Foreign Affairs Committee on Nov. 29th, 2012

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

I would like to call the meeting to order.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), our study of Canada's Arctic foreign policy will continue. I want to welcome all the members and certainly our guests today. I want to thank all of our witnesses for taking the time to be here.

We have before us Shelagh Grant, who is an adjunct professor in the Canadian studies department of Trent University.

Welcome Ms. Grant, and thank you for being here.

We also have Sara French, who is from Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation, who is a program director for the Munk-Gordon Arctic Security Program.

Welcome, Ms. French.

We also have David Breukelman, who is lead director at Gedex Inc., and president of Business Arts Inc.

Mr. Breukelman, welcome. We're glad to have you here as well.

We're going to start with Ms. Grant and then we'll go to Ms. French and then Mr. Breukelman. The clerk asked you to prepare about a 10-minute statement. We'll hear all three statements, and then we'll go back and forth across the room to ask questions and get follow-up. We have about two hours to do that.

I will turn it over to you, Ms. Grant. We look forward to hearing what you have to stay. You have 10 minutes. The floor is yours.

[Shelagh Grant, Adjunct Professor, Canadian Studies Department, Trent University, As an Individual]

Thank you very much.

As a historian, my interest in the Arctic began when I was a university student, and it culminated in a master's thesis. From then on, my research spanned backward in time and forward to the present. The problem is that when I finished writing Polar Imperative, the world did not stop. Since then, the situation has changed so much that it will eventually require a revision of the last two chapters, so what I'm speaking about is what I didn't write in the book.

One such change was the government's release of a far more detailed Arctic policy in the summer of 2010. I think it's an excellent strategy, but two events have conspired against implementation in a timely manner. First is the melting of the sea ice at a rate far faster than expected. Second is the prolonged recession. Meanwhile, the issues have become blurred but increasingly complex, with the rapidly accelerating melting of the sea ice making predictions an exercise in futility.

Many Canadians are unaware of the degree of industrialization already taking place in the Arctic due to new mining developments and the associated ship traffic. Yet now more than ever, there is a need for consensus both within the Arctic countries and among them, with the full support of the global community.

At the outset I want to emphasize that Canada's sovereignty over the Arctic islands and mainland is secure and is not under threat, but sovereignty is more than a legal right. It involves responsibility for the inhabitants and their environment and for the safety of ship traffic. What may be at risk is Canada's ability to enforce its own laws and regulations in adjacent waters should increased ship traffic outpace investment in sufficient Coast Guard or patrol ships to respond to non-compliance with Canadian laws.

My second point relates to the success of the Arctic Council in bringing together the Arctic states to deal with common concerns, especially those affecting the environment. Sometimes we fail to recognize how much it has actually achieved against all odds. The circumpolar region is not a homogenous entity. The size and makeup of the population varies by country. The most populated region by far is Siberia, but it has proportionately fewer indigenous people. Second is Alaska. Greenland, with the smallest overall population, has the largest percentage of Inuit. Iceland has no aboriginal population.

The Arctic coastal states also differ culturally, economically, and politically, which derives from their own unique histories. The most advanced have had access to formal education over longer periods of time. For instance, Greenland may have the smallest population, but its capital has all the earmarks of a modern city. On the other hand, Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut, is a relatively new community, where Inuit had no access to formal education until the late 1950s. This is in stark contrast to Murmansk, the largest city in the Russian Arctic. It was built as a naval base in World War I and now has a population of over 300,000. Tromsø had been home to the Sami people for centuries. It became a trade centre, with formal education provided, and, in 1842, a teachers college.

Geographic factors also had a major influence on the growth of Arctic communities. Take Alaska as an example. Juno, the territorial and now state capital, is a product of the Klondike gold rush. Currently it has a population of about 31,000. Anchorage, because of its deepwater harbour, grew rapidly and is now Alaska's largest city. Barrow, even with its proximity to the oil and gas developments at Prudhoe Bay and North Slope, has a population of less than 5,000. Again, it has no deep water.

My argument is that we cannot expect the Arctic Council to resolve issues that are specific to any one state. You can and should seek consensus and cooperation on issues affecting all countries, such as sustainable development, protection of the environment, safety in shipping in adjacent waters, coordination of search and rescue, oil spills, and governance of the Arctic Ocean.

We often refer to climate change as a global phenomenon, yet the circumpolar region is experiencing a dramatic increase in temperature brought about by increasing areas of open water and barren land, which in turn absorb more heat. There's an added catalyst to the warming trend that has been identified, and this, I believe, is more important. It's the melting of the permafrost, which is releasing large amounts of methane gas 20 times more toxic than greenhouse gases.

