Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you very much for your presentation. I liked it very much. You speak about the experiences from Afghanistan and the lessons learned from Afghanistan and from other areas of conflict.
If you are speaking about Afghanistan, you know that we have had a precedent in Afghanistan with a counter-insurgency operation. We were not directly involved, but our neighbour to the south was involved in the Vietnam War. That was 30 or so years ago. There were a lot of lessons learned from that kind of conflict that also apply in this.
But I am going to be concentrating on the threats. What threats do you see Canada facing, especially in the Arctic?
Of the Arctic nations, we are the only nation that owns the Northwest Passage. There is a tendency for the Northwest Passage to be an international freeway through our own territory, and I see this as a very realistic threat. If we are speaking about an Atlantic fleet or a Pacific fleet.... But this is in our own territory, and if it is.... We have seen nations such as Panama, with the Panama Canal, and Egypt, with the Suez Canal, and all the other stuff in international territories, and I don't want to see Canada divided by an international free waterway.
What do you think we should do to avoid these things? There is a tendency toward that, and, personally, I perceive this as a threat to Canada.