National Defence Committee on June 2nd, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Welcome everyone.

This is meeting number 23. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Monday, February 23, 2009. we will continue our study on Arctic sovereignty.

I am pleased to have with us, by video conference, Professor Michael Byers, professor and Canada research chair at the University of British Columbia. We also have with us, by video conference, Greg Poelzer, professor at the University of Saskatoon. Thank you for being with us.

We will start with Professor Byers.

[Professor Michael Byers, Professor and Canada Research Chair, Department of Political Science, University of British Columbia]

Thank you very much, Monsieur Bernier, for inviting me.

As you probably know, I am the leader of two ArcticNet projects on Arctic sovereignty, ArcticNet being a consortium of more than 100 scientists from 27 Canadian universities and five federal departments. I've also travelled extensively in the Arctic. I've sailed the Northwest Passage. And last summer I served as a consultant to the Senate committee on fisheries and oceans during its preparation of a report on Arctic shipping.

Now, the circumpolar Arctic is a place where distances are measured in thousands of kilometres. To give you a sense of perspective, it is roughly the same distance from Ottawa to Oxford, England, as it is from Ottawa to the North Pole. And indeed, Oxford, England, is considerably farther north than Ottawa is. So I am actually closer to the North Pole than the members are in Ottawa. For this reason, the most significant security threat exists along the southern fringes of the Arctic, in places such as Baffin Bay, the Beaufort Sea, and the Northwest Passage. And those threats involve non-state actors such as drug smugglers, illegal immigrants, and possibly terrorists.

Former U.S. ambassador Paul Cellucci has expressed concern that rogue states and terrorist groups might use the Northwest Passage to traffic in weapons of mass destruction. And he's right, for as unlikely as these risks might seem at first, it is difficult to imagine a captain in charge of this kind of cargo choosing the closely scrutinized Panama Canal over an ice-free, under-policed Northwest Passage. And it was because of threats of this kind that the United States, with active Canadian participation, led the creation of the proliferation and security initiative in 2003.

An ice-free Northwest Passage could also serve as an entry point into North America for drugs, guns, illegal immigrants, and perhaps even terrorists. Dozens of gravel airstrips are scattered along the waterway, a forgotten legacy of the Cold War and countless research and prospecting expeditions. It would be relatively easy to transfer passengers or cargo from an ocean-going vessel to a Twin Otter and fly them to another small airstrip farther south.

Each summer cruise ships put hundreds of undocumented foreign nationals on shore at communities such as Pond Inlet and Resolute Bay, which have scheduled air service but no immigration controls.

We already know that attempts at illegal immigration occur in the north. In September 2006 a Romanian man sailed from Greenland to Grise Fjord, intent on returning to Toronto after having been deported from there. He was arrested by the RCMP.

In the next month, two Turkish sailors jumped ship at Churchill, Manitoba, and bought train tickets to Winnipeg. They too were arrested by the RCMP.

In August 2007, five Norwegian adventurers, complete with horned Viking helmets and intent on challenging Canada's Northwest Passage claim, arrived in Cambridge Bay. The RCMP and the Canadian Coast Guard conducted a maritime interdiction of their yacht, and they were promptly deported.

These incidents are, I would suggest, actually quite reassuring. They demonstrate that the RCMP and the coast guard, if they have appropriate equipment and support, are capable of dealing with the non-state threat.

As for the Canadian Forces, their most important role in the Arctic is the provision of search and rescue. And for reasons beyond their control, they're not currently up to that task. Four old, slow Twin Otter aircraft based in Yellowknife constitute the entirety of the Canadian Forces' Arctic air fleet. Hercules aircraft based in Trenton, Ontario, are relied on for most of the serious search and rescues, but they take six hours to reach the Northwest Passage and, once there, can only drop search and rescue technicians rather than hoist anyone on board.

None of the Canadian Forces Cormorant search and rescue helicopters is based in the Arctic, not even in summer. As I understand, it's because it's considered inefficient to locate dedicated search and rescue assets in a region with such a sparse population and, consequentially, low statistical risk of accidents, but the Arctic is a large and inhospitable place, and when accidents occur, they tend to be serious.

