National Defence Committee on Feb. 17th, 2023

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

All of us, frankly, with the news and so forth, are concerned about the security threats this may pose as well as the threats to civilians. I think those have been cited as being among the aviation concerns.

Do you foresee any other engagement? Do you find these balloons posing any kind of civilian concerns?

[LGen Alain Pelletier]

One of the main concerns, aside from potential surveillance and characterization of the objects and balloons, involves civil aviation, given that the last three objects were transiting through U.S. and Canadian airspace at altitudes at which commercial airlines travel regularly, especially those coming across the pond, as we say—across the Atlantic—and in the Arctic from Europe or making their way to Europe.

It was a concern, and that was one thing both governments considered before taking action against those objects.

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you, gentlemen.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You have a minute and a half.

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

That's great.

When we talk about the threat from China or Russia and trying to determine how many of these balloons are actual research balloons or hobby balloons, do you have any hope of recovering some of the balloons that have been brought down to determine if that's the case?

[LGen Alain Pelletier]

I will turn to General Prévost to answer with respect to the recovery aspect.

[MGen Paul Prévost]

This is going to be a difficult operation. For the one over Lake Huron, which is the third of the small objects that were shot down, the U.S. Coast Guard was in charge of that operation, and they've ceased their recovery effort, given the small chance of finding anything there. The other ones in Alaska and Yukon are fairly up north in very difficult terrain, with lots of snow. The one in Yukon specifically landed in mountainous terrain with about a metre to a metre and a half of snow. Picture an object falling from 20,000 feet into that snow.

We're doing everything we can right now. I can tell you that we have about 130 members of the Canadian Armed Forces, and right now, I'm answering for the RCMP. Unfortunately, they couldn't meet us today. It's their operation, but we're supporting the RCMP in this one. There are 130 members of the Canadian Armed Forces there, and we have multiple platforms. The first part is to find what we can by aerial search. We had a CP-140 on site, and we now have a Hercules, a Cormorant, a Cyclone and three Griffons. If we ever find something, we also have a task force of about 70 members, mainly from the special forces but also working with the Canadian Rangers, who would be able to find their way to what we call the “find area” to extract it.

It's still an important effort until we find one of those three objects, now two objects, one in Alaska and one in Yukon. Until we find them, we'll never be very sure of what those arrays were.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Sousa.

Welcome to the committee, Mrs. Desbiens.

You have the floor for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First, on behalf of all Quebecers, I'd like to say that we support Mr. Bezan and our thoughts are with him. I'm sure everything will go well. We are with you in spirit.

Major General Prévost and Lieutenant-General Pelletier, thank you for being here.

Your reports are always quite interesting. My father had a passion for the military and military operations. In turn, I took an interest in it from a very young age as well. So I feel privileged to be here this morning to talk with you.

Lieutenant-General Pelletier, you stated that this was the first time action was taken under circumstances like these.

Should we see this as a signal? Do we need to be better prepared for this type of operation or situation?

[LGen Alain Pelletier]

Thank you for the question.

Obviously, as General VanHerck often says, the global security environment is more and more challenging, not only for us, but also for our allies. We have watched the threat evolve. What I've been doing here in my consultations this week with my colleagues in Ottawa, as well as the organization, is assessing what that means. It's kind of like the evolution from the Cold War to 9/11, where we witnessed a paradigm shift in terms of a threat that could come from within.

This time around, we're talking about objects that present challenges to the Department of Defence and NORAD, not only due to the speed at which they travel, but because of the altitude at which some of them have entered our airspace and their small radar reflection area.

These are things we must consider. We're looking at this in terms of the rules governing our operations to determine if we need to change some of those rules to make our operations more agile and flexible.

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

Thank you, that's very interesting.

You said that the downed balloons looked different. One might imagine that it's because they played different roles and are possibly of different origins.

Can you confirm or deny that based on the information gathered so far?

[LGen Alain Pelletier]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Of course, one thing we're interested in right now is categorizing the objects, as I said earlier.

We intercepted the objects. We tried to capture some images of these objects, but given their very slow speed compared to the fast speed of the fighters at high altitude, we had very little time to observe them.

In addition, light conditions were not optimal, especially for objects 1 and 2 last week. What we saw in the Yukon appeared to be a balloon, but the other objects appeared to be structures. That's why we want to capture these objects, to use a military term, and analyze them to determine if they are balloons or other kinds of objects, like a drone, and to better understand their origin and what they can do.

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

Thank you very much.

My next question addresses the same concern. It has to do with how effective NORAD is.

First, is a 130-member force on the ground sufficient?

Is the time factor working against us when it comes to obtaining better intelligence?

[LGen Alain Pelletier]

I will let Major General Prévost speak to the issue of recovery.

[MGen Paul Prévost]

Thank you.

