National Defence Committee on June 3rd, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you very much, Mr. Fortier.

Now I must give the floor to Mr. Harris.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thanks, both of you, for your excellent presentations.

I guess I could say that I'm hearing from both of you a sense of urgency about certain matters. If I may paraphrase not only your evidence, but that of others, we don't really have a lot to worry about with respect to the land issues or even the continental shelf issues. It's a matter of doing the homework, of getting the data together. I don't know if you mentioned this outright, but the issue of the Americans in terms of the boundary is something that's manageable and perhaps should be settled, but there is still some uncertainty about the Northwest Passage.

We were told by Professor Byers that we ought to be ready to deal with possible issues as early as next summer because of the rapidly changing patterns in the extent of summer sea ice. I also want to bring to your attention the fact that Professor Pharand has referred us to a paper of his in which he has 12 things that Canada ought to do--and you've mentioned some of them, Professor Fortier--not to be pushy about our position on the Northwest Passage, but to bolster our claim by action in terms of navigation, making NORDREG mandatory, and some of the things you have suggested, such as having additional radar capacity, etc.

Concerning the sense of urgency that I'm sensing from you and the issues that need to be dealt with, how can we deal with something as early as next year if we're talking about a ship that seeks to go through the Northwest Passage, not respect Canada's issue of sovereignty, and not want to comply with our navigation and our Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act, for example?

[Prof. Whitney Lackenbauer]

Again, we have commentaries from Michael Byers and Rob Hubert, who are always coming up with worst-case scenarios. This is what they thrive on. The media absolutely love it.

I'm not sure what evidence there is or what the probability is that we're going to have some sort of foreign incursion that's going to seek to undermine us next year. In terms of investing in capabilities, I think we're both certainly making the case to say that things are needed.

In terms of the need to bolster our claim by action, I really appreciate the question and the tenor of the question. Part of my concern is that individuals like Michael Byers are always talking about our claims. This isn't about our claims; it's about our sovereignty. We do possess sovereignty in this region and we're out to exercise it in various ways. NORDREG is a step that the government has proposed to take.

I'm perhaps more cautious than others in suggesting that there is a downside to making NORDREG mandatory, in that foreign nations, once we declare it mandatory, will come to us and say, “Here's a letter of protest because we don't agree with you.” They haven't done that to date. The more of those protest letters we have building up over time, the less we can say that there's been foreign acquiescence to our claims, and that's partly served by just lying low on these things.

So there's a downside. Assertiveness may be appropriate in some situations, I guess. I'm not sure the threat is so acute that we need to be worried about what's going to happen as early as next summer. I think that's perhaps getting overly alarmist. As for having the steps in place, certainly there have been a lot of suggestions about what we might do.

[Prof. Louis Fortier]

I concur with Whitney that it's not in the next year that there's urgency, but in 10 years from now, we have to be ready to control increased traffic, increased oil spill problems, whatever. Offshore exploration for oil and gas is developing. There are going to be issues of transporting the crude oil, if we find any. The traffic is likely to increase--at least the national traffic, maybe not the intercontinental traffic--in the next 10 years and to build the capacity is going to take 7 to 10 years. The urgency is that the decisions will be taken now.

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

Mr. Fortier, you talked about the cooperation and the role of DND versus the coast guard. One of the suggestions made was that these two agencies could work together in certain ways, but you could also have some sort of cross-fertilization whereby you could have the coast guard officers and members of the reserve trained with certain capabilities. The coast guard vessels could be armed, helicopter support could be increased, etc.

So there could be an integrated role if we're dealing with somebody threatening to.... I'm talking about a commercial vessel now. You could board a ship from a coast guard vessel, which they do in fisheries enforcement in the Atlantic and the Pacific. Is that something you would see, that kind of more integrated relationship between the coast guard and the military? That would probably be cheaper than all these armed patrol vessels, etc. Is that something you see as feasible in the Canadian context?

[Prof. Louis Fortier]

Absolutely. This is exactly the way I see it. We don't need to militarize the Arctic at this stage. We're not looking for an invasion tomorrow or whatever. In my mind, it's important at this stage to combine the expertise of the coast guard and the expertise of DND to bring our military capability in the Arctic up to speed and to bring it up to the conditions there.

I'll give you an example. We were talking about those choking points where we could install listening devices to know what kind of submarine or underwater traffic is taking place. At this time, there is some development in Gascoyne Inlet in Lancaster Sound, and the coast guard is providing DND with support for that deployment. DND couldn't do it themselves, because they need to have access to the sea, the offshore working capability, which only the coast guard can provide them with at this time.

There are all kinds of examples like that. Whatever we develop with DND in the Arctic, it should be meshed with the expertise of the coast guard. I wouldn't go as far as to say that the coast guard should become integrated into DND, though, because if you look at the American coast guard, which is integrated into the army, the result is not very satisfactory.

