Foreign Affairs Committee on Dec. 11th, 2012

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

We're going to move over to Ms. Brown, for seven minutes, please.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Dr. Barnes, for being with us today. This is outstanding to have you here.

I am a huge advocate of ongoing education and online access to education. I did my first degree at the University of Toronto. I was in the situation there with professors and classes. I have gone on, and I continue to do courses through ongoing education opportunities. I know that in actual fact my professors are far more accessible through online education, because they give you times when they're going to be in their offices, or they'll take your e-mails and respond almost instantaneously. It has been a wonderful opportunity. I've actually used courses from two different Canadian universities just because of the courses and the professors that I wanted access to. I have had a marvellous time; I really have.

You raise an interesting comment, though. My constituency is about 30 kilometres north of Toronto. Because we have no post-secondary education facility in my riding, we have no access to the CANARIE. We can't get access. We are appealing for some project money. The region is very interested in bringing the access in, and the CANARIE system would give us the opportunity to build post-secondary education. Here I am, driving distance to Toronto, with no post-secondary education. Students from my riding have to leave to go elsewhere so they can get their post-secondary education. We're facing some very similar circumstances—perhaps a little different, because we do have proximity. But I understand the need for post-secondary education and the opportunity.

I applaud you for pursuing that online education. I am fascinated to hear that 97% of people in the Yukon have access to Internet, which means there is a whole different need in the curriculum of primary and secondary students to educate them toward the possibilities of online education.

Is that happening in the primary and secondary education levels so that students have in their minds that online education is available, and that it is accessible to them in the comfort of their own home?

[Dr. Karen Barnes]

It's good to hear we have support in Ontario.

We work very closely with our public schools branch, in our community particularly, where we are often housed right inside the high schools. I would say that in the last five years since I've arrived here there has been a huge shift in the thinking around online learning. When I arrived we were still connecting students to the B.C. curriculum through correspondence models, where we were sending paper back and forth through the mail. They have now put “smart” classrooms in every school. They have connected students to the B.C. system through online learning. They're now building hubs out of Whitehorse so that the high schools can get access to some of the higher-level science courses particularly, but English and social sciences as well, at the grade 11 and grade 12 levels.

It's not perfect, but I would say there has been a very fundamental shift. This last year they gave iPads to all of the grade 2 students in the Yukon. The idea was not only to help the kids become engaged with that environment, but also the teachers. That's also part of the shift, of course. You have to also build that mind shift in teachers.

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

Well, I think that's very exciting and hugely innovative. There are a lot of things we can learn, in Ontario particularly, from the model you're establishing.

I wanted to ask about labour mobility. You said that's one of the four issues you're dealing with. Right now across Canada, because of our Constitution, we deal with about 450 different organizations that give a licence to practise. It's a challenge across Canada.

You talked about your initiative, “start here. go anywhere.” I wonder what you would recommend for how we could break down these barriers to labour mobility for young people who are trained in the north. Let me say that my son-in-law is from Ghana. He's building a business there, but the likelihood of him going back and living there is very small. You're facing the same problems with people departing. You want to establish people to be there, so you're kind of in a situation where you want to train people with the expertise to go anywhere, but really you want to train people to stay in the north and keep their expertise there. So you have this conundrum. Can you give us some of your thoughts on how this might work through?

[Dr. Karen Barnes]

Certainly one of the things that post-secondary educators often say is that the British North America Act did a disservice by making education provincial, because it has hampered us. We know that now more than ever we see kids moving across provincial lines and trying to transfer credits. I come from western Canada, where we've had transfer councils in place for a long time. Yukon College is a member of both Alberta and B.C. councils, so our students can move fairly easily into the western universities.

As far as associations go, we also work very closely with associations in those two provinces and, where possible, with national associations. We try to make sure all of our programs are accredited as much as possible so students can move. But just with simple little things like trades, we're having a lot of difficulty. My counterparts at post-secondary institutions across this country are having a lot of problems with the apprenticeship system the way it works today. We're trying very hard to create innovative opportunities for students, again so they can move out of apprenticeship and into any jurisdiction in Canada.

