National Defence Committee on Oct. 25th, 2022

[Prof. Anessa Kimball]

China's interests are certainly shipping traffic and resource exploration. For example, the Chinese have tried many times to buy rights in certain areas, especially for mineral extraction, but all the agreements with international companies failed after awhile. That said, the Chinese continue to look for a spot where they could establish a toehold in the region. I don't believe that they will change tack, whether it be in the short or medium term, because they see it as a new frontier where there are available resources and where they have exploration and mining rights, as do all states.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

We are—

[Dr. Robert Huebert]

Perhaps I could jump in just to say it's very important, because this did not get into the media in Canada. It illustrates that the Chinese security interest cannot be underestimated. This past couple of months—I can't remember the exact name or the date—a Chinese-Russian naval task force sailed into the Aleutian Island waterways. They stayed within international waters, but we have never seen the Chinese and the Russians as a joint task force coming into northern waters. What this illustrates clearly is a desire to work with the Russians. It also illustrates a desire to build capability to sail into these waters.

The second point that's not being covered is that the Xue Long engaged in one of the most active mappings of the Arctic region, where one presumes submarines would be sent.

Once again we can presume that when they went through the Northwest Passage, they mapped that, because that was one of the terms—that we allowed them to do scientific research. In fact, if you talk to the Americans, they have a huge concern about the effort the Chinese have been making with their two icebreakers to map the Arctic Ocean region. One can assume that in the long term that means submarine passage.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

We'll leave it there, unfortunately.

Colleagues, we have roughly 20 minutes left and 25 minutes' worth of questions, so I'm going to be a little arbitrary and cut everybody back by a minute.

Mr. Kelly, go ahead for four minutes.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Thank you. I want to continue and talk about China.

Experts, including General Eyre last week at this committee, have spoken about China's having the capability to threaten Canadian Arctic sovereignty within 20 years and, further, about the extent to which Russia is increasingly, as its fortunes continue to flag in its invasion of Ukraine, China's vassal.

Dr. Huebert, can you expand...or do you think the general is optimistic about this 20-year horizon? What are the specific timelines for threats to Canadian Arctic sovereignty with respect to China?

[Dr. Robert Huebert]

All Canadian observers on this point will immediately change their view when the war in Taiwan begins. When the war in Taiwan begins, we will see both the international ramifications and the Chinese military capabilities. Then we will do a re-evaluation, and people will say, just as we're doing with the second phase of the Russian-Ukrainian war, “Oh, I guess we should have seen this coming.”

Those such as David Mulroney and others, who are seeing it coming, have said for a long time that the threat is already here. We can talk about 20-year capabilities, but the real threat is not in terms of sovereignty. The Chinese are very careful not to publicly say anything that will undermine their sovereignty claims in terms of the South China Sea. In other words, what determines their public statements on Canadian Arctic sovereignty will be determined by what they think will help or detract from their ability on that.

The sovereignty issue they're going to avoid. The threat is security. The threat is whether the Chinese find themselves, through their actions in Taiwan, somehow involved in a military engagement with the Americans and our other Asian friends that then has spillover. Then, as Dr. Kimball so eloquently pointed out, do we find ourselves engaged in a situation in which we are sort of on the way over in terms of where these weapons are coming from?

There's a huge debate on whether the Chinese are planning to have their nuclear-powered cruise submarines come into Arctic waters. If they do—and I believe they are actively preparing for that—if the class 094s are given under-ice capabilities, it only makes sense for them to somehow figure out how to go through the very difficult Bering Strait. That's a huge problem. I acknowledge that. Coming through that, a cruise missile strike would then be made from the north to try to catch us off guard.

As Dr. Kimball points out, the time periods are very short, which means the problem is not 20 years away. They are doing the capability studies right now. They're getting those, and then it depends on when they decide to engage Taiwan.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

How critical is it that Canada develop a true submarine capability, then, to match the Chinese capability that you speak of?

