National Defence committee  For the record, both General Joyce and I flew the Aurora, so we worked considerably with the navy. We're half navy is what I sense, for the record.

National Defence committee  I'll start. I mentioned the joint operations symposium we had in the past couple of days. Part of the dialogue there was about agility and innovation within NATO. The NATO command structure review I think is changing, and some things will result from that. That's a recognition

National Defence committee  I'd say across the board, but in Canada we do leverage our strengths in certain areas. The things that we're working on, joint enablers, that Strong Secure Engaged talks about, those are the self-same areas that NATO is looking to enhance its own capacity to do, be it information

National Defence committee  It's pretty impressive.

National Defence committee  I think it depends on who you listen to in terms of why Russia is embarking upon the program it's doing in the north. Whether or not you perceive that as threat depends on who you speak to.

National Defence committee  From a military perspective, our job is to consider the worst-case scenario and be prepared, but take a look at the deep roots historically in Russia that focus on the Arctic; they're very much an Arctic nation. They have a considerable portion of their population up north with c

National Defence committee  Perhaps General Joyce could refer to the NATO approach to the Arctic and the active role that it plays.

National Defence committee  The Arctic security forces round table, which is called the northern flanks meeting as well, is where we talk about security issues. It gets together on an annual basis. I participated in the last one in northern Sweden. We have the Arctic countries coming together with a number

National Defence committee  To put it into context, too, is you ask us questions about the military instrument but we talk a lot about how the military instrument fits into the broader.... We talk about DIME: diplomatic, informational, military, economic. We've been successful, I think, in the west, in appl

National Defence committee  A great activity is the Arctic Security Forces Roundtable, which we're hosting in Halifax, May 1-3. All the Arctic countries are coming, as well as a number of observers, and we're going to talk about Arctic security.

National Defence committee  I can start off with an example yesterday. We had a two-day joint operations symposium here in Ottawa. One of the attendees was the three-star German commander of multinational core northeast, which is the superior organization to which the Latvian brigade reports. His ask of u

National Defence committee  I can supplement that too. Like General Joyce, I was the wing commander of 14 Wing Greenwood in Nova Scotia, which is a small area in Annapolis Valley in southwest Nova Scotia. One of my roles was to interact with the community and build relationships with the community. One of

National Defence committee  The answer to that is really that we're a part of the information network, so when a missile launch is detected through NORAD and through the Canadian connection to NORAD, that information is passed to government. It's not the Canadian Forces' responsibility to activate those civ

National Defence committee  I would say that NATO is involved in the warning piece, and NATO would also be notified of a potential missile launch. In terms of the impact of a strike within North America, our ability to handle that on our own, and then in the context of Article 5 and Canada and North Americ

National Defence committee  You're going to push hard for metrics on something that requires activity on a number of levels, from procurement to procedures, tactics, and documentation. In NATO the interoperability is enhanced by a well-greased series of things that bring interoperability to bear. We're a pa