National Defence Committee on Feb. 18th, 2015

[Col S.M. Moritsugu]

Sir, polar orbiting satellites can.

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

Polar orbiting, yes, but only on the way around.

[Col S.M. Moritsugu]

Only every once in a while, yes, sir.

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

That's all I have, sir.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Thank you, Mr. Harris.

Ms. Gallant, please.

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

In terms of technology, aside from being reduced from 200 to 10 people, how is the emergence of new technology enabling you to do more comprehensive work?

[Col S.M. Moritsugu]

In 1956 when those things went up there, we had to do all the work forward because it was impossible to send the signals back. The ability did not exist. The number of people you could consult was smaller because there were 250 people there and that was it. Now that we're doing it back here, we can draw on everybody in the Canadian Forces intelligence community. The human interface is not the same as talking on the phone, so the ability to analyze is better.

Technology was valves and vacuum tubes and stuff back in the fifties, and it has obviously advanced considerably since then. Our ability to collect and process signals and figure out what they are is much better.

Conversely, the ability of any target to hide its signals and make them difficult to understand is much better as well, so it's a continuing.... Communications information technology advances by leaps and bounds, and it has advantages and disadvantages for both sides when it does that.

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

Highly electronic technology is really sensitive to the deep cold. How do you overcome challenges with this new technology as it pertains to temperature and the availability of electricity?

[Col S.M. Moritsugu]

Station Alert, because it's permanent, has constructed buildings up there. So we've obviously got power—not Ontario Hydro, but local generators and stuff—and backup power, and backup to the backup power, because if it goes down, when you're that far north and hours away from the nearest help, it has to be continuous. We have that. Some of our systems actually require air conditioning, even though it might be minus 50.

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

With respect to the sharing of information, the connectivity, and the seamless picture of what is coming in, to what extent are we sharing some sort of communication system with our Nordic neighbours?

[Col S.M. Moritsugu]

Our main reason for having the station there would be the defence of Canada, the defence of the homeland, and the defence of North America.

Our primary sharing is with NORAD. From my perspective, we figure out what's going on. We produce that intelligence. How our national command might then decide to share that or any other source of intelligence with somebody else, because we have a common problem we're dealing with, on a case-by-case basis, is echelons above me. Here's the information into the hopper, and somebody else decides whether my information or some other bit of information needs to be shared with somebody other than the people we regularly share with, and that is ourselves and NORAD.

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

If another country had signals intelligence, they wouldn't push it to your station. For example, let's say the Danes or the Swedes had some sort of intelligence. Instead of pushing it to you, they would push it directly to our head command or to NORAD.

[Col S.M. Moritsugu]

Yes. The processed intelligence would come directly to our headquarters here in Ottawa basically. Then how it would be used is up to us.

One of the reasons you do this is that you want to tell people what's going on, but you don't want to necessarily tell them how good your equipment is, which you would be doing by giving them your exact raw intelligence.

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

There is a finite ability for satellites to give you a full picture all the time. In the course of what you do, would it make sense to be connected with assets from other allied countries in that region?

[Col S.M. Moritsugu]

I don't think we would necessarily want to connect our communication means to other allies, certainly not as a primary. We have our primary means.

If I had a wish, it would be to have at least one other completely Canadian way to get information back in case of a problem with that primary means. But for this type and sensitivity of information, it's unlikely we would depend upon even a close ally to do that for us.

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

So we have enough sensors to detect far in advance whether anything is a threat to North America.

[Col S.M. Moritsugu]

That's certainly our intent, yes.

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

Is there anything, any type of technology or any type of additional help your organization needs that the government could be looking at providing?

[Col S.M. Moritsugu]

I guess it's a question of defining what's a need and what's a want, right? What I say I need, my boss might say that's what I want.

The fact is that information and communications technology leapfrogs so quickly. You didn't have an iPad 10 years ago. Because that kind of stuff happens, we need to keep refreshing our own equipment all the time. We have a well-defined process in the forces to put our requirements forward, and then they have to be matched up against every other requirement in the armed forces as well. That's one, just to continue to keep refreshing.

The second one, as I mentioned before, is that we are dependent on a communication link that is very robust. We have all systems in place, but in a perfect world, I would have two that went different ways that were both Canadian.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Thank you very much, Ms. Gallant.

Ms. Murray, please.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Perhaps you could clarify something. You're the forces commander for information operations group. That would include the east coast signals facility and Masset. Is there one in Winnipeg, as well?

[Col S.M. Moritsugu]

In terms of the collection facilities that are similar to Alert, there are only three in Canada. The majority of my people, though, are actually here just outside of Ottawa.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

What's the difference between how Masset serves signals intelligence needs compared with Alert?

[Col S.M. Moritsugu]

Physically they're the same, but the fact that they're in different locations enables them to pick up different signals, because the signals propagate to the atmosphere, and the ones that come from the west are stronger in the west than they are in the east. Also, if more than one station picks them up, which we hope they would, then it gives us the ability to direction-find them as well and find exactly where they came from: I know in which direction from me they came from, and you know in which direction from you they came from, and it's where they cross.