National Defence Committee on Dec. 2nd, 2014

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

What about the propulsion? I guess I'm looking for something science fiction, like Star Wars. These things move at a fairly substantial speed. Are we moving into jets? I see the Chinese at least are advertising jet propulsion. Is that something that's a capability, seeing these things travel faster than Mach 2, 3, 4, or something like that?

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Jack Harris]

You have about 15 seconds.

[Ian Glenn]

Right, so you can go really fast, but if you want to see stuff, what's the point?

Canada developed the CL-289 20, 30, or 40 years ago, 50 years ago. That was fast-moving at 400 knots. Germany and France bought it. It was made by Canadair, then they replaced that with wet film, with electronics.

What you really want is persistence, and you want to go and use the stuff you see.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Imagery, that's the key.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Jack Harris]

Thank you, Mr. Van Kesteren.

Next is Madam Michaud for five minutes on behalf of the NDP.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to pick up on the use of surveillance drones in the Arctic. I think that is where they would be most useful in the Canadian context.

We're still quite a ways off from armed drones, which are not consistent with Canadian values, in my view. So I won't be getting into a discussion on that.

Systems used in the Arctic need to have specific technical requirements, given the harsh conditions. We are learning that ships the navy is looking to purchase will not be capable of performing all the necessary surveillance activities in Arctic winters. More and more consideration is being given to the use of drones. Coming up with a drone that could function in the various conditions present in the north would seem to be a challenge.

Are you able to give us any details on that? I am curious as to whether a single type of drone would do the job in the Arctic or whether different types of drones would be needed. I'd like to hear your take on what Canada's needs in the Arctic are.

[Ian Glenn]

There are two.

Number one, if you're trying to solve multiple problems, take multiple approaches. That's why I have a rotorcraft and I have a fixed-wing. I get persistence from the fixed-wing, and I get on-the-spot, tactical, instantaneous response out to 10 kilometres. In every case, you're safer using a robot than you are people. We had a tragic loss of life last year off one of our coast guard vessels that was out doing a tactical ice survey, when it could be done today with a robotic aircraft. It's just the way it is.

When we think about the increased number of vessels transiting our Northwest Passage, this was proposed to me years ago. We have harbour pilots to come in and out of our harbours. We as a country are in a position to say, “Do you want to transit? We have new regulations. If you want to transit our Northwest Passage, then you put a harbour pilot equipped with this technology.” That could actually be an aboriginal responsibility, from robots that are based in their communities as they transit through.

The beauty of that is we provide tactical ice reconnaissance for those vessels. They're able to go faster, their insurance rates are lower, and we would have eyes on everything that they did. If there is an inadvertent pumping of bilges or whatever, we would be able to see that. If there's an incident, we immediately have information about what that is. Everyone else in the country who's responsible for effecting the rescue piece or the response piece would have detailed information on which to act.

You don't have to buy one thing, because one thing doesn't solve all things. And you don't have to. The beauty of it is, you don't have to design it to carry a person.

[Charles Barlow]

If I may, I wouldn't out of hand dismiss the armed bit of the problem as well. When the Russians send their bombers up to Tiksi and Anadyr, their northern bases, we send our CF-18s up to our northern bases, and they're armed. If we are speaking at some point in the future of more robotics and fewer humans, you can't discount the fact that at the end of the day they can't just look, in some cases.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

We could get into a lengthy debate on the subject, but we won't go down that road.

Mr. Glenn, your presentation gives rise to questions, including which department or federal agency should be in charge of drone surveillance operations in the Arctic.

Should that responsibility be shared by a number of departments or be given to a single organization? How do you think we should define that responsibility in the north?

[Ian Glenn]

As you may or may not be aware, that's the real challenge in the Arctic. Multiple departments have responsibilities. The coast guard has responsibilities, the RCMP has responsibilities, National Defence has responsibilities, and there have been attempts to do working groups where the various organizations involved are responsible. I don't know the answer.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Is there anything you would suggest?

