Foreign Affairs Committee on Sept. 19th, 2018

[The Chair (Hon. Robert Nault (Kenora, Lib.)), Liberal, Bob Nault]

Colleagues, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), a study of Canada’s sovereignty in the Arctic, we have a number of witnesses today and for the full two hours, these witnesses will be in front of us.

From the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, we have Jeffery Hutchinson, commissioner of the Canadian Coast Guard and Mario Pelletier, deputy commissioner, operations, Canadian Coast Guard. From the Department of National Defence, we have Major-General William Seymour, deputy commander, Canadian joint operations, and from the Department of Transport, Jane Weldon, director general, marine safety and security. Welcome to all of you.

It's always an exciting time when you get people for two full hours in front of the committee. I understand that you'll make some opening statements, so I'm going to turn the floor over to Mr. Hutchinson. We'll start with Mr. Hutchinson, we'll go through the panel and then, colleagues, we'll get into questions.

I will turn the floor over to you.

[Jeffery Hutchinson, Commissioner of the Canadian Coast Guard, Department of Fisheries and Oceans]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon to all the members of the committee. As was stated, my name is Jeff Hutchinson and I am the commissioner of the Coast Guard. I'm pleased to be here with Mario Pelletier, who is deputy commissioner of operations for the Coast Guard. It's our honour to be here as well with our very close partners from the armed forces and Transport Canada. We are pleased to have an opportunity, which is exciting as the chair noted, to discuss Canadian sovereignty, particularly as it relates to the Arctic and the roles of our respective organizations in the north.

Perhaps, to state the obvious, sovereignty can be a difficult term with both legal and geopolitical complexities. Today, my colleagues and I wish to focus on three aspects of sovereignty, which we hope you'll find useful in your deliberations. Those aspects are stewardship, security and safety, especially as it relates to regulation of activity in our north. I will elaborate on the Coast Guard's role, in particular, focusing on Arctic stewardship. My colleagues will touch on security and safety, respectively. We'll speak as if the Arctic mission and our Arctic presence is done in silos. In fact, it is important to underscore that our organizations work very closely together, knit together in a partnership that's effective, in our view.

The Canadian Coast Guard mandate includes authorities that put us in command of on-water search and rescue and environmental response. That goes with the responsibility of being a first responder. However, our mandate, especially in the Arctic, might better be captured by the idea of stewardship. Why do I connect stewardship and sovereignty? We care for what we value. We care for our own. It is the Canadian connection to the Arctic that drives us to protect a remote and fragile environment, to partner with people of ancient traditions, and to enable leading-edge science in a rapidly changing region.

Please allow me to be clear. I do not mean to say that the Coast Guard is the steward of the Arctic, not at all. We are but a steward in the Arctic. Major-General Seymour's views on the security of the Arctic and Ms. Weldon's views on the proper safe regulation of the Arctic both contribute to a robust view of how Canada expresses and exercises its sovereignty. I would contend that the Coast Guard's role in stewardship contributes to the same outcome.

The Canadian Coast Guard is regarded as a leader in Arctic issues. What does this mean in specific terms?

The Coast Guard provides marine domain awareness to federal partners such as the Armed Forces and Transport Canada through the Marine Communications and Traffic Services office in Iqaluit. That office maintains 24/7 operational awareness across the North American Arctic throughout the navigation season.

The Coast Guard deploys up to seven icebreakers to the Arctic, the majority of which are equipped with a helicopter, to ensure community resupply, to support Arctic science and to assist commercial shipping. Of course, these ships respond as needed to search and rescue and environmental response cases. Services include shipping escort, providing ice information and routing advice, harbour breakouts, flood control, and the supply of dry cargo and fuel to northern communities.

As of September 13 of this year, the Coast Guard has conducted 57 escorts and coordinated 30 search and rescue cases.

The Coast Guard is responsible for some 2,000 aids to navigation in the Arctic, including buoys, markers and radio towers, which we install and maintain to ensure safe shipping. The aids to navigation program assists marine navigation, determining positioning and course, warning of dangers or obstructions to navigation, and marking the location of preferred routes. We also contribute to Canada's marine domain awareness in the high latitudes by identifying and monitoring vessels in the area. Our base in Hay River in the Northwest Territories ensures a year-round northern presence with a focus on the Mackenzie River.

