Foreign Affairs Committee on Nov. 27th, 2012

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

On another issue, maybe both of you could expand on the issue of fisheries in the region. It's a subject we have touched on here and there this morning.

[Prof. Donald McRae]

I agree with my colleague that fisheries are and will be an important issue in the region. As he mentioned, we can manage within 200 nautical miles, and that may be the area that we have to focus on in the near future, because it may not be much beyond that. Beyond that is an area of high seas. High seas means that any country in the world can fish in that area. No matter how far the continental shelf extends, beyond that 200 nautical mile zone is an area of high seas. High seas in every other area in the world now has complete coverage—not necessarily all agreed.

A regional fisheries management organization tries to get cooperation among those countries that are fishing in the area, or those potentially interested in fishing in the area. We had a bad experience with NAFO. Frankly, NAFO is not atypical of regional fisheries organizations. One of the big problems with regional fisheries organizations is that most of them do not have a binding system for setting total allowable catches and allocating quotas. Under NAFO, we have an objection system whereby for many years the European Union has simply said they didn't agree with the scientifically assessed quotas and they were going to go their own way and set their own quotas. That has been a source of difficulty. Now there are potentially opportunities for challenging their ability to do that. Still, we have a problem that we don't have a compulsory regime.

I would think that if we're going to develop a fisheries regime for the Arctic, we have to be fairly careful that we're not going to simply duplicate the existing fisheries management regimes, which do not have the ability to ensure that everyone adheres to the quota. They don't have very good systems to deal with what are called new entrants, when someone from outside the region says they'd like to fish in the area now. Because this will be an open area, it may well be that states will appear in the Arctic that have never fished in the northern areas before, because fish around the world are drying up. There's a substantial capacity in the southern Atlantic Ocean—way over-capacity in fisheries. If a new area opens up, we're going to have high-powered fishing vessels flagged, and flagged with convenience countries, crewed or captained by highly sophisticated former Russian naval captains who know how to fish and run vessels in this area.

It will be very difficult for management to occur. It's a big challenge, but it has to be done right; otherwise we will duplicate what has happened in other areas of the world.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

That's all the time we have.

Mr. Byers, you had a quick response?

[Prof. Michael Byers]

I have just one simple point. If we're going to create a regional fisheries organization, let's do it before the commercial fishing starts. Let's get there before interests are vested. I agree entirely with Professor McRae that the timing here is opportune. If we miss this opportunity in the next two years, those long-range fishing trawlers could be there already. That's where we'll get the real opposition to this scheme.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

We're going to move to Ms. Brown for five minutes, please, to finish the third round.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Byers, in that same interview with Mr. Gregg, you talked about 100,000 people flying over the Arctic every day. Then, in an article from August 15, 2012, in the Globe and Mail, the title of which is “Canada's not ready to have the World in the Arctic”—the World being the largest privately owned yacht on the planet. In that article, you talked about the number of ships that are going through, the challenges they are facing, and tourism going north. You said the weather problems could significantly impact and leave people in a tenuous situation, maybe even life-threatening situations. You end that article by saying:

It’s clear that Canada’s search-and-rescue capabilities require an emergency upgrade.

I think one of the other things you talked about in that interview with Mr. Gregg was the need to provide more icebreakers. I'm wondering if you could talk about what you think that emergency search and rescue should look like. We are putting money into the icebreakers, as you know. The commitment is there from our government. What does it look like from your perspective?

[Prof. Michael Byers]

Thank you, and my compliments on your research as well. I'm glad you were following my work.

Yes, the search and rescue challenges are increasing almost exponentially. Yes, there are more than 100,000 people who fly over the Canadian Arctic each day on flights from Los Angeles to London or New York to Beijing. At some stage, unfortunately, there's a statistical risk that an accident will occur. If one of those planes were to crash-land in an area remote from any community in the middle of the winter, it would not be just an issue of the people onboard—and one would feel terrible for them in that situation—but also of the enormous embarrassment to Canada as we scrambled to respond with search and rescue helicopters based on Vancouver Island and in Nova Scotia to a situation that would be almost half a world away, many thousands of kilometres.

