National Defence Committee on April 15th, 2024

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Mr. Kelly, did you want an answer to your question?

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

You're not answering it.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Either way, you have 10 seconds to finish your answer, and then we'll be on to Mr. Fillmore.

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

The United States finalized their contract with Raytheon to acquire those systems. We're part of that contract, and I have been assured by the U.S. government that Canada's system will be delivered among the very first of those that are ready as they come off the line. They won't be delivered until they're actually made, but as soon as they're made, we will get them delivered.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Kelly.

Mr. Fillmore, you have the final five minutes.

[Andy Fillmore, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

Thank you, Chair.

Minister, Deputy and Chief, thanks to all of you for your time here today. Thank you for your service to all Canadians, especially those in uniform, many of whom serve in Halifax. As you know, significant elements of all three branches call Halifax home.

In fact, the Royal Canadian Air Force is celebrating its centennial birthday this year. I was very fortunate to be present at 12 Wing Shearwater last week to help mark that milestone with serving members in the air force. A little later this week, HMCS Montréal will embark to the Indo-Pacific on Operation Horizon, so there's lots going on in Halifax that is touched by this defence policy update.

Minister, given the events over the weekend in the Middle East and the overall security environment in the world, I was particularly struck by the commitment to provide the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Royal Canadian Navy, those two branches, with the striking power to deter threats at an appropriate distance and the exploration of options to acquire long-range air- and sea-launched missiles.

Can you expand on why those investments in that particular hardware are necessary in the current security environment?

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Fillmore.

The threat environment has been evolving fairly significantly.

One of the things we have seen is the application and use of technologies with respect to long-range fire missile defence that enables our people to operate safely and to project force in defence of this country. The air force has been very clear. We have made a very significant investment now, and we're going to be delivering 88 F-35 fighters, as an example. We have to make sure that we get the very best in modern missiles to arm them with, so that they can be as effective as we will require them to be.

If I may, just very briefly.... The language here is pretty clear. We've used the word “explore”. I know that some people have objected to that, but to be quite honest with you, there's work to be done. There's a lot of work to be done to make sure that we do the analysis required.

The Canadian Armed Forces, the Department of National Defence and our industry partners are all working at full pace in order to define those requirements to make sure that we deliver for the members of the Canadian Armed Forces—and therefore for all Canadians—the very best of the equipment they are going to require to do the important missions we ask of them.

We are doing the work that is necessary, but we try to acknowledge in this document that the acquisition of that capability is absolutely essential to Canada's security and defence. We are doing the hard work of exploring it. We'll make sure that, when we've done that work, we get the budgets to pay for it, and then we'll go out and get it done.

[Andy Fillmore, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

Thank you.

I'm moving on to what may be the final frontier of my questions this morning: space.

Soon—and very soon, I hope—this committee will begin a study on the future role of space for Canada, whether that's protecting our sovereignty, upholding agreements with partners around the world or making sure that we have a robust and world-leading aerospace defence industry here in Canada.

I noted that space is mentioned many times in the defence policy update. I wonder if you could address the growing importance of space and the need for our own capabilities to keep up with that.

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

With the situational awareness in the threat environment, I think it's important to recognize that there are now many theatres of conflict—maritime for our navy, in the air for our air force and on land for our army—but what we have found is that there are two new emerging threat environments: One is cyber and the other is space.

The safety and security in the space environment for satellite communications, for our GPS systems and for things that we Canadians and our allies rely on every day, and making sure we have an ability to protect that environment and to defend our interests, are things that we and our allies all recognize we have to make significant new investments in.

As well, I think you'll also see, for example, an investment in new Arctic satellite systems and a ground station in the Arctic—that's an important recognition of the importance of the space environment—and a more than $2-billion investment in the cyber area. They're very related as well, because we have become, as a society and a country, increasingly reliant on the cyberworld, much of which is tied to space capability.

Recognizing that defending our critical infrastructure and our national interests doesn't mean merely being able to respond on land, on air and even at sea, but also in space, we will be making future investments there.

[Andy Fillmore, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Fillmore.

That brings to an end the first hour with the minister.

