National Defence committee  Certainly, sir, we don't have a history of submarines colliding with one another. That type of thing is seen as a major incident and a highly unusual accident.

National Defence committee  Maritime domain awareness, a perfect awareness of everything happening within our maritime domain, is a huge area. There's a lot of activity, and we necessarily have to focus on some of the areas of higher concern. As the MSOCs mature, as our approach to maritime domain awareness matures, as the techniques and information available to us and our pursuit of automatic information transmission in commercial vessels give us more information that we can manage, and as our sharing of information matures, we're getting better and better at it.

National Defence committee  Our naval ships are incredibly fastidious. We comply with Canadian law. We're extremely careful, as are all Canadian Forces, not to leave a footprint in the north. We recognize how vulnerable the environment can be, and we take great pains to avoid any impact on the environment.

National Defence committee  Excuse me, sir. To clarify, what I'm saying they have is the ability to operate under ice. I'm not saying they have the ability necessarily to operate under the ice that's within our sovereign waters. I think that's under ice generally. It's another layer of complexity that I'm not sure any one of them is comfortable with.

National Defence committee  I would say that the Russians have it. Clearly, the Americans have it. And I would say the British and French have it; they may have it in different degrees. I really can't say about the other nations.

National Defence committee  The challenge of ice adjacent to land and the depth of the water. It shoals considerably around land, and we really haven't had the type of hydrographic surveys done in the north that we've been able to do in other parts of the country. That's some of the research that's going on now that I've talked about already.

National Defence committee  Am I confident? I'm confident that we can risk-manage this. We're looking at developing technologies that will give us a higher degree of confidence when some of the challenges to operating submarines diminish. We continue to look at vulnerabilities and try to adjust to them. I don't want to give the impression, after discussing all the challenges, that it would be impossible for a submarine to actually operate up in our north; in fact, it would be possible for a submarine to operate in our north.

National Defence committee  Sir, thank you for your question. RADARSAT-2 is really about imaging objects on the surface. In that respect, it is not an effective surveillance mechanism for submarines that are transiting underwater or under ice. Having said that, RADARSAT-2 is but one of a large number of sources of information that we base this on.

National Defence committee  Well, sir, there are two questions. First, in terms of the ability to traverse the Arctic undetected, if you're talking about the Arctic Ocean, yes, it would be relatively easy to traverse the Arctic Ocean undetected, particularly if no one was really looking for you and expecting you to be there.

National Defence committee  Well, sir, first of all, Texas was not in our territorial waters. But had she been, it would have been clear to us that she was. We have a way of managing these things in which I have every confidence.

National Defence committee  If you look at a map and look for the best and safest way for a submarine to get to the North Pole, it is not through the Canadian Arctic. There are much easier ways of getting to the Arctic. Submariners are practical folks, like my friend Mr. Mulholland, and they wish to avoid hazardous areas.

National Defence committee  We have a very good relationship with the Danish navy and with the Danish armed forces. As you know, our chiefs of defence met in the Arctic last summer. We were looking at a number of ways to cooperate, to share information, to share perspectives. I would hazard, sir, that Canadians expect us to have a capability in the Arctic, but I would say they don't expect it to be at the expense of our capabilities on our other ocean spaces.

National Defence committee  Thank you for your question, Mr. Chairman. I would say, first of all, in terms of the surprise of seeing the new class of submarine in the Arctic, that it is really an issue for the Americans as to why it is that the submarines surfaced at the North Pole. Clearly, they wished to make a point by doing so, and I think they were successful.

National Defence committee  Sir, first of all, I agree that this is an important area for us to be considering. It is the changes taking place in the north, I think, that cause us to look ahead and ask how we need to position ourselves to be able to respond to the safety and security threats of the future.

National Defence committee  Thank you, and good morning, Mr. Chair. It's great to see you and the members of the committee once again. I understand that I'm here today to help answer your questions related to the protocols governing the movement of submarine traffic. I bring with me Commander Dermot Mulholland, who is the subject matter expert on water-space management within the offices of the Chief of the Maritime Staff.