Evidence of meeting #46 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 force.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

D.L.R. Wheeler  Commander, 1 Canadian Air Division, Royal Canadian Air Force
Sylvain Ménard  Commander, 3 Wing Bagotville, Royal Canadian Air Force

5:25 p.m.

MGen D.L.R. Wheeler

Certainly, as we mentioned before, CADs in North Bay have a pretty good visual capability throughout the majority of Canada. The Arctic's obviously very difficult, though. There's not a lot of infrastructure up there, and certainly not a lot of civilian radars up there either. This is where the north warning system becomes very, very important. That said, it is getting old and will need to be replaced at some point. We're looking at that through the NORAD aspect right now, so Admiral Gortney, who is the four-star commander of NORAD down in Colorado Springs, has tasked NORAD to specifically look at this to see what future technologies we would need, to best provide us with early surveillance of any enemy who might want to impact North America.

We're looking at it. We don't have the details yet. The north warning system is there for a period to come, but it's certainly prudent planning to do so.

5:30 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Peter Kent

Thank you very much, General Wheeler.

Thank you, Colonel Ménard, again, for indulging the disruption to this committee meeting.

I'd just like to say on the record that I regret that this committee is unable to visit either of your command locations because of obstruction by the official opposition—not on this committee but elsewhere in our parliamentary business. I thank you, though, for your contribution today to our study of North America.

This meeting is adjourned.