Evidence of meeting #123 for National Defence in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was satellites.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC
Okay.
I would like you to clarify, for example, what it would mean for human life. My question was more about that. I understand the economic impact of a satellite attack, but what is the potential danger to human life?
Professor, University of British Columbia and Outer Space Institute, As an Individual
In terms of RADARSAT-2, there would be some implications on our ability to do things like sea-ice monitoring, which enables us to resupply Arctic communities, so there are some direct implications. The more serious ones, however, would come with regard to commercial satellite operations.
If we think about SpaceX's Starlink constellation, it is now providing essential services across northern Canada. There are pizza box-sized terminals outside lots of buildings in Nunavut, the Northwest Territories and the Yukon now, and we're seeing greater dependence on the satellite system. Institutional subscribers have a backup. They will have a subscription to a geosynchronous satellite service, but SpaceX is becoming more and more important.
There are several complications of that.
Professor, University of British Columbia and Outer Space Institute, As an Individual
One is the vulnerability of the system.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
—interrupt. I apologize again.
Being dependent on Elon Musk does not give me warm fuzzies.
Ms. Mathyssen, you have six minutes.
NDP
Lindsay Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Thank you, Chair.
I want to thank both of the witnesses as well for appearing with us today.
Ms. Steer, you've written at length about the need to create binding international agreements to prevent the militarization of space and the need to specifically prevent the testing of direct-ascent, anti-satellite missile systems.
We've seen that other nations—Russia, the U.S., India—have tested these systems. Can you talk about the impact of why it's so important to prevent future testing?
Professor, University of British Columbia and Outer Space Institute, As an Individual
Was that question for me or to Cassandra?
Chair, Australian Centre for Space Governance, As an Individual
Canada was, as I mentioned, the first country to join the U.S. in committing not to test those direct-ascent, anti-satellite weapons, or DA-ASATs. We now have 37 countries around the world that have made that unilaterally binding commitment. Under international law, when a state makes a unilateral statement like that, it is binding upon itself.
On top of that, we have the UN General Assembly, where I think there are something like 130-something countries that voted in favour of the notion of a moratorium on testing those DA-ASATs. That doesn't mean that they're then bound. That's a political expression. As to whether or not we need to have a binding treaty on that, those are exactly the discussions ongoing right now, in fact, this very week at the UN in New York, and there will be a new open-ended working group that will look at what kind of non-binding agreements we can come up with—so norms of behaviour—and whether there is the potential to have a treaty that might prohibit it.
I'm actually of the mind that a treaty is not necessarily the outcome that we want. The point is, as Dr. Byers also mentioned, the amount of debris that's created. There are four countries that have tested them. In each case, there's an enormous uncontrollable amount of debris that is created. The Chinese test in 2007 still has some debris today that is in orbit. Thousands of pieces of debris are created, and things are moving at seven kilometres per second in low-earth orbit. As Dr. Byers said, something the size of a fleck of paint can be lethal to a satellite. It's uncontainable.
One of the reasons I don't think that a treaty is necessary is that the laws of international armed conflict will tell us that, if we are in an armed conflict on earth, it is prohibited to use non-discriminate weapons, and there is an impossibility in determining what the impact will be of creating that amount of debris on all of the satellites that the world depends on. Therefore, it is by definition indiscriminate. You're not able to target just a military objective. You're also impacting civilians and civilian infrastructure.
That also goes a little bit to the questions that we've heard around what the impacts are of cyber-attacks on humans and indeed on the question of whether an attack would be considered something sufficient to trigger article 5 of the NATO Treaty. It all depends on the effects of those kinds of attacks. When we're talking about DA-ASATs, they create debris, and it is impossible to contain the debris, so we do not know what the effects will be. However, we do know that at some stage that debris is going to hit something.
