National Defence Committee on Feb. 17th, 2023

[LGen Alain Pelletier]

I don't think there's a difference in protocol. It's just that when the first high-altitude surveillance balloon crossed into Montana, its proximity to some sensitive American systems probably escalated the decision to make that fact public at that point.

You need to realize that while it was on its flight path, both countries wanted to not only characterize but also understand and attempt to explore it so that we could understand the objectives and intent behind the flight path of the surveillance balloon.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Do these kinds of surveillance balloons routinely fly over Taiwan?

[LGen Alain Pelletier]

Good question. I'll let General Prévost—

I'm focused on the North American airspace.

General Prévost, do you want to elaborate on that?

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

I'd like a quick answer to that question and then follow up to talk about North America.

Go ahead.

[MGen Paul Prévost]

I don't have that answer.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Okay. It seems there had been reports that these balloons are frequently deployed there, so we're left to wonder why NORAD appears to be at least somewhat surprised by this and that this is not something that is normally dealt with or anticipated within North American airspace. Is that a correct assessment?

[LGen Alain Pelletier]

It's not that NORAD is surprised, because we monitor the evolution of systems that could potentially pose a threat or could be of concern to both governments and military operatives, but in this case, it is once these systems approach North America that we start the standard process of the detection, tracking and ID. I would not say we're not concerned or we have no interest; we monitor the evolution of systems—not only high-altitude surveillance balloons, but also other capabilities that may be in the air or space domain, and, for that matter, in the maritime domain as well, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Sorry, Mr. Kelly, but your time's up.

Go ahead, Mr. May, for five minutes.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I will be sharing my time with you, the honourable chair.

Gentleman, thank you, first of all, for being here with us this morning. Thank you for the work you're doing and continue to do.

I'm going to shift gears a little bit, because I think we've exhausted this topic to a certain extent. I really want to focus in on NORAD modernization.

Obviously, we made the announcement in June to commit the better part of $40 billion to NORAD modernization over the next 20 years. I'm wondering, sir, if you could elaborate on what we have done in recent months or years to modernize NORAD and specifically what is coming. What capabilities do we need to invest in?

[LGen Alain Pelletier]

First of all, I'm going to say that the modernization of NORAD starts not necessarily with capabilities but rather with the personnel. They are the ones here at NORAD across all three regions, whether Canadian or American, who really make NORAD relevant to our competitors and adversaries, because they're the ones who always go above and beyond their own skill sets in order to do the mission that I talked about earlier.

I truly appreciate the Canadian government's announcement as it relates to NORAD modernization to get after the number one priority of General VanHerck, which is domain awareness. What do we mean by domain awareness? It's having a better understanding of what is in the Canadian-U.S. airspace or on the approaches to that Canadian-U.S. airspace, as well as within the maritime domain from where threats may originate, given the ability of submarines and surface vessels to launch cruise missiles as well. NORAD modernization is going to do just that.

We believe that the arrival of over-the-horizon radar will give us the ability to not only better sense inside the domestic airspace but also on the approaches, and not only on the polar or Arctic avenue of approach but in a 360-degree range. NORAD modernization, combined with the announcement that the U.S. will acquire four over-the-horizon radars, will give us close to a 360-degree picture in order to better characterize elements that may be on the approaches, including over the Arctic Ocean. It will give us not only that radius or azimuth but also range. That's one of the elements.

The other piece is getting after modernizing our command and control system, which the Americans are doing across all of their services, and moving forward with new modernized command and control that will enable NORAD not only to sense what's approaching but also to make sense of the data that we've captured so that we're able to better make decisions as military and give our decision-makers in both governments the required time to make those decisions.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you.

In the few seconds that my colleague has provided, as I sit here and listen, I wonder whether we've looked at this from the wrong end. This seems to me to be a treasure trove of intelligence for the Communist Chinese government. They've watched NORAD scramble. They know where you scrambled from, what assets you put in play, the time at which it became public, etc. Although I doubt you can share this, I rather hope that there will be some reflections on the extent of your domain awareness and whether you have to tweak the current radar systems, as well as some reflection that this may influence how you look at domain awareness in the future.

