Yes, I'll happily answer. It's a critical point of our time.
You're absolutely right that our enemies are doing everything they can to plant discord amongst us. Please recognize that they are not creating this discord, but they're amplifying it. Where they find existing cracks, they're trying to turn them into crevices.
By the way, I wish I had taken that bet with you back in that time. That would have been nice for at least a bottle of Scotch at this time.
The reality is that we need leadership. We need people such as you and your colleagues, basically, to say to the Canadian public that there is a threat.
I'll give you the one example where we saw it actually work. Canada had always heard from our political elites that we were peacekeepers. We never talked about the 171 peacekeepers who lost their lives in the various exercises. In other words, that was one of Canada's dirty secrets. I tell my students that there were 171 who were killed in some form trying to keep the peace, be it in Cyprus or wherever.
When we had the Tarnak four killed by the American forces in Afghanistan, the government made the decision to be open about their deaths. They weren't going to just bring them home through the back door as they did with the 172. We had a public acknowledgement of their sacrifice.
[Technical difficulty—Editor] what the Canadian response was? Remember the way the Canadians lined the highways. Notice the cities changing the roadways to honour the four who had been lost. We paid attention to the 151 Canadians who were killed in Afghanistan.
You guys can change the dialogue [Technical difficulty—Editor] the political will that you bring and the political issues that you always prioritize. If you also take the time to say to Canada that there is a nuclear war coming, that we need to be paying attention and that our enemies will be trying to tell you differently.... You guys hold that in your hand, not to put too fine of a point on it. We saw that in Afghanistan, and you guys can do it again.
That is really where I come from.