National Defence Committee on April 29th, 2009

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

In that context, then, could the decision of the Canadian government, if it is indeed a decision, not to have icebreaking-capable naval vessels, could that decision alone, to change your mind...? Could that be interpreted as a withdrawal of any interest in enforcing rights?

[Prof. Suzanne Lalonde]

I would hope not. I think not. I think there's enough activity and other things on the table, such as proposals for Arctic training centres on the Northwest Passage. I think the Canadian government, at the moment, is demonstrating quite a sustained interest in Arctic sovereignty.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Colonel Leblanc, could I ask you whether it's important as well to have a capability for under-ice awareness of what's going on? At around the same time as the question arising about the Russian overflight being intercepted, there was a question of submarine activity in Canadian Arctic waters. Do you know anything about that, and what would you have to say about that being apparently ignored by our government?

[Col (Retired) Pierre Leblanc]

Yes, sir, I believe we need the capability to monitor subsurface activity. We did have a program back in 1987 that was going to put SOSUS equipment in the three choke points of the Arctic. You can basically see them on the slide, the two entry points of the yellow line and the red line near Iqaluit. If you had subsurface surveillance in those choke points, you would be able to tell if a submarine is entering the Canadian Arctic.

It's my understanding that there might be a program to address this shortfall, but to my knowledge we don't have this capability yet. It's one I recommended back in 2000 and numerous times thereafter.

I'd like to come back to the suggestion that yes, somebody has to guard the gate but it may not necessarily have to be the armed forces. If the coast guard were tasked with that mission, I am sure over time they would be very capable. As Suzanne has mentioned, in terms of maritime activity and maritime experience in the north, it's the coast guard that has that.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

I have one further question. Do you have any knowledge about the incident regarding the submarine activity last fall?

[Col (Retired) Pierre Leblanc]

I'm not aware of the details of that, sir. I'm not in on the secrets of the gods anymore.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Going back to you, Madam Lalonde, it's been suggested--and I've been reading some papers from the Library of Parliament on some of these issues. It seems, of course, that the principal legal and perhaps functional challenger on the Northwest Passage has been to date the United States. If there are others piling on.... There's been a suggestion in one of the papers that perhaps if the United States see a lot of international interest they might be inclined not to see it as an international strait anymore if it could be shown that Canada could effectively control that area, because the United States may not want everybody in there as an open passage, for overflight reasons, for security reasons, for all sorts of other reasons. Are you aware of any discussions about that? You seem to know what the legal theories are going on in the U.S. war colleges. Have you heard anything about this possibility that the U.S. might withdraw its objections under certain circumstances?

[Prof. Suzanne Lalonde]

I started the project in 2001 very enthusiastic about the possibility that continental defence and homeland security was our way into changing the official American position. But after meetings with State Department officials, I think, officially, the United States have no wriggle room. For 40 years they've been insisting it's an international strait. No one could stand up and suddenly say, we got it wrong. But I think actually this official position has never been tested.

Though officially the U.S. continues to object, there has been no on-the-ground protestations of Canada's position, and I think there's a lot of sympathy. At an American Society of International Law meeting in 2006, a Pentagon official was telling me, we hate the idea of an international air corridor; we are unhappy with that notion and we don't want it. So I think the message informally or unofficially is, Canada, do your stuff. Be prepared to police. If you want us to give you the confidence and give you that role, assume it properly, but don't ask us for an official--

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

Now I will give the floor to Mr. Hawn.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for coming.

Colonel, I want to just clarify a couple of things. You implied there's a lack of air space monitoring above the north warning system. Are you aware of the space-based capability of air space monitoring through NORAD and other methods that are used to detect incoming unflight-planned aircraft and the fact that we have challenged physically every unflight-planned aircraft that has entered that portion of the air space? It's international air space, but nevertheless we've been out there challenging everyone. Are you aware of those capabilities?

[Col (Retired) Pierre Leblanc]

I'm not aware of the space capability.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

They're very extensive, and there's nothing that flies up there that NORAD doesn't know about.

With respect to the FOLs—I guess you haven't been up there for a little while at your military site—Inuvik and Iqaluit are used regularly by the forces based in Cold Lake and Bagotville. Rankin Inlet and Yellowknife are in a state that they can be made operational fairly quickly. All four of those FOLs are basically ready to use.

I have a question on SAR. I know it's something that is of a lot of interest to Mr. Bagnell. I know you'd be aware of this from your previous job in Yellowknife. On the frequency or lack of frequency of SAR incidents in the north, what would be your assessment of stationing SAR assets permanently in the north, since a very small percentage of SAR response situations happen north of 60? What would they do all the time?

