Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, sure. I think there are two parts to that question. First, I think it's really important that the government develop an Arctic strategy and that we have some harmonization across the different federal departments and link organizations like mine that are university-based to

Foreign Affairs committee  I'm a marine person. My research is in the marine area, so I understand it a lot better than I do the terrestrial environment. To me, the big areas on the marine side have to do with transportation and development of marine-based resources: fisheries resources, non-renewable res

Foreign Affairs committee  Sure. They're on the front lines of things. The indigenous culture lives with the Arctic environment. When I first started my career in the north 40 years ago, the traditional knowledge of the Inuit who we worked with was very precise and very usable, because it had come from ge

Foreign Affairs committee  The idea is that the Arctic and Canada are inseparable, in my mind. Our history is steeped in the Arctic. A lot of the immigration that went on actually came through Hudson Bay. York Factory was a big part of that here in northern Manitoba. The connections with the fur trade betw

Foreign Affairs committee  I think the adage “if you don't use it, you lose it” is a very good one. I think it's very appropriate in this context. Lots of people would like to take over the Canadian Arctic. I think the UNCLOS process that's under way right now, using the United Nations as a way to settle s

Foreign Affairs committee  The Arctic is the same. It's the same Arctic both sides of the pole. The resources and the resource base are very similar between the two. The difference is that the Russians have had their eye on the north and have been doing economic development in the north for decades, and we

Foreign Affairs committee  Great, thanks. First of all, thanks to the committee for inviting me to present here. I am an old Arctic hand, I guess you would call it. I started my research career in the Arctic in 1981 so I am now in my fourth decade of doing research in the Arctic. I've seen a lot of chan