National Defence Committee on Oct. 9th, 2025

[Tom Karako]

I would say today. Missile threats could come at any time. The threat is here. It's not a tomorrow problem. It's very much a today problem.

Second, I would just add—to your previous question about eliminating threat—it's not going to be possible to eliminate the threat, and that's why it's so important to begin to have the conversations of what it is, what areas and what things need to be defended above all, as opposed to the things you don't try to defend. You have to focus on defending a few things well. If you peanut-butter spread, you'll be able to defend nothing.

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

Okay.

Mr. Coates, I think the last time I saw you was at Cheyenne Mountain. With reference to Dr. Rivard Piché's comment about hybrid threats that could trigger a response from NORAD, what type of hybrid threat would trigger a response from NORAD?

[Christopher Coates]

There will be air domain threats that could be hybrid, so the use of civilian aircraft, for example, would be a type of hybrid threat. A hybrid threat coming in over the cyber-domain should trigger a NORAD response because it's an indication of an intent by an adversary, who then can elevate and escalate horizontally rather than.... That's a military expression, to escalate horizontally, to find a vulnerability somewhere else to achieve their objective.

I think what's missing is this recognition that the defence of North America doesn't depend on NORAD anymore. This is a comprehensive, competitive environment in which an adversary will use all means possible to achieve their ends, and if NORAD is defending, then the threat will appear somewhere else. NORAD is one of the members of the team that needs to defend North America. Today we realize that everybody on the team has to start participating.

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

Dr. Lackenbauer, most Canadians don't read The Globe and Mail. In fact, many Canadians don't even read any legacy media anymore. What methods can MPs use to raise awareness of the threats to Canada from a military standpoint? Until the public perceives a threat, it's going to be very tough to convince them that we need to allocate major dollars that way.

[P. Whitney Lackenbauer]

That's an amazing question, and I think we all have a role to play, whether we are academics, journalists, parliamentarians or government officials, in communicating and encouraging an open discussion about this.

An example would be with the round table or open public session a few weeks ago that was hosted in the city of Kawartha Lakes, just north of Peterborough, which is going to be the site of the Arctic over-the-horizon radar southern-based array. There were deep-seated concerns amongst residents of the area about what the OTHR would entail in terms of environmental footprint, concerns about some of the technology and whether or not it was going to have radioactivity, for example, and also questions about the need for this scale of continental defence and defence of Canadian infrastructure.

Those are opportunities for parliamentarians to potentially be involved at the constituency level in nurturing conversations, realizing that not everybody is always going to be aligned on a viewpoint. I think, even within your respective caucuses, it's good to encourage the thinking that these are big discussions that are going to challenge a lot of our cherished assumptions. We should have free and open discussion about some of the friction points or some of the lingering insecurities around these kinds of projects, but then I think, most importantly, leave Canadians with the sense that perhaps we're not in an immediate existential crisis, but we need to act with urgency. We need to make decisions and implement things today, or we're going to find ourselves in a crisis in the future. That doesn't mean that we're going to have all the solutions already at our fingertips. We're going to have to build, improvise, adapt and enhance going forward.

Further to what Dr. Karako said, it's not about eliminating threats; it's about managing threats. It's about mitigating risks, and it's about recognizing that we do have capabilities right now to deal with certain types of missile threats in terms of detecting and defeating them but not others. We want to reinforce what we already have and use that for strategic advantage and, at the same time, invest in research and development technology to be able to deter and defeat those other kinds of threats. This requires a conversation with Canadians to get their buy-in, to realize that we are doing this for Canada and for North America, but it starts with our playing our role in homeland defence, and we have a homeland that needs to be defended.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

Thank you.

I'll pass it over to the parliamentary secretary, Ms. Romanado.

You have five minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Through you, I'd like to thank the witnesses for being here today.

I'd like to start with Dr. Karako.

You mentioned something that piqued my interest, and I believe Dr. Rivard Piché said the same thing. You mentioned that the big question is this: What does an adversary think they can get away with, or are we seeing threats just below the threshold of war?

When you mentioned that, were you referring to examples of seeing Russian drones going into the airspace of neighbouring countries? Is that what you're referring to in terms of testing what they think they can get away with?

[Tom Karako]

I think there are a couple different species of this. Probing NATO airspace to ascertain what capabilities they have to respond to in terms of air policing is one form of a test. It might be, as you said, short of war. Doing that with cyber-operations, like I said, quasi-war operations, might be another kind of test.

I was also referring to a third type. In a conflict, in a situation where we are either at war or maybe about to be at war with a big peer competitor, it's about what they might think they can get away with kinetically by putting ordnance in Canada and the United States without a nuclear response. What can they get away with short of that big threat of nuclear reprisals?

I worry about that, and it is the phenomenon of non-nuclear strategic attack that ought to worry us about what they think can do.

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

Thank you.

My next question is for Dr. Rivard Piché.

You focused a lot on all domain threats, and currently the NORAD agreement is aerospace awareness and control, and maritime awareness but not maritime control, but we don't have cyber in there. We do not have other domains in the NORAD agreement.

What would you recommend in terms of our NORAD modernization and our conversations with the United States in terms of continental defence? What would you recommend be included in a new and improved NORAD?

[Gaëlle Rivard Piché]

I don't think it's about expanding NORAD's mandate necessarily, but it's about making sure that the right collaboration mechanisms and C2 nodes are in place so that information.... We were talking about the amount of information that needs to go in and that information has to be treated or processed fast enough so that we can make the right decision at the right time.

It's really about how we make sure that different commands, different entities, different agencies are able to share the information, and then I would say authorities and chains of command are clear so that we can make decisions rapidly.

