National Defence Committee on June 3rd, 2009

[Prof. Whitney Lackenbauer]

I think we certainly could be there. It comes down to political will. If the Prime Minister is willing to take this on as one of his main efforts, seize this as a flagship, and leave his indelible imprint on the country, then indeed, this could be an appropriate time to take this sort of step. There already are forums in which we're continuously engaged, such as the Arctic Council, which, understandably, doesn't deal with security issues.

I think the time is indeed right. It would require following up on Minister Cannon's very admirable comments in his March speech in which he laid out a very constructive engagement with the circumpolar world. To pursue that particular course, I think, would be in Canada's strategic interest.

[Prof. Louis Fortier]

I'm no expert on all the questions, but my personal feeling is that before we invite them into a partnership, I think we have a lot of Canadian capacity to develop. Once we have a basic capacity, we can start inviting them.

This is a little bit the way we proceeded with science. It's like kids playing in a patch of sand, you know; if you don't bring any toys, you're not very popular.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Prof. Louis Fortier]

So what we did with the science is that once we had the Amundsen, we started to invite the international community, and they started to invite us. So we have expeditions on Russian icebreakers in the Siberian Arctic and things like that.

I think we have to build our own toys in our patch of sand before we invite the other kids.

[Ray Boughen, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Right. So what I hear both of you saying is that it's a sequential kind of thing, with a base being established and then building on that base. I guess we're not quite ready to start with the base. Or should we start with the base as Canada and then invite the other folks in?

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

We don't have enough time.

Can you answer in 10 seconds?

[Prof. Louis Fortier]

Let's start with the base. Once we're comfortable in our Arctic, let's invite the others.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much to our witness.

This concludes our meeting. I want to thank you for making yourselves available. And we, the committee members, will see each other again next week. Thank you.

The meeting is adjourned.