Canada still in the dark on origin, purpose of downed Chinese balloon, defence minister says

OTTAWA — Canada doesn’t yet have information about the Chinese balloon or other airborne objects that were shot down last month, National Defence Minister Anita Anand said.

The U.S. military took down a suspected Chinese spy balloon that flew over Canada and the U.S. on Feb. 4. Over the next eight days, U.S. fighter jets shot down three other objects, one of them over Yukon on Feb. 11.

During an appearance at the House of Commons national defence committee on Tuesday, Anand was asked whether the balloon belonged to the Chinese military.

“I can simply confirm that it was a surveillance balloon that originated in China,” she said.

China has said it was an off-course weather balloon.

Conservative MP James Bezan accused Anand of not disclosing “what the surveillance equipment was for … the nefarious purpose that we all assume has to be military in nature and that has to be related back” to China’s People’s Liberation Army.

Anand responded: “I actually would be very careful about making assumptions at this point.”

“The debris that was shot down and retrieved off the coast of the United States and near Myrtle Beach is still being analyzed,” she said.

The debris was sent to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Anand said Canada would work with the U.S. “in this process and at the appropriate time we will provide information as it becomes available.”

There is no indication the other three objects are “state-affiliated,” Anand said. The recovery of those objects was “curtailed because of remote and rugged terrain,” she said.

Anand was asked by Bloc MP Christine Normandin whether China could have sent the balloon to see how Canada, the U.S. and NORAD would react, and if it could identify possible gaps. NORAD is the joint military command with the U.S. that provides a surveillance system to identify attacks on North American soil.

“I am not in the business of hypothesizing prior to having data. And the reality is we don’t have the data from the downed balloon off the coast of the United States, and we don’t have data from the three other incidents,” Anand responded.

Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Wayne Eyre also appeared at the committee Tuesday. He said there is no sense of a timeline for when the results of the FBI analysis might be available.

Liberal MP Charles Sousa asked why given “all the investments being made, the improvements and the effectiveness of NORAD over the last 60 years in controlling and defending our airspace, why would China throw in a slow-moving balloon?”

“Bottom line from my perspective, we don’t know,” Eyre responded.

“A surveillance balloon does perhaps provide some advantages in terms of its persistence over an area, but there are there are other capabilities, satellite capabilities as well, that could provide almost the same, if not better, collection capabilities.”

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