National Defence committee  In regard to climate change, the only thing I can say is that we maybe need to get with the program. If we look around the Arctic, we see that lots of our Arctic neighbours are actually using the cold and the fact that it is remote and there is climate change happening, and mel

National Defence committee  Do you want me to pick one type, such as telecommunications?

National Defence committee  Yes. In terms of infrastructure, it has to be telecommunications. It has to be energy. It also needs to be ports. It needs to be runways. Less and less so do we need roads these days. Communities are fly-in, fly-out. Again, I think this goes back to how difficult it is to put on

National Defence committee  The infrastructure we're talking about is transportation infrastructure. Housing is also a big issue, of course. All of these things are interrelated. As Madeleine was saying, they're multi-purpose and multi-user. You can't have a SMART cable without having the adequate energy

National Defence committee  We had the Arctic ambassador to Russia planning to be on that session along with the other Arctic state ambassadors, and we also had the head of the trade consulate to be part of that conference as well. Ten days before the conference, the war broke out. At that point, we had a l

National Defence committee  I think where conversations happen is mostly within academic circles, because the first step is to try to figure out how we can continue on with the research projects that have been ongoing. Russia is half the Arctic, so that's the first step to diplomacy.

National Defence committee  No. I testified at the House of Commons for their first Arctic report, and I submitted a discussion about why we need to create an infrastructure investment strategy. I also then testified at the Senate for the previous report, and I testified earlier and spoke again. So no, I w

National Defence committee  I think that's where Canada has a very good story to tell, because our first critical minerals mine in operation is on Dene land in the Northwest Territories. It's operated by Det’on Cho corporation, in partnership with Cheetah Resources. We have a model for the world about how

National Defence committee  Exactly. I didn't have time to continue on with my discussion about critical minerals. There are several things. On the one hand, critical minerals are really Canada's space to shine, especially in the Arctic and in the North American Arctic. We have what the world wants. That

National Defence committee  A big part of what we're working on is trying to create the mechanisms for Canada to create a long-term infrastructure strategy. We submitted a large proposal to the CIB, and we were perfect candidates for that because it was exactly to do with local communities and building up i

National Defence committee  To follow up with a few pieces, I will piggyback on Madeleine's comment. I do believe that telecoms are one of the most pivotal concerns of interest for Canada in building our own telecommunication networks. We need to be able to collect and also control the data that a company

National Defence committee  Thank you, everyone, for having me here today. Security takes several forms. There's hard security, achieved with missiles, ships, words of aggression, etc. Then there's security that's achieved through soft power diplomacy, or the power of persuasion. Soft power diplomacy turns