Foreign Affairs Committee on Oct. 9th, 2025

[The Chair, Liberal, Ahmed Hussen]

Ladies and gentlemen, I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number six of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the Standing Orders.

Members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application.

Before we continue, I'd like to ask all in-person participants to consult the guidelines written on the cards on the table. These measures are in place to help prevent audio and feedback incidents and to protect the health and safety of all participants, including the interpreters. You will also notice a QR code on the card, which links to a short awareness video.

I'd like to make a few comments for the benefit of witnesses and members. Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. For those participating by video conference, click on the microphone icon to activate your microphone, and please mute yourself when you are not speaking. For those on Zoom, at the bottom of your screen you can select the appropriate channel for interpretation—floor, English or French. For those in the room, you can use the earpiece and select the desired channel.

This is a reminder that all comments should be addressed through the chair. For members in the room, if you wish to speak, please raise your hand. For members on Zoom, please use the “raise hand” function. The clerk and I will manage the speaking order as best we can, and we appreciate your patience and understanding on this.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Tuesday, September 23, 2025, the committee is meeting on the study of Canada's Arctic strategy.

I would now like to welcome our witness for the first hour, Dr. Jessica Shadian, president and chief executive officer of Arctic360.

Welcome. Up to five minutes will be given for your opening remarks, after which we will proceed with rounds of questions from the members.

Go ahead.

[Jessica M. Shadian, President and Chief Executive Officer, Arctic360]

Thank you, and thanks for the invitation to speak today.

Arctic360 is Canada's national Arctic think tank. Our mission is to elevate Canada’s national conversation about our north and the Arctic region and to provide an inclusive and coordinated platform for Canada to engage in Arctic discussions around the world.

The question today is this: Does Canada’s Arctic foreign policy ensure GAC is fit for purpose in the Arctic? In a word, no. The AFP was a late reaction to a fundamentally changed world.

Fifteen years ago, the Chinese ambassador to Norway gave an Arctic Council reception speech before a balcony of onlookers explaining the Arctic’s importance for China’s national interests, wrapped in a climate science bow.

This is not new. Yes, for over a decade, Russia has modernized its Arctic infrastructure and military capabilities to develop resources and control regional access. My simple question is this: Why aren't we doing the same? Our allied Arctic neighbours also spent the past decade modernizing Arctic infrastructure and developing resources.

The AFP says, “The safety, security and defence of the Canadian Arctic comprise a fundamental priority for the Government of Canada”. Then why is our north not safe, insecure and underdefended? True, it is not in Canada’s strategic interest for the Arctic to become a theatre of military conflict, but reality prevails. We need to be prepared—we're not.

What is new? The U.S.—“Canada's closest partner and ally in the Arctic”—continues its efforts to take Greenland. The 51st state could be seen as tongue in cheek. Is it? The U.S. Department of Energy recently acquired a 5% equity stake in Canadian company, Lithium Americas, followed by a White House announcement that the DOD is taking a 10% equity stake in Canadian Trilogy Metals, with aims for another 7%.

The United States-Ukraine reconstruction partnership fund gives the U.S. 50% of royalties, licence fees and payments from minerals, hydrocarbons and related infrastructure development projects—and first choice to acquire them. The Armenian-Azerbaijan transit corridor, a U.S. 99-year lease, aims to develop energy, critical infrastructure and digital technologies. The Northwest Territories' Fortune Minerals has already received U.S. Pentagon funding. This is just all aside from China.

Canada calls for pragmatic diplomacy; I argue for serious, purposeful, strategic diplomacy. As the second-largest Arctic nation and longest Arctic coastline, with abundant resources, robust democratic institutions and settled indigenous land claims, Canada’s Arctic soft power and strategic diplomacy are indispensable.

What the AFP did get right is that it was codeveloped with northerners. Now Arctic diplomacy needs to proceed accordingly. Appointing an Arctic ambassador and opening consulates in Anchorage and Nuuk are fundamental levers of strategic diplomacy. Now they need the mandate to carry out a serious, coherent, purposeful and strategic Arctic foreign policy.

The following are recommendations.

One, the AFP should reflect the new government’s central mission for Canada to be strong on defence and strong on the economy.

Two, continued commitment to the Arctic Council is fundamental. However, it cannot be prioritized over today’s serious geopolitical realities.

Three, our steadfast commitment to the rules-based international order is laudable and important, but we need additional means to engage so as not to meet the fate of the band that refused to stop playing as the Titanic toppled and sank into the iceberg-laden sea—

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Chair, but I have a question related to the Standing Orders.

I would ask that the witness slow down a bit, so that my interpreter friends can make it until the end of the meeting. That might help them catch their breath.

