plug in to the minister to save our Shearwater air base?

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

The Chair: Mr. Stoffer, you're again wandering a little astray here.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: He can nod.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

Mr. Peter Stoffer: I'm done, Mr. Chair.

The Chair: That's it for you? Okay.

Mrs. Wayne.

Mrs. Elsie Wayne (Saint John, PC/DR): I want to welcome you too, Colonel Dowsett, and I'll put a direct question to you.

If you had an open budget, if you had all kinds of money, with no limitations whatsoever, tell our committee exactly what you would want. What kind of fleet would you like to have, what numbers would you like to have, and which ones would you like to have?

Col Pat Dowsett: Ma'am, at this stage in the game, we've identified...well, let me back up a little.

We've analysed the policies and we've analysed the operations plans that we will be asked to execute. Some of them are based on moving our troops to various locations in NATO—or more accurately, their equipment—and we have been able to assess an adequate fleet size, based on current policy. I'm not sure what's going to happen over the next eight months, but it is based on current policy.

We have spent not an insignificant amount of money on having a commercial organization here in town studying that and validating the need. What we have is a requirement that's equivalent to six C-17 aircraft, twelve A400M Airbus aircraft, and a certain number of chalks that would come from the Antonov-124, but, again, that's problematic.

With that size of a fleet—the Airbus fleet and the Boeing fleet—we have assessed that we can meet our requirements.

º (1610)

Mrs. Elsie Wayne: And in dollars and cents, is there a figure there?

Col Pat Dowsett: Well, you've heard this afternoon that we have several options, several approaches, including leases. The cost could certainly approach the $2-billion point should we go to a solid procurement of, say, six C-17s and twelve A400Ms from Airbus.

Mrs. Elsie Wayne: In your opening comments, I was glad you mentioned something about the fact that we need to be able to airlift our own forces, our own men and women, that we need to be able to look after our military. You also mentioned the fact that when they have to come out, we have to be able to be there to pull our people back out again.

I mention the fact that we have to rely on the U.S.A. for this, and that when it comes time to move their forces and our forces, their forces will be moved first, and then they will come after our forces. Certainly, each and every one of us in this room today should be aware of that, because that's exactly the way the U.S. will operate. They will make sure their troops go first. Ours will go second.

We want to make sure we have and give to you the tools you need, the aircraft you need, to protect our men and women and make sure their lives are safe, because they're putting their lives on the line.

I'll tell you something, Mr. Chairman. I just had a call from a mother back home, the mother of one of the men who is in Afghanistan. He's one of our military men. Do you know what that man wrote? He asked if his mom and dad could send him a box of food, because he was hungry. He also told them he's sleeping in a tent just out of Kan—

Mr. John O'Reilly (Haliburton--Victoria--Brock, Lib.): [Inaudible—Editor]

Mrs. Elsie Wayne: No, it's the truth, and we can prove it. And the sad part, Mr. O'Reilly, is that you don't listen to what is happening to our men and women, so I'm telling you right now—

The Chair: Mrs. Wayne, I'm going to ask you to direct your questions through the chair here.

Mrs. Elsie Wayne: I'm sorry, but it is true, Mr. Chair.

The Chair: I want to remind you as well that we do have a witness before us who has expertise in the area of strategic lift.

Mrs. Elsie Wayne: But I have to say that they need to have the money and support from us in order for us to be able to airlift our men and women, give them the tools, and be able to make sure....

I'm reading an article that says:

The C-17 is a broad-shouldered brute with a maximum payload of about 76 tonnes.

The A400M, which looks something like a Herc on steroids, can lift 37 tonnes.

Which one do you prefer, the C-17 or the A400M?

Col Pat Dowsett: Actually, with the fleet sizing that I gave you, ma'am, with six of one and twelve of the other, both of them will meet our requirements.

Mrs. Elsie Wayne: Both will meet your requirements? Okay.

Over what period of time do you feel you will have those, sir?

Col Pat Dowsett: That is a very good question. Let me back up to about the 1998-99 timeframe.

In the department, we have been exploring in depth this question of our strategic airlift needs. We have now conducted three of what I would term to be very intensive studies in this regard. The report on plans and priorities has mentioned 2005, and Strategy 2020 has also mentioned 2005, although those are not departmentally approved policies that I'm mentioning. I would just say the 2001 report on plans and priorities did mention 2005. We have been working toward that, and it would be achievable if it was government policy to acquire the capability.

Mrs. Elsie Wayne: It would be achievable?

Col Pat Dowsett: Yes, it would.

Mrs. Elsie Wayne: Thank you very much.

The Chair: Thank you, Mrs. Wayne.

Mr. Anders.

º (1615)

Mr. Rob Anders: I have a question with regard to the idea of buying or leasing. We touched on it to some extent, but I want to get the words from the horse's mouth, as it were.

What are the advantages of buying or leasing new aircraft, rather than acquiring a few of the old U.S. heavy transport aircraft? Based on what you've told us in terms of six and twelve for the C-17s and the A400Ms, I get a sense that, in an ideal world, you would probably prefer to buy those. I think I share that view, but I want to get to hear the reason why from your mouth.

