Government Operations Committee on June 3rd, 2022

[The Chair (Mr. Robert Kitchen (Souris—Moose Mountain, CPC)), Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, everybody, for being with us today. Votes in the House have curtailed our time a little bit, so I apologize to our witnesses.

With that said, I would like to welcome everyone to meeting number 24 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates. Today we will continue to study our air defence procurement projects. We will also discuss committee business during the last 30 minutes of the meeting.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format pursuant to the House order of November 25, 2021. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application.

Regarding the speaking list, the committee clerk and I will do our best to maintain the consolidated order of speaking for all members, whether participating virtually or in person. I would like to take this opportunity to remind all participants in this meeting that screenshots or taking photos of your screen is not permitted.

As the chair I will be enforcing these measures for the duration of the meeting, and I thank members in advance for their co-operation.

I'd like to welcome our first panel of witnesses from NORAD. You will have seven minutes to make an opening statement. My understanding is that each of you would like to make a brief statement, and with that, recognizing the time constraints, I will start with Lieutenant-General Pelletier.

[Lieutenant-General Alain Pelletier, Deputy Commander, North American Aerospace Defense Command, Department of National Defence]

Mr. Chair and members of the committee, good afternoon.

My name is Alain Pelletier and I am the deputy commander of the North American Aerospace Defence Command, NORAD, here in Colorado Springs, in the state of Colorado.

I've held a broad range of roles across the Canadian Armed Forces that include the director of air requirements, chief of the fighter capability program, deputy commander of the continental U.S. NORAD region, and most recently as the commander of 1 Canadian Air Division and Canadian NORAD region.

In my current role as the NORAD deputy commander, I support the commander, General Glen VanHerck, as he carries out the three roles assigned to him: aerospace warning, aerospace control and maritime warning for North America.

NORAD provides detection, validation and warning of attacks on North America, whether by aircraft, missile, space vehicles or from the maritime approaches. NORAD is a unique binational command composed of Canadian and U.S. service members and is co-located with the U.S. Northern Command, for which General VanHerck is also the commander.

Together, NORAD and USNORTHCOM offer a unique focus on the continental defence of North America, which we execute proudly with the Canadian Joint Operations Command and the Canadian Special Operations Forces Command.

The world has changed and NORAD’s approach to address evolving threats is also changing.

NORAD has actively communicated its requirements to the leadership of the U.S. Department of Defense and to the Canadian Armed Forces in order to remain relevant towards our mission, our countries and our allies and to close the capability gaps generated by the evolution of the threats to Canada and the U.S.

As such, I work closely with the three services of the Canadian Armed Forces and numerous departments within DND to include the ADM policy and the chief of force development, both of which are represented here today, to advocate for the requirements and capabilities necessary for NORAD to carry out its assigned mission.

I am privileged to be working in our great binational organization that is NORAD to deliver on our mission with such a dedicated team of Canadian and American professionals who maintain the watch 365 days a year for the safety of both of our nations.

With that short overview, I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak about NORAD and include our requirements for air defence in the context of continental defence, and I look forward to actually answering your questions today.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, General.

We'll now go to Mr. Quinn.

[Jonathan Quinn, Director General, Continental Defence Policy, Department of National Defence]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak about NORAD modernization and our current efforts to strengthen continental defence.

My name is Jonathan Quinn and I am the director general of Continental Defence Policy at the Department of National Defence.

My division is responsible for policy development related to continental and Arctic defence, NORAD modernization...

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

My apologies for interrupting our witness. I'm hearing both English and French translation at the same time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Jowhari.

Mr. Quinn, please bear with us for a second. We're going to check into that.

[Jonathan Quinn]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

I'm going to suspend briefly while we try to iron this out.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

I call the meeting back to order.

[Jonathan Quinn]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Canada and the United States formally established NORAD in 1958 as a binational military command. NORAD's mandate of aerospace warning, aerospace control and maritime warning is more important than ever in meeting current and evolving threats to North America.