Methane gas has also been found leaking from the seabed in both the Beaufort Sea and Russian waters. As a result, some scientists believe that the warming trend in the Arctic has passed the tipping point—in other words, it's irreversible—and it may dramatically alter life elsewhere unless stabilized. The focus is on stabilization.

Along with the largest decrease, the composition of the polar ice cap is changing. There was a dramatic decrease in older ice with the first-year and second-year ice breaking up into small ice bands. I did supply pictures for a handout, but unfortunately there was no French translation on the titles. We'll negotiate that.

What does this mean for the future? Three years ago scientists predicted that by 2030, the Arctic Ocean would be relatively free of ice. Now that prediction is moving to 2025, and some say 2016. The route offers enormous savings from going through the Suez Canal or Panama Canal, or paying the transit fee to go over the Northern Sea Route.

The transit across the Arctic Ocean by China's conventional icebreaker last summer was likely a harbinger of what is to come: icebreakers creating a path for a convoy of bulk carriers. Whether this takes place 10, 20, or 30 years from now, I believe now is the time to consider how this traffic should be monitored and controlled to protect the environment.

We also tend to forget the route from Churchill, Manitoba to Murmansk, used by grain carriers to take wheat from the Prairies to Russia. Recently, port authority officials announced that next year, ice-reinforced ships would be transporting grain and possibly oil to China. Which will be their favourite route? We don't know yet.

In 2011, 34 ships sailed along the Northern Sea Route. Most were large tankers, bulk carriers, and even research vessels. Foreign ships using the route were from Norway, China, Germany, and even Dubai. These service the numerous resource industries along the Siberian coast, and there are many.

Russia has its own fleet of local cargo ships. They had a fleet of 135 in 2010, and 17 allegedly were added in 2011. I'm sorry, but trying to get accurate figures out of Russia is mission impossible.

That brings me to another concern, about the preparedness of Canada for this new industrialization and the lack of deep sea ports for emergency repairs or refuelling. The proposed port at Nanisivik has now been downgraded to little more than a gas station, according to Rob Huebert.

Nonetheless, the traffic through the Northwest Passage has increased, but these vessels are much different from what's going through the Northern Sea Route. According to the latest figures from NORDREG, the majority are sailboats, mega-yachts, or other small craft. They actually list them as adventurers. Last year they accounted for 20 of the 30 vessels that made the full transit of the Northwest Passage. They came from Sweden, Italy, France, the U.K., Finland, the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, and Canada. Most fail to report to NORDREG, and some rarely clear customs. Some, such as the Fortrus last summer, do not comply with Canadian laws.

Despite that, my focus is on the destination traffic, which will increase more rapidly as a result of the numerous mining projects scheduled to come on stream, and they are numerous. Most of the projects are very large, such as the Mary River ore mine. Owned by ArcelorMittal, the giant international steel company based in Luxembourg, that mine will cover approximately 17,000 hectares and will cost over $4 billion. It includes a 150 kilometre railway to a new port established in Steensby Inlet. With full production, and this is where it's important to me, the company expects to provide year-round shipping with ice-reinforced cargo ships to allow for 240 transits a year, which is almost equal to what the destination traffic was this year.

Fishing vessels also saw a major increase. So far, NORDREG, which is operated by the Canadian Coast Guard, has done an excellent job in monitoring ship traffic. The only weakness in the system is Canada's ability, and dare I say inability, to apprehend those that are non-compliant. Although the 2012 budget included $5.2 billion for the cost of new coast guard ships and helicopters, as well as for maintenance and upgrades, this will be spread over 11 years.

While it was not clear where these ships and helicopters will be deployed, Canada's Minister of National Defence, the Honourable Peter MacKay, indicated in an interview with CBC's Peter Mansbridge that the government is seriously considering arming the new vessels, a move that I believe is essential.

Meanwhile, discoveries are ongoing. Of course, the basic and most contentious item at the moment is the offshore drilling. If they're successful, Shell could provide a model for us in the future, but in the meantime, their shipping is increasing dramatically because of this. Shell alone had 24 ships last summer in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas.

As a final remark, so far with the Arctic Council, there's excellent cooperation between the Arctic countries, even joint military exercises. There is the UN law of the sea, which provides the means for peaceful resolution of seabed mining rights.

What about the Arctic Council and the role we can play as chair? Initially its success can be attributed to its share of protecting the environment. More recently, common interests have resulted in facilitating cooperation, such as on search and rescue and project cleanup. By assuming the chair in 2013, Canada has the opportunity to show leadership. To be effective, I believe it should be directed towards encouraging cooperation and action on common goals and not as a means of asserting our own values with culturally and economically diverse countries.

