Again, given the colour of uniform I wear, I'm happy to take that question myself.
I believe that the commander of the Royal Canadian Navy as well as the assistant deputy minister of materiel have talked about the submarine replacement program. That has now been announced publicly. The fact is that looking to replace the Victoria-class submarines' capability is vital to the sovereignty and security of Canada.
I talked earlier in terms of co-operative waterspace management with the United States. We do that because we have submarines. The fact is, we have submarines and the U.S. has submarines, so we make sure that the waterspace between the two of us in our own waters and adjacent waters is co-operatively maintained in a partnership with the U.S. and NATO to make sure that our boats are deconflicted under the water. You can imagine that we don't want to have things bumping into each other at depth, which would be rather unfortunate.
In terms of sovereignty in the north, I believe that the commander of the navy answered that question. Obviously, in terms of capability, a submarine brings significant capability for deterrence and sovereignty. At the same time, it also potentially has the capability to operate in the north. I'm probably going to get into the commander of the navy's lanes, but he's a good friend of mine, so I'll probably avoid that, given that his testimony was pretty clear on this.
In terms of that capability for me as the operational commander, it's vital to the sovereignty of Canada.