Government Operations committee  Certainly. There are a couple of points here. Number one, we do have rules in place to make sure that these types of conflicts don't occur, but I want to come back to the nature of the work McKinsey's doing here. It's mostly benchmarking HR-related.... It's not related to capability.

Government Operations committee  Certainly. I'll be very quick on this. The test we are using in terms of redactions is built around the same test used for access to information. That would include commercially confidential information. We are trying our best to align with other departments in terms of consistent approaches, but given the timelines and the volume of documents, there are a number of inconsistencies, I'm sure.

Government Operations committee  I am not aware of and I certainly have not made any specific requests, but I am happy to take that back and check with the department to see if there have been such requests. The consistency in interpretation around the contract itself is important, but I will take that back and see if I can provide a better explanation.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, I'll try a different approach. The nature of the work that McKinsey—

Government Operations committee  The nature of the work is not sensitive. It's HR, benchmarking and data. We're not talking about sophisticated, sensitive—

Government Operations committee  I will give an answer if I can have 15 seconds.

Government Operations committee  Thank you for the question. At Public Services and Procurement Canada, and at National Defence, I was never in contact with the McKinsey firm. To my knowledge, that was also the case for the deputy minister who preceded me. He never communicated with them.

National Defence committee  I have a couple of points. We've already detailed today how engagement works on a specific incident, but there is ongoing and regular engagement with indigenous peoples as we plan for NORAD modernization. I would flag a couple of things. Indigenous people are actually quite involved in NORAD modernization already, including some contractual arrangements to maintain the existing North Warning System and contracts to support CFS Alert.

National Defence committee  NORAD modernization was announced over the summer, so it's very much early days. No procurement updates—

National Defence committee  As was mentioned, there are multiple projects over 20 years. On some of the early ones, over-the-horizon radar is a key one to flag as an early project that we need to move out on quickly.

National Defence committee  The projects themselves are being planned at an accelerated rate and, obviously, in collaboration with the U.S. I have mentioned over-the-horizon radar as one we want to move on as quickly as possible with our U.S. allies.

National Defence committee  Mr. Chair, if I could add one thing.... The chief is quite right in terms of threat assessment, but also when you're dealing with objects and you're not exactly sure what they are or where they're from, you do not necessarily want your adversaries to know what you know. Given that there was no threat, I would question the value of going public with information earlier.

National Defence committee  Certainly I'll start. If the chief wishes to add anything, he can do so. I think it's important to draw a distinction between the first object that was shot down off the coast of the U.S. versus the others. The first one was bigger, but it was also confirmed that it came from China.

National Defence committee  Mr. Chair, I'd like to add one more quick comment. Just to elaborate on the chief's comments about the speed of the balloon versus more traditional objects, it's easier, not with perfection, to forecast where it's going. From a monitoring perspective, it's not like a traditional airplane.

National Defence committee  Mr. Chair, I will be very brief. I echo the chief's comments, except to say that the relationship extends to the civilian side as well. We engage our civilian counterparts to talk about threat environments, various opportunities and what's changing. The dialogue is open, and we share the information we have with key allies.