The Arctic offshore patrol ship is designed to be able to operate in first-year ice, which is about three-foot thick. This gives that class of ship the ability to patrol in the high Arctic and not be limited by what the ice is doing in any particular navigable season.
Other ships—the joint support ship and the Canadian surface combatant, both programs that are being delivered through the national shipbuilding procurement strategy—will have an ability to operate in the Arctic, but in the marginal ice zones. Of course, the Victoria class submarine is well equipped to operate on the ice edge.