National Defence Committee on Nov. 1st, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Quinn, for making the answers easily understandable to Mr. Fisher.

With that, I have to suspend.

Gentlemen, I hope that the technology we are purchasing for multiple billions of dollars works a bit better than the technology that poor General Pelletier was subject to for the past hour.

It was good to see both Mr. Quinn and General Pelletier again.

We wish you well, and we thank you for your appearance here and look forward to your future appearances. You aid this study mightily. Safe travels to all of you.

I will suspend while we re-empanel.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Okay, we're back on.

It's good to see Professor Fergusson again. Welcome back to the committee. You are a familiar face.

Mr. Fetterly as well, welcome back to the committee.

We're going to interrupt at about 12:30 for Professor Charron to join us for the final half-hour.

Congratulations, Professor Fergusson, on the publication of your book. I look forward to it.

[Dr. James Fergusson, Professor, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, Department of Political Studies, University of Manitoba, As an Individual]

Thank you very much. It's Andrea's book and my book—both of us.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

It's both of you, yes.

I'm sure you'll have so many royalties coming out of this book that you'll be able to retire.

With that, Professor Fergusson, you have five minutes, please.

[Dr. James Fergusson]

Thank you.

Thank you for the invitation to testify before the committee. I have three points to raise, which, hopefully, we can get into in some detail in the question period.

The first concerns NORAD modernization and its impact on the Arctic, and other general issues about North American defence and security. The second concerns relations with Russia in the Arctic. The third relates to the impact of the commitment to defence investment in the Arctic—although we don't know, from the announcement by the Minister of National Defence in June, the specific amount of the $40 billion devoted that will actually go into the Arctic—and its implications for the indigenous and local communities.

First, concerning NORAD modernization, if you look at the documents, including the joint statement between the Secretary of Defense of the United States and the Minister of National Defence in August of last year, the parameters of NORAD modernization remain locked into a Cold War structure and mentality. Even though the threat environment has changed, by and large dictated both by geopolitical changes that have occurred roughly since 2014 and by technological changes that have changed the nature of the threat environment, it doesn't seem that either the Canadian government or National Defence, at least publicly—and again, I won't speak to the United States and their views on this—has really thought about the implications of NORAD modernization for the Arctic.

In specific terms for Arctic security, when the government is committed to funding a new surveillance system consisting of two new radar lines and additional upgrades, modernizations and perhaps some new forward operating locations, they don't seem to realize that this of course creates a direct threat to the Arctic. In this context, we rely upon the defeat mechanism or defence mechanism, basically, with our new generation of fighters—when we get them—and long-range to medium-range air-to-air missile systems.

What's important is to recognize that in the case of conflict, these will become a first target for Russia, and I'll put China sort of in the background of all this. This raises issues about the need to develop point defences. These will be ground-based defences to provide a layer of defence, and this extends further south.

That's the immediate issue that emerges from the modernization program, but of course it existed in the past, so there's nothing new there. More importantly, when you think about the new threat environment, the main threat environment, two things pop up immediately.

First, NORAD is now in the business of missile defence. By the nature of the long-range cruise missile hypersonics, as well as the ballistic missile capabilities of Russia—and, in the future, China as well—these have become missiles.... We need to have the capacity to intercept missiles in flight. This of course raises major issues for the government and the department, as well as the United States, about being able to keep NORAD in its traditional box of air defence or air control, or “aerospace control”, as they call it. It's just air defence, because we have not been in the missile defence business in the past. Hence, what capabilities will we need to be able to deal with this problem?

That's the first thing that emerges. This raises major issues that the government and the department need to start thinking about. I'm sure they're thinking about it, but of course this has implications for long-standing Canadian policy on ballistic missile defence.

The second element of this is that it's an all-domain environment. It's an all-domain defence environment, so we of course talk about surveillance being in all domains, with land, air, space and maritime being integrated together on the surveillance side of the equation, but this also needs to be integrated in terms of the defeat or defence side of the equation for an effective deterrence by denial. In that regard, this raises questions about the current structure or the mission suite of NORAD, which is largely aerospace—air defence—and whether this needs to expand the NORAD mission suite and in fact move towards the development of a true integrated North American defence command.

The second reason related to this is of course the command and control issues. That's an essential part of NORAD modernization. In so doing, you have an issue about the current command structure, which is NORAD headquarters and the regional commands, and whether that's an efficient and effective way to undertake this. These are all changes that are going to fall out, or what I like to call the elephant in the room.

