National Defence committee  I'll stay for three, and then I have to run.

National Defence committee  It's a good question. In the short term, Irving shipyards in Halifax have done the refits of the frigates that the admiral talked about. They are working on, I believe, the Arctic vessels, or they're starting to work on them. They have the contract for the major service vessels.

National Defence committee  Yes, and they're very pleased. Yes, I know.

National Defence committee  I don't disagree. I'm just saying it's going to be an uphill battle, in my view. That's all I'm saying.

National Defence committee  Thank you for having me.

National Defence committee  I would add that if Turkey's behaviour, or any other country's, became totally egregious, it would not be a matter for the North Atlantic Council. Heads of government and heads of state would decide there's a problem and they have to do something about it. It's not just Turkey.

National Defence committee  I'll just try to answer a little bit on that, and I'm sure Rob will have something to say. I think one of the things we have to do is to be careful about being too self-congratulatory. I actually agree with my two colleagues that our contributions are very good. They're very eff

National Defence committee  It's a real problem for Canada, I think, because fundamentally, Canadians don't feel threatened. We have three oceans, and we have the United States.

National Defence committee  We are. I don't know if this committee went across Canada. One way to spread the word is to ask the House for permission to hold hearings across the country. It's for Parliament or for the government to provide additional funding to think tanks and academics so that there can be

National Defence committee  There's an expression in French: “Charity begins at home.” In other words, you start by worrying about your own backyard. I think the Arctic is an area of considerable concern. The Russians have spent hundreds of millions of rubles reinvigorating Cold War bases, and I think

National Defence committee  Yes, exactly. There should be a NATO interest in what they are up to in the Arctic.

National Defence committee  I think we should increase our intelligence capabilities, which have been allowed to weaken a little bit over time. I think we should have far more exercises in the north. In the past, and Denis can correct me, but generally speaking, when NATO does exercises it involves the U.S

National Defence committee  What I was going to add to what Rob said was that I think the Canadian public is generally ill-informed. I think that is in part because successive governments—I am not focusing on a particular government, neither the current one nor previous ones—have not commented on the level

National Defence committee  Well, I think, Mr. Chairman, that's a very good question, but to some considerable degree, as the question implies, the barn door has been opened. Having said that, I think we engage them, and we engage them rather more than we have been over the last several years. There has d

National Defence committee  Well, they do, but I think they're doing it mostly to irritate people right now and to make a point with the Kurds and Syria, but if you look at Russia as it is as a country, and Turkey as it is, there are not a lot of similarities, and I don't think there's much convergence of t