Col Pat Dowsett: We're all taxpayers, so I would judge that we would like to get a capability for what we've defined, by the way, as a thirty-year life cycle. That would stretch from 2005 to 2035. We have been constructing our options financially based on that thirty-year life cycle.

With a thirty-year life cycle, if we were to lease for the entire time, anybody who has leased a car would appreciate that we would be paying for that aircraft several times over. We could go with something that would be a lease-to-own situation, over ten years, fifteen years, or twenty years, but we'd still be paying more than we would pay if we procured right up front.

Personally, as the project manager, I don't have a preference. It's the ability of this program to be affordable. The advantage of leasing is that you avoid the upfront spike of the cost. It's just like procuring anything. If you had to pay cash for a house or anything else, you would have this huge upfront spike. Generally, that's the way the government procures these types of equipment, because that's where money is cheapest from the standpoint of financing.

Now, if we're going out to the commercial sector for this, we're going to be paying more. There will be a decreased spike, absolutely. But we'll be paying a cost for that, and it won't be cheap, certainly not based on a thirty-year life cycle.

So do I have a preference? I don't. As a taxpayer, I'd certainly like to do it at the lowest possible expense. What's most attractive? I think that rests with those who are making the decisions at a level much higher than I am.

Mr. Rob Anders: We planned to convert two of the A-310 Airbuses to strategic tankers by 2004. What fuel capacity would our A-310s have when compared to the 707s? Are the two new tankers of sufficient capability? Why have we not taken this step in the past? Have any problems been identified in the past with using the A-310 in a tanker role? And why is this going to take two years to accomplish?

Col Pat Dowsett: For 25 years, we had air refuelling with the 707s. For reasons of maintenance, etc., we retired our last tanker in 1997.

Let me say that the Airbus aircraft, after it's modified, will have a slightly better capability than the 707s. It will carry 158,000 pounds of fuel, whereas the 707 could carry I think 155,000. The Airbus can offload virtually all of that 158,000—apart from the fact that it needs fuel to operate itself, of course—whereas the 707 could only offload 90,000 because of the way the aircraft was built. So we are getting a better capability.

When the Airbus came into the air force in 1992-93, why didn't we do this right away? I was associated with the program at that point. We tried to do it right away. But like a lot of other companies, I think Airbus is limited in its engineering capability and didn't see enough of a market out there to throw the engineering at it. Let's put it that way.

The market has been developing for the Airbus 310 tanker. In December 2000, the Germans got to a stage at which they brought four aircraft before Airbus and said they wanted those Airbuses modified for air refuelling, so Airbus did the engineering. We heard about that, so we started to have talks with the Germans last summer about jumping on board their program. They would assume the risk of the program and would be the lead customer. We would benefit by following behind, and the Germans would get the benefit of our experience in strategic air refuelling—something they've never had before, by the way. So it's a win-win. For a period of time, we're joining with the Germans, and we'll get our aircraft in 2004 because that's the German program.

º (1620)

The Chair: Thank you, Colonel.

Mr. Wilfert, followed by Mr. Dromisky, for five minutes.

Mr. Bryon Wilfert (Oak Ridges, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Colonel, can you tell me if there is a clear strategy concerning the volume and types of equipment that must be air-transportable?

Col Pat Dowsett: Yes, sir, there is. We have what are called unit movement staff tables, which the army has produced. They have identified, piece of equipment by piece of equipment, what they need to carry. The Disaster Assistance Response Team down in Trenton has told us exactly what they need carried, from very large water purification pieces of equipment to trucks and a bulldozer, and a lot of this gear won't go on our current aircraft. So in short answer to your question, yes, indeed, we have detailed tables.

Mr. Bryon Wilfert: My follow-up question, Mr. Chairman, would be whether or not we should be contemplating air capabilities before we know what the future force structure is going to be.

Col Pat Dowsett: I think it's very safe for me to say we are not leaping ahead of the development of the future force structure. We're now at a point at which our project is completely scalable, be it less aircraft, more aircraft, or in fact cancelling the program altogether. That's a possibility if it's seen that we don't need this capability. So, no, we're not leaping ahead. We're actually in concert.

Mr. Bryon Wilfert: I thank you for those comments, Colonel.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Wilfert.

Mr. Dromisky, you have three minutes.

Mr. Stan Dromisky (Thunder Bay--Atikokan, Lib.): You presented three options. I'm not too sure how clear-cut those are. In other words, is there any relationship between one and the others? In other words, if we're going to lease, we do everything under the leasing agreement. We are responsible for training, we are responsible for inspection, we are responsible for maintenance, warehousing, and all of that.

The Royal Air Force in England has an agreement for C-17s. You mentioned twelve C-17s. Have you been looking at any variables? Maybe instead of twelve, you could lease four, six, eight, or ten, and you could then make agreements with the company in the United States to do the maintenance, or even make agreements with the United States Air Force to train, as the Royal Air Force has done. Have you been looking at a combination of variables within each of your three options?

Col Pat Dowsett: Yes, sir, we have.

The British situation is very different. They're leasing the C-17 for a seven-year period in order to bridge to the European program with the Airbus A400M. They're committed to the Airbus 400M if that program ever does in fact take off. It hasn't yet taken off, to be honest with you. And by the way, that's a very expensive way to do it, but they've decided to do that.