The third thing raises the issue of the eastern approaches to North America. This raises questions about NORAD as a binational arrangement and the issues of Greenland, which means Denmark—of course, on the sideline of this is Iceland—and how they may essentially need to be brought into the NORAD arrangement. In so doing, this raises questions about NATO and NATO's involvement in the Arctic; traditionally, the Canadian policy has been to keep NATO out of the Arctic.

Those are the first set, on NORAD modernization.

The second is relations with Russia. We have treated, as a function of the Russian aggression in Ukraine, our relationship with Russia, as well as China, as black and white. That is, they are our enemies, as the chief of the defence staff said about a week ago in testimony to another committee—I think it was the committee on public safety.

We live in a world of great power politics, great power relations. It's important to remember that in great power politics, the United States leading the west, Russia and China, and I would add—

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Professor Fergusson, unfortunately, you're a bit over your time.

[Dr. James Fergusson]

Already?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Already, yes. I know it comes as a great shock to a professor.

[Dr. James Fergusson]

Yes, I know.

That's okay. I can talk about these things later on.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Okay.

Dr. Fetterly, you have five minutes, please.

[Dr. Ross Fetterly, Academic, As an Individual]

Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the subject of Arctic security. My perspective is that of a former military practitioner and an academic with three decades of study and publishing on defence resource management issues. To give you context of my background, I retired from the military in 2017 as the RCAF comptroller and business planner.

My focus today is on climate change and the impact on defence infrastructure in northern Canada. The 2021 NATO climate change and security plan defined climate change as a “threat multiplier” to NATO members. In the time allocated, I am going to initially discuss the effect of increasing temperatures in the north and the impact on defence, and then conclude by outlining the climate change risks to defence infrastructure.

The availability of infrastructure in the north is the first and most important factor that is necessary to enable the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence to operate effectively in the north throughout the year. In recent years, climate change has been a lived reality for citizens living in northern Canada.

The recently released Canadian Climate Institute report, entitled “Facing the Costs of Climate Change for Northern Infrastructure”, stated up front that “Northern Canada faces a double threat of already inadequate infrastructure in a rapidly warming climate.” Canada has a long-standing infrastructure deficit, and this is particularly acute in the north. Physical infrastructure is defined as roads, bridges, sidewalks, potable water systems, airfields, ports and storm and waste-water systems. Governments from the municipal to the federal level have been slow to adapt their infrastructure to climate change.

The United States, in a recent report, has defined that “Climate change is increasing the demand and scope for military operations at home and [abroad].” In Canada, in the 2020-23 “Defence Energy and Environment Strategy”, DND is “the largest user of energy and the single largest emitter of [greenhouse gases] in the federal government”.

As global temperatures continue to climb, broad shifts in weather systems are occurring, making events like droughts, hurricanes and floods more intense and unpredictable. Extreme weather events that may have hit just once in our parents’ lifetimes are becoming more common.

The cost of infrastructure in northern remote locations is significantly higher than in southern Canada.

There are four distinct risks to DND on climate change. The first is budget risk, repairing facilities damaged by climate change events and the need to update both buildings and infrastructure to adapt to climate change. Two is operational risk, reducing training activities due to meteorological or other climate-related risks. Three is the increased frequency of aid to civil power, that being provincial governments, increased deployments of military personnel across the country to support provincial governments and communities that have been impacted by floods, forest fires and hurricanes. We've seen a lot of that recently. The final one is outdated regulations. All levels of government in the north need to update infrastructure policies, regulations, standards and building codes to explicitly account for the complex and severe impacts of northern climate change.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Dr. Fetterly.

With that, we'll start our six-minute round with Mrs. Gallant. I anticipate that somewhere in the six-minute round we'll have Dr. Charron come in. I'll just interrupt at that point, and then we'll carry on after she makes her opening five-minute statement.

Mrs. Gallant, go ahead for six minutes.

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

Professor Fergusson, Canada is increasingly viewed as being a laggard in Arctic defence. We have Sweden and Finland entering NATO. How do we compare in terms of GDP spent on Arctic defence? Is there an argument to be made that Canada has not been pulling its collective weight in the last number of years?

[Dr. James Fergusson]

Certainly there's an argument that we haven't pulled our weight; that's without doubt. If you look at the Europeans, Sweden and Finland are about to be new members of NATO. Don't bring those into the equation, because they have a different strategic situation and threat situation than Canada does.

The investments proposed or planned by the government are important. They're vital. But they are a little late, and the time frame for committing $4.9 billion—I think this is the number—over six years and $40 billion over 20 years implies that we are going to lag far behind relative to the threat environment we have to deal with to ensure that we have a credible posture of defence by deterrence. We're late and we will remain vulnerable for a long time.