The last major investment in NORAD capabilities was in the late 1980s, when the North Warning System was established. National Defence has made recent investments in maintaining current capabilities. For example, in January 2022, Public Services and Procurement Canada, on behalf of National Defence, awarded an in-service support contract for the North Warning System to Nasittuq Corporation, an Inuit-owned company. We are now focused on improvements to address rapidly evolving threats.

Modernizing NORAD and strengthening continental defence more broadly are becoming even more important in the context of two fundamental shifts in the global security environment.

First, we are seeing the return of strategic competition among states play out tragically and in real time on the ground in Ukraine. This shift in geopolitics will not be limited to Europe. It will also play out at home, on our continent and in our Arctic. We need to shore up our defences.

Second, the increasingly stark implications of climate change are increasing international interest in the Arctic and will lead to more demands on our military to respond to emergencies, including conducting search and rescue.

We are actively working to deliver on the direction in Minister Anand's mandate letter to modernize NORAD in collaboration with the United States, and to more broadly strengthen our domestic defences. This commitment is also an important element of high-level bilateral discussions with the United States. It features in the “Roadmap for a Renewed U.S.-Canada Partnership”, which was established during the Prime Minister's engagement with President Biden in February 2021. In August 2021, the Minister of National Defence and the U.S. Secretary of Defence released a joint statement on NORAD modernization, which identified priority areas to guide future investments and collaboration.

We've conducted an extensive analysis to identify key threats, gaps and potential solutions to defend Canada and Canadian interests in this new reality. Our analysis benefited from ongoing collaborative work with the U.S., including through NORAD.

We also looked at the full range of domestic defence challenges Canada will face in the coming years, and engaged academics, industry, and territorial and indigenous governments to seek out broad perspectives and ensure we maximize the broader benefits to Canada of any future investments in continental defence.

In closing, I would simply note that the minister has been quite clear about her intent to bring forward a robust package of investments to strengthen continental defence in the near future.

I look forward to your questions.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Quinn.

We will now go to Brigadier-General Boucher.

[Brigadier-General Jeannot Boucher, Acting Chief, Force Development, Department of National Defence]

Mr. Chair, members of the committee, my name is Jeannot Boucher and I am the acting chief of force development at the Department of National Defence.

I lead a community of planners who specialize in future force design, which is often referred to as “force development”. This community comprises military and civilian experts, defence scientists, operational researchers, academics and industry planners. The community also accesses NORAD planning and processes, such as those led by NATO.

My role is to lead this collaborative planning effort to develop investment strategies and propose priorities.

In my role, I work closely with Mr. Quinn and his defence policy team, as well as with Lieutenant-General Pelletier and his team.

The department's force development program provides the analytical basis to anticipate changes to threat and security and provide advice on capability requirements in the 5- to 20-year horizon. It does so by conducting deliberate analysis that leverages academic and defence research as well as a review of current platform systems and capacity.

We use a three-year review cycle. Defence needs are evaluated through scenarios and modelling to objectively consider the future demands of the Canadian Armed Forces.

This then informs decisions around the modification, divestment or introduction of new defence capabilities to ensure that the defence team has what it needs in the future.

With that short overview, I look forward to answering your questions.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, General.

With that, we will now go into questions. In light of the challenges we've had with time today, we will start our first round of four minutes of questions per individual.

We'll start with Mr. Paul-Hus for four minutes.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon, generals and Mr. Quinn. Thank you for being here.

In 2017, with the Standing Committee on National Defence, I had the opportunity to visit the NORAD complex at Cheyenne Mountain. We got a pretty clear picture of the situation and saw how things work. There has been an emphasis over the years on the need to improve our capabilities.

Here at the committee we are mainly interested in the supply of equipment. We know that a contract has been awarded to maintain our existing radar stations, but we also know that we are supposed to procure a new over-the-horizon radar. Are there still plans to purchase this equipment? If so, where do we stand? Are we making progress, or are we still waiting?

I am speaking to General Pelletier.

