Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the witnesses.
I agree with my colleague, Paul Dewar, that it was a very succinct and rather compelling beginning to our work. Thank you for the time you've put into the presentations.
Mr. Kessel, one phrase you used struck me. I think you said that no legal vacuum exists in the Arctic—or legal void, or words to that effect. You referred to the Law of the Sea. I had a chance to spend some time with the former ambassador, Mr. Legault, who was one of Canada's great architects of that work for a number of decades. I'm somewhat familiar with the Law of the Sea—and legally I have no reason to think you're not very accurate—but there is a perception, and I think you might agree with me, in the minds of Canadians that there's some confusion as to Canada's sovereignty in the Northwest Passage, or there's some dispute.
A number of countries are calling for the Arctic to be managed outside the Law of the Sea process. You referred to the Antarctic context. We see media reports of Russian bombers and we justify fighter aircraft purchases based on sovereignty in the north. I'm wondering if the legal framework is as solid as you claim. What more can we do as a country to convince our own population and our partners in the Arctic region that this is the case? I think if you ask people on the street whether it is true that there's no legal void or vacuum with respect to Canada's sovereignty and to compare it to a land mass—you talked about a land territory. It surprises me. If somebody flew a Second World War Russian bomber over northern New Brunswick, people would react differently, and yet we had reports of this happening a few years ago.
I'm just wondering why we seem to have missed the mark as a country. It's not a judgment of this government; successive governments have failed to implant in the public imagination a legal principle that you think is so solid.