Mining is a very migratory occupation. So is oil and gas. Those people need to be able to move. This is what we started the discussions with Alaska about, because even a simple thing like safety training is different 50 miles across the border in Alaska. We're hoping to have curriculum that will allow students to meet the safety standards across both jurisdictions and be able to move from one mining company to another. We have mining companies in Yukon that are operating mines in southeast Alaska, or in the lower 48, in Colorado and other places. They want to be able to move their labour across the border.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

We're going to move over to Mr. Eyking for seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Barnes, for being here.

A few years ago I spent a week in Yukon with Larry Bagnell. You have a beautiful place and a very vibrant crew up there. They're tough.

You seem to have a good international grasp on the Arctic, especially with all the students coming in, and also in your dealings with the U.S. When you're dealing with Alaska, do you get the sense that it is about the state itself, or do you sense that it is more in an international context—the U.S. as a whole looking at how the changes in the Arctic are going to change its sovereignty and shipping?

A previous guest talked about the South China Sea. We know the Americans are very interested in what's happening there. But since you are close to Alaska, tell me about the perspective on the U.S. side, with regard to Alaska as a state, but also with regard to the country itself. What are you hearing?

[Dr. Karen Barnes]

Being from the prairie provinces, I don't have a lot of understanding of the maritime issues. In Yukon, we have to rely on our access to American coasts, for example, right now the harbour at Skagway, to get minerals out. Those conversations are tied mostly to terrestrial issues. The biggest conversations I have with Alaskan counterparts—and certainly I've been here only a short time and I don't have that many conversations—are with the universities. We talk a lot about the need to connect experts, highly qualified people, across the north, and how doing that should not be bound by international boundaries or laws. That would be the one place where I'd say the conversation happens at the universities, around just being able to move scientists and faculty and researchers around the world as easily as possible. But I'm sorry, I don't have many other conversations about the lower 48.

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

What are you hearing from your international students when they come to the north? It's interesting to see that a lot of students from other countries are interested in the north. Of course, they have a vested interest, but do they have a different perspective, maybe, than Canadian students do? What's your sense of it?

[Dr. Karen Barnes]

I would have to say that the most common comment.... It's certainly the thing we hear most, particularly from Asians. We have a lot of students coming from Japan and Korea in particular, because we have partnerships there. We also get a lot of students from Scandinavia and northern Europe, from Germany in particular. They are so awed by our wilderness and the fact that we have access to these beautiful areas of northern Canada.

They talk about how wonderful it is that our country has protected those places, how important it is to the quality of life that we have, and they say that if we do nothing else, we should make sure that we fight hard to protect that. Whether or not we develop.... Of course, we will eventually develop, and we need to do it in a way that protects those places for future generations. If nothing else, this is something that we hear over and over again.

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

You mentioned that maybe our committee should get out of Ottawa. If we had a chance to go north.... You mentioned the three main communities, Whitehorse, Iqaluit.... Where do you think we should go besides northern Canada? Are there any other countries that maybe are leading the curve on studying the Arctic? Is Norway one of the countries that comes to mind? Where do you think we should go? If you were planning our trip for one week...?

[Dr. Karen Barnes]

I would go to Norway, certainly, because institutions like Tromsø or Svalbard have really shown us that you can have good solid education and research happening north of even the 76th parallel, but I would also go to Greenland. I say that because they have been able to establish a university in Greenland to educate local people on local issues, and at that institute they are able to conduct research that is really valuable, particularly in the area of climate change and climate change adaptability.

Then I think I would go over to some of the indigenous institutions in Russia. I think they've done a wonderful job in places like Yakutsk in capturing cultural significance and how to capture traditional knowledge. Fairbanks as well, I think, has had a wonderful experience in doing the same; they're able to capture the language and, through that, some of the traditional knowledge that exists in the north.

I'm hoping to do one of those tours this year myself.

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

Thank you.

