Foreign Affairs Committee on Oct. 17th, 2018

[Prof. Suzanne Lalonde]

Actually, I love the fact that there's a debate. In fact, I maintain that Canada is not asking for an exception to be made for the Northwest Passage, to exempt it from the straits regime. I believe the Northwest Passage does not fulfill the criteria for an international strait under international law. You're right that the convention does a very poor job of giving us a definition, but if you dig into the conference itself and go into the case law, like the Corfu Channel case, it's established. There's a geographic criterion and of course a functional use criterion.

Although there's a slight debate about whether it is actual use or potential use—and that plays in the case of the Northwest Passage—for many of these key straits you're mentioning, it's well established. Even countries aren't debating it. It's well established at this point.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

You just mentioned right now that China went through the Northwest Passage, and they received our permission to go through.

One of the things, in part, to bolster our claim in the Northwest Passage would be related to the notion that “Canada must show that its historic claim has enjoyed the tacit support of foreign states”. We have not received the permission of the United States. However, if the Chinese begin using the Northwest Passage, and are doing so within the framework set by Canadian law and regulation, that activity will represent foreign acceptance of Canadian sovereignty.

[Dr. Michael Byers]

I believe you're quoting Alan Kessel. Certainly that's very similar to what he told this committee.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

It's not him.

[Dr. Michael Byers]

Okay.

Let me just be clear, because there was a little bit of a lack of clarity in Mr. Kessel's testimony on this point. The Chinese did not recognize Canada's legal position. They asked for permission to conduct scientific research, which is required even if the Northwest Passage is an international strait. They chose to not engage the legal dispute. They chose to find a way around it, and of course, this was easy, because the Xue Long, or “snow dragon”, is a research vessel. The Chinese passage is irrelevant for the purposes of Canadian sovereignty.

Of course, in the future there will be Chinese vessels that are not research vessels, that are cargo vessels that cannot plausibly be doing scientific research.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Like the Snow Dragon 2...?

[Dr. Michael Byers]

We'll see, but I'm thinking more about the Chinese overseas shipping company that is sending ships through the northern sea route and working with Russia. It's those cargo vessels, those bulk carriers and those container ships, that cannot plausibly use the scientific research exception when they come. That's why Canada needs to engage in a friendly way, diplomatically, with China, to say, “We have common interests here. You want a safe, efficient shipping route. You need the coastal state to have that. You don't want to create a negative precedent for your own dispute over the Hainan Strait along your mainland.” This doesn't have to be confrontational. There's a clear diplomatic course forward.

[The Chair]

Thank you. I'm going to have to cut it off there, but we can certainly come back to it.

We'll go to MP Blaikie, please.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you very much.

I want to come back to the comment you made about submarines, and that if you were to know and not do something about it, that might jeopardize the Canadian position.

One of the things that we've been hearing that has been surprising to me, anyway, is the extent to which Canada really has no idea what's going on beneath the water. We were just up north. We toured some of the northern watch stations and were told that we have a pretty good idea of what's happening in the air and on the ground, but that as soon as you go below the surface of the water, we really have no idea what's going on.

Am I to understand that it might be wilful ignorance and that, if we were to develop intelligence capability below the water before we developed a response capability, we would be undermining Canada's position on the Northwest Passage?

[Dr. Michael Byers]

We have quite good situational awareness in Canada's Arctic. This is often ignored by pundits. We have, for instance, the world's best synthetic aperture radar satellite, RADARSAT-2, that we designed for the Arctic. It can measure the thickness and density of sea ice. It even can reputedly detect the wake of submerged submarines, although I don't know that for sure because that would be classified information.

We're launching the successor, RADARSAT Constellation Mission in February, three satellites with even better technology. We have pretty good surveillance from space. That doesn't cover the underwater domain completely, and underwater sensors do make sense.

I don't think one should refrain from seeking situational awareness because of a concern that it might create a legal problem in the future. All I'm saying is that, up until now, if a Soviet or Russian or, indeed, an American submarine had gone through without us noticing, that's not a legal problem for Canada. That's a covert action. That is where I think we stand right now.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

On another line of questioning, the other thing that we've been hearing for sure is that there's a serious infrastructure deficit in Canada's Arctic that's affecting our response capabilities. I know that, in the testimony, we heard a little about the oceans plan. When we were up north, we were talking to Coast Guard Auxiliary units, who were rightfully quite happy to be getting a new 28-foot boat, but they were telling us, too, that if a cruise ship comes through or there's a large commercial vessel, they're the only people for hundreds of miles and they're really not in a position to be able to respond to that.

