United states congress. John kennedy used to say that, when he was president , that he accompanied his wife, jacqueline kennedy, to paris. Well i i have accompanied laura dawson to canada several times. And i have actually been there on my own many times before that. First as a member of congress as i mentioned and then as a participant in the widelyaclaimed halifax forum. That is where he met minister sajjan singh, canadas bad ass defense minister. His military background make him wellequipped to understand threats across the world and those threatening his homeland. On his watch as a detective in vancouver, sajjan took on drug gangs. For example, breaking and entering episodes increased neighborhoods, increased in neighborhoods after drug users rented houses there. By the way, my old district in torrance, california, had kind of a similar thing. People who were breaking and entering gas stations were finally, after, after warrants were secured an places were checked, they turned out to be terrorist wannabes. So it is an important thing to understand. From those little dots of information he tracked the leadership and arrested those who had the biggest impact on distribution. Pretty good police work. He, is, here for the second time, saidly missed his first appearance and was determined to be back but this conversation will be moderated by the one and only laura dawson, who is the director of our Canada Institute and no one has to introduce laura in canada. She has led the Institute Since 2015. And has been named one of canadas top 100 Foreign Policy influencers by the hill times. The institute is the only nonpartisan institute in the world that focuses on the u. S. Canada relationship. It is a pretty impressive. Canada institute focuses on key issues such as energy and environment, trade, the arctic, borders and Border Security. Those issues are now more important than ever to analyze during this challenging period of political transition and we are delighted to host minister singh for a timely discussion on defense policy and whatever else he want to talk about. As i mentioned i wasnt here last time but please welcome, minister singh who will give us some brief remarks. And then he will engage in a discussion with laura and a discussion with you. The entire event will take, an hour about an hour plus there is free beer afterwards. An hour plus free beer. Cant do better than that. Welcome to the Wilson Center. [applause] congresswoman, thank you very much for those, the kind words. So good to have you at the security forum. Your presence and knowledge has always elevated the conversation for all of us in canada. Laura, thank you very much for your great leadership as well. It is really a privilege to be back here and as minister of defense, being able to come here and to be able to talk with so many knowledgeable folks on security challenges allows us all of us to be able to Work Together and that is going to be talking about our important relationship with the u. S. And congresswoman talked about my policing background. We talk a lot about our defense relationship. I will not get into the policing side but our Police Agencies worked so cooperatively together and all across the board and its a really impressive way, if people were able to see it would be extremely impressed the relationship that our Police Leadership actually has from canada all the way down into all the states here in the u. S. So it is an honor to speak with you here at the Canada Institute. Our government is taking a proactive approach to our continental security and to insuring that middle class canadians have a, have wellpaying jobs because for all our nations a Strong Economy is essential to all of our respective countries. So the the work that you are doing that is focused on our shared Border Security and how a more integrated and competitive north American Economy can increase job creation and prosperity is work that we very much appreciate. Canada and the United States enjoys a multifaceted and Dynamic Defense and security partnership. We have a long history of cooperation at every level of defense enterprise, from the tactical to the strategic between both our militaries and our respective defense departments. As you know norad is the cornerstone of our bilateral partnership. So you can understand why we are exploring options in partnership with the u. S. To insure that we modernize norad an enable it to continue meeting the challenges arising from todays Global Security environment. Now this includes working closely with our american counterparts to identify ways to improve surveillance of the northern approaches to our continent. The renewal of the north Warning System, a joint canadau. S. Early Warning System for defense of north america is a key part of these efforts. Our Partnership Extends beyond norad to cooperation through nato which bolsters the transatlantic bond and fosters peace, security, and stability in the euroatlantic area. So nato matters to canada and canada brings value to nato. We do this by contributing highquality personnel from our leadership, our capabilities to the alliance that deliver real effects on the ground. So like the u. S. We are one of just four countries leading natos enhanced forward presence battle groups in the baltics. Canada is leading in latvia. This is a critical element of nato strengthened deterrents and defense posture and we are proud to have taken a leadership role. So because we understand that the security environment we face today is more