National Defence Committee on Nov. 15th, 2022

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

It is very serious.

You also mentioned, in response to earlier questions from Ms. Gallant, the potential foreign interference or foreign interest in facilities in the area by the Communist regime in Beijing. I have a question for Mr. Davis that I want to get to, so could you provide in writing the examples you have of other foreign nations or operatives in the region?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I'm not quite sure how you're going to do that in the three minutes that's already expired.

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

It's already expired? That was so damn fast. You only gave me two and you cut me off last time.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I feel so bad for you. Trust me.

Ms. Valdez, welcome to the committee and this harsh chair who cuts people off when they have three minutes.

Please go ahead. You have three minutes.

[Rechie Valdez, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Davis, you mentioned in your opening the importance of engaging with the Inuit community and how that assists with reconciliation. Can you describe the types of synergies we can achieve when we collaborate with Inuit communities to protect the Arctic?

[Clint Davis]

Some of the synergy we can actually identify is having a better understanding and realization of our capacity as Inuit development corporations.

As I mentioned before, there are seven development corporations. We invest in and own either equity ownership pieces or wholly owned companies, hundreds of these companies, and we employ thousands of Inuit. With government, if they have a better understanding and work on a business timeline, which I know can be a bit of a challenge, I think that act would certainly help to support our move towards economic reconciliation and really support empowering Inuit as well.

[Rechie Valdez, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

For the completed or ongoing projects, can you share what you've learned with us in this committee so we can invest in the right areas?

[Clint Davis]

I'm sorry; do you mean for the ongoing projects on the military side?

[Rechie Valdez, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

That's right, yes.

[Clint Davis]

Again, we help to maintain and operate the North Warning System contract. As I said earlier, I think there's a great opportunity for us to see what we can do to utilize renewable energy for some of these sites, to see if there are any learnings that can happen with communities. I think a better utilization of some of our business through different procurement processes would actually help significantly.

I agree with my colleague about the investment in airstrips. That's the road to the Arctic, right? Not one road is connecting any community in Nunavut. Not one road is connecting any community in Nunatsiavut. I think ensuring we have the right airstrip and airport infrastructure in place would be absolutely critical, so that's a critical investment.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You have one minute.

[Rechie Valdez, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

My last question is on your future projects. Can you share what excites you the most about what we can do to strengthen the Arctic?

[Clint Davis]

For me, as I said, it's trying to utilize renewable energy.

I think what we can do to strengthen the Arctic is to try to identify the Arctic as a great place for investment for the private sector. My colleague talked about some of these companies that come in and just stay for a short period of time. Something we see very little of is private sector investment, actual financial capital, through different forms of infrastructure investment like P3s and so on. I think we have to utilize that and demonstrate that our Arctic is a really good place to invest, and hopefully that will result in a greater, more sustainable build-out of the Arctic.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Ms. Valdez.

On behalf of the committee, I want to thank both of you for your time.

I must admit, Mr. Klapatiuk, I have never had a witness come before a House of Commons committee from a hangar. You're our first. Well done.

Thank you both.

We will suspend for a second while we release the witnesses.

James, don't wander away. Both motions stand in your name. I see Mr. May's hand, but before I do that, I will say that I think we should deal with the motion on the Auditor General first.

Do we all have a clear understanding of what's on the table with the Auditor General motion?

With that, I will open it up to Mr. May, who I assume wants to speak to that particular motion.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We would support the motion. I don't think we need a vote on it, to be honest.

My concern, as I was trying to articulate earlier, is that this study has gone from involving four meetings to nine meetings to now potentially 10 or more meetings, and we're losing a meeting this Thursday. I'd like to seek some collaboration on potentially combining seven and eight. We have actually requested that the department appear before us three times on this study, which seems excessive considering it will be the same witnesses in many cases. I'm suggesting, given that we've lost Thursday, we combine meetings seven and eight, which would be on CAF operations in the north. We could combine the meetings on icebreaking and SAR into one.

I'm looking to the clerk to see if that is in the realm of possibility.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I'm hesitant to get into organizing the meetings in this format, but, perhaps, Mr. Clerk, you could speak to that briefly. I think consolidation is good if we make the principle that we stay with nine meetings and somehow or another wedge the AG into the ninth meeting—

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

—rather than directing the clerk on how to organize it.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Yes. I'm not asking for a full calendar from the clerk at this point. I think MP Gallant asked for a calendar earlier today. I think there is a work plan in place, which I believe I've seen. I will defer to the clerk on that. My hope is that we can just agree that we don't necessarily need a vote on this.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Do you want to speak to that?

[The Clerk]

Sure.

For the meeting on November 22, we have planned for icebreaking and search and rescue.

Then the operations in the north have been bumped from this Thursday to the following Thursday.

Basically, to answer your question with a bigger answer, we have eight meetings between now and December 15. If we finish the witnesses who are outstanding from the Arctic study, that would be five of those eight meetings.

This would leave us with three meetings. The AG could fill one of those meetings. We also have the supplementary estimates still to be tabled.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Chair, excuse me.

We really don't have those three meetings. I think those are “nice to haves”, but we know we're losing meetings on a frequent basis. We are also potentially going to want to have the minister appear before us before we rise for the holiday.

As a former chair, I'm trying to be logistical about this and recognize that we need to build in some buffers.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Yes, this particular chair, peculiar that he is—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

—likes to do logistics off-line. It's much better to do it that way. Otherwise, we'll be chewing up all the rest of our three minutes.

Can we report back to you as a committee next Tuesday, unfortunately? I'd like to report on Thursday, but we don't have that opportunity, so it would be next Tuesday. Hopefully, we will have a consolidated approach. Is that good? Are we good with that? Okay.

Those in favour of the motion, please signify.