Preserving capacity, General Tom Lawson, Chief of the Defence Staff, Keys to Canadian SAR
Issue link: http://vanguardcanada.uberflip.com/i/111458
Arctic A The most difficult part about the SAR Agreement (besides the usual funding and resource bêtes noires) will be managing Canadian political and public expectations concerning the Canadian Force's role. mittees and task forces have the funds and resources to complete their work and to continue to help remind the eight Arctic states to complete their SAR analyses, especially evaluating capabilities. (Liaising with other organizations, for example with the IMO and ICAO, may be appropriate, although the Arctic Council has no observer status with these organizations and vice versa.) Ensuring the SAR Agreement is ultimately implemented, however, falls to the eight states, not the Arctic Council. For National Defence and the Canadian Forces, it means that they must continue to coordinate with civilian counterparts in the Coast Guard, Transportation, RCMP, Meteorological Service of Canada and Parks Canada to ensure interoperability and that appropriate agreements – for example, can the CF commandeer private assets, like runways and equipment, to aid rescues? – and communication links are in place. One of the major misunderstandings about SAR in Canada is that the CF is the lead agency for all rescues – in most cases it is Transportation or Fisheries and Oceans (via the Coast Guard) or provincial and local municipal police. What the SAR Agreement adds is the potential for additional linkages to be made with foreign military and civilian agencies. In practice, this is done routinely, especially given Canada's close collaboration and binational arrangements with the U.S. It is highly conceivable that, in the future, the CF would pilot one of its patrol vessels while carrying onboard Canadian and foreign search and rescue personnel from other departments, for example, personnel from the Danish Maritime Authority given the close proximity of Canada to Greenland. The CF and DND would be comfortable with such an arrangement – they routinely work with foreign personnel. For the Canadian public, however, this will be a rude awakening. Many have no idea about programs like Shiprider or the fact that military exercises routinely involve foreign military (not to mention the number of foreign military officers Canada hosts from Asia, the Middle East, Europe, etc, via its Staff College). The most difficult part about the SAR Agreement (besides the usual funding and resource bêtes noires) will be managing Canadian political and public expectations concerning the CF's role. And given the current government's predilection to use alarmist rhetoric to describe all operations in the North as military-like or military-led means the busiest DND and CF personnel will be in public relations. www.vanguardcanada.com FEBRUARY/MARCH 2013 41