If you were to hand me a chequebook, the first thing would be to institutionalize and systemize a naval political capability of an ongoing examination of the maritime issue.
In other words, the navy is very good at keeping this ongoing. They do their maritime strategy, their naval strategy, but there needs to be this ongoing process, maybe a committee system that's headed by the PMO, but something that keeps it at the high political level and is ongoing.
Without understanding what you are developing your capabilities for, why are we doing this? It's not just having the ships look nice and attractive, but ultimately understanding what Canadian sea power is required, not wished for and not what would be good, but what is required. That would be the first thing I would establish.
The second thing—and it goes back to one of your colleagues calling it a conveyor belt—is a recognition that the procurement has to be an ongoing response to this changing environment. The type of ship that we're saying we may need right now...Dr. Charron gave a whole bunch of wonderful examples of what we need to respond today, and what we're doing successfully. The question then becomes, 10 years from now, will we need the ships to do something extra? Once again, it is looking at flexibility in the capability.
In terms of the third aspect, and that gets into the mechanics, what do you need? We need something that allows us to have access both above and below in terms of all three of our oceans. We are a three ocean country, and we often forget that. We need to have something. If not the Arctic offshore patrol vessels, we'd have to have something that would be very similar.
We need to have the ability to go both under and above. That also means air assets. That's something we haven't talked about; for example, the replacement of the Auroras that are a critical part in all of this. They will eventually wear out, so you need to have that capability and flexibility.
The fourth aspect is that you need to be able to go worldwide. One of the ironies is that even though we don't think about it, we are a blue-water nation. Our interests rely on it. We need to have that replenishment capability that we are trying to rebuild now in the Vancouver shipyards. Ultimately, we need those types of assets.
If you want to drill down a bit further, the surface combatant has to be a critical element. The FELEX program, by the way, has been a major success. We always talk about procurement failures with Canada, but we often forget that the modernization of the frigates was done under budget and, in fact, ahead of schedule. That's a testament to good planning.
We need to be thinking about having these assets at the front end, and they need to be flexible. Once again, we're thinking of today's threats, and we need to do so. However, if we add in climate change, may I ask you this, how do we respond as a nation if, in fact, climate change means that 60% of Bangladesh ceases to exist because the sea level rises, say, 10 years from now, and that sparks a war between Bangladesh and India, and then Pakistan comes in?
You can create all sorts of scenarios. What do we do as a nation, particularly given our current demographics, alliances, and so forth, and what type of navy do you need? Then you start saying that maybe some of the Danish models could apply because they have war-fighting capabilities, but they also have emergency response capability on their Absalon-class frigates. We need to understand the constant change of it, but we need to have the assets.
The fourth wish is to be very sensitive, and make sure that we are slightly ahead of what the Americans want us to do. We never want to be in a situation.... It's not politically correct to say it, but we always have to be sensitive. It's called a defence against help. We want to be sure that the Americans never feel that we're letting them down. That sort of grazes us from a sovereignty perspective, but once again, getting into the North American perspective, that is a requirement.
Those would be the four things I would go for, if you were to give me the chequebook.