National Defence committee  I think the best way to respond against them is by participating fully and upgrading the north warning system to enhance our ability to project further north into our Arctic with our intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets, and to acquire some new ones to give us a better picture.

National Defence committee  If I understood this—and the translation wasn't picking it up fully, so I apologize in advance—you're talking about the threat from Russia and their intentions. I would say that Russian intentions in the North American context right now are unclear. Again, to go back to the idea of a threat's capability and intent, they clearly have the capability right now.

National Defence committee  I'll pick up on a couple of things there. The math that you're illustrating, I think captures the fact that this is not a destabilizing system. There are less than 50 interceptors at present that physically have to hit an incoming missile. The Russians have thousands of ballistic missiles of their own, and the Chinese have multiple hundreds.

National Defence committee  There was a reference earlier to the fact that it would be inconceivable for it to cost nothing. In a past generation, that was entirely conceivable. That was apparently the deal that was offered to us before. Maybe that's a possibility and maybe it's not. I think the Americans would look at our participation in that program in the context of our participation in a wider set of North American defence activities, including upgrading and modernizing NORAD and a modernization of the north warning system.

National Defence committee  I do. I don't think it's a 100% perfect system, but it has a limited ability to work. It's not designed to account for every conceivable possibility. To do that, you would need a much larger system, and a much larger system, I think, would potentially be destabilizing. I would just point out that I think it's logically inconsistent to suggest on the one hand that the system doesn't work but also that it's going to be a threat to international stability on the premise that it does work.

National Defence committee  I think there are a number of things. One is enhancing our intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capacity. We currently have a fleet of maritime patrol aircraft that has just been upgraded, but only 14 of the fleet have been upgraded. I think there's the potential to at least look at expanding that upgrade program to include the entire fleet, which would give us better coverage, particularly because when we first acquired those assets we weren't using them in an overland surveillance role like we are currently doing in the Middle East.

National Defence committee  It means that it's not inclusive. I would reframe this argument totally in the other direction. I think the only guarantee we have is that if we don't participate in the system, we will have absolutely no say in defending Canadians against that type of threat. We may not have a full guarantee that we would fully participate if we were in, but if we aren't in, there's no ability to defend Canadians.

National Defence committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for inviting me today. I think this study on North American defence is important, both in the context of the review of defence policy that's ongoing right now and beyond that, because I think the strategic situation surrounding North American defence has appreciably worsened in the last couple of years.