National Defence Committee on Feb. 17th, 2023

[LGen Alain Pelletier]

Thanks, Mr. Chair, for the question and the request.

Unfortunately, that list is classified. We'll work with command to potentially provide a declassified version of the list for the committee.

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

Thank you.

Major-General Prévost said that they knew that the PRC surveillance balloon wasn't armed because NORAD had seen it over the Pacific before. Was that this specific balloon or was it other balloons from the PRC that are similar to the one that had come over North America?

[MGen Paul Prévost]

Mr. Chair, I'll take that one.

I believe what I said was that we understand what that high-altitude balloon is because we've seen those over the Pacific before. We understand where they're coming from, how they operate—to a certain extent—and the fact that there's a large array—30 metres long—underneath with multiple sensors. That's our understanding of it.

For the one that came over Alaska, to confirm what was on it, General VanHerck made the decision to intercept it and take a visual and sensor identification of what was on there to ensure he couldn't see any kinetic weapons that would pose a threat to Canadians or Americans.

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

Was that observed before NORAD detected them in our airspace?

[MGen Paul Prévost]

Mr. Chair, that is correct. In 2021, some of those balloons had been flying over the Pacific.

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

I'm trying to determine exactly when we first knew about this high-altitude PRC balloon.

The Washington Post on Tuesday and The Globe and Mail on Wednesday said that the U.S. tracked the PRC spy balloon from its liftoff in Hainan Island. They observed it making a course change away from the Pacific military bases of the United States towards the mainland.

How is it that NORAD did not know about the high-altitude balloon until it was over mainland North America, or did they know?

[LGen Alain Pelletier]

Obviously, we detect objects by using the sensors we have. As you pointed out, those lifted off from the PRC at different times using different wind models to carry them. What we've seen is that those balloons and objects tend to follow wind patterns at altitude, and those change, based on the altitude itself.

For us, it became an element of interest when the radar picked up the high-altitude surveillance balloon as it started approaching the air defence identification zone. That's when we started attempting to characterize it and look at identification for that system.

A number of objects transit through the Pacific that we may not be tracking because they're outside of our sensors and because we don't consider them to be a threat to the airspace itself.

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

We were told that you really didn't know what the payload was or what its capabilities were until you were able to take a look at the array that's been retrieved off the coast of South Carolina.

General Prévost said that he knew there wasn't a danger from the hypersonic missiles because they had known about them in the past but they hadn't seen anything to do with them in the past several years.

We have footage on the Internet that shows the potential for a similar balloon to carry hypersonic missiles. If they can't tell what the payload really was until they retrieve the arrays, how did they know, when it was over continental North America, that there wasn't something dangerous to the population below as part of the payload?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

That too may be an important question, but again Ms. Gallant is out of time.

Madam O'Connell, you have five minutes. Go ahead, please.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you both for being here with us.

Certainly a lot of Canadians seeing the media, here and in the U.S., have lots of questions, so I think it is helpful to go over some of these things.

Do you have any information that can be shared with respect to the first surveillance balloon from China? Do you have any indication that it was actually able to be remotely controlled, or was it truly a balloon in the sense that it was floating somewhat randomly?

[LGen Alain Pelletier]

We assessed, based on the analysis of the image captured during the flight of the high-altitude surveillance balloon, that the balloon might have a capability or limited capability to be steered around the airspace, but we also assessed that the majority of the flight path was based on the ability of the balloon to just float and traverse the airspace using high-altitude wind patterns.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

In terms of the capabilities, certainly when this story was first progressing through the media and we were learning about it in semi-real time, probably, there was some commentary that Canada wasn't able to handle something like this on its own. We've even heard a bit of that here today, with questions as to what the CF-18s can do and what they are not capable of doing.

Again, for the benefit of any Canadian who is watching this, the benefit of NORAD and the reason it exists is to have a partnership in order to not have duplication in some respects. Obviously each nation has to be able to defend its own sovereignty, but the whole purpose of NORAD is to be able to offer that North American alliance and that assistance. As was noted, the CF-18s could probably have handled this, but an operational decision to go in a different direction was made.

Could you perhaps elaborate on why that NORAD partnership exists and how Canada does not lack capabilities, and how, in fact, this NORAD partnership is precisely why we are capable of handling any such threat or instance such as these flying objects and these high-altitude balloons?

[LGen Alain Pelletier]

I couldn't agree more with the member's statement. I've been in the air force, and I've lived through NORAD since pretty much when I started flying the CF-18 during my career. During NORAD's 65 years of activity, it has always been seen as an ecosystem of capabilities, where the strength of both nations is brought together in order to actually achieve mission success.

