National Defence committee  I've given it very limited consideration. I start with the belief that things that Defence does are for national security, are well intentioned, and can be well controlled, and that inadvertent breaches of personal privacy wouldn't be exploited. That's not to say they wouldn't ha

National Defence committee  Yes.

National Defence committee  I tried to describe all the possible drone applications I could see. I am skeptical of the use of armed drones of any type in Canada, particularly skeptical of armed for air combat, or air to air. I find the opportunities in surveillance to be the most attractive, and there are a

National Defence committee  By some body, yes. Typically I take comfort that the military has a fair bit of oversight. I feel pretty proud of the way our military manages ethical challenges like that.

National Defence committee  I feel more confident in them than I might in commercial operations or something.

National Defence committee  My inclination would be to say that if it's something evidently criminal, which I believe you're talking about, that it would be quite reportable. The only analogy I can think of, and it doesn't fit terribly well, are infrared sensors in geostationary orbit watching for missile l

National Defence committee  I'm sorry I don't have any real insight or detail on that. I ought to probably, but I'd only find out through the press in any event, so I don't have an answer that's helpful on that.

National Defence committee  I'm not sure that I fully captured it. There are a lot of methods of managing communications so that they are reliable and cannot be intercepted, cannot be interfered with or jammed. There are frequency agile, jumping, hopping, techniques that apply really to the control of aircr

National Defence committee  To whether a mixed approach would be preferable in some ways, I think the answer is yes. I think there are particular tasks that the drones are better for, and there are particular tasks where the control of a pilot and the human interface is desirable. I'd be considerably suppor

National Defence committee  I'm thinking in military terms myself, so I think this is about NORAD, so I imagined that it would be the Department of National Defence.

National Defence committee  With a pilot aboard, we'd like to think it's not. We'd like to think that the pilot is ultimately loyal and can understand what he's being given as instruction. I think that gives us a fair confidence that they won't be taken over. There was an era of hijacking airplanes, and of

National Defence committee  You're asking whether a UAV carrying a weapon could launch from a ship. Certainly.

National Defence committee  That's the problem we have with cruise missiles. I think what you're describing is more likely a cruise missile than a UAV. Off of a ship, it's hard to get some of those back on board. You might be able to launch them, but if they're reusable, they're likely to have to be rotary-

National Defence committee  It would be a platform.

National Defence committee  I think integrating UAVS into the existing flow of air traffic is a big challenge. Air traffic control can be the mechanism, I suppose. It tends to require radio responses that a UAV can probably acquire. Reserved airspace is the way it's handled now, but I don't think that's th