National Defence committee  Let's be very clear in terms of the cost. Everything is expensive. When the coast guard is talking about replenishment of its existing capabilities—and it desperately needs to replenish them—you are talking, as a minimum, $720 million per ship. That's probably going to get you a

National Defence committee  I would say the Northwest Passage is but one of the boundaries. We are going to have the issue in the Beaufort Sea; we're going to have the issue in the continental shelf. Let me be very clear on this. Do I think the end of our policy should be about sovereignty, to say “we hav

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

National Defence committee  From an international perspective, we have to convince our circumpolar neighbours about the importance of the Inuit and the manner in which this makes the Arctic an exception. I don't know how many arguments I've had with Americans or with Norwegians who say there is nothing in i

National Defence committee  The reality is that we need at least three of them. The nature of refit, the nature of the geography, and the fact that the Louis S. St-Laurent is already about 45 years old and the remaining four medium-class icebreakers we have are approaching 35 to 40 years means we need the r

National Defence committee  On a policy intellectual perspective, I say it's very much in the right direction. My concern is implementation. I've seen a series of very good policy statements come from both the Liberals and the Conservatives in the past, and the problem has always been that within two to t

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  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.