Steve Pacin: Hi everybody, I'm Steve Pacin and we are here on the site of the former Royal Canadian Air Force Station Downs View for the first edition of TVO Today Live for 2026. This is hangar A of the Bombardier Center for Aerospace and Aviation at Centennial Colleg's dedicated aerospace campus. It's all part of the DAREHub, D AIR, Downs View Aerospace Innovation and Research. And we are here because in what seems like an increasingly dangerous world, Canada is revitalizing and restoring its military. This site once cranked out dehavlin moths and mosquitoes for World War II Allied forces and was an active RCAF base right up until the 1990s. For decades, Canada punched well above its weight militarily. That waned as funding and frankly interest shrank. Now, with billions reallocated to rearm and revive it, what kind of fighting force can and should Canada have, and how do we equip for that mission? Before we start, I want to say thank you to Red Wilson. He heads up the Wilson Foundation. Ever since this TVO Today live series began, Red Wilson has been there for us, offering us the support and funding we need to do these programs. So, Sheldon, take a shot of everybody here. We got an overflow crowd on the bleachers at the back there and everybody gets in for free because Red Wilson is underwriting this whole effort. So, thank you so much for that. And we are also happy as well to thank the Jackman Foundation which has now come aboard and their additional support is most welcomed as well. Now, we are delighted to have with us for this conversation today, General Wayne Heir, retired Canadian Air Force's officer with more than 30 years in the service and among several distinguished commands and deployments, was chief of Canada's defense staff from 2021 to 24. Wendy Gilmore, who for more than three decades served in Canada's foreign affairs and national defense departments, including at NATO as assistant secretary general for defense investment. and Christian Lipre, professor at the Royal Military College of Canada and Queens University and the editor most recently of Military Operations in Response to Domestic Emergencies and Global Pandemics. And how about this audience welcoming our guests here today. Thank you for coming in.

Steve Pacin: The impetus for this program was a huge bump in defense spending announced in the last federal budget. An $81 billion funding package for the Canadian Armed Forces. And I introduced you as Air Force. I meant to say armed force. Canadian Armed Forces.

Wayne Eyre将军: I wasn't going to correct you, Steve.

Steve Pacin: You should have corrected me, but as soon as the word came out of my mouth, I thought that doesn't sound right. Anyway, Canadian Armed Forces, including a Canadian procurement program. But before we even get to that, for many people, there's an elephant in the room. There's a lot of planes in the room, but there's an elephant, too. Perhaps shaped like Venezuela or Greenland. So, let us begin with the, what shall we call it, infuriating relationship we are currently having with our neighbors to the south. General, when you were the CDS Chief of Defense Staff, you underscored that whatever peace and security exists in the world is thanks to an agreed upon international rules-based order. According to our prime minister, that's done. It's over with. How concerning is that for our military?

Wayne Eyre将军: Well, it should be very concerning. And we've seen this coming for some time. In fact, in 2022, I said publicly that we were at a turning point in that global order. And what we see coming from south of the border is an accelerant to that turning point. Hey, let's face it, all global orders come and go. We've seen this for 5, 6, 700 years. But it's a period or it's a cycle of order, disorder, reorder. We are entering the disorder phase and until we find a new equilibrium, there is tremendous opportunity for miscalculation and bad things to happen.

Steve Pacin: Wendy Gilmore, how should we react to this moment in our collective history?

Wendy Gilmore: I tend to think of the British adage for keep calm and carry on. We have to understand what's going on. We have to react as calmly as possible to events, statements from President Trump in the south, international events at large, changes in the world trading order, they will all impact Canada. But what is most important is that we focus on getting our own internal processes right and that we remain as resilient as we can.

Steve Pacin: How do we keep calm in the face of all of that?

Wendy Gilmore: Well, my personal opinion is that if you're faced with a bully, you stand up and you say what is right and you try and calibrate your approach to taking into account you're protecting your own interests. But at the same time, we have to be aware, especially when our relationship with the Americans is concerned, is that we're not putting up a wall. They're not going away. We have to find a way to work with an administration, even if we may not be completely aligned or aligned at all in what it is that they're doing right now.

Steve Pacin: Christian, your view.

Christian Leuprecht: So, look, this is the 250th anniversary of George Washington during the revolutionary wars with his armies through St. Johnu marching on Quebec City where he was of course beaten back by British troops. War of 1812, Oregon boundary dispute. We think back to the Nixon era. Look, the relationship with the United States has always been difficult. And it's been difficult for two reasons. One is that the United States has always been unilateral and it asserts its interests and it has long asserted its security interests unilaterally in the hemisphere. going back to the Monroe Doctrine. The other is that if you think back to Arthur Slesinger's 1973 book, The Imperial Presidency, we've long seen an expansion of executive power in the United States from Washington through to Richard Nixon. That was then constrained by Congress. But what Schlesinger points out that these powers, executive powers expand particularly during times of conflict and during times of war and you might say that we live in a time of certainly heightened conflict. If you look at Russian and Chinese doctrine towards the west, we might say we live in a time of war. And so the expansion of executive power fits with the broader historical pattern that comes at the expense of Congress and at the expense of checks and balances. But I think my broader point is anybody who hopes this is just a momentary lapse of reason and we'll go back to the status quo auntie, that's not going to happen. So we better get ready. No, we've always had an occasionally fraught relationship with the United States, but in your experience, has it ever been like this before?

Wayne Eyre将军: No, certainly not. We have enjoyed a fantastic relationship. There's been ups and downs, but certainly from a military perspective, it has been strong. Certainly over the course of my 40 years of service. I would like to think that that strength of relationship continues if nothing else to maintain a personal relationship. so that 10, 15, 20 years from now if we're dealing with a sensitive issue that our commanders at the time can pick up the phone and sort it out. I think it's in our best interest to do that.

Steve Pacin: Do you know, because one of the reasons Donald Trump said he needed Greenland was because of the persistent present threats by either Russia or China in that part of the world. Do you know if there are any credible threats that have been picked up there? The area between Greenland and the United Kingdom centered with Iceland in the middle has been an area of focus throughout the Cold War because if there are, if the threat is coming from Russia and Russia has nuclear submarines with missiles that could threaten North America, the area that they are most likely to come down is what we used to call, we still call the GIUK gap. Greenland itself as a territory is strategically located because of the ability to place different types of sensors on it that can see and we call over the horizon, over the Arctic and elsewhere. But one of the things we have to remember is that Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark have been integrally in, part of the defense of North America for well since the Second World War. The Americans had troops during the Second World War that were were ensuring that Greenland wasn't used as a as a base for weather stations or other types of surveillance. Since the end of the Second World War, since 1951, there has been a treaty between the United States and Denmark that allows the United States fairly unfettered access to Greenlandish territory. It was updated in 2004 to encompass the the interests and frankly this the autonomy of the Greenlandish people. So it is inexplicable to me why there is this fixation from President Trump and his key advisers on owning Greenland when Greenland has always been incorporated into the defense of North America completely seamlessly.

Steve Pacin: What do what do you think accounts for the fixation to use Wendy's word for the president on Greenland?

Christian Leuprecht: So the gap is critical for instance in terms of communications. So 95% of digital communications between Europe and North America run through critical infrastructure cables that run through that gap. Russia and China have repeatedly demonstrate they have the capabilities and the intent to cut communications. And this has long been sort of the red line for Russia back to the Soviet Union in terms of protecting its nuclear assets in the Kan Peninsula and the Russian fleet in the Morman Peninsula. So yes and so we we have aggressive Russian submarine activity we have some collusion with by Russia and China but to some extent this is no different than what we saw during the cold war what we have seen is an atrophying of capabilities to contain that in particular anti-ubmarine warfare capabilities but some of those were political decisions going back to Pier Trudeau in terms of strategic ASW deciding for Canada that was actually destabilizing to engage in strategic ASW. So we had already anti- anti-ubmarine warfare capabilities.

