National Defence committee  Just so that I'm perfectly clear, for the submarines you have to have increased underwater acoustic capabilities. We're not at the stage where satellites can do it yet--but yes, for the overall picture, absolutely.

National Defence committee  There are two categories of risk. There is first of all the ones that are high probability, low impact--the type of company, for example, that says, “I have a ship that's pretty substandard. I'm still able to get insurance for it, and I'm going to take a quick run through the Nor

National Defence committee  Basically, on each of the individual issues.... For example, with organized crime, you ensure that the RCMP is able to cooperate with those individuals who have had experience, let's say, with organized crime in diamonds. You ensure that you are able to monitor. It is an individu

National Defence committee  They are an amazing group, to be honest. With the type of traditional knowledge they give, the ability they have, the manner in which they can train our forces is excellent. I think we are going in the right direction, and this started as early as around 1994, when we started b

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.

National Defence committee  Yes. This is an intriguing subject, of course, and one that I think the committee is very well advised to be addressing. Given the types of changes that we are now experiencing, both in the context of the international security sphere and in the context of the Canadian security

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  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 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