National Defence Committee on Oct. 25th, 2022

[Dr. Justin Massie]

I agree that Canada has been grossly underinvesting in drones. We can see how these drones have been proving useful in the war in Ukraine right now, with the Iranian drones provided to Russia being deployed in swarms. Canada is also underinvesting in other aspects of this capacity, i.e., air defence against surveillance and strike drones that are being used by the Russians and other foreign powers.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you.

Ms. Normandin, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you to all the witnesses.

My first question is for Professor Massie and Professor Kimball.

Both of you have stated that it is important to protect our exclusive economic zones as well as our inland waters, and that the increase in marine traffic is a threat. I would like to know what you have to say about our military defence capacity in these waters when, from a political standpoint, it is not clearly recognized that they belong to Canada. I am referring to the United States, which doesn't necessarily recognize all of our inland waters.

Can we make a distinction between the recognition of these zones on a political level and the military capacity to protect them?

[Dr. Justin Massie]

To my mind, these are not two distinct issues. If certain zones are considered inland waters, we have the duty to protect all vessels that are present there. If vessels do not ask for our permission to come into those zones, we have to intercept them. In order to be able to do so, we need some sort of constabulary force.

Obviously, this is not the position of the United States, which is the biggest world power and our main ally. Marine traffic has been increasing for 25 years, and nothing leads us to believe that it is going to decrease in the coming years. If there is a conflict about this issue, that will create tension. If Canada wishes to have the unilateral power to intercept and detect vessels in this region, whether they be commercial or military, and needs that capacity, but the American fleet wants to navigate in those waters without asking the authorization of the Canadian Forces, that will create major disputes. Whatever our capacity is, will we use it against our main ally? That question is in itself the answer.

[Prof. Anessa Kimball]

I think that even if there is sometimes tension with the Americans, we get along enough to say that we don't agree on all aspects of this issue. We can count on our allies to make sure that the shipping lanes are open to cargo boats.

We also have to remember that Canada is a member of NORAD, the bi‑national command. We have access to information that allows us to know who is navigating in our marine zones.

I guess the most important thing to know is what we would do if a rival country or another actor wanted to access these zones and we didn't want them to. That scenario is probably more intriguing than a possible dispute between Canada and the United States.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you very much.

I have another question for Professor Massie.

You said there were gaps, and that we need to look at funding to replace our submarines. As everyone knows, we don't have any nuclear submarines and our ice breakers don't really break ice. Some people even call them “slush breakers”. All of this makes us a bit more vulnerable during the colder months.

Last week, we heard representatives from the armed forces high command, and I asked them if we were more vulnerable in winter compared to other countries who have nuclear submarines, for example. I was told that given the increase in marine traffic and the worsening climate crisis, the important thing is not necessarily to have the same materiel, but to be able to detect the presence of others, by using satellites, for example.

Do you think that is the wrong message to send when we are trying to be cognizant of current risks?

[Dr. Justin Massie]

I think we have to look at this issue based on timelines. In the short term, the Canadian Arctic will essentially remain much colder than the European Arctic, for example. Therefore, navigational capacities are lesser and the season is much shorter than in other regions, such as the Arctic zone above Russia. Consequently, Canada's current limited capacity is indeed a problem, but it is not a terrifying one. In 10 years' time, however, that won't be the case.

Let's go back to the issue of marine traffic. A problem will crop up when Chinese vessels will want to come to our region, claiming to carry out scientific research, and American interests will collide with Canada's. The United States considers that it is an international passage, because they have a vested interest in the Malacca Straits and other areas. It would be in their interest to consider these zones as Canadian waters when there is a foreign threat. That, however, would call into question their geostrategic position as a whole. Therein lies the dilemma.

I think this dilemma will become much more apparent in a few years. That said, as I mentioned in my statement, the time is now to make the necessary purchases in order to have the required materiel in 10 or 15 years. As we know, even if Canada would like to be able to react in crisis situations, it will take an enormous amount of time before it makes the necessary acquisitions. You just can't snap your fingers and buy some ice breakers or underwater drones. This is obvious right now, given our inability to provide the necessary weapons to Ukrainians so that they can defend themselves against the Russians.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

So a short-term vision can really cause problems, given the current context.

