Evidence of meeting #3 for Foreign Affairs and International Development in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was russia.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Shelby Kramp-Neuman Conservative Hastings—Lennox and Addington—Tyendinaga, ON
Is there any indication that the nations that have had their airspace violated were targeted because of their recent rearmament campaigns?
Deputy Director General, International Security Policy, Department of National Defence
To my knowledge, all of the countries that are there have increased their defence spending significantly. However, almost all NATO allies have done that, so I don't believe it would be that. That is ultimately a hypothetical question that I don't know the answer to.
Conservative
Shelby Kramp-Neuman Conservative Hastings—Lennox and Addington—Tyendinaga, ON
As a follow-up to a question earlier, what assets does the CAF currently have deployed in the three nations that have been targeted by Russia?
Deputy Director General, International Security Policy, Department of National Defence
The majority of our forces are deployed in Latvia, which is where we have our battle group. As I have mentioned, we do have, as well, maritime assets deployed to Europe right now.
Conservative
Shelby Kramp-Neuman Conservative Hastings—Lennox and Addington—Tyendinaga, ON
Do they have the capacity in Latvia to respond to the drones?
Deputy Director General, International Security Policy, Department of National Defence
Yes, they do, although we continue to make investments in that regard.
Conservative
Shelby Kramp-Neuman Conservative Hastings—Lennox and Addington—Tyendinaga, ON
Have there been any requests from the nations whose airspace has recently been violated for support from Canada or any other NATO allies?
Executive Director, Regional Security and Defence Relations Division, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
As mentioned earlier, there were two article 4 consultations in the context of NATO. There was a decision to stand up Eastern Sentry, which is a request for all allies to provide capabilities as they can. Through NATO, there have been requests for Canadian assistance. Those are being looked at and examined, but, again, our contribution at the moment in terms of the eastern flank is very much focused on Latvia.
Conservative
Shelby Kramp-Neuman Conservative Hastings—Lennox and Addington—Tyendinaga, ON
How is the Canadian government balancing deterrence without escalation?
Executive Director, Regional Security and Defence Relations Division, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
That is basically a daily task that we and our allies are doing in terms of ensuring the safety and security of allied populations but also supporting Ukraine in its fight against Russia. Again, that is a daily—
Liberal
Rob Oliphant Liberal Don Valley West, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to our witnesses for being with us today. Thank you for the work you do every day in diplomacy, intelligence and our defence security.
There are two areas of questioning I'd like to come into. The first area has to do with risk assessment. Obviously, we have zero tolerance for an incursion of any kind into a NATO member. That is something we've been very clear about.
In terms of risk assessment, when you're looking at the other activities Russia is doing with respect to violations of our sovereignty and territorial integrity in other ways—sabotage, cyber-interference, intelligence gathering and foreign interference in our countries—how do we rate this one? I'm not minimizing it, but how do we rate it compared to cutting cables under the Baltic, destabilizing energy and all the grey-zone areas?
A lot of them could be dummy drones that cause a huge distraction for us while maybe more nefarious activity is taking place. Where should this committee be drawing its attention?
Executive Director, Regional Security and Defence Relations Division, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
It's a great question.
As we've seen, Russia is active in many domains. The drones or overflights have been happening for a while, but they are getting a lot of attention at the moment.
The countries that have been affected by the violation of airspace of course feel very strongly that this is a violation of their sovereignty and their territorial integrity, etc., but at the end of the day, it's a drone flying through their airspace and leaving, most of the time unscathed and with no damage, whereas we know that Russia is very active on the cyber front. It has done a number of sabotage activities that have resulted in the loss of property, etc.
Again, your question on the scale of things is a great one.
Liberal
Rob Oliphant Liberal Don Valley West, ON
I don't expect an answer on it, but I'm raising it because I think the committee needs to consider it.
I was in Moldova in the summer and watching the level of interference from Russia in the sovereignty of Moldova in terms of its upcoming elections and the way they were using money to buy support. That seems to me to be horrendous activity in a near neighbour to our NATO neighbours. I just put it on the record that I'm looking for a threat assessment at some point and maybe we need to consider it as a committee.
The second area of questioning has to do with our response. I understand that the minister directed officials to call in the Russian ambassador to express our concern. Following up on Madam Fortier's questions, there's a range of activities, from diplomatic to démarches. We have 5,000 sanctions on Russia already. I forget the new number. We have a range of activities in terms of what we can do.
Should our quiver be growing? Are there things we should be doing more of to express very strongly to Russia not only our displeasure but our outrage at its engagement with our NATO partners?
Executive Director, Regional Security and Defence Relations Division, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
You outlined rightly some of the steps we've taken following the September 10 incursion and highlighted our very robust sanctions regime at the moment.
As I mentioned in my remarks or in response to some of the questions, those are constantly being reviewed. There is a lot of work going on now amongst G7 partners and amongst other allies for additional measures, including looking at what more can be done in oil and gas, for example, which continues to fuel Russia's war.
Liberal
Rob Oliphant Liberal Don Valley West, ON
For my last question, have we démarched non-NATO members to ask them to express concern to Russia with respect to the territorial integrity of a NATO...? For me, Russia's activity into NATO under article 4 with consultations, and article 5, are critical because that's our allyship.
Have we gone to other non-NATO members to express that we would like them to talk to Russia and tell it to back off?
Executive Director, Regional Security and Defence Relations Division, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
We have not démarched, in a real sense, countries on this, but in a lot of our interactions with NATO and non-NATO allies, we have signalled our concern with the recklessness of the Russian behaviour.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ahmed Hussen
Thank you very much.
Mr. Lemire, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.
Bloc
Sébastien Lemire Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Some researchers have pointed out that Russia is attempting to escalate the war in Ukraine through its actions in order to prevent the conflict from coming to a standstill. Do you have an opinion on this claim that Russia is trying to destabilize the Ukrainian conflict?
Executive Director, Regional Security and Defence Relations Division, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
I don't have any information on this topic. However, we've been monitoring Russia's actions since 2014. Since 2022, Russia has been trying to gain influence over other countries in the region. It seems that the whole Soviet mentality remains, meaning a desire to reclaim the eastern bloc countries that joined NATO and bring them back under Moscow's control.
Bloc
Sébastien Lemire Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
Poland has recently significantly increased its military capabilities. This means that Russia is very likely to target regions to identify what equipment Poland possesses, the location of this equipment and the location of munitions factories. Russia's ability to send drones to the area to gather this information is alarming.
How much information do you think that Russia was able to gather about the area that it flew over? Is there a high or low likelihood that it obtained a response? Will this affect its strategy?
Deputy Director General, International Security Policy, Department of National Defence
I don't know the direction things are taking as we speak. However, certainly Russia is taking advantage of these incursions to gather intelligence. That's one reason for our concern when incidents of this nature occur. That's why we need to strengthen our capacity to respond, if necessary.
Bloc
Sébastien Lemire Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
What mechanisms should be implemented to block these attempts, which could be considered espionage? Do these mechanisms currently apply to Canada?
Deputy Director General, International Security Policy, Department of National Defence
I think that we always learn lessons when these incidents occur. As I said earlier, it's always good to invest in the Canadian Armed Forces to develop our anti‑aircraft capabilities and our capacity to fight drones.