National Defence committee  I think it is a welcome measure. I think this is an attempt by Turkey to try to make sure that the conflict does not escalate. They're exercising the provisions of the Montreux treaty, which they're the treaty holder for, so I think it is very positive. I don't think it is going to have a significant impact on the Royal Canadian Navy's operations in support of NATO at this time.

National Defence committee  NATO has been preparing since 2014 and Russia's annexation of Crimea and its first invasion of Ukraine. We've been very concerned with the potential for Russian aggression towards NATO. There's been a lot of work done by SACEUR in terms developing plans to be able to respond to Russian aggression.

National Defence committee  Thank you, Chair, for the opportunity to appear before the committee today and answer your questions. Ambassador Angell has done an excellent job giving you a high-level overview of NATO, Canada's role in NATO and some of the challenges that we face. I wanted to take a couple of minutes to vector in on what I do at NATO, to give you some context of my function here.