National Defence committee  My suggestion is that we could actually save some money by using the coast guard or developing the coast guard and having it partner with the Canadian Forces. One needs to think about this in terms of what it actually takes to provide a presence and also an interdiction capacity,

National Defence committee  I don't know if the costing has been done precisely, but I've certainly asked many people, including the coast guard, what it would take to provide these kinds of vessels. One of the issues—and you'll will be very sensitive to this as someone from the Atlantic provinces—is wheth

National Defence committee  I'll start with a short answer to the question before handing it over to Greg. First of all, on the Northwest Passage, it is important to remember that the principal opponent of Canada's legal position is the United States, and both the United States and Canada are members of NA

National Defence committee  I would simply like to point out that the American four-star general in charge of NORAD was very quick to correct the Canadian Minister of Defence by pointing out that the Russian planes came nowhere close to Canadian airspace, and that “the Russians acted professionally”. It i

National Defence committee  I will keep it very short, Monsieur Coderre. First of all, you're absolutely right, I think the coast guard is an orphan in terms of the federal bureaucracy in Ottawa, and placing it underneath the umbrella of the Department of National Defence would be a good thing as long as

National Defence committee  Thank you very much, Monsieur Bernier, for inviting me. As you probably know, I am the leader of two ArcticNet projects on Arctic sovereignty, ArcticNet being a consortium of more than 100 scientists from 27 Canadian universities and five federal departments. I've also travelled

Foreign Affairs committee  I have thought about it, and I can see arguments in favour of the status quo and arguments in favour of a merger. My own view, having watched past efforts to divide Foreign Affairs from International Trade and then put them back together, is that you create a lot of work for pu

Foreign Affairs committee  I think we could contribute quite significantly with regard to relations with China. We're certainly seeing that Secretary of State Clinton has made that a big priority for herself. We have experience, we have an enormous expatriate community, and we have quite significant ling

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you. Merci beaucoup.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, although we have to be careful not to rest on our laurels. Just because we got it right in the past doesn't mean we should stop there. We do have credibility on the financial regulation dimension, but we're losing credibility on other issues, like, for instance, on security

Foreign Affairs committee  I think that's one of a number of different things that would contribute to strengthening our profile as an international actor. I know there are complexities involved in creating a national securities regulator and I know we haven't had any disasters because of the lack of one,

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, absolutely. I think we do ourselves and the United States a disservice by postponing diplomatic engagement on this issue. Postponing diplomatic engagement was a viable option 20 years ago, before the ice started to melt. But during the last two summers the Northwest Passag

Foreign Affairs committee  When the United States does its seabed mapping, it almost immediately puts all of its data up on the Internet for everyone to see. They believe in transparency and that international cooperation, not just with Canada but with countries like Russia, is actually furthered by being

Foreign Affairs committee  That's a difficult question. It's a sensitive question. I'll give you a straight response, which is that a decentralized country like Canada does sacrifice some of its weight in the world by not speaking with one voice. Countries like the United Kingdom or France, which are relat

Foreign Affairs committee  Oh, I'm a big proponent of international dialogue and as many ties as possible. But there's a difference between having lots of international ties and actually sitting across the table from another country's representatives and actually negotiating a deal on a critical issue of f