National Defence Committee on April 1st, 2009

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

The general?

[MGen M. Duval]

Yes, General Gene Renuart, who was recently in Ottawa. He is commander of NORAD. I work for him; I am one of his three regional commanders. This type of mission is coordinated through NORAD by the region, from the sector to the aircraft.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

In the case of any aggression that we needed to respond to, who would give the order to engage? Is that also NORAD?

[MGen M. Duval]

It is NORAD, with regard to military aircraft. General Renuart has a mandate for both countries.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

So even in Canadian airspace it would be the Americans giving the order to engage in a more aggressive response if this type of aircraft were to violate Canadian airspace.

[MGen M. Duval]

That is the nature of a bi-national command. General Renuart has a mandate from two governments.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Okay. I have no further questions. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Merci, Monsieur Bachand.

I'll give the floor to Mr. Harris.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Major-General.

I guess this is a similar question to Mr. Bachand's. Can you say who gave the orders to scramble those interceptors? Did that come from NORAD?

[MGen M. Duval]

Yes, it did.

As I said, it's passed through different layers. With respect to the individual who will talk to the fighters and say “scramble now”, that's done at the tactical level. But he has received--

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

This happens pretty fast, I take it.

[MGen M. Duval]

Yes.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

They're not putting papers around anywhere, but the chain of command is pretty clear.

You indicated that altogether there were eleven situations where flights were intercepted since they resumed this type of activity. Can you tell us in what way this was different from the other ten or eleven?

[MGen M. Duval]

It was in line with the level of activity and the type of activity that we have seen since August 2007.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

You talked about flight plans. I don't imagine the Russians show up at the airport and file their flight plans the way a civilian aircraft is supposed to. Where would you expect these flight plans to be filed, and did they file flight plans in the other ten or eleven situations?

[MGen M. Duval]

There is a process to filing flight plans to proceed into international airspace. The same process is followed by both military and civilian....

Although it is not our mandate to do so, from a safety perspective, as I said in my opening comments, it would be good for everybody, all the operators, civilian and military, that could be in that area at the same time, to have that visibility. It's an avenue to inform others so that safety of flight can be ensured.

I'm sorry, what was the other part of the question?

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

There is a process for filing. But they didn't file them in any of the other eleven incidents you referred to, so this is nothing new.

[MGen M. Duval]

There were only three cases we can trace with these types of airplanes where the Russians filed a flight plan. There was one not too long ago where they transited two Blackjack bombers from Russia to Venezuela for an exercise, which was publicized at the time. There was a flight near Iceland by the Russians. And the third one where there was a flight plan was off the coast of Alaska, if I'm not mistaken.

These are the only three that are known, and that's researching through international air traffic control agencies, Eurocontrol and others. If you look through the database, there were only three confirmed flight plans that were submitted.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

And there was no interceptor scramble in those cases?

[MGen M. Duval]

I can't say that for sure.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

You indicated you don't want to talk about submarines, but didn't you say in your presentation--and it sounded very thorough, so perhaps we could have a copy of that for the committee--that there was a maritime warning mission as part of NORAD? Is that something you mentioned in your remarks?

[MGen M. Duval]

When the agreement was redrafted and signed, in 2006, the two countries elected to put the maritime warning component in the NORAD mission, basically leveraging the command and control capability and the passage of information, which was very mature within the NORAD organization after some 47 to 48 years.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

If it's under the same command, why do we hear nothing about the submarine in Arctic waters that had an explosion? Is there some explanation for that?

[MGen M. Duval]

There's a difference between getting the mandate and then putting in the procedures, the protocols, and the concept of operations to apply that mandate. This is fairly recent. It's a work in progress. I cannot comment on the presence of submarines. I think other witnesses here have commented. I think Commodore Gardam has provided testimony on this subject.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you, Major-General.