National Defence Committee on Feb. 18th, 2015

[Col S.M. Moritsugu]

The information operations group which includes the signals intelligence function has approximately 900 people in it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

End of time. Thank you very much, Ms. Murray.

Mr. Williamson, please.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Thank you, Colonel. It's very interesting. I appreciate both introductions. Your initial comments were a good introduction for all of us, I think. They were to the point. I will just make a brief comment. It's unfortunate we were planning to visit Alert, but we were not able to receive full cooperation from all of the political parties. I think some of the questions here today might have been answered if we had made that voyage up north to better understand what it is you do in terms of operations and the living conditions of the men and women who are stationed up north.

You had mentioned twice the primary communications. I don't know if you can go much further. You mentioned you have one communication link and you would like a secondary one in an ideal world, whether it's a want or a desire. Could you provide a little more information about that? I just noticed that you raised it twice actually. It's an issue on our side.

[Col S.M. Moritsugu]

We have one path that our communication goes which is from Alert over the spine of Ellesmere Island, which is covered in glaciers. It's a beautiful country, but it's very rugged, and glaciers also move. We have the one path. We have multiple means of communication down that path through these towers, mountain top to mountain top, until we get to Eureka, and it goes to the sky to more than one satellite. We have redundant communications but it's only on one path. As a signaller by trade, having a diversity of paths gives you redundancy and flexibility beyond just the fact that you have more than one system going down the same route, but that's quite expensive. Building towers across the top of Alert off Ellesmere Island is not a trivial exercise, and maintaining them is a big deal as well. Where else would you go off Alert because it's very far north?

In a perfect, resourced, unconstrained environment I would agitate for a separate physical path as well, but we've got redundant paths.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

I'm curious, with the volume of data I assume you have some sort of airlift capacity at Alert. Is it open all year, or are there periods of the year where it is virtually impossible to get in and out?

[Col S.M. Moritsugu]

There are flights that are scheduled to go there year-round. Again, the air force can talk about it but there are certainly days when you can't go.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

I'm just curious, with the volume of data you're talking about, if the primary communications network was down, could it be flown in and out on some sort of—

[Col S.M. Moritsugu]

If the primary communications went down, we could essentially reconstitute 250 people back up there and then process there and send less information back here.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Right, but could the data be transported another way as well?

[Col S.M. Moritsugu]

Certainly it could, but it wouldn't be as timely, obviously.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

I realize that. Fair enough.

In terms of Ms. Murray's comments, she usually asks witnesses if the budget's been cut, and then is disappointed if it's not been increased. It sounds like when you were commenting about the change in operations there was a refocus and dollars were being spent differently. You don't have to comment on this, but that's what it sounded like to me. There was a reorganization within your unit to save dollars. I'm pleased the NDP occasionally is concerned about the bottom line. Does it happen often—

[An hon. member]

Always.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Always, yes, except when you're howling on the House of Commons floor.

It sounds like there has been a change within the operation to consolidate assets in the south where it's perhaps more cost-effective and pulling some resources back, but making better use of technology, information technology, in particular.

[Col S.M. Moritsugu]

Mr. Chairman, as well as being more cost-effective, it's easier on the human beings as well. If you can go home to your family every night, it's a good thing.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

That sounds like the government has made some good moves.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Thank you, Mr. Williamson.

Madam Michaud.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would first like to thank Colonel Moritsugu for his presentation.

I must admit that signals intelligence is not an area I am particularly familiar with. Could you tell me exactly what you mean by electronic intelligence obtained by electromagnetic non-communications emissions?

[Col S.M. Moritsugu]

Our purpose in intercepting the signals is to glean whatever information we can from them. The reason that people would send the signals is normally primarily for communications. When I say “signals”, I mean radio waves. If somebody is talking on the radio or sending a radio transmission, their purpose is to communicate with somebody else. Because of where Alert is, it is often possible to receive the same signal and hopefully gather something useful out of it, which would be our job.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

That wasn't exactly what I was asking about. I want to know what you mean by electromagnetic non-communications emissions.

[Col S.M. Moritsugu]

Non-communication emissions would be where somebody sends a signal out, but they don't mean it as a message. The best example would be a radar signal, where your plane sends it. It's not a message; it's just to send a beep and get it back.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Thank you very much. That's exactly what I wanted to know.

You spoke briefly about the physical constraints of your working environment. They are certainly quite impressive.

Have you found that the impacts of climate change might make your work a little harder? Could changes in how you work in the Arctic environment be due to climate change?

[Col S.M. Moritsugu]

With respect to climate change in particular, Alert is so far north that it hasn't yet had the.... Changes in the edge of the ice pack, for example, have had no effect upon it.

It's still really cold up there.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

I imagine that, in your case, we can say that you're lucky.

You spoke briefly in your presentation about your organization's direct contributions to NORAD. Could you expand on that a little?

[Col S.M. Moritsugu]

In this forum it's difficult for me to be more specific, but what we're trying to give is, again, warning of other people's intentions and capabilities.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

If I may summarize it this way, the role is mainly to share information.

You mentioned that you sometimes take part in search and rescue operations in Canada. I understood that it mainly involved trying to triangulate signals, but I would like to know how and when your services are requested.