Foreign Affairs Committee on Sept. 25th, 2025

[The Chair, Liberal, Ahmed Hussen]

Thank you very much.

Next we have Mr. Lemire.

Mr. Lemire, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Laporte, I would like to briefly touch on the topic broached by my colleague, Anita Vandenbeld. She spoke about how the Russian ambassador, Mr. Stepanov, was summoned by the Minister of Foreign Affairs. We're told that Mr. Stepanov was reprimanded. Can your department describe specifically how he was reprimanded?

[Eric Laporte]

The day after the incursion, the department of foreign affairs, trade and development asked the Russian ambassador to come in for a meeting. Our policy is to speak with Russia very rarely. The ambassador's summons already shows the seriousness of the matter. Otherwise, we don't speak with the Russian ambassador. The meeting served to draw attention to the fact that Russia's behaviour was unacceptable and that, if it continued, there could be more significant repercussions.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Did these discussions with the minister include any talk of sanctions or restrictions against Russia, and how did Russia react?

[Eric Laporte]

I should point out that the minister didn't attend the department's meeting with the Russian ambassador. Senior department officials were there. As I said, our policy is to limit communications with Russia. This time, a senior department official was appointed to express our dissatisfaction to the ambassador.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Was there any talk of sanctions or restrictions?

[Eric Laporte]

This discussion simply addressed the fact that measures could be taken. The Russians are fully aware of the sanctions that we could impose. Over 3,000 individuals are already subject to sanctions. They also know about the commitment that we made at the G7 summit to enforce sanctions on Russia's shadow fleet and to work on oil‑related issues.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ahmed Hussen]

Thank you.

We will turn to Mr. Chong.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills North, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to focus a bit on what our deterrence posture is: our deterrence posture, NORAD's and NATO's.

In the last month, we've had NATO members shoot down Russian drones that violated NATO members' airspace. Clearly, there's a deterrence posture there: If the drones come in, they're going to be shot down. At the same time, NATO members did not shoot down three MiG fighter jets that entered Estonian airspace for 12 minutes, and that's a different deterrence posture from the one on drones.

Yesterday, four Russian military planes entered the air defence identification zone, and Canadian and American fighter jets were scrambled—I believe four jets were scrambled—to intercept and track these four military planes. Now, I acknowledge that these Russian planes were in international airspace, that they were operating in a predictable, regular fashion and that NORAD assessed that there was no threat.

What would NORAD do if those jets had crossed over from the ADIZ into either American or Canadian sovereign airspace? Would we allow them to fly for 12 minutes into our airspace, or would we shoot them down?

[Ty Curran]

Thank you for the question.

I think we retain the sovereign capability, with our allies, to respond to aggression in our airspace, which could include shooting down a drone or a plane.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills North, ON]

Yes, but I guess it's not clear to me what our position is.

My comment is that if I don't know what our deterrence posture is with respect to Russian jets violating sovereign NATO airspace—not the ADIZ but our airspace—then the Russians aren't quite sure what our position, our posture, is either. Is there any discussion between Canada and other NATO members to clarify what our position is on Russian jets violating NATO members' airspace?

It's being reported, for example, that just in the last day or so, I guess, British, French and German envoys have told Moscow that they will shoot down the jets if they violate airspace in the future, yet other members are not clear on what they would do. Poland has been pretty clear on it.

What is our position? Is this an ongoing discussion between NATO capitals and at NATO headquarters in Brussels, or are we just going to muddle along until the next situation pops up? Where are we going with this?

[Eric Laporte]

Thank you for the question.

Again, I think there's always a need to look at the particular circumstances. In the case of Estonia, it's a very crowded airspace in the Gulf of Finland, which has Estonia and Finland on the other side and Russia transiting through from mainland Russia, if I can say that, to Kaliningrad. There are parts of it that are international airspace and parts of it that are the airspace over Estonia.

The Russians, in the past, have often gone through or have mistakenly gone through—either deliberate or not—and a judgment call needs to be made by the commanders who are controlling the airspace and the pilots, again, in terms of what it is that is going to happen at that time, where those aircraft are, what they're doing and what the danger is to civilian populations, etc.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills North, ON]

Can I speculate on something? I speculate that if those jets off in the Alaskan ADIZ had entered into American airspace, they would have been shot down by the U.S. Air Force. That's precisely why they remained in international airspace.

