Thank you.
I have just a quick comment off the top. I know that Mr. Hawn has said a few things regarding comments we have made here. Respectfully, I would like to make a few comments about what has been said here, in essence, about where we are going with this particular situation. As I said, I have a great deal of respect for you as an airman. I want to make this one comment about the north.
We--your colleague, Mr. Mills, from Alberta, and I--were in Reykjavik at the genesis of this talk on the MOU on search and rescue. A gentleman was there who did a presentation on the circumpolar activity of the eight nations involved. He said that because of the lack of ice cover, the trip to ship goods and resources and the like from the nations across the north can now be reduced by 40% to 60% just by going over the pole alone, which now they can do. With global warming--climate change, if that's what it is--ice is being reduced. I'm loath to use hockey analogies, but I'll use one here. I think it's a question of being where the puck is going to be as opposed to being where it has been. I don't think we fully grasp how much activity is going to be circumpolar. Given the MOU he talked about, it's one thing to declare a sovereignty that is ours, but we have to walk the walk as well.
In your deliberations on the MOU, how far advanced are you within the Canadian perspective?