To reiterate that sentence, space defence is Arctic defence, Arctic defence is ultimately continental defence and continental defence is defending the northern flank of NATO. The NATO centre of gravity, with the addition of Sweden and Finland, has shifted north. The northern flank has become more important.
The really important thing, which I think Canada has always done a terribly poor job of articulating, is that investments in Arctic security are investments in NATO and NATO collective defence. Collective defence depends on U.S. extended deterrence and U.S. extended nuclear deterrence. If the continent is not secure, then it means the United States' ability to deter adversaries is not secure. However, for some reason, repeated governments on both sides have not, in my view, articulated that effectively to the Canadian public and especially to our allies and partners. We still articulate them as somehow separate entities. You can see how the defence policy update was rolled out with this emphasis on the Arctic.
The three things that I would reiterate are more than just where we put the resources. One is inexpensive allocation, but I'm concerned that in multilateral diplomacy, we have very limited resources. As you know, the government of the day decides, and the government has decided to constrain the resources of the departments further. The government has decided to put its multilateral efforts in a separate treaty process. It's a democratic government. It gets to do what it decides to do. However, I think it needs to be all hands on deck when it comes to multilateral space diplomacy because that is existential to Canadian defence and to allied and continental defence for the reasons I just explained.
In terms of the whole-of-government approach, the defence policy framework dates back to 2014. A lot has changed in space since 2014. If we have very scarce resources, both in government and in collaboration with industry, we need to marshal those resources for maximum effect and efficiency in terms of outputs and outcomes. If we don't have an updated framework, we can't marshal the resources we have.
On the defence capability side, thinking about the people who actually do this, it's a classic example of where the Canadian Armed Forces needs extremely high-level, high-quality skill sets. There has been a clear change over the last 30 years in the people you need to recruit. It's not that there are not enough people coming through the doors. There are enough people coming through the doors. It's about the quality of the people the Canadian Armed Forces needs. They are not able to get through the doors, especially in these very high-end capabilities.
Here we need opportunities for lateral entry from the civilian private sector and from other government departments. It's just taken me two years to get someone from a different formation to come work in our formation. That's within the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence. We are not agile when it comes to personnel.