[Jessica M. Shadian]

The fourth is engaging in Arctic forums. A decade late is better than never.

Fifth, we need to do strategic diplomacy. Track 1.5 and track two diplomacy are essential levers of strategic diplomacy. Our Arctic neighbours support their Arctic think tanks, using them as levers to promote their Arctic policy interests on the world stage and to conduct track 1.5 diplomacy offstage.

Sixth, Canada needs to show up and be serious on international Arctic stages alongside foreign affairs ministers, defence ministers, heads of military and even prime ministers. The same should apply at home. For the past five years, our annual conference has hosted all Arctic states plus European and Asian state ambassadors and high commissioners to Canada. We've yet to have a major foreign affairs or defence minister deliver remarks.

The seventh is programming. The only Arctic program is GALI. It focuses on the Arctic Council, indigenous northerners, youth and the University of the Arctic. Yes, we should fund Arctic Council activities, but it should not be the only arena of our foreign policy. We must keep indigenous youth in our foreign policy efforts, but it must not be our foreign policy. Programming must support track 1.5 and track two Arctic diplomacy and leading Canadian Arctic think tanks and institutions to position Canada as an Arctic leader and to grow Canada's soft power and diplomatic standing—

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier—Gloucester, ON]

Sorry, Mr. Chair, but I really want us to be mindful of the interpreters.

I have the utmost respect for the witness's work, but we have to make sure that the interpreters can keep up with her remarks.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ahmed Hussen]

Thank you for that comment.

[Jessica M. Shadian]

Am I talking too fast?

My apologies.

I have that problem, and I was supposed to do it really quickly.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Chair, you might give her one extra minute.

[Jessica M. Shadian]

That will help me.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

I have a point of order.

We only have one witness, and I think her topic is very important. I'd like to hear it. Let's give her a little more time because there's only one witness.

[Jessica M. Shadian]

Do I need to repeat anything, or is it okay?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ahmed Hussen]

You can repeat the last minute or so.

[Jessica M. Shadian]

I will.

Programming must support track 1.5 and track two Arctic diplomacy and leading Canadian Arctic think tanks and institutions to position Canada as an Arctic leader and to grow Canada's soft power and diplomatic standing in the region.

The eighth is research. We need an Arctic science policy fit for purpose, not only to study climate change but also to do applied research to address it, namely cold-weather innovations spanning everything from NORAD to housing—for Canada and for export.

Northerners say it best: They do not want to just survive but to thrive. My comments come in the hopes that Canada survives but also thrives with success measured when the north and northerners are prosperous, secure and defended.

Thank you. I'm happy to repeat anything.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ahmed Hussen]

Thank you very much for your remarks.

I will now open the floor for questions, beginning with MP Ziad Aboultaif.

You have six minutes.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you very much to our witness today.

You touched on so many areas with regard to the Arctic. It gave me the impression that we're lagging behind a lot on the Arctic approach and that the strategy or policy in place.... I'm not sure. It seems like we're struggling to even implement it.

I would like to hear your opinion on how the policy can be implemented and what the government's priorities should be in order to achieve the result that we're all aiming to have?

[Jessica M. Shadian]

I think that's where we get into this issue of.... It relates back to being strong on the economy and strong on defence. Critical infrastructure is just, hands down.... We can't do anything without the infrastructure there. There is now effort we see in a defence policy update to look at things from a multi-purpose infrastructure perspective, and the federal government is paying attention. What I think is not known at this point is how we're going to fund some of these big projects. They're enormous, and they're going to cost a lot of money. How is that going to happen?

I also think we are not talking about it with the right lens in the sense that we need to be future-proofing. We need to have our infrastructure sensored and embedded with AI, and be able to then meet this next generation of transportation infrastructure. I don't even know if that is in the discussions yet.

This gets into the piece about whether this could be part of the return on investment, because we should be world leaders in cold weather innovations, and we're not. We have non-Arctic and Arctic states that are far ahead of us. This is where we have a lot of potential to contribute. Cold weather innovations run everything, as I was saying, from NORAD to smart ports, fibre cables and what have you.

We just need to figure this out and wrap our head around it, and this takes coordination. I feel that a lot of things are sitting all over the place in different buckets and piles with different conversations taking place, but they all lead back to the same conversation and we need to better coordinate how we do these.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

We are behind, of course, on the policy while other countries, some Arctic nations and some non-Arctic nations, are very aggressive in building their own icebreakers, their own submarines and everything they probably need to have a bigger interest and influence on the Arctic.