When it comes to cyber-attacks and these non-kinetic interferences, what is the physical effect of that attack on a satellite system? Is that cutting off people's communications? Is it impacting search and rescue? Is it impacting satellite systems that are part of the control system of water systems for the city, for example? Is that going to impact food security because of the dependencies on those satellite systems? It's all about the physical effects in the real world.
We know both from how the laws of armed conflict apply to cyber and how we think they apply to space, that as soon as we have something that is sufficient in terms of its effects in the physical world, we can determine that it is sufficient to say it is an armed attack, but it is a case-by-case decision.
NDP
Lindsay Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
In terms of those conversations that are continually happening, are we adequately, though, getting to a point of holding that de-escalation when we see other nations? This would be for both witnesses. Is Canada doing everything it can within those mechanisms to consistently hold on to that de-escalation specifically?
Chair, Australian Centre for Space Governance, As an Individual
I think that Canada is doing an outstanding job in that sense, and this is what I said at the beginning of my opening comments with regard to the important role of middle powers.
Canada is recognized as a very strong space diplomat. It took a very active part in the first open-ended working group that ran for two years. It was also one of just 22 nations that took part in a group of governmental experts, which just closed off earlier this year and came up with a consensus report, which was no small achievement. The open-ended working group was unable to come up with any kind of consensus report—even one simply stating that it met on these dates and these countries took part—because it became politicized. To be frank, Russia refused to agree on any consensus to release a report.
However, we did get to a consensus report in that smaller group of governmental experts, and Canada was one of the countries that worked very hard to achieve that. I would highly recommend that you all read that report. It's not very long. It goes into whether or not we need to have binding treaties and into whether or not we can also keep working on non-binding norms of behaviour to, indeed, de-escalate.
Canada is doing an outstanding job. Right now, there is a proposal to have two new open-ended working groups, one focusing on treaties and one focusing on non-binding norms. That is just going to completely dilute the process and make it impossible for smaller nations to participate that don't have large enough delegations to take part in two parallel processes. Therefore, Canada is working very hard with a lot of other countries. The vote will take place next week in New York as to whether or not those two open-ended working groups can be merged into one.
I think one other thing that Canada does exceptionally well is the corridor diplomacy and behind-closed-doors diplomacy, where it works with smaller nations to make sure that there is shared understanding, to strategize about how to really push that vote forward to get a single open-ended working group, and to also, outside of the UN multilateral discussions, keep working together with other nations on space literacy, space—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Unfortunately, we have to leave it there.
Mr. Allison, you have five minutes.
Conservative
Dean Allison Conservative Niagara West, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to talk a bit about AI. I realize that it's not necessarily specifically your area of expertise, but I would love to get your thoughts.
Dr. Steer, what do you think about the developments in artificial intelligence in the defence sector as it relates to space?
Chair, Australian Centre for Space Governance, As an Individual
I think this is something that is not gaining sufficient attention, to be quite honest.
Satellite systems are more and more dependent on AI for various aspects. Some of it is just about the data processing. Earth observation satellites are gathering enormous amounts of data, and AI is used to process some of that data. However, if that's being used to then feed into military decision-making, we need to know that there is sufficient trust in those decision-making models and those automated models.
A lot of the space traffic management is dependent on AI. Again, it's over 10,000 operational satellites and well over 130 million pieces of debris, some of which, as Dr. Byers said, is too small for us to even track. AI is increasingly used as a space traffic management tool to have satellites perform collision avoidance movements and to try to predict where there might be collisions.
All of this is really necessary because of the physical speed in space, the amount of data that we're using and our dependencies on satellites. However, I don't think there is sufficient understanding about what risks that brings, particularly if that's going to feed into military decision-making for targeting, for navigation of one's own troops on land, at sea or in the air, for communications, and for understanding the movements of adversaries. AI is becoming more and more a part of that decision-making chain. When it's built into satellite systems, we don't have enough opportunities, I think, or enough proactive mechanisms for those working on the AI systems and those who are space experts to really be bringing those two worlds together. There are high risks, I think.