We have nothing off the table in terms of any of the arrangements that we would make to support aircraft—leases, blended leases, or shared ownership, which we were looking into at one point but which brings an enormous number of issues that I don't think we want to approach.

We're also looking at something called revenue generation. When we're not surging to Afghanistan, Rwanda, or East Timor, we could have some unused capability there that we could put on the commercial market. Because of the size of the aircraft we're looking at, this represents a unique opportunity in the Canadian commercial market, for development in the north, or for whatever else. Companies such as Air Canada, First Air, or anybody else, could broker with us and generate revenues that would come in back to the Government of Canada, back to the air force, back to the department.

So I just use that as an illustration. We have a lot of variables in this, and one of the challenges is looking at all of them in a very thorough way.

º (1625)

Mr. Stan Dromisky: Very good.

Can I make one comment that will just take a few seconds?

You made some comments about safety and the fact that our air force is one of the safest in the world. Is that the message you're giving us? In other words, is it because of your inspection programs and so forth?

Col Pat Dowsett: Let me just say that our approach to aviation safety is up there with that of any other air force in the world.

Mr. Stan Dromisky: The reason I'm saying this is that when I was parliamentary secretary for transportation a little over two years ago, I attended a conference in western Canada. A great number of air force people from the United States were making presentations. They clearly indicated.... If you remember, there was a whole series of crashes with military involvement. I was surprised at how many were never reported, but two reasons were given for those crashes. One was that of the cowboys of the sky—in other words, the attitude that pilots have—and the other was the fact that safety wasn't as it should have been in terms of safety check-ups.

Col Pat Dowsett: We're very thorough. I think we're as thorough as anybody would be.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Dromisky.

For the benefit of the committee, Colonel, can you explain what you meant by a “blended lease”?

Col Pat Dowsett: By and large, a blended lease would be a lease-to-own. You could say it's a financed purchase plan.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Stoffer.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Thank you.

Sir, excuse the ignorance of the following question, but when the United States picks up our troops and our equipment and sends them somewhere, do we pay them for that? Is there an actual cash transaction?

Col Pat Dowsett: We have a number of agreements with the United States Air Force and other American forces. One of them is an airlift agreement, which, on the surface of it, sees things going against our credit when we lift things for them—passenger lift or smaller items. When the Americans lift for us, it goes against their credit. At the end of all of this, we try to balance it off.

I'm not sure there's going to be much of a balancing off in this particular instance. Just from central Europe into Afghanistan, we're looking at approximately 66 C-17 chalks. We're also looking at a very considerable amount of C-5 chalks—and a C-5 is about the size of a 747. So while I'm not sure how things are going to be balanced off at the end of the day, I would be surprised if we didn't just end of paying for all that, to be honest.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Sir, if everything goes according to Hoyle and we get these replacements by the end of 2004, is there a possibility that we in turn could then help our other allies—the Germans, the Dutch, etc.—in moving their equipment, and actually turn this into a bit of a revenue producer?

Col Pat Dowsett: Absolutely. There are many ways of looking at revenue production. We have commitments to the United Nations. We could offer this unique capability to the United Nations in lieu of the some of the payments we're making. We could certainly lend airlift to our NATO partners. If we have the right aircraft, we can certainly blend in with the U.S. Air Force when we have a joint operation, and blend in with all NATO air forces in that case. So, absolutely, that is the case.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: As my last question, sir, when the new aircraft come, again if everything goes according to Hoyle—again, I'm plugging Shearwater here—where would you like to see them based?

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

Mr. Peter Stoffer:

I'll even give a plug for my colleague Scott Brison from Greenwood. I'm sure he would like to see them at Greenwood.

The Chair: Colonel, you don't have to answer that question.

Col Pat Dowsett: Let me just say one thing. We do have a Centre of airlift expertise and excellence right now, and that is in Trenton. But nothing is off the board. We haven't decided where the base will be, although Shearwater could be it.

º (1630)

Mr. Peter Stoffer: There's a big runway there, and lots of hangar space. It's great.

Thank you.

Mr. Scott Brison: Or Greenwood.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Or Greenwood, yes. We could go either way.

Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: Mr. Stoffer, are you running for the Chamber of Commerce down in that area?

Mr. Peter Stoffer: No, it's regional development. It's moving things out to the regions, right?

The Chair: Absolutely.

Do you have anything further, Mr. Stoffer?

Mr. Peter Stoffer: You can go ahead and ask a question during my remaining time if you so wish, sir.

The Chair: I don't have any questions at this point.

Maybe we'll just continue with Mrs. Wayne.

Mrs. Elsie Wayne: Colonel, when I asked a question before, you referred to twelve A400Ms that you were looking at. Our understanding is that there has been some uncertainty about the future of the Airbus A400M military transport. Do you believe Germany's commitment to the project is strong enough to ensure that production will get underway and that the A400M will continue to be a possible option for use?

Col Pat Dowsett: The A400M is going to continue to be an option until the program falls apart, if and when it does fall apart.