Cruise ships pose a particular risk, given the large numbers of often elderly passengers on board. In November 2007 a Canadian-owned vessel, the MVExplorer, sank during an Antarctic voyage. Fortunately the sea was calm, two other cruise ships were close by, and all the crew and passengers were saved. The MVExplorer could just as easily have sunk in the Canadian Arctic in rough seas and with no help nearby.

Search and rescue is also needed for airplane accidents. More than 90,000 commercial flights take transpolar or high latitude routes over Canadian territory each year. Retired Colonel Pierre LeBlanc told me the prospect of a commercial airline accident was the one thing that kept him awake at night during his many years commanding Canadian Forces northern area.

For the moment, Cormorant helicopters, like the Hercules aircraft, are deployed on specific missions from southern locations, and this causes delays and drives up the costs. Let me give you an extreme example. In June 2006 the Canadian Forces deployed one Hercules aircraft from Trenton, two Hercules aircraft from Winnipeg, one Aurora aircraft from Greenwood, Nova Scotia, and one Cormorant helicopter from Gander, Newfoundland, all to rescue three Inuit hunters whose boat had run out of fuel near Hall Beach, Nunavut.

There is an easy short-term remedy to this situation: the deployment of Cormorants to the Arctic in summertime. I would recommend one for Iqaluit and the other for Inuvik in the Northwest Territories. Since both locations are already forward staging points for CFA teams, the presence of a Cormorant should be easy to manage. They have a range in excess of 1,000 kilometres and could easily cover the two areas of greatest maritime activity in the Arctic, Baffin Bay and the Beaufort Sea, while also providing coverage of both the eastern and western portions of the Northwest Passage. They could then be redeployed to the east and west coasts at the end of the summer, in time for the winter storms that create the greatest search and rescue needs there.

Improving our search and rescue capacity in and around the Northwest Passage would also facilitate the enforcement of Canadian laws and thus the credibility of our sovereignty claim. A long-range search and rescue helicopter is the perfect platform for boarding ocean-going vessels.

Building naval vessels specifically for the Arctic is inefficient. Indeed, I would suggest that it's happening only because the coast guard is not a branch of the Canadian Forces. If the coast guard were part of the Canadian Forces, we'd be recapitalizing the icebreaker fleet, adding a light machine gun to the forward deck of each vessel, and putting proper long-range maritime helicopters on board. The coast guard could then provide search and rescue, assist with the non-state actor challenge, and still provide its existing range of other essential services, such as breaking ice for commercial vessels, maintaining navigation devices, and supporting Arctic research. I believe your committee should be exploring how the coast guard and Canadian Forces can partner in the Arctic. One obvious starting point would be for some coast guard personnel to be trained in forcible interdiction techniques by the Canadian Forces, equipped for that purpose, and made members of the naval reserve.

So what about the Arctic offshore patrol ships the Canadian Forces are due to acquire, starting in 2015? The first thing to note is that they will not be true Arctic vessels. I prefer to think of them as replacements for the Kingston class maritime coastal defence vessels, with some additional ice strengthening that will enable them to be used in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in winter and places like Baffin Bay in summer.

Incidentally, Baffin Bay is where the Danish navy's ice-strengthened frigates are designed to operate in conditions quite distinct from McClure Strait and Viscount Melville Sound. The Arctic offshore patrol ships will not be designed to break ice and, for this reason, will not be sent into the Northwest Passage, at least until climate change causes all the multi-year ice to disappear.

This brings me to the Diefenbaker, the $720 million polar icebreaker announced last year. Unlike the Arctic offshore patrol ships, the icebreaker is intended for the coast guard, but it's also much larger and more powerful than sea-ice projections warrant and, therefore, excessively expensive. Given the reality of climate change, you could spend the same amount of money and acquire two or three mid-sized icebreakers similar to the existing Terry Fox, which would give much greater coverage across the north than any single vessel.

I understand that the procurement process for the Diefenbaker was suspended last autumn, and I'm not surprised. To adopt a timely metaphor, the government decided to build a Cadillac rather than three Smart cars. It's time to reassess that plan and recapitalize the coast guard fleet on a less grand but ultimately more useful basis, with input from, and the full support of, the Canadian Forces.

Thank you very much for your attention. Merci beaucoup.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you very much, Professor Byers.

Now I will give the floor to Professor Poelzer, please.