I'm going to close with a reminder that Arctic sovereignty is more than just a legal right; it also involves responsibility for the people and the environment and the safety of ships. The question lingers among scholars as to whether the Government of Canada is prepared to make the necessary investment in the Arctic to protect our sovereign rights, and will they have public support to do so. With southern Canadians so focused on the economy and events in the Middle East, the greatest threat to our Arctic sovereignty, even defective sovereignty, loss of authority in the Arctic waters, may be public apathy.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Ms. Grant.

For the members, we've talked to Ms. Grant about sending a copy electronically. It will get translated and then we'll send it out to your offices. We'll take care of those slides for you.

Thank you very much.

Ms. French, the floor is yours, for 10 minutes.

[Sara French, Program Director, Munk-Gordon Arctic Security Program, Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation]

Good morning, honourable members.

Thank you for the opportunity to share with you the work of the Munk-Gordon Arctic Security Program, which I believe you will find helpful as this committee contemplates the future of Canada's Arctic foreign policy, and particularly its two-year chairmanship of the Arctic Council.

Today I will be making my opening remarks in English only. Please accept my apologies.

A partnership between the Canada Centre for Global Security Studies at the Munk School of Global Affairs, the University of Toronto and the Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation, the Arctic Security Program undertakes original research and hosts interactive gatherings to achieve its vision of peacefully resolved disputes in the Arctic, global environmental security that supports a healthy Arctic environment, and an Arctic foreign policy that centres on the needs of those who live there.

With the upcoming chairmanship of the Arctic Council, Canada has a real opportunity to demonstrate its ability to be a leader in the Arctic region. This is not an unfamiliar role. The genesis of the Arctic Council is largely found here in Canada. It was Canadians who built upon the Finnish initiative of the Arctic environmental protection strategy to push for a more permanent intergovernmental forum to facilitate cooperation among the eight Arctic states previously separated by the cold war boundaries.

Indeed, the council can be viewed as an accomplishment of multi-party cooperation, as the idea was generated under the Mulroney government. The Ottawa declaration, which brought the council to life in 1996, concluded under the Chrétien administration.

The Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation is proud of the role it played in supporting civil society to think and dream about a council that facilitates circumpolar cooperation where indigenous peoples' voices are heard directly in the deliberations.

To mark the first full rotation of chairs and to help prepare for the upcoming chairmanship, the Munk-Gordon Arctic Security Program partnered with Finland's University of Lapland to convene a process to look back at what the Arctic Council has accomplished to date and where it should be heading in the future, as well as what Canada should prioritize during its upcoming chairmanship.

In January 2012 we hosted a conference titled, “The Arctic Council: Its Place in the Future of Arctic Governance”, where these issues were discussed. “Canada as an Arctic Power: Preparing for the Canadian Chairmanship of the Arctic Council” flowed from the proceedings of that conference. There was great optimism among participants that the chairmanship presented an opportunity for Canada to demonstrate its Arctic prowess and solidify its role as an Arctic leader, which was so ably shown during the creation of the council.

“Canada as an Arctic Power”, and I have copies if members are interested, serves to highlight major debates about the Arctic Council's future, but also offers 19 recommendations for consideration as priorities. Members will notice that these recommendations take into consideration three things: what the Arctic Council, as an organization, needs to do to prepare for the future; specific initiatives that can be championed during the two-year chairmanship; and actions that Canada should be taking domestically to support the work of the council.

While all 19 recommendations are worthy of the members' careful consideration, I would like to draw particular attention to three recommendations.

One refers to the permanent participants. As members are aware, the Arctic Council is unique among international bodies as it creates a permanent role for indigenous peoples to be represented in its proceedings. The idea that this body incorporates permanent participants again finds its origins here in Canada. This accomplishment should be celebrated.

However, the effectiveness of these organizations to contribute to the Council and to amplify the voices of those who live in the north is often challenged by a lack of resources. Permanent participants often have only one full-time staff member who is responsible for all of the organization's activities, including participating in meetings, reviewing reports, consulting with their communities, accounting, fundraising, and even travel logistics. As a result, they are not, in many cases, able to participate as fully as they would like in the council's proceedings.

While the Arctic Council is innovative in recognizing a seat at the table for these organizations, it is important that permanent participants have the resources to fully engage. Therefore, I would like to draw members' attention to the first recommendation, that Canada propose a new funding mechanism to enable permanent participants to fully participate in all the working groups of the Arctic Council. Since “Canada as an Arctic Power” was released, the need to support permanent participants has only become more pressing.

