National Defence committee  Certainly the ground-based midcourse ballistic missile defence system that the Americans have developed is a developmental program, and a number of fairly high-profile failures have occurred. One fundamental premise, though, is that there will never be enough interceptors to de

National Defence committee  I don't consider it a defence issue per se, from the point of view of.... I think our geography will protect us against a land- or sea-based attack. I see it as a sovereignty issue: protection, as mentioned, of the areas of vast resource wealth, of free navigation throughout th

National Defence committee  Yes.

National Defence committee  In my view, yes. Of course, it will be an armed vessel operated by the navy.

National Defence committee  I am not an expert either in naval procurement, but I respect the national shipbuilding procurement strategy process, which selected the two shipyards that will have combatant and non-combatant responsibilities for construction of vessels. One would hope there is a sharing of oth

National Defence committee  There will come a day, I think, when UAVs will perhaps replace manned fighters, certainly augment them more than they are today. I don't think we're there yet. I think the opportunity for that will evolve as the technology evolves. Just the mechanics of operating a UAV in domesti

National Defence committee  Yes.

National Defence committee  Our missile defence point of view has to be influenced by the fact that we're connected to the United States. It's quite different from that of other countries. Even having said that, those countries that belong to NATO, as we do, have all endorsed missile defence for Europe. It

National Defence committee  Well, the United States is clearly the lead in providing the technology or the capability, but at the Chicago conference, NATO itself endorsed missile defence for NATO.

National Defence committee  Canada has adopted capability-based planning, which addresses all of those issues in terms of developing a capability. Our current defence policy clearly supports the procurement of the capital projects that are listed in the Canada first defence strategy, and has broken down i

National Defence committee  I suspect it's an evolving requirement. The maritime warning mission I think was originally established to address coastal approaches to the east and west coasts of North America, and was only recognized in the course of events to be effective in the north as well. That's a respo

National Defence committee  You are referring to—

National Defence committee  Yes. Again, our potential involvement in BMD is a moral and logical extension of the current NORAD mission in aerospace control. We do air control. We can send out fighters. We can defend against cruise missiles or bombers, but we can't defend against ballistic missiles as Canadi

National Defence committee  No. An aircraft can.

National Defence committee  It's hard to say that this mission is more or less important than a NATO AWACS mission until you can actually make an apples-to-apples comparison of what the cost effect would be and what the personnel involvement would be. I don't necessarily agree with the decision on the NATO