Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much to the panel for these very good presentations.
I just want to state a couple of facts. We have the second-largest country in the world, after Russia. Only 2% of Canadians ever cross the polar circle, and 90% of the population lives 100 miles from the border.
Dr. Bercuson, you are an authority on history. You outlined the role of the military engineers in building Canada during the years of this country's formation. Today we have, besides the three elements of sea, air, and land, the added fourth dimension of threats, which is cyberspace. This is a new element that is completely distinguished from the situation of the Cold War. Then, the preoccupation was to secure airspace, to secure land, to secure sea, and so on. Cyberspace is now the new threat.
How do you see these new elements influencing our force's readiness, and what would be your advice for us, especially from the point of view of lessons learned from history? It is very important, when we have seen that one of the main preoccupations of our Fathers of Confederation was to connect the west coast with the east coast. Now we have the huge Arctic with a lot of potential, economic potential. Usually economic potential attracts a lot of interest from other people who can influence, let's say, our sovereignty and our security in some way.
Can you elaborate on this new, or virtually new, threat, and on how we should be ready to deal with this new issue? It's completely different now from during the Cold War.