Natural Resources Committee on Oct. 24th, 2011

[Richard Moore]

I think it has to do with the universities. If the enrollment of certain courses gets below a certain level, they have a tendency to cut them out. They are looking for bums in seats. That's the expression they tend to use, and I think what we could do is show more support for the various university departments to keep--

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

Let me suggest that if you have any ideas, submit them to the committee, and any industry ones too.

I have a final question on regulatory issues. I'm sure that tends to occupy a fair bit of your time. What are the more successful ways that governments and organizations have used to deal with regulatory issues, and what contributions do you think this committee could make? What changes do you think need to be made to make regulations simpler and more effective for the industry in the north?

[Richard Moore]

One I have seen personally was in Greenland, where they have a one-person approach. There is one individual who is assigned to your project, and this individual helps you work your way through all the various regulations and departments to get all the permissions you need. It's a one-window approach.

I understand that Newfoundland will soon be using this approach as well, and that would really help facilitate exploration in knowing where to go and who to talk to.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Trost.

We go now to Mr. Lizon, for up to five minutes. Go ahead, please.

[Wladyslaw Lizon, Conservative, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

I have a question for Dr. MacLean. In your presentation you mentioned that one of the activities the Canadian Space Agency is doing is the exploitation, development, and sustainable management of Canada's natural resources, especially in the north. Could you elaborate a little more on this?

[Dr. Steve MacLean]

One of the things that I think is important to allow us to do that effectively is to have a data policy under which the data is free. So look at what our data sources are, where we're measuring parameters in the north. We can do three-dimensional mapping of the north down to the resolutions I gave you earlier. That's topographical mapping. You can put the geological mapping on top of that. You can do the hydrology, which is a major piece of the geology associated with exploration, on top of that. And that hydrology can be measured as a function of what it is today and what it might have been in the past.

We have a situation in which 90% of our assets on the utilization side of the agency--we also have the exploration of space, which is a separate entity--can be used and focused on the north. We do surveys of the pipelines. We can see subsidence around a pipeline to millimetres. We can warn an oil company that there is an issue with a particular structure on their pipeline and change the character of the risk associated with that. We can see subsidence. We can see subsidence changing at the millimetre level. Because of that, we not only monitor that risk, we develop the character of that risk associated with mining. We are operational with respect to rock slides in B.C. So we see and track areas people have identified they're nervous about. So if they start to slip, Public Safety ends up closing the highway.

By having all this kind of data--and then the PolarSat satellite you're talking about, which is the communications infrastructure that allows you to get the data to the people in the north--you're going to change the acceleration of the development of the north. You will make it more operationally efficient, and you will make it safer for all of that activity that happens up in the north during the summer. And I think we have a major role to play with respect to the development of the north, because our assets can do those kinds of things today. We're the space highway, if you like, for the development of the north.

[Wladyslaw Lizon, Conservative, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

This is a follow-up question. What data in particular that you collect will, in a practical form, help in mapping activities for petroleum or mineral resources?

[Dr. Steve MacLean]

I think our 3-D map that's being developed by RADARSAT-2 and the follow-up map that will come from Constellation will be at the heart of all the other data sets that you put on top of that map to understand what's going on from a geological point of view. So the example I gave earlier was you'll get magnetic data from airborne instruments. If you put that on top of this 3-D map, you're going to see the intrusives of nickel, say, across Sudbury. There are other things to see, magnetically, that geologists use all the time. If you put that on top of a 3-D map of the north, you'll see what the history of that geology is because you're doing that.

Hyperspectral is something we don't have. We have a proposal for it, but we don't have it because it's too expensive for us to get it up right now. If we add hyperspectral to that data set, it will make a major difference for mining. With hyperspectral, you get the entire spectrum for every pixel you're working with if you look at it from space, and that entire spectrum tells you about the character of the geology. When you put it on top of 3-D, when you add it to the hydrology, it gives you an integrated picture.

[Wladyslaw Lizon, Conservative, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

And when we're talking about the geology, what depth are we talking about?

[Dr. Steve MacLean]

It depends on the asset. With RADARSAT-2 we're measuring the topography, and we give that to you in 3-D to quite a high resolution. If we use another satellite system that has what's called Elban, which is a different frequency, it will penetrate and give you the water moisture down to just under a metre—to half a metre or three-quarters of a metre. So it depends what asset you're talking about. The highest resolutions are with optical, but they work only when it's not cloudy. In Canada, you have 50% cloud every day. RADARSAT works night and day, 24/7, because it doesn't worry about the content of the clouds. We have other instruments. We let the radar be stopped at the clouds, and that's called CloudSat. That's an American satellite, but it's our instrument that is at the heart of that satellite.

