National Defence committee  I'm sure many members of the committee are aware, and I'm sure that people from the reserves have been here—I would hope some of them have been here to talk about these issues—there has been a long-standing set of issues and tensions between regular forces and reserve forces, if you go back to the 1950s and 1960s and issues about what to do.

National Defence committee  It's tough to comment on it. From my perspective, in the world I live in, we have to sort through all the academic and published government and company reports and studies to try to get a feel for what capabilities are really embedded in it. These are so advanced and sophisticated we won't know until we see them actually come into operation what they can and can't do.

National Defence committee  Fundamentally, it's a function of that thing we never talk about anymore: geography. We live in a very nice part of the world. We can only be touched from a distance, and the way technology has moved and military technologies have moved, the threats to Canada over the past 50 to 60 years have increasingly emerged from an age before World War II, where we really had no military threats to Canada.

National Defence committee  The only argument I would potentially be convinced by is if there's strategic political value that stems from that.

National Defence committee  In twenty-five words or less, what I like in Leslie's report is that it has put on the table the issue of what I call the long-standing problem of western militaries’ tooth-to-tail ratios—no one likes to use that term anymore, but I like to use it—where we've expanded, where the tail keeps expanding.

National Defence committee  Let me be clear. I do not see training missions—training the armed forces of a state coming out of civil war or trying to redevelop or restructure itself—as problematic. In fact, I think they're very important. That extends not only to training their militaries, but also, if you take the model of NATO's Partnership for Peace, of training defence departments and those people.

National Defence committee  My advice for the government would be to take a very close and detailed independent study of the current state.

National Defence committee  I say that because there are things I didn't mention. One is what I would call the “elephant in the room” about submarines. The United States and the United Kingdom have gotten out of the conventional submarine business. We're one of the key allies left, when they get working, in the conventional business.

National Defence committee  Probability in the field of Africa or nation building with armed forces?

National Defence committee  To the first question you asked, certainly two smaller fleets can be considered, but when you get to two smaller fleets, you're not just talking about having dedicated, less capable fighters, whatever you want to call them, for domestic roles versus those you would deploy overseas.

National Defence committee  I think it is extremely problematic, and I think there are lessons, which will become better known as distance from Afghanistan is gained, that this has been problematic. I think the presence is beyond the need to be sensitive to local cultures, when you're at the village level in these operations.

National Defence committee  No. If I mentioned that, let me correct myself. I don't think the Canadian Forces should be prepared for nation building. If anything, the development forces, the people who have the expertise in nation building, the people in the civilian world, need to alter the way they think and train for these types of missions in insecure environments and when working with the military.

National Defence committee  I think the lessons of Afghanistan increasingly will be that the western nations will be reluctant to do this again for a long time.

National Defence committee  Are you speaking of an electro-magnetic pulse weapon, an EMP? There's no evidence that an actual weapon exists. There are only reports of the United States and others testing them and developing them, partially for potentially offensive reasons or for defensive reasons. There is a long range of different types of weapons that you can imagine being deployed in outer space.

National Defence committee  I have puzzled over that issue for a long time. The nuclear proliferation threat I think has gradually increased over time. The Achilles heel of the nuclear proliferation treaty—which we're seeing now played out fully in the case of Iran—is that you signed onto NPT and publicly said you wouldn't acquire nuclear weapons, but in return you had access to nuclear technology.