Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, the challenge is needing to have a phased plan that's not everybody saying that they want everything, which is what I hear, this cacophony of voices of late where everybody's identifying that there's a need and there's a desire to do something, yet there is no clear plan tha

Foreign Affairs committee  Absolutely.

Foreign Affairs committee  First of all, I would separate out sovereignty. My legal definition would be “the internationally recognized right to control activities in a given jurisdiction”. Canada has the right to control activities within that jurisdiction. A different issue is the security and safety is

Foreign Affairs committee  If I could jump at that one first, I would say no. What I've been struggling about in the last 20 years that I've been looking at this issue in earnest is a lack of clarity. We have a lot of generalities about the need to have a combined economy that will mix both traditional h

Foreign Affairs committee  I would love to see that narrative be developed. I think that takes a feat of imagination. Going back to MP Saini's comment as well, if we're going to have an Arctic saga, if we're going to see scenarios, they may include very careful, deliberate considerations of potential inve

Foreign Affairs committee  Ms. Alleslev, I think one of the challenges, though, that will come up, and it certainly came up during the Harper era, is some of the critiques of the northern strategy unveiled in 2009 were that it was a top-down sort of approach. Private sector investments will eventually br

Foreign Affairs committee  In essence, the other model would be to invest in people, invest in the skills and the training and the development, and eventually they will then be able to create and forge and imagine their own destiny. I think the challenge is—

Foreign Affairs committee  Wonderful, I agree wholeheartedly with your sentiment of people first. I think that seems to be coming out of the consultation process towards the new Arctic policy framework in terms of really affirming that message strongly. As well, I think it has come out of the northern cons

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes. It's helpful, especially in the realm of science, to have partnerships with experts from all around the world, including non-Arctic states, and certainly knowledge is in my mind conducive to peace and prosperity.

Foreign Affairs committee  Let me jump in. I take the opposite view. I don't think we need another committee. We've had a Canadian northern or Arctic strategy since 1970. It was articulated by Pierre Trudeau, it was continued during the Mulroney era, and it has continued right through to the present. Ye

Foreign Affairs committee  Thanks for the question. It's a wonderful one. Looking at India is fascinating, in that it shows how some of the preconceived notions that have been developed by non-Arctic states in the context of other parts of the world, in the case of India, during the non-aligned movement e

Foreign Affairs committee  Thanks. Good afternoon. It is my pleasure to appear before the committee on this important theme. Canada's Arctic sovereignty is a subject rooted in many misperceptions, and it's less sensational a subject than it's often made out to be. You heard last June from Alan Kessel, t