Is that it, Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

You have one and a half minutes.

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

No, that's all.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Okay. That's great.

We're going to start the next round.

For five minutes, we have Mr. Dechert.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Dr. Barnes, for joining us.

You've mentioned that businesses operating in the Arctic, and in the northern parts of Canada that aren't in the Arctic, have a lot of on-the-ground experience. What do you think of the idea of creating a circumpolar business forum for those businesses to share best practices, both from a business perspective and with respect to responsible resource development? Do you think that would be useful?

[Dr. Karen Barnes]

I think it is absolutely essential. In particular, I recently had a conversation in Ottawa with Patrick Borbey, the president of CanNor, who was asking me why we're focusing on governance and not on the business side of the implementation of the modern treaties.

Of course, we are doing that in some way by helping people achieve an education, but one of the aspects of the implementation of the treaties that we really need to start focusing on is how to build sustainable business opportunities so that people can stay in the north and govern the north. I think there's a lot to be learned. I was in Kiruna, Sweden. As you know, it's at the 70th or 76th parallel. It's a vibrant community with many small businesses, many homes, and a lot of people living there.

I think some of the issues facing us that could be addressed at such a forum are transportation, and the transport of goods in particular, if we do produce in the north, and also housing. Housing is an issue facing us every single day here. It has actually slowed down the exploration industry in mining, and it's preventing some of the mines from expanding. It is an issue that's probably facing everyone, every community in northern Canada, and, I suspect, most countries that are in the north. It's something that we should be looking at seriously as part of that business development discussion.

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

That's very interesting. Thank you.

Dr. Barnes, you're an educator. We've had discussions here today, and in our other sessions on the study of the Arctic, about the knowledge of people in the rest of Canada about the issues and challenges facing the Arctic region and about the opportunities there. There's a good general level of knowledge, but there's a lot that's not understood by Canadians in other parts of Canada.

As an educator, how would you suggest we educate the rest of Canada about the opportunities and challenges facing our Arctic region?

[Dr. Karen Barnes]

I would say there are a couple of things. One is that in the public school system we probably need to do a much better job of writing the curriculum and producing materials, and those probably need to be done in the north. They need to be produced in the north and perhaps taught from the north, now that we have that ability.

The second thing is the University of the Arctic. The one legacy from this that I think is critical is that there are 29 member institutions in Canada of the University of the Arctic, and those are southern universities primarily. In each of those universities there is a robust Canadian studies, northern studies, circumpolar studies programming. Those institutions have the ability to be part of that education, so there probably need to be some resources allocated to try to bring together those groups.

ArcticNet is another good example. The problem with ArcticNet is that it's focused primarily on maritime issues, so it doesn't always talk about the other terrestrial issues. But for all of those organizations, if there was resourcing just to allow the dissemination of their findings and their studies—and not just to other academics, but to Canadians in general—I think that would be very valuable.

We have a fairly good film industry in northern Canada. The Yukon film industry produces films frequently, and I think there needs to be some distribution of those films in a more robust way.

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

Very good.

You may know there's a proposal to create something called Polar House, probably based in the national capital region, which would be both a think tank and have some kind of a museum of the Arctic region that would be available to all Canadians. What do you think of that idea?

[Dr. Karen Barnes]

I think it's brilliant. Just recently we talked about perhaps building a policy think tank up here, because there is that need to have people in the north be able to debate and discuss their own issues in a really good organized way.

This summer I was at the University of Alaska Museum of the North in Fairbanks. It is an outstanding example of what could happen as far as a museum is concerned. Of course, one of the things that frustrates Yukoners is that when people think of the north, they often think of a treeless, barren, frozen landscape, and if you know anything about the Yukon, it's a huge part of the boreal forest. In fact, we don't hit the tundra until much further north at the Old Crow district.

I think those kinds of activities will help Canadians understand how diverse the north is.

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

Just briefly, if you were advising Minister Aglukkaq, what would you advise her to be the top three to five priorities of Canada's chairmanship of the Arctic Council?