[Professor Greg Poelzer, Professor, University of Saskatchewan]

I'd like to thank the committee members for the kind invitation to speak on the Arctic sovereignty issue, which is obviously a very important issue to Canada. I'd argue that, unlike in previous decades, it's unlikely to disappear off the national and international policy agenda.

Many of the points Professor Byers has raised pertained to specifics around defence, so I won't address those. I think those were covered extremely well.

What I'd like to do is draw a little bit on comparative lessons. My own work over the last 20 years has predominantly been research on northern development in Russia. I've been there about 24 times over the last 19 years or so in my capacity as dean of undergraduate studies for the University of the Arctic, which I guess has given me a comparative perspective from all eight Arctic states on the question of Arctic sovereignty.

If I were to make recommendations to the Canadian government regarding Arctic sovereignty and a strategy around strengthening Arctic sovereignty, I'd focus on three particular areas. One is defence. The second is region building. The final one is nation building.

In terms of defence, there will be better experts than I on what technical capabilities would be required in strengthening our defence capabilities, but we don't have a strong year-round defence capability in our own Arctic. This is in sharp contrast to other countries, such as the United States in Alaska, the Nordic countries, and of course Russia. In that, we're quite different from the other circumpolar countries.

Is the issue fundamentally about state threats? I would argue that at least for the imminent future that is fairly unlikely. But Professor Byers just pointed out some of the very important reasons why strengthening our defence capability is important. One is around search and rescue capabilities, of course: that we have timely and effective search and rescue capabilities. The other is human and environmental security. The question is not will there be increased tourism and shipping coming into our Arctic waters; it's already occurring, particularly on the tourist side of things. That is likely to increase, not decrease, over the coming decades.

But there is another dimension that is often overlooked. It's the socio-economic research and educational impact of investments around defence. If you look at the world-class research that goes on at a place like the University of Alaska Fairbanks in geomatics, geophysics, and so forth, a large part of that is because of the investment of the American military in the Arctic region. The same is true in the Nordic countries as well as Russia.

The other big advantage, of course, of greater defence investments is providing transportation and communication infrastructure and strengthening that, which helps on the research front as well as on economic development. When we are talking about defence investments in Canada in terms of strengthening our sovereignty, it's not just around the borders issue and surveillance. There is a tremendous amount of educational and socio-economic spinoffs.

Before I finish with that, the other area is our Canadian Rangers program. It's not only in the territorial north but across the provincial north and in the coastal areas. North of 60, as I'm sure the committee members are fully aware, there is great pride in this program, and it is one that needs to be supported and strengthened.

The second area in addition to defence in which Canada needs to do far better than we have historically as a country is the area of region building. In that area, frankly, the original leaders have been the indigenous organizations, particularly what was formerly the Inuit Circumpolar Conference. We're talking about the Arctic Athabaskan Council and the Gwich'in Council International in particular. They have been pioneers in circumpolar cooperation.

If we draw on comparative lessons and look at the Barents region in particular, the Nordic countries have very much taken a strategy of incorporating Russia. It's not just Canada. I know there's the play in the media about the threat from the United States to Canadian sovereignty, but in fact there's a lot of cooperation between the United States and Canada in the Arctic. But we aren't the only country that has to deal with living with a large neighbour. If you take a country such as Norway, which borders Russia, it does have to deal with the Russian bear.

The strategy, especially since Gorbachev, has been one of integration economically with indigenous organizations in the sphere of education, as well as with subnational governments at the county or provincial level and at the municipal level. If you've witnessed what has been going on in the Barents region, it has led to a tremendous transformation and cooperation in the economic, cultural, and educational spheres there.

As well, there's the growth of a new leadership in Russia, particularly in northwest Russia, which has greater appreciation, sensitivity, and values that we might proudly call western democratic values. But there's also an increasing respect and understanding on the Nordic side of Russian values, interests, and so on. That's helping to mitigate what could potentially be quite difficult issues around everything from fisheries to petroleum resource development in the Barents area.

The third and final area I want to address is nation building.

In Canada, as a country, we should be quite proud. In terms of the world, we've been a magnificent experiment of federalism. It has not been without challenges, but we have successfully built a country from sea to sea in many regards. If you think of John A. MacDonald and the massive investments his government undertook in building the transportation network from sea to sea and pulling the country together, again this was as much an issue around Canadian sovereignty vis-à-vis our neighbour to the south as it was economic interests. But we haven't done the same thing in the north: we have not built Canada from sea to sea to sea.