In answer to that, we need to look back at Canada to see what the timetable looks like for our plan. Do you have any idea? You're a think tank, and you must have done some research or probably looked at what's behind the scenes on the timetable to implement our project. You mentioned that the money has to be there. Obviously you can't do anything without money. Investment has to come, or we have to build infrastructure, which means we have to build communities of more than the 130,000 people who are up there. In all of that, do you see a timetable in place to be able to implement what we need to do?

[Jessica M. Shadian]

We need to be strategic, so we need to figure out what our plan is before we can have a timetable for anything. For about maybe five or six years, several of us from Arctic360 have been shopping around with the federal government. We are trying to—and we have it already—put together an interactive mapping tool that would basically first inventory the transportation, energy and telecommunication infrastructure that we have, because it doesn't sit in one entity.

We would then try to overlay that with proposed projects that are being named but also not named. Then you put that in the context of social infrastructure gaps and defence needs, and then we can look at it from a strategic position where you can compare.

What is also an issue here is that you can't just build an energy project without having telecommunications, because you need to have fibre. In order to have energy secured, the grids need to be secure. Everything is interrelated. Even if you're going to build a base in the north and even if there are only 10 or 15 people who come, that requires more water, more energy and more telecommunications.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

All of that has to have a timetable somehow so things can coordinate. We can't, for example, ask for more more populated areas without having housing. We can't ask for housing if there's no economy to provide the jobs needed. All of that interconnects in many ways. That's how you build economies, and that's how you build strategy. Where are we from that, and how far are we?

[Jessica M. Shadian]

I don't think we're anywhere near that. This is where the interactive mapping tool is what we think will be very helpful, because then policy-makers, institutional investors and others can start looking and saying, “What if we do this first? This is a good one. This will unlock this and create a pipeline of projects that will enable that and this.” This has not been mapped out or thought through.

Right now we're still looking at everything, and this is where it is. There's been so little money that everyone kind of competes for federal dollars for their own project, and they're all important. We need to figure out how to make them strategic and what we need first. We can't get this wrong—I'll just say that—because, as I say, this will just prove every naysayer right.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ahmed Hussen]

Thank you very much.

I will go next to MP Anita Vandenbeld for six minutes.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you very much for your testimony and all of the work that you do.

You spoke about science, research and the need to be applying some of that. I think you referred to things like smart ports.

Where could we be doing more with things like artificial intelligence, green energy and all of the innovative things? What would be your guidance in terms of what more we could be doing to utilize all of that?

[Jessica M. Shadian]

We could take advantage of our cold weather, like our Arctic neighbours have.

I can find more information, but there's this new BOREALIS research entity that will focus on frontier technologies. This is AI, robotics, quantum and all of these things. I think this should be—not just in its name—located in the north. We should be figuring out answers to these big, hard questions and innovating out of our north.

If you can do it in the north, then you can do it everywhere. We need to do it in the north most predominantly. When you're thinking about cold weather technology, we need to have resilient structures to resist permafrost. This goes to housing. This goes all the way to what we need for NORAD modernization.

We need to take a page from our Nordic Arctic partners in how they view and understand their north. It's considered, for them, to be their future. They're doing big, innovative research and development. I think that once we get there, we need to figure out how to make it Canadian IP.

A big piece of this is that we really need to talk about data sovereignty. All of this smart technology requires a whole lot of data. Databases do well in cold weather, but this requires fibre cables. There's so much opportunity. We just need to have that will and motivation to be a bit.... It's not even taking a risk. It's doing more that is akin to our Arctic neighbours.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

How would we make sure that this research, science and applications are indigenous-led, particularly given that we had testimony last time that international research institutes are coming with foreign nationals and doing research in ways that are not respectful of some of the Inuit and local communities?

How do we make sure, first of all, that when we are doing innovative science, it is indigenous-led? How do we deal with those who are coming from outside, to ensure that they are also embedding the same culture and values?

[Jessica M. Shadian]

Why not make CHARS a hub? Then you're going to get the best and brightest from Canada going up north and working with northerners. You're going to attract private capital to the north. We need to be thinking along those innovation lines. Go to where the northerners are.

There are so many other connections. That's what I'm saying. There's steel and how it interacts with permafrost. That can be social infrastructure all the way to defence technologies. I think there's an opportunity. We build hubs everywhere else. That's what I'm saying: We often just think we should be studying climate change and that's why we go to the north, but it's actually a really big opportunity.

In terms of international researchers coming to Canada, as I understand it, they are on federal grants. Nunavut has to go through the Nunavut research board. There has to be approval there. I don't know. I'm speaking with not enough knowledge. It's how closely the federal government and, let's say, the Nunavut research board work together. I think northerners themselves are very concerned. They want to make sure that they're keeping their north safe. How do we triangulate that with some of the federal departments to help make sure...?