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NORAD NEWS
News | June 4, 2021

NORAD Deputy Commander Industry Engagement

By NORAD Public Affairs

Transcript of NORAD deputy commander industry engagement

 

Lieutenant-General Alain Pelletier: And much appreciated. Thanks for the opportunity.

 

Ray Townsend: Maybe before you go on Lorraine or sorry, Graeme McLaughlin. I just wanted to mention to the group and then to you sir as well, that we will be recording this session as has been requested and for all of the attendees as well, we intend to record. So you'll see the little icon pop up in your screen if you can press allow we'll do that so it's available after the fact as well, thanks very much and now over to you Graeme.

 

Graeme McLaughlin: Thanks Ray and welcome back everyone. General, it is really a pleasure to have you here with us today and Lieutenant-General Pelletier joins us from Colorado Springs where I think as everyone knows he serves as the deputy commander of NORAD. NORAD is really unique and interesting as the only bi-national military command. And as a result General Pelletier and his team have a critical role in both the defence of Canada and the United States. General Pelletier has served Canada through an incredible career in the Canadian Armed Forces, including as a CF-18 pilot and before joining NORAD as Deputy Commander last year General Pelletier led 1 Canadian Air Division in Winnipeg. General, at Lockheed Martin we're really excited to support your important objectives for NORAD modernization and to partner with you, to realize NORAD's idea strategy. It's something we spend a lot of time talking and thinking about, and we understand how important it is. Thank you very much for joining us here today and for all your service to Canada, we'll turn it over you for your remarks.

 

LGen Pelletier: Okay good. So thanks very much Lauren as well as Ray and Graeme for the kind introduction. Actually happy to be here on this beautiful snowy day. Great to join you virtually, I wish I would be here in person. So thanks to Lockheed Martin for hosting this forum. I think it's always valuable. My time as the director of air requirements to Canada, I always valued engagement with the industry because I think that's key. So at the unclassified level we are going to talk here through the operational environment, NORAD and the threats. We'll talk to the strategic principles and the commander of NORAD priorities and then talk about growing capability gaps and what we can do in order to address those capability gaps through modernization. Then we'll have a rapid round of questions hopefully and I'll try to get through my remarks, which are still extensive, and then I'll need to move on for another meeting as the battle rhythm here is fast and furious the way I like them.

 

Back when NORAD was formed we focused on the nuclear threat from Russia during the Cold War. Geography at the time was an element of defence and deterrence which we, Canada and the U.S., enjoyed over time however today we face a new reality. That reality of resurgent nation state competitors can hold North America at risk with nuclear capabilities and conventional capabilities and with gray zone capabilities as well that quite often are used below the threshold of conflict. While at the same time the violent extremist organization threat continues to persist. All this combined to the reality that NORAD faces very complete, complicated and dynamic threat across the spectrum of conflict in all domains from undersea to space to cyberspace, and from different vectors as depicted on the map. And not only through the Arctic, but through both the Pacific and the Atlantic Ocean, as well as from the south. And that's not only through those vectors through the domains from undersea to space and cyberspace and from different actors as well. Two decades ago, NORAD was in the post 9/11 era where defence was focused on violent extremist organizations and that where USNORTHCOM was the hurricane and wildfire command. Back then the peer competitor threat wasn't there to drive us towards a focus on defence of North America. Today I can tell you we have that focus.