Having spoken to many of my NATO friends in Germany, France, and the U.K., I do know there is enormous commitment behind that project. It is enormous, and it's not just governmental, it's commercial. And it actually goes beyond that, because the future of European military affairs rests with their capability to deploy what they call a rapid-reaction force. They can't do that without a strategic airlifter. So it's all a part of a huge puzzle for them. And “puzzle” is a good word for it, given the way it has been working out in the last year.

I can't tell you what the Germans are going to do, ma'am, but I can remark on your comment about the Germans being pivotal in this because of their funding issues and the fact that they'll have an election in the fall. Their commitment to the program is in two parts, one this year and a second next year. That lends a lot of uncertainty to it. It absolutely does. I can't comment on whether or not the Germans will be successful, but their commitment is extreme and some of their problems are large.

Mrs. Elsie Wayne: I have another question.

When it comes to replacing our Sea Kings, the minister had been looking at 2005. I think he has now extended that quite extensively beyond 2005. I'm wondering if a commitment for you to have these replaced by 2005 has been confirmed?

An hon. member: It's 2004.

Mrs. Elsie Wayne: I'm sorry, 2004.

Col Pat Dowsett: We have mentioned it in our plans and priorities for 2005.

Mrs. Elsie Wayne: Yes, I knew you had.

Col Pat Dowsett: I'm not sure I can really comment on that. It has to do with the affordability of the overall capital program for the department. We're now at a stage at which people are trying to fit all of this in. I think they're going to be making some prioritization decisions as we roll through this year, so I think we'll know where we stand a lot better by the fall.

Mrs. Elsie Wayne: Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you, Mrs. Wayne.

Mr. Price.

Mr. David Price: Just to follow along on Elsie's line about the German airlift, we know about the financial problems they're having in trying to get it through. It will probably be retarded, but it will probably end up going through, because they've committed themselves to too many of the other countries around them. The Dutch, for instance, are not going to buy anything now. They're going to rely totally on the Germans, although they are going to go to air-to-air just to help out the Germans.

If we in Canada are looking at buying and are thinking of leasing out afterwards, our leasing would probably be to our NATO partners. If the Germans have this huge fleet out there and they're going to be trying to do the same thing, are we not going to have problems in trying to make a buck out of this deal?

Col Pat Dowsett: Well, it's a good question.

This program for the Germans is very late in the day. That is to say, the production scheme for the A400M aircraft is, by and large, running from 2007 to well out to almost 2020. Because of the funding issues with the Germans—and I must admit I'm not intimately familiar with them—I can tell you that for the Germans themselves, for example, the vast majority of their aircraft are arriving very late in that game. For a lot of the countries involved in this, their aircraft are arriving in the mid-2010-to-2020 timeframe. So it would be my hope that our program would be mature by that point, but we'll see.

º (1635)

Mr. David Price: I hate to play the bad guy in this, but we then have Antonov in the background, pushing out aircraft, pushing into the market worldwide really, to try to get people to know their aircraft so that they have a better chance of selling them. Granted, we don't know who is really operating in the background of this whole operation right now, but it is a big leasing operation. If you travel through different airports, you end up seeing their planes sitting out there. You can't miss them because they're so big. But they're out there trying to get their planes known, and that's another factor. And because that's more of a short term, they're able to turn out their planes a little faster.

Col Pat Dowsett: If I could address that, if you don't mind, the Antonov-124s were manufactured in the 1980s. Their life has been estimated to be anywhere from about 2010 to about 2020. As you roll through that—and some of them, by the way, have actually arrived from the Soviet Air Force and have been converted to commercial service—with the growth in the market and the fact that this can be viewed as an uncertain capability the farther out that we get, when we look at the thirty-year period that we're trying to satisfy here, we don't know what the supply is in the short term. This Antonov could be a viable supply for the next ten years, or maybe twelve. You could find one of them maybe crumping in somewhere and killing the crew. Of course, the western European nations and North America are then going to want some really solid answers.

If this aircraft loses its capability of operating in the west, then it doesn't have a customer. At least, it has almost no customers, let's put it that way. The viability of that supply and the certainty of that supply are really an issue for us. Quite frankly, we don't view it as competition.

Mr. David Price: Granted, but the bottom line for me is that I'd much prefer to have it here. Like you said, the industrial benefits would be here, along with everything going on around them, with us being the ones renting out to the world. That's clearly the number one option, but we have to know exactly where we're going.

In the last little while—let's say the last ten years—how many times have we really needed that airlift capacity to get us somewhere?

Col Pat Dowsett: Are you referring to the Antonov-124, or are you referring to the program itself?

Mr. David Price: No, I'm referring to the airlift capacity that Canada has actually needed in order to get our forces somewhere.

Col Pat Dowsett: That we didn't have?

Mr. David Price: Yes. Either that, or we had to wait quite a while, let's say.

Col Pat Dowsett: Being on the inside of this as I am, let me describe how it works. I'm not calling this system broken, but because we have the equipment that we have, and because of our relations with our neighbours to the south, etc., this is how we have to get this done.

