The committee probably knows this: The White House released a U.S. Arctic strategy in the last couple of weeks. I highly commend it. It's not in its entirety appropriate for Canada, but I would say that much of its substance can guide us and that a partnership is necessary with the United States on many of these issues.
In that context, I would say that we do have an ongoing dispute with the United States concerning the legal status of the Northwest Passage. We demonstrated just a couple of months ago our ability to resolve Arctic disputes with allies; I'm talking about the maritime boundaries settlement and the Hans Island settlement with Denmark. Given the increased Russian threat and the long-term challenge of China, this might be an opportune moment for us to sit down with the Americans and talk about the Northwest Passage in an open-minded way to see if we can tie up that ongoing point of difference between Canada and the United States.
In terms of the larger situation in the Canadian Arctic, again, we need to maintain and build our search and rescue capacity, our ability to get places quickly to save lives and to, if necessary, board a non-compliant civilian vessel in the Northwest Passage. The Cormorant search and rescue helicopters are fabulous for that.
As well, we need to renew some of our existing capability before it ages out—the RADARSAT Constellation, the Aurora long-range patrol vessels—and I would suggest that we need to make sure that our fighter jets, including our next-generation fighter jets, are able to operate across the Arctic. That will involve some improvements in runways and ground infrastructure and all of that for when they come online.
There are a lot of small things that can be done, but my big response to your question is that it's the U.S.-Canada relationship: Let's work with them as much as we can to see if we can resolve the difference.