Wendy Gilmore: But if I can say Christian that atrophying of capability is not just Canada, it's not just Denmark. It's also the American capability. The Americans have not invested in high north Arctic capabilities to the extent that I believe now they probably had wished they would. But it's it's collective decision on the part of all of the allies. So, yes and no. Because I think like we need to ask what is the threat in the Arctic? Is the threat actually different from what it was during the Cold War? Are the Russians going to show up with special forces that they're going to deploy on some Canadian territory or so? And I'm not sure the threat is that much different than what the threat has been pre previously. If you look at the US Navy, for instance, the US Navy has never really been interested in the Arctic. Much of this is left up to the US Coast Guard. And so from a Canadian perspective, we need to ask what is it that we're looking to defend against? And my sense is we need to distinguish between threats in the Arctic and threats coming through the Arctic. My sense is threats in the Arctic are not that different from what they were before. And if you're going to send a missile to North America and if you're Russia, it's much more efficient to send that missile for instance from the Pacific off the coast of Alaska or off the West Coast than it is than it is from the Arctic.

Steve Pacin: Christian, don't give them any ideas, please. All right.

Wayne Eyre将军: So Christian, I would I would take some exception to the situation is not terribly different from the cold war. You know what we have now is perhaps unprecedented in history a confluence of confluence of stressors in the security environment. Geopolitics, climate change and technological change acceleration. And those three operating together will create a very uncertain future. climate change, the Arctic is becoming much more accessible. With increased access comes increased interest. With that increased interest comes increased opportunity for tension. You have an opening up of resource potential for for resources, overlapping maritime claims, the ability to transit which greatly reduces shipping times from China to to Europe. We're seeing an unprecedented alignment between potential adversaries. Here I'm talking Russia and China. You know, the the Arctic traditionally was a wedge issue between the two of them. And it goes back to the 1800s when when Russia seized Chinese territory. But not so much anymore. And we're seeing increasing joint exercises in the Arctic, joint bomber patrols, and and so when we talk about the Arctic, we got to be thinking in strategic timelines. When you were chief of defense staff, did you ever think to yourself, "Boy, we are really vulnerable in this neighborhood in the world, and I I really hope the United States someday either invades or somehow owns Greenland to make sure we stay safe."

Wayne Eyre将军: Absolutely not. When I was chief of defense staff, I was the one arguing we got to do something about this because if we don't, somebody else will.

Steve Pacin: Yeah.

Steve Pacin: Wendy, I

Wendy Gilmore: I would also say that I I come back to the importance of the alliance and addressing all of the issues that General just mentioned. We have a collection of what I mean what were 32 like-minded countries perhaps you know one of the countries is less like-minded than it used to be the United that would be the United States with respect to we approach these issues collectively and we decide how we're going to address them that number one makes best use of our very limited resources and I agree completely that more resources are needed but most importantly reinforces the idea that we value each other's sovereignty and territorial integrity. And that's what we're trying to protect. The one thing that I always like to remind myself and others about the Arctic is that it's not just a vast white uninhabited territory that can be used as some pawn on a chessboard. There are people living there. The Greenlanders have sovereign ability to decide on their own future. They have so far decided that's within the Kingdom of Denmark. Our own Arctic peoples have treaty relationships with the crown. They have rights in their lands and their ideas and their interests have to be taken into account and they also appreciate that there is more interest in their territories that there is more access to their territories that as global warming continues and frankly our desire for all sorts of resources increases that there's going to be more outside interest but their concept of what constitutes a security threat could be very different from ours and that has to be taken into account. Christian.

Christian Leuprecht: Yeah. So, I agree with General Eron in the sense and with Andy that really that absolutely there's a change in in in scale and in pace of what's happening in that area. But I think it's also a function there's a lot of continuity. I mean 166,000 kilometers of coastline, an area that is larger than all of Europe. But if the threat was really that big, look, we have eight military bases and on a good day we might marshall eight CF-18s, three frigates that don't make it up into the Arctic. We have Arctic patrol vessels that we built that have limited capability in the Arctic. You know, would we have an entire brigade in Latvia if the threat to this country sort of was genuinely so big? But I think there are certainly changing threats. So hypersonic weapons for instance and the missiles sort of that Russia is deploying. these are certainly a change in scale and so having cold war era radar stations for instance is simply not going to meet the moment and if you look at the new US defense strategy it is very clear we want to work with allies in terms of protecting our interests and we want to work with partners and allies in the hemisphere to protect the hemisphere in particular and if allies and partners are not going to work with us then the US will do it unilaterally that's why the US keeps

Steve Pacin: I I heard the last part of that I don't recall hearing the first part of that which is that we want to work with our allies to ensure the safety of the hemisphere.

Christian Leuprecht: Um it's in the just released defense strategy it says so explicitly and it mentions Canada explicitly in that context.

Steve Pacin: Well, let me pick up on that. In your experience, how intertwined were Canadian and American military officials, soldiers, strategies, etc. in order to do all the things we've been talking about?

Wayne Eyre将军: So, so firstly, let me go back to Christian's comment. This is nothing new. Um, often when I would meet with my American counterparts, and this is under the Biden administration, the Arctic was at the top of their their list of talking points. What are you doing about the Arctic? Um, so what we need to do is make oursel the indispensable partner in terms of securing the Arctic. So again, somebody doesn't have to do it for us and and we lose sovereignty in the in the process. Now, Steve, to your your question, um, we are very interoperable. Um, you know, I myself spent two years on exchange as a deputy commander of a of a airborne corps, number three in a headquarters with 105,000 troops under command. Uh, so there was a high degree of trust. Uh, and that comes from decades and decades of working together.

Steve Pacin: Which administration was in control when that was happening?

Wayne Eyre将军: Uh, at that point, that was the Obama administration.

Steve Pacin: Okay. So not Trump.

Wayne Eyre将军: Subsequently, I was in Korea as a deputy commander to an American fourstar. Uh, in fact, I was in the demilitarized zone when Trump visited with Kim Jong-un. So, that's a whole another story. Um, but, uh, those relationships run deep.

Steve Pacin: Yeah,

Steve Pacin: Wendy,

Wendy Gilmore: I think it I mean, like General, I absolutely believe that we have to foster and continue the professional relationships we have and frankly people-to-people relationships across the border. Canada and the US are never going to be separated from one another. We also have to have a very cleareyed view of the intent of the current administration. And yes, they have a new defense strategy that has been released further to their national security strategy. And while it mentions allies and partners, it's very much in the context of if we think they're useful, we will use them. If they are working in our interest, there's no sense of a collective interest of what is good for all, which is frankly what the whole NATO alliance is based on. And so then, you know what? I I do agree absolutely with the sense that we have to step up. We have to make these investments. We have to do them even more quickly in our own capabilities so that we defend ourselves and I think there's been some academic research defend ourselves against help. The Americans are going to do it one way or the other. We have to prove that we are there first and capable so that we can avoid the ultimate loss of sovereignty that will result if they decide that something needs doing and we're not prepared to do

Steve Pacin: But I think Christian, both sides, both countries, Canada and the United States, saw it as in their mutual interest over the years to have this relationship, this interoperability

Christian Leuprecht: because we've had a decent level of trust with each other. And I'm wondering if today we can say this relationship may look more like a liability than an asset. What do you think?

Christian Leuprecht: Well, so let's think back of how this came to be, right? Right. So it came back to the beginning of the Second World War and a US concern that Canada may not be able to defend itself if attacked. And so a proposal by the US that the Americans might need to deoil troops on Canadian soil to which the Canadian prime minister at the time struck a quasi sort of strategic agreement with the United States that we would work together to keep the threats of the world as far away from our shores as we can. This then translates into what the US calls sort of the rim strategy. So you want to keep the threats on the Atlantic rim and on the Pacific Rim and work with allies and partners there and in relationship with Canada to to be able to assert that. And I would say that strategy has made North America the most stable, the most prosperous, possibly the most desirable continent in the history of the world. And I worry that we have forgotten, especially as Canadians, what got us to that special moment that Canada is in today. because I think we've forgotten that strategic dimension of why we got into that relationship with the United States in the first place. Now, we might disagree with the perspectives that the United States has and that how the United States looks at the world. But look, you know, in the antiquity, the center of sort of the world was, you know, from a western perspective, the Mediterranean that then shifted with sort of colonial modern sort of times to the Atlantic and clearly that center of gravity is shifting to the Indo-Pacific. So we have a significant sort of restructuring of of global dynamics and I'm not sure that Canada and allies sort of have really sort of kept pace with that over the last 25 years and we love to complain about what's coming out of the US administration and so forth. But I would also say we need to take some responsibility.

Steve Pacin: Well that's it. We've let our capabilities atrophy for 25 years.

