Mr. Chair, thank you for this opportunity to discuss our geopolitical security environment, specifically the threat Russia poses to Canada.
I am happy to be here with Vice-Admiral Auchterlonie, who is the operational commander of our international and domestic operations, as well as Major-General Wright, who commands our intelligence enterprise. I'm also very happy to be here with my colleagues from CSC, Caroline Xavier and Sami Khoury, as you introduced.
We once again find ourselves in a chaotic and dangerous world where those with power, namely, Russia and China, are determined to remake the world order to suit their own ends and where the rights and freedoms of smaller, less powerful states are discarded. We are also witnessing violations of the sanctity of territorial sovereignty and of responsible dialogue about the use of nuclear weapons.
Russia and China do not differentiate between peace and war.
In seeking to achieve their national objectives they will use all elements of national power, often acting just below the threshold of large-scale, violent conflict—but, as we have seen in Ukraine, they are all too willing to cross that threshold.
Their aim is not just regime survival, but regime expansion.
In this context, they consider themselves to be at war with the west.
Their greatest threat comes not from external adversaries but from their own populations, so they strive to destroy the social cohesion of liberal democracies and the credibility of our own institutions to ensure that our model of government is seen as a failure.
We are seeing an example of this information war in real time, where the Ukrainians are winning the battle between truth and lies in the west, but the Russian narrative dominates in many other parts of the world.
Will we have an international order based on rules or one based on might? This contest of which order will prevail will certainly define the rest of our time in uniform and, indeed, the rest of our lives.
Many of our allies and partners are clear-eyed about the threat to our future.
We must be, too.
The stakes are high.
We must not allow authoritarian powers to change the world order to suit their purposes.
We must be strong. We must work with our partners and allies in a united front, and in doing so, deter miscalculation, adventurism and great power war.
Regarding our own national security, the distance and geographic isolation that Canada has enjoyed for so long is no longer a viable defensive strategy. Canada and the United States agreed in 2021 to invest in a long-needed modernization of NORAD, but Russia has also made significant investments, including in long-range aviation and the capability of the cruise missiles that its planes carry.
Russia also has the capability to threaten Canada via other domains, by sea but also in the cyber and space domains, where it is capable of threatening our networks, critical infrastructure, communications and economy.
Finally, there is the nuclear threat, repeated in a not so thinly veiled manner numerous times recently.
Right now, we do not believe that Russia plans to use strategic nuclear weapons against Canada. However, given the unfolding crisis in Ukraine and the potential for escalation, we must remain vigilant.
The Russian threat is very clear. Fortunately, so are the actions that we must take to meet that threat. As we prepare for the possibility of open conflict in traditional domains, we must also develop our capacity for confrontation in the cyber, space and cognitive domains.
We must integrate our capabilities across all domains. We must develop an integrated approach to national security that combines military responses with diplomatic, economic and information actions at the local, regional, national and multinational levels.
We must maintain an intellectual advantage, generating diverse policy options and ideas via an ongoing dialogue among allies, agencies, industries, academia and governments. This will be critical to sustaining our strategic edge.
We must not be naive about the threats in the world. Adversaries view compromise as weakness to be exploited. They only respect and respond to strength.
The rules-based international order, which has underpinned world stability and indeed our national prosperity for generations, is faltering. It needs to be defended. The gravity of these times should be apparent to all.
Thank you. We look forward to your questions.