National Defence Committee on March 30th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

We can bring this meeting to order.

First of all, let me apologize to our witnesses for democracy—

[An hon. member]

For voting.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

—and for voting, yes, but apparently that's what you defend and we all exercise.

We have another vote scheduled for around an hour from now, so the first thing I need from colleagues is an agreement to proceed through when the bells start ringing, which I anticipate will be in about half an hour, and to give ourselves an additional 15 minutes in respect of our witnesses. I'll adjourn at that point, and we'll cancel our meeting with the analysts.

Is that agreeable? I'm seeing no dissent. That's excellent.

Our two witnesses are Mr. Quinn and General Kelsey. I thank you, gentlemen, for your patience. As you can see, speed is the order of the day today, so insofar as you can truncate your remarks, that would be good.

With that, I'll turn to Mr. Quinn for his opening five-minute statement.

Thank you.

[Jonathan Quinn, Director General, Continental Defence Policy, Department of National Defence]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I will be very brief.

Thanks very much for the opportunity to speak to you today about NORAD modernization and our current efforts to strengthen our continental defence.

My name is Jon Quinn. I'm the director general of continental defence policy at the Department of National Defence.

My division is responsible for policy development for continental Arctic defence, NORAD modernization and the military use of cyberspace and other emerging capabilities. In this capacity, we also work really closely with Major-General Kelsey and his team to ensure close alignment between policy direction and force development.

Canada and the United States formally established NORAD in 1958 as a binational military command. NORAD's mandate of aerospace warning, aerospace control and maritime warning is more important than ever to meet current and evolving threats to North America. However, the last major investment in NORAD capabilities was in the late 1980s, when the north warning system was established.

Modernizing NORAD and strengthening continental defence more broadly is becoming ever more urgent in the context of two fundamental shifts in the global security environment.

The first is the return of strategic competition between states, which we're seeing play out tragically and in real time on the ground in Ukraine. This tectonic shift in geopolitics will not be limited to Europe. It will also play out at home, on our continent and in our Arctic, and we need to shore up our defences.

The second is the increasingly stark complications of climate change that are increasing international interest in the Arctic and increasing demands on our military to respond to emergencies, including conducting search and rescue operations. We are actively working to deliver on the directions in Minister Anand's mandate letter to modernize NORAD in collaboration with the United States and to more broadly strengthen our domestic defences.

This commitment is also an important element of high-level bilateral discussions with the United States, including the Prime Minister's engagement with President Biden in February 2021. Also, in August 2021, the previous minister of national defence and the U.S. Secretary of Defense released a joint statement on NORAD modernization, which identified priority areas to guide future investments and collaboration.

We have conducted extensive analysis to identify key threats, gaps and potential solutions to defend Canada and Canadian interests in this new reality. Our analysis benefited from ongoing collaborative work with the United States, including through NORAD in Colorado Springs.

We also engaged multiple stakeholders, including academics, industry and territorial and indigenous governments to ensure we approach the challenges ahead of us in a holistic way in looking at the full range of defence and security challenges Canada will face in the coming years and to ensure we maximize the broader benefits to Canada of any future investments in defence.

In closing, I would note that the minister has been quite clear about her intent to bring forward a robust package of investments to strengthen continental defence in the near future.

I look forward to your questions.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Quinn.

Go ahead, General Kelsey.

[Major-General Stephen Kelsey, Chief of Force Development, Canadian Armed Forces, Department of National Defence]

Good afternoon Mr. Chair, members of the committee.

My name is Stephen Kelsey, and I am the chief of Force Development at the Department of National Defence. I lead the community of planners that specialize in future force design, often referred to as “force development”.

This community comprises military and civilian experts, of course, defence scientists, operational researchers, academics and industry partners.

The community also accesses NORAD planning, and processes such as those led by NATO.

My role in this endeavour is to lead collaborative planning for defence in an effort to develop the investment strategies and proposed priorities for the future. In this capacity, I do work very closely with Mr. Quinn and the defence policy team.

The department's force development planning program is essentially the means to provide an analytical basis to anticipate changes in threat and security. It does so by conducting deliberate analysis, leveraging academic and defence research, as I alluded to, and at the same time conducting a review of our current platforms, systems and capacities.

Mr. Chair, as inspiring as I feel the remainder of my opening remarks would be, I think I'll truncate them in the interest of time. I look forward, with sincerity, to the questions.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you for that consideration and inspiration.

With that, the only chance we'll have to get to a second round is if I cut the first round to four minutes each. I know Mr. Motz is very disappointed about that, but he's going to have to deal with his good friend, Mr. Ruff.

Mr. Motz, you have four minutes.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Thank you, Chair. I'm going to share my time with my friend, Mr. Ruff.

Mr. Quinn, according to the managed security service providers alert that came out yesterday, the U.S. infrastructure was targeted by Russian hackers scanning the energy system companies and other critical infrastructure in the United States. This is obviously state-sponsored acting by Russia and it's a current threat in the U.S.

Does it present a current threat to Canadian national security? Would we even be able to notice it and defend ourselves? Are we able to perform any offensive cyber-kinetic attack back, if required?

[Jonathan Quinn]

Chair, this is a bit of a wide-ranging area of responsibility that includes our colleagues at Communications Security Establishment. Certainly I would say we are in good hands. Cybersecurity is taken very seriously. Our colleagues at Communications Security Establishment have the overall lead for cybersecurity of government systems.

National Defence also has a responsibility to defend and protect its own secure networks. A robust program is in place for that. As you might be aware, the CSE Act gives CSE fairly wide-ranging responsibility, including to conduct offensive cyber-operations under certain conditions. Consistent with the Canadian defence policy “Strong, Secure, Engaged", the Canadian Armed Forces have the authority and responsibility to develop our own capabilities for offensive cyber-operations as well.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Quinn.

I'm going to pass it off to Mr. Ruff right now.

[Jonathan Quinn]

Thank you, sir.

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Thanks.

Mr. Quinn, along the same lines on the cyber stuff, before I took my uniform off, we were working through some of the challenges to conduct those offensive cyber-operations due to international law and all sorts of things.

Have we made progress or are there still challenges?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

The French is on the English channel.

[Jonathan Quinn]

I'm very sorry.

Chair, if it would be possible to repeat the question, that would be helpful. It was a little bit distracting.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Ruff.

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

[Inaudible—Editor] two minutes.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Yes, Mr. May.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

It's just a technical issue. I'm on the English translation, but the French was coming through.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Yes, that's what we're trying to fix. We're just going back on it.

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

How much time do I have, Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You have two minutes.

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Thanks, Chair.

Mr. Quinn, when I left and took my uniform off, part of the challenge in the cyber stuff to conduct some of these offensive-type operations is that it crosses multiple departments. There are international law challenges.

Have we made progress? Are there still challenges that need to be overcome?

[Jonathan Quinn]

I'm not sure exactly when the member left, Mr. Chair, but I think great progress has been made. We work really closely with the Communications Security Establishment on these kinds of issues. By all means more improvements could be made, and we're working through those to make sure that everything is as aligned as possible.

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Thanks.

This question is for you or General Kelsey.

Tied to the importance of being integrated with the U.S. for NORAD and the continental U.S., from a security systems perspective, are we completely integrated? Are there any potential hiccups or challenges specifically around the use of 5G networks and Huawei?