National Defence Committee on Nov. 24th, 2022

[LGen (Ret'd) Alain J. Parent]

It depends on what the U.S. wants to do with their interceptors.

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

Would we be in on that conversation?

[LGen (Ret'd) Alain J. Parent]

It's their choice.

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

It's their choice.

[LGen (Ret'd) Alain J. Parent]

We don't have a voice to be in the conversation or not.

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

With respect to AUKUS, apparently the decision has already been made on the submarine. Is there any way that Canada should become a part of AUKUS and could obtain a submarine in good time, as opposed to trying to build this type of technology ourselves?

[LGen (Ret'd) Alain J. Parent]

I think anything like that is subject to negotiations among the countries and the will of the government in question.

[LGen (Ret'd) Walter Semianiw]

It's a good question for the Prime Minister to answer.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Ms. Gallant.

The final three minutes go to Mr. May.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

In light of the growing tensions between NATO and Russia, is Canada doing enough in terms of allied military exercises in the Canadian Arctic? What would be the pros and cons of potentially expanding those allied exercises in the Arctic?

[LGen (Ret'd) Walter Semianiw]

When you mentioned the word “allied”, at this point in time, as we've mentioned a couple of times, it's clearly on the land between the U.S. and Canada. When other countries do come, they come as observers to watch, or they could be invited, but there are lots of sovereign issues involved in this as well. We're close partners with the U.S., and they allow us to train on the land, including in land exercises in Alaska—I've done it myself—and we train here in Canada, but beyond that it's limited to the two.

The short answer to the question of whether we should do more training is yes, a lot more. If you look at the exercises that we do in the north, you see that they're great exercises, but they're not enough. They really haven't increased over the last number of years in many ways.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

This past weekend I had the opportunity to go to the Halifax International Security Forum, and one of the panellists discussed the need to focus not on land when it comes to tracking, but satellites. There was a really interesting debate in terms of being able to protect satellites versus protecting something on the land.

What are your thoughts on this in terms of moving forward? We know we have an incredible amount to modernize with regard to NORAD, and the technology that we need may not even exist yet in some cases. Do we look for more traditional land defence systems versus being able to track in space?

[LGen (Ret'd) Alain J. Parent]

I am trying to get the sense of your question. Are you talking about a satellite in space defending against incoming—

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

I mean tracking, being able to see what is coming beyond the horizon.

[LGen (Ret'd) Alain J. Parent]

What NORAD modernization is meant to be doing is a system-to-system approach using surveillance that is satellite-based, land-based, under the sea and above the sea. It has to be all-encompassing to be effective. Instead of using a stovepipe approach to look at each domain, the AI and the technology allows us to have them all interconnected. We can get a multi-spectrum picture from all the systems available.

As far as a defending system is concerned, defending a satellite in space is problematic, but there is always a ground station somewhere that needs to be protected.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. May.

Colleagues, that brings our time to an end.

On behalf of the committee, I want to thank both of you for your contribution, your past contribution and, I dare say, your ongoing contribution. The experience that both of you bring to the table is quite remarkable, so thank you.

Colleagues, next Tuesday we will have a panel of Rangers. They have been a subject matter. I will set aside some time to scale out what we are doing for the rest of the year.

I want to thank the replacement clerk.

Do I have to pass the budget now?

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Carine Grand-Jean]

It's up to you. You can do it now or next week.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Let's leave the budget until next week, if we can.

With that, the meeting is adjourned.