Welcome to the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs.
We are gathered here today on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe nation.
Today, we will continue our fourth study, which pertains to Arctic sovereignty, security and emergency preparedness of indigenous peoples.
On today's first panel we will be hearing from Dr. Heather Nicol, director of the School for the Study of Canada at Trent University, as well as Dr. Heather Exner-Pirot, senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.
To ensure an orderly meeting, I would like to outline a few rules for all of us to follow.
Members or witnesses may speak in the official language of their choice. Interpretation services in English, French and Inuktitut are available for the first part of today's meeting. Please be patient with the interpretation.
The interpretation button is found at the bottom of your screen, for those of you who are attending virtually. You can listen in either English or French. If interpretation is lost, please inform me immediately and we will ensure interpretation is properly restored before resuming the proceedings.
Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. If you are on the video conference, please click on the microphone icon to unmute yourself. For those in the room, that will be done by the proceedings and verification officer.
When speaking, please speak slowly and clearly. When you are not speaking, please mute your mike.
As a reminder, all comments should be addressed through the chair.
We'll start off as usual, with our two witnesses each having five minutes for introductory remarks. I would ask them to keep that at five minutes. Then we'll proceed with the first round of questions.
I'd now like to invite Dr. Heather Nicol to start us off.