As members are likely aware, the Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North, known as RAIPON, which is the permanent participant organization representing the 250,000 indigenous persons of the Russian north, Siberia, and the Far East, has been suspended from further activities by the Russian Federation's ministry of justice. Canada and the governments of all Arctic states, and surprisingly the Russian senior Arctic official, His Excellency Anton Vasiliev, have declared concern over this suspension. It is important that Canada continue to raise its concern with its Russian counterparts.

Second is communications and outreach. The second recommendation I would like to emphasize is the need to raise awareness about the Arctic Council's goals and programs, both to audiences in the Arctic region and to the wider world. In January 2011, the Munk-Gordon Arctic Security Program released “Rethinking the Top of the World”, a public opinion survey that sought to better understand public opinion of Arctic issues. When we asked respondents if they had ever heard of the council, only one-third of northern Canadians, those residing in the three territories, and 15% of southern Canadians, those residing in the provinces, could respond clearly that they had. While these numbers seem stark, they are somewhat more favourable than those of our Arctic neighbours, where only 2% of American respondents indicated they had clearly heard of the Arctic Council. What is positive is that when respondents were given a brief description about the council, they were favourable towards its stated goals.

While the permanent secretariat established in Tromsø and the Swedish chairmanship have made great strides in improving communications and outreach, our public opinion data indicates that more can be done. Plain language summaries of the findings of the council's impressive studies are essential to ensure that they are accessible to all those who are interested. A particular emphasis needs to be placed on two-way communication with northerners about the council's undertaking.

The Munk-Gordon Arctic Security Program will do its part to raise Canadians' awareness about the council by publishing a book on the history of the Arctic Council, written by notable historian, John English. It's set to be released in the spring of 2013.

The third recommendation to which I would like to draw your attention centres on proactive cooperation and the exploration of joint initiatives with our American neighbours, who will take the chair in 2015, following Canada. Two years is a short time in international relations. The positive benefits of collaboration among chairs has been demonstrated by the troika approach of the last three chairs, Norway, Denmark, and Sweden. There is much agreement in non-governmental circles on what Canada and the U.S. can do together to advance the goals of the Arctic Council. Worth particular note is that the Institute of the North, based in Alaska, agrees with our recommendations that Canada and the United States should cooperate on the effective implementation of the agreement on aeronautical and maritime search and rescue, the search and rescue agreement, the first binding agreement negotiated under the auspices of the Arctic Council.

To further public debate about Arctic issues, the Munk-Gordon Arctic Security Program will be hosting its third annual conference, entitled “Arctic Peoples and Security”, to explore different ways of conceptualizing and understanding security in the Arctic in order to develop and implement sounder, more productive, and more inclusive public policies in the north. We hope you'll join us for this event in Toronto to learn more.

With less than six months to go until Sweden hands over the chair to Canada, it is timely that this committee is exploring this issue today. The Munk-Gordon Arctic Security Program believes that this chairmanship is a real opportunity for Canada to show its Arctic leadership. I would encourage members to support the permanent participants, improve public awareness about the Arctic Council, and work collaboratively with our American partners. By considering these priorities, Canada has the opportunity to make a profound impact on the international stage and position itself as an Arctic power.

I look forward to the discussion to follow.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much, Ms. French.

We'll now turn it over to Mr. Breukelman.

Sir, you have 10 minutes.

[David Breukelman, Lead Director, President, Business Arts Inc, Gedex Inc.]

Mr. Chairman, honoured members of the committee, thanks for your invitation to be here today to share my thoughts on the resource aspect of the Arctic sovereignty question.

I'm going to read sparsely from notes, but I am going to try to speak from my own passion. My family has built and founded some of the most interesting brands this country has been able to share around the world.

In the 1970s, we built a company called SCIEX, which deals with mass spectrometry. Forty years later, it remains the world leader in a $7 billion per year industry. It focuses on the environment and medicine and on being able to see issues in people and the environment that you just otherwise can't detect. SCIEX remains a tremendous success to this day.

In the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, we built a company called IMAX Corporation. IMAX is giant screen theatres, as I'm sure you know. It carried a Canadian passion around the world in being able to take people places they otherwise couldn't go and to share with them—although it has become a very commercialized operation—educational opportunities and visions of the Arctic, Antarctic, Ontario, and Canada that they otherwise would never be able to see. That was a technological innovation in visualization.

We built a small piece of what became BCE Emergis. We had a passion for communication in this country. Although we can't really say we knew what we were doing at the time, it was the birth of the Internet. What we built became part of the backbone for the communication line that Canada has in place today. We assisted in the governance of a Canadian company that sat at the diagnostic heart of most CT and MRI machines.