How extensive an infrastructure do we need in order to be where we would ideally like to be in terms of response capability, whether it's search and rescue or the other kinds of supports that you would want to provide to an international commercial fleet to show that Canada is on top of its waters and it's providing those services? How far away from that are we? What would be a timeline for trying to get where we need to be without this getting away on us as the ice melts and the shipping lanes become more available?

[Dr. Michael Byers]

There have been two small cruise ships that have grounded on rocks in the last eight years in the Canadian High Arctic. Both those groundings occurred during good weather.

I have been in the same waters in gale-force winds, in 20-foot waves that would rip apart those ships like a can opener. Getting there quickly with the capacity to remove 200 people—again, these are relatively small ships—would stretch the Canadian Forces.

The Cormorant helicopter is a phenomenal piece of equipment. It can hold up to 40 people if it has to, and it can fly in hurricane-force winds. However, we base them on Vancouver Island, in Newfoundland and Labrador and in Nova Scotia. It can take them more than 24 hours to get to the Northwest Passage, which is why, as Suzanne has commented, I've suggested that we might think about forward-basing one of these helicopters during the summer months when the ships are there.

That's obviously a question that has to be dealt with by the leadership of the Canadian military. What do they need and do they need more equipment? At the moment, we have great situational awareness and we have the world's best search and rescue helicopters. The question is whether we are putting them in the right place and at the right time.

[Prof. Suzanne Lalonde]

That's why I'm such a proponent of the marine corridors initiative, so that we can maybe pre-position.... We won't make them obligatory, but we could encourage ships to stick to these corridors now. Of course, these cruise ships want to go where nobody else is, but Transport Canada is being very careful to try to put plans in place, like the Crystal Serenity having the Shackleton following it and so on.

For me this is a big concern, but we can't expect Canada to have platinum standards throughout thousands of...so we just need to try to be where we need to be and try to plan ahead and maybe pre-position ourselves. We need to figure it out, but yes, we're getting there. It was really time, because this would make the headlines everywhere in the world. It would be really devastating.

[The Chair]

Thank you very much.

Now we are going to move to MP Sidhu.

[Jati Sidhu, Liberal, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Thank you.

Mr. Byers, welcome. I'm the only B.C. MP on the panel here.

You mentioned a lot of good things about Norway and the fact that they don't want to have any disputes and whatnot. Russia has the largest waterfront. China wants to use the passage. I don't know what they're going to ship through that passage, given there are only 100,000 people on 40% of the Canadian land mass. We don't have people to bring stuff to, so that's my question. The investment they're making.... They might have a different take. They wanted to put an airport in Greenland, but America jumped in and said, “No, we'll do it.” They're trying to be present. I'd like to know the motive, actually.

Let's start with that.

[Dr. Michael Byers]

The simple answer is that China does not want to use the Northwest Passage to ship to Canada. It wants to use the Northwest Passage as a shortcut between China and the Atlantic seaboard of the United States.

The world being a sphere, the optimal shipping route depends on where you start and where you want to finish. The northern sea route along the northern coast of Russia is optimal for shipments from China to Europe. The Northwest Passage, if it is free of ice—which is not yet the case but could be soon—would be optimal for shipments from China to the Atlantic seaboard of the United States. That's what they're looking at.

In an optimal scenario, they would then have a transshipment port, probably in Newfoundland. They could use ice-strengthened ships through the passage and then transfer to regular container ships at Newfoundland. The container ships would then go down to different ports in the United States.

I don't regard that possibility as necessarily threatening, because it's commercial and because we don't have a transshipment port in Newfoundland. Maybe we could partner with China in building one.

Let me be clear, too. I'm very worried about China in many respects, and I would not want to see them getting control over the port of Vancouver. However, if they wanted to take several billions of dollars from their polar silk road initiative and partner with the Government of Canada and the Government of Newfoundland, that is something I could imagine having a good discussion about.

[Jati Sidhu, Liberal, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

It seems to me that most of the big countries like to use resources from outside of their own country. For example, America has lots of oil and timber, but they're not exploiting their own oil or timber. They're just shipping everything in from a different part of the world.

