Thanks for the question.
On the importance of the north, thank you for giving me the chance to clarify, because I didn't want in any way to downplay it. In fact, I think we're all cognizant of the rising importance of the north. With climate change, conditions are changing and there's going to be more activity. What we need to do as we look at that is to ask what the nature of that activity will be.
I think what you've heard from all of us is that at the moment, we don't see the principal nature of that being of a military threat. There will be a lot more human activity, which means the chances for oil spills, environmental challenges, search and rescue, even disease and pandemics. All of that will become a new dynamic. The work the whole-of-government teams are doing all the time is designed to make sure that we're kind of ready for that in terms of civil security issues, if I might call them that, rather than military security issues. Having said that, deterrence is an extremely important part of maintaining sovereignty, so there's being able to project out, having the awareness, the ability to do the surveillance. As I said, I think that we have upped our game considerably.
There's been a lot said about the United States announcing its new Arctic strategy. They are kind of late to that game and there's no investment line in that, whereas Canada has actually been investing, because we recognize that the Arctic is us.
In terms of the challenges that you talked about, Chinese Arctic icebreakers and other things, we are investing in new capability, whether it's satellite or the Arctic offshore patrol vessels, the investment in the Canadian coast guard capability, too. It's important. In terms of ships transiting Canadian waters, we have said that as long as they ask us for permission to go through our waters and they can comply with the right environmental standards and all of that, then they will perhaps get permission and be welcome.
It's all about being aware, being able to be clear about what we expect of people, and people recognizing that the Arctic is not an ungoverned territory. There are sovereign countries that have responsibility for that sovereignty. We exercise it every single day, so not to downplay it at all....