National Defence committee  Thank you very much. It's indeed a pleasure to again be invited to testify before this very important committee that's examining a very important issue. I would also like to say thanks to both Alex and Robert for their initiative, because our students at the University of Calga

National Defence committee  You need the sovereignty to have the defence, because you have to recognize what sovereignty ultimately is—the right to govern yourself. You want to do that for a purpose—

National Defence committee  It remains a sovereign nation in that the truest threats to the existence of the Canadian state are being deterred by NATO and by Canadian participation. By extension, our sovereignty is defended by being a member of NATO.

National Defence committee  Absolutely, and in terms of the AOPS, of course, they're being designed more for a constabulatory role, which is something that I confess I've been critical of, but for the next surface combatant, one of the major things they will need to do is to have an anti-submarine capabilit

National Defence committee  It seems to follow on what both the Conservatives and Liberals have said in terms of the importance of maintaining our leadership, and with the individuals we have, absolutely I would agree with that idea.

National Defence committee  Absolutely. This is something my students always have difficulty accepting, but even with the end of the Cold War, up to 2017, nuclear deterrence still remains the core security policy of the eight nuclear powers. Having said that, if you're going try to talk about disarmament, t

National Defence committee  There is your assumption within that question. Look at what both the Russians and the Americans immediately got rid of as relationships got better in 1988. The classification that the Russians first got rid of were their oldest nuclear strategic weapons, of course, but the next c

National Defence committee  I'd like to interject at this point, too. In my view, one of the most important impacts, or the educational basis, has to be a bipartisan or tripartisan understanding of the core security threats facing Canada. The education and leadership that our political elites provide direct

National Defence committee  I'm going to have to confess a bit of ignorance here, and it's something I'm quite ashamed of. I'm afraid your French went faster than I could understand, and the translation didn't come through, unfortunately. I didn't quite get the gist of your question. I'm very sorry, sir.

National Defence committee  The major issue is, first—and you've nailed it, sir—the situational awareness piece. I think there's been a growing recognition that we do not have the type of intelligence sharing for the high north that is ultimately needed in this context. We've seen, since 2007, the Russians

National Defence committee  Absolutely. Thank you, sir, for the very good question. I would like to make it very clear, I do appreciate what the government came up with in terms of Arctic recognition. They recognized that Russia has moved away from a rules-based international system, but more specifically,

National Defence committee  This is what I'm reading into the Liberal defence policy, because up until its announcement, Canada has always had an official policy that even when we invite NATO allies to have exercises with us in the Arctic, they are always under Canadian sovereign control. We never call it a

National Defence committee  Yes, I do. The first thing, of course—I'll just echo—is the intelligence sharing. In other words, we are not going to hear about what they are really doing well in terms of giving the briefing. What has proven to be one of the more challenging issues for NATO is dealing with on

National Defence committee  One of the programs that used to have tremendous impact in allowing us to reach students was called the security and defence forum. It was created under the Pierre Trudeau administration and subsequently supported on a bipartisan basis. This was a five-year program from DND, with

National Defence committee  You answered part of the answer I was going to give. It's at the attribution issue. The big challenge that we're facing in terms of cyber-attacks is that they are becoming increasingly sophisticated in hiding their footprint. We see, once again, that this is part of the methodol