So all of these things put together can make a difference, but the only way they're really going to make a difference is if the data at level zero is free. Then the mining companies can get all the data at level zero, hire somebody who is value-added to put it all together, and give them an output they can use to make their exploration operations more efficient. This is a key point. Part of the data policy we're pursuing is to make raw data that comes from government-based satellites be free to the industry.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Lizon.

[Wladyslaw Lizon, Conservative, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Do I have any time left?

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

No, you do not. You are out of time.

We go now to Monsieur Lapointe for up to five minutes.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. MacLean, you and Mr. McGuinty have stated certain things having to do with global warming. If I am not mistaken, you think that warming is in fact happening in the north.

You may speak in English, if you want, and I'll speak in French.

[Dr. Steve MacLean]

I do think that is the case. I went to the Northwest Passage twice this summer and last year, and it was obvious to my eyes.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Did I hear you correctly, that you think this is not primarily an opportunity, it is in fact a potential disaster?

[Dr. Steve MacLean]

No. In my view, it is an opportunity. We have to react to a situation in which things are changing, but if we are aware of how they are changing, we can react in a well thought out way.

The permafrost is melting, but it's melting here, and it's not melting there. We provide these data. You decide to put your structures here. Don't set up a mine in an area that has a potential to slide. Set it up over here. It's that kind of thing.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

I do understand that. I appreciate your professionalism when you suggest that a safety audit of sites be done.

However, apart from the question of mines, are you not at all concerned about the changes that are happening so quickly and about biodiversity?

[Dr. Steve MacLean]

You can't say that. These changes can be seen every day. I can't say exactly what will happen in 10 years or what parameters will be more difficult to understand 10 years from now.

What we can do is show you the data today and show you what you need to work at. The caribou paths are changing, the permafrost is changing, and the ice is melting longer in, say, Larsen Sound. The polar ice comes from the north into the Northwest Passage and makes it much more difficult than it was a few years ago, and it will be that way for a while. So it's a matter of understanding exactly where we are with climate change and then taking action that in some cases mitigates it, in some cases takes advantage of it, and in some cases recognizes that we have to do something to prevent the next tipping point from happening.

I'm outside my area of expertise, but take what's happened with cod. I'm not talking the cod off Newfoundland; I'm talking about the four-inch cod that sit under the ice in the northwest. Twenty years ago, the captain of a ship would tell you that when the ice flips over you'd see 500, and now you see four. And that's because he's a tipping point for the food chain, ecologically, up in the north.

Does that mean things are going to be serious in 10 years? I don't know. It means it's serious now and we need to mitigate the effects of this trend. You do that across each example you have that provides a tipping point in the north, and there are several.

The flow of water from Alaska, the Pacific water and the Atlantic water...by measuring salinity and by the tide, you can tell which water is getting there first, and that's changing. And those current flows tell you what's going to happen with the atmospheric flows.

All of this is information that we need to collect so that you can provide it to the people who know, so that they're working with accurate data and not with data that has large error bands and doesn't mean anything.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

From that kind of perspective, which calls for simply reacting, it is important to move forward by observing what is happening in real time, and react by creating opportunities. Is that what you see?

[Dr. Steve MacLean]

Yes, that's it.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Change, even rapid change, doesn't worry you?

[Dr. Steve MacLean]

I didn't say that.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

I'm trying to understand. For example, are there certain thresholds where you might sound the alarm? You were talking earlier about pollution in China that is coming to the north. Are there thresholds that should not be reached, in your opinion? Does that exist in your organization?

[Dr. Steve MacLean]

I studied the atmosphere for several years when I was young. In all of that, I learned that we didn't know exactly what would happen to our atmosphere. However, we know it is very fragile. What we did with the ozone layer is a specific case. We changed the amount of CFCs in the air. Those substances have a life of about 1,000 years. We made that change, and the hole in the ozone layer over the Antarctic has closed up slightly.

Now we are in a situation where the changes in air currents have altered the Arctic depression. It is changing. We know we can change that. We can adopt a strategic plan to reverse the damage caused.