[LGen Alain Pelletier]

I thank the member for his question.

Of course, the needs remain. NORAD has indicated the need for domain awareness, not only on the air defence side, but also on the maritime defence side. As you mentioned, funding was provided by the Canadian government last year to maintain the current system, which is the North Warning System, until it is replaced by a system with increased capabilities.

The Defence Research and Development Canada, or DRDC, team has been working with U.S. researchers to advance the technology associated with the over-the-horizon radar for the acquisition of such a system. It is one of a series of acquisitions at various levels to address threats that may arise in maritime or airspace. This is the main system, but there are several others that involve space surveillance systems.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

I'm going to have to interrupt you, because time is passing so quickly.

[LGen Alain Pelletier]

Very well.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

I don't want to talk about strategic or tactical elements, as I said, but regarding the equipment requirements, except for this famous system which is the subject of an acquisition process, are we behind? Are our American colleagues pushing us to make certain acquisitions? I'm thinking of the ships and F‑35 planes, for example. Are there procurement processes like that that we should be accelerating?

[LGen Alain Pelletier]

Of course, we are pleased that the procurement process for the next fighters has reached a certain stage, and the date for the new aircraft to enter operational service has been set for 2025. We need them to ensure our interoperability with the Americans. They have also started discussions on radar, as well as research on other systems, with a view to implementing space surveillance systems that are also located at ground level to increase the overall command capabilities.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

I think my time is already up, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you for that.

Now we will go to Mr. Kusmierczyk for four minutes.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

The recent interaction in the north Pacific between the aggressive Chinese air force and the Canadian Armed Forces, obviously, is something that is of great concern to us, and I think it also highlights how dynamic and fast-changing the security and geopolitical situation is around the world.

I want to ask you, Lieutenant-General, how the threats have evolved since the last time Canada and the U.S. undertook a major modernization reform of NORAD infrastructure.

[LGen Alain Pelletier]

I would categorize the evolution of the threat as incredible. General VanHerck actually always says that the current environment is one of the most complex he has seen since he started his career, and I would echo that.

What we have seen is that both Russia and China have looked at the way we have done business over the last 15 years, and even more. They have fielded capabilities now to hold us at risk, not only in terms of persons, but also in terms of our critical infrastructure, both in the U.S. and Canada, using conventional means.

Those two countries used to leverage their nuclear weapons as their deterrence mechanism, but now they have advanced their capability to actually hold the critical infrastructure in both countries at risk, using conventional capabilities that can be delivered now from long-range aviation, as well as very stealthy submarines that are going to be available on both coasts. Both the Atlantic and the Pacific are of concern to us.

The challenge has been increased, as well, by their ability to deliver those threats from a range well beyond the current detection range of the North Warning System. That's why we're looking at systems, whether space-based, air-based, ground-based or subsurface-based, in order to detect those threats and the vehicles carrying them as far from our coast as possible.

General VanHerck always referred to how detection and deterrence starts abroad and moves in. So we're also relying on the capability provided by NATO and our allies in Europe and in the Indo-Pacific to help us in our detection and aerospace warning and aerospace control mission as well.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Thank you very much for that, Lieutenant-General.

NORAD is really a unique example of the shared management of shared airspace. I want to ask you, what role does the Royal Canadian Air Force play under NORAD, and can you describe the operations undertaken by the CAF as well, too? What is Canada's input to NORAD?

[LGen Alain Pelletier]

Canadians' input is important. We have over 1,000 people who contribute daily to the NORAD mission across both Canada and the U.S. That starts in Canada, through members working at the HQ of the region as well as the sector. The region is located in Winnipeg. The sector is located in North Bay.

We also have, at the tactical level, the fighter and tanker aircraft that contribute our reach capability to be able to operate up in the north as much as off the coast. We have Canadians who are distributed across 13 different locations in the U.S. as well, and in Greenland, who contribute to both the aerospace warning and aerospace control, and also generate capability through the maritime warning aspect of our mission.