 

To counter that threat, everything has to start with the defence of U.S. and Canada. And I can tell you that the nature of our bi-national mission, which has endured for now almost 63 years, will be 63 years next week, give us the opportunity to collaborate with allies and partners which are all key to our mission success. NORAD and USNORTHCOM are two, distinct commands, but they are very closely linked. We've got three region that supports NORAD, which most of you know, and each of those regions work independently in order to actually deliver on their mission, but they are in fact complimentary in their execution. Just to give you an example of what we do in just one week of the life at NORAD and USNORTHCOM during the year 2020, both commands provided the U.S. presidential support, COVID-19 relief efforts, and COVID-19 mission assurance, which is that behind the scene that what we did in order to preserve the mission, provided early warning and attack assessment, the reentry vehicle from space, to our atmosphere to launches and the like. We intercepted Russian long-range bombers, and aviation. We tracked out of area deployers both in aviation and maritime domains. We sent forces to fight wildland fires and we carried out hurricane relief. So that's all in one week and the commander always say that the amazing things about the two commands is the depth at with our mission portfolio, but also the professionalism and the expertise of our personnel that make it all happen. Defence of Canada and the U.S. is our priority. We cannot afford to make mistakes on what we call this no fail mission. That's why we continually apply, not only the expertise, the experience, but also the dedication of our personnel, which we've demanded a lot from during the pandemic. So turning to our strategic principles, you can see on the slides, for all domain defence of North America we partner with the USNORTHCOM and CJOC because here, as we know we focus on, NORAD focuses on domain awareness, i.e. maritime, and aerospace warning, and then as well as aerospace control, but we need the support and the complementary mission of USNORTHCOM and the Combined Canadian Joint Operation Command, CJOC, in order to actually fully deliver on the continental defence, continental security.

 

We say that everything has to start with the defence of North America that is through plans, budget, policy, etc. that enables us to actually move forward with the continental security. Think of SSE, the Canadian defence policy Strong, Secure, and Engaged, which tackles the aspect of personnel within the Canadian Armed Forces, as well as with a lot of emphasis, in terms of the capabilities, required to do the engaging the world. Now through NORAD modernization, we're hopeful that we're going to be able to tackle, better tackle, the strong at home and secure in North America.

 

We look at strategic and continental deterrence as you're all tracking currently, the U.S. is very well built for deterrence by punishment as for its nuclear preparedness. But we also need the ability to deter by denial at lower ends of the conflict. A requirement that has grown over the years through the fielding of very capable cruise missiles by Russia and cyber actors across the world. So, we need to be able to actually definitely deter in the conventional and in the non-kinetic environment as well. Strategic gaps is, when we look at it, we assess that we must continue, we being in NORAD but also NORTHCOM, must continue to defend North America. We need to ensure that continuity of operations across the CAF and the U.S. DOD, continuity of governments in both countries. We need to actually protect our critical infrastructure. That is not only the military critical infrastructure but also the civilian ones that actually enables us to actually live the way we live. We need to protect the power projection of both countries in order to actually enable that defence in depth. So those are some of the lenses that we look at in accomplishing our mission. We also look at when we look at these things, we also need to consider what must absolutely be defended because, you know just critical infrastructure across both countries would be a list of easily a thousand points. And we cannot defend right now with the capabilities that we have, a thousand points. So therefore we need to make the tough choice of what must absolutely absolutely be defended.

 

And after that we need to look at portioning the appropriate weight of effort between the home and the away game so that we have not only relevant but also credible deterrence back home. So our command approach is gaps through all domain awareness, information dominance and decision superiority, and that's all enabled through an umbrella, or under an umbrella, of global integration and having the right tools in the tool bag in order to actually do our mission. And when I say tools and tool bag, the commander is not only talking about new, he's talking about current tools because we realized through a number of experiments and innovative projects here that we're able to actually make sense of some of the data that already exists, some of the information that already exists. We also realized that when we're thinking defence we have a tendency to focus on defeat mechanisms and that's a way I used to look at it from an air requirement perspective is you look at those defeat mechanisms, what are the tools, those bright shiny objects that will enable you to do the tactical mission. But the reality of modern warfare is complex and the weapons being developed by our competitors and adversaries, much greater stand-ups, much greater precision, they have much greater speed. And as I mentioned earlier, this can be illustrated by evolution of cruise missiles and the arrival of cyber weapons in our lives. That's an element that the commander has taken on board. And to go from the tactical to the operational and strategic approach, the commander has focused our command, NORAD, on a specific Theory of Success that is depicted there which is to deter in competition, de-escalate in crisis, and if required, and I say again if required, defeat in conflict.

