That's a great question. It could take two hours to answer it, but I'll try to do it quickly.
We've already talked a lot about coordination and funding, among other things. What we need but don't have in Canada is a clear long-term strategy. The key word is “continuity”. Money is often invested in one-off activities. For example, the Canada Foundation for Innovation holds a competition. That's not a good way to do research in the Arctic. It's not good for Canada and its Arctic strategy.
The Arctic is changing, and the only way to understand and adapt to those changes is to have precise environmental data on the ground. That requires a network of research stations, environmental stations, researchers who will work together over a long period. At the moment, the problem is that we have ad-hoc initiatives that play out over a fairly short period of time. We're always changing, adapting and redoing everything.
We need a long-term strategy. The Europeans have 15-year framework programs, for example. That would be much better adapted and would allow for research continuity. We can't conduct research on climate change and its impact in Canada's far north if we establish a three-year program and then replace it with another program so we have to change everything and submit applications over again. Therefore, we need continuity in research.
Of course, we need more money, because it's extremely important for Canada and because it's extremely important for the communities. We haven't talked a lot about the impact of climate change on communities. When you go up north, you see it every day. Changes in the greening of the north are affecting food, food security and lifestyles, including the migration patterns of animals that are traditionally food sources, and also medicinal plants.
So what's it going to take? We need a long-term strategy founded on cooperation and coordination. It must include an Arctic research strategy that will provide the main guidelines for ArcticNet, as well as all the organizations and research groups that work on northern research, including traditional knowledge, obviously.