Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for the invitation to speak to you today as part of your study on Canadian sovereignty in our Arctic. For my opening remarks, knowing that I would be testifying alongside Dr. Charron, whose views on sovereignty I almos

Foreign Affairs committee  I'll go first if that's okay, Dr. Charron. I would disagree with that assessment. I would agree with the assessment by officials at NORAD that both Russia and China do present threats to Canada. I would also add—

Foreign Affairs committee  More generally, but particularly through the Arctic, because like it or not, our Arctic is between at least portions of those countries and over flight paths to the rest of Canada and the United States. Even if we don't think there's a direct threat to Canada, I think that most

Foreign Affairs committee  They would seem to differ, because the only Canadian officials, to my recollection, who would adopt the same characterization that I have are those working for the NORAD command in Colorado Springs.

Foreign Affairs committee  Intentions can change a lot faster than capability. Certainly in the case of the Russian government, they now have the capability. They've demonstrated it in Syria, and if you draw straight-line distances from what they have demonstrated in that country, then we have room to be c

Foreign Affairs committee  I think it should, because I don't understand the logic of having that bifurcated approach.

Foreign Affairs committee  For me, taking a defence approach, it should be placed more on the defence infrastructure. There's been a lot of focus in recent years on some of that other socio-economic development. I would fundamentally agree there's a need for it, but I think there hasn't been enough attenti

Foreign Affairs committee  At the present time, yes.

Foreign Affairs committee  The ultimate goal would be to spend the money and never have to use it. That would be the ultimate example of deterrents working. You spend that money and you don't ever have to actually employ it in an operational sense. To me, that would actually be a very good outcome of doing

Foreign Affairs committee  I would say as a preface to the rest of the response that the existing defence policy that was published in June 2017 would provide more resources to do the types of things that I'm talking about, once they're actually acquired and delivered. There's already a plan in the works,

Foreign Affairs committee  I think that would be a very good idea, yes.

Foreign Affairs committee  I would add that, if we're looking at addressing some of our core defence considerations, then we should actually try to address the core defence considerations in doing so. If you can get socio-economic spinoff as a result, that's fantastic. However, I think there are actual, cl

Foreign Affairs committee  Briefly, I would say that having more communications is better. Both the civilian economy and the military would use those communications devices, but the military needs specific encrypted, secure communications that in some instances are separate from those that could be used mo

Foreign Affairs committee  The Russian ones, yes, but I'm not sure those would necessarily be the ones that people see operating in our own waters. I think there's a strong likelihood that they could be American, British or French, in which case I personally don't have that much concern, because those are

Foreign Affairs committee  I would agree with my colleague on pretty much all of that. I think the one issue that I would add is that what I'm talking about in terms of some of the response for defence considerations provides us both with more awareness, which helps enhance whatever definition of sovereign