 

But the commander would much rather work in deterrence in competition because it's the cheapest of the options. Cheapest not only in terms of budget but also in terms of human life that you can actually preserve. So what can we do to enable that success? We believe that we need to invest in domain awareness. That is focusing on sense capabilities, undersea, space and cyber. So you know, that's undersea to space obviously going through the air domain as well. Also, invest in information dominance. We realized, as I mentioned earlier, that the data exists today. We've been very successful to access and break stovepipes by using data from legacy systems that were buried because our threshold for the use of that data was much higher. So we've reduced the threshold in order to actually exploit that data and then now we're focusing on making sense of the data which is going to get achieved through integrating all levels of data by the cloud concept, not only the data that used to reside in the North American space because it used to be a stovepipe, NORAD looking at the North American landscape, but also the data that exists across other combatant commanders and partners like CJOC, NATO and the like. We push and pull information between levels across commands and the Pathfinder experiment here, which is now the Pathfinder project, has been a very good example because we realized that if we actually look back at what happened in 2015 on the Capitol lawn here in the U.S., that applying the right algorithm leveraging the data that's in the system, provided by a number of sensors that we were able to actually get to reproduce the right flight path then achieve the right level of awareness of an event that could be happening and there's a number of other examples associated with that project. We also realized that we not only need a widget, gadget, i.e. bright shiny object or the right sensors, but also the right algorithm for that matter, we also need to train a digitally literate force and to recruit, also, the right expertise across the ranks out there. We also need to continue to leverage the events of AI across the industry and continue to look for events, computing capabilities that will enable us to actually make sense of all the information that's out there.

 

Last element is on decision superiority. We moved to fight further forward, and to do that we need to create decision space so that we're able or we're enabling our commanders to stay in the compete realm, and if required only move into the deter and deny end to conflict, and that is achieved through globally, integrated decision processes, which benefits all. So, therefore, the commander is engaged, the chairman, the CDS, as well as the SECDEF, to actually look at globally integrated decision capabilities. And again, here, we're developing some of those capabilities within the command, so that we're able, and that's through a number of experiments and exercises, so that we're able to advance decision superiority of the command and eventually of other governments as well. So, the commander believes and I believe that with those three areas, all domain awareness, information dominance and decision superiority, that we can actually solve problems that are presented by our competitors and make it an affordable solution. While at the same time, imparting a change in the cost calculus for adversarie’s actions as one of my deputies always says, and I know that's not something that the industry like to hear, but “words to deter cheap missiles are expensive.” So we need to keep that in mind and that's why we're focusing, obviously putting a lot of focus on the ability to actually compete and remain in competitions. So we refocus our defence and national security planning and we're at the command level and we're trying to actually refocus the defence and national security planning, both in Canada and the U.S., keeping the global mindset on force management, force development, budgeting, acquisitions, so that there's a thought put forward into the defence of Canada and the U.S. in order to actually present a relevant and credible deterrence.

 

As General Brown, the commander of the USAF would say, we have to go faster. Our competitors that are there already. They have actually built up on their conventional options. You look at Russia and the quantities of cruise missiles that they not only, long-range aviation can carry but also submarines can carry and their ability to actually launch at undetectable range right now. And so we need, we need to be there. We need to actually increase that domain awareness, as I mentioned earlier, and it is required in order to actually project forces forward. We need at the same time that we do that, we need to maintain our readiness to act in crisis and conflict, while doing our best at staying in competition. That requires a balance and balance are challenging. You look at the size of our Canadian Armed Forces, we have limited the capabilities, and therefore, we need to apply judiciously resources through to the problem sets, whether they be at home or abroad.

