Vanguard Magazine

18 APRIL/MAY 2022 www.vanguardcanada.com ARCTIC Project – Polar (ESCP-P), which was ini- tiated in 2009 as a high priority program to provide military communications in the Arctic, is still stuck in a procurement pro- cess that has issued some three successive Requests for Information from the indus- try. It has a Full Operational Capability date of "No Later Than 2036". Some 27 years after the initiation of the proj- ect. Technology nowadays evolves very quickly with some systems with half-life of 6 months. Canada needs to deploy this system with a sense of urgency. In addition to committing to ESCP-P, Canada should also secure dedicated ca- pacity on Lightspeed, an advanced and highly secure low-earth orbit (LEO) satel- lite communications system being fielded by Telesat, a Canadian company and a world leader in satellite communications. The Lightspeed satellites make use of fast sub-millisecond frequency hopping across narrow beams, providing low probability of interception and detection. They are dif- ficult to interfere with or jam and they are immune to electromagnetic interference from the Northern Lights. With almost 200 satellites in the initial constellation deployment, the system will have a high degree of redundancy to protect against anti-satellite kinetic attacks recently dem- onstrated by China and Russia. It will be available a decade prior to ESCP-P. It will complement and extend the capabilities of that system when it is deployed and provide augmentation and redundancy if ESCP-P were to be degraded or rendered inoperable. Given the increasing aggressive be- havior of China, the boosting by North Korea of missiles capable of reaching North America and the irrational and ag- gressive conduct of Russia, Canada may be wise to revisit its participation in mis- sile defence. Those adversaries are all active in cyber space. Out various tech- nologies need to be cyber and electro magnetic pulse hardened. The pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war have clearly exposed the risks of rely- ing on others for essential infrastructure and capabilities. Canada must maintain national control over its strategic assets, networks and data, while providing our military forces with essential command and control communications anywhere in the world and at all times. It is time to improve our defence posture in the Arctic. The Canadian government would be wise to sort out its broken and politicised pro- curement system because time is now of the essence. Colonel (Retired) Pierre Leblanc is a former Commander of the Canadian Forces in the Arctic. He held senior staff appointments in the National Defence Headquarters (NDHQ). In 1995, he took command of Canadian Forces Northern Area, where he served until his retirement in 2000. He was the Commander of the now Joint Task Force North for five years. He spent more than nine years in the Arctic where he travelled extensively including Alaska and Greenland. He has been an advocate for improved security in the Arctic since 1998. Pierre provides independent advice on Arctic security and sovereignty matters and has also provided several defence related companies with support in their pursuit of arctic opportunities. rousseau.com VERTICAL DRAWERS Store up to 20 0 lbs per drawer Organize tools and accessories High densit y storage

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