National Defence Committee on Sept. 18th, 2025

[Jeff Kibble, Conservative, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

In their new aircraft carriers, there's certainly a strategic power projection platform. They're doing sea trials right now. Have they successfully launched and recovered aircraft yet and proven that capability?

[Robert Ritchie]

Canada does not have an aircraft carrier in its inventory, as you know with your previous service, but we often participate in multinational coalitions, such as the Highmast series, which was led by the U.K., in which our most recentVille de Québec participated alongside—

[Jeff Kibble, Conservative, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

I'll restate my question, if I can. Has the PLAN aircraft carrier proven the capability to launch and recover aircraft?

[Robert Ritchie]

The information that I'm aware of is in a classified domain, and I'm happy to share that with colleagues in that form.

[Jeff Kibble, Conservative, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

You mentioned the dual-purpose vessels. We've seen up to five Chinese PLAN auxiliary general intelligence vessels, AGIs, in our Arctic, very close to our shore. Can our Canadian Coast Guard counter this threat? What capability do they have, beyond navigation radars, to intercept communications, track these vessels, figure out what they're up to and keep track of them?

[Ty Curran]

While we've always worked very closely with the Coast Guard, I think the integration of the Coast Guard as a special operating agency as part of the Department of National Defence is going to allow us to work more closely together and benefit from the experience they have.

When we think about countering threats, it's not just about the Coast Guard, obviously; it's also about what the Royal Canadian Navy and the Canadian Armed Forces can do. I think that is how we work together to deter those sorts of threats. It's through both surveillance and active operations.

[Robert Ritchie]

Mr. Chair, I might just add that there have been 15 Chinese Arctic expeditions since 1999. Since 2015, we've seen patrols in the subarctic, in both the Bering Sea and the Baltic Sea areas.

To your point, from 2023 to present we've seen it go from one to three to five, so we continue to actively monitor.

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

Thank you.

Mr. Malette, you have four minutes.

[Chris Malette, Liberal, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I believe Mr. Curran was describing some of our activities in the Indo-Pacific region. Specifically returning to the biennial exercise of Operation Talisman Sabre, that exercise involved how many CAF members? Can you quantify how that tested our resilience to remain enduring and sustainable in that region?

As we heard earlier, we are quite well committed to eastern Europe, and we're a globe away. Does this exemplify our ability to operate, at numbers, in two distant theatres?

[Robert Ritchie]

The short answer is yes. For some additional detail, it was a multinational warfighting exercise for three weeks, from July 13 to August 4, hosted by Australia, with 43,000 members of the interested community of 19 nations. Canadian Armed Forces deployed 600 individuals across all domains and services. That involved sea, land, air and special operations forces, one ship and four aircraft. It was the largest Canadian Armed Forces deployment in the region since the commencement of Operation Horizon in 2022.

You asked a question about sustainability. With tremendous support from Australia, we were able to strategically rearm the Ville de Québec with its missiles. Although the missiles were projected from Canada, which was significant, with their assistance we were able to rearm forward and be prepared for operational endurance in that region.

[Chris Malette, Liberal, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

Mr. Savard-Tremblay, we'll go over to you. You have two and a half minutes.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton, QC]

I would like to go back to Mr. Laporte.

I think I asked you a question earlier about whether there is a risk in supplying the Chinese military with technology, chips and so on. You told me that it was fairly well screened. However, we know that the Chinese regime is very integrated. The state, the major industrial groups, in other words the major companies, the army and the Communist Party have a very incestuous relationship, to the point where they are almost a single entity.

What guarantee do we have that the high tech we trade doesn't end up in the hands of the army?

[Eric Laporte]

Thank you for your question.

You mentioned the fact that the line between private and public doesn't exist in the Chinese system. In fact, a lot of companies are owned by the government. Chinese companies are also trying to hide their holdings in front companies.

When our department receives export control requests, it analyzes the entire chain of the company to try to trace the source and see where all the parts and components fit in. There is always a risk of diversion, and we are looking at it closely.

Are we fully effective? I don't know. There are always doubts that a component could potentially end up in parts of Chinese military technologies. Our focus is really very much on the fact that we don't want Canadian components to end up in Chinese companies.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton, QC]

For example, if a Canadian SME sends a small case of chips to a Chinese SME, it may be led to believe that the case will be monitored and subject to some form of control.

[Eric Laporte]

The items in question are on the export control list. Some chips are, and some chips are not.

I'm not an expert in this area, but I'm telling you what I know.

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

Thank you so much.

I'm going to Scott Anderson now for four minutes.

[Scott Anderson, Conservative, Vernon—Lake Country—Monashee, BC]

Thank you very much.

The Coast Guard is a civilian organization. It's being moved under the umbrella of DND. Is the movement of that budget under the DND umbrella going to be figured in the 2% commitment to NATO?

[Ty Curran]

Yes, I can confirm that the budget of the Department of National Defence counts towards NATO spending.

[Scott Anderson, Conservative, Vernon—Lake Country—Monashee, BC]

That's 2%. Good. The Coast Guard....

[Ty Curran]

Yes, the Coast Guard would now be part of the budget of the—

[Scott Anderson, Conservative, Vernon—Lake Country—Monashee, BC]

Can you tell me what the Coast Guard budget is?

[Ty Curran]

That's not a fact I have in front of me. I'll just defer to my colleagues.

[Scott Anderson, Conservative, Vernon—Lake Country—Monashee, BC]

That's fair enough.

At the same time, we're building several new ships for the Coast Guard. They're in production. They began production before the current strategy appeared. Are any modifications being made to those ships to increase their lethality?

We talked about monitoring the Arctic. We haven't talked about what we're going to actually do about the Arctic.

[Robert Ritchie]

At present, there are no plans to militarize the Coast Guard or to incorporate a law enforcement role.

The current status is that it has 120 vessels in its fleet. That said, there is a proposed mandate via the strong borders act, Bill C-2, as this group knows. It's an amendment under the Oceans Act. It could strengthen sovereignty and maritime domain awareness, particularly in the remote Arctic waters. If passed, it could also enable the CCG to conduct security patrols and collect, analyze, receive and share information and intelligence for security purposes, which is not currently in its mandate, from which we would benefit.

A final comment is that you may—