I'm not trying to impress you with my CV. I'm trying to say that we build technologies that work, that become globally adopted, and that are all about visualization.

For my family, one of the driving factors has always been and remains a passionate need to give back to Canada something that was given to our family. This is the greatest place to live on this earth. We've always tried to construct within our companies a social construct, a social partnership. My father used to tell me it's more important to create a job than to earn the bottom line. We have created 20,000 jobs over the years.

We are very proud to see the country benefit from the fruits of our activities. We have delivered transforming solutions in the fields of environment, culture, medicine, communications, entertainment, and others, always with a uniquely Canadian brand and style. Even though these companies move into the hands of other owners, Americans largely, we put in place whatever we can to make sure that for the longest period of time their operations and headquarters remain in this country.

Each and every one of these companies is about seeing what otherwise can't be seen, or visualizing what otherwise can't be visualized.

I'm personally passionate about the Arctic sovereignty issue and about the Arctic in general. Let me try to give you a bit of a foundation.

My great-grandfather was Bishop Rix. He was bishop of New Caledonia, stationed in Prince Rupert. I know it's not quite the Arctic, but it's pretty damn close. He instilled in my family over the decades a passion for everything about northern Canada that exists today. I can still recall the cathartic event as a boy when I learned that the United States had sent their submarines into what we believed were Canadian waters without permission, and thus challenged—I didn't know what to call it—our Arctic sovereignty. I've never forgotten the sense of surprise, helplessness, and frustration that incident left imprinted on me. Although it sort of stews at the back of the mind, it always comes to the forefront as a childhood impression.

I recognize that this debate has evolved into something more than simply lines on a map. At its core, this is about the reach of Canadian jurisdiction and economic opportunity. At its core, it's a race. It's no longer entirely about defence or monitoring, although it's important. It's about claiming our birthright, about claiming the growth that our birthright can bring to this nation.

I'm very proud of the foresight the Canadian government has had since 1841 when it first put £1,500 aside for the geological exploration of Upper Canada. Ever since then, one of the foundation strengths of this country has been its ability to peer forward 50 or 100 years and ask how we are going to unleash the potential of this country well into the future.

The establishment of the geosurvey and its work in the thirties, forties, and fifties was phenomenal in laying a foundation for economic stability and growth that makes us one of the strongest and most admired economies in the world today.

Technology evolves, as do social imperatives. Today we find ourselves facing a more difficult exploration challenge as the targets become deeper and more complex. At the same time, we find ourselves alerted to an increasingly important set of environmental issues that are so key to our future.

That is the preamble. Let me tell you the advertisement about Gedex. For the past 14 years, we have been building our opus, which is a company called Gedex, which is transformational to the world of discovery in resources and in security and defence. Gedex is a technology developed and built in Canada by Canadians that can, in a way never possible before, overfly terrain and understand what is under the ground, from a resource perspective, down to 10 miles. It is essentially the achievement of our family's goal to turn the top 10 miles of the Earth's crust into glass for discovery purposes.

I want to make a couple of things clear. It's very easy for people to come in and say they have achieved a goal or that they have a technology that can do x, y , or z. I ask you to think about our past performance and what we've successfully delivered before and understand that is what we have been passionately quietly and carefully building for 14 years.

It is not just me who is saying that. We're partnered with some of the largest companies in the resource industry: Rio Tinto, De Beers, Anglo American, Cliffs Natural Resources. Every quarter we're adding more. Next will be one of the major oil companies.

We are also partnered, and appreciatively partnered, with the Canadian government. We made this case some months ago. We think it is incredibly important to do so because Gedex is about four things that are relevant to today's discussion: speed of discovery, economics of discovery, the environment, and creating an unfair advantage at the diplomatic table. The fourth is as important as any of the other three.

On speed of discovery, I recognize this is a bipartisan committee and everybody has a different perspective. Everybody has different objectives and ambitions, but it's important to hear what I'm saying in the sense that we've taken the time to try to cover all of those aspects from a very Canadian perspective.

On the speed of discovery, we seamlessly integrate with existing technologies. That means we are hunting for elephants in elephant country. The geosurvey and current technologies have identified macro areas and said there is probably something here, and that's fantastic, but it's like looking for one glass of water in something the size of this room in the dark. It will take a long time to actually vector in on what you are trying to find. What does Gedex do?

