Good afternoon Mr. Chair, members of the committee.
My name is Stephen Kelsey, and I am the chief of Force Development at the Department of National Defence. I lead the community of planners that specialize in future force design, often referred to as “force development”.
This community comprises military and civilian experts, of course, defence scientists, operational researchers, academics and industry partners.
The community also accesses NORAD planning, and processes such as those led by NATO.
My role in this endeavour is to lead collaborative planning for defence in an effort to develop the investment strategies and proposed priorities for the future. In this capacity, I do work very closely with Mr. Quinn and the defence policy team.
The department's force development planning program is essentially the means to provide an analytical basis to anticipate changes in threat and security. It does so by conducting deliberate analysis, leveraging academic and defence research, as I alluded to, and at the same time conducting a review of our current platforms, systems and capacities.
Mr. Chair, as inspiring as I feel the remainder of my opening remarks would be, I think I'll truncate them in the interest of time. I look forward, with sincerity, to the questions.
Thank you.