Absolutely. Canada has often welcomed foreign direct investment in several sectors of our economy, with non-renewable resource extraction being prime among them. There have been concerns expressed about what foreign direct investment from non-like-minded state sources might mean in terms of our Arctic sovereignty and security.
The clear example is Shandong Gold's attempted acquisition of the TMAC Hope Bay mine, which was blocked on national security grounds by the federal government. That would be an example of a concerns about foreign-owned companies or companies backed by foreign state-owned banks developing a toehold in strategic parts of the Canadian economy, in the Arctic or strategic locations in the Arctic, and potentially acquiring infrastructure. This is not a unique challenge set facing Canada. Other Arctic states are balancing the same considerations.
Another concern relates to activities of foreign scientific actors. Let's say a research icebreaker is operating in Canadian Arctic waters. We want to make sure that the research being conducted is actually that which has been approved and that the findings of that research are being released transparently, as is required under international law. There are also concerns about whether that particular practice is really pursuing the research it's claiming to be doing, or whether it's being done to gather bathymetric or hydrographic data about the seabed in anticipation of future activities by that actor. I'm not trying to be too cryptic here. I hope I'm not, so please push back if I am.
At this stage, I think these are risks and I think we've done a fairly good job of managing them, but we need to remain vigilant. Here's where it's very important for us to be mobilizing all the different sources of information we have—be they different sensor systems, the information being gathered or marine security operations centres on the coast that are synthesizing information.
We also really must make sure we have those connections with northern rights holders and stakeholders who have often been approached in the past with some of these opportunities and in turn really must be reassured that they have the support of Canada as whole in dealing with some of this uncertainty, particularly around foreign direct investment. I think it also requires the federal government, if it's going to step in and block certain initiatives on national security grounds, to be prepared to step up with some of those strategic investments.
Minister Garneau, I know that you, in your former hat as minister of transport, were overseeing a lot of the work being done in terms of transformative transportation infrastructure investments and what those could enable in the north. All of those investments also have a benefit in allowing us to increase our ability to sense what's going on within the region at the same time as improving resupply, improving health of communities and serving as a catalyst for more diversified economic development.