There remain to this day some challenges in making sure that we can communicate and work together. They range from intelligence-sharing to having the right architecture, because interoperability is about sharing. It's about working together.
We had issues on the intelligence side of the house. How do we turn national information through five eyes—Canada, U.S., U.K., Australia, and New Zealand—to NATO secrets, to beyond that, because there were the Arab partners plus Sweden? How do we build that? That was the challenge. We created a diffusion centre, run by a Canadian, may I add, to do that, because we were in the best position. That's the first part.
The second part, of course, is that the big items are interoperable. The navy doesn't have a problem. The air forces themselves don't have a problem. Where we had probably the biggest issue was in two parts. One was the ability to transfer information through the NATO alliance national classified network, because they don't necessarily connect. You end up with many computers under your desk so that you can talk to.... Madam, I had five computers under my desk in NORAD, and that was just two countries. So you kind of work through that.
The last challenge, of course, is the cultural issue of how we work with each other and how we can communicate, because interoperability is not only hardware but greyware as well. That's probably the biggest challenge to me. You can overcome the technical issues through goodwill, understanding, and communication. To me, the essence of interoperability is understanding each other's culture, respecting it, trusting each other, and working through it.