The question comes to Russia. They may have the largest waterfront in the world, but to my knowledge they're running out of resources on those waterfronts. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they're interested in exploring resources in our Arctic. What do you have to say on that?

[Dr. Michael Byers]

I have been to Siberia. Russia is the largest country in the world. Most of its coastline is undeveloped. In my view, they are more advanced in terms of Arctic oil and gas drilling and transportation than we are, and they have many decades to go before they have any problem with their own deposits running out offshore in the Russian exclusive economic zone. You are correct in that their onshore land deposits are becoming exhausted, but they have vast maritime zones and that's where they are going.

To take your question a bit further, you might have asked the same question about China. China, as a rational actor, as a nation state, has realized that it can use foreign investment and trade to get the resources it needs from other countries. That's what they are doing in Africa and in Latin America, and indeed it is why several Chinese state-owned companies have invested in Canadian resources. I don't regard that as a threat, provided that the normal national security protections are in place.

[Jati Sidhu, Liberal, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

You mentioned that we need to work with China, which will be good. I fully agree. What about their environmental standards? They're not really up to the level that we like to see. How are we going to work with that when it comes down to the environment and to the Arctic?

[Dr. Michael Byers]

If any foreign company or foreign country wants to engage in natural resource activity in Canada, they are subject to Canadian laws and to Canadian oversight. That's simply part of the deal. I have no concern, provided that Canadian regulatory agencies have sufficient funding to provide the necessary oversight. That's a common challenge. It's not restricted to China.

[The Chair]

Thank you.

We'll go to MP Wrzesnewskyj, please.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Byers, I'm a little curious about a couple of comments you made. You said Russia doesn't want any more Arctic, yet they have made a claim based on the Lomonosov Ridge, which they say is an extension of the Eurasian land mass. Not only are they claiming international Arctic waters based on this claim, but they have now charted that it reaches basically to the coast of Ellesmere. They've provided soil samples from the seabed a couple of kilometres down, obviously using submersibles to be able to do that. They've mapped it out fully and have made an international claim to that territory, which includes not just international waters but also Canadian waters off Ellesmere Island.

I'm therefore a little puzzled by that comment during your presentation.

[Dr. Michael Byers]

You're speaking to the issue of what are called extended continental shelves. Under article 76 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, a coastal state can be recognized as having sovereign rights over the seabed only, beyond 200 nautical miles, if it can demonstrate that the seabed is a natural prolongation of its land mass.

As it happens, North America and Eurasia used to be a single continent. Russian and Canadian and Danish scientists believe that the Lomonosov Ridge is a natural prolongation of both sides, which is why in 2014 Denmark submitted scientific data to the United Nations showing that the Lomonosov Ridge was an extension of Greenland all the way across to the Russian exclusive economic zone, to 200 nautical miles from Russia.

Russia responded with its own submission in 2016, where it argued scientifically that the ridge was a prolongation of the Eurasian continent but quite remarkably did not extend its submission all the way across. It actually stopped roughly two-thirds of the way across.

I asked one of the Russian diplomats involved as to why they had done so, and they pointed out that all of the Arctic countries agree that there will be overlaps in our submissions and that those submissions are only about the science. The overlaps will have to be negotiated into boundaries through diplomacy.

If you go back to read Alan Kessel's testimony to this committee, that's exactly what he was talking about.

There has been a lot of misinformation on this from the media, because it is highly technical. However, it is an area where Russia is following the rules, and Canada has been working very hard with Russia to ensure consistency and collaboration on this matter.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Just out of curiosity, regarding the catalyst for all of these claims and counterclaims, as silly as it seems to some, where does the planting of the Russian flag on the Arctic seabed fall into the context of this, and of Russia playing according to the rules?

[Dr. Michael Byers]

This occurred in August 2007. The flag planter was Artur Chilingarov, who was deputy chair of the Russian State Duma at the time. They were having an election—to the degree that they have elections in Russia—and he actually descended 4,000 metres below the surface in a submersible and planted the flag himself, as a publicity stunt. As Alan Kessel told you, it had no more legal significance than the Americans planting a flag on the moon.

The good news here, from a Canadian perspective, is that in 1968 a team of Canadian scientists visited the geographic north pole on the sea ice. They actually dropped a canister to the bottom of the ocean that had a Canadian flag on it, so if we're talking about symbolism—and it's only symbolism—chronologically, Canada got there first.