The issue of shipping is the exact same thing. I've travelled through the Northwest Passage a number of times on Russian-owned and -crewed ecocruise ships in Canadian waters with Canada's permission, with more than 100 ecotourists onboard in some very remote and challenging places. These navigators, as Professor McRae said, are very competent, but inevitably some kind of challenge will occur. In 2010 we had three ships run aground in the Canadian Arctic.

Yes, we need to be ready for this. The activity is increasing. Then there's all the mineral prospecting and everything else that's occurring. Iqaluit is one of the busiest airports in Canada during the summer months.

How do we deal with this? We need to understand that it needs to be a priority, even though relatively few Canadians live there. The fact that there is no large urban centre is not an excuse for not having world-class search and rescue. Do we position a search and rescue helicopter in the Arctic during the summer months? Yes, I'd like to see that. Do we prioritize the acquisition of new fixed-wing search and rescue aircraft for the Canadian Forces? Absolutely. Do we prioritize the re-capitalization of our Arctic fleet, which is currently made up of icebreakers that are as old as or older than I am? Absolutely.

With all respect to the government, there have been some really good promises, but the delivery has been slow on this. The contracts for the Arctic offshore patrol ships have not yet been signed, and that's seven years after the Prime Minister made his initial promise on this. The fixed-wing search and rescue situation is that procurement has been under way for almost a decade, and again, no contract has been signed.

My message to the government is that you're making all the right noises, and you have for some time, but what really matters is being able to deliver. If that massive, tragic accident occurs and we're not ready, it won't impact on our sovereignty, but it will impact on our credibility as an Arctic nation.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Can I ask a question of logistics?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

That's all the time we have, but we have one more round, so you can fight it out for who gets that one.

Mr. Bevington, you have five minutes.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just want to change the subject a little bit. Mr. McRae talked about the need for dealing with national issues at the Arctic Council—economic development and social development. There was a big forum in Winnipeg two weeks ago with the University of the Arctic, which was well attended. It was the best forum they've had. There's a built-up sense that we need to communicate throughout....

Is an international organization the best tool—and both of you can answer this—to use to spread the word about national development, economic development, and social development? Should we not be putting more effort into UArctic, which is an international organization that shares information on all of these subjects? Two years ago the government withdrew its funding from UArctic. Should it not get back into this business of information sharing at this level, because it is very critical to really understanding...?

I guess my point as well is that the Arctic Council is an international organization designed to deal with international issues. Will we have trouble with other states if we start dealing with national issues there? Both of you can answer that.

[Prof. Michael Byers]

Thank you for that.

This comes back to my initial point in my presentation. The Arctic Council is a venue for foreign policy for international relations. It brings together former Cold War adversaries. You have the United States and Russia sitting at the same table and a U.S. administration that has explicitly recognized the Arctic as an opportunity to engage Russia in a cooperative direction. These are really high stakes. What happens at the Arctic Council is right at the pinnacle of international relations. It's about nuclear relations between former Cold War adversaries. It's about addressing the crisis of climate change. It's about managing China's interest in resources around the world. This is big stuff.

For a Canadian chairmanship...when we have two years, we do need to prioritize and we do need to recognize that this is international relations at the highest level. We need to be focused on what we can do in cooperation, in concert, with other countries—stuff that we cannot accomplish on our own. As much as I support the idea of disseminating knowledge about Canada's Arctic and Canada's Arctic citizens and what we're doing, I wouldn't want that to squeeze out these other priorities, or things that should be priorities. We need to focus on, as I mentioned, that issue of fisheries, that issue of oil spill prevention, that issue of short-lived climate forces. We need to get those jobs done.

You're right, there are other venues for pursuing education and the dissemination of knowledge about what we're doing here at home.

The other thing I will say, and I just need to make this pitch, is that the Arctic is changing so very quickly that it is imperative that we have the very best science possible on all these issues, and this science should be exercised and dealt with in terms of its recommendations and consequences in concert with other countries. If I have one real beef with the Canadian government's Arctic policy recently, it's been the cutting of funding for PEARL, the atmospheric weather station at Eureka in Canada's Arctic. There are some issues that are so utterly important—understanding climate change, understanding the changes in the Arctic—that other countries look down at us when we curtail our ability to contribute there.

