Once again the Conference of Defence Associations Institute (CDAI) has hosted the Conference on Security and Defence, moving the venue from the Chateau Laurier to the Shaw Centre. Attendance was good although it looked sparser than in previous years but this can be put down to the fact that the new venue was so much larger than the old that the same number of people looks lesser in the larger space. Attending was a good smattering of Defence Liaison Officers (Poland, Netherlands, Germany, China, Korea, and Britain to name a few), military (Generals to RMC Officer Cadets), ex-military, and defence and industry pundits. In all, it was a varied turnout which made talks at coffee breaks very interesting with a diversity of opinion.
There were awards presented with the first being the 2016 Ross Munro Media Award to Richard Maden of CTV who was, unfortunately, unable to attend. There was also a presentation of the Merchant Navy Commemorative Theme Project Award presented to former Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) Walt Natynczyk in recognition of his work with the forces and with veterans. He gave a very impassioned acceptance noting how everyone owes a debt of gratitude to veterans and to do all that we can for them.
There seemed to be less keynote speakers this year with the only big name being Gen. Jonathan Vance, CDS of the CAF who spoke for almost an hour and answered questions for another 25 minutes. His “state of the union” addressed the accomplishments of the CAF over the past year and is too encompassing for this blog but it was very positive and also mentioned the upcoming deployments to Africa and Latvia and upcoming capital procurements.
The humorous highlight of his Q&A session was when female RMC Officer Cadet Sanfaçon asked that, as the CAF was driving to get more women in the Forces, was there was any movement in getting operational kit (body armour, rucksacks) that is more suited to women. This is especially important to people like her as she is diminutive in stature (4’ 11” and less than 100 pounds) and the current operational kit is made for a standard male at 5’ 11” and 175 pounds and is not practical or functional for women. Gen. Vance replied:
“ … I hear you sister. I’m like 5’ 7” and I’ve been chafing against this stuff my entire career too. My body armour rides up to here. … Look, you’re right. … Seriously, you’re right. Army commander – do better. Talk to Gen. Wynnyk, it’s all his fault. Don’t get me going about boots!”
Other presentations included the presentation of the Strategic Outlook 2017 by Kim Nossal, a presentation on the upcoming Invictus Games in Toronto by Michael Burns, General Lori Robinson, Commander of NORAD & US Northern Command, USA, France’s Général de Division Aérienne, Gen. Philippe Montocchio, and a mediated talk with the Honourable Rona Ambrose where she covered many topics but noted that procurement, for the most part, goes very well, but all the public hears about are the larger projects and only when they run into snags.
The panels were also very interesting with the first addressing Reviewing Canadian Defence Policy and included retired CDS, Gen. (ret’d) Tom Lawson. After the panel Mr. Lawson was asked about his opinion on the appointment of Gen (ret’d) Jim Mattis as U.S. Secretary of Defence in the new Trump government and he answered quite favourably:
The other panel on day 1 addressed the Canada-US Relations in the Trump Era and was going along quite nicely with panelists saying that President Trump will eventually normalize once he realizes what he can and can’t do. Unfortunately, President Trump had decided to hold a 75 minute impromptu press conference at the same time as the panel was convening which some of the audience had tuned into. It was brought up in the Q&A that it was unfortunate that the panelists were not cognizant of this at the time of their presentation as if they were, they would not use the word “normal” in the same sentence as “Trump”.
The panels of day 2 were on NATO’s Pivot Countries and Their Threats, and Great Powers and Interventionism which only served to outline where NATO should have concerns and how superpowers such a China are encroaching on other countries (such as building defence positions on the Spratly Islands belonging to the Philippines) around the world but staying just below the level of belligerence.
All in all, there was a tremendous amount of information presented and perhaps more detail on each topic will be presented here in the future.
to see all the images (mostly podium shots) CLICK HERE:
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