National Defence Committee on Nov. 22nd, 2017

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Mr. Chair, thank you very much.

Thank you to all three of you for being back in front of the committee.

I would like to direct my questions primarily to Dr. Byers and Dr. Charron. There are two themes I would like to explore, one being Russia and the other being post-conflict reconstruction. This committee has heard extensive evidence, and has in fact visited Ukraine, on the Russia-Ukraine crisis and the impacts on Europe and Canada. On the other side of that equation we have Russia as a player in the Arctic. It's the same Russia. It's the same leadership, with probably different personalities, conducting diplomacy, negotiating, and defence assessments.

How do you see the Canada-Russia axis, vis-à-vis the Arctic, line up with the current conflict in the Donbass region—or stand in conflict with; not necessarily line up with, but conflict with?

[Dr. Michael Byers]

I'll start by simply saying that we can walk and chew gum at the same time. The world is a very complex place. There are many theatres where we continue to co-operate with Russia. Western Europe this winter will be importing massive amounts of Russian natural gas to heat homes across western Europe in NATO countries. We co-operate on search and rescue on all of Russia's borders with NATO countries—for instance, the United States in the Bering Sea and Bering Strait; a very tight relationship.

We're in a very complex world with lots of interdependence, and when a country misbehaves as egregiously as Russia did, we take strong measures against it, including quite significant targeted sanctions. But that doesn't mean we're at war with Russia. It means we are managing the relationship—expressing disapproval, exerting punishment, but wanting to work together where we can and to get the relationship back onto an even keel.

Full points to former Foreign Minister Stéphane Dion for initiating an effort at rapprochement with Russia in the Arctic last year. I think that was a positive step forward. It was made in the context of your government being quite firm with regard to Crimea and Russia's behaviour in eastern Ukraine. Again, you can walk and chew gum at the same time.

My simple message with regard to Russia is don't be naive. This is a country that seeks to weaken NATO and NATO countries like Canada, that will seek to divide us. Our response should be to be firm, to be mature, and to engage in constant diplomacy to try to steer that country back to a better place. It's never easy. But this is why we have such an amazing foreign service and this is why we have such amazing armed forces, to give us tools to engage in this complex and indeed absolutely vital game.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Thanks very much.

Dr. Charron, I'd like to get your views on the same question.

[Dr. Andrea Charron]

They're very similar. I think any time we have an opportunity to continue to engage with Russia in positive areas we should continue to do that. The whole purpose of our engagement with Russia in the Arctic is first and foremost to improve the lives of northerners. We don't want to punish them for the sake of other geopolitical issues. That just doesn't make sense.

I agree that we can have many different lines of our foreign policy. We sanction for some activities. We encourage participation in others. That's not at all inconsistent. That is the art of diplomacy.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Thanks very much for that.

I'll go to my second theme. We had interesting and very compelling testimony in front of the committee just the other day on the role of post-conflict reconstruction and the division of labour that exists across international organizations, NATO, the UN, the OSCE, with respect to the kinetic dimension of conflicts, the interposition of armed forces when required, and to do the hard work afterwards in post-conflict reconstruction.

We still have a looming...I don't want to call it a doctrine, but a looming philosophy, if you will, that we don't nation-build, and yet in so many conflicts nation-building is done and it's actually crucial so we don't get second, third, and fourth iterations of conflict in the same geographic region.

Where to do you see post-conflict reconstruction as a theme for NATO? How should NATO position itself to not necessarily do that work but to have the linkages to folks who do this work well and to think whole-of-government as NATO member states but also whole-of-conflict through successful resolution?

[Dr. Michael Byers]

Just very quickly, I think this was Ms. Mason's point five years ago in her testimony that was questioned. Sometimes NATO can be quite useful in providing a hard edge to a post-conflict situation where there still is a need for enforcement or where peacemaking is necessary. Then there's a really big role for organizations like the United Nations, which can actually do a lot of the important post-conflict work at far less cost and with more experience.

We've seen this, for instance, in Afghanistan, where you had the United Nations and NATO working side by side for years to try to manage those different objectives. We shouldn't be exclusive about this. We should be supporting both those organizations and others. Canada should be engaged in UN peacekeeping and we should be an active part of NATO. There's no contradiction whatsoever.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Mr. Chair, do I have any time left?

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

You're actually over time.

Mr. Yurdiga.

[David Yurdiga, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for participating in our NATO study. It's a very important study and it's complex.

My first set of questions will go to Andrea Charron. Given that there have been increasing tensions between interested nations with regard to Arctic sovereignty, what role should NATO play and what are the consequences and potential future outlook of the increasing militarization of the Arctic by all parties?

[Dr. Andrea Charron]

I guess my first question is about which states in particular have disagreements about Arctic sovereignty. That would be my first question. We have quite a few processes to determine things like outstanding maritime boundary limits. I think you might be referring to the extension of the continental shelves. There's a process that the states are all following. Nobody is saying that Canada's Arctic isn't Canadian and that the U.S. Arctic isn't theirs. We may have quibbles at the margins, or issues about the rules we've set within those territories, but that doesn't mean that sovereignty disappears. I guess I just need a little more clarification.

In terms of what NATO does, well, that's not NATO's role at all. There are UN treaties and rules, regulations, and processes that are the ones to be followed, not NATO ones.

