National Defence Committee on June 10th, 2009

[Dr. Robert Huebert]

The American document makes it very clear that the Americans have recognized in the last ten years that their Arctic goes beyond Alaska. One of the big criticisms of American Arctic policy is that it has tended to be very parochial and to focus on just Alaskan events.

First and foremost, the Americans say the Arctic is changing, and changing in a manner that makes the circumpolar nature of it that much more important. The negative part of the document is that they have highlighted every single criticism they have of Canada. They talk about every single dispute, but they have failed to talk about the areas in which we cooperate. They say the number one priority is Arctic security, and then they criticize us for our position on the Northwest Passage, criticize us on the Beaufort Sea, and refuse to say anything about NORAD. NORAD is the critical point of air and aerospace Arctic security for the North American continent.

What this says to me is that it's good that the Americans are starting to think about it, but in typical fashion, they are not getting the full picture. They're tending to take it somewhat from a Washington-only orientation.

The one positive thing, which I would also add, is that they hold out the possibility that they will look for multilateral solutions. That seems to be a little bit of an olive branch being handed out. Whether it was just added for niceties or whether they are serious about it, I don't know at this point in time.

As for any negotiations, unfortunately it's very difficult to find for certain exactly where we are in talking with the Americans on this. Both the State Department and DFAIT tend to hold that quite close to their chest and don't tend to want to share it with academics.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

So that's something that's going to have to be worked out between the two countries.

Here is a quick question. You mentioned that we need those ships and submarines, but also monitoring. I think you've insisted on the fact that it is important to be able to know who comes into our waters. Would you say that they are on an equal level in all this monitoring of the Canadian Arctic?

[Dr. Robert Huebert]

Enforcement means nothing, if you don't know who's coming. Let me add that when I say monitoring, it's not simply of what ships are coming but of what people are doing. We also—this is of critical importance—need to know the environmental monitoring, because that is going to be one of the critical points.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you.

Mr. Bagnell, go ahead please.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Given the 90,000 flights around the pole and tens of thousands of cruise ship passengers and increased activity of locals because of the open waters, do you have any comment on our dismal search and rescue capabilities north of 60, especially considering that we go to these international meetings and say we'll help out internationally, when we can't even cover our own Arctic?

[Dr. Robert Huebert]

The search and rescue issue is one of the critical points we have to be dealing with much more seriously. We've been lucky. We have had cruise vessels actually go up on the rocks. We had the Hanseatic beach off Cambridge Bay in the mid-1990s. Fortunately, she did not sink. She did not turn over. And basically, I don't think we learned the right lessons in that context.

We're not going to be able to do it by ourselves. This is where we have to have industry involved in these negotiations. We need to have the territories involved. This is one that needs to be improved, but it truly has to be an all-of-Canada response—not an all-of-Canada government response--for us to be able to respond to the type of crisis we inevitably will have in the Arctic region.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

When we extended our boundaries from 100 miles to 200 miles for the enforcement of the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act, one of the legal defences we gave for our ability to do that was the Canada clause in UNCLOS that covers ice-covered waters. Given that they're not going to be ice-covered shortly, will our defence still hold up?

[Dr. Robert Huebert]

Well, this is one way international law tends to work in our favour. Basically, once the law is written, everything stops. I mean, international lawyers have a little bit of this conceit that when they have figured the problem out, that basically stops time. I'm being a little bit facetious here, being married to a lawyer.

The reality is that the Canadian Arctic will remain the major ice cover for probably the foreseeable future. As the ice cap itself breaks up and melts, that ice is going to end up in the archipelago, basically because of the Beaufort gyro and the effect of Greenland. So we probably will be able to make our arguments and then have them supported in that regard, in my view.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

During the hearings on that bill at the transport committee, I think you remember that one witness said that we have one plane to cover the Arctic Ocean, one plane to cover the Pacific, and one plane to cover the Atlantic. Do you think that's enough air surveillance?

[Dr. Robert Huebert]

Well, of course that was a bit of a gross exaggeration.

In terms of surveillance, the biggest problem we have is that because we have had limited capabilities, we don't know how bad the problem is right now. For example, there are allegations that in the Davis Strait both the Greenlanders and the Faeroese come over and as a habit illegally fish on the Canadian side of the delimitation line. We don't know for certain, because we don't have that baseline. This is where, once again, it gets to the issue of the capability we need before we can even get into the fact that we need to protect a new fish stock. We need to protect a new livelihood in that context.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you.

Mr. Boughen, go ahead, please.

[Ray Boughen, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

Dr. Huebert, let me add my voice to welcome you this afternoon in thanking you for taking the time to visit with us.