 

So let me talk about the capability gaps right now. You're all tracking Russia and China's level of ambitions. That growing level of ambitions in the Arctic as well, the increase in their kinetic and non-kinetic capabilities and all of it make it difficult to defend against and as it makes it even more difficult when attributions remains challenging. Since the last major investment in NORAD over 30 years ago, our competitors have watched our activities whether in Afghanistan or in the Middle East or even here at home and they have also looked at our way of deterring, competing, and conducting war. We believe that they have adapted and developed advanced capabilities in all domains to challenge us here at home and across the competition continuing.

 

They can now hold us at risk, our critical infrastructure as well as our projection capabilities so therefore it requires NORAD, NORTHCOM and CJOC's focus in order to actually have and achieve the right capabilities to solve these problems. It's not unknown that NORAD had already uses many sensors, including the 1980s North Warning Systems, the 1980s fighter aircraft, and the 1980s Maritime Warning Systems and aging infrastructure, so it won't be a surprise to you if I say that we have 20th Century capabilities to fight 21st century's threats and so therefore we need to do better. Steady state structure is focused on defence against VEO. That's how we've built a defence design of Canada and the U.S. for the last 18, 19 years or so. And so therefore we're not specifically focused against superior nation state conflict or the pure nation state competition that we see right now. There's gaps and gaps, if categorized at the unclassified level can be broadly grouped into a few areas, that is conducting NORAD missions, the detection and defeat capabilities, the logistical and support elements required to do and sustain operations, and the supporting infrastructure and the architecture to enable truly not only the ability to sense, but also the ability to make sense. To get there we need help from the industry. It's a partnership that has endured over the many years of NORAD's activities and that we leverage and continue to leverage. We need your effort to enable elements like joint all domain command and control, JADC2 that is moving forward here in the U.S. and other allies will likely join. Also to move forward with elements like the Global Information Dominance Exercise that is spearheaded by this command. Due to the scope of the gap, there's significant collaborative work available for the industry and academia actually for both nations, to ensure that we may remain and that we deliver relevant interoperable capabilities and that those capabilities are delivered.

 

NORAD and NORTHCOM are moving to better compete with our strategic competitors. But we're still in the beginning stage of NORAD modernization. We're identifying the capability gaps as I've just mentioned, identifying the infrastructure and investment required to advance our posture in the Arctic and the North and again finding also area for exercises where we can actually better develop our concept and our ability to employ as well. We must get better in the Arctic and work with partners and experts in both the military and civilian sectors to improve that. So, what is NORAD modernization? Well, we could say that the first of all, the recent discussion between the PM and the POTUS have energized our work and enable us to actually go faster. Both the PM and POTUS have talked in February of this year of NORAD modernization, continental defence, and Arctic security, and so we're looking at what can be done in order to actually make us more relevant and to be able to compete in the different domains but also in the various aspect of conflict as well.

 

We've engaged with National Defence Headquarters and the Pentagon to actually look at force allotment opportunities and in the recent Canadian budget that has been unveiled last week includes an initial $163 million in dedicated funds for over five years for NORAD modernization, which is maybe considered small by some, but I see this as seed money, the right seed money, to enable research and development and to move forward with project definitions and the initial work on infrastructure that is required. So we're working hand in hand, with Canada and the U.S. to see what can be done. NORAD modernization encompasses many parts and continuous assessment of the processes that are in place right now to ensure an enduring competitive military advantage. Some of the unclass examples, you're all aware of the requirements to replace the North Warning System but the North Warning System is not NORAD and it's not NORAD modernization that's not the only thing that will be required. That's one piece of the overall sensing capability of NORAD today and we in NORAD are looking at the system of systems, series of sensors that will layer, will give us a layered sensing capability and redundancy as well. We're also dependent on reliable communications which we're lacking right now above the 65 degrees of latitude. So we're looking at the projects that are currently underway in Space Command and in Canada that could help us close that gap as well. And I would say that overall NORAD modernization is the synchronization of binational, bilateral, or unilateral investment to mitigate or close critical NORAD capabilities.

