National Defence Committee on April 19th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Welcome everybody. We're missing a couple of members, but we have a quorum, so we can get started.

I would like to welcome our guest, Lieutenant-General Pierre St-Amand. Thank you very much, sir, for coming here to discuss our defence of North America and, more specifically, the aerial readiness of the Canadian NORAD region.

You have 10-plus minutes.

[LGen Pierre St-Amand, Deputy Commander, North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), Department of National Defence]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, let me first thank you for the opportunity to appear before you and discuss NORAD. I also would like to extend the greetings of the NORAD commander, Admiral Gortney, who looks forward to your visit to the NORAD-USNORTHCOM headquarters in early May.

On May 12, 2016, NORAD will be 58 years old. Our story has been characterized by success and great service to both the United States and Canada. Our commander likes to remind us all that NORAD was born out of the Cold War and expanded to an internal threat focus after the events of 9/11.

The events of 9/11 were a turning point in our history. NORAD was able to evolve and adapt in the same way that we have always been able to do so in the presence of developing security concerns that affect North America, either directly or indirectly.

We do not operate in isolation. The nature of our operation demands a high level of coordination with law enforcement and domestic security agencies on both sides of the border. Our high level of integration with our U.S. twin command, U.S. Northern Command, and coordination with the Canadian Joint Operations Command produces continental effects that far surpass NORAD's current primary mandate of protecting North America's airspace.

Our perspective is unique in the sense that we deliberately watch for and anticipate potential security issues for the homelands, and our area of interest is global in nature. As such, we see much that is of concern and deserves our attention. The spectrum of threats and potential threats to our security range from traditional nation state military capabilities to individuals with access to increasingly destructive technologies.

Great power competition is back. This is now a prominent view in the United States. Potential adversary behaviour and continued efforts to develop advanced military capabilities, especially those that can reach North America, are a matter of critical importance for us. For example, Russia was able to deploy long-range, conventionally armed cruise missiles comparable to western systems this year. Indeed, this capability was on display as Russia employed heavy bombers, surface vessels, and a submarine to launch advanced conventional cruise missiles at targets in Syria. When combined with a high level of long-range aviation activity in the vicinity of our air defence identification zones in the last few years, we take notice.

We're also concerned about violent extremists and the enduring threat they represent to general and commercial aviation. We're concerned about ballistic missiles and related capability developments.

Our current missions include aerospace warning and aerospace control, and maritime warning in the defence of North America. In concert with our sister commands, we're observing threat streams that force us to adjust our aperture and pay attention to other domains, such as cyber.

I don't want to be perceived as crying wolf, of course, but while a worst case scenario of a direct conventional attack against North America remains unlikely, it is the responsibility of the commander of NORAD, on behalf of both governments, to plan for the eventuality and contribute to the deterrence of such an attack. The way we deliver our NORAD missions is through a spectrum of most likely to most dangerous courses of action.

We take pride in being as effective as possible, given our means and capabilities, when dealing with the most likely. Those are the operations that we conduct daily in the three NORAD regions: Alaska, Canada, and the continental United States. They include the part of Operation Noble Eagle that defends against 9/11-type scenarios and against any act attempting to use general or commercial aviation to threaten our security. They also include monitoring our maritime approaches, in concert with our partners, and the deliberate control of air traffic approaching or entering our air defence identification zones on the outside perimeter of North America.

The resources allocated routinely to the NORAD missions vary by region, but given intelligence and command assessment of developing operational requirements, regional commanders have the ability to scale up or down, as required, and relocate resources across their region to better respond to developing situations.

NORAD maintains very high readiness forces throughout the continent. To deliver effective operations, we have come to rely on a sophisticated system of systems, which allows us to fully exploit a spectrum of engagement, which includes indicators and warnings, detection, identification, and if necessary, the deployment of fighter aircraft to intercept and engage airborne tracks.

Our first defence, of course, resides in the multitude of men and women in uniform from both nations who have the honour of defending our nations and our citizens right here at home.

To be able to deploy and sustain any number of fighter aircraft vast distances away from their main operating bases requires the choreography and coordination of many parts of a system. Whether it is training, command and control nodes, our infrastructure, air-to-air refuellers, airborne early warning platforms, ground-based radars or fighter aircraft, we need to be able to communicate and have command and control over the entirety of the defended area. Each of these components must be as capable as possible and must be able to network with each other. This requirement to connect parts in a system will be a fundamental characteristic of future defensive systems for any domains.

NORAD's current structure of main operating bases, forward operating locations, and the north warning system was designed to counter a threat perceived in the late 1970s. At that time, ballistic missiles and Soviet long range aviation armed with first-generation cruise missiles were essentially the only systems capable of reaching North America and, given hostile intent, become a threat.

The north warning system was built between 1986 and 1992. As of now, the newest parts of the system are already 24 years old. We expect the system to last until around 2025, at which point we will be looking for modern solutions to replace its capabilities. We have to look forward to modernize the principal elements of the capabilities that constitute NORAD today, and that includes material solutions, of course, and non-material solutions such as the way we command and control our forces and the way we are organized to defend our nations.

