National Defence committee  Again, given the colour of uniform I wear, I'm happy to take that question myself. I believe that the commander of the Royal Canadian Navy as well as the assistant deputy minister of materiel have talked about the submarine replacement program. That has now been announced public

National Defence committee  I may tackle this in a different way. The fact is, I think you've seen—I don't want to call it this—a submarine proliferation around the globe, but you may have seen that. Right now, hundreds of submarines are operating in Southeast Asia, in Asia and in the Indo-Pacific region. A

National Defence committee  I'll turn this to Pascal, the commander of the Joint Task Force North. Quite broadly, we do have three search and rescue regions in Canada. As I said, it's co-operative in nature. We coordinate on behalf of the Government of Canada for marine and air search and rescue. Ground

National Defence committee  That first one is hard to answer. When I talk about the future, we don't have a crystal ball here. The fact is that with Joint Task Force North, as General Godbout has noted, we have a significant percentage of folks in the north, actually members of the Canadian Armed Forces, su

National Defence committee  Perhaps you could clarify that. I'm not sure what the question is, Mr. Chair.

National Defence committee  Mr. Chair, I'm not entirely tracking the nature of the question. The fact is that we have aerial sovereignty over our northern territories. I can pass this to my Canadian NORAD commander, General Huddleston. That being said, we control the air space within Canada. We conduct the

National Defence committee  I will pass that to General Huddleston, who is the commander of 1 Canadian Air Division.

National Defence committee  It's obviously critical to Canada to advance reconciliation with our indigenous peoples. Those partnerships with indigenous communities are critical to conducting operations, enhancing security, and improving our infrastructure capabilities and awareness in the north. That's why

National Defence committee  This is not to evade the question, but the fact is that this is not in my lane. I'm the operational commander of the Canadian Armed Forces. This question would likely be better placed to the assistant deputy minister of infrastructure and environment. Again, I think that would p

National Defence committee  We've been operating in the north for generations, back to the Terror and the Erebus. They have given us that.... We found wreckage from the 1800s. We've continued that exploration and have worked in the north for generations. In terms of capabilities, heavy icebreakers are key.

National Defence committee  I think it's pretty seamless right now. We work hand in hand with our Coast Guard partners, as well as our Transport partners and our partners from Environment. That Coast Guard and navy interaction in the north is pretty much seamless. We share resources to ensure that the vess

National Defence committee  It's probably not my answer to that question, but what I did say is that it's not one department that enforces Canadian sovereignty in the north; it's all of us working together. Whether it's on a Coast Guard ship that has RCMP on board or CBSA or Fisheries, we can all enforce Ca

National Defence committee  General Godbout will be able to tell you more specifically about the exercises in the north, but you may rest assured that we often work with our allies. We participate in exercises with the Americans and with our NATO allies throughout the year. I will let Mr. Godbout tell you

National Defence committee  I'm going to pass this to Jonathan Quinn, on policy. However, it is a forward operating location for NORAD, so it's more than just a fuelling station.

National Defence committee  Thanks, Mr. Chair. It's obviously a very pertinent question, given what's happening currently with our partners in Ukraine. The reality is that competition and conflict characterize the interaction between ourselves in the west and our Russian—I would say, at this point—adver