Any operation in that scenario would be whole-of-government.
First off, we track cruise ships. Cruise ships don't enter the Arctic without our knowing about it. We know when cruise ships go in. There are cruise ships in and around Arctic waters in the summer. They have done so for a number of years, and we track them. We make a great deal of effort on it.
I'll give you an example of a success story developing what we call maritime domain awareness. We have three MSOCs across the country, one on the Great Lakes and one on each coast. Those operations centres bring in data from a variety of sources to help develop a picture for our admirals on each coast who are joint task force commanders and plugged into the CJOC. What they see, I see. So we develop that picture.
Maritime domain awareness refers to not just “there's a ship here”; it's understanding who's on board. It's a much more comprehensive concept of where they are coming from and where they are going. Depending on the nature of the vessel, I can declare it a vessel of interest and we can track it.
What's really interesting about this, though, is the five partners concept. Everything we see at DND is shared with the RCMP, Coast Guard, Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and Transport Canada. We work together, through our various operations centres, to track and understand the nature of the activity.
To get to the specifics of the question, it depends on the scenario. Some cruise ships entering pull a shadow ship, which is available to conduct its own rescue. Other ships perhaps don't, but it speaks to regulatory issues that are beyond the purview of the Department of National Defence.
If we had to, if a ship went aground.... We have conducted an exercise in the past. It's about time, space, distance, and the conditions. We're fortunate that it's the summer months for the cruise ships, and therefore it does give us a bit of an edge, but ultimately, because of the dispersal of air force, the only way to pull people off cruise ships is to bring in another ship, transfer people to that ship, and pull them out. That's unless we set up over time an air bridge and a helicopter, or use austere landing fields and our C-130 Hercules, if we were able to do that, depending on the scenario and the geography.
It's extremely complex, but we have contingency plans. We're prepared to react accordingly.