National Defence Committee on May 11th, 2009

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

My colleagues have the next round.

[Chester Reimer]

There is a pressing need. Thank you for mentioning that.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you, Mr. Wilfert.

Mr. Bachand, you have the floor for seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Since our time is limited, for the first round, I will direct my questions to Mr. Keating. On the second round, my colleague will address the issue of the Inuit, which is also very important for us.

Mr. Keating, I am very happy to see you here. During a tour of MDA in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Mr. Donato convinced me that you should appear before the committee. I am the one who put your name on the list of witnesses.

I would like to discuss satellite surveillance. There is an article on your company in this morning's issue of the Ottawa Business Journal. The piece raises a few questions I would like to discuss with you.

When you talk about surveillance satellites already in orbit, are you referring to the Nanosatellite Tracking of Ships? Is this what we saw on the video that you showed today?

[John Keating]

What we saw in the presentation was information that was gathered from a satellite that COM DEV designed, built, and launched.

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

Is the Nanosatellite Tracking of Ships currently in orbit?

[John Keating]

That's right. That's in orbit now. It has just celebrated its first year in orbit.

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

Congratulations are also in order. I think I read somewhere that the satellite's expected like cycle was about six months and that it actually lasted more than twice as long as that. Do you know why that was the case?

[John Keating]

That's right. It's interesting because we built this satellite in seven months, which is an incredibly short period of time. When speaking to the United States Coast Guard about that timeframe, they were very impressed that a company could do that.

The purpose of this particular satellite was just to demonstrate the capability. It's not meant to be an operational spacecraft. It's very inexpensive, very rapidly designed, and built with very commercial components with no redundancy. We designed it, and because COM DEV is a company that builds space equipment, we know how to build things very thoroughly, very carefully, and with high quality. But this particular thing was designed just to demonstrate something very quickly. It has lasted very well, primarily because we know how to build things from a high standard in COM DEV, and the whole of the Canadian space business--MDA, as you talked about--has a reputation.... The Canadian space industry has a tremendous reputation for leadership in technology and quality.

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

I would like you to explain to us how this satellite operates. It revolves around both poles, and planet earth moves with each successive revolution. How many revolutions does it take for the satellite to cover the entire planet?

[John Keating]

In this particular example, this constellation requires six polar-orbiting satellites. The earth is rotating; the satellites are going over the North Pole and the South Pole, and the earth is spinning underneath. So in a period of time, this one satellite will actually look at every piece of the earth from the North Pole to the South Pole and everything in between. The problem is that it does it fairly infrequently, and when you're tracking ships, people want to see them on a more regular basis. So you need to have more satellites in orbit.

In our case, we've calculated that with six satellites we can provide an update, the worst case, for every one and a half hours. Since a ship is typically travelling at seven knots or ten knots, if you pick it up every one and a half hours, it's only travelled eight or ten miles, and that's more than enough to provide the sort of accuracy you need. Interestingly enough, the further north you go, because the area is smaller, you actually pick the ships up more frequently and provide more persistent coverage.

We've spoken to 45 different countries around the world--the Argentinian navy, the Indonesian coast guard, and so on--and those people are very interested in gathering this data. But primarily, the focus is looking after Canadian national needs.

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

It seems that putting the satellite into orbit involved complex mathematical calculations. I assume it was more complicated than 2 plus 2 equal 4. Could you give us an idea of the mathematical problems encountered? Have they been addressed since?

[John Keating]

They have, actually. It's very complex. The analogy I've used is that what we're doing here is detecting radio frequency signals from ships. The International Maritime Organization, many years ago, mandated that every ship above a certain size has to transmit a signal saying who it is, where it is, what the cargo is, where it's going, which port it's from, and so on. It has to send the information out. What that did was provide collision avoidance. So ships, if they're in the dark or in the fog, know who's around them, because they're sending signals to each other. That's an easy system to define, and it has a very short range of 25 nautical miles.

What COM DEV said was that if we can detect those signals from space, maybe we can provide a global picture of all the ship traffic around the world. The first problem with that is actually detecting a signal that was never intended to be received in space. For a company like COM DEV, that is easy. We are the world leaders in gathering radio frequency information from space. We are far and away the world leaders. Eighty per cent of all commercial communications satellites have our equipment on board. That's what we do.

The second challenge is the one you refer to, and it's a real problem, because these transmissions are very random. If I'm in a small cell with you and I send a random signal and you send a signal--we send a signal--they don't collide with each other. It's a bit like if I'm on a stage of a theatre and there are two people in the audience talking to each other. I can hear what they say, because there are just two signals. Now imagine the same theatre and you're on the stage and there are 10,000 people talking to each other. It just sounds like a mess. You can't understand anything.

What we've done is have a group of about 15 Ph.D. engineers, working for three years with highly advanced supercomputers, figure out how to use radio frequency information to extract that data you need, and this solution we have is far and away the most advanced solution in the world today.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you, Mr. Bachand.

