National Defence committee  Yes, we can put it like that. If you want to be careful regarding the future, you will recognize that Russians have developed some capabilities. But capabilities don't necessarily mean that they have the will to be aggressive. The Arctic is important for Russians for more than ec

National Defence committee  If it's still the same structure, I doubt it will change. The Americans certainly don't want to change the idea of the commander in chief remaining an American. They won't change anything on that, for sure. To have a Canadian as the second in command is a pretty good concession

National Defence committee  Sorry, excuse me. What's the—

National Defence committee  I really don't hear anything about that. This is one of the criticisms that I heard about the maritime NORAD stuff, that it is used only for surveillance, with very few operational capabilities. But as far as I know, there is no discussion about changing that situation.

National Defence committee  In general, yes, Canadians have a very good reputation in Washington. But it's in general. The problem is when you try to use it in terms of strategy for something very specific. Then you must be sure that someone in Washington will pay attention to what you're doing, and people

National Defence committee  Actually, it's not because we're building icebreakers or ports that makes Canada to be labelled as aggressive. It's the tone of the discourse. It's the American diplomats who keep asking me, “What's your problem, you Canadians? Why are you paying so much attention to your soverei

National Defence committee  Actually, that is interesting because I was looking at what my colleagues wrote on this over the last 10 years, and they all kept saying that the Americans were coming and that they would sign the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. We're still waiting. So I don't

National Defence committee  This is very common. I think there are something like 700 or 800 agreements of that kind between Canada and the U.S. just on the military side, as far as we know. So it's not a concern. My concern actually is that it's not at a high enough level. It's only at the tactical and op

National Defence committee  Now I'm getting outside of my area of expertise. I would probably just be thinking out loud rather than giving you a strong analysis, so I would prefer not to comment on this.

National Defence committee  The level of cooperation on the ground between Canadian and American military could be labelled as satisfactory, I think, for now, considering the resources the two countries are contributing to the north. The military on both sides are working very well together. It's not surpri

National Defence committee  Having a port is crucial, because there's no naval infrastructure in the Arctic. We badly need it. If you want to be more present in the north, this is crucial. So we should support it and make sure that this project will take place. Eventually we should think about the developme

National Defence committee  I'm not worried about that because, historically, Canada-U.S. relations have been compartmentalized. Defence-related issues only affect defence. The Americans' presence on Canadian soil during the Second World War and the excellent level of cooperation in that regard didn't neces

National Defence committee  People often look for countries whose situations are comparable to Canada's and it's very tough. The country most often compared to Canada is Australia.

National Defence committee  If you're talking about Nordic countries, it would be Norway, but there are major differences between Norway and Canada. Norway is much smaller than Canada, both in terms of its geography and population. Norway is extremely good at taking advantage of its position. It has a gatew

National Defence committee  As I was saying earlier, Canadians are usually the ones who identify more threats in that regard than the Americans do.