When an issue pops up, the first thing that has to be determined is what the government wants to do. Do we want to go there? What do we want to take there? When do we want to go? Next, how are we going to do that? And when that question is asked, it's a question of what the Americans are doing, what the availability of Antonovs is on the market, and what our other NATO allies are doing that may snap those Antonovs up very quickly. The Americans don't have enough airlift for themselves. That's why they're continuing to buy C-17 Globemaster IIIs. Our NATO allies don't have enough airlift, which is why they have this A400M program—and that's on top of the Antonov situation. At the end of the day, then, we make the operation fit with how we're able to get there.

I don't think that's a bold statement. It's just realism. Without referring to what's going on in Afghanistan now, this affected the way we got to East Timor. It affected the way we hopscotched down to Rwanda. We paid $18 million for an Antonov airlift, but were very lucky in the Rwandan case. We were the first people on the phone, and we got the airlift. The British said we would have to wait because most of that airlift capability was in the U.K. and because they were going to have that airlift at that stage. There was a bit of a discussion there, but we carried the day for some reason and got our airlift. So I'm portraying that we're counting on an uncertain asset there.

The United States Air Force is not uncertain in its own right, for its own needs. It knows the U.S. needs more airlift, it knows it has to manufacture more aircraft and buy more, but the U.S. is obviously buying them for their own purposes, and rightfully so. And when push comes to shove and we have a major contingency operation to get to, they're going to make judgments about who they wish to have there with them. That's inescapable. If we're trying to count on that, I think I've illustrated the difficulty of that, and we'll have to fit into somebody else's plan.

º (1640)

The Chair: I'm going to have to cut you off there, Mr. Price . You were well over your time on that one.

Mr. Anders.

Mr. Rob Anders: Thank you. I have two questions. If I have any time left, I'd then like to give my colleague from the Alliance a chance.

We retired the last of our 707 strategic refueling tankers in 1997. That means allied tankers normally have to support the deployment of our CF-18s. Why were those aircraft retired without replacing them?

Col Pat Dowsett: We hung on to them for as long as we could. We retired one in 1996 and one in 1997. They were just out of life. It was not economically feasible to keep them going. That's why they were retired. We did everything we could at that time to come up with a replacement tanker.

We've used our Herc tankers, which we acquired in the mid-1990s. On occasion, we've deployed our CF-18s overseas using a combination of our Herc tankers and some U.S. Air Force assets.

We would like to obviously have our own assets so that we can go when we need to go and so that we have the command and control over the situation. We'll get that in 2004.

Mr. Rob Anders: I get a general sense that it's just a funding issue. It wasn't planned that way.

Col Pat Dowsett: That is an accurate statement, sir. It was not planned that way. It wasn't a funding issue, though, because we had money identified right up front to outfit the Airbus for tankering if there was a technical solution, but there wasn't. But now we have it.

Mr. Rob Anders: I have one last question for today, and then hopefully Mrs. Gallant will have some time.

You mentioned that the German election in the fall will impact the A400M. Is that because elections generally put things into limbo, or is it because there's a real difference between Gerhard Schroeder and the SPD not going ahead with the contract potentially, versus what the CDU will do? Is that the issue? Is it a political thing?

Col Pat Dowsett: I believe the issue is the following: They want 73 aircraft, but this year's budget can only afford 40. They have an election in the fall; therefore, for them to say the other 33 are committed to for next year—in other words they've made a budgetary commitment to expend there—is illegal in the Bundestag, their parliament. I think something like that is probably illegal in ours as well, but I don't know.

In the situation in Germany, though, I understand that the opposition parties are fully committed to the program. Given an election, they very likely will commit to the other 33 aircraft next year. The problem, though, is that the British are in a situation in which they're dealing with this C-17 problem—and they have 25 of these aircraft that they have to potentially order. They understand that the further out this decision moves, the further out they'll have to lease the C-17 until it gets to be impractical.

And the British are worried about the overall viability of the program as well. It's in the print media that they're very concerned and would like to see a commitment by Germany, a solution to the German problem, a lot earlier than later. One of the timeframes for them was January 31. But if the British pull out, then the critical mass of airplanes that they need to make it affordable probably won't be there. That's the uncertainty in that program right now.

º (1645)

The Chair: Mrs. Gallant.

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant (Renfrew--Nipissing--Pembroke, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Royal Air Force in the United Kingdom has a lease agreement with Boeing for four C-17s, but the U.S. Air Force provides the support for air crews, training, and maintenance. Do you perceive this as being a potential threat to the sovereignty of Great Britain, or does Great Britain risk losing command and control over any situations that may arise?

Col Pat Dowsett: What's happening is something very common. There's a core of simulation and training in the United States. The British actually are sending their people there to get trained, and if I understand your question, they then go back to the United Kingdom. There's no sovereignty issue there. They're all British people. Royal Air Force crews are flying those aircraft under their own command and control.

If we ever got into that situation ourselves, it would be impractical for us to buy our own simulators and to get our own training going. We would probably be in a like situation. In other words, we would be sending our crews down to the States for training. They'd then come back and would be under our command and control, and so would the aircraft.

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: So the U.S. is providing the training, but they're not providing the support for the air crews. They're not providing the crews themselves.

Col Pat Dowsett: That's right. They're providing that training at a cost. They're selling the training to the British, and they're selling the support package to the British as well.

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: Thank you.

The Chair: Do you have anything further, Mrs. Gallant?