Gedex allows for an immediate vectoring, which has a massive economic impact on Canada, on Canadians, and on the Arctic. It immediately allows us to say, “Don't drill. Don't look here, here, and here.” The savings in saying that are enormous. We'll come to the environmental savings as well later. It also zeroes in. The traditional number is one out of about 300 drill targets proves successful. Maybe we're one out of ten or one out of three, but it's a phenomenal improvement, which frees up capital in Canada to focus on other more productive things. We rapidly cover vast areas of terrain, and the vectoring is of significant value.

Regarding the economics of discovery, because we help find things faster with more certainty, there's a tightened time to exploration and to exploitation, and that means job and tax base creation. That's a gift to the Conservatives in the room: jobs and tax base.

There are fewer wasted dollars and almost critically an opportunity to dramatically enhance the pre-tax royalty base on any project. Let me touch on that. Governments are terrific. They understand they have an asset they are entrusted with, and they exploit that opportunity by taking royalties and taxes from what's extracted. That's terrific. To be able to identify more specifically where the opportunity lies means they can extract a higher royalty base from commercial operations that are going in to extract those opportunities. That has to happen.

In regard to the environment, these are non-intrusive flights. There are no seismic activities. There are fewer wasted drill holes and less disruption on the environment, both physically and in terms of supply chain. The ability to say an area is barren of resources is incredibly important.

You create national parks on a regular basis, and I think that's great. It's part of a blue-green strategy that lies at the heart of this country. At the same time, wouldn't it be great to know that the park you're creating has nothing of significant resource value under it? Why don't we work together to figure that out?

In terms of unfair advantage, if you're going into a diplomatic negotiation and you actually know or have a pretty good sense as to where something exists and where other things don't, you have an unfair advantage at that table. We'd like to find a way to partner with the government to create that unfair advantage at the diplomatic table and make sure Canada is defending what's worth fighting for diplomatically.

Gedex stands ready to serve this country by a far-reaching and foresightful partnership that can have positive ramifications for the next century and beyond. Gedex is almost perfectly constructed to become a critical tool in the Arctic discovery and development program, and if managed properly, at the diplomatic level as well.

We view sovereignty mapping as our core business. We're in constant negotiation with countries around the world to discuss the value of sovereignty mapping, and we hope this will become part of the discussion. We can assist and partner with the Canadian people in realizing, protecting, and exploiting their birthright.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much, Mr. Breukelman.

We're going to start with the opposition. Mr. Dewar, for seven minutes, please.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to our guests. It's really interesting, the different perspectives you have given us today, and the opportunities for us to dig into some of your expertise and come out with some solid ideas to help us chart the course for the next couple of years when we are the chair of the Arctic Council, which, by the way, is what we're trying to do here.

I've said this before, and many others around this table have said that this is an opportunity for us to work in a multi-partisan way, if we can put it that way, in the best interests of the country. This is an opportunity to do just that.

Ms. Grant, I want to start with you because right now, as we speak, the international conference on climate change is taking place. There are reports that should shock everyone around this table, such as the recent reports of the melting of Arctic sea ice. Just to give people an idea of the size of the area, it's larger than the entire United States. This is beyond what they had predicted. It's happening as we speak, and I'm not sure we're all seized with it.

We heard from witnesses at the last meeting about the issue of methane. You mentioned it as well. I know you're not a climate scientist. I hope we'll have witnesses in that area come to our committee. Maybe you could give us an appreciation of how important it is to be seized with the issue of the changing climate, and what particular areas we should be focused on when it comes to that. Obviously, mitigation has kind of left the barn. It's about adaptation, and you said stabilization.

Could you give us a bit more on that?

[Shelagh Grant]

Thank you very much, Mr. Dewar.

Stabilization means holding it at the status quo or slowing it down. What is happening is that the acceleration part has gotten ahead of our being able to fund what is necessary to match what is happening. The recession did not help. I predicted that in the book, and sure enough.... But where do we find the sources of funding for adequate stabilization?

Methane is now leaking out of the seabed. I don't know whether this came up in the meeting, but oil slicks were discovered off Scott Inlet on eastern Baffin Island. They thought they were maybe left over from the drilling in Greenland several years ago, but no, evidently they are coming from a crack in the seabed. Further studies will be done next summer. You may know this.

The fact is that it's just adding to the methane, but it's also the methane. When I was up there, there were all these rivulets heading to the ocean. I found oil slicks on some of them. In other words, the methane is associated with oil seepage. They believe that the oil seepage, as well as the methane, is coming from the seabed.

This is something we haven't figured out how to deal with. In the whole article there was not one mention of cleaning up that oil slick, which I found a little unnerving.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I imagine that if that had happened in the south, as people like to call it, it would have been dealt with quickly.

