Yes, we are, and on a number of fronts.
We have a fairly robust program with the Arctic Council. An oil and gas assessment was done last year, and it was released by the Arctic Council. Canada was an important contributor to that. That certainly does help to improve the body of knowledge about the risks and the sensitivities of the Arctic. I did bring a copy, and I can give the website link. This is only the summary. The body of work that's behind that is quite substantive.
We're also working on the completion of the Arctic marine shipping assessment, which is due to be released following the ministerial meeting at the end of April, in Toronto. So again, that's a way that Canada contributes and works with its arctic neighbours on improving the body of knowledge about those issues.
We also have a protocol between us, the Coast Guard, Environment, DFO, the other players, which we negotiated a few years ago, in terms of clarifying roles and responsibilities should there be a spill. In fact I brought a copy of that because I thought it was relevant to the discussions of this committee. We have copies to distribute.
It's a fairly detailed protocol, which clearly outlines the responsibilities and interventions that have to be done as soon as an oil spill, or any spill, is detected. Although, thank God, we haven't had oil spills, we've had other types of spills that have put the marine environment at risk and we've had to intervene.