Given all the above, we are actively pursuing a problem definition phase of the requirements for NORAD's evolution. Our commander will be providing advice to both his chains of command, to the Secretary of Defense on the U.S. side and to the Chief of the Defence Staff on the Canadian side, for consideration. As such, we are very early in the thinking about the future, but our work is timely.

To conclude, NORAD is a mature, bi-national command benefiting from a very well-developed network of partners. We are ready to face our most likely threats, and have plans to address our most dangerous scenarios.

North America is facing new threats, including increased nation state competition and the proliferation of advanced military capabilities that are challenging our ability to successfully defend Canada and the United States.

I thank you for your attention.

I look forward to answering any questions you may have.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you very much, General.

We're going to go to our first round of seven-minute questions.

Mr. Spengemann, you have the floor.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Good morning, Lieutenant General St-Amand. Thank you very much for being with us this morning. We're grateful for your insights.

I think I speak on behalf of all my colleagues when I say that we very much look forward to our visit to NORAD headquarters in early May to learn more.

I'm wondering if I can take you right to the edge of what we might consider to be the new or emerging threats that you've touched upon in your presentation. Before I do that, I wonder if you could just outline for the committee and Canadians the distinction between what is seen under NORAD as a common threat, and those types of threats where we in Canada and the United States are on our own in managing them. What's the intersection between those two and what's the differentiation?

[LGen Pierre St-Amand]

I have to go back in history, I think, to differentiate what could constitute a threat to the United States and perhaps not to Canada, and vice versa.

In 1957 when NORAD was formed, there was an implicit recognition of the fact that as far as air defence was considered, it was better to deliver air defence with a continental point of view. This is how both nations joined forces and started to defend our air responsibility with the capability of a conventional air defence system of that time.

As we move through history—and maybe I'll go back to that later—the initial threat was Soviet long-range aircraft with gravity bombs. I might talk about how we defended against those later. Afterwards, we had ballistic missiles, the ICBMs that showed up, which became a threat to North America. Afterwards, we still had the long-range aviation with the first generation of cruise missiles. Now what we see is a new generation of cruise missiles, with very long-range and low observability, which are really challenging our way to prosecute, if you want, any approaches to North America.

From my perspective, it's very difficult to isolate a threat to the United States from a threat to Canada, and vice versa. If we talk about the cruise missiles, the advanced long-range cruise missiles that we have observed are not only still a threat in the aerospace domain but also in the maritime domain, because they are now being launched from submarines and surface vessels. So the maritime domain now is becoming a domain of interest that is really challenging us to think in terms of continental defence, as opposed to only from a perspective of U.S. or Canadian defence. So there I would say it's a common concern.

Ballistic missiles have been around for a long time, including short-range and medium-range ones. There are a lot of technical advances out there in the world. They are here to stay. The intercontinental ballistic missiles are the ones that we see. If you look at the latest manifestation of developments out of North Korea, the truth of the matter is that country is working very hard to develop this capability, despite its missile test last week being a failure.

With respect to the ballistic missiles themselves, it is very difficult for me to imagine that a single shot that hit a U.S. city, for example, Seattle, would not have any implications for Canadian sovereignty, the Canadian economy, and survivability. Even the threat itself, I find difficult to separate as far as being a U.S. threat only or a Canadian threat only.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

General, I wonder if I could take you to a second threat. This committee received testimony that the threat of domestic terrorism is probably the most likely one of the top threats that we should be concerned about.

In the context of Operation Noble Eagle, I wonder if you could tell the committee, if there were an incident somewhere on the west coast akin to 9/11, how long would it take the Canadian Air Force as part of NORAD to deploy and to potentially intercept or engage that threat?

[LGen Pierre St-Amand]

The answer is that it really depends. I referred in my opening remarks to the fact that we have a system of commanders. The commander of the Canadian region and also the commander of the continental U.S. region, who would be concerned also for that scene, which is at our border in that area on the west coast, would react with intelligence. Given intelligence, the commander of the Canadian region would have the ability and authority to move his forces appropriately. That's given some type of a heads-up.

Given no heads-up, or a surprise situation, then the commander of NORAD and the commander of the Canadian region would use whatever assets were available and in the best position to respond to the event or incident. From that perspective, it could be either U.S. or Canadian forces.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Does NORAD consider domestic terrorism to be a rising, if not a serious or significant, systemic threat?

[LGen Pierre St-Amand]

It is a systemic threat, something that is going to be enduring. Since 9/11—I mentioned this was a historic turn—we used to be looking outside, and we have now developed a system to look internally to our borders, in fact, to counter this type of threat. We've been very successful thus far alongside our partners, because we're not alone. When I talk about the system, we have the RCMP, CSIS, and NavCan. On the U.S. side we have the FAA, FBI, NSA, all the three-letter acronyms you can imagine to contribute to the way we deliver that mission.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Just to return to the specific question I had—I may return in the second round to ask some more follow-up—if we were facing a threat in Vancouver and you had to deploy without notice from Cold Lake, how long would that take?