I appreciate that I'm asking a question that probably can't be answered in a public sphere, but it strikes me that the Chinese got a really good look at North American defences, and they got it really cheap. For the price of a balloon in the airspace, they watched how we scramble.

I'll leave it at that, because I'm already over time, and if I'm going to discipline colleagues, I have to discipline myself.

Colleagues, I think that we could go for one more six-minute round and then we'll call it a day. Is that acceptable?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

With that, I'll call on Mr. Bezan for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair. You know you always have the chair's prerogative to use more time, if you wish.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I know some chairs use that prerogative, Mr. Bezan.

This is a chair joke.

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

You could just start the clock now.

There's a question that I think has been asked in the media, and I think most of us have had the same question. Why would the Communist regime in Beijing use a surveillance balloon versus the spy satellites that they already have?

In the professional opinion of both General Pelletier and General Prévost, what are we talking about as equipment? What have you been able to observe on this high altitude balloon that makes it important to the Communist regime in Beijing, versus what they can already pull off their satellites?

[LGen Alain Pelletier]

Thanks for the question, Mr. Chair. I would have loved to answer the chairman's, question but I'll stick to the member's question.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Feel free.

[LGen Alain Pelletier]

I mentioned earlier that there's an element of persistence and maybe proximity, because low-earth orbit satellites are still low-earth orbit, which is slightly more distance than the high-altitude surveillance balloon. That would be my first answer, but I would defer to the PRC to answer the technical and capability questions.

Go ahead, General Prévost.

[MGen Paul Prévost]

Thank you for the question. I think you can probably link the chair's question and member Bezan's question. There's clearly a surveillance gap that we don't understand, but there are probably better capabilities they can enjoy there.

I think, more importantly, that China is trying to figure out our limits. This was an unwanted, unauthorized breach of our sovereignty. They probably wanted to know how tolerant we are of that, and I think we've shown the response of how tolerant we are of the breach of our sovereignty. There are probably both there.

That's me speculating, but for sure, the response was there.

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

There's no question that this was a provocation by the PRC, and we had to respond.

On the observation of the equipment, it's the size of two or three city buses hanging underneath that balloon. Were we able to determine whether or not they had radio frequency and were able to communicate back to Beijing, or did our ability to jam it make sure that whatever it was collecting stayed within the infrastructure on that platform and we're able to recover that now?

[LGen Alain Pelletier]

Obviously, for reasons of classification at this point, Mr. Chair, we're unable to actually answer that question. That's an analysis that is ongoing, especially with the high-altitude surveillance balloon, by the U.S. We'll be standing by, from a Canadian perspective, for additional sharing, and when—

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

I appreciate that this is an unclassified briefing, so I appreciate that answer.

Moving on, just to follow up on the previous question, it was reported last week that NORAD intercepted four Russian military aircraft—fighter jets or bombers—coming up on Alaskan airspace. We used to hear quite regularly about Russian military aircraft approaching Canadian airspace that Canadian CF-18s had to scramble to intercept.

There hasn't been any reporting for quite some time. Is it because Russia is no longer coming into our air identification zone or are we just not being transparent and reporting it back to the Canadian public?

[LGen Alain Pelletier]

I can tell you that transparency is at the forefront of NORAD. We try to actually inform—within the limits of operational security, obviously—the Canadian public of our activities so that they understand what we do and what the great Canadians and Americans within the alliance here at NORAD do.

I don't drive the training plan of Russian long-range aviation. There have been cycles, as I've mentioned. We've seen up to 15 and an average of six to seven intercepts per year. A good chunk of that, just by pure proximity, happens to be close to the Alaskan identification zone. We've seen Russian activities that sometimes move on from the Alaskan NORAD region to the Canadian NORAD region, to which CANR has been very agile in responding, either by deploying directly from Cold Lake or by moving fighters to one of our forward operating locations in the north.

We have seen it. It's just that in last couple of months the preponderance of the activities has been focused on the Alaskan NORAD region.