National Defence committee  When it comes to Taiwan, one thing we should be working on and pursuing is welcoming Taiwan into the trans-Pacific partnership trade agreement and supporting Taiwan's position or seat in various international organizations where the Chinese have indicated they don't want them to

National Defence committee  Yes, absolutely. Taiwan is an important trading partner. It's important to send a strong message to our friends and allies in the region that we are strong supporters of Taiwan. There is creative ambiguity going back to the Taiwan act of 1972. Occasionally President Biden has o

National Defence committee  I think it's fair to say the next domain of warfare—and we're already in it—is in what I would call the pre-attack phase, shortened warning times through satellite blinding, anti-satellite activities and capabilities, which both Russia and China are investing heavily in, and a ne

National Defence committee  First of all, I think it makes us look very foolish with our Five Eyes partners who wonder why, again, we've been taking our sweet time to make a decision that they've already made. It has also proven quite costly with our telcos, although some of them have essentially voted with

National Defence committee  I think we have something like Germany has, which is to start now to develop our disaster civilian protection and disaster management systems, and to start building a semi-professional volunteer force that can deal with those kinds of natural disasters. I mean, that could be a gr

National Defence committee  Is that directed at me or Marcus?

National Defence committee  We're using our military domestically for various kinds of disasters, emergency kinds of activities. I would suggest that's not a very good use of our military. It's a very expensive snow shovel to send to Newfoundland. We should be following the German example. They have an all-

National Defence committee  To be charitable, in recent years, we are obviously participating in RIMPAC exercises. We sent a frigate through the Taiwan Strait with our American friends and others, but showing up for the occasional what I would call “naval cameo appearance”, and I don't mean to be overly sar

National Defence committee  The challenge right now is that we're once again being pulled towards Europe and Russia and, depending on how that story unfolds—and I don't have any better tea leaves in my teacup than anybody else—I think one of the challenges is going to be to develop what I would call “dual c

National Defence committee  I assume that was directed to me. Absolutely, there is a risk. There's a risk whenever you provide weaponry to another state, even so-called strong states, in terms of how they might be used by state authorities or fall into the wrong hands if there's a collapse of the state. I

National Defence committee  The major threat is geopolitical. I tried to stress that in my opening remarks. It's not [Technical difficulty—Editor] that Russia poses to our NATO allies and obviously to our friends in Ukraine right now, but it is the other bully on the global stage, and that's China, which is

National Defence committee  We need to build the size of our armed forces with more personnel, certainly fill the shortfall that we have now. We need to acquire new ships, new aircraft, new cyber-capabilities of the kinds that were discussed, and to work more closely with our allies, not just in Europe but

National Defence committee  You have to make some tough choices. As we've just heard from Marcus, there are cyber-attacks and cyber-influences when it comes to social media discussions in this country. The question is, who should do it? When it comes to some of the things Marcus was talking about, that's a

National Defence committee  I don't think we have a grip, to be honest. The threat up there is growing from the Chinese who are building heavy icebreakers equipped with weapons and others who see the Arctic as not just a place to exploit natural resources but of transit and military competition.

National Defence committee  I don't think there's that much to elaborate. There were predictions that an attack was imminent. By the way, those remarks were quoted in the The Globe and Mail. There had been a lot of discussion in this country about providing lethal aid, pivoting away from our commitment