Wayne Eyre将军: Let's be blunt about this. We've been seen as the lagards in NATO for 50 60 years. Right. That's fair to say. Well, Canadian military history is one of unpreparedness. You know, if we take a look at 1914, 1939, 1950, 2001, 2022, yeah, we have not been ready. Well, now the signs are clear. We've got to be ready. The currency of international relations is now hard power. You want a seat at the table, you got to have something to back it up. A country's military is it ultimate insurance policy, and we have not been paying the premiums.

Steve Pacin: How important to NATO has Canada been?

Wendy Gilmore: So I I take some umbrage at the thought that we've been seen as a lagard. Certainly not throughout the course of NATO Canada. I mean we we have not invested in domestic capability because we have had significant capabilities in Europe. Up until the early 90s we had a brigade land forces, we had air forces. We have always been part of standing naval fleet at Atlantic. Um since then we have been in an operational capacity in every operation that NATO has had.

Steve Pacin: But we've never hit 2% of GDP since 2014 when the 2% target was established.

Wendy Gilmore: No, we haven't. And there I mean I would be the first and frankly have argued over the course of my career that we need to be investing more. We need to have done it earlier and we need to have done it better. That being said, the whether we consider a 2% an arbitrary target and whether we will have succeeded when we hit 2% is to me a complete misnomer. We need to make a realistic assessment on what it is that Canada needs, put a value against that and get on with the business of investing. If you I I would just not to to complicate things unnecessarily, but the 2% figure and what is now actually a 5% figure is a costing of what are the military assets that are required in order to meet the plans that have been established for the defense of the Euroatlantic area under NATO. Sacker's area of responsibility, Supreme Allied Commander Europe. That doesn't include North America. So, if we were being completely realistic and we wanted to pay play our part in the current NATO operational plannings, our target would have to be a lot more because we have other things to do other than simply defend Europe.

Steve Pacin: Having said that, how confident are you that the announcement that the current prime minister has made that we're going to go to 5% of GDP for military spending that that's actually going to happen?

Wayne Eyre将军: Well, one one thing that the military does not have the luxury of is determining what political decisions are going to come out and whether those political decisions are going to be upheld in the years to come. I just want to go back to Wendy's point on on defense spending. Hey, the the percentage of GDP is not a good metric. That is an input metric. Much better defense planning is threat based. So you take a look at the threats the country is facing and you determine what capabilities and readiness are necessary to address those threats. Um very very difficult to do. So NATO settles on this input metric. It is far from perfect. Um but it is a target nonetheless.

Steve Pacin: Well that's the thing. I mean it may be far from perfect but it's the one that everybody's agreed upon and the one we've never hit.

Steve Pacin: So does that not make us look a little weak in the eyes of everybody else?

Wayne Eyre将军: Yes it does. And I saw Canada's stock in freef fall in the period 2022 2023 certainly after Russia's brutal invasion of of Ukraine in in February of 22 where our allies were were increasing their spending were increasing their investments and we were discussing

Steve Pacin: discussing is NORAD still a big deal for Canada and the United States in your view Christian?

Christian Leuprecht: I think it is a big deal in term of functional arrangement but it's also symbolically a big deal and it's a really important question for us to ask because for instance I think personally my view if we didn't buy the F-35 that would be a huge irritant to the Trump administration and it might accelerate an atrophying of NORAD that we've already seen we've seen an atrophying as a result of technological change in particular the weapon systems and radar systems but we've also seen an atrophing as a result of organizational and restruct structuring and the latest of that is of course the announcement of the hemispheric or America's commands. So taking the six combatant commands and territorial commands and putting them into an international and the hemispheric command and we've seen the defense strategy the mandates for that command that might be more difficult to reconcile with some Canadian priorities in terms of sort of narco drug trafficking in the Caribbean and stuff although we've always had a had a role in this. So one of my concerns is that we want to hang on to NORAD both for functional reasons because why do we get into NORAD to begin with because we would never have as a modest economy the capabilities to defend the Arctic on our own. And so we needed this functional arrangement. But if it is atrophying for a host of reasons then that means the prospect of more US control of the Arctic which cannot be in Canadian in Canadian interests ultimately. So we need strong capabilities in the Canadian Joint Operations Command, not just for the purpose of force projection and contributions across the Atlantic and and the Pacific, but in terms of continental defense in order to work with the Americans ultimately at eye level. And that is good not just for our continental defense. It is also good for our political and our military arrangements because whether it's Norat or NATO, if you don't have robust instruments of statecraftraft, your voice is going to be significantly diminished in both the bational relationship and in the multilateral relationship around the table with NATO.

Steve Pacin: General, you wanted to add?

Wayne Eyre将军: Well, I'll just jump into what Christian was saying there. Um the functional part was really driven home to me when we were shooting down balloons in early 2023 as they were coming in from the western Pacific over Alaska and that integration or that early warning of what was coming was quite frankly essential. What we need though on the functional piece and this is how what what the Americans want of us is they see a key vulnerability if you look at the continent from the 10:00 to the 2:00 position over Canadian territory. It's not covered with sensors. How do we make ourselves the indispensable partner through Canadian sensors that go right from space to the seabed so that we know what is happening in our territory and the approaches to it.

Steve Pacin: Can I ask you about this new national defense strategy or national security strategy that the Americans unveiled towards the end of last year which basically said I'm going to paraphrase for simplicity here but basically said the Western Hemisphere is ours and we'll do whatever we like and you know if it's if it's theirs the presumption is I guess we're not part of it anymore. I don't know. How much should all of that determine what and how we spend our money on to rearm ourselves for defense purposes?

Wendy Gilmore: I think it's important, but I would also go back to the keep calm and carry on premise. We need to do, I believe, Canada needs to look what do we want to be able to do for our own security. Where are we prepared to do it on our own and pay for it? What do we need to do with our allies? And in particular, I mean, again, we're not we're not losing the Americans. No matter how difficult or good, easy they are to work with, hard they are to work with, they're still going to be there. So, we have to figure out how do we bring our own capabilities to the table so that we get a voice. And I would come back just quickly to NORAD. I spent two years as the political adviser to Commander NORAD who American commander. I was a Canadian diplomat sitting at his sort of, you know, behind occasionally whispering in his ear.

Steve Pacin: Was that ever awkward?

Wendy Gilmore: It was, I thought, a real privilege because we have in NORAD a treaty- based relationship that looks explicitly at certain areas of our security, aerospace control, aerospace warning, maritime warning. In those areas, Canada and the US have established processes and procedures and command relationships where we are working seamlessly together.

Steve Pacin: So, how'd you feel a few days ago when you read in the Globe and Mail that we're drawing up plans to defend ourselves from a US invasion?

Wendy Gilmore: I think we should have the whole point and I I would look to my my wonderful colleague General the whole point of a military is that they are the best planners in the world and I would like to think they have plans for as many contingencies as possible whether it's an invasion from our neighbors to the south whether it's you know pick pick your threat it has to be threats you know risk is based on the you know the possibility of a threat happening and the consequence if it does happening and you put your resources in as as that dictates. But I guess what I would come back to with the states is that we have to find a way to work with them irrespective of who is in charge or how much we may like or not like what they're saying and the best way we do that is by coming to the table with capability with sovereign control over our own territory meaning that we can deploy our own resources. One of the biggest challenges I would say just to to finish this thought in NORAD is that when we went up to look at balloons, we only have a certain amount of capability that can track that balloon or whatever the threat happens to be the track of interest across Canadian territory. And at some point we say, well, we can't do it any further. We need American refueling. We need the American sensors. We need possibly American planes in one instance, as I recall, to actually take that threat down. Well, then the United States says, "Yes, we're in this relationship. We're going to come and do it for you. But hey, Canada is again, you really need our refuelers. You really need our airborne early warning capability, whatever happens at some point.

Steve Pacin: Exactly. We need to come to the table with stuff.

Steve Pacin: Christian and then the general.

