Foreign Affairs committee  I think foreign capital can be welcomed provided we set the rules for it. It doesn't bother me in the slightest. It's not like the third option period back in the 1970s with the deep, deep Canadian concern about the U.S. investment in Canada. I don't think that's a big issue now.

Foreign Affairs committee  I would just go a little bit further. I believe in the long-term commercialization of the Northwest Passage, certainly in the first instance, sticking to our position of internal waters, but what I would particularly like to see would be a higher level of direct co-operation with the United States in the development of the Northwest Passage—United States, Alaska, the territories, and Greenland—because that's where ships have to go.

Foreign Affairs committee  We do that under NORAD. We do many things with the United States.

Foreign Affairs committee  Right, but I think there is a real challenge over the longer term of how we co-operate with the United States and, in our own interest, develop the Northwest Passage. I would start with the fundamental fact of Canadian foreign policy that you have to get along with the United States.

Foreign Affairs committee  As I say, my broader definition of sovereignty includes the economic and social development of the Canadian Arctic for the benefit of all Canadians as well as the people of the Arctic. To me it seems to offer tremendous opportunities in respect of transportation, resource development, fisheries, tourism, etc.

Foreign Affairs committee  To sum up, it's widely accepted that this and previous federal governments have been unable or unwilling to fund, develop and implement a long-term federal investment plan for the Canadian Arctic that would make the Arctic truly ours. Consultation, coordination and hope that the private sector, through ingenious P3s, will fill the gap are all very well, but my experience suggests that in this complex situation, the buck still stops in Ottawa, conceptually and financially, in the case of serious Canadian Arctic development.

Foreign Affairs committee  Good afternoon. It's a great honour and pleasure to be here to meet you. I'm a sort of recovering public servant, or a retired public servant who has fashioned himself into a so-called Arctic expert in the last few years. I'm not an international lawyer, so I can't speak with the certainty that some of my colleagues do.