I'm glad we're going back to the topic at hand.
Canada is a Pacific nation. When I became Minister of National Defence, it was very clear that we did not have a significant presence in the Pacific. In fact, it was quite consistent that we didn't have a regular presence at the Shangri-La Dialogue. We committed to not only increasing our presence with the military, but being there reliably on exercises, working very closely with our partners.
A perfect example I can give is what we call Operation Neon, the section's monitoring against North Korea. In Vancouver a conversation was convened by foreign ministers, led then by our then foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, with other foreign ministers, the secretary of state and me. The secretary of defence from the U.S. also attended and provided the military outlook. Through this we were able, with all the foreign ministers, to look at the military challenges and emphasize the importance of diplomacy. To do this, we needed to have credible military presence in the region against North Korea. That's exactly what we did.
Through the convening of that conversation, we were able to have a greater presence in the region and we have consistently provided both aerial and ship support for monitoring these sanctions. This gives greater confidence to the members of the nations there that Canada will be there. That's exactly what we have done. We need to continue this. We have significant security concerns in the region, but if we also want to have a voice we need to be there. That's exactly what we're doing now.