The Coast Guard maintains strong partnerships with indigenous people, who rely on our icebreakers to ensure the timely arrival of fuel, building materials, vehicles and all manner of goods that are uneconomical to carry by plane. We are fully committed to working with indigenous partners and stakeholders to ensure safe and secure marine shipping in the Arctic. We have a number of initiatives to support this engagement. For example, we have 15 community-based Canadian Coast Guard auxiliary units active at this time, with over 200 auxiliary members and 25 vessels. Those numbers are expected to continue to go up in 2019.

We're also building bases and training local people in search and rescue. On June 28, 2018, we opened a seasonal inshore rescue boat station in Rankin Inlet—the first of its kind in the north and crewed by Inuit youth—to enhance northern search and rescue capacity and to strengthen our relationships with these communities.

As an asset for the Government of Canada, our fleet has a long history of supporting enforcement activities of National Defence, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and other federal departments. The Coast Guard’s icebreakers also provide a mobile scientific platform for Canadian scientists in the Arctic.

In 2014 and 2015, we participated in Canada’s definition of its continental shelf for the Arctic Ocean by sending our icebreakers to the North Pole where they worked together to map these waters.

Thanks to the oceans protection plan, we're extending the operating season for Coast Guard ships working in the Arctic, allowing earlier resupply of fuel and other critical goods to northern communities. A longer shipping season also means greater economic opportunity for northerners looking to move goods to southern markets.

I might just note before concluding that the Coast Guard has also engaged in international co-operation, as it relates to the Arctic. Our principle forum being the Arctic Coast Guard Forum, where we participate with seven other Arctic nations at an operational level to make sure that coast guard organizations are working collaboratively to cover the vast distances that are common in the Arctic region.

Interest in the Arctic continues to rise as changing climate conditions are making the Canadian Arctic more accessible for marine traffic and economic development. More marine traffic means a greater risk of incidents. There is a misconception that melting ice makes it easier for vessels to navigate our northern waters. In fact, the unpredictability of broken ice floes adds to the risk of navigation. Those factors will continue to increase the demand for Coast Guard services.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for this opportunity. Along with my colleagues, I will look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you, Mr. Hutchinson.

I understand we'll go now to Major-General Seymour.

[Major-General William Seymour, Deputy Commander, Canadian Joint Operations Command, Department of National Defence]

Yes, sir.

Mr. Chair and committee members, good afternoon. I am Major-General Bill Seymour. It is my pleasure to appear in front of the committee today, along with Commissioner Hutchinson and my colleagues from the Canadian Coast Guard, and of course, Jane Weldon from Transport Canada.

I am the deputy commander of the Canadian Joint Operations Command, responsible for planning and carrying out Canadian Armed Forces operations and joint exercises throughout the world, including in Canada’s North.

The Arctic is a key priority for the Canadian Armed Forces and its security and defence are built into our core missions, as defined in our defence policy, “Strong, Secure, Engaged”.

As a part of our vision of being strong at home and secure in North America, we are tasked with detecting, deterring and defending against threats, conducting search and rescue, and responding to domestic disasters and emergencies. Accordingly, the Canadian Armed Forces protects Canadians and ensures Canada's Arctic sovereignty in two main ways. First, through maintaining a year-round regional presence, and second, through domain awareness operations, which allow us to know what is going on.

The Canadian Armed Forces Arctic presence is anchored by joint task force north in Yellowknife, with permanent detachments in Whitehorse and Iqaluit. I spoke with the task force commander Brigadier General Carpentier yesterday and he looks forward to your visit up there.

We share facilities in Resolute Bay with Natural Resources Canada, which houses both the Canadian Armed Forces Arctic training centre and Canada's polar continental shelf program. We also share the facilities in CFS Eureka and CFS Alert with personnel from Environment and Climate Change Canada.

The Canadian Rangers are an integral part of our northern presence through their support for our operations and the important link they provide to northern and indigenous communities.

