Evidence of meeting #52 for National Defence in the 44th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was objects.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Lindsay Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
The minister also said there's a process and the FBI is doing the analysis. Is there any sense of a timeline on when we're going to know that?
I know the Yukon retrieval was abandoned. The Lake Huron retrieval was also abandoned. Is there any chance of revisiting that, just so that we can be sure of what we're dealing with?
Gen Wayne D. Eyre
In terms of the exploitation of the first object, I'm not sure of the timelines. You are correct that it's being led by the FBI in the U.S. system.
In terms of restarting the search once the snow is gone, this is a Public Safety responsibility. If the decision is made to restart it, I expect we would be asked to support that, given our assets.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Are there any procurement bottlenecks holding up NORAD modernization?
Deputy Minister, Department of National Defence
NORAD modernization was announced over the summer, so it's very much early days. No procurement updates—
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
There are no bottlenecks. Okay.
Given the overt aggression we've seen in the far north, is NORAD modernization being accelerated?
Deputy Minister, Department of National Defence
As was mentioned, there are multiple projects over 20 years. On some of the early ones, over-the-horizon radar is a key one to flag as an early project that we need to move out on quickly.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Is it being accelerated? Twenty years is a long time. We have incursions right now.
Deputy Minister, Department of National Defence
The projects themselves are being planned at an accelerated rate and, obviously, in collaboration with the U.S. I have mentioned over-the-horizon radar as one we want to move on as quickly as possible with our U.S. allies.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
That's less than 20 years.
General Eyre, did you have any direct communication with the Prime Minister?
Gen Wayne D. Eyre
Yes. In these cases, the Prime Minister is the engagement authority and I'm the one who briefs him on these incidents.
Specifically with the shoot-down in Yukon, I briefed him, gave him the engagement parameters and received his permission to go back to NORAD and give them the green light.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Does Canada currently possess the capacity to handle further airspace breaches independently?
Gen Wayne D. Eyre
That's a question where we would have to look at the specifics of where it occurred and what the incursion was, so I cannot give a definitive answer.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Do we have the capacity to handle further airspace breaches independently?
Gen Wayne D. Eyre
Again, independently.... Where would it be occurring? What would the breach be? What would it consist of? Would we need advance warning coming from offshore?
There are many factors that would go into this question.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Why wasn't the Canadian public notified about these balloons until after they were shot down?
Gen Wayne D. Eyre
As we went through the process of determining whether or not something would be shot down, time was moving fast. For that decision, as we look at the after-action review, we'll look at the communications aspect of this as well, to see what could be improved upon.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Earlier, it had already been detected and was being monitored. In a previous meeting, you told us that it had been assessed that there were no threats.
Even if there were no threats, why wasn't the Canadian public notified?
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
I mean number one and number four. The one over the Yukon that was shot down was number three. Pardon me.
Gen Wayne D. Eyre
With regard to the first object, we need to realize that this was the first time that we had encountered an incident like this. The assessment was very important to get a better understanding, a better characterization, of what it was, what it was gathering and what threat it actually posed. Given that it was at 60,000 feet, above the flight patterns of commercial aircraft, it did not pose a threat to the safety and security of commercial aircraft, so we had time to analyze it.
Deputy Minister, Department of National Defence
Mr. Chair, if I could add one thing.... The chief is quite right in terms of threat assessment, but also when you're dealing with objects and you're not exactly sure what they are or where they're from, you do not necessarily want your adversaries to know what you know.
Given that there was no threat, I would question the value of going public with information earlier.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Okay.
Given the radar gap that we have, General Eyre, would you consider airspace protection an area of consideration that Canada has shown it's not yet prepared to tackle?