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

In what way? Could you elaborate on that?

[Prof. Louis Fortier]

From our point of view, to support research, for example, the American icebreakers are managed by the army, and the conditions are terrible for doing research. They're terrible to do support for other things, too, so I think it should be kept—

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you very much, Mr. Fortier.

Thank you, Mr. Harris.

I will now give the floor to Mr. Hawn.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you both for being here.

I have a couple of questions, and then I will hand it off to Mr. Boughen.

Professor Fortier, you mentioned the importance of resource development and so on in the north. A couple of days ago, Professor Byers made the statement that he didn't think any resource development would happen for a hundred years. Do you share that view or do you think it's going to happen a little bit sooner than that?

[Prof. Louis Fortier]

I'm afraid I don't share Michael's opinion. He's a good colleague of mine. Just recently, for example, the government sold six claims in the Beaufort Sea offshore near the continental shelf edge, for a value of $2 billion. I think there will be some exploration, at least for the next 10 years, and not only in the Beaufort Sea. I think the exploration will move also to Baffin Bay and to some regions of the archipelago. Nobody can say what resources will be found, but for the next 10 years at least, there's going to be more intense exploration.

Then, if reserves or deposits are found there, for the next 30 years there's going to be some exploitation. It will not be the new Saudi Arabia, but there are very good chances that they will find something there.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

You seem to extoll the virtues of the Diefenbaker, the heavy icebreaker. Obviously we can afford one, or a limited number. Can you confirm your opinion of the capability and the requirement? Would you see it operating as part of an allied fleet of icebreakers along with the Americans and others up there?

[Prof. Louis Fortier]

We could. From a military point of view, I think it would be a good thing. But from a logistic point of view, from the point of view of taking action, I suppose, if a plane falls into that 400 km by 400 km patch, we don't even know what's happening. We have absolutely no clue on what's going on in the central archipelago. If we need to deploy forces there quickly, or assistance or search and rescue operations, at this time there's nothing we can do.

There's very little we can do in the winter months. In the summer months, the situation is better, but we absolutely need to have a Canadian capacity to do it. We shouldn't rely on our allies for that aspect.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

So you're saying we need a ship like the Diefenbaker.

[Prof. Louis Fortier]

We absolutely do need a ship like the Diefenbaker. My opinion is that we need two of them. With that infrastructure, if you have only one, most of the time it's going to be idle because it will be broken. If you have two, for some reason they work much better, and you get much more service out of them.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

For Mr. Lackenbauer, I have a couple of points. More than half of the Rangers are south of 60, and more than half of the Rangers are not Inuit.

[Prof. Whitney Lackenbauer]

Certainly, there has been a lot of misapprehension. First of all, we had Pierre Leblanc mention that the Rangers are a program. They're certainly not a program; they're an element of the Canadian Forces reserve. I was including Nunavik, which actually technically would push the numbers, yes, to about 45% located in one Canadian—

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Yes, I'm not trying to split hairs, but just to say that the Rangers have a significant presence south of 60 and a significant white element—

[Prof. Whitney Lackenbauer]

I think what is interesting is that the plans for expansion are promoting bringing the Rangers up to 5,000. This was a number that was talked about in the late 1940s when the Rangers were first created. It has never been realized historically. Most of that growth, I presume, based upon demographics, is actually going to occur south of 60, so to me, packaging Ranger enhancement and expansion as an Arctic sovereignty instrument is setting up expectations that, again, I'm worried may set the Rangers up to fail. These communities are already contributing in far greater numbers than southern Canadian communities are.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Yes. “Northern” rather than “Arctic” might be a better word--

[Prof. Whitney Lackenbauer]

And isolated communities--

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Yes.

[Prof. Whitney Lackenbauer]

Certainly along the British Columbia coast and in Newfoundland, there are a lot of Rangers serving very proudly.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Yes. Thank you very much.

I'll turn it over to Mr. Boughen now.

[Ray Boughen, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Gentlemen, let me extend my welcome to you, as my colleagues did, for sharing part of your afternoon with us. We appreciate it.

We hear different positions from different witnesses. I have a general question that I would like to hear your response to, either one or both of you.

We have people talking about submarines. We scramble some jets to intercept some bombers. We talk about the 200-mile shelf. We talk about icebreakers. We talk about the involvement of the U.S. and Norway.

Are we at that stage of development where we should, as the country of Canada, host these folks for some kind of discussion in terms of what should happen and who should do what? Should we partner with each other on icebreakers? Should we partner with each other in communications and exploration under the sea and on top of the sea? Are we at that point where we can say that there is a new frontier we can develop properly, both environmentally properly and financially properly? Are we there or are we still a ways back from that position?