Christian Leuprecht: So, both really important points because the US military is very busy with the capabilities it has. And I think there's a message about all these things where we help you with, you're going to need to do on your own because we have a bunch of other priorities. Um a slight correction if I may. The national security strategy and the national defense strategy are two separate documents. In national security strategy Canada shows up once in national defense strategy it shows up three times. That also gives you a bit of an idea of there is a role for Canada to play here. And the role for Canada to play is the way I always sum this up is the Americans are best friends whether we like it or not. And the Trump administration I think understands that right? It's not like we have a host of options. Who are you going to ally with? Russia, China. So in that sense, I think the the the capabilities question is absolutely critical. And I think one of the things Canadian governments have never done very well with our European allies is two things. Europeans think NATO is about defending Europe. They forget that NATO actually has three pillars. Europe, North America, and the transatlantic space. We do a disproportionate amount of heavy lifting in protecting that transatlantic space in terms of in particular tracking Russian submarines for instance and in continental defense. Why is continental defense so important? Two reasons. One is we don't want to be extorted in terms of our sovereign political decisions that our legitimately democratically elected governments in Ottawa and in Washington make when it comes to our interests, our security and our defense. And if our adversaries can threaten us with very dangerous weapons that currently in Canada we would have very little capacity to defend against then that effect effectively sets us up to political extortion by those adversaries. Also remember those weapons in the 1950s this was a flyover problem in terms of the Arctic in Canada and they were going to hit the United States. Today if you hit Canada it would have just as disruptive an impact on North America as it would if you hit the if you hit the United States. The other is of course if we believe as Canadians that we don't want nuclear proliferation in the world and I cannot think of any reason why we would then we need to protect extended strategic nuclear deterrence from the United States to our partners and allies because if they believe that that extended nuclear deterrence is no longer credible then you will have partners and allies in both the Indo-Pacific and in Europe acquiring their own nuclear weapons and that cannot possibly be stable. izing for the world and we need to explain that an investment in continental defense and in national defense for Canada is an investment in NATO and to Wendy's point I think we've not communicated that well and it's not well understood general

Wayne Eyre将军: so there's a whole bunch there to unpack I want to add a few points um hey let's face it US is not going away China's not going away we're going to have to coexist but how do we coexist from a position of strength or being strong enough but also from a position of confidence in in ourselves. I've seen a lot of hot spots around the world. A lot of countries in trouble. A lot of failed and failing states. We've got it good here in Canada. We've got a country that's got a tremendous amount going for it. We just need to and we have a proclivity of gazing at our neighbors and and beating ourselves up. But no, we need to find that self that sense of confidence and and and see ourselves through this challenge. These documents, national security strategy and national defense strategy. National Defense Strategy came out yesterday. Every administration puts them out. It's a cycle. It's good. It's in their law. We can learn something from that. My concern, and it goes back to my initial comment about a period of disorder and and and miscalculation as potential adversaries look at these documents and see the focus on the Western Hemisphere, could that miscalculation be giving them license to do something in their own in their own so-called sphere of influence?

Steve Pacin: What do you think?

Wayne Eyre将军: Taiwan. Eastern Europe, Russian hybrid warfare, you know, seizing some of the former Soviet territories. Um don't know. One of the challenges is we have adversaries authoritarians who've surrounded themselves with yesmen who share that same worldview. and any competing perspective. Well, um if you're lucky enough not to fall out of a window, um

Steve Pacin: not to put too fine a point on it, but

Wayne Eyre将军: you're dismissed.

Steve Pacin: Yeah.

Wayne Eyre将军: And so the analysis that they might be getting could be rather shallow and if they see these documents, could it cause a miscalculation? That's my fear.

Wendy Gilmore: So if I would just very quickly come in and say which to me is the the heartbreak over the last few weeks worth of churn with respect to President Trump's threats against Greenland because there are real threats. We have an active conflict in Ukraine perpetrated by Russia. We have deaths happening every day of civilians of military members. We haven't been talking about Ukraine for the last couple of weeks. We've been talking about some supposed threat from the United States toward Greenland. We haven't been looking at some of the most pressing international problems that pose real and tangible threats to Canada and to the Western Alliance. Instead, we've been naval gazing collectively.

Wayne Eyre将军: Let me just add a historical analogy here. No, no historical analogy is perfect, but this one I think we can learn something from it. Korea 1950 North Korea supported by Russia and or Soviet Union at the time and communist China did not believe that South Korea was in the United States sphere of interest. Well, it turned out it was and look what happened and the same thing could happen today. Hm. All right, let me just rerack here for a second because for those who join us late, we want to remind everybody here that we are in hangar A of the Bombardier Center for Aerospace and Aviation at Centennial Colleg's dedicated aerospace campus. It's part of DARE Downs View Aerospace Innovation and Research. And let me reintroduce our guests. They are retired General Wayne Ay who was Canada's chief of defense staff from 2021 to 24. Wendy Gilmore is here, former assistant secretary general for defense investment at NATO, among many major external affairs postings. And Christian Lipre is here, distinguished professor at the Royal Military College of Canada and Queens University.

Steve Pacin: Here's here's a weird way to get into this next subject. We are sitting here taping this in the last weekend of January, which means last night at the Scotia Bank Arena, Mitch Mner made his return for the to a Toronto audience. And strangely enough, I was at the game and some guy started to talk to me. What did he talk to me about? Mitch Mner's return? No. He wanted to talk to me about whether we should buy the F-35s or the Swedish Griffin plane? and seemed like an odd place to have that conversation, but my hunch is if somebody's raising it at a hockey game, then it has reached the level of interest where Canadians across the country are fascinated by this conundrum we now face. And so, well, let's take a moment here. We could talk about this for hours, but we're not going to. Let's take a moment here and talk about whether we should be buying as many as 88 CF35s or F-35s, excuse me, from the Americans or whether the Swedish option is a better way to go. Okay, Christian, start us off.

Christian Leuprecht: So, Canadian governments have a long history of using defense investments really as an economic strategy. And we're not the only country in the world. And I think the trade-off is always is it going to be a lowercase D and a capital I or is it going to be a capital D and a lowercase I? And inherently, um, politicians, whether it's cabinet, caucus or parliament, are going to be looking at what is this going to be doing for me if I'm going to be investing all this money. But we have a curious I think affected work here. Usually budgeting works by you go to the department, you do a threat analysis, you try to figure out what the department needs. Here we decided we're going to get to an arbitrary spending point. Um, and I'm still not quite sure how we came up with the figure that the prime minister's office is throwing out there because my math works differently than theirs, but irrespective of that. And so now we're trying to figure out what we're actually going to be spend be spending it on. And I think that's sort of the important point of your of of the show, right? So asking the conversation, asking to what end? Is it to protect the continent? Is it for force projection? Is it for contribution warfare so we can curry favor with the United States and and and with other allies? Or is it first and foremost to drive the Canadian economy at a time sort of when we have challenges in terms of our possibly declining standard of living and and the like? And those are challenging political trade-offs. And I think we always need to remember, and I think this is also what I take away from General and from Wendy, that and generals usually don't like it when I say this, the the the Canadian armed forces are first and foremost not a defense organization. They are a political instrument. The same with NATO. The the the North American and Atlantic Council is the chief civilian authority over NATO. that it is ultimately at the disposal of politicians to achieve political ends that they believe to be in the best interest of the country.

Wayne Eyre将军: These do want in defense I'm going to

Christian Leuprecht: defense is one instrument

Wayne Eyre将军: in a broad toolkit that increasingly we need to use multiple instruments together to achieve that effect.

Wendy Gilmore: Okay, I'm going to answer the question. We are already buying the F-35. We are under contract for an initial and I almost forget 16 that we are coming in and we are then have an option for additional aircraft.

Christian Leuprecht: One of the things and and Christian spoke about some of the challenges for defense procurement.

Wendy Gilmore: We need to stop beating ourselves up about decisions we've already taken and we need capability now. The F-18 CF-18s are coming to the end of their natural life. We need an air capability to protect our own interests. Now, there are issues with the F-35 that I can identify, not the least of which is the political challenges of the states. But on an ongoing basis, are we able to get the necessary software upgrades, you know, ongoing engagement on that aircraft if the Americans don't want us to have it? That's an issue. No matter what technology we access,

Steve Pacin: you want 88 of them, though.

Wendy Gilmore: That's not a question that I'm prepared to answer as a you know call it a diplomat political expert. Our air force should be able to say these are the tasks. This is how many aircraft government we need to fulfill those tasks. If you don't want to give us that many aircraft, this is the smaller box of tasks that we can perform.