As for whether 130 members is enough, my answer is yes, it is for now. As I mentioned earlier, the search effort is currently happening in the air. We have six aircraft on the site with various types of surveillance pods. The goal is to find something in the snow. We're talking about a needle in a snowbank rather than a needle in a haystack. So it will be hard to find.

Every effort is being made, however. We have every piece of equipment at the site to find, from the air first and foremost, something that might remain. It could be the structure of the object or electronic components to determine first what it can do and then its origin. We also have a 70-person team on the ground who will be ready to react once the object has been found and go recover it. The conditions are difficult. It's very cold in the Yukon. The snow cover in the mountains is currently about 150 centimetres. This is also wooded terrain. More snow is expected, which is a concern. The more snow there is, the more the remaining components will get buried.

We're making every effort and proceeding quickly, given the challenge of the snow forecast for early next week.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you.

Ms. Mathyssen, you have six minutes, please.

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

Thank you to both of the witnesses for being with us today and for your service.

Just for clarity's sake, Lieutenant-General Pelletier, you mentioned that the reason these objects were suspect or potentially an issue was that they weren't communicating in standard formats. They weren't acting regularly. Can you better explain or go into a bit more detail as to what you meant by that?

Also, my curiosity is sort of around.... It seems like all of a sudden we have these four objects. When you say that they weren't using regular techniques or regular communications, nor were they acting regularly, what other types of regular communications and typical objects do we often see? What is more of a typical thing?

Can you explain a bit more about that?

[LGen Alain Pelletier]

I can definitely amplify here.

As I mentioned, our task is to detect, track, identify and characterize, and from there to assess the threat related to any unknown tracks coming across the NORAD airspace and within the NORAD areas of operation.

As part of that, our folks on the ground are using sensors—mostly radar sensors—to detect anything that may be on the approaches of North America, as well as leveraging sensors for what may be in the airspace.

The reality is that the size of Canada and the U.S. doesn't allow for full coverage of the airspace. We have a huge land mass. In this case, normally we're going to have the ability to detect the standard air traffic, which would normally communicate with the air traffic controls. They would be “squawking”, or transmitting a code that would be picked up by air traffic control to identify the aircraft itself.

In the case of general aviation, that is what we call a “1200 squawk”, which is saying that it's a general small aircraft operating in the vicinity of the location.

I haven't actually gone into the book to look at the specific Transport Canada or U.S. Federal Aviation Administration regulation, but I know that balloons or other objects ought to be transmitting a position and an altitude location so that we can actually distinguish between them and potential air traffic and enhance safety as well.

In this case, those objects and the high-altitude surveillance balloon of the PRC were not in communication—were not squawking—and therefore were unknown to us. That's why we first of all took action to identify them. Then, because of the threat they posed to civil aviation, which was a concern to both governments, we actually took them down under the direction of both governments.

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

Okay. In terms of the object over Lake Huron, there were comments on the fact that the first shot that was aimed at this unknown object missed. Could you go into more detail about where the missile landed and the consequences of that, please?

[LGen Alain Pelletier]

The engagement over Lake Huron on February 12, which took place at around 2:42 p.m., or 14:42, carried out by F-16s with the latest AIM-9X missiles, turned out to require two missiles. Both of the missiles were shot from U.S. airspace, and the first one has been assessed as landing on the U.S. side of the border within Lake Huron.

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

With all that risk assessment, even with it missing, is that all within those parameters of that risk assessment to civilians and...?

[LGen Alain Pelletier]

Definitely. I mentioned that we do risk assessment as it relates to the objects. In the case of the first event, it was the high-altitude surveillance balloon from the PRC. Then, after that, once a decision is made to actually engage the object, a follow-on risk assessment takes place with regard to the probability of success of that engagement with the different weapons systems we are going to use and also with regard to the probability for potential collateral damage to civilian infrastructure as well as to people on the ground when that object crashes or lands or arrives on the ground. That's the second risk assessment that takes place.

I can tell you that this discussion took place in NORAD, not only within the military circle but also with the leadership of both countries.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

That completes our first six-minute round.

We're now on to the second round. For five minutes, we Madam Kramp-Neuman.

You have five minutes, please.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Thank you, and good morning to everyone.

Certainly over the last several weeks we have learned and confirmed that there are potential security threats to Canada and we've learned that they are of major interest and concern to Canadians. There is no doubt these events have created a tremendous amount of buzz and many questions.

Thank you for being with us here today to provide some insight.

Allow me to move forward.

Major General Prévost, during the briefing you said, “At this time, we were not asked to use CF-18s on any of those objects just because of where they were and where our resources in Canada were at the time. But there are capabilities on the CF-18 that will be able to take care of some of those objects, depending on where the are and what they are.”

My first question is this: Did the RCAF receive an order from NORAD or the CDS to shoot down any of the objects that violated Canadian airspace?