Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, both, for appearing today.
Congratulations to Ambassador Mearns on your appointment. I'm really wishing you all the best in this.
Also, to Ambassador Sinclair, I think the ink is still wet on the order in council. You have one foot in your director general job and one foot in your new ambassadorship. I do feel that I'm a little with the old and the new. I think that's quite an interesting shift because the work that you have done, Mr. Sinclair, has led to some significant policy changes, including appointments of a consulate general in Nuuk and soon, I hope, in Anchorage, as well as the ambassador's appointment as our Arctic ambassador.
In my head right now, Ambassador Mearns, is the balancing that you'll be required to do. There are issues of Arctic co-operation as the venue where we've had the most international co-operation, maybe in the world, and issues of Arctic competition, with the exit of Russia off centre stage, and now with other players, as Mr. Aboultaif spoke about. It's balancing co-operation and competition, and balancing the need for economic development, resource development infrastructure and the environment in a fragile world in which the Arctic is probably the most fragile part for Canada in climate change.
The third one is, really, on balancing indigenous knowledge and traditions, and science, engaging in what many Canadians would consider primary. You have some balancing to do.
How does that feel for you, and what do you think the challenges will be in maintaining your balance in the midst of that?