Evidence of meeting #36 for National Defence in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was threat.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:55 a.m.
Bloc
The Vice-Chair Bloc Christine Normandin
Thank you very much, Dr. Braun.
Ms. O'Connell, from the Liberal Party, now has four minutes.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Jennifer O'Connell Liberal Pickering—Uxbridge, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for being here.
I just want to follow up on some of the comments made by the Conservatives about the so-called “hot air”.
Did Russia and China become a threat in the Arctic starting in late 2015? Did infrastructure exist in the Arctic and just cease to exist in 2015? Were there NATO exercises? Were there icebreakers? Was there infrastructure? Were there personnel stationed in the Arctic who just vanished in 2015? Perhaps the hot air and the political nature that the Conservatives want to build is in fact to distract from the fact that successive governments have had to make choices.
You both have spoken about the spending choices, which I think is a fair comment and should be looked at; however, the suggestion that somehow all of this work, all of this infrastructure, all of these threats, only began once our government took over and that all of these things had been done....
We heard in previous panels that simply to build infrastructure in the Arctic takes years and years of planning to deal with the type of infrastructure that is needed in those conditions. The fact that the Conservatives like to pretend that all of this existed and only changed once they were no longer in office is simply not true.
Perhaps we could speak about where we are and where we need to go. Successive governments have not made those investments, and the hot air is coming from the Conservative side. Perhaps we could stick to the point of building up our capabilities and ensuring Arctic sovereignty and protection instead of revisionist history.
Can you talk about the threat that existed prior to 2015 and the long-standing infrastructure capability needs that we need to start making those investments in?
Either witness can answer.
11:55 a.m.
Professor, University of Toronto, As an Individual
If I may just say so, I have no desire to get into partisan politics, nor do I think it's helpful to get into recriminations. I think we need to be forward-looking.
The reality is that I think there are very significant threats that have been building up. These are growing threats, and sometimes there are very difficult choices that we have to face. We have to make those choices and make those kinds of sacrifices.
In taking that forward-looking approach, what I would advocate is that we move as quickly as possible and that we don't just continue to do things the way we did. We have to understand the new reality. We have that capacity. Canadians deserve that.
Noon
Professor, National School of Public Administration, As an Individual
If I may, I would like to add to my colleague's answer.
Up to now, no Canadian government, even during war times, has been able to find a satisfying solution to the issues facing a region as large as the Arctic. The Canadian Armed Forces' current situation, including in the Arctic, is normal. It is not unusual in the least. It is something that we have been experiencing for a very long time.
Noon
Bloc
The Vice-Chair Bloc Christine Normandin
Thank you. That is the end of our time with this panel.
Dr. Braun and Dr. Roussel, thank you for your presence and your availability. What you have told this committee will be very helpful and will inform our upcoming work and the drafting of our report. We are very grateful to you.
I will now suspend the meeting briefly to welcome the second panel.
12:05 p.m.
Bloc
The Vice-Chair Bloc Christine Normandin
Colleagues, please take your seats for the second hour of this meeting of the Standing Committee on National Defence.
I thank the witnesses for their patience.
We are now ready to continue with Mr. Michael Byers, professor at the University of British Columbia and Canada research chair in global politics and international law. He is joining us in person.
Welcome, Professor Byers.
Afterwards, we will hear from Mr. Whitney Lackenbauer, professor at Trent University and Canada research chair in the study of the Canadian north.
Gentlemen, you have five minutes each for your opening statement.
Professor Byers, the floor is yours.
12:05 p.m.
Michael Byers Professor, Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law, University of British Columbia, As an Individual
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Good afternoon everyone. I am pleased to be with you today.
I want to begin by thanking the clerk of this committee for having noticed two days ago that I was going to be in Ottawa today and therefore available to testify in person. It makes all the difference to see you face to face.
Thank you for the work that you've done, especially through the tough years of the pandemic.
