National Defence committee  Well certainly, sir, we exercise in the Arctic every year, and this is led by the commander of Canada Command. My responsibility is to train and generate ships and sailors to participate in that exercise, and each year, hopefully, to make it incrementally more challenging and to

National Defence committee  Thank you, sir. That's an excellent question. The relationship between the heads of service is extremely positive right now and it has been for several years. From a joint perspective, the Canadian navy and the Canadian air force have been operating together for decades. Ever si

National Defence committee  They love their job. They love what they do.

National Defence committee  Thank you, sir. That's a really good question. I haven't read the article you referred to; I wish I had. I would say that the Russians certainly have put considerable effort over several decades into their Arctic capability, obviously including their hydrographic services. W

National Defence committee  It is a civil responsibility, but of course we rely heavily on those charts. Your question about access to Russian charts is a very good one. I recently had the opportunity to meet the commander of the Russian navy at the International Seapower Symposium in Rhode Island—which, b

National Defence committee  Yes, sir, I agree with you that the whole-of-government capacity that we have is being applied to full effect here. It's just a matter of time.

National Defence committee  I'm going to consult my team so that I can give you the exact figures in response to your question, madam.

National Defence committee  That's a good question. I would answer that we have enough. However, Canada is a large maritime country that has a very large coastline. I would say that we need to maintain the current fleet mix of 3 destroyers, 12 frigates, 4 submarines, 2 underway replenishment ships, 6 Arct

National Defence committee  It compares very well, sir. It's very comparable. It's very interesting to compare Australia and Canada as what we would call a medium power navy, with our similar populations and resources assigned by government and the same sort of national interests. They are much more seized

National Defence committee  Thank you, madam. It takes longer to go into the north from British Columbia than from Nova Scotia. A submarine leaving Halifax will take about five or seven days to reach the Arctic, it could stop over in St. John's, Newfoundland. It is important to have a submarine anywhere i

National Defence committee  Thank you very much for that question. With regard to the Victoria class, no. But as we move forward and, as I mentioned earlier, once we achieve that steady state, and as we look at running this class of submarine to the end of life—which I foresee to be around 2030, based on ou

National Defence committee  No, sir, I don't think there is. The naval refueling facility will actually be in Nanisivik, and not in Resolute. So it's more in the eastern Arctic. In fact, if you wanted to go across the Arctic through the Northwest Passage to the western Arctic, it would actually be easier to

National Defence committee  A couple of years ago, I would have said there were a number of critical trades, but right now the trend is very positive. My folks have shown me how that trend will lead us to healthy trades across the board by 2017-18. But the ones that are still causing me concern as we regrow

National Defence committee  Thank you very much, sir. I would say at the outset that one of the unique and very positive attributes of a country deploying naval capability is that it is self-sustaining. There is no need to flow a lot of infrastructure and supporting capacity into another country to enable

National Defence committee  That's a very good question, and I thank you for it. It wasn't just the navy and the air force; the coast guard and civilian fishing fleets were involved as well. It was an all-points bulletin of sorts, the reason simply being that it was a tragedy of enormous scope. It require