Good morning, Mr. Chair and committee members. Thank you for the invitation and the opportunity I have been given to contribute to your work.
Let us think back to November 24, 1987.
The U.S. and the Soviet Union agreed to scrap short- and medium-range missiles. It was the first superpower treaty to eliminate an entire class of nuclear weapons.
It is now November 24, 2022, nine months after the aggressive, unjustified and miscalculated Russian invasion of Ukraine.
ICBMs remain to this day and have evolved and mutated into advanced cruise missiles and hypersonic glide vehicles with conventional and/or nuclear warheads.
Threat is a calculus of capabilities and intent. While we spent decades getting away with an economy of effort in defence investments in the north, Russia has increased its capabilities for the Arctic and the intent is now nebulous and subject to miscalculations.
The baseline of just enough deterrence has gone up, and investments are required to close the delta. I think it's time to embrace integrated air and missile defence as a whole, as we should worry about defending against the explosion—the boom—and not about the propulsion system or the domain the missile is travelling through, whether it be through the air or space.
Allow me to establish some of my NORAD credentials ahead of your questions.
My first steps in NORAD were as a missile warning crew commander and as a staff officer for the NORAD agreement. I wrote my master's thesis at the United States Air Force Air War College on the renewal of the NORAD agreement in 2006. I had the honour to command the Canadian NORAD region, and I was a NORAD deputy commander, where I had the watch for three years.
I have been a practitioner in the NORAD enterprise. I can tell you that I have looked at the polar view map of our world intensely, under pressure, with focus, for many years. To me, the Canadian Arctic is an avenue of approach of geostrategic importance.
As a NORAD assessor for deciding if North America was under attack or not, the polar view and all the available information from the warning systems architecture providing inputs were collated and interpreted to determine time and space for response, which is largely provided by the United States.
Canadian geography matters if we have all the main situational awareness over all of it. It is our sovereign responsibility to provide that so that we do not offer Russia an avenue to exploit on its way to an attack on the United States.
As commander of 1 Canadian Air Division, I instituted an Arctic air campaign plan to learn and increase our readiness and resilience to operate in the Arctic effectively on our own terms, and to increase our presence over our true north.
A new utility transport aircraft for the north emerged as a requirement. As commander of CANR, I had to rely on U.S. tankers to send forward our Canadian fighters. I am grateful for the pledge of additional tanker aircraft to enable sovereign fighter operations in the north.
As deputy commander of NORAD, I launched the all-domain situational awareness research and development efforts with the DRDC and initiated the formal extension of the Canadian air defence identification zone to cover the entirety of our country. Nobody got excited when armed Russian bombers were reported as having flown within hundreds of miles of the CADIZ back then, but translated, that meant within close proximity of our coast line. With its extension, we need to sense what is happening, and if something is happening, we need to be able to decide and to act.
I'm grateful for the recent announcements for increasing air domain awareness with the over-the-horizon radars. However, I look forward to more granularity, such as the fate of our present North Warning System and its potential replacement for a layered air defence system.
I'm also grateful for the intentions on persistent surveillance from space and from remotely piloted aircraft systems. There are other gaps in terms of Canadian airborne early warning systems. In a maritime domain, under and above the sea, anti-submarine warfare particularly needs to be addressed to provide the full picture to achieve unambiguous warning and to provide time “left of bang” to the decision-makers.
That is why it is important to implement NORAD modernization and continental defence to enhance our contribution and to be a reliable partner with the U.S. in the defence of North America. I am hopeful we will do more on our own to pull our weight with the U.S. and take more seriously our Arctic NATO flank to ensure that seams and gaps among sectors, areas of responsibility and NORAD's area of operations are not exploitable.
With China and Russia, the bar for effective deterrence has been raised. In the Arctic, we must rebuild a credible deterrence posture against Russia, and we need to be credible with our interoperable military capabilities with the United States in all domains of air, land, sea, space and cyber.
The recent announcement on NORAD modernization, along with the upcoming defence policy update, must prioritize persistent all-domain situational awareness, enhanced command and control, force projection with reach and power, and presence in the Arctic.
Thank you.
I am now prepared to answer your questions.