In your presentation, I think I heard you say that we'll have to defend our place in the Arctic. I'm wondering whether that means a strong military presence. Is that our defence? How do you view that?

[Dr. Robert Huebert]

I believe we need to defend it by cooperative means. In other words, one of the best ways of defending what we need to have happen is to ensure that our neighbours are on the same page. You can enter into an international agreement to defend Canadian interests. That is the best of all solutions.

Failing that, we then have to have the ability to defend our view, our environmental standards, and our view in terms of the role of the Inuit. That all comes into government capability.

The third element is that if push comes to shove--if we have somebody who ultimately strongly disagrees and is willing to engage against us--we have to have the ability to push back, or our claims mean nothing.

[Ray Boughen, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

That leads me to my next question, which is whether we are at a point at which we should start to discuss this with Norway and the U.S. and others through NATO. Should we on our own start a program and start to discuss, debate, and have dialogue and see where we're going before we get to armaments and guns firing at each other?

[Dr. Robert Huebert]

That's easy. Yes. The reality is that it's restarting. We started these negotiations with all the countries. Once again, this is bipartisan. I give credit to both sides. It has been supported by the NDP. I haven't been able to find a Bloc position on the Arctic Council.

The Arctic Council was a means by which, from an international perspective, we were trying to deal with these issues in a period of time when the Russians were amenable, I think, or much more amenable, to these types of issues. Now, having failed to really push the Arctic Council, do we now reinvigorate that process? Absolutely.

[Ray Boughen, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Monsieur Payne.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you for coming, Mr. Huebert. It was nice chatting with you earlier.

I have just a couple of things in terms of surveillance. We heard several times that we should probably have more satellite surveillance, which would help us with submarines and a number of other things. Is this one of the things that you believe we need?

[Dr. Robert Huebert]

Just so that I'm perfectly clear, for the submarines you have to have increased underwater acoustic capabilities. We're not at the stage where satellites can do it yet--but yes, for the overall picture, absolutely.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

During the committee meetings we've heard testimony from various other individuals on the risks in the Arctic, such as from smugglers, terrorists, and so on. Do you think those are the challenges that will come from those kinds of individuals, non-states, or from normal states?

[Dr. Robert Huebert]

There are two categories of risk. There is first of all the ones that are high probability, low impact--the type of company, for example, that says, “I have a ship that's pretty substandard. I'm still able to get insurance for it, and I'm going to take a quick run through the Northwest Passage to save a little bit of money.” That is the type of thing Suzanne Lalonde had talked to the committee about. In my view, that has something of an element of higher probability. Ultimately, it's not as risky as say a terrorist infiltration.

Terrorists and organized crime has a much higher impact and lower probability, but it is still possible. We already have strong suspicions that organized crime did enter the north when the diamond industry opened up. It has never been proven conclusively, but in every other country diamonds and organized crime go hand in hand, so we have strong suspicions in that regard already.

In terms of terrorists, the logic of terrorism is that you look for weak points of entry. Right now the Arctic, because of the climate, is difficult to enter, but if it becomes more accessible and our southern borders are increased, it is only logical to expect that if you wanted to have entry you would go through the north. But once again, that's not talking about the immediate. You're talking more immediate to long term.

Do I foresee this as a spectrum? Absolutely. Are you saying high probability and high impact? Absolutely, in the long term.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Are there some ways we should address those issues specifically?

[Dr. Robert Huebert]

Basically, on each of the individual issues.... For example, with organized crime, you ensure that the RCMP is able to cooperate with those individuals who have had experience, let's say, with organized crime in diamonds. You ensure that you are able to monitor. It is an individual, almost issue-by-issue capability that you need. But I do think there is a need at the highest level to monitor to make sure that we do not make inadvertent cost cuts in terms of an economic crisis and all of a sudden we have to cut the RCMP's overall budget, without realizing that if we do that the piece of enforcement against organized crime collapses. There needs to be, almost from a government perspective, some surveillance.

The issue is that incremental cuts are going to hurt our ability to enforce. That's what's happened in the past.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

I have just one more thing concerning surveillance, which I'm not sure anyone here has touched on today, and that is the Arctic Rangers. What are your thoughts around those individuals?

[Dr. Robert Huebert]

They are an amazing group, to be honest. With the type of traditional knowledge they give, the ability they have, the manner in which they can train our forces is excellent.

I think we are going in the right direction, and this started as early as around 1994, when we started beefing up the capabilities with better training, taking it more seriously. This is the way to go.

The problem we will face with them, however, is a capacity issue. Pretty well everybody who wants to be a ranger almost is at that stage, and, given the size of the community, we are going to have a problem if we try to expand it beyond what individuals are willing to come. That is going to be a really difficult issue for us to face.