National Defence committee  I can't be a bigger fan of what we've seen for the Arctic Council. Let's be clear—and once again it's a bipartisan push—that both Mulroney and Chrétien deserve a lot of credit for their push and support of the Arctic Council. When Canada put the Arctic Council forward, that's pre

National Defence committee  This is the hard one, because we have attempted to bring in a greater independence, a greater withdrawal from the international community. We see this in the inter-war period. We see some of the issues in terms of when Trudeau brought forward the defence and foreign policy review

National Defence committee  The last point is if it's not the F-35, we're going to need something along that line. We need something that has stealth capability. We need something that is going to be under Canadian control, and we're going to need something that provides us with the fast air capability of g

National Defence committee  That's the problem. This is why countries like Norway and Australia, as much as it's paining them from an expense perspective, have not pulled out. They're hoping the Americans do not reduce the numbers. The critical point is not how much the Australians or the Norwegians or us,

National Defence committee  Of course, the critical point that we often forget, once we have the Arctic offshore patrol vessels, is if you're sending forces from Halifax up to Nanisivik, you're travelling a distance that is greater than if you're sending those same vessels to London. I think a lot of people

National Defence committee  I need to choose my words carefully here. I like the direction in which the Harper white paper went. Let's be blunt; it's a white paper. We don't call it that, but that's in effect what it is. I like the attempt it has made in maintaining what I see as a bipartisan recognition t

National Defence committee  If we're going to be honest with ourselves, it's going to be somewhere where we don't think of it. Once again, if you look back at the end of the Cold War, you'll see that nobody was thinking we'd be going into Yugoslavia to the degree we did. Regarding East Timor, no one was th

National Defence committee  If we look into the future, the two certainties I would say about the Canadian Forces are that we are going to have to ensure that we have the ability to maintain the protection of North America and our part of aerospace protection, and that we remain a country that sees its secu

National Defence committee  Absolutely. Going with our allies is the best. Let me be clear on that. My idea would be to let the Europeans figure out their crisis with the euro and the Greeks, and let the Americans figure out how to get out of political deadlock. Meanwhile, we can proceed as we proceeded for

National Defence committee  The key to interoperability is communication. When push comes to shove, interoperability depends on the ability to communicate, to integrate intelligence. The type of environment, the type of future, I'm talking about is one in which we won't be operating strictly by ourselves bu

National Defence committee  I like our plan. You can see the change that we have in our thinking. It goes back to the Martin administration. That's where we start to see the Arctic figuring quite prominently. The Harper government has followed through in both enforcement and in surveillance capability. The

National Defence committee  I would say the most important is that we need to have that strategic independent analysis. I think the types of reports General Leslie provided in transformation is a critical point for the structural organization, but I do think it's missing the point that we need to start look

National Defence committee  The first step is to create a greater independent mindset amongst our senior military and political decision-makers when it comes to issue of security. We are going to have to be acting on our own, so that means in the context of not thinking just simply about how you deal with t

National Defence committee  Thank you very much. It is indeed my privilege to be here to address you. My apologies for being a couple of minutes late. My taxi driver dropped me off at the wrong block, even though I got into an argument with him about which one it was.

National Defence committee  He was pretty insistent that the West Block was the East Block.