Thank you very much. It's a great honour to be back.
I'm going to address three issues today, but before I do so, let me tell you about an article I was reading this morning that was written four years ago by my friend Jack Granatstein, in which he raised the question as to whether Canada should stay in NATO. He didn't answer the question, but my point is that he was raising the question four years ago.
He wouldn't raise that question today. I don't think anyone would raise that question today. We have seen, for instance, the annexation of Crimea in March 2014. We have credible evidence of widespread Russian intervention through cyberspace in elections in western countries, including the Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom and the U.S. election, with our most important ally. I'll talk about cybersecurity in a few minutes, but there's no question that it's better to be together than to be divided. Our opponents will seek to divide us. That is a strategic move on their part, and NATO is therefore just as important today as it has been in the past.
There are three areas that I will address, first of all with a couple of additional comments on the Arctic, to add to my colleague's points, which I agree with; secondly and briefly, with regard to cyberspace; and then with a couple of minutes on NATO spending and the question as to whether Canada needs to raise its percentage of GDP in terms of financial contributions.
On the issue of the Arctic, I think it's important to underline that there are in fact, from a security organizational perspective, two Arctics. There is the European Arctic, which the Americans regard as part of U.S. European Command, which is very much a NATO co-operative exercise. There is the North American Arctic, which from an American perspective is NORTHCOM, and from a Canadian perspective is a NORAD mission, not a NATO mission. That dividing line goes up Baffin Bay and the Nares Strait, dividing Greenland from North America, in terms of those two different organizational missions.
There is very little prospect, I think, that the United States is going to let NATO into a NORTHCOM domain. When the Europeans talk about bringing NATO into the Arctic, insofar as they're talking about Greenland, Iceland, and Norway, I think that's a good thing. That's something we can support, but in terms of the North American Arctic, we have that very much under control with our American allies.
Also, as the point has already been made, that's not where the security threat is anyway. That's mostly a surveillance and a search and rescue mission. There are things that we can do to improve that, such as, for instance, buying a full six satellites for RADARSAT Constellation instead of the present three. I can talk about that at greater length if you wish, but NATO is not coming to the North American Arctic. NATO does...and is already in the European Arctic.
In terms of cyberspace, I think this is an issue of enormous concern, particularly because Russia is becoming exceedingly adept in this domain. We've seen real impacts of this. But all of the normal considerations that apply in any military domain apply with regard to cyberspace, such as the security dilemma. Canada and our NATO allies need to be very careful, through our own actions, not to create an arms race in cyberspace to feed Russian anxiety and a Russian desire to build up. Our actions should be defensive, not offensive, unless we are actually attacked and can attribute that attack back to a state actor.
There are also real concerns about escalation. How do you actually keep a conflict confined to cyberspace? At what point do people start to look at nodes in the communication network, at fibre optic cables on the ocean floor, and at satellites in orbit?
A cyber-conflict can escalate out of control very quickly. Therefore, a defensive stance rather than an offensive stance is absolutely necessary here. There's nothing terribly unique about cyberspace. Let's not lose sight of all of these strategic considerations that apply in other domains when we start talking about computers.
Finally, on Canada's contribution to NATO, the 2.0% of GDP is a goal. It's one that different countries measure in different ways in terms of their contributions. Canada is actually quite cautious in measuring what constitutes military spending. For instance, we don't count the Canadian Coast Guard. Other countries have armed coast guards. They count them as part of their military spending. One way to ramp up Canadian military spending in a very quick way is to put a light deck gun on the front of every Canadian Coast Guard vessel, with a couple of Canadian Forces personnel on board to man the weapon. You would get an instant boost. It would be the same with the patrol boats that operate on the Great Lakes and on the east and west coasts dealing with illegal immigrants and smugglers. Generally, other countries would count RCMP missions as part of military spending. So it depends on what you count.
The other thing we don't count right now is this incredible amount of future spending that is locked into our procurement plans. We're not counting the Canadian surface combatants, which will be in the range of a $60-billion expenditure. We don't count the replacement aircraft for our fighter jet fleet and other things. Canada has made some really major commitments in terms of future spending—in most cases not with contracts signed, but still, commitments made, and commitments that will need to be kept from a practical perspective. That needs to be explained to our allies, that we are in fact seeking to recapitalize the Canadian Armed Forces.
My last comment in that regard is that given the renewed importance of NATO, and given that we do desperately need to recapitalize the Canadian Armed Forces, this is the time to accelerate those big defence procurements. It's simply not acceptable to think that most of these new ships won't arrive for a couple of decades. It's simply not acceptable to punt the fighter jet procurement issue past the next federal election, which is what I suspect is happening right now.
If we're going to be a serious partner in NATO, we need to carry through on our promises. We don't need to raise defence spending just because the American president says we should. We need to keep our plans, our promises, with regard to defence spending so that we have a capable armed forces that can be a reliable ally in missions that are important to Canada.
Thank you very much.