We conduct a host of operations and exercises, including those under Operation Nanook, to maintain our ability to operate effectively and be a key partner in Arctic safety, security and defence.

We also provide search and rescue services and have the ability to rapidly deploy forces to the Arctic from the south of Canada. I would like to emphasize that due to the operational challenges posed by the harsh Arctic environment, collaboration with partners at the community, territorial, federal and international levels is essential to what we do in the north.

Knowing what's happening in the Arctic is critical to ensuring Arctic security. Through Operation Limpid, our routine domestic surveillance operation, we detect threats as early as possible in all domains. To do this, we work in close collaboration with the Canadian Coast Guard, Transport Canada, Canada Border Services Agency and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police through the marine security operations centres, or MSOCS, to detect and assess marine-based threats.

NORAD is also essential to domain awareness in the north through its missions of aerospace warning, aerospace control and maritime warning for North America. With increased international interest and activity in the region, the stakes for ensuring the security of Canadians in the north are increasing.

To accomplish this, we have policy directions through Strong, Secure, Engaged to enhance the mobility, reach, and footprint of the Canadian Armed Forces in the north.

We are also acquiring a range of Arctic-focused capabilities, including the Arctic and offshore patrol vessels—the first of which touched salt water for the first time on Saturday—and space-based capabilities, as well as search and rescue aircraft and upgrades to our search and rescue helicopters. I will incorporate these capabilities into a systems-of-systems approach to domain awareness. This means combining data from all of our assets and those of our partners in every domain to provide a clear picture of what's happening.

In the coming years, we'll continue to work with our American partners to modernize NORAD, taking into account the full range of threats and new technologies, to improve surveillance in the Arctic. We'll also conduct joint operations and exercises to strengthen information sharing with Arctic allies and partners, including NATO. The Arctic Security Forces Roundtable, which Canada hosted for the first time in May, and that I chaired, is an important forum for co-operation at the international level.

Lastly, we'll continue to collaborate with our partners to ensure a whole-of-government approach to Arctic security. We maintain excellent relationships with these partners, including with northern and indigenous communities, and will continue this collaboration moving forward.

It's been a pleasure to speak to you this afternoon, and I look forward to answering your questions.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you very much.

We'll now go to Director Weldon, please.

[Jane Weldon, Director General, Marine Safety and Security, Department of Transport]

Thank you, Chair.

Along with my colleagues, Commissioner Hutchinson and Major-General Seymour, I appreciate the opportunity to address the committee about some aspects of Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic as they relate to maritime transportation.

As global commerce in the Arctic has increased, northern resource development has become more and more important to Canada, and it will continue to do so. The economic potential of the north is of growing significance to other Arctic states as well, and to other non-Arctic states with an interest in the north. Given this context, it's essential to continue to exercise sovereignty over maritime regions under Canada's jurisdiction.

To this end, a number of federal departments and agencies are working together with provincial, territorial, community and international partners to maintain a Canadian presence, response capability and law enforcement, as well as appropriate situational awareness.

Transport Canada, the Canadian Coast Guard and the Department of National Defence are working together with other partners to ensure the safety and security of vessels through a legislative program that includes unique requirements for vessels operating in the Canadian Arctic.

When Commissioner Hutchinson spoke earlier, he laid out three pillars: stewardship, security and safety. Transport Canada's major role flows from our regulatory role with respect to safety and security in the north. We don't have the lovely assets that everyone likes to travel on.

Two main legislative measures, the Canada Shipping Act, 2001, and the Maritime Transportation Security Act, establish the framework for Transport Canada authorities and for vessels operating in Canadian waters, including those in the Arctic.

A third piece of legislation, the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act, is applicable only to vessels operating in Canadian Arctic waters. In December of last year, Transport Canada introduced the new Arctic shipping safety and pollution prevention regulations, which incorporate requirements of the International Maritime Organization's polar code.

Furthermore, the oceans protection plan, or OPP, will improve Transport Canada's marine safety and security oversight operations in the Arctic and, of course, it will support Canadian Coast Guard and the others partners in the oceans protection plan. It's also going to enhance local marine pollution reporting and monitoring of offshore vessels.

