Foreign Affairs committee  That is a question. The answer to the question is that we work closely with our American friends. We've never had a situation where they have come through without our authority. During the “Shamrock Summit”, when President Reagan and Prime Minister Mulroney met, they had this d

Foreign Affairs committee  There are a number of questions there. I'm going to deal with some that I think are directly legal, and also with the lexicon that we're all using. I think it's incumbent upon us, as public officials who work for departments and as members of Parliament, to use the lexicon that

Foreign Affairs committee  I hear what you're saying, but you're conflating two issues. I'm dealing with the legal sovereignty of Canada, and you're talking about the ability of someone to help someone in a difficult area.

Foreign Affairs committee  We have one good one.

Foreign Affairs committee  Not that I'm aware of. We usually do, but they always are on—

Foreign Affairs committee  Why would we deny passage?

Foreign Affairs committee  If we don't have a reason to deny passage, why would we? It's a road. We're trying to actually encourage increased vessel traffic within our Arctic.

Foreign Affairs committee  To my knowledge, it's never been in our interest to deny passage. The vessels that have been going there have usually been related to scientific research, trade interests, hydrographic work, cruises, and environmental work. We have had no reason to stop a legitimate vessel going

Foreign Affairs committee  I would suggest that every time we give authority to come through, we're exercising our law.

Foreign Affairs committee  We're exercising our law every single time we assess a vessel's worthiness to come through.

Foreign Affairs committee  Chukchi Sea?

Foreign Affairs committee  May I jump in here on some of the legal things we're doing? In fact, we work very closely with the Russians in the Arctic on certain key issues. For example, the legal analysis of our approach to dealing with the internal waters of our archipelago is identical to the Russian lega

Foreign Affairs committee  It's per voyage.

Foreign Affairs committee  Particularly with the Xue Long, they asked us way in advance by diplomatic note for authority to enter our waters. We granted them authority on certain conditions, which included having a pilot and some other Canadian officials on the vessel, and they agreed to all of our conditi

Foreign Affairs committee  I would have to give you a little more detail on that, and I'll have to get some research for you. As an example, I think it was a year ago that we gave authority for a Danish vessel to be the first vessel to carry coal, I think it was, from the west coast of the United States th