Yes, sir.
Mr. Chair and committee members, good afternoon. I am Major-General Bill Seymour. It is my pleasure to appear in front of the committee today, along with Commissioner Hutchinson and my colleagues from the Canadian Coast Guard, and of course, Jane Weldon from Transport Canada.
I am the deputy commander of the Canadian Joint Operations Command, responsible for planning and carrying out Canadian Armed Forces operations and joint exercises throughout the world, including in Canada’s North.
The Arctic is a key priority for the Canadian Armed Forces and its security and defence are built into our core missions, as defined in our defence policy, “Strong, Secure, Engaged”.
As a part of our vision of being strong at home and secure in North America, we are tasked with detecting, deterring and defending against threats, conducting search and rescue, and responding to domestic disasters and emergencies. Accordingly, the Canadian Armed Forces protects Canadians and ensures Canada's Arctic sovereignty in two main ways. First, through maintaining a year-round regional presence, and second, through domain awareness operations, which allow us to know what is going on.
The Canadian Armed Forces Arctic presence is anchored by joint task force north in Yellowknife, with permanent detachments in Whitehorse and Iqaluit. I spoke with the task force commander Brigadier General Carpentier yesterday and he looks forward to your visit up there.
We share facilities in Resolute Bay with Natural Resources Canada, which houses both the Canadian Armed Forces Arctic training centre and Canada's polar continental shelf program. We also share the facilities in CFS Eureka and CFS Alert with personnel from Environment and Climate Change Canada.
The Canadian Rangers are an integral part of our northern presence through their support for our operations and the important link they provide to northern and indigenous communities.
We conduct a host of operations and exercises, including those under Operation Nanook, to maintain our ability to operate effectively and be a key partner in Arctic safety, security and defence.
We also provide search and rescue services and have the ability to rapidly deploy forces to the Arctic from the south of Canada. I would like to emphasize that due to the operational challenges posed by the harsh Arctic environment, collaboration with partners at the community, territorial, federal and international levels is essential to what we do in the north.
Knowing what's happening in the Arctic is critical to ensuring Arctic security. Through Operation Limpid, our routine domestic surveillance operation, we detect threats as early as possible in all domains. To do this, we work in close collaboration with the Canadian Coast Guard, Transport Canada, Canada Border Services Agency and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police through the marine security operations centres, or MSOCS, to detect and assess marine-based threats.
NORAD is also essential to domain awareness in the north through its missions of aerospace warning, aerospace control and maritime warning for North America. With increased international interest and activity in the region, the stakes for ensuring the security of Canadians in the north are increasing.
To accomplish this, we have policy directions through Strong, Secure, Engaged to enhance the mobility, reach, and footprint of the Canadian Armed Forces in the north.
We are also acquiring a range of Arctic-focused capabilities, including the Arctic and offshore patrol vessels—the first of which touched salt water for the first time on Saturday—and space-based capabilities, as well as search and rescue aircraft and upgrades to our search and rescue helicopters. I will incorporate these capabilities into a systems-of-systems approach to domain awareness. This means combining data from all of our assets and those of our partners in every domain to provide a clear picture of what's happening.
In the coming years, we'll continue to work with our American partners to modernize NORAD, taking into account the full range of threats and new technologies, to improve surveillance in the Arctic. We'll also conduct joint operations and exercises to strengthen information sharing with Arctic allies and partners, including NATO. The Arctic Security Forces Roundtable, which Canada hosted for the first time in May, and that I chaired, is an important forum for co-operation at the international level.
Lastly, we'll continue to collaborate with our partners to ensure a whole-of-government approach to Arctic security. We maintain excellent relationships with these partners, including with northern and indigenous communities, and will continue this collaboration moving forward.
It's been a pleasure to speak to you this afternoon, and I look forward to answering your questions.
Thank you.