If you look at the types of investments in the social, economic, and educational infrastructure that come with complete nation building, Canada does lag behind other countries. I'll give one example. As I'm sure all committee members are fully aware, we are the only state of the eight Arctic states without a university in our own Arctic region. We like to think of Canada as the kinder, gentler nation on the North American continent, and in many regards we are, but in other ways we fundamentally are not. If you look at the University of Alaska's system, between 1997 and 2004 it produced 10,000 graduates. If you think about the capacity that affords in terms of environmental management, building successful businesses in the private sector, and involvement in governance, it has tremendous impact. We aren't in the game. Even Greenland has the University of Greenland. If you go to northern Norway, there are at least a half dozen post-secondary or degree-granting institutions. Canada needs to be engaged in fundamental ways in completing nation building. Norway has an equalization policy that makes it very attractive to live in northern Norway for professionals, with world-class health care facilities and so on. We haven't made similar investments as a country.

And part of that is we have to recognize the changing dynamics in Canada. I think if we have a very strong Canada, a very strong north, with very capable devolved authorities to territorial governments, staffing where the vast majority is.... For example, with the Government of Nunavut, if we achieve those objectives of Inuit government governed by Inuit—and we aren't there yet—then I think we'll have a much stronger presence and operation for Canada. By completing nation building, we will strengthen our Arctic sovereignty.

But I think two challenges have remained for Canada over the last two decades that I think a lot of Canadians and policy-makers may not fully appreciate. One is the disconnect. We talk a good talk, as Canadians, about the true north strong and free, but there has been an increasing disconnect with rural Canada, aboriginal Canada—first nations, Métis, and Inuit—and northern Canada. I would argue that has been the case for a couple of reasons, one being the intergenerational urban Canadians. Twenty years ago, many Canadians, even if they lived in cities, either came from a rural area or still had relatives working on farms or in the north in rural communities. That's increasingly less the case, and it's a reality, but it's a reality that policy-makers need to be aware of in terms of connecting to our north, so it's not simply out of sight and out of mind.

The other reason is new Canadians, who have profoundly enriched Canada. We need increased immigration in this country from all parts of the world. It's profoundly important for the success of Canada globally, and especially in a global economic system. But for new Canadians, there isn't a natural connection to rural Canada or to the north—and half of the people in the city of Toronto, for example, have not been born in Canada. I think as a strategy for the country, we have to connect both new Canadians and intergenerational urban Canadians, the vast majority of whom live below the 49th parallel in Canada, to our north. I think this is very important for the kinds of investments we will need in Canada in the area of nation building, in the area of region building, and in the area of defence to strengthen Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you, Mr. Poelzer.

Now I will give the floor to the Honourable Denis Coderre.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

It is a great pleasure to have you both.

I understand, Professor Poelzer, that what you're basically saying is that to assume our sovereignty we must make sure we are present—and I'm not necessarily talking about defence. We need defence as a tool of respect, to put it that way. But we clearly need, first, on our own part, to raise awareness if something's going on up north. Second, I'm very interested in your points on region and nation building. So can you expand a little bit on those.

Secondly, Professor Byers, besides all the issues of defence procurement, which I agree with, let's talk a bit about the structure. Like you, I think the coast guard should be under the Department of Defence. They should keep their autonomy, of course, but for obvious reasons they would have more resources if they were under National Defence, so I would like you to talk about that.

Finally, to both of you, let's talk about monitoring, because if we're talking about illegal immigration or drug dealers or terrorism, at a certain level the coast guard said that something will be coming forth soon regarding monitoring. But what's your evaluation of what we're doing? You had some anecdotes, Professor Byers, when you talked about the RCMP doing a great job—and kudos to them—but overall, what would be your evaluation of the monitoring as a whole?

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Professor Poelzer.

[Prof. Greg Poelzer]

You bet. I'll deal with the region building question. I go back again to the Barents region, where there has been high activity over the past 10 or 20 years with the Nordic countries and with Russia in particular. That has been fairly successful.

