If I can provide a framework, when you look at the need for situational awareness, the framework is that it's not just these unattended aerial vehicles that are flying around. At the top you would need satellites, because it's very much a layered approach. You would need satellites, UAVs, surveillance aircraft, going all the way down to somebody on the ground providing that overall view. Just having UAVs will not answer the mail, will not ensure that you will have situational awareness. You need to have this very layered approach.
When it comes to the issue of sovereignty, in the end what you will need is to be able to have someone in a plane flying, who actually can provide that eyeball on the ground to see what is going on. That's what we're looking at. How could we have that framework, develop that framework, to be able to have full situational awareness across the north?
When it comes to the testing of the UAVs, we continue to look at how it has worked and how it hasn't worked. We've only looked at it once, up in Resolute, for a short period. We continue to examine the challenges of using them in the north. It's an issue I'll bring back to the department, and leave it up to the department to decide if it can get you the information.
The testing was very much focused on the technicalities of getting the UAV into the air. What were the challenges flying around in the north? What was the value that it then provided to the ground station?
People do need to be at a headquarters in order to receive the data.
The information is coming from the UAV that's flying around. So we looked at all the technical aspects of it, the first time to see whether or not we could continue to use it. We got some very positive results, but again, not to be too premature, we've got to look at it in some other ways.