I was able to hear the testimony of the witnesses on the previous panel and I want to both agree and disagree with them.
I want to agree that Russia is a significant security threat to Canada, including in the Arctic, and has been since the 1950s. Through long-range bombers carrying nuclear warheads through to the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles and through today to the development of cruise missiles and hypersonic missiles, Russia is a threat to North American security—absolutely.
Given the behaviour of the Putin regime, that threat is greater now than it has been at any point since 1962. We live in dangerous times in terms of the Russian threat to North America. That's where I agree with one of the previous panellists, and before I move on to other issues, I will talk a bit about how we can help to deal with that threat or manage that threat.
In terms of managing the threat from Russia, which is now through the ICBMs, cruise missiles and hypersonic missiles, Russia is far too advanced with its technology for us to have the capacity to shoot those things down, nor indeed is the United States capable of shooting them down. The reason we have our radar surveillance in the Arctic is to preserve the ability of our American friends and neighbours to launch in the event of a Russian first strike. This is the preservation of mutually assured destruction.
The North Warning System is about that. It's not about protecting us in the sense of attacking the incoming Russian missiles; it's protecting us by providing us with the assurance that Russia will be destroyed if they launch at North America. We need to upgrade the North Warning System to provide continued surveillance and assistance to our American allies. That includes over-the-horizon radar, absolutely. We need to preserve the mutually assured destruction that has protected us since the 1960s in terms of the nuclear deterrent. Those radar stations in the north are our biggest contribution to North American security.
In terms of the other dimensions of Arctic security, most of the action right now is in the European Arctic. It's in the North Sea, the Norwegian Sea and the Barents Sea. The preponderance of Russia's military strength, its non-army military strength—naval, air force, ICBMs—is in northwestern Russia in the Russian Arctic, predominantly on the Kola Peninsula. Their access to the world's oceans is through the Greenland-Iceland-U.K. gap, and NATO naval forces and air forces are very active in dealing with Russian activity in that area. In just the last few days, they conducted major exercises with their nuclear forces, including missiles on land, submarine-based missiles and nuclear bomber capacity. They tested that just a few days ago.
I had the opportunity to spend some time with the commander of the U.S. Second Fleet in September 2019, and he told me that already then, in September of 2019, the level of Russian submarine activity was comparable to what he saw as the commander of a U.S. attack submarine in the latter part of the Cold War. There is activity there. Canada has a role to play. Our frigates have a role to play with other NATO naval forces in that theatre. Our long-range surveillance aircraft have a role to play in that theatre and do play a role.
Turning to the Canadian Arctic, Russia is not going to invade the Canadian Arctic. Think about it: Practically speaking, Russia is already losing a war against the Ukrainian military. Russia already owns half of the Arctic, incontestably. Russia doesn't need any North American Arctic, and Russia would lose very badly, faced with the combined response capability of NATO, including the United States, so an invasion, in terms of attempting to conquer territory, is just not on their cards. I agree with Professor Roussel here.
12:10 p.m.
Bloc
The Vice-Chair Bloc Christine Normandin
Thank you, Professor Byers.
Professor Lackenbauer, you have five minutes.
12:10 p.m.
Dr. P. Whitney Lackenbauer Professor, Canada Research Chair in the Study of the Canadian North, Trent University, As an Individual
Madam Chair, thank you for the opportunity to offer some opening remarks.
Since Russia launched its brutal further invasion of Ukraine in February, we've witnessed the further spillover of international tensions into regional circumpolar affairs, which raises fundamental questions about our commitment to maintaining peace and stability in the Arctic. Accordingly, we need to be more careful than ever to base our decisions on well-grounded assumptions and evidence about Arctic defence and security.
First, we often talk about the Arctic as if it's a single geopolitical space. Some issues and threats are truly circumpolar in orientation, but other aspects are best considered through a sub-regional perspective.
