National Defence committee  I know I have to keep this short.

National Defence committee  Okay, that's about as short as I can go. The problem for our forces deploying overseas is they tend to have a very simple mission set. They have to be able to shoot, to move, communicate, and protect themselves, and those are all very situational, depending on what they're thrus

National Defence committee  I'll jump into the fray. For years in NATO discussions there was debate over what collective balanced forces meant, and NATO policy had been for years that every nation's responsible for ensuring they have a collective balanced force. Every country kind of iterates how they ans

National Defence committee  Part of the recognition of the real strengthening of core central strategic assets that has happened in the 15 years is important. When Canada signed on to the R2P protocols--the responsibility to protect--some argued that there is a codicil to that: the ability to project. You

National Defence committee  I'll talk for a second. It's less the issue of.... On the CF readiness side, there's one set of problems for the CF to handle. The wider issues of the types of defence problems that might confront the country, of course, are wider than the CF, and they are governmental affairs.

National Defence committee  Office of.... I forget. What was it?

National Defence committee  Critical Infrastructure Protection.

National Defence committee  Well, it has now changed, because the Department of Public Safety has taken it over.

National Defence committee  But at first blush when it's created and the whole of government gets together and says “look at all these emerging types of threat issues”, is there a single point that is thinking about them and even putting them on the agenda? So they started with OCIPEP. It took several years

National Defence committee  Well, and also no option to say no, largely.

National Defence committee  I think it just highlights the problem. We have to have a certain type of conventional military force, because conventional military challenges remain. Investing in esoteric threats doesn't always seem cost-effective, and we have an organization that is used to just lumbering on

National Defence committee  Thank you, sir. I must point out that these are personal comments, and they are not reflective of the opinion of the Department of National Defence. I'll read most of my statement. As a historian, I am pretty loath to make any predictions of what the future is going to look li