If we look at what's going on in Canada in the same period of time, even if you look at the Arctic Council, for example, we have a reputation as a country within the circumpolar world as being great initiators of good ideas, but as a country we're very poor on follow-up. There are numerous initiatives for which we simply aren't in the game in terms of circumpolar cooperation.

In that support for indigenous participants, for example, through the Arctic Council--referencing that one again--we need to make investments in educational cooperation. If you take the University of the Arctic as one example, we haven't been particularly good at sustaining that.

It's interesting, by comparison, that under the previous government the University of the Arctic was funded at a rate of about 25¢ per northern resident. Under the current government, it's funded at about 50¢, so there is a doubling of funding, and that's appreciated, of course, for those involved in the University of the Arctic. But if you go over to a country like Norway, where they already have post-secondary educational institutions that are cooperating with Russia, and so on, they're spending anywhere from $1.60 to $1.70 per northern resident even though they already have half a dozen post-secondary institutions. So in those kinds of areas, Canada is vastly behind.

For subnational governments, again, small governments don't have the fiscal resources to engage in circumpolar cooperation. You do see that support from Nordic countries and to a certain extent from the Russian Federation as well for their subnational governments to have this kind of engagement.

So we have to step those things up--greater cooperation, of course, with Alaska and greater cooperation with Russia. The Russians are particularly important because the Russians, in terms of region building, do look to Canada. We have very similar geography.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Yes, we've noticed that.

[Prof. Greg Poelzer]

We have similar challenges that way, and we're both federal countries.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

We're a bit limited in the time, Professor Poelzer. I'm sorry about that.

Professor Byers.

[Prof. Michael Byers]

I will keep it very short, Monsieur Coderre.

First of all, you're absolutely right, I think the coast guard is an orphan in terms of the federal bureaucracy in Ottawa, and placing it underneath the umbrella of the Department of National Defence would be a good thing as long as DND understood that those essential civilian functions need to be continued too. And it's that balance that needs to be achieved. But absolutely, we should be relying on the experts in Arctic navigation to provide that policing and sovereignty assertion function in the north, and the coast guard does that very well.

In terms of monitoring, there are RCMP officers in every northern community. There are Canadian Rangers in every northern community. RADARSAT-2, our synthetic aperture radar satellite, is now in orbit providing exceptional surveillance over the Arctic. That is, of course, what it was designed to do. The Canadian Forces is building two ground stations to work with RADARSAT-2. That's an excellent initiative.

There are underwater listening devices in the Canadian Arctic. It's Ottawa's best-kept secret. And now the Department of National Defence is working to develop new technology there. This is all happening in the context of NORAD cooperation. Three years ago the Canadian government and the United States expanded the scope of NORAD to include maritime surveillance, including in the Northwest Passage, so we are working on surveillance with our American partners.

And then finally, we have some air surveillance. The Canadian Forces has Aurora long-range surveillance aircraft that are used from time to time. And I believe they are developing unmanned aerial vehicles, drones, which could also provide that visual confirmation of the kind of information that ground or satellite assets might come across.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

For my last question, I have noticed that at the political level the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defence were very vocal, to say the least, regarding the Russian exercise. It depends on where you stand. What is your evaluation of that?

[Prof. Michael Byers]

I would simply like to point out that the American four-star general in charge of NORAD was very quick to correct the Canadian Minister of Defence by pointing out that the Russian planes came nowhere close to Canadian airspace, and that “the Russians acted professionally”.

It is a bit ironic that at the same time as Russian aircraft were causing this controversy in Ottawa, the senior lawyer at the Department of Foreign Affairs was negotiating with his Russian counterpart about the possibility of Russia and Canada making a joint submission to the United Nations Commission on the limits of the continental shelf with respect to jurisdiction over the Arctic Ocean seabed. Behind the scenes there was a lot of cooperation, but of course Arctic sovereignty is a domestic political issue as much as an international one.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Next is Mr. Bachand for seven minutes.

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

I'll will be speaking in French, so you should put on your translation devices if you want to hear me.

I want to begin by thanking both of you for your very interesting presentation, even though it dealt mainly with the military side of things and with policing.

I've just returned from Norway where I was attending a meeting of the Canadian NATO Parliamentary Association. Several years ago, I raised the issue of how the opening up of the Northwest Passage would impact NATO, Europe and the Americas. I could just as easily have been speaking Chinese, as far as NATO proceedings were concerned. No one had a clue as to what I was talking about. For the past year of so, this has become a hot topic in NATO circles, hot enough to generate some discussion and studies that will continue this fall.

