National Defence committee  It's a great question, but you know, I'm not sure that trying to move in that direction is a role that we would want to take on as a nation in the current environment. Quite frankly, as abhorrent as nuclear weapons are, their presence has undoubtedly contributed to global secur

National Defence committee  Absolutely. We are future loading so much of our defence capability that I believe a lot of it is at risk of being maintained. It's very much a problem.

National Defence committee  NATO is founded on the principle of One for all, and all for one. The proof is in the action. For them, this is not something they can trust. We need to do something to show that we intend to be there if a threat arises. That's necessary after what happened in Georgia, in Ukr

National Defence committee  It's not uncommon for AORs, tankers, not to be armed. Some of our allies operate their vessels in that way, and sometimes they've had to, as one might say, “button on” capability to a particular vessel if it has gone into an area where there's been a particular threat. A decade

National Defence committee  Well, I would say wholly inadequate. Quite simply, we just don't have.... We have 12 Canadian patrol frigates, the world's longest coast line, a desire to contribute to deployed operations around the world. Our navy, I would say is, in my personal view, ridiculously small for a

National Defence committee  In my opening remarks I spoke about Canada aspiring to leadership. We aspire to leadership of military operations as well. So that's one aspect of why submarines are very important. If you want to produce senior military or naval leaders who have a broad understanding of how to

National Defence committee  The decision related to AWACS was made while I was in Brussels, and only for budgetary reasons. Nevertheless, NATO could not use those airplanes because some countries among the many participants felt that those operations were not appropriate for NATO, especially those against r

National Defence committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ladies and gentlemen, it's a real pleasure to be here this morning and have an opportunity to share some of my ideas on the subject of NATO and more broadly on national defence. My ideas and my thoughts are largely formed from a period of five years in B