Thank you. I can't stress enough what a critical question that is. In Canada we have completely missed the fact that, since 2017, there has been a redrawing of Nordic security.
Everybody, of course, is focused on the request of Finland and Sweden to join NATO and on barring the Turkish resistance that we see, which we hope, through the agreement that the three nations have, will be worked through.
The reality is that the Finns, the Swedes, the Norwegians and the Danes have all signed special agreements with the Americans. They have also created, and this is increasingly becoming apparent, an agreement among the four of them. Well, there are five, because they also include Iceland. This agreement is called NORDEFCO.
NORDEFCO is an agreement that is creating a shared aerospace picture. Even before Sweden and Finland made the request to join NATO, they recognized that they had to have a common operating capability.
The other thing that the Nordics have done is allow the Americans to integrate with each of them. Once again, in Canada, we did not pay much attention to this, but this summer, the Norwegians, for the first time, allowed an American attack submarine, the Seawolf to come to the port in Tromsø, and they are retrofitting that port to better facilitate the Americans.
Canada has participated in some exercises. When the Norwegians have their big Cold Response, we will send a small number of individuals over to participate. We are a more active participant in the anti-submarine exercise that is conducted by the British and the Nordics, called Dynamic Mongoose. We have been a full participant in that.
Where it is lacking and where.... Once again, we are limited by open literature, but we do not see Canada sitting down with the Nordics and the Americans and saying, “Look, we realize you're creating a new northern tier to the defence of NATO. We want to be involved.” It once again gets to the “seat at the table” issue that was raised by, I believe, Dr. Kimball, in terms of the fact that Canada is not there. It speaks to the issue that Justin raises in terms of the fact that we are not at the forefront, saying that we need to unify NORAD in terms of the aerospace and maritime pictures and this emerging Nordic maritime picture. That's simply not happening.
As for the other part of the equation, we've settled our issue with the Danes over Hans Island. What I would like to see is using that relationship with the Danes and the Greenlanders to say, “Look, Thule is at the centre.” Thule, of course, is part of the American anti-ballistic missile system, which will be critical in the threats we are going to be facing in the future. Canada could be saying, “Okay, now is the time to say that we have to have some conversation with the Greenlanders and the Danes about how that works.” We then use that as a means of integrating and connecting with NATO, saying, “We embrace NATO. Yes, we know we have a sovereignty issue.”
I would like to add to one of the questions. All our European allies have also disagreed with how we have drawn the straight baselines to enclose the Northwest Passage. The Americans are the ones who are the most vocal, but the Europeans don't agree, by the same token.
The Europeans will respond if we're sitting there and saying we want to be a bigger part, and our northern expertise is something they need. This is, once again, something I think we can be much more forthright about, but we need to also have the capability to follow that.