The Arctic has been a priority of a lot of government funding, and I've benefited from it through ArcticNet, but we need to recognize that if we want to have a serious Arctic foreign policy, if we want to be taken seriously in venues like the Arctic Council, we need to be stepping up our game rather than curtailing aspects of it.

Let me just put this one other way. I sometimes hear civil servants express concern about how much the Arctic costs Canada. They talk about the billions of dollars in transfers to Nunavut. They talk about the expenses of providing search and rescue across this vast region. This sounds a little bit flippant, but it's not meant to be flippant. I tell them that they should put the Canadian Arctic up on eBay because other countries would pay trillions of dollars for the opportunities we have in the Arctic.

This is not a moment for penny-pinching. This is a moment to embrace the opportunity that we have as an Arctic nation, as the second-largest country on earth, to do it properly in terms of search and rescue, in terms of climate change research, in terms of supporting indigenous peoples, in terms of leading the Arctic Council. The Prime Minister, to his enormous credit, is the first Prime Minister in decades to take the Arctic seriously. Now he has to implement on that vision.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

We're going to finish up with the last questioner, and we'll start with Ms. Brown and then go to Mr. Van Kesteren.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you.

I just have a very quick question, Mr. Byers, following up on my last question on search and rescue. How much do we need up there? You just used the words “vast territory”. It is an immense territory. How do we ensure that we have the right pieces of equipment in the right places to respond to these kinds of issues that you identified in your article? It could happen in any part of that vast area. We could be thousands of kilometres away from an incident, even if we have multiple search and rescue facilities available.

We're doing a lot of catch-up right now for a decade of non-investment in our military and our search and rescue. In fact, we had a cancelled contract, so we're doing a lot of catch-up right now in that kind of capital cost. But how do we ensure that we have enough, and in the right places?

[Prof. Michael Byers]

Let me give you just a couple of examples.

We have great surveillance capacity from space in the Arctic right now. Surveillance is a component of search and rescue in terms of tracking vessels and being able to get high-quality imagery in emergency situations.

I would love to see the government fully commit to the RADARSAT Constellation series. As I understand it, the government blocked the sale of MacDonald, Dettwiler in part because it recognized the importance of RADARSAT-2 to Canada's Arctic policy. So here again is a central component: RADARSAT Constellation.

Another thing we need to recognize is that because the Arctic is changing, we need to change our assumptions as to where we should be basing search and rescue equipment.

To give you an example, a couple of years ago, I was at Inuvik, talking to a helicopter pilot from Cougar Helicopters who was on contract with one of the oil majors—I think it was BP—that was doing seismic work in the Beaufort Sea. They wouldn't rely on a Canadian Forces search and rescue helicopter based in Comox, on Vancouver Island. They actually contracted with Cougar to provide a private capacity to do search and rescue.

Now, you can say that it's an important opportunity and a responsibility for private actors, but it highlights the remoteness of our aircraft from this region. If we want to encourage development in the Arctic, and if we want to support Arctic communities, then it's important that we perhaps rethink what we're doing.

The other thing to say in terms of search and rescue is that we need to get serious—for instance, about the way we approach search and rescue across the country in terms of the response time expectations we put on the Canadian Forces and their personnel. To my mind, it is unacceptable to have a half-hour standby during business hours and a two-hour standby policy at night and on weekends. It's not just a question of equipment. It's a question of whether we have enough SAR techs and enough pilots to provide that rapid response—short-term call-up—across the country with respect to our assets.

You can put many billions of dollars into search and rescue aircraft and yet not have enough flight engineers to operate them, so it's also an issue of how well we staff this service. Also, where are the bases? Are there forward-operating bases? As well, do we have the personnel necessary to provide 24-hour short-term call-out, not just in the Arctic, but everywhere across this land?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

A quick question, Mr. Van Kesteren?

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

I was going to go somewhere else, but I'm going to follow up on that, Mr. Byers.

What's wrong with that, though? Is that a direction that we may want to pursue? That if people want to explore in the Arctic, even if they want to travel in the Arctic, that they do hire out private industry for search and rescue...? It's a vast country. Let's not forget that.