 

And some of those investments have already started through Strong, Secure, and Engaged. I just look at the future fighter capability project, at the radar replacements, those tactical radars that exist in Canada and other projects of the like, but there will be requirements as well for other systems that will contribute to that all domain awareness and information dominance and decision superiority. NORAD will continue to work with industry partners to advance and modernize our capabilities and close our existing gaps and seams. We aim to stay in competition and maintain deterrence and be ready for crisis counseling, if we are unable to stay in competitions. We believe that those efforts will enable us to continue with our missions into the future and ensure that we remain relevant and that we have and we continue the watch. So I want to say, thanks for your time. Thanks, for the invitation today to join you. And I would like to actually invite you to participate in the NORAD and USNORTHCOM industry days that we, we completed the first season of our visiting as I call it last year. The team is getting ready in order to actually launch next season later this summer that is going to enable the industry and academia as well to get together in order to actually provide the potential solutions for the NORAD problems that I've exposed today. And so I open up for questions. I think I've got about 15 minutes or so before my next engagement so once again, thank you.

 

Ray: Yes, sir, thank you very much. It's such a treat to get one of the busiest people in NORAD or North America on the phone to answer some questions and you touched on so many great points there. I just wanted to talk quickly, maybe about space surveillance, you mentioned about going faster and you know, JADO and JADC2 and how it's important to emphasize the surveillance aspect, especially up North, so we see that as a growth area in Canada and we're wondering if NORAD's focus on persistent surveillance will depend heavily on the capabilities that are going to be purely military or if there's an opportunity also for military and civilian collaboration on projects. Just given the need to get information from all sources and to do it quickly as you say. So in general, space surveillance, do you see that to be really a focus area for NORAD as we move forward with NORAD modernization? I'm sorry, I think I have you on mute there sir.

 

LGen Pelletier: Thank you. So yes, we see space as being one of the key domains that contributes to our mission effectiveness. It already does in NORAD through, not only the ITWAAS systems, the integrated threat warning and attack assessment, but also in terms of providing direct level of intelligence and that, you know, we're looking at the number of ways to actually be able to not only get left of bang, yeah, to left of release to left of launch in order to enable the deterrence. So therefore, you need to have that persistent domain awareness and the commander has been talking about it, is how do we actually achieve this in order to actually achieve the right level of redundance as well? And I think that we definitely need to look at what exists right now and what will exist in the near future in terms of military payload on military systems, as well as leveraging the civilian payloads that exist right now that could actually contribute to that all domain awareness, that would give us that global integrated picture. So definitely interested, we don't see everything through the military lens, we believe that there's a dual uses, multiple use, not only in terms of space but also in terms of our infrastructure and architecture that that gets leverage. So as an example we share some of our pictures within the US and in Canada through a system called AEISS with other federal partners in order to enable their own building and situational awareness of the air domain right now. So similarly that we would look at not only dual use but potentially multiple use by other departments and that potentially as civilians, systems that could contribute to the all domain awareness. Okay. Obviously I'm not the expert, the U.S. has stood up a space command. I'm having a chat, actually, with the deputy of Space Command tomorrow, to actually talk about some of the advancements and some of the projects that they're working on.

 

Ray: That's great, thank you. Another question that we had is about the procurements. So do you feel that Canada will be tempted to follow the U.S. lead for equipment procurement, you mentioned that system of systems, so there's multiple things to procure, I'm sure. So, do you think Canada will be tempted to follow the U.S. lead for procurement of NORAD modernization equipment? Or do you sense that that decision making for that equipment will be sort of bi-national? What are your thoughts there?

