Welcome back to our witnesses. We're quite honoured to have you back. In fact, you're doing better than our chief of the defence staff, whom we've asked since this committee was first constituted. I don't know why it is that the government won't let him come, or what he could possibly tell us that they don't want us to know. We haven't had any briefings on deployments, despite repeated questions. Most importantly, we haven't had a briefing, even in camera, of force protection and what has been done to protect our armed forces personnel since the attack on a recruitment centre.
I'm really disappointed that in the face of the promise of an open and transparent public government, not only are we being deprived from hearing from the CDS, but now they don't even want MPs to speak. The committee and the House of Commons chamber are supposed to be the sacred places where an MP can ask questions or make statements without fear of reprisals.
My first question is for Professor Charron.
What do you make of the reported nuclear war training exercise in Russia with the 40 million people?