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  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  No, it won't be necessary. The British do a lot of talk in that regard, but the reality is they are way behind us in surface capabilities. Where they have a better capability, of course, is with their nuclear-powered subs. We know they've been going to the North Pole since 1987 o

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  Thank you, sir. That is a wealth of critical importance. In terms of the energy weapons, I agree with you entirely: you have to start looking modern. In terms of the surveillance capability, where Canada's trying to develop it--and I'm a firm supporter of it--is in the listeni

National Defence committee  They should be doing the security enforcement. It goes beyond just mere policing. You will have to have the top-level capability to ensure that the environmental standards are upheld. Just to think of policing, the RCMP or local police enforcement will not be able to do it.

National Defence committee  The American document makes it very clear that the Americans have recognized in the last ten years that their Arctic goes beyond Alaska. One of the big criticisms of American Arctic policy is that it has tended to be very parochial and to focus on just Alaskan events. First and

National Defence committee  Enforcement means nothing, if you don't know who's coming. Let me add that when I say monitoring, it's not simply of what ships are coming but of what people are doing. We also—this is of critical importance—need to know the environmental monitoring, because that is going to be o

National Defence committee  The search and rescue issue is one of the critical points we have to be dealing with much more seriously. We've been lucky. We have had cruise vessels actually go up on the rocks. We had the Hanseatic beach off Cambridge Bay in the mid-1990s. Fortunately, she did not sink. She di

National Defence committee  Well, this is one way international law tends to work in our favour. Basically, once the law is written, everything stops. I mean, international lawyers have a little bit of this conceit that when they have figured the problem out, that basically stops time. I'm being a little bi

National Defence committee  Well, of course that was a bit of a gross exaggeration. In terms of surveillance, the biggest problem we have is that because we have had limited capabilities, we don't know how bad the problem is right now. For example, there are allegations that in the Davis Strait both the Gr

National Defence committee  I believe we need to defend it by cooperative means. In other words, one of the best ways of defending what we need to have happen is to ensure that our neighbours are on the same page. You can enter into an international agreement to defend Canadian interests. That is the best o

National Defence committee  That's easy. Yes. The reality is that it's restarting. We started these negotiations with all the countries. Once again, this is bipartisan. I give credit to both sides. It has been supported by the NDP. I haven't been able to find a Bloc position on the Arctic Council. The Arc