National Defence Committee on April 29th, 2009

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

You're right, but I tell you that's not what we're hearing.

[Alan H. Kessel]

This is Canada. It continues to be Canada. And I would be surprised if you, as members of Parliament and Canadians, would be implying that it isn't. I think you should be careful about your lexicon, I suggest to you, Mr. Chairman.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

I suggest to you that you may have a legal position, but no legal position in itself has any value unless you're able to enforce it. I believe it's Canadian, but if I can't enforce that, it doesn't matter what my position is legally. It's what the facts are on the ground. That's what I'm interested in.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Bachand.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Are you Canadian as well?

[Some Hon. Members]

Ah! Ah!

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Until there is evidence to the contrary, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you. I am glad to hear it.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

First, I want to thank our witnesses.

Mr. Kessel, I must say that your presentation seemed very optimistic. I have some of the same concerns as Mr. Wilfert, but I think that is the only position you can take. If I was in your shoes, I would say the same thing. We cannot afford to be weak or to say that we are unsure. I very much like your decisive way of saying “yes”. Nevertheless, there are other considerations to take into account. Control of the territory, specifically, occupation of the territory, is a very important one.

Before I get into my questions, I would like to know one thing. We were told that the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs had taken the lead in this matter. Do all of you sitting at the far end of the table share that opinion?

[Alan H. Kessel]

I think there are two things being confused here. They do have the lead on the northern strategy, which is a whole-of-government effort. Someone was mentioning they hadn't seen the whole-of-government effort, and I can assure you, and certainly my colleagues can, that we've been at innumerable meetings where the whole-of-government effort has been there to look at our northern strategy with respect to...and I listed the four pillars of the northern strategy. So that definitely is a question that Indian Affairs has the lead on and is coordinating our particular input from government.

The other issue, which is what is Canada and what is our territory, is clearly in the mandate of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and that's why we're here talking about sovereignty.

I don't know why there's a strong interest here in propagating it, but there's a mythology that there is some kind of race going on. I'd like you to point it out to me, because I'd like to know what it looks like. We, as governments who decided we didn't want to go to war over resources of the sea, decided 40 years ago that we would negotiate an international instrument, which we did, and in which Canada played a major role, and which sets out a vast international legal regime for dealing with the very issues we're talking about.

Canada was particularly instrumental in dealing with an article in that regime, article 234, on ice-covered areas, and it is one of the fundamental bases we have used to extend our Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act to 200 nautical miles. We will be bringing in a mandatory northern reporting system, which our friends in the military will then be able to act upon, also for 200 miles.

There is another mythology about Russians putting flags on the North Pole, which happens to be in the high seas. It means nothing. It's a stunt. It was a stunt then; it's a stunt now. The reality is that you don't own something by putting a flag on it; otherwise, National Geographic would own the Himalayas by having put a flag on them, or the Americans would own the moon by having put a flag on it. It just means they were there. So the Russians were there; they got to be there.

You have to put in context where your real concerns and fears are.

The Government of Canada has been aware of what we needed to do for many decades and we have done that under successive governments. And we are very pleased to say we feel confident that our legal position is strong and our approach to dealing with our access and exercise of sovereignty is also strong.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Kessel, I have to stop you there, because I still have questions to ask. How much time do I have left?

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

You have three minutes.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

I have a question for Vice-admiral McFadden. Has there been a recent increase in the number of Canadian ship patrols and land-based patrols? Has there been a recent increase in military air traffic? I would like to know.

And I am coming back to the lead question. In the strategy of showing a stronger military presence, is it the Department of National Defence or Canada Command that decides to increase patrols? Or is there a discussion between the departments, who then decide National Defence will do this, Foreign Affairs will do that, and Environment Canada will do its job? Do you have carte blanche to increase the number of patrols, Mr. McFadden?

[VAdm D. McFadden]

Sir, I take my orders from the Chief of the Defence Staff, and the Chief of the Defence Staff has told me to conduct more numerous, more complex operations in the Arctic, and we have seen a very substantial increase in both the numbers and the complexity over the last two years.

Your previous question was about the whole of government. It's easily said. It's a buzzword. The implication.... Sir, I should tell you that at an operational level the whole-of-government effort is working well in the Arctic. There is a spirit—I think it's a habit—of cooperation in the way they do business. But our operations have reached the stage where the deployment of the Canadian Forces in any numbers over strategic distances into an immensely austere environment is an operation. But once we're there, the capacity for us to provide the bedrock, the catalyst, upon which whole-of-government exercises can occur is the whole basis of the thrust in what we're doing.

There was an operation last summer, Nanook. I think folks have talked to you about that previously. The operational phase of that is only half of it. The exercise portion of that is immense.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

I must interrupt you because I have a very important question for Mr. Kessel.

Mr. Kessel, how are we going to settle the issue permanently? By signing an international treaty with all of the circumpolar nations? The United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf has just given 235,000 km² to Norway. Ultimately, it is not the UN that will decide how it will work.

Will an international treaty with the circumpolar nations settle the future of the Arctic once and for all?

[Alan H. Kessel]

Well, I think yet again there seems to be some confusion. Why are you treating the Arctic differently from how you're treating the Gulf of St. Lawrence, or Labrador, or the west coast of Canada? The Canadian Arctic is Canadian. We have extended our economic zone out to 200 nautical miles, as we are allowed to under law. We are now delimiting, we are mapping the seabed to extend our continental shelf, our sovereign exploitative rights, up to the maximum, which could be 350 nautical miles.

The other nations are doing the same in a very logical approach. We are sharing data with them. There does not need to be an international treaty for the Arctic.

There's also another myth that somehow the Arctic is the same as the Antarctic, and I want to just tell you that the Antarctic and the Arctic are polar opposites. One is a land mass covered by ice, which is in dispute because there's no ownership. In the north, which is ours, there's no dispute over the land, and the North Pole is over water. So there's confusion, yet again, in the regimes that should be up there. I'm hopeful that with a little more explanation—

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

I'm not confused about north and south. I think you're very arrogant, sir, and you should maybe tone down your tone. You're in front of members of Parliament here. Probably you know much more than we do, but you could tone it down there. I think you're a little bit too arrogant.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you.

Mr. Harris, the floor is yours.

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

Do we have only till 5:30 p.m., Mr. Chair? This is not a very good way to discuss such an important issue, with a tight timeframe? Are we closing at 5:30 p.m.?

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

You still have your seven minutes.

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

Okay, thank you.

Thank you for coming. Vice-Admiral McFadden, first of all, looking at your map of assets here, I notice that CFB Goose Bay is not mentioned as infrastructure available for the project of Arctic oversight and assets that are available. Why would that be?

[VAdm D. McFadden]

Sir, there are a great many other locations from which we operate. What I wanted to be able to show in that was the major basing lay-down areas from which we support operations. We operate from Goose Bay as well in search and rescue via forward deployment.

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

It's left out here. I notice that there was the whole Labrador Sea, and it's very close to Greenland as well. Do you use that as an asset for your northern operations?

[VAdm D. McFadden]

Yes, sir, and we use a lot more than what I'm just showing on this. What I was trying to show was the major basing for the search-and-rescue locations, as well as the forward operating locations that we use in the high Arctic.