As Professor Byers just said, there are specific threats to the European Arctic that are substantively different from threats facing the Canadian Arctic. For example, the threat posed by Russian land forces along the borders with the Nordic states represents a very different situation from what we face in Canada. We can't lose sight of this.
I also think there's important analytic value in distinguishing between threats passing through or over the Arctic rather than threats to or in the Arctic.
The first category is on threats that pass through or over the Arctic to strike a target outside of the region. These are things like cruise missiles, hyperkinetic glide vehicles, ballistic missiles, bombers and submarines. It's notable that these weapons and delivery systems are not primarily oriented at striking Arctic targets; they're geared toward global balance of power and deterrence, and thus best situated on the international level of analysis.
That stated, they do have an Arctic nexus, because we have invested in or are investing further in Arctic capabilities to detect, deter and defend against these global threats. However, to suggest that these defences against these “through” threats are about defending the Arctic rather than about defending the North American homeland more generally is a misrepresentation. This has not fundamentally changed since February. I think we're best to consider these through threats broadly, as part of integrated deterrence. Here is where the NORAD modernization focus on creating a layered, all-domain defensive ecosystem intersects with Arctic defence and security.
The second category is on threats to the Arctic, so threats that emanate from outside of the Canadian Arctic and threaten our Arctic. Some theoretical threats are kinetic military threats. We might think of Alert or Thule as obvious targets in the case of a general world war, given their strategic significance.
I don't typically consider traditional military threats as the most acute security threats to the North American Arctic. Instead, I think of foreign interference, including misinformation campaigns designed to undermine the credibility of the Canadian state or to polarize debate on sensitive issues and widen existing fault lines, intending to destabilize our democratic societies. This category could also include a below-the-threshold attack on a piece of critical infrastructure that is designed to create panic to force the Government of Canada to redirect resources in efforts to deal with that problem. We've seen Russia cutting pipelines and cables on the seabed near Norway. Again, this category of threats to the Arctic also includes climate change in a broad sense, as well as pandemics.
How do we see our primary strategic competitors as representing current or potential security threats to the Arctic? I think this depends on the sector and domain of security that we're looking at.
It's important to note that most Arctic states assess a relatively low risk of armed conflict in the Arctic compared to other regions, but recognize that forms of interstate competition are already occurring below the threshold of armed conflict. After all, hybrid warfare, cyber-attacks, cyber-espionage and disinformation campaigns have become central pillars of Russian and Chinese approaches to strategic competition and warfare. We face complex and sophisticated economic-based threats from both state and non-state actors, which I'm happy to discuss further.
From my perspective, I agree with Professor Byers. I don't think there's a greater likelihood of interstate conflict arising over Arctic disputes over resources, Arctic boundaries, Arctic state sovereignty or commercial access to shipping lanes than there was nine months ago or even five years ago. I'm increasingly concerned about the spillover of Arctic dynamics into the region. This highlights the importance of considering how we can maintain Arctic peace and civility while supporting our principled stand against Russian aggression, and how Canada can, in concert with our allies, avoid an increasingly destabilizing security dilemma vis-à-vis Russia in the Arctic.
Finally, what are the threats in the Canadian Arctic?
From my vantage point, I see most of the challenges in the region as primarily on the soft security and safety side of the operational mission spectrum, meaning threats associated with environmental and climate change as well as major air disasters or maritime disasters. Other threats in the Arctic include the impacts of climate change on Arctic military operations and to critical infrastructure, including defence installations.
What do I prioritize coming out of this?
First is making smart defence investments that align defence and security needs with the well-established priorities of territorial, provincial and indigenous governments. Priority areas include communications infrastructure; improvements to airfields, ports and harbour facilities; and sensor systems that enhance our domain awareness in both environmental and human dimensions.
Addressing infrastructure deficits in the north that create vulnerabilities in the security sphere should be synchronized wherever possible, in order to address persistent social, health and economic inequities in the region. This requires that the Government of Canada do things differently from the way it has done things has in the past.