[Dr. Robert Huebert]

It's completely critical, but it's not just submarines. It's not a World War II scenario, where you have one unit. We are now in a warfare of systems, and it gets back to the point of whether or not we want to be part of the better American, Australian, Japanese surveillance capability, because that invariably ties in with what we used to refer to as the “anti-ballistic missile systems”. We are looking to determine where the missiles come in and defend against these various ones.

It's submarines, but it's also actually having our Asian friends take us seriously, which means commitment, which means that as the South Koreans, Japanese, Australians and Americans develop these systems of surveillance and then react against the Chinese in the coming conflict, they are prepared for us to in fact be playing a role in that context.

Hopefully this is something that the current committee that the government has assigned to understanding the Indo-Asia-Pacific region is, in fact, addressing very seriously, because it becomes one of the critical points.

As I said, I agree with General Eyre that the Chinese will be a threat. I disagree with his timeline. I think it will be much more immediate than what he is expecting, once again, on the important dependent of Taiwan.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Kelly.

Mr. May, you have four minutes.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First of all, thank you all to the witnesses today. This has been absolutely fascinating.

Professor Huebert, you talked a little about submarines. I think we agree that the capability or the influence of that capability for Canada to have submarines protect its sovereignty in the Arctic is critical, but how does that capability affect our military-to-military relationships with our allies?

[Dr. Robert Huebert]

Again, I would return to the fact that it is our security it's protecting.

Regarding sovereignty, it's problematic whether or how we would use a submarine in order to convince the Americans and our European friends and allies that the way we drew the straight baselines is true. I just want to be very clear on that.

However, your question is still of critical importance, because you're absolutely right. We have to have Arctic security, and we need subs. We had problems when we thought about getting nuclear-powered subs in the Mulroney era, because the Americans were reluctant to share. We see the American willingness—in fact, eagerness—to engage the British and Australians today in the sharing of technology, to demonstrate that any reservation they had in the eighties has dissipated in light of the new threats we are facing.

There would be a wholesome embracing of Canada if we were to say to the British, Australians and Americans that we want to also involve ourselves with their negotiations in development; we want to have shared resources. However, again, it comes back to the fact that it's not a question of simply saying, “Okay, we'll buy one or two of the subs that the Australians are going to buy.” It's buying into the system, because you have to have the system of integration. That then starts us off talking about something like a pseudo-NATO in the Asia-Pacific region, and would our allies be willing to...?

The big provision is that as long as we understand what the Chinese threat is and we are not seen as being unco-operatively friendly to the Chinese, as I dare say some of our past behaviour has been characterized as.... Whether or not it's true, and we'll leave that up to you to decide, that would become of the political drivers that we would be facing on this issue.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Thank you.

Professor Kimball, how does Canada co-operate with northern and Arctic allies on matters of international law and security, and what are those areas that we agree on and where might there be friction?

[Prof. Anessa Kimball]

One of the most interesting things we can do is probably go back and look at the latest agreement that was negotiated over search and rescue. This agreement dates to 2019. This gives a pretty realistic view of what countries think their capacities are in the region in some senses. This isn't a military agreement. It's basically meant to be related to just regular commerce and traversing in the region.

If you were to lay that agreement in those zones across various economic zones and look at how everything lines up, you're going to see that it's not exactly the same lines.

For example, Canada takes a slightly smaller slice in the search and rescue agreement than we say we have in terms of sovereignty. I think it speaks a bit to what we know we can do versus what we advertise that we might own. What's also interesting, for instance, is that the Norwegians take a larger slice in that agreement, in terms of areas where they would go and rescue, than what they would actually say is their piece.

There are opportunities there, but one thing we need to think about, for example, is accepting confidence-building measures if there's going to be Chinese and Russian traffic there. How can we create exercises on some of these things? They don't have to be militarized, but it's a level of understanding that we might have to work together here, so let's try to prevent a crisis.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I think we're going to have to work together to keep on our timelines here. I'm sorry about that, again.

It's a short snapper. You have one and a half minutes, Madame Normandin.

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

We know that there is currently a form of cooperation between allied countries, but you also mentioned, Professor Massie, that competition between the major powers has increased. Please tell us about your perspective and what you think will happen.