[LGen Pierre St-Amand]

It would be a matter of minutes, less than 30 minutes, but it's more than likely that those would be Portland fighter aircraft.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Okay.

[LGen Pierre St-Amand]

Now, I want to clarify that although those fighters would come from the United States—they would be U.S. fighters—within the continental region of the United States, which would initially command these fighters, we have a Canadian who is a deputy air component commander. So we have a Canadian in the chain of command in the U.S., and as soon as those fighters cross the border, they would come under the command of the Canadian commander located in Winnipeg. This is the beauty of the bi-national aspects of NORAD. This is how the commanders can sit back and really apply the correct forces at the right time, those that are best positioned to counter anything that happens in our area of responsibility.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

All right, we'll move on to another seven-minute round on the other side.

Ms. Gallant, you have the floor.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

The last time we had someone from NORAD testify before this committee was in the spring. In looking at the cyber-domain then, it was mentioned that if it were agreed that we needed bi-national co-operation in having joint protection in that dimension—because that has been put forth as one of the dimensions, in addition to maritime and air, that we should be paying attention to—rather than creating another bi-national agency, NORAD would be the natural entity to go to.

Now we know that the United States has Cyber Command. How interconnected are NORAD and Cyber Command with the U.S.?

[LGen Pierre St-Amand]

The way things work in Colorado Springs, as I mentioned, is that we have this twin U.S. command that is called Northern Command. The commander of Northern Command is the same admiral who commands NORAD. He's charged with the protection of networks. So NORAD benefits from NORTHCOM's protection, because we're all co-located physically and NORTHCOM has a relationship with Cyber Command. Cyber Command reports to another organization that is called Strategic Command, and NORAD really is not directly related, other than benefiting from the protection of the networks as provided by the commander of U.S. NORTHCOM. The commander of U.S. NORTHCOM will tell you that he has no role in anything other than protecting his own networks. That's on the U.S. side.

On the Canadian side it's the same thing. The commander of the Canadian region in Winnipeg is responsible for protecting his own networks, and that is provided on the Canadian side via organizations through the VCDS, the vice-chief of the defence staff.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

You're referring to protecting the infrastructure and the connectivity of our defence systems. But as we've seen, especially as it pertains to eastern Europe, we can have attack on soft targets, for example, the electricity system, which can quickly impact our defence. So it starts off as a civilian attack, and then after drawing our attention to it, it then becomes a military issue. So that's the interconnectivity that I'm asking about, connectivity between civilian network protection and defence.

[LGen Pierre St-Amand]

Yes. NORAD does not have a direct role in that. Again, on the U.S. side, there will be NORTHCOM. When you come and visit in Colorado Springs, you'll have a briefing that will show you that we have some 80 agencies that are represented at the headquarters itself. Now that is on the U.S. side, and this is why the headquarters is so strong. We have those relationships with most agencies that would be concerned about something like that.

So there is that dialogue that exists. On the Canadian side, CJOC, our Canadian Joint Operations Command, will be the equivalent of the U.S. NORTHCOM on the U.S. side.

I did mention very briefly the fact that NORAD, NORTHCOM, and CJOC work together to create effects on the continental level in all domains. Cyber is one of those, although I must say that cyber is probably the least mature in terms of international co-operation between our two nations. There's still work to do, and as far as evolving into domains, this is probably the one that will take more time, because the policies and attribution are not clear. There are difficulties with the domain itself from a military point of view but also from a civilian protection point of view that are not very clear yet, but it's being done.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Then the United States has a component they can draw upon to have the civilian situational awareness. After 9/11 we were at NORAD, and we were told that Canada desperately needed somebody from the critical infrastructure community to be present there. It took years of pushing before we got somebody there, so they would recognize, if there were a threat incoming to Canada, what needed to be fortified.

Do you believe it would be beneficial to have a Canadian representative of the civilian cyber-community, the agency or protective agencies, present at NORAD, so that should things start falling into place in that kind of attack, we would have situational awareness for Canada in that room?

[LGen Pierre St-Amand]

So your question is whether it would more valuable to have somebody physically present as opposed to relying on a communications network, I think yes, but I'm not sure we would be prepared to entertain some type of solution like this, because there are some barriers that exist in the cyber world, and those are very national. I'm not sure if we would gain that much more at this point, but if you look in the future, I think there's potential there.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

There has been increased talk about the threats of an electromagnetic pulse and how that would impact everything. Is NORAD safeguarded sufficiently so it can continue on its mandate should North America suffer from one of these EMPs?

[LGen Pierre St-Amand]

Yes, ma'am. The general military requirements usually will address this issue, and our systems will be as protected as can be.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

The infrastructure is already in place for the detection and the sensing of these threats. They're all protected against EMP, okay.

[LGen Pierre St-Amand]

They're not all protected. Nothing is perfect, ever. I don't want to leave you with the wrong impression, but we do the most we can.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

You mentioned the infrastructure is in place for detection and monitoring, and it should last until 2025. Are you suggesting we need something ready to go to replace this at 2025, or we don't have to go shopping until 2025, because we've seen with helicopters that it can take 22 years?