OTTAWA — The Trudeau government is quietly shopping for drones for the military and expects to see expressions of interest from the defence industry by mid-April.
But the tire-kicking exercise is setting the stage for a potentially bruising policy debate over whether the remotely controlled aircraft should be armed and under what circumstances they would employ deadly force.
The Royal Canadian Air Force has lobbied hard over the last few years for the capability to fire weapons from whatever drone is selected.
The Pentagon and CIA run drone programs which have been subject to increasing scrutiny and criticism, particularly in light of the dramatic rise in strikes over the last eight years and claims of civilian casualties.
A spokesman for National Defence, Evan Koronewski, says the air force wants a strike capability, but the drones Canada intends to buy will be used primarily for surveillance of the coastlines and the Arctic.
But Errol Mendes, a University of Ottawa professor and an expert in international law, says there will have to be a system of accountability put in place so that a decision to use drone-carried weapons must be approved by either the defence minister or the prime minister and not just by the military.