Second is the importance of strategic messaging. How do we carefully calibrate our message to ensure we're projecting unity, strength and confidence with clarity, precision and consistency? In this sense, I see integrated deterrence as a source of regional stability.
Third is the desire to improve domain—
12:15 p.m.
Bloc
12:15 p.m.
Professor, Canada Research Chair in the Study of the Canadian North, Trent University, As an Individual
I'm happy to make that later, during the question and answer period. Thank you very much.
12:15 p.m.
Bloc
The Vice-Chair Bloc Christine Normandin
Thank you very much.
We'll now go to the first round of questions.
I'll give the floor to Mr. Kelly of the Conservative Party. You have five minutes.
October 27th, 2022 / 12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Pat Kelly Conservative Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Professor Lackenbauer, I will begin with you.
You talked about the necessity of detection, deterrence and defence, or the role the Arctic plays in detection, deterrence and defence against a variety of threats to North American security.
Could you identify some of the shortcomings? What is the state of our ability to detect and deter and to defend the North American continent within our study of Arctic defence?
12:15 p.m.
Professor, Canada Research Chair in the Study of the Canadian North, Trent University, As an Individual
Thank you, Mr. Kelly.
I think our ability to defend against all threats, at the current moment, is limited, but this doesn't cause me undue alarm. As we heard from the chief of the defence staff a few days ago, it's about looking over the horizon to the future. We need to make investments now to anticipate potential limitations and make sure we are preparing to defend against threats that are emerging.
Improved domain awareness and information dominance are key in this regard. What this means is gathering, analyzing and sharing information at the speed of relevance, not only among decision-makers within Canada but also among our allies and partners. Here is where I think Canada can and should seek a leadership role.
Second , along these lines we need to synchronize our Arctic-related homeland defence efforts with our allies. This allows us to credibly and collaboratively address shared threats to, through and in, in a rational, proportionate and resource-effective manner, while reinforcing the—
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Pat Kelly Conservative Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB
If I may interject, General Eyre outlined a series of serious threats posed by Russia and China. He gave a medium-term horizon. He talked about 15 years and that kind of thing. We had other testimony from other analysts who suggested that was wildly, or at least significantly, understated, and that threats are much more immediate.
Going back to what General Eyre said, we don't know what authoritarian single rulers like Putin or Xi will do. We cannot predict that, but we know what they say and we can judge their actions. Putin telegraphed that he would invade Ukraine, and he did. China has declared itself an Arctic power, or at least a growing Arctic power. If these are their stated aims, do we not have to take seriously the threats before us? If so, what are the immediate steps we should take in defence to enhance our ability to detect, deter and defend?
I will let you answer that, but I will also let Professor Byers answer.
12:20 p.m.
Professor, Canada Research Chair in the Study of the Canadian North, Trent University, As an Individual
I think the key is to implement a lot of what has been committed to by successive governments. Many of the fundamentals are in place. It means working with our American allies to ensure we reinforce our premier partnership in North America, and within the NATO context, to make sure we have fuller situational awareness. It means making sure we have the fixed-wing interceptor capability delivered and an ability to leverage the wonderful sensor systems coming online, such as the dual class of Arctic and offshore patrol vessels.
At the same time, it's important for us to distinguish between Russia and China as Arctic actors. Yes, they are both authoritarian regimes, and yes, they are both threats and strategic competitors globally, but in assessing the risks in the Arctic context, it will benefit us to parse them.
By no means should we be complacent or apathetic or not take the threats seriously, but we should recognize who is being called upon to address the threats and—
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Pat Kelly Conservative Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB
I'm going to get Professor Byers in, and I'm really limited for time. I'd like Professor Byers to get in, and then I'll have one more question.
Go ahead quickly, sir.
12:20 p.m.
Professor, Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law, University of British Columbia, As an Individual
What do we need in terms of surveillance?
