AURORA:
Surveillance Without Policy

Surveillance is the very essence of a nation's ability to protect its sovereignty and is one of the most cost-effective means of achieving many national objectives be they in the military, domestic or international realm. Routine maritime surveillance, for example, enables a nation to establish the status quo level of activity off its coasts. Once the status quo is determined aberrations or events, which are not commensurate with the status quo, can be detected and investigated to determine if they are a violation of its sovereignty or contrary to the national well being.

In the 1994 White Paper on Defence, the Government of Canada recognizes the importance of surveillance in its declaration that:

Sovereignty is a vital attribute of a nation-state. For Canada, sovereignty means ensuring that, within our area of jurisdiction, Canadian law is respected and enforced.

This statement is the foundation for two national Defence Objectives:

• Defence Objective Two states, in part, that DND will protect Canadian sovereignty through surveillance and control of Canada's territory, airspace and maritime areas of jurisdiction; and
• Defence Objective Five states, in part, that DND will assist (e.g. through surveillance patrols) Other Government Departments and other levels of Government, at their request, in achieving national goals in areas such as fisheries protection, drug interdiction and environmental protection.

Paradoxically, Canada has no policy stating where or how often this surveillance should be conducted. Currently, Canada employs its only strategic surveillance aircraft, the CP-140 Aurora, to monitor the approaches to our nation, ready to respond to challenges to Canadian sovereignty. However, these patrols are conducted on an ad hoc basis, as there are no national criteria stipulating a hierarchy of areas of interest to Canada and how frequently they should be monitored. The Chief of Maritime Staff, for example, has no guidelines on the amount of surveillance that should be conducted in our adjacent ocean waters to achieve White Paper objectives. Similarly, the Chief of Air Staff has no policy for conducting surveillance of the arctic, where increased economic activity highlights the environmental fragility. Yet, the White Paper and amplifying Defence Objectives state that our maritime approaches and the arctic regions should be monitored to safeguard Canadian sovereignty and protect national economic and environmental zones. This situation is exacerbated by the fact that many of our national leaders fail to realize that surveillance aircraft are an important instrument of national policy and do not recognize that long-range surveillance aircraft not only play a major role during periods of mounting tension but also have an ubiquitous peacetime capability. This apathy may be attributed, at least in part, to the lack of a national surveillance policy.

A National Strategic Asset

There are no national plans that recognize the Aurora as Canada's only strategic asset capable of conducting surveillance both over land and water, especially for national emergencies. Yet there are many precedents where the Aurora has been called upon to play a singular if not prominent surveillance role. In the early 1980's Auroras were placed on standby to locate radioactive debris from a potentially disintegrating Soviet satellite that could have been strewn across Canada's remote North West Territories. At the height of the Cold War when national intelligence sources had indications that Soviet ice stations were drifting through the Canadian arctic, Auroras were the only strategic asset capable of locating and tracking the stations and gathering further intelligence on ice station activity. During the devastating 1997 Manitoba floods the Auroras' radar, infra red and photographic systems provided Emergency Measures planners with a composite picture of the flooded areas and with air-to-ground communications directed ground response teams around closed roads and bridges.

Support to Other Government Departments

In spite the diminished military threat to Canadian sovereignty, our effective participation in defence alliances and peacekeeping commitments justify the need for a robust surveillance force. Just as importantly, the increasing significance of the economic threat to Canada lends further substantiation for an effective surveillance policy. Canada has the longest coastline in the world and increasingly depends on maritime trade with the European Union and the Pacific Rim nations for economic growth. In fact, over 90 percent of our trade with countries other than the United States is carried by sea. Moreover, natural resources in our adjacent ocean waters, particularly on our continental shelf, again the largest in the world, play an important role in our economic development. It is, therefore, in Canada's interest to monitor all maritime activity off our coasts to protect our resources and to ensure that no activity is contrary to our economic well being or sovereignty. Also, since the Aurora's traditional military tasks uniquely complement this peacetime requirement, Aurora aircraft are well postured to provide surveillance of Canada's maritime resources and activities, which fall under the purview of other civilian government departments. With this added civilian mandate, the Canadian taxpayer is the principal beneficiary as both civilian and military surveillance activities require similar skills and sensors and, therefore, incur no additional training or equipment costs.