diverse, more complex, and demands more of us than anytime since the cold war. We also understand that the security and prosperity of europe is directly linked to canadas security and prosperity as well. So in that vein canada has deployed, Canadian Armed forces units and personnel to central and Eastern Europe to show solidarity and resolve and reinforce the Alliance Collective Defense and canada is championing capacitybuilding efforts in ukraine as well. We also are making a significant contribution to the Global Coalition against daesh through our leadership role in the Ministry Liaison team. This team plays an important coordination function with the Coalition Training effort. Our forces have also provided training and assistance to the Iraqi Security forces with our special forces. Our medical services to the Coalition Forces and capacitybuilding to the Regional Forces as well. I also must include the great work that our intelligence personnel are also doing because we doubled our intelligence capability in theater. Now canada remains a ready and willing to do its part. We recognize the challenges facing the world are too complex and too vast to be taken on by one single country alone. So Prime Minister trudeau has recommitted canada to multilateralism, to deal with the most significant defense and Security Issues confronting the Global Community today. Canada has made clear our intent to increase engagement across the full spectrum of multilateral peace operations. We pledge to contribute Canadian Armed forces personnel and related capabilities to the United Nations peace operations. We are scaling up our contributions of police and civilian personnel and providing new support to the United Nations peacebuilding, mediation and conflict prevention efforts. Among the many other benefits of working within the u. N. , canada believes that when mandated and resourced properly, the u. N. Peacekeeping mission is an sentence way the Global Community can deal with the International Security challenges. Canadas goal is to continue to be a reliable and global partner. We understand that being interoperable with our allies requires us to continually develop our capabilities and equipment. We must make sure our troops have the necessary capabilities to successfully take on the operations we assign them. We are committed to being a good partner. We will reinforce canadas new defense policy which will be released on june 7th. I look forward to that. So based on extensive consultations and evidencebased analysis it has been rigorously costed and fullyfunded defense policy that will be launched on june 7th. As canada moves forward with our efforts to champion peace and security around the world i take great strength from knowing we have access to innovative ideas and valuable policy perspectives of the Canada Institute and the Wilson International center for scholars. Thank you very much. [applause] thank you, welldone. Thank you, minister. So i have the best job in the world because i get to sit in this chair and talk to folks like you. Two people, i am not from bc. I went to school in bc youre from school. I graduated from bc. Pretend the people out there are not here and 34 million watching on. Well have a little bit of chat. Secretary mattis from west coast. Where is he from . Washington state. He told me about coming to vancouver but i cant share those. A little drinking age differential. We used to go to seattle a lot. For the aerospace museum, yeah, yeah. Aerospace museum. Right. So first, thanks to jane harman for hiring me. This is such an amazing place to work because the nerve center of the United States relationships with its allies. Its where ideas and speaks come together in a staunchly nonpartisan environment and it is where folks like you can come to speak to a broader audience. Your government, the trudeau government, has attract a lot of attention since the election. One of the things of course was to embark on a very novel approach to cabinet selection. You put a doctor at the health minister, a, astronaut as transportation minister. Working on warp drive right now, yeah. We have a soldier as defense minister. Your military Service Included one tour in bosnia, three in afghanistan. You were a gangs cop in the Vancouver Police force. So my first question to you, which is more challenging, a live fire situation or question period in parliament . I would say you know where the enemy is when youre in a firefight. I will leave it at that. Is being then you probably didnt know about minister sajjan. You hold a patent, inventor. Tell us about your patent. That was actually, it was a necessity and most inventions are like that. When i joined the military, joined the reserve and i was told that we had to wear a respirator. I didnt know anything really but the military at that time. So as a respirator i decided when i was about 16 i would wear a turban and grow my beard. But to wear a respirator you have to be cleanshaven. For me to be in the military i had to wear a respirator. I really wanted to be in the military. But i realized if i didnt pass this training i would have been released. So i was always told there is challenge in front of you, figure it out. So i did. I used to, i was a snorkeling one day and figured out a way to design what i call the nbc hood so i could wear it over top of my turban as well and so any facial respirator like a gas mask. So, funny part was when i first put it together i couldnt test it because you dont carry tear gas around. It is not a good