[David Yurdiga, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Maybe I'll clarify. We see the militarization of the Arctic. If Russia does one thing and then we do one thing, whose responsibility is it to ensure that militarization of the Arctic doesn't happen? We see it happening now.

[Dr. Andrea Charron]

Again, I don't know that we're necessarily seeing that, especially when it comes to the Canadian context. For example, one of the things we're waiting to come online are the Arctic offshore patrol vessels, but those are going to be a whole-of-government platform that happens to be piloted by the navy but will have the RCMP and Environment Canada, etc. To me, that isn't the militarization of the Arctic.

I think what we're seeing, though, is that defence, security, and safety used to be stovepipes before. The military did defence, the RCMP did security, and ambulances and local police did safety. We're now seeing that along a continuum. It is such a complex environment in the Arctic. Militaries do, for example, have that air force lift that we often need to get equipment there, so we are involving them. That doesn't necessarily mean we're seeing militarization, though, especially in the Canadian Arctic.

[David Yurdiga, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thank you.

Next, NATO has entered a dangerous decade with Russia, in my opinion. Is it possible to solve or mitigate the Russia-NATO-western Europe relationship after the Ukraine invasion? It's very concerning. How far will Russia push the envelope, and how will NATO respond?

[Dr. Andrea Charron]

Well, I hope they respond as they are—very cautiously. We're staying within our mandate. We are there to support especially our NATO allies that are bordering or are coming close to Russia, but it's not just for NATO to fix. As you know, we have sanctions against Russia, as does the EU and as do other states, so it's not for NATO to fix. This is going to be a multilateral, multi-organization, multi-state affair. Hopefully, we're all going to turn to diplomacy discussions before we start suggesting that we actually need to use force.

[David Yurdiga, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

As the second part to that, how should the UN be involved in this conflict? I know they have a certain role, but what role should they play going forward?

[Dr. Andrea Charron]

It's always difficult, of course, because Russia is one of the permanent members and has a veto, so they're going to ensure that action against Russia isn't taken via the UN Security Council. This is why the United Nations is so important, because we have something called a General Assembly, where all member states meet, and there can be sidebar conversations. I think all we can do is encourage conversations rather than drawing necessarily hard lines in the sand and saying that this is now where NATO takes over.

[David Yurdiga, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

How much time do I have left, Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

You're at five minutes exactly.

I'll turn the floor over to Mr. Robillard.

[Yves Robillard, Liberal, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank the witnesses for being here today. I have to say that I will be asking my questions in French.

At our committee's last meeting, a witness told us that, in looking at the situation in the Arctic, we have to analyze Russia's actions from a different point of view than the conflict in Ukraine.

Ms. Charron and Mr. Byers, do you agree with that? Should we view the Arctic region through a special lens or rather make a unilateral assessment of Russia and its actions?

[Dr. Michael Byers]

I'll start simply by saying that, once again, the Arctic is a very, very large region. Russia has roughly half of the Arctic to itself, unquestionably, under international law, because it is the largest country in the world and has a very extensive Arctic coastline. Most of what we see in terms of the so-called military buildup by Russia in the Arctic is a response to the fact that the ice is melting and the northern sea route along the Arctic coast of Russia is becoming accessible to foreign shipping. There were seven foreign cargo ships that sailed through the northern sea route last summer, so Russia is building up its constabulary capability, its search and rescue capability, in the Russian Arctic.

Complicating matters also is the fact that Russia's northern fleet is based on the Kola Peninsula near Murmansk, and those nuclear-armed submarines are coming out of the Russian Arctic to access the Atlantic Ocean and other oceans. Whether that's an Arctic buildup or a global buildup is a very difficult question to answer. Russia saw its military not collapse but degrade very substantially in the 1990s, and is now investing and starting to build it back to capabilities that it had before. Again, I'm not naive about Russia, but it's important to understand this context.

The Canadian Arctic is a long way away from the Russian Arctic. There's an ocean in between, a very hostile ocean. Russia doesn't want our Arctic. It has more than enough to itself. This is not a sphere where any rational Russian actor would say that they need to ramp up their security posture. They're not interested in the Canadian Arctic. We're not interested in their Arctic. We have a bit of a luxury here. We're not like Norway. We're not right next door.

My simple answer to your question is that you can be very concerned about Russia's behaviour in other parts of the world, but in the Arctic there is no urgency, and certainly no reason for us to be spending billions of dollars to respond to a threat that is not there.

[Yves Robillard, Liberal, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Ms. Charron, do you agree with that statement?

[Dr. Andrea Charron]

Yes, I agree. We should continue discussing the Arctic with Russia.

Russia has been very productive in the Arctic. We have a lot of agreements. We need them for search and rescue. Yes, as I think Dr. Byers was trying to say, we have to trust and verify when it comes to the Arctic. So long as it's productive, so long as it's always following international law, that should be encouraged and should continue. It's the Russian near abroad and Europe right now where Russia is focusing its aggression.

[Yves Robillard, Liberal, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Merci.

I will now give the rest of my time to Mr. Gerretsen.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

I just have a quick question for Ms. Charron.

You had previously written in, and you've been talking today, about the NATO exercises in the Arctic, that you don't see them as being prudent right now given the tensions with Russia. Can you comment as to when you would see those being prudent? At what point would those be warranted?

[Dr. Andrea Charron]

I said I don't want NATO exercises in “Canada's” Arctic. That would not be prudent.