[Ian Glenn]

Let me think about that. I actually don't have a suggestion.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Jack Harris]

Thank you, all.

Next, Madam Gallant for five minutes.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Most countries effectively use satellites to monitor their airspace and maritime regions. How would surveillance drones be any different? How would they contribute to our existing satellite abilities?

[Charles Barlow]

Civilian satellites are getting very good. The gap between military and civilian satellites is closing to the point where I know there are discussions about whether or not we're going to need a military satellite system at all, really, eventually, because the technology closes. However, if it's cloudy, it's still cloudy, and satellites can't see through clouds very well. So, again, you get back to some sort of aircraft, be it manned or unmanned, that can fly lower under the clouds and see what the situation is.

Satellites have fundamentally changed the way the world works, as a matter of fact, with Google Earth and all the other things. But they don't replace that closer-in stuff, and they never really will be able to. It's also very, very difficult to task a satellite. Satellites do their thing, and if you need a satellite over an area and the satellite's not doing that right now, then you're out of luck. That's just the way it goes. It's not like in the movies, where you can follow Will Smith around.

[A voice]

It really doesn't work that way.

[Charles Barlow]

No, but you can do it if you have an aircraft in....

I remember one time I was at Defence and we got a call. It was a shipment going to Alaska, and it had gone missing along the coast highway. The guy just hadn't called in. So we called the local RCMP detachment and said, “Could you please drive the highway between here and here and just see if this truck is there?” The guy said, “Yes. I'll get back to you within at least two days.”

That gave me an idea of how big.... I'm an Ottawa boy. I drive from here to the Glebe; that's where I live. But when you start to get a sense of the size of the country and our ability to actually respond, to fly a thousand miles of road.... The RCMP said, “We patrol that road once every two weeks normally, but we'll send a guy out and he'll drive it for you today, but it's going to be days before you get an answer.” That's where if you had a UAV or a manned aircraft, but cost-effective, you could toss that thing up and have an answer in a few hours.

[Ian Glenn]

That's right. Charles has the answer: persistence versus satellite. And I compete against satellites. I produce much higher resolution. I have persistence, and I can cover the area. The cost is much lower. Remember that when satellites go up, that's it. It's one-shot. We put the latest hyperspectral from the Institut national d'optique. It breaks light into 700 bands per pixel. We do that. This is the stuff we're able to innovate, continuously getting the right answer, and it's because we're there—so persistence. We operate under the weather, under the clouds. This is very true of what we did in Afghanistan, by the way. Also, the cost and local knowledge.... So I'm advocating for community-based or local-based flights, where people know the terrain. They know what's different. We're enabling them to be much more rapid in their ability to get the right answer.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

If you have a satellite that would have a much broader or widespread view, and you can maybe hone in on a certain thing, if there's a UAV in the region, is there a way to take its picture and impose it within the satellite pictures so that you have the broad as well as the honed-in point of view?

[Ian Glenn]

Oh, sure. We pump our stuff into arcGIS, into Google Earth, or whatever. Yes, that's easy.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Okay, and it is easy—

[Charles Barlow]

You're also feeding it with signals intercepts, so that you're taking the pattern of signals intercepts and you're overlaying them onto the maps. You're getting little breadcrumbs of where the ship was, for example, even if you never saw it—or the guy, the camel, or whatever it is you were trying to follow.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Very good.

Now, we had that situation where a U.S. UAV went into Iran, and they say that they captured it. Why would there not be a self-destruct button in that? Or was there? Or is that something that's normally done so that if a drone is diverted, crashes, or lands in enemy space, they don't retrieve the information from that?

[Ian Glenn]

You can do anything you want. If that's your requirement, it's a fairly small package and it's a specific signal. We are required to have a flight termination system in order to avoid other aircraft, for instance. I will command my aircraft to the ground if it's safe to do so.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Jack Harris]

Thank you, Ms. Gallant.

Mr. Bezan, for the final question in round two, for five minutes.