Thank you very much, Mr. Massie.

Professor Kimball, you spoke about the possibility that Finland and Sweden will join NATO and the repercussions that would have in the Arctic. Please tell us more.

[Prof. Anessa Kimball]

Given the current crisis in Ukraine, Sweden is carrying out numerous patrols in the Arctic. This partner has terrific air traffic surveillance capabilities. There are good reasons to believe that these two states could work together in the North and in the Arctic.

NATO is looking more and more at what is going on in the Arctic. In its last strategic concept document, there was a section on the Arctic, and another one on China. That shows that in NATO's eyes, there are currently short and medium-term threats in certain regions that it didn't concern itself with before.

The two states that I mentioned also have conventional capacities in the Arctic, should it ever become necessary to use them, but they also have an excellent marine capacity. Canada should have more discussions with these new partners if it ever finds itself in difficulty.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

We're going to have to leave it there.

Thank you, Ms. Normandin.

Ms. Mathyssen, go ahead for six minutes, please.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

To expand on those thoughts, both of you, Professor Kimball and Professor Massie, talked about the multilateral approach. You mentioned the Arctic Council of course, and NATO, and there's also NORAD.

How is Canada doing in terms of using those multilateral organizations to ultimately avoid the push forward in terms of the aggression we're seeing in the world, and what should we be doing differently within those organizations or others that you would like to mention?

Maybe Professor Kimball could go first, and then Professor Massie.

[Prof. Anessa Kimball]

Yes. I would say one of the things that are very important at this juncture is thinking about what Canada is going to invest in when it does NORAD modernization. In the past there was more logic to having fixed locations. Probably the future is going to involve thinking about some of these things in a more mobile sense. This will give Canada more flexibility with its capacities.

Also, it will involve thinking about how strategic defence and monitoring and all of that—the scene between NATO and NORAD and ensuring that there is better.... For what it's worth, Canada participates in these two different systems. The NATO system is somewhat under the umbrella of the United States, which provides and then diffuses most of the information, whereas with NORAD Canada is at the table, but then at one moment it would step away.

In some senses, then, some reflection needs to be done with respect to Canada in terms of what that's going to mean in the modernization piece in the future.

[Dr. Justin Massie]

I would add that from Canada's point of view, it is a good follower in NATO. Its strategic objective is to contribute more than it is to have any meaningful impact, I think, politically or strategically.

We've seen this in the desire simply to have a seat at the table instead of having any concrete impact with respect to its own national interest.

We see that in the limited capacity to send weapons to Ukrainians and in how we say we need to keep those in case there's a war against Russia. Russia is actually fighting that war currently in Ukraine, so that doesn't make sense to me.

We see it also with the inclusion of two new partners in NATO, Finland and Sweden, and the limited willingness to engage with these two towards developing greater partnerships. Because the deterrence of the Russian military in the Arctic will be mostly, I think, occurring in the attached region of the European Arctic, rather than in the Canadian Arctic in the short term, I think Canada needs to have that focus in mind as well. We could be much more proactive.

We also see this with its limited willingness to have any NATO involvement in the Canadian Arctic, vetoing the new NATO strategic concept and the fact that it doesn't even want to mention the Arctic in its strategic concept. I think there's a willingness to keep that just as a bilateral relationship with the United States, which I think limits Canada's capacity to engage multilaterally or bilaterally with other countries. I think that's a problem given the increasing unreliability of our southern neighbour with the coming presidential election in 2024.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

In order for Canada to have that bigger influence at all these tables.... Certainly I understand that point about being a follower and not a leader, but Canada was once a leader in different ways, such as in terms of peacekeeping.

We haven't put as many funds and we certainly haven't met our obligations in terms of peacekeeping at the UN level. Is that something that Canada could change as a policy directive in order to have a different kind of influence at that multilateral level?

Professor Massie.

[Dr. Justin Massie]

I don't think we have the capacity to re-engage in UN peace operations, that's for sure. If you look at the order of priority, defending Canada should come first. It never has, because we wanted, rather, to contribute to international security through NATO operations since its beginning in the late 1990s, and we just dismissed UN peace operations afterwards.

