Evidence of meeting #111 for Foreign Affairs and International Development in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was infrastructure.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
Good afternoon to both of you.
Professor Charron, let me start with you. You've written extensively on Arctic sovereignty, and there's something that I'm hoping you can define for me or elaborate on to help me understand more.
You talked about previous history and you talked about sovereignty, and about de facto being a better definition than de jure. Now you've reversed that, saying that de jure today is more important than de facto. Can you explain that in terms of Arctic sovereignty?
5:10 p.m.
Director and Associate Professor, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
Ultimately, my argument is that we have to stop talking about Arctic sovereignty because it clouds other issues. When I speak to students, I say that sovereignty is four things, which I remember by the acronym TRAP: you have territory, you need recognition, you need autonomy to make decisions, and you need to show some sort of control. Whereas it used to be that it would be quite common for countries to invade another country to get access to more resources or financing or things like that, we now have international laws that say that's not acceptable. They are rare occasions.
Where I get concerned is that when we constantly talk about sovereignty being “taken away” in the Arctic, what we're talking about, really, is people not recognizing our Arctic as Canadian anymore. I think that needs to be carefully considered. I think we do have presence. I think we do have Canadian laws. We do have international laws. I'd rather the discussion be not about sovereignty but about what infrastructure we need and how we will defend Canada. Those are conversations we can operationalize.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
As you know, the United States has not signed UNCLOS. Will that make the situation there more difficult in terms of any territorial continental shelf claims? Do you see any issues with that in terms of the impact there?
5:10 p.m.
Director and Associate Professor, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
On the one hand, the United States still treats UNCLOS as customary law, so it certainly follows a lot of what's outlined in UNCLOS. What it does prevent the United States doing, however, is providing data to the UN commission on the limits of the continental shelf for it to have an extended continental shelf recognized. It has been collecting data to one day, presumably, provide that to the United Nations. This means, however, that if we have any potential overlap with the U.S., we have to wait until they are a party to UNCLOS to be able to go ahead and have that recognized.
My understanding is that they're allies, it's a managed disagreement and we collect information together. That's not something that worries me.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
I'm going to quote something that you wrote:
Neither Canada nor the US can operate self-sufficiently in the Arctic should there be a major search and rescue or fuel spill scenario from a crippled ship.... The militaries need to work collaboratively via many hundreds of bilateral agreements....
Given the current U.S. administration, do you think that co-operation will be better, worse or neutral?
5:15 p.m.
Director and Associate Professor, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
There's no indication that the U.S. and Canada wouldn't co-operate together, especially in a search and rescue scenario because, first, that's the law, and second, there's also the search and rescue agreement, which the U.S. and Russia were instrumental in drafting. In a search and rescue scenario, I can't imagine any country saying, no, we're not going to help. That's just anathema to me.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
The final question I have is that given that right now Finland is head of the Arctic Council and climate change is, obviously, a major topic of our time, is there any way we should be working collaboratively with them in prioritizing certain issues so we can advance the agenda in terms of international co-operation?
5:15 p.m.
Director and Associate Professor, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
I think Canada does. The chair of the Arctic Council rotates every two years. We had our opportunity; the Finns now have their opportunity. The mandate of the Arctic Council is environmental protection and sustainable development. We're working towards both of those goals via the various working committees. I would just say that this needs to continue. I think we're working collaboratively with the Finns as we are with the seven other Arctic states. Long may this last.
5:15 p.m.
Vice-president, Senior Analyst and Fellow, Canadian Global Affairs Institute, As an Individual
I would agree with my colleague on pretty much all of that. I think the one issue that I would add is that what I'm talking about in terms of some of the response for defence considerations provides us both with more awareness, which helps enhance whatever definition of sovereignty you want to take. The other measures would be largely related to control—what we can do to, basically, maintain the integrity of that territory. I don't think they're contradictory positions.
5:15 p.m.
Mr. Michael Levitt (York Centre, Lib.)
Thank you.
We're going to end with MP Aboultaif.
Go ahead, please.
5:15 p.m.
Conservative
Ziad Aboultaif Conservative Edmonton Manning, AB
Thank you, both. I think in assuring sovereignty there are two strategies that always come to mind, an infrastructure development strategy and a defence infrastructure strategy. On both sides, we do have a close neighbour and our enemies are a bit far away, but nowadays, with technologies and what they have, they can reach us from deep down in their lands, especially in Russia or even China.
