Opposition parties demand answers as Liberals say little about Chinese balloon
Opposition parties demand answers as Liberals say little about Chinese balloon
OTTAWA -
Opposition parties say the public deserves answers about a Chinese balloon's incursion over Canadian territory as the Trudeau government remains largely mum about its time in Canada.
That call for answers came Monday as the commander of the North American Aerospace Defence Command revealed that "gaps" in the continent's early warning system prevented officials from detecting such balloons in the past.
Defence Minister Anita Anand has confirmed the balloon violated Canadian airspace, but the government has otherwise declined to provide details about when and where the balloon flew in Canada, as well as whether there have been others.
That stands in contrast to Washington, which has provided details about the balloon's flight from Alaska through Canada and into the continental U.S. before it was shot down off the coast of South Carolina on Sunday.
"The Pentagon and the White House have been a lot more open in discussing what happened," Conservative defence critic James Bezan said. "As a country that had its airspace violated by the Communist Party of China, we deserve answers."
Opposition parties also want to know why the public didn't find out about the balloon until it had already left Canadian airspace, why it wasn't stopped sooner, and what steps are being taken to prevent and punish Chinese espionage efforts.
"It is high time the government took action to counter Chinese influence and modernize Canada's defence systems," Bloc Quebecois defence critic Christine Normandin said in a statement in French.
"In addition to this, light must be shed on this event and the government must offer answers to the population as to the impact of this spy balloon."
The U.S. military first confirmed the balloon's presence after it was publicly reported over Montana on Feb. 1. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin later revealed that it was first detected entering American airspace in Alaska on Jan. 28.
While Beijing says it was a weather research balloon that got blown off course, Ottawa and Washington are alleging that it was being used to spy on sensitive military sites.
Norad commander U.S. Gen. Glen VanHerck told reporters that such balloons evaded detection by North America's aging early warning system in the past because of a "domain awareness gap" that has since been closed.
"So there was a potential opportunity for us to collect intel where we had gaps on prior balloons," he said. "This gave us the opportunity to assess what they were actually doing, what kind of capabilities existed on the balloon."
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Monday that the U.S. military has begun collecting debris from the balloon.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said Canada should be part of any investigation into the wreckage.
"People are rightfully worried that Canada's economic and security advantages may be compromised," Singh said in a statement. "Canada should be playing an active role in investigating the purpose of the craft and pinpointing any intelligence it gathered."
Anand's office has not responded to repeated questions about when the balloon entered Canadian airspace from Alaska, or how long it remained in Canada before re-entering the U.S. over Idaho. It also hasn't said whether there were other balloons.
Defence Department spokesman Daniel Le Bouthillier would only say that after finding the balloon did not pose a threat, Canadian and U.S. officials decided to reveal the balloon's presence "at an appropriate time, taking into account operational security."
Bezan acknowledged Canada's partnership with the U.S. when it comes to defending North America, but said Canadians have a right to know what's happening in their country.
"It did seem that it was positioning itself over various military installations within the United States," he added, noting that Alberta is home to major Canadian military bases at Cold Lake, Edmonton, Wainwright.
"What Canadian secrets were potentially spied on by the communist regime when they were flying over our airspace?"
VanHerck has said the U.S. "took maximum precautions" to prevent the balloon from collecting information as it crossed the nation. He refused to provide details.
U.S. officials have said the balloon was 60 metres tall, and the sensor payload underneath was the size of a regional jetliner. They have also said it had propellers and a rudder to change direction and speed but relied mostly on the winds.
Kirby also dismissed China's contention that the balloon was for meteorological purposes, saying "it strains credulity … that this was some kind of weather balloon that was floating on the winds."
The White House said the balloon was a setback to already tense relations with Beijing. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was supposed to visit China on Monday, but the trip was put on hold because of the incident.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 6, 2023.
U.S President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have announced updates on a number of cross-border issues, after a day of meetings on Parliament Hill.
More than 130,000 people have signed an e-petition calling on Canada to give transgender and non-binary people fleeing harmful laws in their home countries the right to claim asylum, but that's already possible in this country. Advocates say the popularity of the proposal shows politicians that Canadians want the government to affirm its welcoming position.
The Public Order Emergency Commission has concluded that the federal government met the threshold for invoking the Emergencies Act to bring an end to the 'Freedom Convoy' protests and blockades.