We have very good space-based surveillance right now with the RADARSAT Constellation, three satellites launched in 2019. They have a seven-year lifespan, and the procurement for the replacement needs to be set in motion now. Those are our eyes in the sky in the Arctic. They can see at night through clouds. They were built for Arctic security. RADARSAT Constellation renewal is absolutely top of my list.
Second, our Aurora long-range patrol aircraft are 40 years old. They're still doing a great job, including in the North Sea with NATO forces, but we should be renewing those.
Then in terms of being able to respond to smaller incidents, for search and rescue or harassment activities by Russia—not invasion, but harassment activities by Russia—our Cormorant search and rescue helicopters are amazing platforms. Again, a mid-life renewal needs to be set in motion.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Pat Kelly Conservative Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB
Thank you for that answer.
Finally—I have under a minute—China has declared itself a near-Arctic state. We've had different analysts—including, in fact, General Eyre—refer to Russia as becoming a Chinese vassal. This is the word we've heard around this table, so I don't know that we can separate the two as Russia continues to flounder in its horrible invasion of Ukraine.
To what extent will we see these two act together—Russia, which has made claims to the Canadian territorial seabed, and China, which has declared itself a near-Arctic state?
12:20 p.m.
Professor, Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law, University of British Columbia, As an Individual
I can answer very—
12:20 p.m.
Bloc
The Vice-Chair Bloc Christine Normandin
I'm sorry for interrupting you, Mr. Byers. It's a very interesting question, but a response will have to be given in the next round of questions, unfortunately. Perhaps other members will ask that question during their turn.
Mr. May, you now have the floor for six minutes.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Bryan May Liberal Cambridge, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll be directing my questions to Professor Lackenbauer.
Professor, you had a third point. Were you able to get that third point out in your first round, or would you like to take a few moments to do that?
12:25 p.m.
Professor, Canada Research Chair in the Study of the Canadian North, Trent University, As an Individual
I'll just make my quick summary point, which was about ensuring that we're synchronizing our Arctic-related homeland defence efforts with those of our allies and with Canadian partners, including northern partners.
We need to remember that the Kremlin's foremost goal is to fragment our alliances and our partnerships with like-minded Arctic states or within our states. We have to ensure exactly the opposite—that our relationships within Canada and with our allies are stronger than ever. For that reason, we as a country need to be very clear as to what our messages about Arctic defence and security are and where we're particularly interested in investing in broader collective defence efforts, and we need to make sure that we're proportionate.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
Bryan May Liberal Cambridge, ON
That's a good segue into my first question to you, sir. It's about the Arctic Council.
Why should the Arctic Council be more concerned about China's opting out as opposed to its continued participation?
12:25 p.m.
Professor, Canada Research Chair in the Study of the Canadian North, Trent University, As an Individual
Thank you.
I think there are actually a lot of misconceptions about what has been going on with the Arctic Council since late February. First of all, it has not been suspended. The like-minded Arctic states—and you notice I did not say “Arctic 7”, because I wish that term would be completely excised from the conversation these days—have chosen to put a pause on their involvement for the time being.
To me, this is appropriate because the emphasis is on Russia to make things right, to allow institutions like the Arctic Council to be reinvigorated. The reality is that there is no Arctic Council without Russia being involved, given that the intent of Canada and other countries that created it was for to be something that all of the circumpolar partners could be part of.
However, I agree very much, Mr. May, that we have to be really careful. The primary effect of this pause that I am worried about concerns all of the fantastic science that the Arctic Council does and the gaps that are going to emerge if we don't resume that science. My second concern is for the permanent participants, this being an absolutely innovative forum for indigenous engagement in international affairs, and how this pause is curtailing the ability of Canadian indigenous peoples and their transnational kin to contribute to and inform the Arctic discussion.
Again, I think there are some concerns with respect to how long the Arctic Council will remain on pause and how long observers like China are willing to wait, but to me that consideration is secondary or tertiary to the other considerations that are out there.