National Defence committee  Thank you as well.

National Defence committee  Could I jump in here for a minute?

National Defence committee  I agree with you that historically there may not have been a need for dedicated search and rescue assets, but the Arctic is changing very quickly. My colleague David Barber at the University of Manitoba, Canada's leading sea ice scientist, is now predicting a total melt-out of al

National Defence committee  Thank you. Those are a couple of very interesting questions about the Northwest Passage. If the Northwest Passage becomes an international strait—that is, if the American legal position prevails—what are the consequences in terms of overflights, because it's not only an interna

National Defence committee  It is correct. It's a staggering number, and to just illustrate this, there are more people who fly over the Canadian Arctic every day than live on the ground. There are 104,000 people living north of 60 degrees, and there are more than that number of people who fly over there on

National Defence committee  I'll come back to my very first point, which is that the Arctic is a very large place and so most of the Arctic will fall unquestionably, indisputably, into one or another country's sovereign jurisdiction. Russia will get a large amount of seabed on the Russian side of the ocean;

National Defence committee  Very briefly, any of the other Arctic countries are significantly better prepared than Canada is to provide search and rescue in their territory and, to some degree, in Canadian territory. There is some cooperative planning going on between Canada and the United States in terms o

National Defence committee  I think helicopters are a crucial part of the mix. At least in the short term, I would like to see one or two Cormorant helicopters deployed to the Arctic in those late summer months when they'll actually be needed, and I would like to see more serious, longer-range helicopters o

National Defence committee  We have a maritime boundary dispute with the United States in the Beaufort Sea that revolves around different interpretations of an 1825 treaty between Russia and Great Britain. It creates a disputed sector of just over 6,000 square miles of seabed that is likely to be very rich

National Defence committee  Thank you. First of all, I've changed my mind on the Arctic offshore patrol ships in the last couple of years. Now that I think of them as replacements for the marine coastal patrol vessels, I begin to see a role for them along the west coast, the east coast, and up into places

National Defence committee  Let's take the scenario that I have briefly described, of a flag-of-convenience vessel making a run through the Northwest Passage this summer. That situation will give us roughly three to four days to make a decision before the vessel is through, assuming that the passage is ice-

National Defence committee  If I could jump in here very quickly, of course INAC is the lead, but as I understand it, the PMO is also taking a very substantial interest, and that's a good thing. I think that certainly getting that leadership at the highest level, joining up different departments and thinkin

National Defence committee  Thank you. I'm glad you agree with me. I want to make it absolutely clear that a whole range of things can be done to facilitate search and rescue at reduced cost. Emergency satellite beacons are being given to Inuit hunters in northern communities, so when they go out on the l

National Defence committee  Very briefly, before Greg jumps in, non-state actors absolutely. Probably the greatest threat to Canadian sovereignty is a non-state actor, a private commercial ship deciding to run through the Northwest Passage without permission, because it does not comply with Canada's environ

National Defence committee  Thank you very much for the question. I agree with you about risk assessment, but my point is that the risks are going up in the Arctic in terms of a need for search and rescue. I would like to ask you how you think Canada would look if an Airbus 340 or a Boeing 777 crash-landed