The following other government departments use Aurora surveillance flights, which have a greater impact on the daily life of the average Canadian than many realize:

• Solicitor General: Annual flying hours are allocated to support the Solicitor General in operations against the importation of illegal narcotics. This has resulted in the RCMP intercepting hundreds of tons of illicit drugs, which, were being offloaded on to the remote, ragged coastlines of the Atlantic Provinces and British Columbia.
• Department of Fisheries and Oceans: Surveillance hours are dedicated to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) to verify that fishing vessels abide by their Canadian licensing agreements. It was through such surveillance that Aurora aircrews detected the 1995 concentration of Spanish fishing vessels on the Grand Banks that enabled DFO to confront the Spanish at sea and to present the Canadian position before the United Nations and the International Court.
• Department of the Environment: While conducting routine surveillance Aurora aircraft maintain a continual vigil for ships that discharge illegal pollutants at sea that destroy our marine life and foul our beaches. The Department of the Environment reports that Aurora crews filed 85 percent of the pollution violations. The information collected during Aurora arctic patrols is used to predict the formation of icebergs that eventually drift east of Newfoundland, posing serious hazards to shipping lanes and oil rigs.
• Department of Immigration: Aurora aircrews have become very adept at recognizing the routine patterns of maritime activity and their seasonal variations. Aberrations to the established status quo have resulted in the Department of Immigration processing hundreds of illegal immigrants who were destined to clandestinely land on remote beaches in the Maritime Provinces and British Columbia.
• Canadian Coast Guard: Aurora aircraft routinely report all surface vessels in excess of 20 meters in length, not only to establish the status quo level of maritime activity off our coasts for the Coast Guard, but also to provide a random check on merchant ships complying with Canadian oceanic reporting procedures. The Canadian Forces and the Coast Guard are also jointly responsible for Search and Rescue. The Aurora's sensor suite makes it the best aircraft available for conducting searches at sea or in the arctic. Consequently, the Aurora is frequently called upon by the Rescue Coordination Centres to assist primary search and rescue assets.
• Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade: On the diplomatic front, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade actively promotes military involvement in international events. Aurora participation in many international exercises fosters Canadian political and economic relations.

These government departments, which depend on surveillance to fulfill their regulatory responsibilities in our economic and environmental zones, have been able to reduce or eliminate the costs of conducting their own surveillance by capitalizing on the Aurora's capabilities. Yet, despite the demand for increased surveillance Canada has no national surveillance policy that could consolidate or integrate these diverse requirements.

Surveillance Reductions

Notwithstanding reduced government funding for defence, DND tasking has remained at former levels forcing elements of the Canadian Forces to absorb the undiminished costs from their reduced budgets. Therefore, in order to eliminate its annual operating deficit and to restore capital funding to 23 percent of its annual budget, the Air Force recently announced a reduction of almost fifty percent of its aircraft fleet. The reductions include the loss of three Arcturus and two Aurora aircraft, reducing the size of Canada's surveillance fleet by 25 percent. Further cost reductions will be achieved by cutting the Aurora annual flying rate from approximately 14,000 hours to 11,000 hours this year and potentially to 8,000 hours next year. This will result in a significant reduction in Canada's surveillance capability to safeguard its sovereignty and to protect its economic and environmental zones. The Air Force has stated that some of the flying hour reductions will be compensated by the acquisition of new high fidelity flight simulators. Unfortunately, simulators cannot compensate for a reduced Canadian presence over areas of national interest.

Since there is no Canadian policy stating national surveillance objectives the government acquiesced to these dramatic reductions without regard to the impact on the nation's well being. There reportedly was little or no consultation with the main Aurora surveillance customers to ascertain the impact on Canada's ability to assert its sovereignty, meet its defence commitments and protect regions of national interest. These reductions dictate that Canada's surveillance requirements are now being determined by the number of assets available and not by a policy designed to protect the nation's best interests. In principle, the opposite should be the case; a national surveillance policy should determine the number of assets, which in turn establishes funding levels. Just as important, the reduction of surveillance capability represented by the loss of five aircraft mortgages the future; as to replace them (if at all) to resume current levels or meet new future requirements will be more expensive.

Conclusion

Some have argued that the recent dramatic changes abroad have eroded the traditional rationale for the role that the Canadian Forces play in the defence of Canada. It would be a grave mistake, however, to dismantle the capacity to safeguard our sovereignty and protect our economic and environmental zones.

Clearly, a new national surveillance policy is needed to establish the required number of air resources needed to meet the Governments stated 1994 White Paper objective of, "ensuring that, within our area of jurisdiction, Canadian law is respected and enforced". A definitive national surveillance policy would ensure that Canada should never find itself in a position where, as a consequence of past decisions, the defence of our national territory, including the protection of our economic and environmental zones, becomes the responsibility of others.