Thank you. It's an excellent question.
When I think about Arctic security, I often distinguish between threats through the Arctic—ones that would pass through the region, such as long-range strategic delivery systems, which are very much a military mandate—and a lot of the threats to and in the Arctic, which have been documented and fall with other departments and agencies. In our national discussions, it behooves us to dedicate more energies and perhaps more attention to those departments and agencies that have been overlooked up to this point in time.
We look at the opioid crisis and what that means in the north. We look at patterns of human trafficking and ask what the unique Arctic pathways or unique Arctic vulnerabilities are that are not covered by our existing national systems. We look at certain provisions in terms of a very limited footprint for border services in the north and a limited footprint of RCMP federal policing as being key gaps that have been identified in the last five years and that we're still in the progress of addressing.
I think this is where Bill C-12 helps to create the enabling legislative conditions to see the investment of resources. When we look at announcements of increasing CBSA and RCMP personnel, we also need to look to the north and ask ourselves what kinds of vulnerabilities we need to be investing in with federal resources in the region. It's here that the language of sovereignty, to my mind, is not just about lines on a map. For all of us, it's actually everything that goes on within those lines.
I would say that the most acute security issues are actually perceived at the community level. Here's where it's important to look at things like human trafficking, to look at a lot of the other forms of violence that are playing out in these communities, and to also understand the pathways for transnational organized crime, what that increasing presence in the north and throughout the north means, and how we can counter it.