Christian Leuprecht: But the air force cannot make the political I don't think can not make the political judgment of how do we respond to the US screwing us over right now. So there is first of all the F-35 it will be a CF-35 right is I think anyway our designation of the F-35 is a global aircraft there is a global fleet it is going to be in use in many of our NATO allies it's in use in Japan in Australia and elsewhere around the world that global fleet will continue to be there to be sustained and it is you know emotionally I'd perhaps say to hell with the Americans right now because I don't like your president, but we need capability and these aircraft are currently under production and we're going to get them soon. Had we stuck with the original contract, we'd already be flying the F-35 right now. That doesn't mean to say is that we shouldn't. Now, there are additional resources and the government needs to understand what those resources need to be that we need to look at sovereign capabilities and answering to our own interests. But right now, let's just get the bloody aircraft. Enough.

Wayne Eyre将军: Couple of points. Um hey let me address Christian's point about generals and politics. Um you know war is an extension of politics as as Klausvitz famously said but it is a fundamental of military professionalism in a democracy that the military is subservient to duly elected civilian officials and we follow orders and and drive on whatever the decision is. And I saw many times as chief of defense staff where my advice was not taken or it was taken in consideration of other factors well beyond the military sphere. And and so we have to realize that. Secondly, um on the F-35 in particular, hey, we we we know the F-35 is the the most capable of of the of the options

Steve Pacin: and most expensive.

Wayne Eyre将军: Yes. And we saw that um we saw the F-35s in use over Iran from the Israelis penetrating their air defense and and and going ahead there. Um and so what decision is is going to be in the end of the day a political decision, not a military decision. And we and the military will have to live with whatever decision is made. But all that being said, I think we can use this as an opportunity to springboard to the next generation of fighters. We need to be thinking about the rapidly changing character of war. How wars are being fought which is underpinned by that rapid technological change I'm talking I've talked about before this next fighter we need to adopt something called the collaborative combat aircraft. So a loyal wingman that is an unmanned aircraft that is tethered to a a crude aircraft and use that as a springboard to the next generation of completely uncrrewed autonomous fighters. easy for a guy from an army background to say, especially with a whole bunch of aircraft behind me that had pilots. But I think that's where we need to go and at the same time um really engage Canadian aerospace industry on this.

Steve Pacin: But let me ask the followup. Sweden is offering that if we build their if we buy their plane, they'll build it here.

Wayne Eyre将军: Should that matter in our decision-making? Well, from a political level, you have to decide is capability more important than jobs. Um, and if we take a look at the Grippin, um, a great aircraft for right now, um, is probably half it is half a generation behind of of most modern, but we're going to have this aircraft for 20, 30, 40 years. Uh, where's it going to be then?

Steve Pacin: Wendy, what's your view?

Wendy Gilmore: So, in a procurement timeline, and I spent a little bit of time in a procurement world, so I can't speak for them, but I can speak about them. We have a now problem. We have a fiveyear out problem. And then we have a longer term, call that the development, the technological drift problem. The now problem is the lifespan of our current CF-18s and our need to provide capability right now. We are in and maybe I'll not skew the conversation too much, but we're in a conflict with Russia right now. We as Canada are facing hybrid attacks. Our allies in Europe are facing daily hybrid attacks. The Russians are testing the defenses of NATO. We need to have capability to bring to the flight to the fight in a very short order if that were required. We're buying aircraft possibly for the next 2530 years unless we are in a situation in which there is significant attrition in which case those aircraft could be gone tomorrow and we would need something to follow them. So, we need to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time, which is we need a fleet now. We need a fleet a few years from now, which is what we'll get out of the ones that we're already under contract to receive. Then we need to think about how are we positioning ourselves with allies because the one thing that Canada has learned back with the Avro Arrow story is that we do not have the resources ourselves to develop a completely unique capability. So, we have to choose the partners we're going to work with, but we also need manufacturing and advanced manufacturing capabilities in Canada. And that's frankly one of the things the F-35 has done for us to date. And I I mean, I have ultimately if we were under contract to take the Griffin, I'd say let's carry on with the Grippin. I just believe in getting on with doing what we've said we were going to do. But we went, one of my favorite things to quote is in 1939, we had no ship building industry to speak of whatsoever. By 1945, we were the fourth largest ship builder in the world. This facility that we're sitting on right now was producing thousands of aircraft that was developed over the course of a short couple of years. What I believe we need right now is the Canadian public to provide the political will necessary to our government to get on with the bu business of reconstituting our forces, rebuilding Canadian capability and at the same time making sure we have the manufacturing ability to continue to sustain it.

Steve Pacin: Last quick word on this.

Christian Leuprecht: So qualitatively the Grippen and the F-35 are completely different entities. Um the F-35 is a digital platform that among other things happens to fly. So um we also in terms of procurement there's three things you want to accomplish right you want to get it on a timeline there's the cost and there's the capabilities and those are difficult trade-offs and I would say on most procurement projects you have to compromise on one of those it seems in Canada we can never do any three of those and let me tell you our colleagues in Washington and among allies it drives them completely insane every time we walk back a commitment and the reputational cost in particular to Canada of constantly making performative announcements and then walking them back is ultimately incalculable in terms of the consequences that we suffer from that. And I I'll close on this. One of my US colleagues like to say ultimately when it comes to defense, it's up to the people to decide and the people are allowed to be wrong. The problem is I would say in terms of civil military relations in this country and with all respect to the very challenging circumstances that our chiefs of defense staff find themselves in, we live in an era where we need to have a much more robust conversation between the defense and security establishment and the political authority. And in my view, we have been too subservient because it is also up to the to to the organizations to explain to Canadians the rapidly changing threat environment kinetic um nuclear hybrid that we are living in and the very homeopathic posture that we have. And the importance of the program here is precisely to do that because if we're going to spend billions on defense and possibly asking Canadians to make significant sacrifices in order to do that, we need to get social license for those expenditures. And I'm not sure that the organizations and the institutions or our political leadership has done enough of the heavy lifting. But I think we're starting to see that out of some of the discourse politically. I want to give this audience the heads up that I'm going to do one more round up here and then we'll put a microphone in the middle right there and uh we'll get you to take uh we'll take your questions at that point. So, let's do one last thing here and that is okay. I want to know what's on your wish list. General, we're apparently going to be spending tens of billions of dollars over the next x number of years rearming and reinvigorating our military. What do you want to spend that money on?

Wayne Eyre将军: How much time do we have?

Wayne Eyre将军: Okay. Hey, so firstly our strategic culture is changing and we need to be focused much more at home. Our strategic culture up to now has been expeditionary in nature and we've preferred away games to home home games. While the home game now is absolutely number one priority so we need to know what's happening. So all what we call all domain awareness from space to the seabed especially in the Arctic. So sensor technology infrastructure in the north so that we can project capabilities from the south. I'm not talking about permanent basing in the north but persistent presence by projecting capabilities from the south to the north. We need to maintain um some expeditionary capability so that we can help influence the emerging order so that we have a seat at the table or at least can whisper in the ear to somebody who's got a seat at the table.

Steve Pacin: How many people would that require?

Wayne Eyre将军: Um you know I'm not prepared to to put a number out right now. Uh but certainly more than what we've got now. 100,000 120,000 regulars perhaps. Uh but don't but don't quote me on that. I guess it's too late to say that. Um but there's a number of capabilities with the evolving again the evolving character of war that goes with it. Far more autonomous systems. You know we've we've got a habit of investing in these really expensive high-end exquisite systems that if you lose your um loss in the first weeks of combat you're it's going to be bad for you. We need to invest much more in mass-produced attractable systems.

Steve Pacin: Attitudable meaning

Wayne Eyre将军: meaning they can you can lose them without problem. Think drones in Ukraine.

Wayne Eyre将军: Um you know $50,000 drone that if you lose so be it. But if you take out a $2 million tank, well excellent, good on you because there's an economics of defense that's happening here. So, we do need some of those high-end exquisite systems, but we also got to invest in those rapidly changing mass-roduced systems.

Steve Pacin: Gotcha. Okay. Wendy, what's on your list?

Wendy Gilmore: So, I spent much of my life as a bureaucrat. What's on my list is a system and process that is empowered to make rapid decisions that can evolve as it's need to. We we talk to NATO a lot about the time. It's the speed of relevance. So we need a system that can move at the speed of relevance which is bloody fast. Um we have been promised a defense investment agency by the government that is to be a single decision maker. There's still a lot of challenges with standing up that apparatus. It's not all about process. I mean it doesn't matter what process you have. If you have the political will to take decisions and move things out, it will happen quickly. So my wish list is clear unambiguous decision-making ability to make decisions and to make them in such a way that we can evolve to to meet the speed of what is necessary.

