The CAF’s domestic dilemma
Domestic disasters and emergencies are constraining the military’s ability to deploy internationally. What’s the solution?
Domestic deployments are hampering Canadian Armed Forces’ ability to undertake international operations. The Chief of the Defence Staff and other senior leaders have raised this issue several times recently. They’re clearly concerned that the CAF’s effectiveness as an expeditionary force is being undermined by a series of domestic crises and emergencies requiring military assistance, including the Covid-19 pandemic and the major forest fires Canada experienced in recent summers.
This isn’t a uniquely Canadian problem; Australia is facing the same issue. Echoing the CAF’s concerns, the Australian Department of Defence has informed the Senate’s Select Committee on Australia’s Disaster Resilience that the Australian Defence Force’s responses natural disasters are undermining readiness, aggravating personnel retention challenges, and taking away from the military’s primary mission: the defence of Australia and the Australian national interest. The defence department has suggested that a civilian contingency force could be set up to reduce the burden on the Australian Defence Force.
Is a civilian contingency force feasible in Canada? If not, what other options are there to relieve the pressure on the CAF? Unfortunately, it’s hard to see a evident solution, at least in the short-term. Responding to natural disasters, extreme weather, and other emergencies will probably weigh the CAF down for a while.
Let’s first be clear about what we’re talking about. The CAF undertake different sorts of domestic operations. First and foremost, they defend Canada and North America against military threats, notably through the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD). As well, the CAF leads or assists search and rescue operations. The CAF can also be called out in ‘aid of the civil power’ under Part VI of the National Defence Act. Aid of the civil power refers to cases when provincial attorneys general requisition the Chief of the Defence Staff to help deal with a “riot or disturbance” that can’t be handled by civil authorities. These requisitions are rare. Most domestic operations that don’t involve the defence of Canada, NORAD, or search and rescue fall under section 273.6 of the National Defence Act. This section empowers Cabinet or the Minister of National Defence to direct the CAF to assist law enforcement or “perform any duty involving public service.” It’s these wide ranging ‘public service’ deployments that have been grinding down the CAF lately. You can find a long list of those dealing with natural disasters here.
Since these public service deployments are distinct from aid of the civil power and military assistance to law enforcement, we should ask if a properly trained, equipped, and indemnified civilian agency could take on more --if not most-- of them. In principle, it’s hard to see why not.
The challenge, however, isn’t one of capability or ability, but of resources. Simply put, where are the people and the money going to come from?
Let’s start with people. The CAF is currently facing a significant recruitment and retention shortfall. It’s tough to convince Canadians to join the CAF and hard to keep people in uniform. If we were to set up a full-time civilian emergency service, there’s a risk that it would be trying to recruit the same people as the CAF. The two pools of potential recruits wouldn’t be exactly the same, but they’d be fairly similar: young, service-oriented Canadians. Of course, this is already a reality that the CAF faces when it comes to competing with other agencies, such as law enforcement and the Coast Guard. A civilian emergency service could be a fiercer competitor, though, particularly when it comes to recruiting Canadians who are prepared to put service before self, but worry about prolonged international deployments. Similarly, a civilian emergency service could exacerbate the CAF’s retention challenges. People with a CAF background would be prized by a civilian service, potentially leading talented military members to join its ranks. Depending on the size of the civilian emergency service, we should ask if it would end up relieving the operational stress on the CAF, while increasing the personnel challenges the military faces.
Money is the other, bigger obstacle. You may have noticed that the federal government is in a bit of a financial bind. Without wading into the debate over how sustainable the federal debt and deficits are, there’s a growing consensus that spending needs be reined in. Yet the calls for more federal spending aren’t dying down. In addition to the new social spending that’s planned, there’s pressure to increase the defence budget and acquire new submarines, invest in housing and infrastructure, improve services to rural communities and the Arctic, bolster our cyber capabilities and intelligence services, get serious about research and development, etc., etc. Frankly, the list of new spending hopes and expectations seems endless.