thing. I wasnt a Police Officer at that time. The tear gas. I designed it and engaged at the combat Training Center and about to go into the testing before practice our drills and i didnt know if this was going to work. So i went in and then the instructor was, put this on, it was working. He thought i was holding my breath. He was making me run around more in case i was holding my breath and shaking my head. Turns out it worked very well. I designed it because i wanted to stay in the military. Loved every minute of it. I didnt make any money because i didnt have any business experience but i got to go through the process of developing my own patent. Very cool, very cool. Your government and your team here, were strictly nonpartisan but i have to say the trudeau government has been really good at reestablishing, consolidating u. S. Canada relationships during this period of transition. I think there are more canadians in washington than there are starbucks in downtown d. C. , and i understand in the first days after the election Prime Minister trudeau phoned up President Trump and said, mr. President , congratulations, youre going to have a lot of problems in the world, you i just want to assure you that canada is not going to be one of them. And so i took this as an affirmation to the president that canada really has the United States back and its a strong alliance. It doesnt have a lot of problems but it is often, because it is so good i think it gets overlooked a lot, taken for granted. A lot of folks in the United States need to be reminded about the importance of this relationship. So in either the broader u. S. Canada relationship or defense and security cooperation, whats the message you would like people in michigan and ohio and arizona and north dakota to remember about their canadian neighbors . First of all, set this straight with his leadership at that there is no greater relationship to us than the u. S. We, we see it, canadians and americans see it from only on tv and, also tourism but i already talked about the police relationship. We work on files together, cooperatively in many different regards but now also from the defense perspective, that is probably one of the most deep relationships that any two nations can actual have where we have our folks who have fought together from, you go back from world war i. Where so many folks have served we have canadians actually served in the vietnam war. When you get into the current context on daily basis, as minister of National Defense i get to see the work thats being done overseas but more importantly here, even for the north American Defense as well. For example, we have what is called operation caribe. We send navy ships down to the south coast here for drug interdiction and every single time our ships do wonderful work and interdict drugs and working with the u. S. Coast guard. We intercept russian bears as well im sorry, bears sorry, the aircraft. Okay, thank you. Im an economist. So perhaps, it just goes to show, this happens behind the scenes on a daily basis. And, so we do, i think both americans and canadians take it for granted of this unique relationship that we have. And i think that defense relationship, we also want to be mindful because of our great defense relationship our two economies are also connected just like our people. My sister lives, my sister lives in seattle. Secretary mattis, has direct Family Connection to winnipeg. So we have such great ties that we need to be able to talk about this more so that we can always have a good, working relationship moving forward. Great, thank you. So, you have been, you got a couple things going on. You have got a witness policy review we defense policy review were waiting to see the results of. I understand the last defense policy review took place 10 years ago. The world has changed a lot since then. What, many of our audience members are not canadian, can you tell us why Canadian Defense policy should be important to, to the United States and maybe some of the new things that came into your thinking in designing this new policy from 10 years ago . Well our defense policy, one that, when the Prime Minister mandated me to conduct a defense policy review he wanted to make sure that the Canadian Armed forces, they were wellresourced, Canadian Armed forces were welllooked after. Only way to do it conduct a very thorough defense policy review. We have done that we did it in one year because we wanted to get action as quickly as possible. More importantly we consulted our closest allies. Obviously the u. S. Had significant input into our defense policy. Interoperability between our forces is extremely important. We conduct operations overseas. As much as when were, for us to be strong in canada, for canadians we have to be secure in north america and we have taken that into account, making sure that the Canadian Armed forces and our people are wellresourced and we looked out 20 years. More importantly we took the advice from our allies as well to get the costing down properly where we actually did, had multiple Companies Review our costing process to making sure we had the number. More importantly we had, it has been approved, funding has been approved by the cabinet. So moving forward it will provide sustainable and predictable funding for the military for 20 years. Making sure they can plan. And final piece to it is, there are two things we did not include into it because we need a lot more study and dialogue moving forward. That is norad modernization and north