Five countries have staked a claim to the Arctic and four of them are NATO members. It is all well and good for NATO to hold talks, but I really don't see that it has a role to play in ensuring security and a military presence. And yet, that is the role that NATO officials seem to want the organization to play for some reason. Our future should not be left in the hands of NATO. I'd like to hear your views on this.

Obviously, Russia is often in the hot seat. Yesterday, the Finnish embassy confirmed to me that their airspace is often violated. A number of people have been caught off guard somewhat by Russia's actions. They want to cooperate with this country, but many people, primarily those from Scandinavian countries, have told us that they find it hard to stand up to Russia.

How do you feel about NATO playing a future role in the Arctic? Is this something that should be considered or would the nationalistic sentiments of each country preclude a NATO presence in the Arctic?

[Prof. Michael Byers]

I'll start with a short answer to the question before handing it over to Greg.

First of all, on the Northwest Passage, it is important to remember that the principal opponent of Canada's legal position is the United States, and both the United States and Canada are members of NATO. I believe that many European NATO members regard the situation as one that first needs to be resolved between the two North American NATO members, and then the Europeans will follow the lead. Obviously the United States has more influence in NATO than Canada does, but I do believe it is essentially a bilateral issue that is susceptible to bilateral negotiations.

Roughly a year ago, I partnered with Paul Cellucci, the former U.S. ambassador to Canada, and we conducted a model negotiation involving leading American and Canadian experts, seven from each country. We spent two days trying to discuss how the two countries could cooperate and build confidence with respect to the Northwest Passage. We were working towards an American recognition of Canada's legal position. We made an astounding amount of progress.

I would ask your committee to urge the Canadian government and our diplomats to engage proactively with our American friends. As the ice melts and the activity increases, there will be security threats to Canada and the United States alike. By far the best way to deal with those security threats is to have the full force of a domestic legal system applicable to them, the full force of a domestic immigration legal system, of criminal laws. It's fairly obvious that only one country's domestic legal system could apply to the Northwest Passage, i.e., the coastal state along the entire 3,000 kilometres of that waterway.

The final point has to do with the Nordic countries and the relationship with Russia. Although there are tensions and occasional problems, most of which originate from the Russian side, the Norwegians have managed to make considerable progress, negotiating a maritime boundary in the southern Barents Sea with Russia. They also have a complex but ongoing relationship over the Svalbard Islands and Spitsbergen. The Norwegians have learned to work with the Russians. Although I don't support the Russian government or many of its actions, I am pleased that Russia is embracing the Law of the Sea and working on international cooperation in this area.

[Prof. Greg Poelzer]

As to whether Canada should embrace NATO participation in Arctic sovereignty issues, I would say yes. But we must use caution. The Northwest Passage issue is predominantly, though not exclusively, a bilateral one. It has broader international implications, but it's best managed on a bilateral basis in cooperation with the United States. With NATO, though, it is important for Canada to have multilateral engagement. We don't want to confine ourselves to a bilateral position, and we certainly don't want to act in a unilateral fashion. I think it is important to have strength through cooperation, through institutions like NATO.

Why the caution? Why don't we take a big cue from Norway? Denmark's in a slightly different situation. Of course there's the Greenland issue, but Denmark is fundamentally a continental power, a continental country, while Norway is much more a true Arctic country. Greenland's in a different situation. I advise caution because NATO isn't just the northern allies; it's all of mainland Europe. There is an interest in Arctic resources, like fisheries. I suggest caution because European interests in the Arctic are not always going to be benign for Canadian or Norwegian interests. That's why I say that we should regard NATO's participation with approval tempered by caution.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Harris.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, both of you, for your presentations.

I was interested, Professor Byers, in your comments about the interaction between the role of the navy or the Canadian Forces and the coast guard. When we talk about activity in the north and the kinds of things that we need to do there--(a) create a presence, and (b) be able to enforce certain regulations, whether they be environmental or the immigration notions you referred to--the coast guard actually has that capability--a boarding capability, for example, through fisheries enforcement, on the east coast and west coast.