In this environment, the Department of Finance might ask why the federal government should fund a new agency to deal with emergencies when the CAF can already do it. Setting up a new civilian service wouldn’t be a small undertaking. It would need its own headquarters, executives and administrators, fleets of vehicles and aircraft, operation centres, and so forth. My hunch is that the number crunchers would conclude that it makes more sense to share these with the Department of National Defence and the CAF. Once you got down that road, though, the logic of setting up and maintaining a separate civilian agency starts to buckle. It would probably be simpler to give the military more money for disaster response.
That then leads us to other options: strengthening the CAF’s disaster response capabilities or giving that task to the Reserves. These are tough choices, too. As discussed, the CAF is already having trouble recruiting and retaining people. Giving the CAF more disaster response capabilities wouldn’t change that; it would worsen it, since you’d need additional personnel. Likewise, the CAF relies on the Reserves to supplement the Regular force. If you were to repurpose the Reserves, you’d only deepen the CAF’s existing readiness and international depolyability challenges.
If you’re the CAF leadership, moreover, the promise of more money for disaster response would be a risky proposition. When the defence budget gets cut in the future, which it one day will, are politicians going to demand cuts to domestic disaster response or international combat capability? Given that prospect, it’s understandable that the CAF hasn’t been saying they need more resources to do disaster response, but emphasizing that they need to focus on their primary missions.
Setting up a dedicated civilian emergency service makes sense in principle. Once the labour market loosens up, the CAF and a civilian service might not compete for the same people, or the numbers involved would be manageable. In an ideal world, the provinces would build up their disaster response capacities, too, lessening their dependence the military. Federally, however, the cost question will be a difficult one to address until the debt and deficit are less of a concern. The provinces, meanwhile, will hesitate to spend more as long as they can rely on the military.
This leaves the CAF is a precarious position. The worsening international security environment means that the military’s expeditionary combat capabilities are critical, but an equally worsening climate promises to increase the domestic demand for the CAF.
Good piece. It is hard to imagine, under any fiscal scenario, Ottawa setting up a national civilian emergency response agency that sits around at the beck and call of the provinces. It is just not a federal priority and I don't think it ever will be. Apart from the US, which has FEMA, what federation has a national civilian emergency response agency? The better strategy for DND is to request more financial resources to help cover some of their costs with these operations and accept the hard reality that this is considered part of their core function by the federal government (and Canadians).
I've provided critique. I should offer a solution. We should build on the idea of levels of disaster response found in the 2004 National Security Policy - individual, municipal, provincial and federal, the latter bearing primary policy and strategy responsibility.
First, in this field, nothing is a military task. Civil authorities lead.
Second, each level requires resources to mitigate disasters at their level. So we need a city (or regional) "civil response corps," maybe as a partner organization to established police services. They could include a quite eclectic grouping of people required to ensure resilience at the local level (i.e. more flood mitigators and urban rescuers than wildfire fighters).
Third, at the provincial level, you would have more substantial reaction forces, like firefighters who can be flown into areas of remote northern communities, accompanied by integral doctors, field kitchens, field hospitals etc. These organizations too, could be partners with provincial police forces. Most provincial emergency response organizations have all the necessary skills and capabilities. What they lack is capacity - they need more of everything for when 'the big one' hits.
I am often disheartened by the negative tone set by media and pundits about how difficult all this is and how over-the-top wonderful the CAF are in responding. With a new, positive, constructive mindset, I can see calling for a volunteers to join a city or provincial civil response corps and developing an enhanced and meaningful career path, built on the satisfaction of service to fellow citizens. Federal efforts would be devoted to strategies and plans to re-deploy and concentrate resources from across the country to where they are needed.
I might add a novel idea here too. In the field of emergency planning and management, and disaster response, there is every bit as much of an intelligence function in play, as we find in traditional national security and military operational domains. If we recognize true intelligence as reasoned foresight that enables advantageous action, we can see intelligence as an important enterprise within disaster prevention, response, mitigation and resilience operations. Emergency planning intelligence should be a thing.
While none of this is a military role, former serving military folks could design and establish a civil response force in a heartbeat ... given the necessary resources.