National Defence committee  That ballistic missile defence is for Iran and North Korea, and it's geographically located in certain locations.

National Defence committee  That, I can't speak to.

National Defence committee  The CF-18s are not just for NORAD; they're for other missions. It's not that we park all our CF-18s at one or two bases and wait for calls. They're constantly moving and can take off and land at other bases. I really can't give you an answer right now about an exact number.

National Defence committee  Well, I think so, for the reason that NORAD is charged with defending North America as opposed to Canada or the U.S. With the way threats are evolving and changing, this gives us more advance warning. It gives us an intelligence multiplier. It gives us more time to think and react.

National Defence committee  Probably very little, but I can't see the U.S. capitulating—nor should they, necessarily, because of the reverberations for other important international straits in the rest of the world.

National Defence committee  The question we never ask is what the effect is if it is an international strait. Does Canada change? If we're all about trade then having an international strait makes sense. Nobody disputes that it's Canadian. That's never been at stake, and the U.S. has gone out of its way not to press that issue.

National Defence committee  I would disagree. It's like Russia. Do you want the shipping to come? Maybe you want to charge some money for it. We have the international Polar Code, which will be mandatory. There are lots of international laws out there to protect these Arctic systems. Transport Canada is already looking at a highway system.

National Defence committee  Only to say that the JLENS is for cruise missiles, not ballistic missiles. In our report, which Joel was a part of as well, entitled “NORAD in Perpetuity? Challenges and Opportunities for Canada”, we have many pages on ballistic missile defence by James Ferguson, who's really the expert on this.

National Defence committee  I would say fairly low, but then again I'm not an engineer. One of the questions I have is, even if we, for instance, put a lot of money into interceptors, they would help with the threats now, but threats evolve, so are we just spending money for the sake of spending money? For me, Canada's main security threat is always when that border closes.

National Defence committee  On that I have no idea; for that you need engineers. I simply don't know enough about the spacing of them. The one thing that we as political scientists could speak to is we always have to keep in mind plausibility, credibility, specificity, and imminency of threat. Without access to all the information, I cannot help you except to urge that having those interceptors may or may not make us safer if we don't understand where the threats are coming from, how they're going to change, etc.

National Defence committee  If I could add, I think the threats facing the Arctic, if we call them threats, are not of your typical defence sort. They are more about safety and security. That's a whole other conversation about what we do with the Canadian Coast Guard. With the fact that they are only a safety organization, should that be changing to a security mandate as well, and do we have enough ships and icebreakers?

National Defence committee  Yes. Preferably, we need it not just for ballistic missile defence. There are also the cruise missile concerns. Pollution is a big problem. It's so expensive to operate and to put things in the Arctic. We may need a combination of space, land, and other assets. Hopefully it doesn't do just one thing.

National Defence committee  I think this is where you really need to speak to people who have access to the secret and top-secret information, because that's not necessarily in the public domain. There are two things. First of all, ballistic missile defence is different from what you need for cruise missiles.

National Defence committee  I, personally, don't see any advantage to Russia attacking Canada or the U.S. for the purposes of the Arctic, even as an avenue of approach. It's almost as if we have two Russias. When it comes to all things Arctic, they have participated, along with the other Arctic states, in the Arctic Council and so far have respected the UN Convention on the Law of Sea process vis-à-vis the continental shelf.

National Defence committee  Are you talking specifically vis-à-vis the ballistic missile defence information?