Mr. Bevington.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Thanks, Mr. Chair, and thanks to the witnesses.

Mr. Reimer, maybe you could just touch a little bit on the changing nature of Inuit self-government. We see the change happening in Greenland. We, of course, have had division and a separate territory, Nunavut. In the Northwest Territories, we're moving towards greater devolution of powers.

All those things mean that regionally, Inuit within the Arctic are going to have a greater say over the development and direction of policy. How do you put that together in an Arctic Council. How do you see the regional interests of the Inuit and Arctic residents coming together now? Where do you see the future of this obvious movement towards self-determination?

[Chester Reimer]

You've asked some big questions.

The future, I'm not too sure of, but I'm positive about it.

But to get back to your earlier comments, to remind the members here, I think what you're getting at, for example, is that in Greenland they had what they called home rule in 1979. On June 21 of this year there will be further self-government, which they've negotiated very peacefully with their former colonizer, Denmark. I think many Canadian officials will be invited to that very important day. They're taking over many more issues, such as resources, and so on.

Most of you people here and members know there are four Inuit land claims regions. Nunatsiavut in Labrador was the last one to settle.

In Alaska we have a similar kind of arrangement. Their so-called rights or sovereignty are not as advanced in many instances.

In Russia, we don't have a lot going on other than administrative reforms.

To answer your question, I think what you're getting at is that there are these regional powers now, where regional devolution is going on. How can they have their voices heard internationally and also nationally?

Is that right?

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

That's right. When you look at the Arctic Council, you're looking at a group of people appointed to a particular board. Now you're going to see the evolution of governance by the Inuit around the circumpolar area, and especially in North America and Greenland.

So is there going to be a need to bring more of the regional Inuit governance to the table as well?

[Chester Reimer]

The board members of the Inuit Circumpolar Council in Canada, for example, are the regional bodies. The Nunatsiavut president is on the ICC board, as are the Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., and the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation's president, and so on. They give specific direction to the Inuit Circumpolar Council. That continues to be one way the Arctic Council has been set up, so the ICC has that voice.

There's a second one that is more domestic. It's something called the Arctic Council Advisory Committee, which includes territorial representatives, Inuit, and representatives from various departments. There's some talk of making that into more of a Canadian-focused Arctic council that has a bit more meat, and not just an advisory committee. So there's some discussion about that.

There has also been an attempt in the past to have an international meeting of the minds of local and regional governments through what's called the Northern Forum. Personally, I don't think it has been that successful. The Northwest Territories has pulled out of that, but I think there is an increasing need for something like that.

Being able to bring regional voices to an international organization such as the Arctic Council might be a little tricky. I think other member states might not want, for example, four or five representatives from Canada having separate voices at an international meeting.

But I think there needs to be more focus within this new advisory committee I was telling you about, which is perhaps going to become a sort of mini-Arctic Council within Canada.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Certainly at the latest Arctic Council meeting there were representatives of the public governments of the Northwest Territories; I believe that Nunavut, as well as the Yukon, was there. So there is a definite interest in all of these issues on the part of the regional governments, as well as the appointed members from the Inuit claims organization.

[Chester Reimer]

Right, but they were on the Canadian delegation; they were not really given a separate voice. They had to speak through Mr. Cannon.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

I'm speaking to the future here.

[Chester Reimer]

Okay, I see.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Coates, probably the biggest dispute we're going to have very soon is between the United States and Canada over the Alaska-Yukon border.

How do you see us moving to a settlement of that particular dispute? I think it's the one that probably has the most potential to give us problems in terms of resource development and jurisdiction over a number of different areas.

[Dr. Kenneth Coates]

That's a very interesting question.

The way we will likely get to the dispute is the way we always do with the Americans, and that is to argue publicly and to resolve it quietly behind closed doors. We tend to take our stances: Canada has to say certain things; America has to say certain things. Then back behind closed doors, arms are twisted and things get resolved, such as allowing certain kinds of ships to go through the Northwest Passage.

I would agree with you 100% that this actually is the one that's more important than the Northwest Passage. The whole question of who controls the drilling rights in the Beaufort Sea, and things like that, are really, really important issues. The fishing rights issue is the one that's coming up to the table right now.

There was an expectation, I think—and certainly among the academic circles I work in—that as long as President Bush was there, we were going to get a fairly hard-nosed approach, and that perhaps when President Obama came in, we would get a lessening of that conflictual orientation. I don't think that's likely. In fact, I think the Americans are quite concerned about making sure they defend their interests in the region.

So the United States and Canada get on each other's nerves from time to time on a whole range of issues. We do tend to resolve these things relatively quietly behind closed doors, and I suspect on this one, that may well be part of the solution.

There was an issue, as you well know—and maybe you have talked about this before—raised by the Americans about fishery control, which I think has the potential to blow this up sooner rather than later.