Then as a second question, will we see better cooperation between our allies or an erosion of that cooperation, given that more and more states are becoming interested in the Arctic?

[Dr. Justin Massie]

The international order as we know it is becoming fragmented. The western countries are consolidating into a bloc, with a few outliers that are starting to break away like Turkey, for example. We don't know what game Turkey is playing, actually. The bloc is based on a few key states who play a crucial role. We spoke of Japan, Australia and the United Kingdom. There's also France, which has positioned itself firmly beside the United States, of course, and other countries are trying to get closer, too. Canada, however, finds itself more on the outer flank.

Then there is the consolidation of the Sino-Russian axis. The current collapse of the Russian economy is a fantastic opportunity for the Chinese, who are buying up most of Russia's strategic infrastructure.

We are therefore seeing the creation of these two polarized groups that are increasingly on a collision course, and the outliers, such as India, Turkey and other key players, could really influence the results.

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

When we're talking about the Arctic, is there the same risk of seeing cooperation being eroded?

[Dr. Justin Massie]

We have spoken about this. There are countries cooperating with the Nordic states, but not Canada. Canada just wants its special relationship in a relationship that isn't so special. So we find ourselves hovering outside of the inner circle. In my opinion, that is really the crux of the matter, in terms of security in the Arctic.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Ms. Normandin.

Madam Mathyssen.

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

I think it was Mr. Huebert who mentioned that the Russian and Chinese investments into bigger weaponry and further aggression are there, and we cannot ignore that. Ultimately, there was a trigger of that, at a point in the early 2000s, against the anti-ballistic missile defence treaty. That said, that was the success of that idea, which was that cooler heads would prevail.

Who will be the cooler head, if that's not Canada's role?

I'll ask Professor Massie and then, if we have time, Professor Kimball and Professor Huebert.

[Dr. Justin Massie]

There's a big threat in the instability of our southern neighbour. One way to address that threat is to institutionalize and depoliticize our military-to-military relationships and also those at other levels, like trade, institutional, cultural, etc. We should do that much more, I think, to prevent the chaos coming from a new Trumpist administration.

For instance, in all the instability, it could trade with its affinity with Russia. You can see that in its position. You can see in the Republican Party the division right now on whether the west should continue to arm the Ukrainians. You will see those divides with the far right in many countries. Canada should prevent that.

To do that, we need to institutionalize those relationships below the political level, so they exist notwithstanding who the leaders of any countries are.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Ms. Mathyssen.

Mr. Bezan, you have four minutes.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have to say that today's testimony from all three of our witnesses has been fantastic and scary all at the same time.

When you start talking about.... Professor Huebert was talking about the sharing of technology with the Americans and the reason we should be part of AUKUS, the Australia, U.K. and U.S. agreement. When you look at the quad dialogue that exists between Australia, Japan, India and the United States, we're again absent from the table.

The reason the Americans are willing to share technology, not just submarine technology.... If you look at our Canadian surface combatants, we're talking about putting the Aegis system on all our combat vessels. It speaks to the concern the Americans have of being able to protect North America from air-breathing threats, especially with hypersonic cruise missiles, knowing we're going to need to be more vigorous in having technology and being part of the entire solution.

Can all three of you quickly run through the list of what we need to do on the capitalization of defence technologies? What are your top five priorities, whether they're submarines, over-the-horizon or other technologies that we need to defend the Arctic.

Mr. Massie, do you want to start, and then Mr. Huebert can go?

[Dr. Justin Massie]

Some things we've said already. On the sea capabilities, whether it's submarines or unmanned, that's a definite need.

Other drones, for aerial surveillance and ISR, are fundamental for Canada. This is the niche we should invest in, because they have industrial benefits that we can then use outside of North America, but we don't. I think those are the major two.

Everything about detection...missile defence, yes.... The capacity we put on our surface combatant ships is important, but we need to have 15 and not 12. That's going to cost even more than we expect right now. Keeping those 15, I think, would be in my top five list.