Thank you to the witnesses for being here today. Your testimony has been very interesting, and very informative as well. In fact, you've covered a number of my questions.
I have a brief question for the Department of National Defence. I wonder if perhaps you're downplaying a little bit the rising importance of the north and the challenge this country is going to face given not only the fact that the shipping lanes are going to open up and more ships will be in the north—I'm not just talking about sailing between Canada and Russia—and potentially coming through what we perceive and we claim rightly to be our territory. Coming through Canadian territory, other nations will declare the right of innocent passage. My first question is about the ability to police and monitor that.
In addition, we see, for example, growing interest from militaries around the world. The Chinese are building Arctic icebreakers, for example, and the threat that's going to play, and how are we going to be there on the ground?
Ms. Sinclair, in your testimony you listed a number of areas where we've beefed up our capability, but I am concerned about the ability to have ships in the water to enforce our sovereignty, not just claim it from a faraway capital, Ottawa, but to be there on the ground to intercept ships, to be able to monitor them and intercept them if necessary.