[Col (Retired) Pierre Leblanc]

The recommendation I made a number of years ago was to station, on sort of a temporary basis, a C-130 in Yellowknife. The search and rescue requiring a C-130 on the west coast would originate out of Winnipeg. If you were to launch from Yellowknife, it would be about the same flight time to reach the west coast.

There were a number of incidents, when I was the commander, when C-130s came up from Trenton and Winnipeg to do search and rescue operations in the north. The transit time to reach the target area was very long. My point was that there is a shift now. International flights--Vancouver to New Delhi, New York to Hong Kong--are going directly over the Arctic. Even though the incidence of air disasters or air incidents is relatively small--about 98% of incidents occur either on landing or takeoff--the possibility of an incident in the north continues to increase. Given the climatic conditions.... You may recall the C-130 that crashed on Ellesmere Island. It took something like two and a half days before somebody was actually on site.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

That was not a factor of the location of assets. That was a factor of weather. The weather was absolutely horrible. It had nothing to do with the location of assets.

If an incident happens at takeoff and landing, then the rescue operations are going to be handled by the forces on the ground at that airport. I would submit to you that they would be idle most of the time or would be doing other things when they would be needed south, where the vast majority of those incidents occur.

You talked about increasing the size of the forces in the north and so on. I'm not sure how broad-based you would see that being. I'm not sure precisely what you had in mind, but have you scoped out the size and cost of those forces in terms of manpower dollars, equipment, and so on?

[Col (Retired) Pierre Leblanc]

No, I haven't done that exercise, sir.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

I would suggest that it would be incredibly large.

With respect to submarines, and going back to Ms. Lalonde, submarines operate in the Arctic all the time. They operate around the world all the time. Of course, navies don't tell each other where their subs go. If we could detect them—and there are other methods of detecting them—what would we do about it?

I'll ask Ms. Lalonde, please.

[Prof. Suzanne Lalonde]

The submarine question is a nightmare for the international lawyer, because if we know, and they didn't ask permission—I fall back on this being where ignorance is bliss—then let's hope that with NORAD and NATO we have agreements that cover most of those transits.

If it is shown that we know and we're incapable of stopping unauthorized transits, then forget it, it is an international strait.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

As I said, submarine forces don't tell other submarines forces, even the friendly ones, where they are. They have their own reasons for doing that.

With respect to MAJAID, major air disasters--either one of you, I guess--the Canadian Forces has a major air disaster plan, as they have had all along. Colonel LeBlanc, you would have been aware of that in respect of your previous duties. Do you have knowledge, Ms. Lalonde or Colonel LeBlanc, about the current plan and how you might want to see that changed or improved?

[Col (Retired) Pierre Leblanc]

I was aware of the MAJAID capabilities and the assets based out of Trenton. Tentage equipment would be let out of aircraft or parachuted to the site of a crash. There's also been work done with the U.S. as well as with the Russians in terms of joint cooperation for Arctic search and rescue. That is an indication that there is a perceived need, at the very least, for some capability in the north, a capability that can be used in a very cold climate under very severe weather conditions. If we had a large airliner go down in the north, and I'm not familiar with the exact capability we have right now, I think they would probably be quite tested.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

The north is a very big place, as you know, and whether we have it sitting in Yellowknife or in Trenton, there's probably not going to be any difference in terms of response time, in effect.

With respect to the coast guard, the coast guard has 18 icebreakers, seven of which operate in the Arctic. One of its missions, according to the coast guard, which spoke to us last week, is sovereignty--maritime security and sovereignty. I don't know whether that's changed in the last half-dozen years or so, but they do carry out that mandate and they do cooperate with the navy, as I'm sure you'd appreciate.

Colonel, the increase in capability, albeit maybe not as much as some would like, could you just repeat...? I'm not sure what you said, whether you agreed that the Arctic offshore patrol ships will add a capability? We'd maybe like more, but it does add a capability to our capacity in the north.

[Col (Retired) Pierre Leblanc]

I think it will add significantly to the capabilities we have.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Okay. One of the things the government announced with respect to this new emphasis on northern sovereignty was an increase in training in the north and exercises to address the legitimate concerns you have about lack of familiarity and capability of operating in the north. Have you had a chance to look at any of those, or do you have any comment on the increase in training and exercises in the north?

[Col (Retired) Pierre Leblanc]

The major exercises that have increased take place, usually, around the August timeframe, summertime, when the waters are open, as opposed to the dead of winter, when there's 24-hour darkness and very cold temperatures. I think that's the area where we probably lack a little bit more capability; it's to operate in those extreme environments.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

There are exercises planned to operate in more of those environments.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

You have 10 seconds.