I will keep it very short, Monsieur Coderre.
First of all, you're absolutely right, I think the coast guard is an orphan in terms of the federal bureaucracy in Ottawa, and placing it underneath the umbrella of the Department of National Defence would be a good thing as long as DND understood that those essential civilian functions need to be continued too. And it's that balance that needs to be achieved. But absolutely, we should be relying on the experts in Arctic navigation to provide that policing and sovereignty assertion function in the north, and the coast guard does that very well.
In terms of monitoring, there are RCMP officers in every northern community. There are Canadian Rangers in every northern community. RADARSAT-2, our synthetic aperture radar satellite, is now in orbit providing exceptional surveillance over the Arctic. That is, of course, what it was designed to do. The Canadian Forces is building two ground stations to work with RADARSAT-2. That's an excellent initiative.
There are underwater listening devices in the Canadian Arctic. It's Ottawa's best-kept secret. And now the Department of National Defence is working to develop new technology there. This is all happening in the context of NORAD cooperation. Three years ago the Canadian government and the United States expanded the scope of NORAD to include maritime surveillance, including in the Northwest Passage, so we are working on surveillance with our American partners.
And then finally, we have some air surveillance. The Canadian Forces has Aurora long-range surveillance aircraft that are used from time to time. And I believe they are developing unmanned aerial vehicles, drones, which could also provide that visual confirmation of the kind of information that ground or satellite assets might come across.