National Defence Committee on April 27th, 2009

[Doug Bancroft]

Under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, it's Environment Canada that provides expert advice to the environmental assessment and regulatory co-management bodies that are established in the north under several federal statutes and modern treaties. Our key regulatory permitting responsibilities for the north include disposal at sea regulations, metal mining, effluent regulations, and the Migratory Birds Convention Act.

I'm not an expert in this particular domain, but we can answer questions secretarially, if they're posed.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

I was just trying to get an overall picture of where you fit in with regard to any regulatory stuff there. However, going forward, the changing climate is obviously of major concern in terms of the Northwest Passage. Other countries, obviously, as was mentioned earlier, want to get at the resources in the north.

Having taken that into consideration, in your view what are the impacts of the changes for other countries wanting to get at those resources? How would that impact our sovereignty? And would it also impact our national defence?

[Monique Carpentier]

I'm probably not an expert in that field. On the other hand, the resources, whether they be in the Arctic or south of 60 degrees, still belong to Canada. So for another country that wants to come and use them and exploit them, the rules will be there as well. My very simple analysis would be that this will not affect the sovereignty of Canada. There are rules that will stop somebody from going there. It's not the wild west anymore. I don't believe that will have an impact on that front for anything that belongs to Canada.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Okay.

You talked about the extended shelf, and the mapping of that is certainly going to go before the United Nations.

[Monique Carpentier]

Right now, for Canada, as well as other countries, up to 200 nautical miles off their coast and the seabed resources within that belong to them. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea allows for the countries that ratified the agreement to submit a proposal to get more than that, to go beyond the 200 nautical miles, and that will give the country the right to exploit the resources on the sea bottom.

Every country that ratified that will have 10 years, as was mentioned earlier, to submit their proposal. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea will not be making the final decision. If two countries do not agree, they have to solve the difference between themselves. Only when an agreement has been reached between the two countries will the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea say this is it. So that's the process that all the Arctic nations, including Denmark, Russia, the U.S., and the others have agreed to follow. That will be done through that process, and then whoever has the ownership will be able to exploit the resources.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

In terms of the ice changing in the Northwest Passage, how do you see that impacting our sovereignty? In terms of our national defence, what do we need to do from that standpoint?

[Doug Bancroft]

I'll just speak to what I know, and that is that first of all there's significant inter-annual variability still forecast despite the declining summer sea ice extent. In addition, the very treacherous and dangerous multi-year ice extent to the north of the archipelago has become much more fractured and, therefore, able to move into places such as the Northwest Passage. Less ice means more hazards. It's very non-linear.

I don't know how this is going to impact sovereignty. I do know that people are going to rely more and more upon services provided by the Government of Canada in the safe navigation of these routes.

[Monique Carpentier]

If I may add to that--and this question should probably be directed to DFAIT--the Northwest Passage is within Canadian territory. There is no question of sovereignty there in the sense that every country in the world recognizes that the Northwest Passage belongs to Canada. The difference within the U.S. that people refer to--and here again I would urge you to double-check with DFAIT--is the definition. Is it an international passage that they can use at their convenience? It's not about the sovereignty. Do they have to ask permission when they come through it? It's that type of regulation, but it's not a question of sovereignty. Nobody questions who owns the Northwest Passage.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Merci beaucoup. Thank you very much, Mr. Payne.

Now we'll have Mr. Wilfert for five minutes.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

In 2007, the UN said that all but one natural disaster was climate-related in terms of assistance, so research is absolutely critical in the north. We have an international project on Devon Island that has been very successful. It's often called the lifeline of Arctic science. What we're seeing now is that it's difficult for researchers to get there because of the increased cost of transportation. In fact, it has increased as much as $2,500 an hour. It's eating into the program of the $6.3 million annual budget, which has not been increased since 2003. Obviously, a polar program giving us science is absolutely critical, but the fact is that here seems to be a disconnect between Natural Resources Canada and Indian Affairs. Indian Affairs is now actually putting about $85 million into Arctic research infrastructure, while Natural Resources Canada has gone the other way. In fact, from a logistics standpoint, they are really underfunded. I'd like your comments on that.