The federal government is pledging to increase health funding to Canada's provinces and territories by $196.1 billion over the next 10 years, in a long-awaited deal aimed at addressing Canada's crumbling health-care systems with $46.2 billion in new funding.
Governor of the Bank of Canada Tiff Macklem says he thinks Canada is 'turning the corner' on inflation, but he isn't ruling out that the country could enter a 'mild recession.' In an English-language broadcast exclusive interview with CTV National News Ottawa Bureau Chief Joyce Napier, Macklem encouraged Canadians to prepare a 'buffer' to withstand 'tougher times.'
Joe Biden comes for a sleepover next week to make Canada the 18th country he has visited since being sworn in as U.S. president, quite the protocol slippage from that fading, if not forgotten, tradition of Canada being the first foreign presidential pitstop, writes Don Martin in a column for CTVNews.ca.
After weeks of refusing to look further into foreign election interference, Justin Trudeau surrendered to intense pressure and appointed a 'special rapporteur' to review China's actions. In his exclusive column for CTVNews.ca, Don Martin writes this 'startling change of heart' suggests the PMO is in panic mode and reflects badly on the prime minister's decision making.
The Trudeau tipping point is within sight. The moment when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau knows he has to quit for the good of the party or the Liberals realize they can't survive re-election with him at the helm is almost upon us, Don Martin writes in an exclusive column for CTVNews.ca.
Bombshell revelations that suggest Chinese agents actively, fraudulently and successfully manipulated Canada's electoral integrity in the last two federal elections cannot be dismissed with the standard Justin Trudeau nothing-to-see-here shrug, Don Martin writes in his exclusive opinion column for CTVNews.ca.
The chances Trudeau's health-care summit with the premiers will end with the blueprint to realistic long-term improvements are only marginally better than believing China’s balloon was simply collecting atmospheric temperatures, Don Martin writes in an exclusive column for CTVNews.ca, 'But it’s clearly time the 50-year-old dream of medicare as a Canadian birthright stopped being such a nightmare for so many patients.'
In the 2023 federal budget, the government is unveiling continued deficit spending targeted at Canadians' pocketbooks, public health care and the clean economy.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland says clean energy and green technology spending may not have been the big-ticket items of the 2023 federal budget if it weren’t for the need to compete with infrastructure spending in the United States.
The increase in excise duties on all alcoholic products is being temporarily capped at two per cent starting next month instead of a planned 6.3 per cent increase.
In the wake of another deadly mass shooting in America, that saw children as young as nine years old shot and killed, the gun control debate is going nowhere, writes CTV News political analyst Eric Ham.
Stonehenge's purpose has long been a mystery, with some researchers proposing that it may have been an ancient solar calendar. But now, new analysis suggests the calendar theory is unsubstantiated.
A new study published by Canadian researchers suggests that kindergarten-age children would rather be taught by a competent robot than an incompetent human.
A mysterious, Montreal-based street artist named Junko is generating buzz in Metro Vancouver with futuristic, bug-like sculptures made from old car parts, scrap metal and tossed out shoes.
A new peer-reviewed study from the Medical University of South Carolina report in Brain Connectivity has found individualized brain fingerprints which can help diagnose early Alzheimer's disease.
Montreal police say they have identified two more victims found in the rubble of a fire in Old Montreal 12 days ago. Charlie Lacroix and Walid Belkahla, both 18, are the sixth and seventh victims of the fire.
Eleven Canadian cities are among the world’s top destinations for travellers with sustainability in mind, according to the 2023 City Index for Mindful Travellers, created by travel website KAYAK.
Rima Rifai thought her furnace had exploded Monday when the house across the street burst into a ball of fire, sending 10 people to hospital with serious injuries.
New Brunswickers suffering from a mystery neurological disorder are calling for an investigation into potential environmental causes of the health problems they've been living with for more than two years.
Authorities are asking witnesses to come forward after security at Simon Fraser University discovered the head of the school's Mahatma Gandhi bust had been removed.
An influx of asylum seekers into Canada via unofficial border crossings has prompted the federal government to relocate refugees from Quebec as far as Atlantic provinces, some more than 1,000 kilometres (621 miles) away, and hire a risk mitigation company to deal with the record surge.
