It’s still not clear what U.S. or Canadian intelligence a Chinese surveillance balloon managed to collect from high above North America last week before it was shot out of the sky — an option Canada rejected because it posed no threat to public safety.
The U.S. has the lead on analyzing the balloon, which was downed Sunday off the South Carolina coast, and Canada is not directly involved, said Defence Minister Anita Anand, whose two days in Washington culminated Friday in a meeting at the Pentagon.
Through Norad, the jointly commanded continental defence system, both the U.S. and Canada monitored the balloon’s week-long journey from the Aleutian Islands off Alaska to its violent demise over the Atlantic Ocean at the hands of an F-22 Raptor fighter pilot….