Evidence of meeting #41 for National Defence in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was uavs.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:05 p.m.
NDP
Élaine Michaud NDP Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC
That's fine as long as you can understand what I'm saying.
4:05 p.m.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, ING Robotic Aviation
It's more painful for you if I do this en français.
I had the privilege actually, yesterday morning, to be on the The Current being grilled by Anna Maria Tremonti on this very issue, and in the commercial world the issue is commercial pilots are worried about the proliferation of drones. It is an issue, and Transport Canada has changed the rules completely for under 2 kilograms and 2 kilograms to 25 kilos. Fundamentally, you can now go do it, so you could have a reserve unit just go out and fly within visual line of sight, i.e., somebody is looking for the other traffic, and they can go fly. But they couldn't do it for DND because DND has a whole other set of rules, and remember that the ministers of Transport and Defence have equal standing under the Aeronautics Act.
That said, the real answer is there are in North America, and particularly in Canada, which is our concern, 37,000 aircraft. What we really need is the equivalent of Find My Friends, on your iPhone. The technology exists effectively—different technology, different name—transponders for all I call it, and I've told Minister Raitt this. That's what we need in the air. It's the rule for all new aircraft in Australia. It's been the rule for 15 years in Alaska. In Canada, if we put transponders on every aircraft we would not only reduce drastically—40% to 70% was the Alaskan experience—man-on-man incidents in the air, but it also would enable robotic aircraft to be used successfully in any mission, whether civil or defence-related, and that's again a—
4:05 p.m.
NDP
Élaine Michaud NDP Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC
I'm going to ask you to quickly finish your answer, as I have other things I'd like to ask you about.
4:05 p.m.
NDP
Élaine Michaud NDP Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC
You're done? Great. You are very fast.
Mr. Glenn, you said the Americans are already using UAVs for border surveillance. Did I understand you correctly?
4:05 p.m.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, ING Robotic Aviation
They have for years, yes. They fly Predators.
4:05 p.m.
NDP
Élaine Michaud NDP Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC
Are you able to give us more details on how the information collected is analyzed? Which U.S. department is in charge of analyzing the border surveillance information collected by drones?
4:05 p.m.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, ING Robotic Aviation
That's the Department of Homeland Security. They fly Predator B drones on our borders. Air traffic control actually at times passes to Canada, to Montreal control, because that's the way the civil air space is organized.
The information is fed back live to their control centres in the United States where they do all the analysis.
4:05 p.m.
NDP
Élaine Michaud NDP Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC
Does the U.S. Department of Defense participate directly or indirectly in those activities? Would it be up to the Department of Homeland Security to then determine which institutions should be involved as far as the use of that information is concerned?
4:05 p.m.
NDP
4:05 p.m.
President, Zariba Security Corporation
I actually can speak to that a little bit. NORAD and NORTHCOM...the U.S. military has had a very difficult time with drones over the United States. They asked for permission, after the New Orleans flood disaster, to put some unmanned aircraft up, and that permission was denied. The U.S. military has some very specific areas they can fly in, and that's about it, within the United States.
4:05 p.m.
NDP
Élaine Michaud NDP Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC
Thank you very much.
How much time do I have left, Mr. Chair?
4:05 p.m.
NDP
Élaine Michaud NDP Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC
Thirty seconds isn't enough time for me to ask my question, so I'll let my colleague use that time later.
Thank you very much.
4:05 p.m.
NDP
The Vice-Chair NDP Jack Harris
Okay, thank you.
There are only a couple of seconds left now, so we'll move on for now to Mr. Bezan.
Mr. Bezan, you have seven minutes.
December 2nd, 2014 / 4:05 p.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake, MB
Gentlemen, thanks for joining us today. I appreciate your opening comments and I'm looking forward to the continuing dialogue.
You were just talking about the U.S. using drones. A couple of years ago I had the opportunity to go down with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and they used the Predator to surveil, pretty much from Thunder Bay right across into Washington state, and they do it all over Grand Forks. It is a tool they are using for border surveillance. I'm sure they are using it along the Texas-Mexico border as well patrolling the Rio Grande.
Looking at that platform and others—and you've already alluded to the fact of using more drones in the Arctic—do we have platforms out there now that can handle Arctic conditions? I was told a couple of years ago that it did not exist.
4:10 p.m.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, ING Robotic Aviation
The answer is yes. The challenges with small aircraft are the same as with any Arctic aircraft, right? It's cold and windy. As Canadians, we've flown our helicopter in minus 33. We were up in Churchill surveying polar bears two weeks ago and it was 50, 60 kilometres per hour at the airport, and right out on Hudson's Bay it was above that. You need power, so that's why we design bigger, not the little quadcopters. They all fall down. I own a bunch of them. They fall down.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
4:10 p.m.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, ING Robotic Aviation
No, no. It's just a big helicopter.
4:10 p.m.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, ING Robotic Aviation
Yes, it fits in a case. We shipped it up there.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake, MB
But from a standpoint of range, though, a helicopter has limitations.
4:10 p.m.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, ING Robotic Aviation
Right. If you want to go far, that's where our fixed-wing.... As you see on the screen there, that has a 10-foot wingspan, launches off a catapult, has eight hours' endurance.
The challenge, really, is around icing conditions, which is true of all aviation. We actually have funding from the NRC, Industry Canada, to further enhance our Arctic capability, and we are unique as a Canadian company tackling that problem.
Remember, all of these ones that you see were all designed in the California desert. They were meant to go in hot and sandy places. That's where, as Canadians, we take a different approach to things.
4:10 p.m.
President, Zariba Security Corporation
The other thing is that if it does crash, and everything that flies crashes eventually—
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake, MB
Don't tell me that because I spend a lot of time on planes. You're scaring me.