Evidence of meeting #42 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 infrastructure.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:55 p.m.
Assistant Professor, Public Policy and Governance, Brian Mulroney Institute of Government, St. Francis Xavier University, As an Individual
I can't provide the answer to that. I think the military would probably have that information.
I will highlight that it wasn't actually a ranger who spotted that New Zealand sailing yacht. That was a member of the Inuit marine monitoring program. I do want to give them proper credit for that spot.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Okay.
Insofar as the rangers go, besides the increase in value of the compensation for their equipment, how would they like to get the increased training that they've asked for, such as for GPS? What is it they need for that training?
12:55 p.m.
Assistant Professor, Public Policy and Governance, Brian Mulroney Institute of Government, St. Francis Xavier University, As an Individual
I think there are lots of opportunities here. Depending on where they are, rangers might ask for more emergency response training so that they can better help with the different emergencies facing their communities, whether that be wildfires or tundra fires or flooding. There are all types of different emergencies they could be called upon to respond to. I think expanding that kind of training would be—
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Yes. In orienteering and using GPS, do they want to come out of their homeland, those territories, in order to learn about this, or do they want entities to come to them to teach them in their own environment?
12:55 p.m.
Assistant Professor, Public Policy and Governance, Brian Mulroney Institute of Government, St. Francis Xavier University, As an Individual
I think Calvin is indicating “come this way”, having the training at the community level or at the regional level.
I know that some rangers have enjoyed exchanges in places like northern Australia. That's a really important part of the organization. For the most part, though, I think the training must be done at the local level to ensure that most rangers are benefiting from it.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
Bryan May Liberal Cambridge, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My questions will be for Madame Vullierme.
You've previously written on the benefits to Canada increasing its participation in NATO allied exercises in the Arctic region. Do you believe that Canada is doing enough in terms of participating in allied exercises hosted by northern NATO allies?
12:55 p.m.
Researcher, Centre de recherche du Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal, As an Individual
I think Canada is doing what it can with the capabilities it has.
Concerning the Arctic, there is often a tendency to compare Russia's capabilities to Canada's. But consider that a city like Murmansk in Russia has about 300,000 people, whereas there are no Arctic communities of 300,000 people at all in Canada.
I think you have to put all of this in a general context and in an ah doc context in Canada. Canadian participation can't be as large as American participation because the Arctic communities we have are much less densely populated than those of other Arctic states.
1 p.m.
Liberal
Bryan May Liberal Cambridge, ON
Besides military exercises, do you see other opportunities for Canada to deepen co-operation with our Arctic allies?
1 p.m.
Researcher, Centre de recherche du Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal, As an Individual
Let's return to the Canadian model.
What comes up most often about the Canadian position in the Arctic regions is the support of the federal and provincial governments for indigenous communities. What really makes Canada strong in Arctic geopolitics are indigenous people first and foremost.
There is still work to be done, but in political discourse and in fact, Canada is the state that is doing the most for its indigenous peoples. We need to continue to support that, diplomatically, by also highlighting the Canadian Rangers, who can serve as a model, for example.
On the Greenland side, there is the Sirius Patrol. It is composed almost exclusively of Danes who patrol Greenland. It could be very useful to export the Canadian Ranger model to Greenland, among other places, to show these people the best practices that we have with respect to indigenous and non-indigenous people.
1 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. May.
That brings us to the end of our second hour.
On behalf of the committee, I want to thank Dr. Kikkert and Dr. Vullierme.
Mr. Pedersen, you are supremely articulate without saying a word. I will look forward to an invitation going from our clerk to you to see whether we can get you properly wired up. I look forward to that opportunity for you to speak to the committee and share your experiences. Clearly, our committee is in need of the knowledge and the experiences that you've had.
I thank Dr. Kikkert for doing his best to substitute.
Colleagues, before I adjourn, we are having Madam Justice Arbour on Thursday. It's my intention to have at least an hour with her. I would also like to set aside some time in those two hours for some committee business. We've been juggling schedules, and it's been very difficult to pull a bunch of people together. As well, we have the Auditor General scheduled for the 8th, along with Jody Thomas, the national security adviser. We just have to work together to make our final run.
I see Mr. Bezan is waving his hand.
1 p.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
Mr. Chair, I'm asking for some clarification.
When we have the Auditor General, will the national security adviser be accompanying her, or will it be on the study that we're doing right now?
1 p.m.
Liberal
1 p.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
I think that for the Auditor General, we would want a two-hour meeting, based on her report and based on the need to dig in thoroughly on that.
I would suggest, then, that we would possibly invite Ms. Thomas to appear at another time. It could be, potentially, this Thursday, if we have only an hour with—
1 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
You've not been privy to all the difficulties of lining up these people.
1:05 p.m.
Conservative
1:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
You are succeeding.
I'm not going to respond to your intervention at this point. I will ask you to save your intervention for when we are meeting once again.
In the meanwhile, the meeting is adjourned.