Public Accounts Committee on March 6th, 2023

[Bill Matthews]

We are aware that Russia has excellent submarine capability. I can't speak to exactly where they're operating.

I have nothing to add.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Do you have nothing to add because you don't know, or because that information's classified?

[Bill Matthews]

I am not aware of any activity being in Canadian waters, but....

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

The report outlined that Canada has considerable difficulty detecting surface vessels operating in our Arctic waters. If Russia or any other foreign country were operating submarines, how would we ever know?

[Bill Matthews]

I think the Auditor General's report points to awareness gaps, and we've talked about air, sea, subsurface just now and land. It's all of these things coming together that actually get you to all-domain awareness, and that is where the armed forces is looking to go in terms of the investments and upgrades it intends to make. A big part of the story is NORAD modernization, which we've already spoken about, but subsurface is a key one going forward, absolutely.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Last fall, the chief of the defence staff, General Wayne Eyre, appeared before the defence committee, and he had a quote I would like to read for you now. He said, “our hold on our Arctic would be much more secure with greater subsurface domain awareness at sea”.

How can we improve our subsurface domain awareness? Should we have more listening devices on our icebreakers? Should we have more devices stationed permanently under the sea? What should we be doing?

[Bill Matthews]

That relates to the comment I made earlier as well in terms of one of the next great areas we have to focus on, and I would flag innovation as probably the key answer. I would also highlight that DRDC does some excellent research in subsurface. That is something I think is going to become more and more important as the years go on, and the capability that goes with that monitoring will likely be multi-faceted.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

I'm sorry. The navy wants to jump in.

[RAdm Steven Waddell]

I would offer a couple of additional supplemental points. Based a lot on the efforts of DRDC and others and some of the innovation pieces that we've been talking about, the Royal Canadian Navy is involved extensively in looking at autonomous vehicles and other remotely operated vehicles, both aerial and subsurface, along with other sensors to support and enhance our ability to understand the subsurface domain, including in the Arctic region.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Thank you.

I'd like to circle back to the issue of the Chinese buoys that were discovered recently. What was the purpose of these buoys in our waters in the first place, and what were they hoping to accomplish?

[Bill Matthews]

I can't offer any additional information at this stage beyond what has already been publicly reported. I regret I cannot answer that question.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

It was publicly reported that the purpose of the buoys may be to monitor American submarines in Canada's Arctic waters. Can you confirm if that could have been a possibility?

[Bill Matthews]

There's a lot of speculation about what could have been the purpose, but at this stage, I can't offer any fact-based information.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Okay.

How about this? Who has a greater ability to monitor subsurface activity in Canada's Arctic waters, Canada or China?

[Bill Matthews]

I don't have information on that one either, but I would stress that this is the emerging area when we talk about all-domain awareness. It is where innovation and activity are going to be absolutely critical going forward.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Thank you.

Madam Chair, how am I doing for time?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Jean Yip]

You have 20 seconds left.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Okay—

[Bill Matthews]

Madam Chair, this may be helpful to the member. I'm turning to my colleague Andrew, but I believe the Auditor General's report did not look at subsurface. Do I have that correct?

[Andrew Hayes]

That's correct.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Okay, and I'm right about out of time right now, so I'll thank you for that.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Jean Yip]

Thank you very much.

We move on to Mr. Fragiskatos for five minutes.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I want to return to the point, deputy minister, you just put on the table, the point about innovation and how this figures quite prominently now and into the future with respect to the question of the Arctic. Could you expand on that? Is there anything else you'd like to elaborate on?

[Bill Matthews]

There are a couple of things we're stressing, and my colleagues may have additional points as well. On subsurface we flagged DRDC, our defence research organization. It does excellent work in numerous areas, but of relevance here today would be the work they do in subsurface, which is mostly based out of their Nova Scotia facility. I would flag that allies are also doing similar research, so that collaboration is really important.

Satellites have been mentioned here today as an area of importance, but also where there are gaps and some mitigation required. I think you can look to innovation in terms of the quality of satellite imagery going forward. One of the things we are looking to do to temporarily fill that gap, should it come to fruition, is dealing with private sector partners and allies. Again, that outreach is critical.

I'll pause there to see if my colleagues Steve or Rob wish to add anything. It's not a must, though.

Steve.

[RAdm Steven Waddell]

I would just mention, although they are not in the scope of the Auditor General's report, the international partnerships in terms of information sharing and the collaboration that Canada in particular has, along with a number of other partners, in terms of continental defence, working with the United States. These really reinforce the information sharing, which allows us to get after responding to the variety of threats we're talking about.