In this case, I don't see a Canadian capability to conduct aerospace warning, aerospace control; I see a NORAD capability to conduct aerospace warning and aerospace control—and maritime warning, as a matter of fact, as an additional mission that we have in defence of Canada and the U.S. The collaboration that exists in NORAD is what has made us successful.

We're attempting still to this day, with NORAD modernization activities by both countries, to be as complementary as possible so that we don't end up pulling additional resources from each of the respective countries when we can actually be complementary and interoperable.

The people here at NORAD wear either the Canadian or the U.S. uniform. As I always say, I'm agnostic to the flag. I care about the output and achieving mission success for both of our countries.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mrs. Desbiens, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We learned on Monday through the national networks that NORAD had intercepted four Russian military aircraft near Alaska, but that they had not entered North American airspace. However, the event occurred in a context of correlation, given the presence of balloons in Alaska, the interceptions and world conflict. In particular, a war is currently underway and one of the players is rather unpredictable.

Is it enough to be on high vigilance at NORAD? Could this justify both governments investing more, very quickly, to upgrade your equipment?

[LGen Alain Pelletier]

Thank you for the question.

Obviously, NORAD is always in a state of vigilance. Our motto is “We have the watch”. We're watching 24 hours a day, seven days a week, all year long.

Intercepting Russian strategic aircraft is a common occurrence at NORAD. We regularly see these incursions into the identification zone, not into the airspace. Obviously, if they were to enter our airspace, that would be different. On average, we do about seven intercepts a year involving these types of aircraft, primarily in the Alaska area, sometimes in the Arctic, and more rarely on the Atlantic coast. Some years we've had as many as 15 intercepts and other years we've had none at all.

We are on high vigilance, especially at this time of crisis in Europe. We see these as routine sorties, training exercises for Russian strategic aviation.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Madame Desbiens.

You have two and a half minutes, Ms. Mathyssen.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Thank you.

The Americans and the Biden administration say that their intelligence community developed the techniques to track and monitor these surveillance balloons last year. You just talked about the sharing of information, the fact that NORAD worked with both, but the administration specifically stated that it was the Americans that delivered and monitored and developed this surveillance. Was that shared with NORAD? How is NORAD a part of that? How does that connect with RADARSAT? How were Canadians made aware of that intelligence? Was that shared?

Can you explain that process?

[LGen Alain Pelletier]

I'll start, and General Prévost may want to add something with regard to our CFINTCOM capability.

I can tell you that we're fortunate that Canada is part of the consortium of Five Eyes countries that contribute to the intelligence community. Here at NORAD I get briefed on a regular basis by the staff within the intelligence directorate on upcoming events, elements to be aware of, capabilities that are forthcoming and the like at the different levels of classification.

In this case, in terms of surveillance, obviously we monitor when there's an element that pops up that could be of concern or pose a threat to North American airspace. At that point I am made aware, just as the commander is made aware.

General Prévost, is there anything from a CFINTCOM perspective?

[MGen Paul Prévost]

I think the answer was good, Mr. Chair.

The Five Eyes community is tracking those issues. Regardless of who owns the capability, the information is shared among the Five Eyes members. The intelligence community was tracking those balloons, and when they became a concern for North America, then NORAD, Ottawa and Washington started talking.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Kelly, you have five minutes. Go ahead, please.

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

Thank you.

I'd like to talk about the transparency aspect of this recent series of episodes.

The Canadian public was informed, largely through announcements made by the Americans, that there had been a transgression of Canadian airspace. When it was known that the object was over Montana, it obviously would have had to come through Canadian airspace, although it would have been in American airspace even earlier.

Can either witness discuss what is considered normal—if there is a normal—practice for informing the public of these kinds of episodes?

[LGen Alain Pelletier]

I'll start off, and then I'll let General Prévost expand on the notification to the Canadian public.

I just want to highlight that part of our standard practice—and we continue to normalize practices as the situation evolves—is that if something happens in Canadian airspace, we obviously leverage the Canadian NORAD region to contribute to the operational picture at NORAD headquarters.

When there's an element of concern, part of our process is to detect, track, identify and characterize unknown objects coming into the airspace. We need to do that. We're not out there on the social media platforms saying, “Hey, we've detected something.” The job for us is to get to an identification and characterization of potential unknowns.

That's what we do—

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

I understand, and I'm not criticising the timing, but I would note that it seems that the minute it hit the Montana border was when the world knew it was there.

Is there a difference in the protocols of Canadian and American authorities on this?