Steve Pacin: Can you give us a for instance on that? What does that look like?

Wendy Gilmore: Well, a for instance, we've already seen a little bit of it which is I would say slightly encouraging which is the government has said all right we need a submarine capability to not just replace the one I have but to build that capability. So in very rapid order they went instead of going through a long process that is prioritized to to protect against procurement risk they've said we have two we've down selected to two different suppliers one in Korea one in Germany there's a very expedited prices process going on right now to say all right give us your bested best bids that you can and we're going to take a decision and what I would like to see the the practical outcome is we're gonna make a decision and it's not going to be good for the people that lose but whatever we've made a decision and we're going to go ahead and we're going to get that submarine into, you know, operations into a capability as soon as as possible.

Steve Pacin: And one last followup, at the end of the day,

Wendy Gilmore: yeah,

Steve Pacin: does the Minister of Defense make that call? Does the Prime Minister make the call? Who makes the call?

Wendy Gilmore: So, the legal authority to buy or otherwise acquire capability for the Canadian Forces is the Minister of Public Services and Procurement Canada.

Steve Pacy: Oh, neither one. So ultimately though these types of decisions tend to be a cabinet decision but what cabinet needs to do is say here are our criteria let the process assess the bids whichever one meets that criteria then let's move on with it as opposed to what we've seen many many times including with the F-35 right now is that we go back and we revisit the criteria over and over again. Yes, circumstances change, things happen, but at some point in order to get real pieces of equipment like we have behind us, you actually need to make a decision and just do it.

Steve Pacin: Gotcha. Christian, what's on your list?

Christian Leuprecht: Three quick things. The first is we came out of World War II with the fourth largest military in the world if you don't count the VM having been resoundingly defeated. And we said to ourselves, what we experienced during the first half of the 20th century, this is not the world that we want to live in. And we invested aggressively in instruments of statecraftraft and in multilateral institutions to shape the environment of the second half of the 20th century. And I would say we have forgotten the opportunity. We are reacting. We don't have the initiative. How do we get back the initiative? Where's the Canadian politician that actually has a vision and a strategy of the country and the world that we want to live in 5, 10, and 25 years from now and the investments that we are going to make to that end? Can I just ask you to answer that question? Do you see that politician out there right now? Well, for better or for worse, as much as we want to impugn some of our US colleagues, and I always like to say, look, none of us, at least I'm not a dual citizen, so I don't get a vote. You know, moralizing what happens in the United States is not helpful. But at least in the United States, for better or for worse, there's a very active political conversation about the future of the United States and what country America wants to be and what role it should play in the world. And clearly the Trump administration right or wrongly has decided we are going to play a very different role in this very different world from sort of breaking with with past continuity. The second the two other key points. How many shows like yours have I done where people say we should be working for peace? We shouldn't be putting money into defense. And I would say this is exactly what gets us in trouble. Because implicit in that statement is the Americans will do it for us if we get in trouble. And if we take that approach, then we're exactly back to when you took us at the beginning, my late colleague Neils Orvik. Defense from help. What are we investing in? In capabilities to defending ourselves from circumstances where the US administration says, "Let us help you." Because when the US comes in and says, "Let us help you." When it comes to our national security, whether it comes to financial crime, to cartels, to human trafficking, to defense and whatnot, we are compromising our own political and economic sovereignty as a result. And rightly or wrongly, the frustration in Washington with Canada goes well back well beyond the current Trump administration. And so this is an investment in defense from help. This is an investment in our political economic sovereignty. And to play it full circle coming back to 1775, British troops had our whoever our was at the time our back. Today there's no one that has our back. It is entirely up to us as Canadians what sovereignty we ultimately want to have and protect and what role we want this country to play.

Steve Pacin: You want to pick apart any of that?

Wayne Eyre将军: Nope.

Steve Pacin: Okay.

Steve Pacin: Want to hear from them?

Steve Pacin: Okay, friends. We have a microphone in the aisle. We would encourage you to line up behind the microphone. If you wouldn't mind, just give us your first name and where you're coming from and then uh fire away. Yes, sir. Thank you for starting us off.

Zach: Uh Zach Toronto. Uh my question to the uh to the panel is how much of the holding of the procurement for F-35 is in relation to the trade deal and using that as a carrot and how often are military procurements used for trade negotiations. Thank you.

Wendy Gilmore: So formally they are of course completely disconnected. Um you asked about in the past the one of the recent examples was uh when um Boeing was pursuing what we felt to be very unfair trade practices against Canada, the United States against Canada. Um there was a a policy enacted by the Canadian government that said uh where companies are not acting in Canada's interest, they should not be part of public procurement. Um that said, there is of course a calculus going on inside the government of Canada trying to understand how do they get to a point in engaging with the United States that we can protect what we need which is access to the American market because there's a broader economic sovereignty frankly our own economic stability is based at the moment still because of access to the US market. So it's uh it's a difficult decision that our government has but there's no direct line from one to the other. They'll be looking at a whole suite of different capabilities and different decisions as part of that process.

Christian Leuprecht: Christian Zach, here's my frustration with Canada on this. Right. So, going back to the Avro Arrow F-35 invested hundreds of millions of you and my tax dollars. Um, the submarine decision, the German Norwegian Consortium is writing its software in a company headquartered in Canada. We're about to do it with Canadian Nuclear Laboratories in in the way that contract is structured. We generate Canadian intellectual property, worldleading intellectual property here in Canada and then we effectively give it away and we either decide we're not going to procure the technology, we're just going to walk away from it or we structure our IP contracts in ways that doesn't protect it or we have research security that effectively lets our adversaries in China and Iran take that intellectual property. And so I think the investments that we have already made in the technology why would we walk away from it given that we've already this is our return on investment this is how we remain a high-tech innovation country because if you look at the intellectual property and you look at how much of it is generated in the United States relative to Canada our partners in the Indo-Pacific and our allies in Europe the leading IP development remains in the United States and so it's up to us that if we're already investing in it, we might as well keep it here and capitalize on it.

Steve Pacin: Christian, have you been talking to Jim Balsley lately?

Steve Pacin: He's been beating this drum for a long time. You want a word on this or you good?

Wayne Eyre将军: No, I'm good.

Steve Pacin: You're good. Okay. Next, please.

Nicholas: Hi, Nicholas from Toronto as well.

Steve Pacin: Hi, Nicholas.

Nicholas: Um, my question is regarding um recently India and Russia signed an Arctic trade or Arctic defense agreement giving them access to Arctic naval ports and logistics. Um, how must Canada think about nonarctic state actors getting invested interest in the Arctic? Now,

Steve Pacin: who wants in on that?

Steve Pacin: You want to start?

Wendy Gilmore: I can start, but but yeah, you go ahead and I'll jump in.

Wendy Gilmore: Um, so, uh, Canadian policy to date has been that the Arctic nations should have the first voice in the management. Frankly, Arctic peoples have the first voice and Arctic nations have the voice in the management of this territory. Um I can't speak to the India Russia u agreement. I'm not familiar with it. But uh but our position would continue to be that the the primary interest in the Arctic has to be the people that live there and it's our responsibility to protect their interests.

Steve Pacin: General.

Wayne Eyre将军: Yeah. So much like China they have an interest for resource extraction and and shipping routes. Um as and again thinking in strategic timelines. So decades ahead as as much as climate change has an effect up there. um what's going to happen? Well, you're going to see fish protein migrate north. And so, much like the the devastating fishing fleets that China has across the world, well, those will move north as well.

Wayne Eyre将军: And India is looking at that as well. And so, yeah, we need to be concerned about what happens in in our backyard in the in the Arctic. It may not be within the Canada's EEZ but certainly close enough.

Steve Pacin: EEZ um exclusive

Wayne Eyre将军: exclusive economic zone. Sorry for the acronyms. Um, China has been doing a tremendous amount of research in the Arctic.

Wayne Eyre将军: Uh, a couple of ships, the Jou Long 2 have been up there every summer. Uh, in fact, they probably have a better picture of the seabed than than the Americans do in many places.

