National Defence committee  I wasn't ambassador to NATO at the time.

National Defence committee  I was political director at the time. I was there that Friday afternoon—their morning—when Russia marched into Crimea. I know from NATO and I know from a Canadian security perspective that we had been tracking for quite a while the shift in Russian behaviour. In 2008 they starte

National Defence committee  Yes. The NATO parliamentary association is an absolutely key actor in telling Canadians how important NATO is for Canada, so thank you. I would also give a shout-out to the NATO Association of Canada and model NATO meetings. The more the merrier. We're happy to support that.

National Defence committee  We have a lot of nuclear expertise here. The chair is William Alberque, a member of the NATO international staff. The deputy secretary general of NATO, Rose Gottemoeller, is a colleague of mine whom I've been working with for a long time, and she, too, is an expert in all matters

National Defence committee  Our interest in the international rules-based system has remained constant. How NATO expresses that has shifted over time. During the Cold War, there was a very clear focus on collective defence. With the end of the Cold War, there's been a very clear focus on out-of-area crisis

National Defence committee  Just for NATO?

National Defence committee  I'm going to start with Latvia, and I cannot overstate how important the signal was of Canada taking on that framework-nation role in Latvia. As General Hainse said, Canada's back in Europe in some kind of sustained presence. It also showed that we cared about the alliance and th

National Defence committee  The challenge with the ban treaty is not only in relation to NATO's nuclear deterrence, but also to the non-proliferation treaty. In many respects, it undercuts the NPT and can be seen to be undercutting some of the mechanisms embedded in the NPT. Honestly, we don't think that th

National Defence committee  There is indeed. You will recall that at the Wales summit, NATO took a decision that it would suspend practical co-operation with Russia. That was following the illegal annexation of Crimea. Since then the Russian destabilizing activities in the Donbass have increased exponential

National Defence committee  Article 5 has grown with the times. It is embedded in international humanitarian law, the law of self-defence. It's clear that this body of law has evolved over time to recognize that an armed attack can take different forms, and yet will still reach that article 5 threshold. For

National Defence committee  What I said is that the ratification and the signing of a nuclear ban treaty would run counter to our commitments inside NATO. I haven't worked as a lawyer for decades and it really wouldn't be a good idea for me, off the top of my head, to give a legal opinion.

National Defence committee  What I can tell you is that, at the North Atlantic Council, both at the ambassadorial level and at the ministerial level, we have had multiple meetings of the NPG, multiple discussions of nuclear non-proliferation, disarmament, and the nuclear deterrent. The committee you refer

National Defence committee  I think I can get back with a written answer on that one, if that's all right.

National Defence committee  The political role of NATO runs across the whole alliance, on the military side and the civilian side. For instance, the Supreme Allied Commander Europe has a diplomatic role, as does the commandant of the NATO Defence College, and so on. The political work is supported across th

National Defence committee  The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons goes much further than simply banning the possession of nuclear weapons on a nation's own soil. It prohibits a range of activities—the transfer, deployment, stationing, or stockpiling of nuclear weapons under any circumstances. Als