 

LGen Pelletier: Yeah, pretty much as I expressed. I think that it's going to be a mix of things. First of all leveraging existing systems in attempting to actually make better use of the existing systems in terms of the data that they can actually contribute to the domain awareness environment, the other piece is looking at projects that are already underway, whether they were designed for, the away game, well, how can they actually contribute to the at-home game, the defence of North America? And then the rest will be a mix of, depending on the framework, advances through upcoming discussions between the two countries, but I would see that there's probably just like in the past for previous NORAD modernization efforts that it's going to be a mix of bi-national and bilateral, I suspect. That framework is yet to be developed and that's going to be following, I guess, in the next few months between our Minister and the Secretaries here, not only the Secretary of State but the Secretary of Defence, so as to actually design and discuss the framework that will be used to advance NORAD modernization. I'm not the procurement specialist that PSPC in Canada is and they will have a say but we've been successful, I use the example of Pathfinder earlier, Pathfinder is one of our initiatives here and where we've leveraged a mixed team here, coming from the outside and the using some of our military members as well, and to which Canada has contributed as well. Initiated by the U.S. through U.S. funding and then Canadian contribution went in, in terms of personnel and funding, and in order to actually unlock the capabilities of Pathfinder and to meet the requirements of NORAD both in Canada and the U.S., and that's, that's a small project with, you know, funding in the less than $150 million. So I see a similar approach, which is going to bring innovations forward leveraging, the expertise that resides in the different research labs, the industry here in the U.S. and Canada as much as the RDC in Canada. I'm working closely and collaboratively with Mme. Isabella Desmartis in ADMDRDC to look at the ways we continue to contribute from a research and development perspective.

 

Ray: Thank you very much. You had mentioned the important relationship between NORAD and NORTHCOM and certainly your experience at multiple CAOCs around the world and having experienced the CAOC in Winnipeg as well. What are your thoughts on CAOC modernization? Especially in Canada, and that potential opportunity?

 

LGen Pelletier: Yeah, thanks Ray. Having lived the multiple dreams of multiple CAOCs, I've been across and worked, I think, in about four different U.S. CAOCs. I've had the opportunity to lead the team in Canada at 1 CAD, you can see that there are different models out there but what makes the success of the CAOC is two-fold. First of all it's the personnel that actually works in them that brings their expertise to bear in order to make sense of the information that is presented and provide the right recommendations to leadership to actually make decisions. The second piece is the ability to actually aggregate the information, aggregate and make sense of the information that is presented and leveraging the technology that is out there. We've got a great team in 1 CAD at the CAOC out there, but I think that we need to advance forward and leverage what exists in terms of projects and initiatives out not only in Canada but also with our allies in advancing a command-and-control to its best. In order to actually get there, there is a requirement to build the right architecture as well and I always use that word. Some people refer to it as infrastructure, I refer to it as architecture, is that having that ability to actually bring in what the sensors are able to actually deliver. We need to continue working on building that architecture while at the same time, being cognizant of the level of security requirements. We've been attempting to advance our ability to actually work at the different level of security so that we're able to bring in special capabilities that exist and will be brought forward as well with new projects like the future fighter, like RPAS and CMA and the like so. So I think that our CAOC needs to evolve to be able to actually bring in that new technology and leverage our architecture that is required in order to actually truly enable the decision makers, so there's work to be done so that our experts in the CAOC are able to fully deliver on the mission. And I think the partnership there with the U.S. and our Five Eyes allies mainly will enable us to actually get there because everybody's advancing. There's different thoughts in terms of what C2 ought to look like, but at the end of the day, it needs to be about all-domain and globally, integrated.

 

Ray: That's a great way to think about architecture, it just sounds more flexible and it sounds like you can execute it a little bit faster. On the time scale does the threat environment that you spoke about before, does that mean that NORAD modernization needs to accelerate? Is that sort of the thinking behind assessing the threat environment and trying to move quickly and having the all these high-level meetings on NORAD modernization?