Steve Pacin: So, what's that for? Resource extraction, submarines.

Wayne Eyre将军: Yeah, a lot of it's dual use. Christian.

Christian Leuprecht: Yeah, I think this president we need to be able to assert our sovereignty in the Arctic against clearly people who have a very active and in some cases quite aggressive interests in the Arctic. But I also think we need to keep that in context. So everybody loves to talk about the Northwest Passage. If you've been up there and you've seen the Northwest Passage, you know it is too shallow and it is too narrow for the large container ships that we have today. What happens when you get out of the Northwest Passage? Well, you're in Greenland. you are hundreds of miles away from the next serious port infrastructure. And the third is you can't actually pay the insurance rates to go through the north because it is um imagine if you have sort of an accident up there and you ultimately have to clean that up. So I think we also need to keep in context yes adversaries have a keen interest but how that will actually manifest in an area that is really hard to access and relatively would require huge investments I think by the Canadian government in ter of critical infrastructure to make it profitable for for people to invest something very different of course your predecessor I think has a famous quote about like you know if if one of these adversaries deployed to the Arctic what's the first thing that he would do he would send out a search party

Wayne Eyre将军: yeah well search and rescue which is Another important point.

Steve Pacin: Yeah.

Wayne Eyre将军: Uh because a manifestation of national sovereignty is the ability to to do search and rescue within your own territory. And if you don't do it, somebody else will.

Wayne Eyre将军: I was in Taiwan for a week in September. And I saw manufactured crises of of ships in trouble that China was exploiting to gradually erode Taiwanese sovereignty. ship in trouble dispatch Chinese search and rescue into Taiwanese waters. Um there's a model perhaps for our our north in the years to come.

Steve Pacin: We've got a bit of a line here. So I want to encourage nice snappy questions and nice snappy answers too if I can. Go ahead please.

George: Hi George from Vaughn. I just also want toh say thank you Steve for being here and to the panel. Thank you for coming out during this cold snap that we've been having. So appreciate it. Uh just very quickly, can you speak to the industrial strategy that Canada has and the dual use policy that we've been trying to implement and how on board our allies are on this topic and can you just mention the roadblocks that this policy might have? Thank you.

Wayne Eyre将军: So I think the first roadblock is getting the policy out. Um we heard before Christmas that it was going to be out by Christmas. Didn't say what year. Uh but I think when the when the strategy comes out we we should be happy and um but until then we can't really talk about it.

Wendy Gilmore: I I would just say it is a defense industrial strategy. Its first purpose should be to make sure that we have the industrial base necessary to support the Canadian armed forces. Its second purpose is to make sure that we are protecting the indigenous intellectual property, the other technology that is Canadian that we need. and his third priority is to help the Canadian economy and make sure we have economic benefit. I just want to make sure that those those priorities are not reversed.

Steve Pacin: This guy's got the right shirt for today. Okay, here we go.

观众: Start. Yes. Uh we do live great country. That's why I wore that. I think it's helpful to remember. I think that was mentioned on the panel. And the Arctic. Um I lived up in Nunvid. I saw people there. And uh just wondering if you could talk more about the rangers their involvement and how is how is more um being developed with with the Inuit people and their involvement as they have been with with Arctic sovereignty

Steve Pacin: general.

Wayne Eyre将军: Yeah. So the the rangers for everybody who is not familiar with them they are a great organization. Um about 5,000 across the country just over a thousand up in the Arctic area. They live in the communities. They are part-time reservists. They are the eyes, ears, and guides for the Canadian military across the extremities of our country. They help a lot with with RCMP and ground search and rescue, and their role is going to continue to evolve as we focus more and more on on Arctic security. Uh but as we've seen over the course of the last number of decades, they provide tremendous service to Canada.

Steve Pacin: Christian, good followup.

Christian Leuprecht: There's about as many people who live in the north as live in my hometown of Kingston. um and they are extremely vulnerable communities. But if you talk to them, what is their priority? When you talk to them about security and defense, it's human security issues, it's food security, it's energy security. And that gets back to the previous question that what we need to invest in is dual use. So in the north, it is multi-use ultimately investments in critical infrastructure and in technology that need to benefit our local quasi sovereign partners.

Steve Pacin: Very good. Thanks for the question. Next, please. Hi, I'm Aiden. Uh, my question is, what should Canada's military priorities be in the next decade? Territorial defense, international peacekeeping or alliance commitments, uh, for example, NATO and why?

Steve Pacin: You want to know what the top priority should be of that list?

Wayne Eyre将军: Okay. Well, top priority is the home game. Uh, so protecting Canada at home and specifically more and more the Arctic. Uh, peacekeeping. Hey, I saw the death of peacekeeping in the former Yugoslavia in in 93 at the battle of Madak Pocket where the thin veneer of civilization was ripped away and our our myth of interpositional peacekeeping that was developed in the in the 60s that is gone. Um and that type of peacekeeping is not coming back. Supporting our allies where we can overseas, yeah, absolutely. But we've got to be very disciplined as to where we put our forces. Our last defense policy, our our north strong and free gave us a number of tiers. Uh, you know, top tier defending the country and specific focus on the Arctic and then the transatlantic relationship and Indo-Pacific. We can only spread the uh uh spread our butter on the toast so thin uh to quote Bilbo Bagots.

Steve Pacin: We can only do so much.

Wayne Eyre将军: Yeah.

Steve Pacin: Gotcha. Yes, sir.

Richard: Um Richard from Burlington, thank you all for coming today. I was hoping you'd be able to expand on a couple of things that have confused me from your responses. Uh talk of need for Canada to invest in being able to monitor our north. Is that not part of the the Saab Grippin proposal? Not only are they saying buy planes from us, but also the Golden Eye plane built on a Canadian airframe allowing us to patrol and maintain control over our own north. Uh we are investing with Australia in a sea to space radar system to be built in the north. I believe we annoyed some Americans by not buying their system. Do not these deals with nations other than America expand our abilities, show our commitment to our neighbors and also give us industry here in Canada to your point of an attritable resource. F-35, wonderful plane, but very very expensive. Whereas the Grippin is less expensive, has greater room for growth.

Steve Pacin: How do you know so much about this? That's what I

Richard: I read one or two things. And if you lose it, we can rebuild it right here in Canada cuz the plant is here versus if we lose an F-35, we're at the end of a waiting list.

Richard: So, if you had some insight into that, I'd appreciate it. Thank you.

Wayne Eyre将军: Yeah. So, we we just got to be careful about silver bullet systems. And we're talking about sensors. What we need are layered sensors. The Australian system you talked about was the Arctic over the horizon radar. So it's, you know, think a groundbased radar. The the aircraft you're talking about fills what's known as an airborne airborne early warning system. So think of a a a plane mounted radar system. We also need spacebased systems. So we have those layers of sensors so that we've got some redundancy. Um, you know, again, going back to 2023 and shooting down balloons, one of the things that was driven home to me was the lack of groundbased radar coverage that our country has. And the reason we took down a balloon in Yukon was I was afraid we're going to lose it as it came closer or as it moved into the Canadian interior because we don't have that coverage. So, it's that layer system that's important.

Wendy Gilmore: If I I would just add in the one point you absolutely made which I I think is very important is that we have to have relationships with a lot of different allies. We do not want all of our capabilities in one bucket. And if we've learned anything over the course of the last months or so in the changing rhetoric coming out of the American administration is that we have been overly dependent on the US for our source of technology, our economic prosperity and others. So the partnership with Australia, very important partnership with European allies, we now have the foundation to get even more down into that space with the signing of a defense cooperation arrangement with the European Union as the Europeans develop more sovereign capabilities. Working with Canada is also going to be in their interest. I think focusing too much on individual pieces of equipment is is exactly we we tend to go down a rabbit hole. F-35 versus the Grippin. Well, we have an F-35 contract right now. We will need something that will follow it. Whether that continues to be the same piece of equipment or a different one or different capabilities, that's what we have to try and focus on.

