Let's take the scenario that I have briefly described, of a flag-of-convenience vessel making a run through the Northwest Passage this summer. That situation will give us roughly three to four days to make a decision before the vessel is through, assuming that the passage is ice-free, as it has been the last two summers. Four days is not a lot of time for a major decision involving some very sensitive international diplomacy.
So we should be engaging with other countries now to talk about how we would like to work with them to deal with that scenario. For instance, we should be talking with the United States about how they might assist us in quietly pressuring the flag-of-convenience state to actually require that the vessel register with our northern shipping registration scheme. They should request Canada's permission, in a sense comply with the basic requirements of surveillance and policing in the Arctic, so as to avoid the danger of that dangerous negative precedent. Proactive diplomacy with the United States is advised, because the United States is starting to realize, as Paul Cellucci has made clear in the last couple of years, that a wild west scenario in the Northwest Passage is not in the interests of the United States or Canada. And we are partners in the defence of North America, so they should be encouraged to think in a forward-looking way about how they would deal with that kind of situation.
The other issue that needs to be put on the table is that we are currently engaged in a very complex legal and scientific exercise concerning the mapping of the seabed under the Arctic Ocean. It is absolutely imperative that Canadian scientists have the support necessary to complete that mapping by 2013, which is the deadline for making our submission to the UN.