Mr. Chair, the bottom line, from my perspective, is that we don't know. A surveillance balloon does perhaps provide some advantages in terms of its persistence over an area, but there are other capabilities—satellite capabilities as well—that could provide almost the same, if not better, collection capabilities, so we don't know.
Evidence of meeting #52 for National Defence in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was objects.
A recording is available from Parliament.