A grade.... That's a tough question to answer.
My answer is that by and large we have been marching in place. There has been an increased emphasis in investment, particularly in DRDC. For example, they have gotten more money to deal with research and development of technologies for NORAD modernization.
I agree with Dr. Saideman about the problems of Canadianization and industrial development, etc. I've always believed that part of it is recognizing—and this is where I differ from my colleague, Dr. Huebert—that our defence is indivisible from the United States, which in turn is indivisible from our allies in many ways.
There's a need to move away from this silo-based industry and technological benefit system—which is central to both DND selling it to government, and to government—to a different understanding of how defence industrial technology development and production have changed over the years.
I always like to point to the F-35 program, not in terms of whether they're going to buy it or not, but in terms of the development of consortiums, in which everyone commits to be involved. Industry gets involved on the basis of competitiveness and technological abilities.
We haven't really moved beyond a model in our minds—a model of 20, 50 or 100 years ago—to recognize that, as a function of the continually rising exorbitant costs in the R and D world and in the procurement world, Canada and the United States in particular are integrated. Our defence industrial technology base is integrated with the United States, but we don't seem to recognize it, in part because the government doesn't know what's going on. This is now extended to the allies.
If you ask me for a grade, I would say we're probably a C+ or a B, but there are lots of opportunities to move forward and—again, I disagree with Dr. Huebert—get over this Canadianization uniqueness thing. We have to stop doing that, because there is very little uniqueness in terms of where we reside in the world.