National Defence Committee on Oct. 31st, 2024

[Dr. Michael Byers]

Canada was the third country in space. We had our first satellite in space in 1962, and we have legacy companies that have grown and evolved and are global players now. Telesat, with regard to communications, is a world leader, currently building a very robust communications constellation in low-earth orbit that actually follows the kinds of recommendations—

[Don Stewart, Conservative, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

If we are 4% of the world's economy, are we more than 4% of the space industry?

[Dr. Michael Byers]

I don't know about that exact number, but I do know that we have a couple of major players.

Yes, we can build more. It is a competitive environment and these are systems that are essential for any 21st-century economy.

I want to emphasize that we have several world leaders and we have companies that are emerging as world leaders, like Canadensys, which is building a lunar rover for the Canadian Space Agency right now. With Telesat, MDA Space and Canadensys, we have some significant players.

Should we have more? Of course we should. Is the United States ahead of us? Absolutely—

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

We're going to have to leave it there.

Mr. Powlowski, you have the final five minutes.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Professor Byers, you've talked about Canadian satellite companies allowing the Ukrainian military to use their satellites and the possibility that these would become legitimate targets and bring Canada into an international conflict. This gives rise to the policy question of whether we should allow it.

How much are satellites an exception? Canada also produces LAVs that we sell or donate to Ukraine. We produce some optic systems to help Ukrainian drones. They could, theoretically, be legitimate targets, but I guess those would be built on Canadian soil. If the Russians were to attack Canadian soil, that's a different thing. However, we have to get them to Ukraine, so they're going to go through international waters anyhow. Isn't that a comparable situation?

How much are satellites an exception in international law?

[Dr. Michael Byers]

Let me say from the outset that I actually support the provision of satellite services from Canada to the Ukrainian military. What's happening through the Russian invasion is an almost existential issue of international security, so I support what's happening.

My point is that I'm not sure that careful consideration was given in March 2022 as to the possible implications of allowing companies like MDA and Telesat to provide frontline support. What I mean by frontline support is communications and targeting imagery that are actually used in targeting. It creates potential risks. Not only is the satellite potentially a legitimate target, so is the ground station. Where is the ground station? It's in Richmond, B.C.

I don't think that Russia wants to escalate the conflict by bringing NATO into a direct armed conflict. I think that's holding Russia back from targeting western satellites like RADARSAT-2, but Russian decision-making is not something we should be reliant on. We shouldn't be reliant on Russia exercising restraint. We should be carefully considering all of these possible implications—

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

I'm sorry. Can I just interrupt? I think I'll get to something that follows on from this.

In terms of the policy question, Ukraine is not acting contrary to international law. Russia certainly is violating the most fundamental principles of international law by attacking a sovereign international state. This leads me to the question: The Ukrainians can and do get assistance from commercial satellites. How about the Russians? The Russians can certainly pay companies to use their satellites.

Do we know if this is happening? What can we do to prevent that in international public or private law?

[Dr. Michael Byers]

This is a form of export controls. I can assure you that it's very carefully scrutinized. There have been instances in the past.

A few years ago, Iran launched a missile attack on a U.S. base in Iraq and was reliant on imagery provided by a western satellite company when planning its attack. Fortunately, the United States' intelligence services were able to penetrate those communications, knew that the attack was coming and were able to move most of their personnel out of harm's way.

Yes, there are unscrupulous western companies that will sell imagery or communications to anyone. Regulators need to be on top of this, monitor it and punish it when it occurs. That's an export control issue, essentially.

What I'm concerned about is that we essentially have Canadian companies that are acting like private military contractors in providing support to a foreign armed conflict. That has implications that need to be very carefully considered in advance. It would be like having a Canadian company send mercenaries to fight on the front line in Ukraine. Would we want to approve that? What would be the possible implications?

I'm not sure that those kinds of discussions and careful policy considerations occurred in March 2022. The next time we get into this situation, I would hope that we would have a playbook for how to analyze what the right decision is on the part of the Canadian government.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Dr. Steer, do you want to add anything related to that? I'm sorry that we haven't given you any time.

[Dr. Cassandra Steer]

Thank you so much.

You asked to what extent satellites are the exception, and I think there is something different in the sense that the services they provide are not geographically limited. If Canada provides a lab or even sends over some explicitly military equipment, of course, that equipment itself, in the course of warfare, becomes a target, but it's less likely that Canadian soil becomes a target.

Satellites that are in space are beyond national jurisdiction, and the services they're providing are not just within the geographical limitations of one country or one area. They're global...or they're international, in any case. On the fact that they are dual use, under the laws of armed conflict, you can only target a military object. You cannot target a civilian object, but if something is providing services for both military and civilian purposes, it probably is a legitimate target.

The next question that has to be asked, though, is this: What is the proportionality of the means of interfering with that service, and what are the implications then going to be for civilians? That's the whole point of the laws of armed conflict.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Unfortunately, again, I'm having to cut people off. I sort of feel badly, but I don't.