Ms. French, I first of all want to thank you.

I just want to touch on what your organization is involved with. What you've touched on is the importance of debate and the need to open up a space. Maybe you could partner with Mr. Breukelman and have an IMAX presentation. That might be a great idea.

Realistically, how are we going to grab the attention of Canadians? We know that often, here in the south, as people like to call it, it's really hard to get our heads around why this matters and why we should care. You enumerated a number of things. You have 19 recommendations. If you were to give the top five that would seize the interest of Canadians so that we could push to get an agenda solidified, what would they be, and how would we get that? You're doing the conference. What are some of the other ideas for engaging Canadians?

[Sara French]

This question of public education on Arctic issues is huge. It's something our organization deals with every day. One of our main priorities is to improve Canadians' understanding of the Arctic.

The situation is a little more positive. Based on our public opinion data, we found that Canadians really do see the Arctic as an integral part of the Canadian politic. We wanted to see if there was a strong difference between how people in the north and in the more southern latitudes viewed the priorities facing their country and their region. What we found was that Canadians, by and large, want for their more northern fellow Canadians what they want for themselves, which is good access to health care and education. The levels of affinity toward the Arctic are very high. Now is the time to put in place the curriculum and the public education about what's going on to match that interest.

The interest is keen. At a cocktail party, when people ask what you do, and you say, “Arctic policy”, they say, “Wow!” Then they hone in on you for the rest of the evening. It's taking that interest, that affinity toward the true north strong and free, and putting in the backup information.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

You mentioned one of the opportunities, which is the conference. If there are other engagement strategies, can you provide those to this committee? Our recommendations are going to be very focused on what we should be doing at the Arctic Council while, in so doing, engaging with Canadians.

I'm going to stop there. The next round will go to my colleague, Mr. Bevington.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

We'll now go over to Mr. Dechert, for seven minutes.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here. I think you've each made fascinating presentations this morning.

I want to follow up briefly on the subject Mr. Dewar was speaking about. All of you mentioned the necessity of educating people in southern Canada and other places in the world about all the issues in the Arctic region.

I can tell you, as a member of Parliament from southern Ontario, I hear about Arctic issues all the time from my constituents. They are interested. They may not have all the facts, but they are interested. They ask all the time about our Arctic policy. They're happy to see that the Canadian government is engaged in the north, that the Prime Minister makes regular visits there, and that we're concentrating resources on the north. I hear from them frequently on how they want to see that the people of the north are taken care of, are given the opportunities that emanate from the region, that they share in those opportunities. They want to see those communities developed in a sustainable way. They want us to protect the environment there. They also want us to responsibly develop the resources there, which they see as part of their birthright as Canadians.

Mr. Breukelman, as Mr. Dewar pointed out, you have the background in telling people about what they can't easily see. Ms. Grant and Ms. French, you've mentioned the need to educate people. How can all of you collaborate to educate Canadians about the things they need to know about the north?

One suggestion I've heard is that there are people proposing a museum of the Arctic, located probably in the national capital region. That's one way to reach a certain number of people. Making an IMAX film about the north would be another way of telling the story.

Mr. Breukelman, I can tell you that before I ever had a chance to visit northern Ontario, I learned about it through North of Superior, the IMAX movie at Ontario Place. I thought that was a fabulous movie. As a young person growing up in Ontario, I was able to see and really feel and experience being in the wonderful spaces in northern Ontario. I assume the same thing can be done with the Arctic.

I'll throw that out there as a question. I would like to hear from each of you on we could educate people better.

[David Breukelman]

There is something I always mention to Americans, and Canadians, in describing the north. Most people form southern Ontario, when you talk about northern Canada, they think of Muskoka and they feel very happy. There used to be a sign as you pass through Bracebridge that you are halfway between the equator and the north pole. Think of all the stuff from Brazil all the way up to Bracebridge. That again exists north of Bracebridge. Then people become disturbed and don't want to talk to me at that point. They become aware. It's a very enlightening thing.

When I was young, the education process included a very deep dive into what the Arctic was, what its history was, and what it meant to Canada. As my children went through the education system, I saw less of that focus and more of a breadth on globalization.

I believe that we're Canadians first. Groups like yours have a real role, not only in recommending policy, but also in defining everything from curriculum to communications, because nobody knows the Arctic better than these groups and these people.

[Shelagh Grant]

Actually, I'd like to pick up on your comment on the polar house. The irony is that I was part of a committee, I think it was 25 years ago, when we first brought it up. That issue has come back and back. We are the only Arctic country that does not have a polar centre or a polar house that would have a museum and resources associated. I couldn't encourage that issue more.