These efforts, which will also support Canadian sovereignty, will especially benefit from the construction of a hangar in Iqaluit for patrol flights under the national aerial surveillance program.

The program provides 500 hours of surveillance flights annually in the Canadian Arctic. These flights take place in the Arctic navigation season, from July to October or November.

Under another initiative of the oceans protection plan, Transport Canada is working in partnership with two Arctic communities, Cambridge Bay and Tuktoyaktuk, to test a comprehensive and user-friendly marine awareness system that will provide information and data on marine activity, including sea traffic.

The system will provide indigenous and coastal communities with a real-time picture of maritime activity in local waters.

As I mentioned earlier, we work with partners at all levels to protect Canada's Arctic maritime region. Threats to maritime security are more effectively identified, addressed and mitigated through collaborative whole-of-government efforts to share information, contribute to a common maritime domain awareness picture, and leverage resources, tools and expertise to conduct joint threat assessments or risk assessments.

Transport Canada is one of five core partners in the marine security operation centres, or MSOCS, that Major-General Seymour mentioned earlier. These are key to the coordination of maritime surveillance, monitoring of shipping traffic, and intelligence activities in the north.

Through these centres, Transport Canada has access to a vast range of intelligence sources that help with our marine knowledge.

The sources include regional operations, information sharing networks with national and international partners, the national aerial surveillance program, and pre-arrival information reports.

In closing, let me add that Transport Canada remains resolved to support Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic by providing safe and secure marine transportation in Canadian Arctic waters and by protecting the marine environment in the region from the impacts of navigation.

Transport Canada will continue to work closely with our partners at all levels, including industry, to share information and collaborate on the identification, prevention and mitigation of threats to marine security and marine safety. In doing so, we will continue to improve situational awareness and our ability to exercise Canada's sovereignty in the Arctic.

Thank you, and we really do look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you, Ms. Weldon.

Thank you to all the witnesses.

I'll go straight to questions.

We'll start with Mr. O'Toole, please.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you all for appearing as part of this. It's great to see an almost Arctic team approach here with the agencies represented, and I appreciate your comments, Commissioner Hutchinson, with respect to our first nations being part of this, particularly the Canadian rangers.

My questions will be fairly distinct, and whoever thinks it's most appropriate to answer, I'll defer to you.

In the Northwest Passage, which is an inland waterway for Canada, but some view differently, do all countries notify us when they're having a transit through the Northwest Passage?

[Jeffery Hutchinson]

Jane, you can start, since you put the framework in place, and then we'll pick up with some comments to finish.

[Jane Weldon]

That's good.

NORDREG, which is the northern Canada traffic services zone regulations, are Transport Canada regulations but are, as the commissioner was implying, run, administered, and operated by the Coast Guard. They have been in place since 1977. At that time, it was a voluntary ship reporting system, but as of July 1, 2010, that became a mandatory or obligatory reporting system. Basically it's a system of procedures and requirements for vessels that are within or are intending to enter our waters.

With respect to when they tell us, they have to give us 24-hours' notice. The reporting zone is 100 nautical miles, which lines up with our environmental protection Arctic waters pollution prevention regulations. Those two things are lined up to ensure that we know when vessels are in our waters, and then we keep an eye on the pollution.

But I'll turn it over to—

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Let me stop you there. That's helpful in terms of the notice period.

Has a Chinese vessel ever given notice under the regulations in the 24-hour period?

[Jeffery Hutchinson]

The Chinese vessel Xue Long transited. It did a circumpolar navigation last summer as you are likely well aware. It was much more than just the Northwest Passage. Yes. They notified us both under NORDREG, but also in terms of the science missions that they meant to execute in our waters, and they had the necessary permits for those missions as well.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Do you have a vessel trail, or a come alongside, or was there the opportunity, if it were presented, for us to rendezvous in a friendly way with the vessel?

[Jeffery Hutchinson]

Our approach to the Xue Long was similar to our approach with all Arctic traffic, and that is to say, we have regular interaction with all the ships in the Arctic. We have a daily ice call with any of them that want to be in contact with us. By knowing voyage plans, knowing where ships are, and using that to assess risk, we position assets accordingly.