With the doubling of the capacity that we need to deploy to Latvia in the next three years and the shortage of personnel that we discussed before, I don't think it's even possible for us to have concurrent operations elsewhere in the world, given that we have to invest in resources—the equipment and personnel—just to defend our country. I don't think we can afford that.

I would like that as a third priority, but we need to focus on the two most important ones. Those are consuming too much of our energy to focus elsewhere.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Professor Kimball.

[Prof. Anessa Kimball]

I'm in agreement with that, in the sense that when you actually look at the deployment data for troops, Italy is currently the country that sends the most peacekeepers, but when you also look at Italy, for example, in NATO and other missions, it might leave a little to be desired there.

What we're seeing mostly is that the states that have more troop capacities have tended to shift them towards NATO or EU missions—obviously Canada is not in that case—but when you look, there is a substitution or a complementary going on when it comes to these NATO missions. Again, I don't think we could even create that many troops if we wanted to deploy them.

What Canada does, which I think is very understated, is it trains most of the peacekeepers from other countries. They come to Canada and get trained here. They take that knowledge back home and then they go peacekeeping. One might argue that we've gone past peacekeeping and we're kind of like the peace educators now.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Ms. Mathyssen.

We're now on to the second round of five-minute rounds. I have Mrs. Gallant, Ms. O'Connell, Madame Normandin, Ms. Mathyssen, one of either Mr. Kelly or Mr. Bezan, and Ms. Lambropoulos.

Mrs. Gallant, you have five minutes, please.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Dr. Huebert, what infrastructure and equipment does Canada need to ensure its Arctic front is secure and positioned to defend itself, if need be?

[Dr. Robert Huebert]

We need to ensure that the forward operating bases—the airfields from which we would be operating—are able to maintain themselves 24-7, even in an Arctic environment. A crisis is not going to wait for nice weather.

Once again, there are some questions as to whether or not the capacity of the forward operating bases is such that they in fact can operate on short notice. We need to have the aircraft to operate from there. That means a decision needs to be made on actually achieving the replacement of the CF-18s we purchased in 1982. We also need to consider the possibilities of refuellers. Many of the fifth-generation fighters we're looking at—presumably the F-35, since every single one of our Nordic allies with the exception of Sweden have actually opted for that, and I assume that is where we might be going—need to have refuelling capabilities to deal with the threat that the Russians and the Chinese will be presenting in the long term.

We need to have the infrastructure to know where the threat is. That is in reference to the over-the-horizon radar. That refers to the aerospace threat.

What has been completely lacking from any discussion is how we modernize our undersea listening capabilities. Are we talking about a SOSA system, which may be prohibitively expensive? Nevertheless, it's something we have to be looking at.

We also have to be talking about how we will be moving forward in terms of our satellite capabilities. There are some discussions in the open literature to the effect that we have not yet made a decision on the replacement of the RADARSAT constellation. I hope that literature is incorrect and that, in fact, we are planning to prepare for the next RADARSAT capabilities, but it also means integrating with the Americans and the Europeans in terms of their satellite surveillance capability.

If you go right across the list, I'm afraid what we are left with is that on the upper end of any type of surveillance and at the upper end of our response capability, literally everything is still needing to be done at this point in time.

When we hear the government making suggestions that because of the economic difficulties we are now facing, the funds will be extremely limited, I see this as one of the most difficult—or as the policy people like to say, “wicked”—problems that we have going into the future era.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Dr. Huebert, given that Inuvik is the epicentre of Canadian and NORAD air defence and the only military base on the Arctic Ocean, what issues or problems may arise from the termination of the hangarage contract there?

[Dr. Robert Huebert]

Well, remember that what they are trying to do at this point is.... It's not necessarily a termination, but it's a question of who will be moving forward in terms of the maintenance.

One of the difficulties we have as academics when we're looking at these issues is that it's difficult to get good statistics on how well these hangarages and runways have in fact been maintained. We obviously have to maintain a certain degree of government secrecy on that. Therefore, it becomes an issue for any of us to be able to say with any certainty in terms of this transition who is in fact maintaining it.