I'm interested in the question of cost. The Canadian Forces have very ambitious capital programs over the next number of years. At some point the taxpayer is going to perhaps balk at some of the costs. What would be the relative cost of providing the kinds of services that we actually need in order to show a presence, monitor activity, and enforce Canadian regulations by using the coast guard versus naval activity?

[Prof. Michael Byers]

My suggestion is that we could actually save some money by using the coast guard or developing the coast guard and having it partner with the Canadian Forces. One needs to think about this in terms of what it actually takes to provide a presence and also an interdiction capacity, because in the Northwest Passage, it's the ability to actually stop ships that will be the ultimate test of Canadian control there.

What you need for that are helicopters. You need to be able to put a handful of armed sailors onto the deck of a cargo vessel. It doesn't really matter which department actually owns the helicopter as long as the sailors get there.

The problem is that we've been draining the coast guard of resources for decades now. The helicopters on the icebreakers are old Messerschmitt helicopters that Karlheinz Schreiber helped us to buy. They have a range of only 350 kilometres, and they carry only four passengers. A Cormorant helicopter, by comparison, can fly over 1,000 kilometres without refuelling and can carry up to 30 passengers. They're serious long-range maritime helicopters. We need new helicopters for the coast guard and, ultimately, also new icebreakers to replace what is a rapidly aging fleet. The Louis S. St-Laurent is forty years old now, but we don't need this $700 million plus Cadillac of the Diefenbaker.

The other thing that people need to realize is that you can actually double-hat either Canadian Forces or Canadian Coast Guard personnel. A coast guard captain could be a naval reserve officer, just like a coast guard officer is often also double-hatted as a fisheries enforcement officer. You don't need necessarily to have dedicated, solely military personnel to fulfill a lot of these functions. You need more partnership, more focus on efficiencies, more thinking about putting multi-purpose platforms into the Arctic and focusing on what is the real need, which from a sovereignty perspective in the Northwest Passage again is being able to put those four or five sailors onto the deck of a non-compliant cargo ship, not a Russian destroyer. We're talking about a non-compliant, single-hull tanker flagged with a Liberian flag and a captain who doesn't want to comply with Canada's Arctic environmental regulations. That's the real kind of challenge we face.

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

Thank you.

My second question has to do with cost also.

Icebreaking capability is pretty important. Professor Pharand, the emeritus professor of law at the University of Ottawa, was with us. He has recently written a paper that also talks about the need for an icebreaking capability of the Terry Fox class. He points out that the Russians currently have 12 icebreakers operating, whereas we only have a couple, and that they intend to add more. Your notion of a three-for-one idea sounds very attractive if you think we could have Terry Fox class icebreakers for the cost of the Diefenbaker. Is this something that you know other people have talked about? Has that costing actually been done, to your knowledge?

[Prof. Michael Byers]

I don't know if the costing has been done precisely, but I've certainly asked many people, including the coast guard, what it would take to provide these kinds of vessels.

One of the issues—and you'll will be very sensitive to this as someone from the Atlantic provinces—is whether we build these ships in Canada or whether we buy them off the shelf abroad. It will cost more and take longer to build them in Canada than it would be to buy them from Finland or from South Korea. That then gets into issues of timelines and priorities and the sense of urgency that we feel. Balance that against the fact that shipbuilding might be a very sensible part of an economic stimulus package.

These are issues that you and your colleagues will have to think hard about. But we don't need a Cadillac icebreaker like the Diefenbaker being built today, although I sure wish we had built the Polar 8 back in the 1980s, which, had it been built, would have been at the peak of its performance right now and would have given us that 12-month-a-year capacity throughout the Arctic archipelago. That would have made a very strong statement about our seriousness concerning Arctic sovereignty.

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

If I have time for one final question—and both of you may have a comment on this—what would you regard as the biggest threat to Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic? Are we talking about non-state actors or are we talking about state actors?

[Prof. Michael Byers]

Very briefly, before Greg jumps in, non-state actors absolutely. Probably the greatest threat to Canadian sovereignty is a non-state actor, a private commercial ship deciding to run through the Northwest Passage without permission, because it does not comply with Canada's environmental laws, and then our having to grapple with whether or not we interdict a vessel, causing an international controversy and probably many diplomatic protests, or let the vessel sail through.

That could happen this summer.