Evidence of meeting #7 for National Defence in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was threats.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Scott Anderson Conservative Vernon—Lake Country—Monashee, BC
Dr. Fergusson, you wrote in 2021 that Canada is strategically adrift. Would you say that the five points that the defence minister has outlined constitute a strategic tying down or a strategic plan?
Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
The best, I would say, is that they are a nice outline. They are nice words, but over my—I'm getting old now—long career, I've heard a lot of the words repeated over and over again. Until there's a marriage of a proper strategic.... This is the key, and this is where we're going to go.
I'll give you one simple example of this. The defence policy update last year emphasized Arctic security and continental security. The priority was going to be the homeland and North America. Marry that now to the ongoing national defence shopping list. Where is it? The answer is always, “Look back to NORAD modernization. See, it's there.” Well, it is in part, but, again, as most of the witnesses today have said that it's nowhere near enough.
That's my concern about being one and done. The government may well think, “We've done this now. We've checked that box. We're moving on.” Where they're going, I don't know. I don't see that connection outside of the rhetoric, which is nice, taking the next step forward.
Some people say we need a national security strategy. No, we don't need a national security strategy. We need a national defence strategy before we have a security strategy.
Conservative
Scott Anderson Conservative Vernon—Lake Country—Monashee, BC
Thank you very much.
You've also written about Canada's procurement system and have called it chronically dysfunctional. Can you expand on that a little bit, please?
Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
There are so many political forces and actors involved. We now, of course, have the announcement of the Defence Investment Agency with a defence investment czar, I guess. I don't know.
What's missing is that all of the forces that are at play.... I understand them entirely. It's why I've also argued that you cannot fix the procurement system. You can play on the margins and move it in little bits, but you're not going to fix it. We're not going to get rid of offsets. We're not going to get rid of industrial and technological benefits. We're not going to allow Defence to ignore all of the rules of Public Services and Procurement Canada. None of those things go away. Foreign Affairs isn't going to let this go. All of those actors and their interests are still there. That's what makes it dysfunctional.
In particular, from the military point of view, we need things. We need them quickly. Military requirements should supersede any other requirements, period. That's the military view. I understand that entirely but, of course, that's not the political reality of the world.
Tom may correct me on this. Remember, we're not alone in this. Every major country faces the same problems with procurement. There are always solutions. With the number of studies fixing procurement in the United States over the past 40 or 50 years, you'd fill this room. What happens? It still stumbles along.
I hope the agency will improve things. I wouldn't put a dollar on it.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Charles Sousa
Thank you, Mr. Fergusson.
Mr. Anderson, thank you.
I'm going to pass it over to Ms. Lapointe.
You have five minutes.
Liberal
Viviane LaPointe Liberal Sudbury, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Dr. Rivard Piché, in your opening remarks, you identified threat actors using the disabling of civilian infrastructure as a threat. Can you tell us what that looks like? What modernization tools would be best to prioritize the defence of the infrastructure?
Executive Director, Conference of Defence Associations Institute
Do you mean within the NORAD context?
Executive Director, Conference of Defence Associations Institute
If we look at the latest report that's been published by the Defence Intelligence Agency—the 2025 threat assessment, which is a public document—we see that they are discussing how both China and Russia have used methods short of war to undermine our ability to fight. It's not only our ability, but also our will to fight. There's a scenario where they don't even need to attack the infrastructure because we won't even be willing to defend it.
I think this is the entire conversation around the fact that if we don't present a threat to them, they don't need to attack us. That's why we're seeing disinformation. They're creating strategic distractions to try to keep us away from those investments.
However, I would say that on top of that, we have seen operations in the U.S., like Volt Typhoon and Salt Typhoon, that have attacked telecom infrastructure, critical infrastructure and cyber-networks. The idea here is that it's creating an opening for China, in case of a larger conflict, to actually cripple telecommunication and the cyberspace for the U.S. and to really undermine their ability.
I think we need to do a better job at cybersecurity, first of all, and at protecting our infrastructure physically and also cyber and telecommunication. Decisions around who can invest in telecommunication networks in Canada is critical. We had a conversation a few years ago with Huawei. It took a long time for the government to come to a decision about that.
I think a lot of the conversation around the economy that we're having right now—who can invest, foreign direct government investment and who we want as a partner—really has to be connected with our considerations for national security and national defence. The two cannot be disjointed.
I would argue that it took a comment from President Trump about being the 51st state and the tariffs for us to really wake up about economic security. I would argue that economic security is closely linked to continental defence and ultimately our ability to defend our country.
Liberal
Viviane LaPointe Liberal Sudbury, ON
Thank you for that response.
Dr. Lackenbauer, you mentioned data processing, utilizing AI and quantum tools for decision superiority.
Can you expand on the importance of this capability in terms of it being a priority for modernization?
Professor, Canada Research Chair in the Study of the Canadian North, Trent University, As an Individual
Yes, thanks. It's a great question.
I think it's grappling with the challenge that as we bring online more sensors and more sophisticated sensors, we're actually ingesting such an incredible volume of data that the ability for individual humans to process it, filter out what is relevant and what is not relevant, and arrive at decision points is becoming increasingly difficult. Using tools—be they machine learning or AI—to help do that fusion function and that first triage and sort what's useful and what's not, what's noise and what's relevant, will allow humans to be in the loop of decision-making even if we are automating a lot of the processes and figuring out what data is relevant to identifying threats or assessing risks.
This is important because it allows us to have that decision superiority ideal where our adversaries must calculate that, before they make any move, we have a whole array of different sensors that are going to be anticipating what they are doing. It means that by the time they're making a decision, they should be worried that we have already anticipated that decision and have taken mitigative steps to make sure that's not going to be allowed to harm us.
