Canada Defends Military Drone Attacks Canada has defended the use of military drone attacks, saying technological advances have reduced civilian causalities. National Defense Minister Peter Gordon MacKay told an Asian security summit Sunday that the "intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities we saw in Libya and Afghanistan prove the effectiveness" of unmanned systems. MacKay said at the IISS Shangri-la Dialogue that "these eyes-on systems that can literally read a license plate from outer space." MacKay was responding to a question about U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan, a key tactic in the campaign against al-Qaida and its Taliban supporters. Canada's military has participated in the U.S.-led decade-long war in Afghanistan and also in NATO strikes in Libya last year.