Having that come forward at the same time as we're chairing the Arctic Council I think would have a dual impact. I would support that, yes. Wherever I go, they talk about the Arctic. What they don't know about it is scary. There's too much newspaper misinformation.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Ms. French.

[Sara French]

I would have to agree with what both my colleagues have stated.

One thing that I would like to emphasize to the committee is that it's not just about communicating and having Canadians learn about the Arctic. It's also about making sure that those who live and work every day in the Arctic are aware of the important and national processes that are going on. When you look at the work coming out of the Arctic Council, it's often fabulous scientific assessments, but my degree is in political science. I have a master's degree and I can't get through some of these thick volumes, so you can only imagine people sitting in a hamlet office who are trying to digest these huge processes.

I think one thing Canada can easily do is commit to making plain language summaries of the work coming out of the chairmanship so that people can follow along with the work the council is doing.

Another barrier to Canadians knowing about the north is coming into contact with their fellow Canadians. The cost of air travel is a major impediment. That is the number one expense that I find in our business, trying to have northern Canadians engage directly in these discussions themselves. The cost of travel is a huge impediment to that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Mr. Eyking, sir, I'll turn the floor over to you for seven minutes.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Thank you, Chair. Welcome, guests, and thank you for your presentations. I have a question for each one of you, so I have to divvy up the seven minutes.

Starting with you, Sara, you mentioned the indigenous peoples quite a bit. You mentioned what's happening in Russia. Could you explain a bit more to us? How can we help those Russian indigenous peoples get back in the loop with our own first nations people? Is there a way we can help them? Why is it happening and how can we get them back at the table?

[Sara French]

RAIPON represents 250,000 indigenous peoples in over 21 different types of what we would call first nations groups. It is a permanent participant in the Arctic Council, but it is also involved with several other international organizations, and domestically. It is not just a permanent participant, it does many other activities as well.

RAIPON is opposed to some extractive industries operating in its territories and has differing views from those of the Russian government. According to the representative of RAIPON, this is a major reason for the suspension. Overall, the Russian permanent participants find it difficult to engage in the Arctic Council's work due to the lack of funding, and there are restrictions on their receiving money because of the recent changes to the NGO laws in Russia. What's interesting about this particular case is that the Russian senior Arctic official who represents the Russian Federation at the Arctic Council signed the letter saying that the suspension should be lifted. There is some internal work going on there between the different ministries not seeing this issue in the same way.

I think Canada needs to keep the focus on this issue.The suspension is very recent and it needs to be constantly brought up with our Russian counterparts to facilitate their involvement. In the meantime, one thing we need to understand is that many of the permanent participant organizations represent people in more than one state. For example, the Inuit Circumpolar Council, ICC, represents Inuit in Greenland, Alaska, Canada, and Russia. The Russian counterparts find it difficult to engage in the meetings as well.

There is a huge funding gap that limits the ability of these groups to be involved. I think that's something we need to look at as a council as a whole. Canada should really focus on a permanent funding mechanism for these groups.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

That's number one, and that leads me to questions, which is good, because my sense is the Russians are running a little roughshod over their local people, their indigenous peoples, and they're pushing back a bit.

That leads me to the question for you, David. You're a very big fan of technology and you have done wonderful things for our country and others, but sometimes technology can move too fast, right? We've seen that over the last few centuries with big mining operations in communities, and next thing, there's a ghost town with a polluted area. I just visited northern Alberta, which is doing really great but they're trying to contain it all. They're trying to have the technology so they can be environmentally sensitive with the economic boom. Northern Alberta is doing great, and the Arctic is going to be our next frontier.

That being said, is there a bit of a danger when that technology is moving so fast that the local culture, the local people...agreements don't move fast enough, with the pace of technology? Is that a concern of yours?

[David Breukelman]

That's a very reasonable observation, and it is a concern. The complexity of our thinking when we build a company, especially this one, includes trying to understand the impact we can have, positive or negative, not just on a nation or a company, but on a community as well.

I think the ability to understand where resources actually lie, and to quantify to some degree those resources before exploration moves into exploitation can allow government, which is what you need, to extract the maximum economic value from that find before and during its exploitation. Government is the only mechanism really positioned to reapply that into the community in question.

I think you're absolutely right that oftentimes there's a find that isn't substantiated in terms of its scope and breadth. There's an entire infrastructure built around it, and it goes dry within a certain period of time, and you do end up with a ghost town and an unstructured mess. Gedex is—

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

I like where you're going with this, that your technology can help government be proactive instead of reactive.

[David Breukelman]

That's exactly it.