I'm going to a bachelor with my Conrad Black colleague is a columnist at the National Post.

I depend upon Conrad to help me understand Canada. It was part of my education

that Canada stood north of the US, but not much more and I've learned so much

from Conrad over these years and I'm particularly now interested in foreign policy

because those bombers you mentioned Conrad they were two from Russia

two from China and they meant to show the sword to North America.

You correctly say that two of the six high-performance aircraft that met them were Canadian.

And yet Canada's approach towards defending itself is unknown to me.

I know we've talked about the need for icebreakers to defend your Northern Territory.

I know we've talked about Justin Trudeau worried

about interference by the Chinese in your elections. However you've got to get to the next

election and those bombers show a deal of the possibilities of war breaking out.

Is Ottawa okay with saying that Russia and China are adversaries, our enemies? Do they mix the language or are they blood about it?

I think they would shilly, shally slightly and make hopeful noises that we aren't really enemies.

But they might even if pushed, say that our status was a little different from that of the US and that the United States

is in something of a great power rivalry with China and to some extent Russia and and we are not because you know we we aren't

in the front line in Taiwan we aren't involved particularly in the Middle

East and so forth we have been and I must give Justin Trudeau credit for this,

he's been very strong in Ukraine and very supportive of Ukraine

and has consistently condemned the Russian action in Ukraine. We can't fall from there, John. He's been very good

on that. And now the fact that Canada has more Ukrainians than any other country in the world

except Ukraine may have something to do with it, but that's not the point.

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