If in fact it is the existing company that has done so well at maintaining it and if it's being transferred, transfer always creates certain challenges. It is difficult for me to offer concrete acknowledgement in terms of where that is going for the future as we move forward, but I might add that when we look at it, we do in fact have another base that is supposed to be coming. That is in Nanisivik. We can see the manner in which the difficulties we've had with governments in terms of being able to build it.... Once again, I can contrast this to what the Russians have done.

We of course have to deal with the hangarage in Inuvik, as you point out. We need to deal with the fact that Nanisivik still needs to be completed, and we have to talk about the other forward operating locations that we have in Yellowknife and in one other location—my mind is blanking out where that is right now, so my apologies—and compare that to the Russians, of course, who, in the span from 1999 to 2022, have either built or renewed over 22 different military sites, bases and locations within their north. In fact, the brief I provided the committee lists the open literature in terms of where we think these various bases, airfields and capabilities are in fact located, and I remind the committee that Russia's GDP is less than Canada's.

We get into this issue of political commitment in terms of meeting the security needs that we have coming very soon, both in the immediate term and in the longer term.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Ms. Gallant.

Madam Lambropoulos, you have five minutes, please.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank all three professors for being with us today, answering our questions and putting the fear of God into us in terms of Russia and what maybe to expect in the future.

My first question is, do you think Canada and its Arctic allies are doing enough? Are we engaging with them enough? Are we doing enough military exercises in the Arctic, or do you think there is room for a lot more? What specifically do you have to say about that?

I will go first to Mr. Huebert.

[Dr. Robert Huebert]

Thank you. I can't stress enough what a critical question that is. In Canada we have completely missed the fact that, since 2017, there has been a redrawing of Nordic security.

Everybody, of course, is focused on the request of Finland and Sweden to join NATO and on barring the Turkish resistance that we see, which we hope, through the agreement that the three nations have, will be worked through.

The reality is that the Finns, the Swedes, the Norwegians and the Danes have all signed special agreements with the Americans. They have also created, and this is increasingly becoming apparent, an agreement among the four of them. Well, there are five, because they also include Iceland. This agreement is called NORDEFCO.

NORDEFCO is an agreement that is creating a shared aerospace picture. Even before Sweden and Finland made the request to join NATO, they recognized that they had to have a common operating capability.

The other thing that the Nordics have done is allow the Americans to integrate with each of them. Once again, in Canada, we did not pay much attention to this, but this summer, the Norwegians, for the first time, allowed an American attack submarine, the Seawolf to come to the port in Tromsø, and they are retrofitting that port to better facilitate the Americans.

Canada has participated in some exercises. When the Norwegians have their big Cold Response, we will send a small number of individuals over to participate. We are a more active participant in the anti-submarine exercise that is conducted by the British and the Nordics, called Dynamic Mongoose. We have been a full participant in that.

Where it is lacking and where.... Once again, we are limited by open literature, but we do not see Canada sitting down with the Nordics and the Americans and saying, “Look, we realize you're creating a new northern tier to the defence of NATO. We want to be involved.” It once again gets to the “seat at the table” issue that was raised by, I believe, Dr. Kimball, in terms of the fact that Canada is not there. It speaks to the issue that Justin raises in terms of the fact that we are not at the forefront, saying that we need to unify NORAD in terms of the aerospace and maritime pictures and this emerging Nordic maritime picture. That's simply not happening.

As for the other part of the equation, we've settled our issue with the Danes over Hans Island. What I would like to see is using that relationship with the Danes and the Greenlanders to say, “Look, Thule is at the centre.” Thule, of course, is part of the American anti-ballistic missile system, which will be critical in the threats we are going to be facing in the future. Canada could be saying, “Okay, now is the time to say that we have to have some conversation with the Greenlanders and the Danes about how that works.” We then use that as a means of integrating and connecting with NATO, saying, “We embrace NATO. Yes, we know we have a sovereignty issue.”

I would like to add to one of the questions. All our European allies have also disagreed with how we have drawn the straight baselines to enclose the Northwest Passage. The Americans are the ones who are the most vocal, but the Europeans don't agree, by the same token.

The Europeans will respond if we're sitting there and saying we want to be a bigger part, and our northern expertise is something they need. This is, once again, something I think we can be much more forthright about, but we need to also have the capability to follow that.