Chinese spy balloon puts ‘sharp focus’ on why Canada must modernize military: MacKay

Former Conservative defence minister Peter MacKay says the incident highlights the need for Canada to amp up military investments right now, not just in the future.

The recent passage of a Chinese spy balloon over Canadian and U.S. airspace puts a “sharp focus” on why Canada must prioritize modernizing its military in the face of growing incursions from China and Russia in the Arctic, former defence minister Peter MacKay says.

The balloon’s appearance — and the response to three more airborne objects that were shot down over North America last weekend — has raised “broader questions” on how secure Canada’s Arctic is from foreign threats, MacKay told Mercedes Stephenson in an interview on The West Block Sunday.

The answers to those questions, he added, do not cast Canada in a favourable light.

“If anything, this balloon incident, which looks to be overblown — pardon the pun — has put a sharp focus on what will be required,” MacKay said. “We haven’t taken the situation seriously enough, in my opinion.

“We simply need much more in terms of our protection of sovereignty and projection of Canadian military capability.”

The Chinese spy balloon travelled across Alaska and unlawfully entered Canadian airspace between Jan. 30 and 31, flying south across Yukon and central British Columbia before hovering over the U.S. Midwest, Canadian officials revealed Friday. It was shot down by U.S. fighter jets off the coast of the Carolinas on Feb. 4.

That incident prompted NORAD — the continental air defence network — to scrutinize North American airspace, ultimately leading to the discovery and shooting down of unidentified objects over Alaska on Feb. 10, Yukon on Feb. 11, and Lake Huron on Feb. 12.

The objects posed a risk to civilian aircraft, U.S. and Canadian officials have said, but are believed to not be tied to China or any other foreign surveillance operation, according to U.S. intelligence. Recovery operations for the objects have been hampered by poor weather, which led the search for the Lake Huron object to be suspended entirely.