National Defence committee  Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for inviting me here to offer some brief thoughts on NATO from the perspective of a practitioner with the alliance who was in uniform for 39 years. I have had the opportunity to participate in NATO deployment exercises and operat

Transport committee  That's the exact reason France has the French heritage code, and why the British have this special act that protects war remains. That's the reason for it.

Transport committee  Madam Chair, first of all, I'm not from the Coast Guard. I'm from the navy. I certainly do not have the expertise to even start addressing the question you're putting there. As to how, by whom, and when, it is completely different from what we're talking about here.

Transport committee  Three Canadian corvettes are within the British territorial waters, yes.

Transport committee  Are you talking about the wrecks to which the act would not apply? There are 19 such wrecks today: nine military vessels and ten merchant ships.

Transport committee  I would say about 480, almost 500.

Transport committee  None of the wrecks poses a risk to navigation. As for the environment, those vessels have been at the bottom of the ocean for a number of decades and we have no data with which to determine whether they pose a risk or not. All we know is that the vessel sank in a given location,

Transport committee  Madam Chair, the intent of this project has nothing to do with the removal. In fact, the intent of this project is to have those vessels designated as ocean war graves as opposed to just wrecks that went down in the water.

Transport committee  The international laws of the sea will provide jurisdiction, which means that the vessel remains the property of that nation. If it is within territorial waters, then you apply an additional punitive consequence to do it. An example of that is, if you recall back in the mid-1980s

Transport committee  Not to our knowledge. The vessels that are within Canadian territorial waters—the nine warships and the 10 merchant ships—were sunk there either by U-boats, which came very close, as we all know, or by collision, when something happened and something went wrong on the vessel, som

Transport committee  Again, I'm just like Mr. White. I am not a legal expert. However, if I were to go for one of the two, I would go for to the one that's strictly dedicated to the protection of war remains, which is the British act. Somebody even went as far as mentioning the fact that there could

Transport committee  To our knowledge, they are not hazards to navigation at all.

Transport committee  Since he started in 2013, Captain Bender has had exchanges with Parks Canada, Environment, National Defence, every possible.... In many cases, he's been told that “we're looking into it”. At one point, there were cross-discussions taking place, but no responses have been received

Transport committee  Right now the only protection.... In fact, they don't have protection. The international laws of the sea will provide jurisdiction. They will not provide jurisdiction enforcement. That is through protection, which is why the British brought this act, the Protection of Military Re

Transport committee  I am retired Vice-Admiral Denis Rouleau. I used to be the Vice-Chief of Defence here in Canada and in Brussels. Now I'm simply an assistant to Captain Paul Bender, whose project we'll be talking about here today.