Mr. Chair, there's a lot there, so it may take a few minutes to explain the details.
Let me say up front that the shoot-down occurred in exactly the way we practise, exactly the way we train. We train all the time in cross-border operations using other nations' assets—Canadian aircraft in U.S. airspace and U.S. aircraft in Canadian airspace—so this worked. The communication worked. My discussions with the commander of NORAD, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the briefings up to the Prime Minister were almost textbook.
That being said, there are some lessons that we are garnering from this, but going to the exact specifics of your question, I was informed the night before, February 3, that there was an object that had been picked up transiting Alaskan airspace. It was night. They had a radar lock. It was slow. There was no indication that it was a kinetic threat, but they wanted to confirm in daylight what it actually was. It just so happened that as it transited Alaskan airspace, it entered Canadian airspace right at daybreak. Two American F-22s were on station to be able to characterize that object as it entered Canadian airspace.