 

LGen Pelletier: Well, I think that we're at the right pace, we want to make sure that we're making the right decisions because obviously we need to make good use of the funds that will be allocated, but we're able to actually leverage the work that has already been done, the assessment and analysis within the HQ in terms of requirements, requirements, which have been expressed on both sides of the border to Canada and the U.S. leadership. We've done our homework in that regard. Now the next step is to look at what solution space can be applied and where is it that we can go fast, some of which may require more research and development but some may have the right solutions in place or about to be delivered through already existing projects within the U.S. DOD, DND and the CAF. I think that's the next step that we're, in which we were involved with CAF and the U.S. DOD as well. There are areas where we need to go fast. Innovations now require us to have not only a developmental but also a procurement cycle that is much shorter than 10 years. And so we're going to be looking at how we can innovate like Pathfinder and the GIDE experiment that we're running here in order to actually look at and bring in new technology, bringing in new software to quickly leverage the technology to quickly be able to adapt to any changing environment. That's where we're going to need to be more agile is that the development procurement cycle over the course of the next decade in order to actually keep pace with our competitors and take the competitive advantage.

 

Ray: I think, you know, you mentioned Pathfinder and I think you may have touched on this next question that came from the audience. But, you know, remaining relevant and growth and integration being key here for Canada, that's a pretty high bar. NORAD modernization is going to be a lot to chew on for Canada. What are your thoughts on delivering successfully on NORAD modernization and what can industry do to do better and keep or what can we keep doing to enable that partnership and enable us to go fast in that bi-national arrangement?

 

LGen Pelletier: Yeah, I think that the first element of success resides with this command is having categorized the capability gaps and the requirements that are associated with it. So that's the first step in that. Now we're advancing with determination to make sure that it's well understood across U.S. DOD and the CAF and DND. The next piece will be fruitful engagement between the two governments in order to get to a common understanding of the approach to be taken and the level of investment required in order to actually, again, create that change in calculus by our competitors, enhancing our level of relevance, and keeping us on the competitive edge. So that's going to be I think another successful element we'll attempt to actually, both governments, I believe, will let them actually leverage the processes in place. There's a permanent joint board on the defence that exists that will be able to actually contribute to that. So we anticipate that to happen and fruitful relationship between NORAD, the force development members that are both in the Pentagon and in the HQ, as well as the policy folks so that there's a common understanding of what requirement means and what capability could be brought to bear and what policy instrument may be required, because there may be a requirement for a new policy, in order to enable us to actually work in the new complex environments as well. So I think those are the three steps moving forward and then the fourth one would be rapid development and rapid acquisition of the right capability in order to complement the solution sets that we see required for NORAD in the future.

 

Ray: That's fantastic. I know we're budding up on time here. Merci beaucoup general and I really want to thank you for spending the time with us today. I think we could go on for another hour. I'll just ask Lorraine to come on and say final words. Thank you very much, Lorraine.

 

Lorraine Ben: Thank you General Pelletier thank you for providing an understanding and an education to all of us on what is top of mind with NORAD and in particular what NORAD modernization means. Sometimes we in industry think we know, we talk to each other but it's really important for us to talk to you, to talk to defence and understand what the future looks like. So for us, your words of competing globally means that we must be strong at home, those really resonate with us and for Strong, Secure, and Engaged, we look forward to the opportunity to participating in the industry days ahead and learning more about how our capabilities, technical capabilities and solutions can help navigate as you're starting to lay down the strategy for NORAD modernization. So thank you so much for your time and your energy and for all you do for Canada and North America and its defence. Over to you Ray.

 

LGen Pelletier: Thanks, much appreciated for the opportunity once again, and thanks for your continued contribution to our mission's success.

 

Ray: Thank you sir, really appreciated it. That was a Lieutenant-General Alain Pelletier and we're really thrilled that to be able to have had him today. That brings us to the conclusion of this session, as he gets off to his next meeting. We'll now stop the recording and we'll go on pause.