There are a lot of nations around the world that live beside international straits and have been able to manage their straits issues. Canada has certain sets of rights that stem from it being an international strait transiting through, roughly, internal waters: legal rights to enforce certain elements of its jurisdiction or sovereignty up there.
I do not see that this is going to be an area where you're going to have significant transit of armed vessels. At least, the right of innocent passage is not a problem for us, and it's not a problem for any states in this area. On the issue of submarines, we're really talking about the question of the extent to which the Russians or the Chinese might replicate the Soviet strategic nuclear policy of trying to “bastion” their SSBNs, their ballistic missile submarines, in the Arctic, and where they would put them.
If the ice is shrinking, and if the reports are correct, probably that strategy for the Russians or the Chinese will become very problematic for them. I'm not sure why we should spent a lot of money, beyond perhaps the surveillance systems that are being developed just to know what's going on. But to invest significant amounts of money to try to counter a potential submarine problem up there...? To what end? What are we going to do with it? What are the scenarios we're trying to think of? I think that's a very misplaced investment.