Mr. Chair, through you to the witnesses, thank you for being here this morning.
I only have five minutes. I wish I had five hours. I'm going to concentrate on a couple of areas, and I ask these questions as if I'm speaking to the folks at home. In other words, through you to them.
What I usually tell folks is Canada has the same population and gross domestic product of the State of California, yet we have the second largest land mass in the world, and probably—I believe it is—the largest coastline in the world. We have to make use of all our assets. I was very happy to hear about the marine security operations centre and the way Ms. Sinclair explained it. Thank you very much for that because we have to keep in context our ability as a nation to afford the things and to do the things that we want to do.
What really struck my interest, thinking back to the cold war, was when you talked about the right of innocent passage. I recall during the cold war—and this is with a view to our Arctic and Ms. Sinclair saying provided somebody asked for permission, etc., in our waters—the Soviets would have an innocent looking fishing boat which really had radar or electronic eavesdropping, etc.
When we talk about the right of innocent passage, could you be succinct in explaining what it is and how you believe we can overcome some of those old...? Somebody may say this is just an oil tanker or a fishing boat going to look for northern cod or whatever fish is up there. Working with our allies, how do we approach that issue?