National Defence Committee on Oct. 2nd, 2025

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

Thank you.

Do I have time?

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

Sorry, we have one more questioner.

Thank you for your questions.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I appreciate that very much. I look forward to some of those written responses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

Yes, Mr. Henderson, please provide any written responses, if you can. That would be very helpful for us.

Ms. Sherry Romanado, you have the last round of questions.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Henderson, if there is anything that you want to add to this conversation, could you please send it to the committee? I really look forward to getting your opinion on this.

I want to follow up on the line of questioning from my colleague MP Lapointe.

Mr. Lajeunesse, I want to get more information with respect to NORAD. When we look at maritime domain awareness, maritime warning and maritime control—maritime control is not under the NORAD agreement—I'd like to get your opinion on how this integration of the Canadian Coast Guard with the armed forces can assist and provide opportunities for us in terms of our continental defence.

I'll go first to Mr. Lajeunesse, and then I'd also like to bring it to Monsieur Boutilier.

[Adam Lajeunesse]

I think the critical thing to remember here is that when we're talking about safety, security or defence, the kinetic value is not necessarily the deciding one. The military has many platforms that are not kinetic, such as drones, surveillance, etc. They still count as military capabilities.

What I believe the Canadian government is envisioning for the Coast Guard is civilian vessels undergoing their normal safety and security tasks that have this added surveillance capability to integrate their marine domain awareness into both the MSOCs or the Canadian picture and, through the MSOCs, into NORAD's domain awareness.

The real value, from a continental defence perspective, is not the new assets or training; it's the added lines of communication, the improved lines of communication. As the Coast Guard goes about its duties, it can feed that information through to larger continental defence structures.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

In that regard, I think you wrapped it up very well in terms of it being a civilian force that augments the capabilities of the Canadian Armed Forces. I appreciate that you clarified that this is a civilian force that is going to augment these capabilities—it is not meant to replace them—and provide us additional capabilities that could be lacking currently.

Mr. Boutilier, do you want to weigh in on this as well?

[James Boutilier]

No, I just want to commend you on that summary a moment ago, because I think that is really at the heart of this entire discussion.

Of course, you're well aware of the U.S.-Canada-Finland agreement to build a highly ambitious number of icebreakers. Whether that will be achieved remains to be seen, but it's yet another illustration, I think, of the integrative elements associated with the Coast Guard, despite the uncertainties emerging from Washington.

Thank you.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Thank you to all the witnesses.

Again, Mr. Henderson, if you could provide us any written comments, we'd greatly appreciate it.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

Thank you very much to all the witnesses.

I'm sorry for some of the technical difficulties that took place. It's important for all of us to understand what is taking place with this integration. We're going to have some of our officials come as well in the coming weeks. Your testimony is very helpful to us.

I would ask the committee for their indulgence to have agreement to suspend and resume in camera for a moment. There are a few other matters I would like to discuss.

[Proceedings continue in camera]