National Defence committee  Well, they also said at the same time that it's like the Americans planting a flag on the moon; it didn't mean anything. It meant everything. When the Americans had Apollo, it basically said that their intercontinental missiles had that accuracy. In other words, it's a signalling

National Defence committee  So that becomes the more chilling part.

National Defence committee  The non-traditional allies won't be a problem; it's a country like Poland, say, that's a new entry into NATO. We can probably handle it with the NATO underwater management scheme. Basically, NATO has an agreement. If you're a member of NATO and you're operating subs, you have to

National Defence committee  No, I wouldn't be so harsh in that context. In fact, what our operators have done, and they've done it superbly.... Because of the lack of limitations, what they have done—and this has worked in our favour because of the harsh conditions—is basically said to anyone who may be bre

National Defence committee  That's a hard one, because you need the capability and you need a surge capability--not now, but probably in about a ten-year period. I would say that, in theory, what is being proposed makes sense to me. In other words, there's nowhere that I'd say there's an obvious omission. W

National Defence committee  I do think there is a dispute. I'm a little bit sympathetic to a government that says there isn't a dispute, because historically you never want to let a stronger opponent know that you're actually scared of them. When you acknowledge a dispute it sends them that signal. I apprec

National Defence committee  No. The decisions that the ICJ gave for both St. Pierre and Miquelon and the Gulf of Maine issues cast certain questions about their capability in making decisions. We are much better off if we go to direct bilateral negotiations.

National Defence committee  I think there is a good chance, because the international community does not understand that the existence of aboriginals living on and off the ice as one unit makes the Northwest Passage different. Many individuals I discuss this with will say that the Philippines is an internat

National Defence committee  We can trust the Russians.... As we teach in our first-year political science courses, countries don't have friends; they have interests. We can trust them when we have shared interests. And in terms of the management and transportation of northern shipping, we both have very str

National Defence committee  For those of us who have a concern, that will be the worst-case scenario, the point at which that conflict will come. What happens if someone goes ahead, after they have been deemed not to be allowed to? The reality is that for the types of disputes we're going to have, the reso

National Defence committee  What will mitigate that is the fact that they have to sell their oil and gas somewhere. So the question is, can we develop with our allies a strong enough position to ensure that this type of situation does not arise? In other words, the Russians sell most of their gas to Poland

National Defence committee  It's transformational. Every piece of scientific evidence in my discussions with the experts, such as Dave Barber, Canada's leading expert on ice science, and the Americans makes it abundantly clear: the Arctic is going to be leading the world in terms of the transformational nat

National Defence committee  As long as the regulations reflect our interests.

National Defence committee  I've read some.

National Defence committee  Yes. I was in the group that had considered the possibility that perhaps we could enter a quid pro quo with the Americans. The idea was that we're never going to get the Americans to say it's an internal water, simply because of the precedent that sends out for places like the