I think this is a priority. It's not about expanding NORAD's mandate. NORAD is one portion of the solution but defending the continent is going to require more than NORAD.

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

Recently, the Department of National Defence took on the Canadian Coast Guard to augment our situational awareness in the Arctic in our waterways.

Do you think the inclusion of the Canadian Coast Guard does provide us with additional capabilities in terms of our awareness in terms of the maritime space?

[Gaëlle Rivard Piché]

I think it would facilitate a lot of things.

In my previous position, I was working in the Department of National Defence as an analyst and I worked quite a lot on how the military integrates with the Coast Guard for certain operations. We have MOUs in place and so on.

Now, as we see the Coast Guard coming under DND, it's going to probably facilitate those integrations. It's going to take less planning and less process to actually get those operations going.

At the end of the day, yes, there's a clear distinction legally between what is national defence and what is civilian affairs, but we're in an all-domain environment—a pan-domain environment—where threats move along.

As we were describing, as a threat is poking at where the vulnerabilities are and which gaps and seams they can exploit, the integration of the Coast Guard will facilitate a better response, a more flexible response, to some of those threats, as well as a better posture in the Arctic when it comes to increasing our presence, increasing awareness and making sure that we fulfill the entire mandate from a safety, security and national defence perspective.

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

Perfect.

I'll open it up to any of the witnesses.

In terms of our investment two years ago with respect to modernizing NORAD, in terms of the commitment for over-the-horizon Arctic capabilities, in terms of the Coast Guard, in terms of conversations regarding removing the restrictions on anti-ballistic missiles, do you agree that Canada's moving in the right direction by conveying to Canadians, as my colleague had said, the importance of our sovereignty, our defence, not only of Canada, but of the continent?

Do you think that we are convincing Canadians of the importance of this?

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

Give a quick answer if you can, so I can pass it to the vice-chair.

[Gaëlle Rivard Piché]

I think there are signals going in the right direction.

What I'm afraid of is that this is just a moment and we won't see sustained urgency. I think we need to really understand that this threat is not going away. It's accelerating and we really need to get going.

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

Mr. Lackenbauer, you have your hand up.

[P. Whitney Lackenbauer]

Yes, I'd suggest we're definitely heading in a positive direction, but there are still some parts of incoherence in our strategic message. If we take, for example, the Arctic component to all of this, we confuse what threats will pass through our Arctic to strike at targets outside of the Arctic, from threats to our Arctic, from threats within our Arctic.

There's a reference to this in “Our North, Strong and Free” but it's never elaborated upon. When you look at a lot of the statements, it confuses things. The Arctic over-the-horizon radar, according to the information that is public, is expected to extend radar coverage up to the Arctic coast and maybe covering our Arctic islands.

That, by definition, is not intended to be defending the Arctic; that's to give advance warning and detection of threats that would be passing through the Arctic to strike at targets deeper south. If anybody can show me an official statement providing that level of clarity to Canadians, I'd love to see it and trumpet it.

Here's where we need to get more precise. We're making investments in the Arctic that are part of defending all of Canada and by extension defending all of North America.

When I'm at round tables and speaking with northern rights holders and stakeholders, they are interested in doing their part to support the defence of Canada. We should be really clear that we're talking about defending our nation as a whole at this moment and defending our shared continent, and build from there. We can then be clear in talking about the nature of who is being targeted by what and then I think we can get to the level of fidelity and sophistication that Tom and others are sharing with us here—

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

Thank you, Mr. Lackenbauer. I'm sensitive to time here.

Mr. Karako, I know your hand is up, but I'm going to give Mr. Bezan his due time. We're going to start round three.

Vice-Chair, you have five minutes.

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

Before you start the clock, I want to put the following notice on motion. I'm not moving it; I'm just tabling it.

That the committee undertake a study regarding the Prime Minister's recent appointment of Doug Guzman as Chief Executive Officer of the new Defence Investment Agency at an annual salary of $679,100, and for the purposes of this study, hold one meeting dedicated to the study; invite Doug Guzman, CEO of the Defence Investment Agency; invite Bill Matthews, Secretary of the Treasury Board; invite the Director of Appointments, Office of the Prime Minister; and that the Committee report its findings and recommendations to the House.

That's on notice. I'll give that to the clerk for translation.

Now you can start my time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

Thank you, Mr. Bezan.

It's back to you.

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

I want to thank our witnesses for their candour.

Dr. Karako, I want to start with you. You said one thing in your opening statement about over-the-horizon radar that I found disturbing. You said that OTHR will not provide targeting capabilities.

As we look at the increasing threat, especially from a ballistic missile standpoint but also that of cruise missiles, what do we need to have here in Canada to be part of continental security to do that job of targeting those threats as they're coming in?

[Tom Karako]

First of all, I believe that's correct, and I think that's okay. The good news is that the OTHRs may not have the super high fidelity, but they can see very far. To paraphrase an American politician, I don't want to just see over our territory; I want to see to Russia from my house. You can at least see blips, to know, for instance, if Russian bombers are circling perhaps in their territory or perhaps in the Arctic for the tipping and queueing of all that. That's really super important for that domain awareness—

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

With OTHR, you're saying that we'll be getting a greater picture up as they tend to want to challenge North American airspace as they have been, which has escalated over the last decade. Is that correct?

[Tom Karako]

It's a useful tool in the tool box, but Canada is also getting, for its surface combatants, SPY-7 radar, for instance, and that has S-band. That's a completely different animal. It's useful to view ballistic missile threats with the higher fidelity that I think you're looking for.

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

Would we want to be installing Aegis as a ground-based system, as well?