Conservative
Dean Allison Conservative Niagara West, ON
Thank you.
I'll continue the question then.
As AI continues to grow, certainly in all aspects of our lives, in the military and in space, let's talk a bit about cybersecurity as it relates to that. Do you think that Canada is ready to tackle some of these challenges in this complex world of AI?
Chair, Australian Centre for Space Governance, As an Individual
I think that's a question we could pose to every country.
I would say yes and no for the reasons I just said. However, I do think that there are strengths, and this goes more to what we can be doing to defend and protect satellite systems, whether those are commercial or sovereign. One of the challenges is the competition for the skill set. The people with the technical understanding are probably going to take jobs in the private sector, where they're higher paid. It's hard to get them to come into government jobs, civilian or military, so that is one challenge.
My fear is that none of us is really fully prepared, but I think that we really need to be bringing those worlds together. We need cyber experts, AI experts, space technology experts and then the governance experts of those different areas all working in the room together.
Conservative
Dean Allison Conservative Niagara West, ON
Thank you.
In what ways do you think government can create the advantage for Canada when it comes to technology in terms of AI? In what ways can the government do a better job in order to take advantage of this?
Chair, Australian Centre for Space Governance, As an Individual
Unfortunately, I think it comes back to procurement, which I know is an issue this committee has heard a lot about.
When you have relatively small companies in space, in AI and in cybersecurity.... Probably in cybersecurity they do better at this, but certainly in space and AI, oftentimes, the government wants to see those companies demonstrate the technological readiness level of their capabilities by having other clients first. That's a near impossibility.
For those kinds of capabilities, they're only going to find other clients if the government has already procured their capabilities. It has to go the other way around. The government has to be prepared to be the first client. That's difficult when there are low appetites for risk. I think, given the speed of these technologies, that's just something the government is going to have to somehow become prepared to do.
Conservative
Dean Allison Conservative Niagara West, ON
I think the U.S. is a good example. They are always there, making sure that they invest in their technology. I think that's probably not a bad example.
I have one last question then.
We started looking at investing money into AI in particular, or AI infrastructure. Are there any particular investments you would recommend as a starting point or that would be more important than others to get going on, when it comes to technology, artificial intelligence and infrastructure?
Where would you think is a great place to start?
Chair, Australian Centre for Space Governance, As an Individual
I'd have to admit that I wouldn't have sufficient expertise to say what areas of AI in particular.
I could comment more, perhaps, on the mechanisms to do that, because I don't think the government itself has to then become an expert in AI technologies either. It needs to have in place mechanisms to be able to test those out.
One example, again, from the U.S., is the CASR. It's about bringing commercial space providers into the defence architecture in a way that they can start to test out and model these capabilities before they decide whether or not to buy them. That helps the commercial providers to understand what the military and defence's needs are. It helps defence to understand where the technologies are at already and what the limitations might be, as well as the opportunities. Together, they can move toward potential solutions.
I think mechanisms like that are going to help to solve—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Thank you, Mr. Allison.
Ms. Lambropoulos, you have five minutes, please.
Liberal
Emmanuella Lambropoulos Liberal Saint-Laurent, QC
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to both of our witnesses for being here to answer some of our questions on this really important topic. I'll start with Dr. Byers.
You spoke about how satellites bring us close to the front line when it comes to wars. You spoke about how there's one satellite in particular that Canada is currently using for its war efforts to help Ukraine. If Russia were to do anything to interfere with that, would it not be considered an act of war? If so, would it not be like an attack on NATO?
I'm wondering what your thoughts are here.
Professor, University of British Columbia and Outer Space Institute, As an Individual
Thank you.
That is the article 5 issue that we discussed 20 minutes ago. It could be characterized [Technical difficulty—Editor]—
Liberal
Emmanuella Lambropoulos Liberal Saint-Laurent, QC
I'm sorry, we lost you for a good few seconds there.