I cannot envision moving forward on the Arctic without talking about the United States. Do you have any idea what's in the minds of the Americans at this point in time, whether on infrastructure development or on defence, and how we move forward from that? I think that's the question we have to ask ourselves, keeping in mind that we talk about the Chinese and we talk about the Russians but I think we also have to think about the Americans, our closest allies and neighbours.
5:15 p.m.
Vice-president, Senior Analyst and Fellow, Canadian Global Affairs Institute, As an Individual
I can start.
I would totally agree with that. I think what Dr. Charron was talking about was part of the evolution of North American defence and modernization efforts that are happening with NORAD. The imperative is on us to work very closely with the Americans. We provide a small portion of the defence of North America. Some of that has been, in the past, strategically important in the Canadian Arctic. What I'm trying to lay out is that I think the importance of that has returned in a way that had, perhaps, gone away for a period of time. Certainly all of the modernization efforts to counter Russian activity and, potentially, Chinese activity we'd have to take in close co-operation with the United States. In the past, almost all of the facilities that were actually built in Canada were built under a joint funding model whereby the Americans paid the majority share. I'm not totally confident that, during the current administration down south, that potential deal would be on offer. If that's the case, then there will be a significantly larger tab for Canada to pick up in doing some of this.
Fundamentally, we can't defend Canada alone. We have to do it with the United States, so we have to take the American position on all of this very seriously, even if we don't agree fundamentally with everything. That's why, I think, one of the strongest things that we need to do with a lot of these measures in the new defence policy is to make sure that Canada maintains full interoperability with the United States government with everything that it's doing, because we can't do anything on our own.
5:20 p.m.
Director and Associate Professor, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
I agree with Dr. Perry. NORAD has been looking at this for a number of years. We've had a number of initiatives. It started with NORAD Next. We now have EVONAD. They're considering the defence of North America in the six domains, including domains we have yet to consider, and looking far out to the future.
It's not just about infrastructure. The north warning system is something that both the United States and Canada need, and we're wondering what sort of system of systems will be in place. It's also about considering even how we structure command and control to make sure that it is as efficient as possible, and how we can allow the commander of NORAD to think strategically and up and out and not be bogged down by the minutia of their tasking orders, and allow the NORAD personnel to make that happen.
NORAD is something that sort of just happens. It is so fundamental to how we defend North America. I would urge all MPs to ask more questions, learn about how NORAD operates and ask them about what they're thinking in terms of the future. I think the language they're starting to use about going after the archers instead of arrows would shock many Canadians, but that's how concerned they are about future threats, not just by Russia, but by non-state actors and others. That's what I would encourage.
Also, there are things like the permanent joint board on defence, which is supposed to be the guide for how we defend North America. It seems to need life support. I would encourage Canada to make sure that the permanent joint board is operating as it should and that we have the top people there to help direct the defence of North America.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
Ziad Aboultaif Conservative Edmonton Manning, AB
We are in a race against time with two realities. One of them is on the defence side, and one of them is on the development side. China is coming on in both. I hear from Dr. Perry to put defence as the first priority and then talk about development. We need to develop a defence strategy in order to be able to protect that development.
To me, the low-hanging fruit is just to start development as soon as possible and start working our way through. I think that is for us the most reachable goal at the moment. Then, probably within the NATO agreement and what we have among our allies, we already do have that protection of our position, so I think we may have to speed up the process of getting some infrastructure into that region. What do you think of that?
5:20 p.m.
Vice-president, Senior Analyst and Fellow, Canadian Global Affairs Institute, As an Individual
I would just reiterate the idea that we should be addressing our defence problems with the goal of addressing our defence problems. If there's good complementarity, we can have a way of having wider development benefits, but if there are programs that can't be addressed in an efficient way in a development sense by using a defence program, we shouldn't do it.
5:20 p.m.
Mr. Michael Levitt (York Centre, Lib.)
Thank you very much.
With that, we're out of time. I want to thank both of our guests, and in fact all four of our guests this afternoon, for their testimony. We will now go in camera very quickly. Thank you very much for your participation.
[Proceedings continue in camera]