Good morning.
I thought I would focus my brief on the issue of Canadian participation in the United States' ballistic missile defence program, specifically the ground-based midcourse defense system currently deployed in Alaska and California, given that this is one of the issues outlined in the defence review guidance.
To begin I want to emphasize three key points.
First, under current circumstances, whether Canada participates or not will have no significant impact upon the NORAD relationship, Canada-U.S. defence relations in general, and the Canada-U.S. relationship as a whole.
Second, if circumstances change and the United States comes to the conclusion that Canadian participation or, more accurately, Canadian territory becomes vital to the missile defence of the United States, a failure by Canada to participate will have a major impact on the relationship and the future of NORAD. This may result if the United States proceeds to establish a third interceptor site in the northeastern United States.
Currently, the United States is completing environmental studies for a possible third site in either upstate New York, Michigan, or Ohio. If this occurs, the United States may also conclude that to make the system effective, and thus ensure the defence of the eastern seaboard and the Great Lakes region, a forward-deployed X-band tracking radar in Canada may be essential as a result of the gap between the current X-band radar at Thule, Greenland, and U.S. territory. This, of course, would also significantly alter the negotiating dynamic concerning the meaning of participation, which I will clarify shortly.
Finally, under current circumstances, as well as changed ones, the real issue is whether the Canadian government and the Canadian public believe that it is essential that Canada be defended from a limited ballistic missile attack involving a nuclear warhead, by proliferating states such as North Korea. Canada cannot and should not expect the United States to defend Canada, for a variety of strategic and political reasons. Legally, U.S. Northern Command, responsible for the ground-based system, is only mandated to defend the United States and cannot be expected to expend one or more interceptors to save a Canadian city, unless its potential target may directly impact, via the blast or radiation effect, an American location, such as Detroit. In failing to defend ourselves, Canada places American decision-makers in a horrible moral dilemma of expending an interceptor to save Canadian lives, but in so doing potentially undermining the ability of the United States to defend itself.
Any decision regarding whether Canada should or should not acquire its own missile defence capability requires the government to obtain as much information as possible about the U.S. system. To do so will cause the Canadian government to publicly, and without reservation, endorse the U.S. missile defence effort as the first step into discussions and, possibly, negotiations with the United States. This has been partially done in the context of the NATO system. Even so, this fundamentally means that the government must reverse the 2005 decision, but not formally commit to participation, because no one actually knows what participation would really mean.
It is clear, however, from the failed negotiations in 2003 and 2004, that the United States will not provide a formal guarantee to defend Canadian cities, will not give command control to NORAD, and will not give Canada detailed access to operational planning under current circumstances. This has not changed, and will not change until Canada decides to invest capital and seeks to acquire and deploy some relevant missile defence system component on Canadian soil, which will enhance the defence of the United States as well as Canada, whether it be a tracking radar or a full-fledged interceptor site. In other words, Canada must contribute a meaningful capability of value in order to truly participate with the United States in the missile defence of North America, thus altering the negotiating conditions and reversing the above three noes, which in turn will provide assurances that Canadian cities and the population are defended.
A meaningful contribution, of course, requires that Canada first acquire detailed information from the United States about the system, additional valuable requirements of the system, the costs and, of course, whether the United States will agree to settle with the capabilities of Canada—which, I would add, Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense in 1967, offered to do with the ABM system. Perhaps the United States will decide that there's nothing for Canada to contribute for now. Even so, the government will have opened the door and acquired valuable information and knowledge for an unforeseeable future.
Regardless, it is time for the government, Global Affairs, National Defence, and the public to realize that we cannot free-ride on the American missile defence system, and we cannot expect that an asymmetric contribution, such as offering to pay for the modernization of the north warning system, will result in a U.S. missile defence guarantee.
In effect, the government must invest in a meaningful way in order to ensure the defence of Canada.
Thank you. I look forward to your questions regarding this issue or anything else concerning the defence of North America or global security politics.