Well, remember that what they are trying to do at this point is.... It's not necessarily a termination, but it's a question of who will be moving forward in terms of the maintenance.
One of the difficulties we have as academics when we're looking at these issues is that it's difficult to get good statistics on how well these hangarages and runways have in fact been maintained. We obviously have to maintain a certain degree of government secrecy on that. Therefore, it becomes an issue for any of us to be able to say with any certainty in terms of this transition who is in fact maintaining it.
If in fact it is the existing company that has done so well at maintaining it and if it's being transferred, transfer always creates certain challenges. It is difficult for me to offer concrete acknowledgement in terms of where that is going for the future as we move forward, but I might add that when we look at it, we do in fact have another base that is supposed to be coming. That is in Nanisivik. We can see the manner in which the difficulties we've had with governments in terms of being able to build it.... Once again, I can contrast this to what the Russians have done.
We of course have to deal with the hangarage in Inuvik, as you point out. We need to deal with the fact that Nanisivik still needs to be completed, and we have to talk about the other forward operating locations that we have in Yellowknife and in one other location—my mind is blanking out where that is right now, so my apologies—and compare that to the Russians, of course, who, in the span from 1999 to 2022, have either built or renewed over 22 different military sites, bases and locations within their north. In fact, the brief I provided the committee lists the open literature in terms of where we think these various bases, airfields and capabilities are in fact located, and I remind the committee that Russia's GDP is less than Canada's.
We get into this issue of political commitment in terms of meeting the security needs that we have coming very soon, both in the immediate term and in the longer term.