The corollary of that is taking place in eastern Europe, where Russia feels that NATO doesn't have the same deterrence posture and we end up with situations like what happened in Estonian airspace recently.

[Eric Laporte]

Mr. Chair, I can respond.

There is one slight difference I would posit. Again, whether it's in the ADIZ or the CADIZ, we're talking airspace that is very big and large, and there is lots of time to identify these aircraft coming in. There's the ability to intercept them well outside of our airspace. If we wanted to, as in the case that happens frequently, there are communications, contact and requests for them to move out. If they continue and continue, then I suspect—and you're probably speculating right—there would be some action happening.

In European airspace, some of it is very tight, and you don't have that lead time to give....

Again, commanders would have made the decision they did over Estonia. I think there was probably a desire not to shoot down in this instance, given what happened a few days before. They didn't want to escalate the situation more. I do think there may be instances in the future where, if that continues, the threshold for allied response will be that they're more prepared to go that way.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ahmed Hussen]

Thank you very much.

We now turn to MP Oliphant.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thanks to you. I'll follow up a little on Mr. Chong's comment.

I won't speculate about what the United States would do at any moment these days. However, I'd like to know a little more about the American response to these drone incursions into the airspace and also the response from France, Germany and the U.K. Have there been any bilateral responses from those four partners, in addition to what NATO has done through the secretary general?

[Eric Laporte]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I can start, and I invite Mr. Curran to add to this.

I'm not going to talk about anything in the classified space, but we have seen signalling, certainly on the part of the U.S., including from President Trump, on any further incursions. He said that, under certain circumstances, he wouldn't have an issue with having allies shoot down a Russian aircraft.

I'll stop there.

[Ty Curran]

I can add to that, Mr. Chair.

We have seen allies, including some of the countries that you listed, provide fighter jets and support to Eastern Sentry, which reinforces deterrence on the eastern flank.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Tell me more about Eastern Sentry again. What would that entail? What could Canada's response be to that? What asks could Canada receive on it?

I know that takes some speculation, but do your best.

[Ty Curran]

Absolutely, thank you.

Eastern Sentry is a NATO mission designed to reinforce NATO response and awareness on the eastern flank. It includes, for example, fighter jets, radar and the capability to identify, as well as the support that is around that. In addition, as a mission it includes headquarters capability, exploitation and that sort of thing.

In terms of Canada's contribution to that, as I mentioned previously, Canada has not, so far, provided additional capability to Eastern Sentry, although we do continue to look at that. I would just highlight that our support to overall deterrence on the eastern flank is quite high, given the forces that we deploy to Latvia. We continue to maintain a deterrence posture here in Canada and in North America as part of NORAD.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Proudly so.

Most of our attention on this tends to go to the Baltic. We tend to look at that body of water. I want to just move us a little to the Black Sea. I'm wondering what we are seeing and responding to. That's Romania and Bulgaria. There is activity in the Black Sea. There are mining operations. There are a number of things going on with respect to the Black Sea.

Could you give us a little intelligence or a thought—“small i” intelligence—about what Russia's activities are on that side of the continent?

[Eric Laporte]

I can start, Mr. Chair.

Obviously, we've seen, again, drone airspace violations over Romania. There's certainly, by the Danube, an area where drones will often overfly to strike into Ukraine.

In the Black Sea itself, yes, there is activity, but I would posit that throughout the course of the war, Ukraine has frankly done a very amazing job at neutralizing the Russian Black Sea fleet, moving it out of Sevastopol, further west. It was for Ukraine's protection, to be out of harm's way from maritime UAVs but also from ground-based missile attacks, as we saw when they sank the Moskva. We've also seen, from open-source reporting, that maritime-based drones are hitting maritime oil ports or off-loading sites again. It is very much an active theatre.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

In closing, Mr. Putin has probably been caught off guard that NATO is stronger than it was before, as opposed to weaker. Sweden and Finland joining has added capacity. I've often said to both countries that we've gained more from their joining NATO than they have gained, in some senses, because of their huge military capacity.

I would also say that we have things to learn from Ukraine. We have done training in Ukraine, but from that training, they have continued to add capacity that NATO will need in the future. I hope our government will keep that door open to learn from Ukraine.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ahmed Hussen]

Unfortunately, we've run out of time.

We'll go to the next member of Parliament, Madam Rood.

You have five minutes.