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: No, not at this time. Thank you.

The Chair: I'm sorry, I've jumped the queue here. Are there any questions from the Liberal side? No?

Mr. John O'Reilly: I'll give Mr. Stoffer my time.

The Chair: Mr. Stoffer.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Sir, you had mentioned that if everything goes okay, we should hopefully have at least the first of the arrivals of the new aircraft by 2005, is that correct?

Col Pat Dowsett: If the department and the government decide to go ahead with the program, yes.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: But 2005 is what you're planning for, right?

Col Pat Dowsett: That's what we're suggesting as an achievable timeframe.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: The only reason I say this—and this is just a statement that you don't have to comment on—is that we've heard repeatedly that the first of the Sea King replacements will be here by 2005, and now it's being indicated that the plan is for these new airlift capabilities to be here by 2005. That would be a hell of a year for the air force if all that comes to fruition, wouldn't it? It'd be a banner year, wouldn't it? As Colonel Brian Akitt once said, it would be a red-letter day for the air force if this indeed happened, right?

The reason I say this is that the air force has been slapped around enough in terms of being told, yes, they'll have this, and, no, they won't have that. If things get political, budgets turn around and things change, but the asterisk is that the men and women who fly in our air force are always doing a great job with the tools that they have.

But isn't that just a little optimistic, knowing that the MHP was supposed to be in for 2005? I don't think that's going to happen now. And now you're suggesting the airlift capabilities will begin arriving by a suggested year of 2005. That seems a little optimistic, given that we're talking about an awful lot of money that's going to be allocated here. The question is where that money is going to come from.

Col Pat Dowsett: If we proceed with the program on the timeline that I believe is achievable, we'll be spending significant amounts of money in 2003 and 2004. The years 2005 and 2006 will also be big, but not nearly as big as they would have been if we hadn't had the long lead-item spending that we have to have. So while I can't comment on the overall affordability of the defence program, from what I've seen, we don't fit in that badly.

º (1650)

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Mr. Chairman, I'm just speculating on where all this money's going to come from, because the military itself, by most accounts, is underfunded for its current operations now. Where is all this additional money coming from? It certainly wasn't in the current budget. Unless there's another budget coming up and it contains new allocations for the defence department, I'm not quite sure where all this money's coming from. If you care to speculate.... If not, I understand.

The Chair: Thank you. Do you have anything further, Mr. Stoffer?

Mr. Peter Stoffer: No, I'm done, sir. I was done a long time ago.

The Chair: Mr. O'Reilly.

Mr. John O'Reilly: I just wanted to talk about a clarification.

And we can handle all those aircraft in Trenton, by the way. We don't have to go to Shearwater. There's a lot of room at Trenton.

An hon. member: We have two options. You only have one.

Mr. John O'Reilly: Regular troop movement is done by the five Airbus C-150s, I believe. In terms of the problem in the airlift to Afghanistan, is it the equipment and wanting to move the people with the equipment? Personnel movement seems to take place all the time, but from the questions that were asked, I got the impression that we were having trouble moving our people. Is it not equipment that we're talking about? Don't we move troops on our five Airbuses almost every day, to Kosovo, to Bosnia, and to all the various locations throughout the world? They're in the air all the time, so I didn't think troop movement was a problem.

Col Pat Dowsett: Generally speaking, sir, it's not. Troop movement can be done with any commercial-pattern aircraft, like a 767, 747, or whatever. That's not the long pole in the tent, not the challenge. The challenge is the equipment.

Mr. John O'Reilly: And what's the difference between the various aircraft? I didn't get the exact capacity of the Hercules versus the Airbus for in-flight refuelling. What was that capacity again? You were talking about one—

Col Pat Dowsett: Do you mean the Hercules tankers that we have?

Mr. John O'Reilly: Yes.

Col Pat Dowsett: The way we've judged that is based on Atlantic crossings. Generally speaking, what it takes is one Airbus tanker to move four CF-18s across the Atlantic, which is a distance of 2,500 nautical miles, 3,000 statute miles, or 4,500 kilometers. It takes one Airbus to do that with a full load of fuel—and some equipment on board, by the way. We did an exercise last summer in which we moved four CF-18s across with, I believe, two Hercules tankers, one coming out of Frobisher Bay and one out of Iceland. That's a very different operation, though, than what we call the ferry-escort mission that we would do with an Airbus. In other words, you have the fighters and you have the tanker, and they all go over as a package. It's a very safe way to do it.

When you're doing things the other way, with a Hercules tanker, you're involved with having the tanker come up out of an airfield and having the package have to find it, descend down to the altitude of the Hercules, refuel down there, go back up, and transit to the next refuelling point. Because the Hercules operates at a much lower altitude, it sometimes operates “in the weather”, as we say, instead of at 35,000 feet, where you're generally above the weather. The bottom line really is that for a long transit of fighters, this is much more prone to failure than doing the whole thing as one package is.

Mr. John O'Reilly: Thank you.

The Chair: Ms. Gallant, go ahead.

º (1655)

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: I just have a quick question for the colonel, Mr. Chair.

If we had our own airlift, what difference, if any, would it have meant to our participation in Afghanistan? Would we have been over there significantly sooner, or did they need the time to train anyhow?

