Foreign Affairs Committee on June 6th, 2017

[Prof. Kim Nossal]

And it's not only against North Korea. We're talking about 20 to 25 years. We have no idea what the geopolitical realities will be, but we do know that 25 years into the future, we're going to be deeply linked to the United States, continuing as we have been since 1941. It only makes sense, it seems to me, to complete the process that basically began in the 1950s.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

I would assume that both of you advise the expansion of the continental defence in terms of unconventional warfare, the—

[Colin Robertson]

Cyber?

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Well, cyber warfare certainly, but there is the potential for a device in a shipping container sent by conventional maritime freight.

[Colin Robertson]

This is just common sense. It's the role of government to defend its people.

[Prof. Kim Nossal]

Since 2006 or so, we have been embracing the maritime side of that.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

To speak, finally, about the gaps in appointments in key departments in the United States, it's been interesting that at the same time, even while these vacancies have existed and do exist, to see foreign policy professionals like Tom Shannon and Mike Froman continue with pretty much their assigned roles, interacting with Canada on a number of issues. How do you explain that? Do you think their voices have continuing weight inside the White House?

[Colin Robertson]

That's like trying to understand Mr. Trump.

Do they have influence? I think they have influence, as Kim said, on the adults in the room, on the generals and Secretary Tillerson.

As they recruit, I think inevitably there will be more predictability in the process in the United States. The Americans themselves want to see that. The Congress wants to see it, but you're always going to have Mr. Trump and his tweets at 3 a.m.

[Prof. Kim Nossal]

One of the real difficulties is that Mr. Trump was so negative about the Republican foreign and defence policy community in the United States that the administration is having difficulty recruiting the people necessary to run these things. If you look at the list, you wonder to yourself where you would actually find qualified individuals to serve in these incredibly complex assistant secretary and ambassadorial positions.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you very much to Professor Nossal and Mr. Robertson. Thank you very much for spending this quality time with us. I think it was a very good discussion. We probably could sit here for a couple more hours, and maybe at some point we will have an opportunity to revisit this. These are very interesting times, to say the least.

One of the things that I'm very interested in is that there must be some positives to Mr. Trump from a Canadian perspective. Chaos is a good negotiating position, or so I have always found when I negotiated. I am very curious if anybody has any idea of what positives could come out of what's going on in the U.S.

We would like to hear about that at some point, because the narrative seems to be that this is impossible, but sometime what comes out of this may be an opportunity for Canada in other areas of the world or even in the U.S. to gain some leverage, so I would be interested in that at some point. It's not for today, of course, because we don't have the time, but I would be very interested in that, because of course there is a strong belief, if you're a negotiator, that sometimes when the other side is a little bit preoccupied there are things you can get accomplished.

Again, on behalf of the committee, I just want to say thank you. I very much enjoyed this morning, and as the other colleagues have said, your presentations were extremely well done. Thank you.

[Prof. Kim Nossal]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Colleagues, we'll call it a day, as there's a lot going on in the House that I'm sure you'll be interested in.

The meeting is adjourned.