By the way, I'm delighted to see that Environment Canada and Natural Resources actually seem to be on the same page, or generally so. Until a few years ago, this was not the case.

[Monique Carpentier]

We even like one another.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

I know. You know, I'm feeling the love here--

[Some hon. members]

Oh! Oh!

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

--which is really good.

Could you answer that question? Because the research is critical, and yet we've seen departments, and we'd heard earlier about how they're supposed to be coordinating, and there were logistics issues.

[Monique Carpentier]

What you're talking about is the polar continental shelf project. That's a program that is run by NRCan, within my own responsibility centre, to do the logistics for universities and the federal departments doing research up in the Arctic. And that program has been protected over the last several years. We never reduced the funding and we have not reduced this year the funding.

What we are saying this year, though, is that in order for the people to be doing their work in the Arctic during the summer, we had to buy the fuel last year, and we bought it at the time when it was a peak fuel cost, plus the transportation up north. So despite the fact that we still have the same budget, the fuel cost was so high last year during the summer when we had to ship the fuel--because we always have to do that a year ahead of time--that we had automatically to reduce the amount of service we could provide. I'm hoping that this summer we're going to be able to buy when the cost is low, so we're going to be able to increase it next summer.

That's the explanation, in simple terms, of what appeared this morning in the newspaper, in terms of those articles. We are very conscious of that and we've been able over the last couple of years to compensate by getting better coordination, working with DND and working with other groups to try to minimize the impact of fuel costs.

I don't know if I answered your question, but that's really the essence of the decrease, in terms of the number of flying hours. It's just that last year when we bought the fuel and shipped it up north, it cost a lot of money and we bought it at a high price.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

I accept your explanation. But in terms of what Indian Affairs and Northern Development is doing, how is that being coordinated so that in fact it doesn't look like...? The suggestion is that the right hand and the left hand are--

[Monique Carpentier]

We do work quite heavily with Indian and Northern Affairs. In terms of the investment that you just talked about, the $85 million that was announced, we are the recipient of $11 million to expand our polar continental shelf project in Resolute Bay. We're going to do that this summer and next summer, to be, hopefully, operational the following year.

That's an infrastructure fund, so now we're going to beef up the infrastructure a little bit during the peak time during the summer. We have to use tents outside because we don't have enough capability to keep everybody warm. So it will allow us to do that.

Hopefully, we're going to be able, as the agenda for the northern strategy progresses, to also go into the other elements that are required for maintaining an infrastructure.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

In terms of coordinating the economic aspects, the climate change aspects, and the security concerns, obviously the scientists play a very important role in getting the data. What kind of direct input do you have, or what work do you do with these scientists, particularly in this program, to ensure that you're able to be ahead of the curve in terms of the polices we need to have? Canada has lagged behind, say, Denmark, the United States, and Great Britain, as an example, in terms of where they are in the Arctic versus us?

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

In 10 seconds.

[Monique Carpentier]

In terms of the polar continental shelf, we don't do any research ourselves. We are a logistical group, so we bring the people who do the research on their research field. If you wish, we just published last week, in fact, a report of the activities that we've been supporting in the Arctic for all the various departments and various agencies, so we may bring that to you—

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Could you make that available to the committee?

[Monique Carpentier]

Yes, we can do that.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

Through you, Mr. Chairman, thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you, Madam Carpentier.

Thanks, Mr. Wilfert.

Now I will give the floor to Mrs. Gallant, and I know that you will share your time with Mr. Hawn.

Mrs. Gallant.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'd ask the witnesses this with respect to the disputed territories. Where there are questions of boundaries, have there been uranium and/or thorium deposits identified within those areas that are in question, insofar as which country has sovereignty?