National Defence Committee on March 7th, 2023

[Gen Wayne D. Eyre]

Mr. Chair, the bottom line, from my perspective, is that we don't know. A surveillance balloon does perhaps provide some advantages in terms of its persistence over an area, but there are other capabilities—satellite capabilities as well—that could provide almost the same, if not better, collection capabilities, so we don't know.

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

Going forward, a lot of investments are being made in modernization. We have a number of Canadians up in the far north, indigenous especially.

With respect, General Molstad, you're a fighter pilot. These exercises.... I guess part of the question is with respect to Canadians and to the indigenous people specifically. How are we addressing that?

[Gen Wayne D. Eyre]

Mr. Chair, our joint task force north, which is located in Yellowknife, does extensive community engagement with the various communities up there.

In this case in particular, on the shoot-down of the object in the Yukon, I'm going to turn it over to General Molstad to give you a rundown of the extensive engagement that's been done.

[MGen Darcy Molstad]

Mr. Chair, absolutely, joint task force north—and this is a characteristic of the regional joint task force structure we have within Canada—has great links with the local community, so they were engaged on a daily basis with a couple of first nations within the north, particularly the Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin and the Na-Cho Nyäk Dun first nations, whose territories were assessed as being underneath the area of the shoot-down. Furthermore, they continue to engage with municipal and territorial authorities.

On February 21, we had an engagement, through our JTF north team, with the Arctic and northern policy framework and the all-partners working group as well, which included provincial, territorial and indigenous officials. We tried as much as possible to keep them informed throughout, and we also spoke with the Yukon representative of the Assembly of First Nations, so extensive consultations and communications occurred.

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

That's excellent.

There have been some insinuations that the capabilities of the Canadian Air Force were not there in order to bring down that balloon. Can you clarify that indeed that was not the case?

[MGen Darcy Molstad]

Mr. Chair, our CF-18s are more than capable of shooting down some of these high-altitude objects that we have detected. It was simply, as the chief of the defence staff stated, a matter of the “best sensor, best shooter” for the particular objective of the day.

Really, that is what we are driving toward with our allies and partners. In a conflict situation, we want the best sensor and the best shooter to be able to take action for best effect.

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

Gentlemen, when I look at the north and the strategic importance of the area and the sensitivities of China and Russia to that extent, I am wondering this. How effective are we at monitoring their airspace, relative to what's happening now to us?

[Gen Wayne D. Eyre]

Mr. Chair, without getting into the classified realm, I would say that we have work to do. That speaks to the importance of the capability that the minister spoke about, the over-the-horizon radar, to provide us with that greater domain awareness.

We have gaps in the north in our radar coverage that we urgently have to address, and that is why this OTHR system is of such importance.

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

Is this Canada's Indo-Pacific strategy, as well, that we're talking about?

[Gen Wayne D. Eyre]

No, this is—

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

Can you explain a bit about that: the Indo-Pacific strategy, how we are operating and the exercise that we are doing relative to that initiative?

[Gen Wayne D. Eyre]

Do you mean relative to the Arctic?

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

We're building friends and allies. We're deepening our defence relationships with other regions. They're all paying attention to what we're doing in NORAD and up here in the north, specifically around this area. Those in the Asia-Pacific region are also sensitive about what we're doing. Is that right?

[Gen Wayne D. Eyre]

Mr. Chair, our friends, partners and allies in the Asia-Pacific and Indo-Pacific region are certainly interested in what is happening in the north, particularly those in the North Pacific, Japan and, to a certain extent, Korea.

I am happy to say we have excellent relations with those two countries. I spent a year plus serving in Korea, and I recently hosted my Japanese counterpart for a visit to Canada.

Japan's most recently released national security strategy and national defence strategy mentions Canada as a partner. In terms of those allies, those friends, those partners, it is very, very important that we maintain and further develop that relationship.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I said to colleagues that I have been fairly restrictive on the motion that was in front of us in the first hour, just to stay on the topic, but we are starting to wander from the actual motion. I am happy to let that wandering carry on, especially given the quality of the witnesses who are in front of us. Having said that, it would greatly encourage the chair if you stayed somewhere close to the motion that is in front of us.

Madame Normandin, you have six minutes, please.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you very much.

I'd like to go back to NORAD's current ability to detect larger objects, what I would call conventional objects, and its ability to detect smaller objects. Quite quickly, it was able to make the transition to detecting smaller objects. Obviously, it wasn't a matter of hardware or capability.

What has prevented it from doing both at the same time so far? Was it because it lacked human resources or financial resources?

[Gen Wayne D. Eyre]

It's about the effort required. It takes a lot of effort to detect smaller, slower objects. I'm very happy that there's a new project, Pathfinder, that combines cloud computing and artificial intelligence to detect threats with lots of data.

My colleague has something to add.

[MGen Darcy Molstad]

I would add that we can see the small objects and the big ones at the same time. As the Chief of Staff said, it's a lot of work for people to analyze what they see on their screens or in their surveillance systems. Technology, such as artificial intelligence, which is advancing very rapidly, allows for the automatic detection of small and large objects at the same time.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you very much. That's exactly what I wanted to know about the effort involved.

That said, we know that China has been working hard since about 2018 to gain expertise in surveillance balloons. I would imagine that the folks at NORAD were aware of these efforts by China.

Couldn't these developments have been done earlier? Was it because it wasn't perceived as a threat that we didn't develop this ability to detect both large objects and smaller ones more quickly?

[Gen Wayne D. Eyre]

You must remember that NORAD was set up to detect threats posed by aircraft and that aircraft are faster and larger than balloons. We now have to change what we focus on, and NORAD is looking at its role regarding surveillance balloons.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you.

I'm going to change my focus for my next question, which is about NORAD's changing role to adapt to new technologies.

How up to date are we with all things “cyber”? Balloons and space surveillance, for example, raise cyber considerations, and everything should be integrated. But I feel that we are still looking at each of these aspects in isolation. I'd like you to update us on that.

[Gen Wayne D. Eyre]

That is an excellent question. Indeed, the cyber threats to NORAD networks are real. So we need to protect them and make sure the information is accurate.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you very much.

When the first group of witnesses were here, someone mentioned —and you reiterated it—that we were not able to cover the entire territory, and that when we started to follow the various objects, we lost track of them in certain places.

As you try to track them, do you know, regarding objects of the size of the ones we're talking about, how much of the North American territory we are unable to cover?

[Gen Wayne D. Eyre]

It's a challenge almost everywhere in the North. So the NORAD upgrade, especially with the new OTHR radar, is critical to our knowledge in this area.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Is it half or less than half of the territory that we are not able to cover for objects of this size? Can you give me an idea of that?