Putting this together is coping with the reality that we're dealing with such mass quantities of data that we need to figure out more efficient and effective ways of processing that data at the speed of relevance to make the best decisions that are not just kinetic kills of delivery systems flying into our airspace. Ideally, they're non-kinetic responses, which include diplomacy and other coercive tools, right before those things are ever launched.
Liberal
Viviane LaPointe Liberal Sudbury, ON
Thank you.
Dr. Karako, what are the opportunities and challenges, as you see them, for Canada in modernizing NORAD with the current U.S. administration? Some people would tell us that there's a concern around consistency and reliability.
In your opinion, where should we align and where should we be cautious?
Director, Missile Defense Project, Center for Strategic and International Studies
That's a great question.
First of all, as someone who has been following the particular air and cruise missile threats for a while, I was very gratified by the announcement a couple of years ago about a long-term and very significant investment in NORAD. As some of the other folks have said, it was long overdue.
Again, and I called this out in my prepared remarks, China is ahead of the United States right now in terms of building the over-the-horizon radar. We know that we want them, and we're moving towards that slowly, but getting those over-the-horizon radars built and up and running is tremendously important, so staying consistent on that would be tremendously helpful.
Some folks have alluded to the policy decisions. I think those are probably going away. This is one of the reasons I deliberately emphasized the non-ballistic threats, because—no kidding—the intellectual baggage of the past about BMD per se is a different world. The world of the threats we live in is especially non-ballistic.
Someone just quoted the DIA report. The DIA also put out an infographic a couple of months ago that showed China is expected to have 5,000 land attack cruise missiles by 2035. They are building up massive quantities of these things, so being able to detect and track them is super important.
I also want to add to the previous comment about artificial intelligence and machine learning to be able to process all of these sorts of things. We have to connect all of these sensors, because it is too much for a human being looking at 17 screens to comprehend. It was a known thing in our cruise missile defence report from 2022 that the algorithms were tuning out certain kinds of radar responses, and nine months later, the Chinese spy balloon thing happened. That's exactly what happened: The radars were looking for things that looked like bombers or ICBMs, and they were tuning out something that was floating like a balloon.
Allowing that raw data to come together and pulling it all together is why the integrated battle management layer is going to be the single most important and, I think, the earliest thing to get right for the United States golden dome effort and for the broader air defence and NORAD effort.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Charles Sousa
Mr. Savard-Tremblay, you have two and a half minutes, with a little leeway.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Rivard Piché, earlier I didn't have time to ask a yes-or-no question. That's a good thing, because you'll now have a chance to give a more detailed answer. I was just going to ask you this: Is 2029 still a realistic, achievable or feasible target in this context?
Executive Director, Conference of Defence Associations Institute
I hope it's doable, and I would even say it should be done more quickly.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton, QC
You're saying that you would like it to be done even more quickly.
Executive Director, Conference of Defence Associations Institute
Yes.
Russia will be back to full readiness in 2029. The assessment of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan talks about 2027 or 2028. The year 2029 is much too late in a context where there could be a major regional war in another part of the world.
To be a credible ally, we have to first be able to defend our national territory and then be able to make our contribution. Before we can see how we can contribute to a response with our allies, we have to be able to defend our national territory. I think we have to be able to put the necessary capacities in place to defend ourselves. To do so and to establish the timeline, we have to assess the threats and how quickly they will manifest.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton, QC
Let's talk about the famous golden dome. Everyone here seems to agree that it doesn't fall directly under the North American Aerospace Defense Command, but that it complements it.
What do we know about it, in the end? We just know that there's an interest on both sides. That's what certain articles have made clear. It seems like a fairly fanciful project so far. Mr. Trump's interest also seems to be on a sliding scale: He sometimes talks about it, then we don't hear about it again for several months before it comes back.
Executive Director, Conference of Defence Associations Institute
The North American Aerospace Defense Command and the United States Northern Command have long talked about the need for a better system to defend the North American continent. In January 2025, the Trump administration presented the golden dome as the solution.
I think there's a clear need in Canada. When we look at the threat we're facing in the context of a conflict spectrum, we need a measure to defend Canada against air and missile threats.
I also think that the golden dome has been extremely politicized because of the Trump administration, the comments about how Canada should be the 51st state and the tariffs. However, what it really shows is a critical vulnerability in our ability to defend Canada and defend the continent as a whole. I think we'll eventually have to depoliticize the issue.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton, QC
I don't seem to have any time left.
Thank you, Ms. Rivard Piché.
Liberal
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Algonquin—Renfrew—Pembroke, ON
Dr. Fergusson, if the government decided to participate in the golden dome today, what is the minimum length of time it would take to have the sensors and interceptors in position to eliminate any type of missile or drone threats?
Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
I always put drones in a different world. I'm not sure how well the committee has looked into this—even my colleagues haven't looked into this—but there are drones and there are drones. They run from little things up to Predators and Reapers, so before we talk about drones, we'd better figure out which, exactly, we are talking about here, relative to the realities in North America. That's the first point I would make.
I think Tom mentioned this, and I would agree with him. I'm not trying to put words into your mouth, Tom, but for most of the systems—the sensor systems, the interceptor systems, the development under way for integrated battle management or joint all-domain command and control, or whatever new term they use for it—a lot of this is already in place. That is, the technology exists, so we can very quickly move.
The space-based component of the golden dome is really the only place there's a question mark, and then, of course, there is the integration side for the sensors to the command and control and the interceptors making decisions about what to defend. As Gaëlle pointed out very clearly, we have to make hard choices about what we want to defend, what we don't want to defend or what we're not willing to defend, relative to thinking about what our adversaries will think our vulnerabilities are.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Algonquin—Renfrew—Pembroke, ON
Dr. Karako, what is the minimum length of time North America could be faced with an imminent missile threat?