Christian Leuprecht: Christian, and we talk a lot about the kit, but what we really need to talk about is the people because regardless of buying a plane, we're going to need pilots for that plane. We're going to need technicians. We're going to need submariners. We're going to need Mars officers. And we already have trouble generating the crews that we need today. So what my worry is we're going to buy this wonderful equipment and then we're not going to have the people to operate. If you look at the it was a great question because the question indicates the breadth of what we're asking the Canadian armed forces to do today relative to what we asked them to do at the end of the cold war. We're asking them to do ever more things in terms of quantity, quality, and complexity. And relative to that, even with the additional investment, we continue to see sort of relative declining resources for this growing number of tasks. So it's the it's first and foremost about for me it's about the people not the kit.

Wendy Gilmore: I think it's also important. I think one of the great things is I just saw something released in the last few days that there have been more applicants for the Canadian forces in the last 12 months than than anticipated. Significant numbers of people. And I look at all of the young people in the room and I would say there is a great career for you in the forces supporting the forces in industry.

Wayne Eyre将军: Go study STEM.

Steve Pacin: Couldn't say it better myself.

Steve Pacin: I was gonna say you're not gonna have no argument from this guy here. We have time for two more questions. So yes, please.

Sorup: Yeah. Thank you. My name is Sorup and I have an AI consulting firm in Toronto and we mostly operate in fintech and e-commerce space.

Steve Pacin: Okay.

Sorup: So someone coming from totally nontraditional background like outside from aerospace defense, is there any meaningful way I can make contribution to to this sector in future? Is there a meaningful way he can make a contribution to this sector?

Steve Pacin: And and so you said you're involved with AI.

Sorup: AI. Yeah.

Steve Pacin: Yeah.

Sorup: Fintech. Fintech. Yes.

Wayne Eyre将军: Fintech and and fintech. So, you know, much in the wider national security sphere, fintech is becoming increasingly important as we see security threats to Canada manifest. They they they there's a security nexus to so many things. Finance is right at the top. So getting involved in financial security for the country essential

Steve Pacin: Christian.

Christian Leuprecht: So we talk about national security but I think the challenge is then that that makes it sound like the federal government or defense can somehow solve these problems on their own and given the complexity of the challenges given the types of threat vectors that we have it requires a whole of government and a whole of society approach where defense sort of plays just one role. And you've seen the prime minister announce a significant increase in the primary reserves, a significant increase in the supplementary reserves, but also I think there's what we haven't done particularly well is provide exactly the sort of motivated individuals that want to do something for their country to be able to pitch in and to find those mechanisms.

Steve Pacin: So who does he call?

Wendy Gilmore: I would say there is a um we have been promised another beyond the defense industrial strategy. The government has announced that it will be launching a platform for a new type of supplementary reserve to allow Canadians to sign up and to let their capabilities be known. I'm really anxious to see what that looks like. And I'd also, you know, the recruiting center is right

Wayne Eyre将军: going to Christian's point, you know, what we need national resilience right down to the provincial, territorial, and municipal levels. a sense of self-reliance, the ability to rely on yourself and and not just wait for help from the federal government with that learned helplessness because the security threats are manifesting, not just man-made threats, but natural disasters as well. The increasing frequency and intensity of natural disasters is something that we really need to worry about. Um and so municipal governments have a role in this as well and including in in fintech and AI.

Steve Pacin: Interesting. No pressure, but you've got the last question.

Danilo: Thanks, Steve. Uh, hi, I'm Danilo from Toronto and, uh, you'll have to forgive me for how broad this may be, but I wanted to talk about, uh, the motif, the narrative, the notion, whatever you want to categorize it as Canada, its identity as a peacekeeping nation. And as we all know, geopolitics and world events are very fluctuating. And we this has been talked about throughout the whole um conversation, but I just wanted to know long term um should we still stick by that moniker? Should that be something that other world leaders and countries should see as the first thing they they identify with Canada and and should we stick by it or should there be some new ideas to the table so to speak?

Wayne Eyre将军: So, I think that was a certain period in our history. And hey, I wore a blue beret on two two missions overseas. Uh, but that was a short period in our rather longer military history. Hey, World War I, uh, we put 600,000 in uniform, 60,000 killed in action. World War II, we put 1.1 million in uniform, far more than on any peacekeeping mission. You know, Korean War, the same thing. The war in Afghanistan, the same thing. and and so focusing on the ability to defend our country um and and and doing it from a position of confidence is where I think we need to go.

Wendy Gilmore: I the I think General already said our idea of this I you know the the neutral military party that goes in to separate two waring factions has been over since the 1990s and it was probably over before we realized it was over as experienced in some very difficult places.

Wayne Eyre将军: When they were shooting at me, I realized it was over.

Wendy Gilmore: Exactly. So, one of the things that we have to realize is that there may be times when Canada will need to defend our own interests by helping to resolve conflicts in other part of the world. But we need to take those decisions in view of how is it contributing and what is the most effective way to do that. And I think what we've learned certainly in the last few decades is that strong capable military forces that have the mandate, the rules of engagement, the equipment to defend themselves and defend others maybe need to be deployed, but that's not peacekeeping. And we should let go of the idea that there is somehow this magic third party interpositional blue parade peacekeeper out there that we can go back to being because that does not exist anymore.

Christian Leuprecht: Christian, what does peacekeeping come out of? 1956 the Suez crisis. Why did then why did Pearson effectively invent the concept to avoid the superpowers from going to war, possibly going to nuclear war? Because we would all lose if that was going to happen. Peacekeeping was never about making the world a better, nicer place. But I think politically we turned it into that because that's a cheap and easy thing to do. What did we do after World War II? We invested in real capabilities that we, as both Wayne V and General Era have pointed out, deployed to Europe. Why did we deploy them to Europe? Because what did we learn in the first half of the 20th century? That the Europeans like to fight their wars right down to the last Canadian. And I point that out because look, we're learning it today with Ukraine. What happens in Europe doesn't stay in Europe. It has effects on the whole world. It has effects on the instability that we're seeing in the Arctic today. And so it is an this these are in investments in stability. These are investments in defending the democracy and the way of life that we cherish.

Wayne Eyre将军: If I can just add to Christian's point. So a year and a half ago, 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings. I was there on Juno Beach and as I reflected on it, I I I realized as you know, Canada at the spearheaded the the first amongst the first to land in Normandy and spearheaded the the liberation of of Europe. We are a country capable of great things. And we have done great things. We just need that confidence and that belief in oursel. But we we can do it.

Steve Pacin: In light of that comment, I want to give you the last word on something that was said by the president of the United States the other day in which he said essentially the US did all the heavy lifting in the wars that took place earlier this century and Canadian and British and other allied troops kind of held back. What did your view of that?

Wayne Eyre将军: It's hard not to take it personally. In 2007 as a unit commander, I lost 10 Canadians under my command. I've known many more who were killed over there. You know, ranging from 2002 right up until the end of our commitment. Um it was a comment designed to spark outrage. It was a troll. We were being trolled. And I would I guess my message to my fellow veterans would be don't fall prey to the troll. Don't fall prey to that sense of outrage. We know what we did. Um and our American colleagues who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with us, the ones that matter, they know what we did. And so be proud of of your service there. You did everything your country asked you to do.

Steve Pacin: That's a very powerful final statement here. Okay, we do need to say some thank yous before we sign off on our broadcast here. First to this audience, by the time this plays on television, people may have forgotten that it's bloody cold out there today and yet you folks showed up in big numbers here, even Phil the bleachers. So, thank you very much for coming out today. And for those of you who stepped up and asked questions, our thanks to you as well. Uh to the folks here at Centennial College and the DARE Hub, especially Michelle Irvin, Samantha Glover, you have been a delight to work with. Thank you for your hospitality. This is a hell of a set, I got to say. Really nice. Really nice. To our TVO staff and production crew, many thanks as always. You guys always bring it on the road and make it look so easy. To Hillary Clark, who produced TVO today live, Hillary, if the premier were here, he'd say you're a champion. As always to the Wilson Foundation and its benefactor Red Wilson for enabling everything that we have done on this series and everybody in this room today is here free of charge because of Red Wilson. And now thanks as well to the Jackman Foundation for their contribution as well. For more in this series, you can go to tvO.orgtvoto live or you can check out our YouTube channel which is youtube.comtvoday. And finally, I know this audience wants to join me in thanking this wonderful trio for being here today at Centennial College and helping us out with this discussion. Thank you so much everybody. Well done. I'm Steve Pen. Thank you and good night. Good night everybody.

Steve Pacin: TVO Today Live is made possible by the generous support of the Wilson Foundation.