Col Pat Dowsett: I'm not aware of exactly what the government's aim was in terms of a timeline. The only one I heard was the middle of February, and it's my belief that they're going to make that timeline. Based on the fact that we have relied very heavily on the Americans in this case in order to get over there, there was a great deal of coordination to do with a foreign power—a friend, no question about it, but still a foreign power—that has its own concerns, its own requirements. A lot of coordination was required to make it happen, but I believe we've met our timeframe.

It hasn't been without challenge, because my understanding as recently as two weeks ago was that we were still working out some of the details. But if we do have our own assets, it's a lot simpler to make the decision on when to go, how to go, and where to go, frankly.

The Chair: Do you have anything further, Mrs. Gallant? No?

Mr. Price.

Mr. David Price: It's just a short question, Mr. Chair.

You're taking care of the airlift, and I imagine somebody else is taking care of the sealift. What kind of coordination do you have between the two? When the decisions come down on just what you're going to use, how does that work?

Col Pat Dowsett: We have an operations plan that calls for a major force—called the vanguard force—to be moved to the farthest area in eastern Turkey. That represents the longest distance in NATO to respond to a NATO problem. The operations plan calls for lead forces to be in place within a week. We have three weeks to get ready, and they then have to go in a week. You obviously can't do that with a ship.

Our commitment there is to move 15%, or what they call the vanguard force. The lead elements of the vanguard force are those 15%, and they must go by air. The ship then loads everything else up at the Port of Montreal, the Port of Halifax, or wherever—

An hon. member: But not at Shearwater.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

Col Pat Dowsett:

—and sails, and it has a month to get there. I think it's 28 days, to be precise.

That's where the operations plan dovetails. The overall strategic lift picture shows that if you have to get there quickly, you use air, which is an expensive way to go per tonne, but there's no other way of doing it. Ship is a very inexpensive way to go per tonne, but it's slow. But hopefully the two will complement each other.

So, yes, we are talking to them.

Mr. David Price: You just answered my other question about whether air or ship is cheaper. Obviously....

Col Pat Dowsett: If you're looking at a situation like Afghanistan and you have to go by sea, it's a long way.

Mr. David Price: And there aren't too many ports in that part of the world.

Col Pat Dowsett: I don't think there are any.

The Chair: Colonel, I have a couple of questions for you.

With respect to moving a light battalion—take 3 PPCLI as an example—would it have been possible to move all of their kit via C-130s, in terms of moving them from Edmonton to Afghanistan as the immediate reaction force? I don't know that this is accurate, but I have heard that the complicating factor here was getting the Coyotes across, and that this was why we needed the heavier lift. Can you elaborate on that?

Col Pat Dowsett: There are two specific vehicles that are a problem when transportation with a Hercules is the answer. Problem number one is with the LAV III, which is basically what a Coyote is. It's based on the light armoured vehicle III produced in London, Ontario. That vehicle has to be disassembled, and it actually takes two Hercules to carry one vehicle. With a LAV III, you have to take the turret off, you have to take the armour off the sides, and you have to transport those in another aircraft, along with the technicians needed to put everything back together in about eight or nine hours at your airfield of destination, which was Kandahar in this case. So that's a real problem. In other words, the cycle time for a Hercules to go there and back is something akin to twenty days. Because of the route we had to take and because of the weights involved, it was very problematic. I was surprised at that.

We have another logistics piece of equipment that is basically a ten-tonne truck. It's called an HLVW, which stands for “heavy logistics vehicle wheeled” in the way the army names its pieces of equipment. It won't fit in a Herc, not unless you take a blowtorch, cut the cab off, and do a few other things. So that can't go by Herc. It would have to go either on a C-17 borrowed from the Americans, or commercially in an Antonov, which is not allowed into Kandahar.

So could we have done it with a Herc? We could have done some of it with a Herc, but we wouldn't have gotten there anywhere close to the middle of February. We'd probably still be working on the problem in the summer.

Let me just say the Hercules wasn't designed to—

» (1700)

The Chair: I'm not sure you're addressing my question, which was whether or not moving a light battalion, without any armour at all—either light armour or whatever—can be achieved with a Hercules alone. It was my understanding that this is in fact the case, but if I'm incorrect, I'd like to know.

Col Pat Dowsett: Oh, I see.

The initial deployment was with the Coyote, which is a light armoured vehicle. They did go in a C-17. Could they have physically gone in a Hercules? Yes.

The Chair: But typically—

Col Pat Dowsett: I have to confess, sir, that I'm not entirely aware of all the equipment they moved.

The Chair: But a light battalion is presumably just that. It's light.

Mr. John O'Reilly: It's not just a rifle company?

The Chair: It consists of rifle companies.

Mr. John O'Reilly: Without equipment?

The Chair: Without armour.

Mr. John O'Reilly: It's a rifle company with no Coyotes.

Mr. Rob Anders: Are they shooting something else? Can .22s not—

The Chair: It typically does include things like a heavy weapons company.

Do you understand where I'm coming from, Colonel?

Col Pat Dowsett: I think I do.

My knowledge of the exact pieces of equipment they took with them isn't complete. I don't know if they took the ten-tonne truck with them. The Coyotes were an initial deployment that the Americans asked for.

