I'm going to try to keep it under seven minutes and defer the rest of the time.
I'm going to try to set this up as a bit of a comment and then get you to react. The level of debate we've had here really is very useful for the committee, and it also suggests that there be some further inquiry, that the BMD engagement be not simply thrown off the table, but moved forward.
I want to say that in terms of public perception and the actual value added by it as a Canadian mechanism to be engaged in, it needs to be compartmentalized; it needs to be confined, to be reduced in scope below what is currently perceived to be BMD.
The first thing I want to do is commend you, Ms. Mason, for your tremendous work on disarmament and non-proliferation. These must remain at the fulcrum, because it is in these areas that the real threats are.
By the same token, BMD has to be a combination basically of perfection in terms of its functionality, but also of confinement of its scale to its current level. The minute we scale up, it's going to be a political threat to Russia and China, and as you correctly point out, there will be a response strategically by those two countries. BMD, then, needs to remain in the paradigm of older technology and rogue states and of potential slippage into the hands of non-state actors, because technology that ended up pretty easily in the hands of North Korea and Iran may well in the future end up in the hands of a non-state entity.
The risk level, really, is a combination of likelihood and severity of impact, and even though the likelihood may not be great, the severity of impact would be tremendous. We should therefore work towards improving it, but we should definitely politically work to keeps its scale confined and, in the eyes of Russia and China, be very clear that it is being kept confined and aimed at rogue entities.
With that setup, what I would suggest is that there is a research and development opportunity for Canada in the area of perfecting the system. The committee received testimony on and in fact witnessed the demonstration of the system, to the point of seeing that the imperfection really lies, as my colleague has correctly pointed out, in the use of decoys and the inability of the defence system in the future potentially to recognize correctly what the re-entry vehicle is.
If research and development could be aimed at that point in the fulcrum, to better keep track in the future of the actual threat rather than decoys that have been deployed with other projectiles or even in the same projectile, there would be an opportunity for us to engage at potentially a reasonable cost but also to gain the credibility of being active on the file. What the seat really entails is an operational question. We have a tremendous seat at the table through NORAD, and we could deepen it, as you point out, Mr. Perry, through engagement on BMD.
I'll leave it there for you each to comment for a couple of minutes on your reactions.