National Defence committee  Not to my knowledge. I'm more of the Arctic person, and to my knowledge that's the only scientific research that Canada has been carrying on recently.

National Defence committee  The most important one is the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which sets out all of the different marine and maritime territories, and all coastal states in the Arctic are adhering to that—even Russia. It's a rules-based order that actually works in the Arctic u

National Defence committee  Thank you. This is about the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea provision that allows coastal states to have sovereign rights beyond 200 nautical miles if you can prove that the seabed and subsoil is actually an extension of your land mass, and because the Arctic Oc

National Defence committee  The provision under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea that allows states to conduct marine scientific research sets a very high bar for saying "no". You have to have a particular reason, because under the convention, people are encouraged to conduct marine scien

National Defence committee  I think I'll respond first to the question of innocent passage. As I mentioned previously, Mr. Chair, the territorial sea is beyond our 12-nautical-mile baseline, so it's not the internal waters of Canada, but it's something we have a great deal of sovereign rights over. Howeve

National Defence committee  Mr. Chair, in terms of territorial waters and internal waters, the Arctic Archipelago has straight baselines drawn around it. The Northwest Passage, for instance, is considered internal waters to Canada, so there is no right of passage there. There would be a right-of-transit pas