The Chair: But I'm not talking specifically about Afghanistan. I'm talking theoretically about a light infantry battalion like 3 PPCLI, 3 RCR, or whatever.

Col Pat Dowsett: They describe these deployments in terms of being air-deployable, so the mandate for the army is to be air-deployable. They have identified specific pieces of equipment that are air-deployable. The LAV III, the Coyote, the Kodiak, the armoured vehicles, and the HLVW trucks are air-deployable pieces that the army never goes anywhere without if there's any activity at all involving shooting. They never go without the logistics vehicle, because it's the backbone of their logistics, quite frankly. The light armoured vehicle is the backbone of every deployment they make now, the LAV III, of which the Coyote is one.

The Chair: I'm going to pass it on to any others who want to ask questions, but I have just been told we have about twenty minutes.

Are there any other questions? No?

I have just one other question, then, Colonel, and it has to do with the staging of matériel. When you load the stuff on board, presumably you get certain stuff into theatre as quickly as possible, and other stuff does not have the same sort of priority. From the standpoint of the deployment to Afghanistan, how would you say the staging of matériel went? We heard press reports here in Canada that said they didn't have this equipment, or that they didn't have that. Are you familiar with those sorts of issues, and can you address them?

» (1705)

Col Pat Dowsett: As it took place to Afghanistan, the deployment went from Edmonton to Ramstein, Germany. Everything was off-loaded in Germany. Basically, that first deployment took place in a C-5, which is an aircraft about the size of a 747. The second deployment took place entirely on C-17s, and that was to move them from Ramstein to Afghanistan.

I don't have inside knowledge of how many Canadians were in Ramstein to ensure that our stuff got on board the next C-17 lift to Afghanistan in the order it should have been sent. Like you, I read newspaper accounts of our troops being there without the proper equipment because of the phasing of this equipment as it came in. That is definitely an issue when you have a multinational movement of equipment such as we had through Ramstein and, I think, Frankfurt as well.

I wouldn't want to comment on how serious that was, though, or on whether or not there was a deficiency. I can tell you that when you have equipment piling up at an airfield like Ramstein or Frankfurt, it's an enormous problem to sort out the priorities, especially when you have a transshipment case in which one aircraft is being used for the first stage and a completely separate aircraft is being used for the second.

If we had our own resources, we would have done the whole thing in one aircraft, obviously, with no transshipment. Using the A400M and the C-17 to go into Kandahar would have been an entirely acceptable solution, hypothetically speaking.

I'm sorry I can't be more precise, sir, but this movement is still ongoing. I think we have five more flights to do. But we will take the lessons learned from this, we'll see if there were real problems associated with the logistical movement, and the hindsight will be 20/20.

The Chair: Okay, thank you.

Mrs. Gallant.

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

If another conflict were to erupt—say, over the break—and the government decided we were going to send 500 troops to Iraq, then given our current commitments, how long would it take us to get 500 troops over there, light infantry, along with the necessary vehicles that they always travel with?

The Chair: I think we may be in the realm of high speculation here.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Depending on who's in charge, it could be Bosnia.

Col Pat Dowsett: I see the thrust of your question.

Without having the details on exactly which pieces they use—I know you said they'd take the pieces they normally go with—I can't make that judgment, because I don't know exactly how many pieces are involved and I don't know the transshipment points, if any. One of the problems with moving into the Iraqi area is overflight of countries that don't allow military equipment to fly over them, or that sort of thing. It's a complex issue, so I wouldn't want to say we could do it in two weeks or that we could do it in eight weeks.

With our current airlift capability, though, we can't move the stuff we would have to move as an ordinary part of an airlift like this, the main problems being the ten-tonne truck and the LAV III. We can move the LAV III by breaking it down here and putting it back together when we get there, but we can't put the ten-tonne truck in there at all.

So you can see that trying to judge the time element here is pretty impossible, really. Could we get an Antonov? Could we get a C-17 from the Americans? Could we find another solution? I don't know.

Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: Thank you.

The Chair: Mr. Anders.

Mr. Rob Anders: Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm following up on a question of yours.

Let's say, for example, that we wanted to get a battalion of men over to Iraq without vehicles. Basically, they'd just be taking rifles. Could we send one load of those in a Herc with no problems, in fairly short order?

» (1710)

Col Pat Dowsett: We'd move them in an Airbus.

Mr. Rob Anders: In an Airbus? Okay.

Col Pat Dowsett: We could take care of that ourselves. Rifles go down below deck, the people up top, and away you go.

Mr. Rob Anders: All right, thank you. I was asking that for Mr. Pratt's benefit.

The Chair: Are there any further questions? No? Okay.

Colonel, on behalf of all of the members of the committee, I'd like to thank you for your presentation and your responses to our questions. I think this exercise has been very helpful, as this is certainly one of the most important issues we will certainly be facing over the next little while as far as the issues o future capital procurements and operational readiness are concerned.

Again, on behalf of the committee, thank you very much for being here today.

Some hon. members: Hear, hear!

Col Pat Dowsett: It has been my great pleasure, sir.

The Chair: Colleagues, this meeting is adjourned.