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

Russia has demonstrated its ability to operate in the high north. It has more capability than we do, and we know that the regime under Putin is expansionist. What does Canada need to do to ensure we don't fall victim to encroachment in our north? What are our “must haves”?

[Dr. James Fergusson]

I don't think it's an issue of encroachment by the Russians in the far north. As I was trying to point out—but I talk too much and go on too long—we have common interests with the Russians in the Arctic, and we need to look at developing positive relations, what used to be called confidence and security-building measures, in the Arctic with the Russians. Great power relations are a mix of competition, adversarial relations and co-operation.

I'm not overly concerned about the threat to the Arctic. What Canada needs to do is to be much clearer about where we're going to invest in the Arctic, and we have to start moving more quickly. I understand the delays, because the threat environment actually goes back to 2011, and it took a lot of political changes in the world before we started to move. That, of course, also affects the United States' thinking in this.

In terms of investments, the two radar lines are important. Do we need a third radar line further south? That may be important. Do we need additional defence mechanisms to ensure a credible “deterrence by denial” posture? My view is that, yes, we do. The government is not committed to any ground-based missile defence systems, and those need to be taken into close account.

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

Something this committee has heard about in this study is the myth that a Russian force could invade our far north and ask for our assistance to rescue them if that was ever attempted. With the advent of hypersonic glide vehicles capable of reaching Canada or the United States in minutes, in what we understand would be a war with advanced technologies and not traditional expeditionary forces, could Canada ever hope to neutralize these threats with our own technology, or would we have to be fully integrated with the United States, where the American all-domain threat sensors are integrated with multi-level missile defence systems at their core?

[Dr. James Fergusson]

The answer is simple. We have to be integrated with the United States. We do not have the capacity or the will to invest the dollars needed to develop our own, based on our research and development capabilities, to deal with, particularly, hypersonic threats.

It's unclear, at least for the moment—because details are sparse, and I understand why, for security reasons—whether the over-the-horizon systems will be able to deal with the hypersonic problem. We need to integrate. The United States is integrating air and missile defences. We need to follow suit. The issue becomes what aspects, in terms of economic benefits and involvement with Canadian companies and relative to the Canadian economy, can be integrated in this, given that we are already integrated in the defence industrial sector.

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

In terms of government investment in the basics of upgrading NORAD, how far behind are we and how far forward would we be today had we begun to make these investments—these very serious investments—in 2016?

[Dr. James Fergusson]

It's very difficult to know.

One of the major issues with regard to the over-the-pole or over-the-horizon polar radar system they're talking about is dealing with atmospheric interference: the aurora borealis, to be blunt. The government did invest and did give a contract to Raytheon Canada to look at the over-the-horizon system, but I don't know the results of that development and test procedure.

It's certainly something that needs to be moved forward. As I said, if you go back to 2011, that really was the date when this should have started to move forward, but we've been delayed and delayed and delayed. NORAD modernization was identified in 2017. No funding was provided. There are a lot of reasons behind that, but yes, we lag behind, and we will stay behind for a long period of time.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mrs. Gallant.

Mr. May, you have six minutes.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to both of you for being here today.

For my first question, I'd like to get a response from both of you, if possible, starting with Professor Fergusson. How can the federal government work with our northern and indigenous communities to advance Arctic security?

[Dr. James Fergusson]

The answer, in my view, is more than consultation. In my view, the answer—as I was going to say in my opening remarks but I went too long—is that the defence investment in NORAD modernization relative to the Arctic will have significant impacts, and we don't know which specific portion that is, because it will be a lot of things. It will be transformative in the Arctic.

What does this mean for the indigenous communities? That's an important issue, because when we think about security, we think about the defence security of the nation and North America in co-operation with the United States, but those very developments can undermine security in the indigenous and local communities. You're going to invest a lot of money in jobs and training. Is it sustainable over a long period of time? How will it impact indigenous culture?

Also, the government is structured on a functional basis, so Defence will do defence, Transport will do transport and Health will do health, all related to the Arctic. You have a lot of departments and agencies, but there is no central structure in the Government of Canada to integrate it and to recognize that when we invest in defence in the Arctic, these are dual-use capabilities. Better communications will enhance communications—Internet access, virtual health—and a variety of benefits for the indigenous community, so those investments have to be integrated, and that requires, to use the government term, a whole-of-government approach, but there is no whole-of-government structure to do this.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Thank you.

Go ahead, sir.

[Dr. Ross Fetterly]

Also, I think about consultation and capacity building to increase the rate of infrastructure construction in the north. The northern population is growing. There are a lot of young people of working age who want to work. I think that the training provided—increased training and development—particularly in the trades, is a good start.