Could we have had a friendly hello, a friendly hail, with the Xue Long due to our placement of assets? Yes, we could have. Was it driven specifically by the Xue Long? It was driven by our assessment of the risk across the Northwest Passage at that time.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Was it a surface asset or an air asset?

[Jeffery Hutchinson]

We had surface assets placed. At that time of the year it's common. Speaking specifically of today, our assets are placed along the Northwest Passage where we need them, depending on traffic patterns today.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Thank you. Please thank your crews who are on those vessels in the remote parts of our country.

[Jeffery Hutchinson]

Thank you. We will do that.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Lately we have a lot of disagreements with our friends in the United States, but the Beaufort Sea is one. When the Americans are operating or looking at any sort of jurisdictional issues including licensing in the Beaufort Sea, what is the process in terms of deconflicting or notification with Canada? Are any of you aware operationally?

[Jeffery Hutchinson]

I don't know that I could speak to licensing in the Beaufort. What I can speak to is that we have a very high level of co-operation and collaboration with the Americans in the Arctic through the Arctic Coast Guard Forum that I mentioned previously, but also bilaterally. For example, we do on-water live training with D17, which is based out of Juneau, Alaska. We also are working with the Americans on a project. It goes by different names, but the idea is to create safe, low-impact corridors throughout the Arctic.

I could get into this in more detail if you wish, but the idea is to essentially shrink the geography by investing more heavily where we know the ships are actually going. We're working with the Americans on that. Then with respect to American passages through our waters, they co-operate with us just as every other country does.

[MGen William Seymour]

Sir, I know you're not necessarily trying to unlock any military dimension of that, but I would suggest that because of the relationship we have with NORTHCOM, CJOC is well aware of any activities, and we co-operate and plan together in terms of any U.S. military activities in the Beaufort Sea.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

General, on the search and rescue piece, which is part of the three pillars that the commissioner outlined, we all recall in 1991 the Hercules crash, with Operation Boxtop. I worked at the rescue coordination centre for a time and I remember kayakers, and things like that, who had not called in but we were looking at deploying assets from Winnipeg.

If there was a major incident like that in a remote part of the Arctic, what would be the approximate response time for an asset, say, a C-130??

[MGen William Seymour]

I think the response time is based on the posture of forces we have up in the north. There's the standard SAR posture you're well aware of, but there's another posture I think that bears mentioning. Through our exercises throughout the year, we have a variety of exercises within the north, and that opportunity can also present a Canadian Forces asset that could respond to something. One example is there was a commercial airline crash, First Air, I believe, in Resolute Bay where we had an exercise. They were right there. My brother was among the folks who responded to that crash.

The more proper protocol we look at is the major air disaster plan. Frankly, we just finished an exercise up in Yellowknife where we exercised that plan, brought people onto the crash site, launched the equipment, and those kinds of things. The travel time from Trenton, Winnipeg, or one of the main SAR bases up to an area up north could be anywhere from several to up to nine or 10 hours, depending on where the crash site is located.

This is also important because SAR in the north is a multi-layered activity. Before that aircraft gets there, and before you drop some jumpers, chances are you have rangers on site, potentially RCMP, and local people from the villages, so we become an addition to the response that had already focused on the activity up there.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you very much, Mr. O'Toole.

We'll have Mr. Wrzesnewskyj, please.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I'd like to thank the panel. It's great that we have you for two hours.

Major-General, you said something quite important. You said that we maintain a year-round regional presence so that we can know what's going on, and then you said that it's critical for our security.

We know what's happening in the air. We know that regularly we have long-range Russian bombers that test our abilities. These are long-range bombers that potentially carry nuclear weapons. We have a good idea of what's happening on the water surface. What about below the surface? Do we know what's happening below the surface, below the ice, especially when the ice is at its major extent? I ask that question because Russia's northern fleet has approximately 48 nuclear submarines. We know they test us and our allies regularly in the air and on the sea. Do we know what's going on below the ice?