National Defence committee  Absolutely. There already is. There's a pretty large appetite in the international community for diplomacy to be given a chance. What we have to bear in mind here is that in terms of any other approach there is no effective military response. Any military response is catastrophic

National Defence committee  Thank you very much. Yes, I undiplomatically indicated my frustration, and I apologize for that. Before I jump into this question, I want to add another point. I think the decisive point in then prime minister Paul Martin's decision to withdraw Canada's request to participate i

National Defence committee  I think it's obvious. It's clear—manifestly clear—that sanctions have not worked. The long history of sanctions has not worked to prevent North Korea from continuing to develop a nuclear weapons capability. The classic statement about sanctions is that they must be part of a larg

National Defence committee  Thirty seconds? Wow. Gee.

National Defence committee  Yes, it does. In my written statement I outline two different proposals. I outline a proposal for a comprehensive solution, which would see North Korea renouncing nuclear weapons—sadly, I think the time for that has passed—and then a much more recent proposal by the Chinese and

National Defence committee  Thank you very much. Just by way of interesting comment, I'm a lawyer, a former ambassador, and president of a very small independent think tank, but I am not an academic. I'm a practitioner. In my written submission, I made the following arguments. I'll list them because of cou

National Defence committee  No, I have not.

National Defence committee  Of course, there were many authors of that report. I would just refer to the report and what it says, with respect. They weren't talking about the level of the threat, in the report. They were talking about the seat at the table, the fact that NORTHCOM has the command, and why

National Defence committee  No, it does not. We receive all of our money from small donors across Canada. The only money that doesn't come from small donors across Canada is—I guess you could say—an indirect subsidy. In the summer, we get one intern under the Canada student employment program, which subsidi

National Defence committee  Well, I want to talk a bit more about the state of the system. I've honed in on the problem of the radar and the fact that it's acknowledged that there is no ability to discriminate. Experts like Philip Coyle say that there will never be such an ability to discriminate, but I als

National Defence committee  Again, I draw on other witnesses here and in the past and on one of the authors of the NORAD perpetuity report, Dr. Charron, who have emphasized the importance of the Arctic for Canada in many ways, including security. Witnesses, including National Defence witnesses before this c

National Defence committee  When I was talking about offensive systems, I was talking about the very negative international security and arms control consequences of pursuing missile defences. I'd like to make the point that in my view it's not inconsistent at all to argue that the BMD system, as it's curre

National Defence committee  Initially when the previous studies were done, the two countries that were pointed at were North Korea and Iran. Well, here today, no one is pointing at Iran. Why aren't they pointing at Iran? It's that Iran is no longer a threat in this area, or that it didn't have the capabilit

National Defence committee  Thank you. I'm very glad for the opportunity to clarify. I did not make any reference to Canada's role at the United Nations and equate that in any way with the BMD discussion. There must have been a problem with the translation. No, I made no such comment. One can make an ar

National Defence committee  I'm saying it's the most effective way because, in my view, ballistic missile defence is not an effective way.