If I may respond, I do think we need a military presence in the Arctic. The question is, how much, and how proportionate is it to the threat environment that we place in the Arctic specifically?
I would argue that Canada can best defend the Arctic by investing smartly in homeland defence overall and in a forward presence in Europe. We need to ensure that we, as we've done historically, defend against threats and defeat them before they manifest themselves in North America. This includes making sure we invest in ready, agile and southern-based expeditionary capabilities, as we might call them—in this case, expeditionary within our country—to be able to deploy southern troops to deliver kinetic effects where needed in the Canadian Arctic.
This goes to General Eyre's comments about persistent presence versus permanent presence. We have the permanent presence in the form of the Canadian Rangers in the communities. What I'm advocating is figuring out what the right persistent presence looks like and how the best-calibrated proportionate investments can be made to ensure we have the necessary defence at the time of relevance over various time horizons.