We appreciate your appearance here.

The question by Madame Normandin, the battling mathematical nerds, left me a bit confused as to the interaction between the commitment to cuts and the DPU investment. Hopefully, Mr. Matthews will be able to expand on that, because I think it is of interest to the committee at large that we see how these two, on the face of it, irreconcilable notions are worked out.

With that, I want to thank the minister for his appearance here

We'll suspend for a minute or two for the next panel.

I look forward to seeing you again.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

We are now resuming.

I'll turn to either General Eyre or Deputy Minister Matthews. I'm assuming—correct me if I am wrong—that there's no opening statement.

With that, we'll move to questions.

It looks like it's Mr. Bezan.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

It's Cheryl first, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mrs. Gallant is first up.

You have six minutes.

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

Canada was the fifth-most targeted country for cyber-attacks in the world last year.

What makes Canada such a favourite target? Is it due to our vulnerability?

[Caroline Xavier, Chief, Communications Security Establishment]

Thank you for the question.

As we stated in our national cyber-threat assessment, which was published in 2022, Canada can be seen as a frequent target because of the role we play on the world stage. As well, we recognize there are some nation-states that are quite interested, from a strategic perspective, in doing harm to Canada in cyberspace.

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

Three cohorts of cyber-operators have graduated in the last few years, so you must have enough to stand up a command for cyber. Since 2016, we've been told the CAF has a cyber-army and a cyber-command.

Why is there a discrepancy and, if there isn't one, why hasn't this been established yet?

[General Wayne D. Eyre, Chief of the Defence Staff, Canadian Armed Forces, Department of National Defence]

Mr. Chair, I'll take that one.

Up until this point, many of the leaders and some of the functions have been double-hatted within the Canadian Armed Forces and indeed the department, because the cyber-enterprise within the Canadian Armed Forces is under our CIO. What we're going to be doing is making the Canadian Armed Forces cyber-command a stand-alone command. It's akin to our special operations forces command and intelligence command, which shows just how important this capability is, going forward.

It's growing. We need to continue to grow and develop our expertise and, in doing so, work very closely—hand in glove—with our colleagues at CSE.

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

What plans are in place for a combined joint all-domain command and control?

[Gen Wayne D. Eyre]

Mr. Chair, I'll take this one, as well.

JADC2—joint all-domain command and control, or what we're calling, in the Canadian Armed Forces, “pan-domain command and control”—reflects the changing character of war, where the newer domains of space and cyber need to be better integrated with the traditional domains of air, maritime and land, plus extending that to a whole-of-government approach.

The seamless integration of the effects in those five domains requires a new command and control system that can rapidly fuse intelligence and sensor data with effectors from various domains, allowing decision-makers to make much more rapid decisions. In the context of continental defence, for example, which the policy focuses a lot on—and rightly so, from my perspective—and as we take a look at the approaches to the continent, this gives us much better awareness of what's coming and allows for decision space as to what to do about it.

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

That's great.

However, there is nothing in the DPU about this. If a plan is not written down, how do we know Canada is working towards this goal?

[Gen Wayne D. Eyre]

Not everything in terms of military concepts that we are working on is in the DPU.

However, I will say that the reference to digital transformation is absolutely there. When I take a look at the various capabilities and modernization efforts we need, digital modernization is right at the top of the list. We have other initiatives that are ongoing, which are supported by the digital transformation hooks in the DPU.

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

AUKUS has signalled that Japan will be invited to join in pillar two.

What action is AUKUS waiting for to consider Canada worthy of sharing advanced technology among the U.K., the U.S. and Australia?

[Bill Matthews, Deputy Minister, Department of National Defence]

Perhaps I will take that one, Mr. Chair.

On pillar two, indeed, the U.S. announced last week that they're exploring things with Japan. We are actively engaged with AUKUS partners on items related to pillar two—AI, quantum, etc.—and we continue to work with pillar-two partners or AUKUS pillar-two members to look at where Canada can add value.

We're certainly at the table as we need to be.

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

We're not part of it, and we haven't been asked to be. What is it that Canada is missing in order to be at that table?