[Prof. Michael Byers]

Yes.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Is that an option too? Is that maybe something we should pursue?

[Prof. Michael Byers]

One of my favourite Canadian-owned companies is Viking Air of Victoria, B.C. They're making brand-new Twin Otters, one of the best aircraft ever built in the world. They're making them and selling them around the world. I understand they will be putting in a bid for new DHC-5 Buffalos for fixed-wing search and rescue. As part of their scoping out of Canada's search and rescue needs, they have proposed basing search and rescue assets across Canada's north, assets that are owned and operated by a private company.

Now, I'm a little bit agnostic on this. What I want to see are services that are reliable and do the job well. The actual mode of delivery is less important. There are other models in other countries as to how this can be done efficiently, so let's not close off any options here, but let's recognize the urgency of the task. What I don't want to see—with all respect—is this sent off to another committee for a long study. The defence minister has his brief on this. This has been going on for almost a decade. It's time to deliver on fixed-wing search and rescue.

Then, in terms of the helicopters, that's a decision that can be made by the Canadian Forces at the top level. Do we need to put a Cormorant in Rankin Inlet, Iqaluit, or Inuvik during the summer months? I think the answer is yes, but those experts know more than I do. They're the people who actually deploy the aircraft and run the personnel.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

That concludes all of our rounds. My question to the committee is this. Are there any additional questions? I don't think committee business will take a half an hour, so do the NDP, Liberals, or Conservatives...?

Mr. Dechert.

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

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I appreciate this opportunity.

Professor Byers, you mentioned in your opening comments that you had advised former Minister Cannan about his Arctic policy statement a few years ago. Can you tell us about what some of that advice was, and what it was in that statement that you said you were very pleased with, in that document that was produced under his leadership?

[Prof. Michael Byers]

I would encourage the committee to read that Arctic foreign policy statement closely, because of course it is the last official comprehensive position of this government on the matter before you of Arctic foreign policy.

There are a couple of things that I would highlight about that policy. It was very emphatic that cooperation was the current trajectory of Arctic international relations and that it was very much in Canada's interest to continue that trajectory. We're playing in a region that involves the United States and Russia, right? As much as we might be Canadian nationalists, we have to recognize that in that kind of context, diplomacy is essential, because we are the smaller state.

Obviously, in a post-Cold War environment, the dynamic has changed. Russia was just admitted to the World Trade Organization. How do we capitalize on that engagement by Russia in the international system while not letting down our guard in terms of authoritarian tendencies, for instance, in Russia today? It's a tricky one, but that's what we have diplomats for; that's what we have foreign ministers for. Mr. Cannan clearly recognized and embraced that, and among other things worked very hard on his own personal relationship with the Russian foreign minister. So that's very important.

The other thing Mr. Cannan recognized was that there are a couple of loose ends in terms of Arctic maritime boundary disputes. There's the one in the Beaufort Sea and there's the one in the Lincoln Sea. He recognized, I think to his enormous credit, that you deal with these things when they are not in crisis mode. It's just like the issue of central Arctic Ocean fisheries. You do these things when the moment is quiet, when you can have reflective diplomacy and a friendly negotiation and you can craft appropriate compromises. He initiated discussions with the Americans on the Beaufort Sea. There was a speech he gave in Washington, D.C., where he publicly made the offer, which was accepted, to open discussions there.

There are discussions taking place with Denmark, and I'm very hopeful that we'll see some announcement there. The issues with Denmark are so small as to be almost laughable, both on Hans Island and in the Lincoln Sea. But what an opportunity to create a positive momentum by saying “We can work this out.” Among other things, we're negotiating a comprehensive free trade agreement with the European Union. Denmark is an important member of that. How do you ratchet up the goodwill just slightly with the European Union while you resolve the disputes we have over Arctic boundaries with the European Union state that's in the Arctic?

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

You mentioned earlier that you and former Ambassador Cellucci had worked on a model agreement or treaty a few years ago. Could you table that for the committee, for our review?

[Prof. Michael Byers]

Yes, I can.

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

You said there were nine concrete steps outlined in that.