With her sister behind the wheel, Queen'terica Jones rushed across the flat Mississippi Delta as a powerful tornado bore down on their mother's home. The howling winds lifted the rear of their car off the ground and slammed them into a churchyard.
As Nashville residents reeled from a fatal grade school shooting that left six dead, a federal judge quietly cleared the way to drop the minimum age for Tennesseans to carry handguns publicly without a permit to 18 -- just two years after a new law set the age at 21.
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu late Tuesday said his country's intelligence agency Mossad helped Greece prevent a terrorist attack planned against at least one Jewish site in Athens.
Another American community is reeling after a shooter killed three 9-year-olds and three adults at a private Christian elementary school in Nashville. These are the three children and three adults whose lives were taken by the shooter.
Brazil's government on Tuesday reported the 700,000th death from COVID-19 in the South American nation, which has the second most victims of the virus after the United States.
Nashville police have released security camera footage of a suspected shooter entering the private Christian elementary school. The shooting claimed the lives of three children, all aged nine, and three adults.
In the 2023 federal budget, the government is unveiling continued deficit spending targeted at Canadians' pocketbooks, public health care and the clean economy.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland says clean energy and green technology spending may not have been the big-ticket items of the 2023 federal budget if it weren’t for the need to compete with infrastructure spending in the United States.
The federal budget proposes an across-the-board three per cent spending cut for all departments and agencies, a belt-tightening move after years of massive growth in the federal public service.
A new peer-reviewed study from the Medical University of South Carolina report in Brain Connectivity has found individualized brain fingerprints which can help diagnose early Alzheimer's disease.
A new study published by Canadian researchers suggests that kindergarten-age children would rather be taught by a competent robot than an incompetent human.
Tucked into the 2023 federal budget unveiled on Tuesday in Ottawa, the Liberals have announced plans to explore implementing a standard charging port across Canada, in an effort to save Canadians some money and reduce waste.
The Army is working to quickly pull together some new recruiting ads to air during the NCAA's Final Four basketball games this weekend, after being forced to yank commercials that featured actor Jonathan Majors, in the wake of his arrest last Saturday.
It's a surreal moment in an already surreal war: the grave but calming baritone of actor Mark Hamill, Luke Skywalker of 'Star Wars,' urging people to take cover whenever Russia unleashes another aerial bombardment on Ukraine.
Five-time Grammy Award winner Angelique Kidjo, Island Records founder Chris Blackwell and Estonian composer Arvo Part have won the 2023 Polar Music Prize, a Swedish music award.
Serious money is heading for Canadian industries looking to reduce emissions after the federal government unveiled its answer to the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act.
Flair Airlines said this week that it has reimbursed almost all 1,900 passengers whose flights were cancelled after the seizure of four of the carrier's planes earlier this month, but some customers say they are owed more money -- while others say no refunds have come through at all.
A mysterious, Montreal-based street artist named Junko is generating buzz in Metro Vancouver with futuristic, bug-like sculptures made from old car parts, scrap metal and tossed out shoes.
It may seem improbable - even impossible to some - but each day for the last three years, a 71-year-old Toronto woman has laced up her shoes, put one foot in front of the other, and headed out for a run
Alex Jung found his way back to the water in 2018 and began instructing other trans swimmers. But, he says, it was a 'challenging pursuit' without a community. Now creating that sense of support is becoming more mainstream at local fitness centres.
Brock McGillis is working to change the sport he loves through a new non-profit, Alphabet Sports Collective, which looks to make hockey safer for people of all sexualities and gender identities.
Lionel Messi scored a hat trick and surpassed 100 career goals for Argentina with three in the first half of Tuesday's international friendly against Curacao. The World Cup winners beat the Caribbean side 7-0 in their second match since clinching the trophy in December.
U.S. highway safety regulators have opened yet another investigation into problems with Teslas, this time tied to complaints that the seat belts may not hold people in a crash.
California lawmakers on Monday approved the nation's first penalty for price gouging at the pump, voting to give regulators the power to punish oil companies for profiting from the type of gas price spikes that plagued the nation's most populous state last summer.
Craig Pollock's latest project, Formula Equal, would be the first team in the sport that's 50 per cent men and 50 per cent women, he says, with that equal split applying across the whole organization -- from the cockpit to the engineers to the boardroom.