Colleagues, we have 15 minutes and we have 25 minutes' worth of questions in a third round. I'm assuming we want to go to a third round, so up next for three minutes is Mr. Bezan.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Thank you.

My question is for Dr. Steer.

You mentioned a group of 22 nations that worked together to produce a report and that we should read it. What was that report again?

[Dr. Cassandra Steer]

That is the group of governmental experts who met under the banner of the UN to discuss the advancement of the prevention of an arms race in outer space, and the report came out just in August of this year.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

We'll make sure our analysts find and circulate that.

Secondly, you said there are 22 nations that are part of that. Is that correct?

[Dr. Cassandra Steer]

That's right. It's a closed group. The open-ended working group is one in which every country that's part of the UN can participate. The group of governmental experts is a selected closed group, and Canada was one of the countries.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Okay. Out of our adversaries, were China, Russia, Iran or North Korea members of that group?

[Dr. Cassandra Steer]

China and Russia both were, yes.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

You come from Australia, so you're in kind of an advantageous position, being a member of AUKUS. We talk about artificial intelligence, we talk about quantum computing, we talk about machine learning and we talk about cybersecurity.

Is AUKUS's pillar two also going to be digging in on providing those types of capabilities to space assets by the three nations that are currently members of AUKUS?

[Dr. Cassandra Steer]

That is what a lot of us who understand how these technologies intersect are really hoping for. I think AUKUS was put together in a great rush. To be quite frank, the entire Australian government knew nothing about it until the public announcement was made by the Prime Minister. It was not taken through the proper procedures, and I think everyone just went, “nuclear submarines,” and it was only later that we started to really try to unfold what that means for all the other kinds of technological dependencies and potential capability opportunities there are.

Yes, it will fall under pillar two, but that's taken a great deal of advocacy and work from a lot of different sectors.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Both of you, as witnesses, have talked about the danger in turning satellites into space junk and the vulnerabilities that creates and the existential threat to life here on earth.

However, the big concern that we've had at this committee is the use of EMP, or electromagnetic pulse, and what that can take out. Definitely there'd be collateral damage to infrastructure of existing nations. I would think for countries like North Korea or Iran, which have limited space capabilities, using an EMP would have little detrimental impact upon their own nations. They would take the calculation that it would be greatly damaging to western democracies.

Is there a way to defend against that, and if so, how?

[Dr. Cassandra Steer]

I actually take a bit of a critical stance on the assertion that this is likely, because I think we can't underestimate just how dependent, as I said, every country is. They may not have their own satellites in space, but neither does Australia have sovereign satellites in space. We have some commercial ones, but our Internet, our telecommunications and our navigation are parts of our everyday lives, even in developing countries and even in these countries where people have concerns about their political motivations.

I think the risk of their bombing space back to the stone age is actually quite low. That said, we can't predict political decisions. They might be willing to take a bigger risk.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Bezan.

Ms. Lapointe, you have three minutes.

[Viviane LaPointe, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Professor Byers, my riding is Sudbury. It's a mining town, so all things mining are of interest to me. Your book, Who Owns Outer Space?—which is a great title, by the way—explains that the 1967 outer space treaty says that exploration and resources of space should be shared by all people on earth, but space mining is a challenging legal framework. Can you elaborate on this issue?

[Dr. Michael Byers]

Yes. It's my interpretation of the outer space treaty that it does not actually address the issue as to whether commercial space mining is allowed or not allowed. That issue was left until later—and fair enough, it was 1967—but that issue is the centrepiece of some pretty important international diplomacy right now. It's not just whether commercial space mining is allowed, but if it is allowed, then what are the restrictions on that? What are the necessary safety and security considerations? How do you coordinate between different actors, for instance, on the moon? That's at the heart of diplomacy these days.

There is a working group at the United Nations committee on the peaceful uses of outer space, which is engaged in a multilateral investigation of this very issue. Canada has a lot that it can bring to the table—our expertise in terrestrial mining, obviously, and in multilateral diplomacy, finding compromise and bringing everyone to an agreement in what is a consensus-based organization.

I just want to use this opportunity, however, to point out that mining in space will be a thousand times more difficult than mining on the surface of the planet. The safety and security elements of this issue of space mining are something that need to be front and centre. Lest we get caught up in the excitement about the possible economic benefits—there's a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of hype with regard to space mining—I would like to remind people that this is an extremely dangerous and difficult environment with extreme distances, the vacuum of space. Challenges, like lunar dust alone, make me hesitate on a lot of the proposals we hear about. There will be a future for space mining one day, but it's not coming quickly, despite what a lot of entrepreneurs would want you to believe.

[Viviane LaPointe, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

You mentioned the importance of diplomacy in your response. With the increasing discussions that we're having around space as a potential military domain, what policies or diplomatic measures would you advise Canada to support to prevent that weaponization of space?

How do you see Canada engaging with allies to promote space as a peaceful domain while ensuring national security?