Natural Resources Committee on Oct. 24th, 2011

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, presenters. I appreciate your input today.

As we go along with this committee, we're getting the idea that there is, of course, a huge benefit north of 60 for the residents who live up there who are able to perhaps improve their quality of life because of the economic benefits of working at the mines and in exploration.

I am sure the exploration and mine development brings a new economy to the north and employs local people. I know that a lot of specialists come in from the outside. From the local point of view, is the average family or resident who lived there prior to the mine actually seeing some real tangible gains in quality of life? Or are any personal economic gains they are making through pretty good employment being taken away by increases in the prices of goods and services they are able to buy?

In other words, I know the economy is getting better for many of the residents, but there are also a lot of businesses up there selling things to them. Is there any exploitation going on so that the personal gains are not as much as we would expect? Is anyone keeping an eye on this to make sure there are some real ground-level benefits for the people who have lived there prior to and now subsequent to the development?

Mr. Cavan and Mr. Moore, perhaps it should go to you guys.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Cavan, go ahead, please.

[Scott Cavan, Program Director, Aboriginal Affairs, Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada]

While the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada were proponents of the mineral industry and the exploration phase, I would have to say that I'm not that well versed in the on-the-ground economics of the impact in terms of the flow of goods north and the cost or quality of life impact you are perhaps suggesting. I don't think I would be qualified to comment.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

I had that question asked to me by someone just a couple of days ago. Milk cost $10 a quart in any one of the northern communities before the mine came. Now the mines have come, and hundreds of thousand and millions of dollars are going into the communities through employment. But now milk is $20 a quart. This is just a suggestion. Is it now $20? Is that happening? I was curious as to whether anybody is keeping track of the price of goods and services. Are they escalating more than the personal gains for the people who should be making some personal gains?

That's okay. I will save that question for another party.

Dr. MacLean, I have a couple of questions. There has been some public discussion about a new satellite program for northern Canada called PolarSat. Can you tell us a little bit about this? What will this satellite do for the north? How could it help the economy? How can it meet our obligations regarding sovereignty, defence, and indeed the environment?

[Dr. Steve MacLean]

I'll explain what it is first.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

That's a lot of questions.

[Dr. Steve MacLean]

As you know, Anik F2 is an equatorial system that sits out at geosynchronous orbit. It sits above a particular position of the earth and rotates around the earth at the same speed of the earth and stays there. It has a footprint into Canada and barely makes 60 degrees north. So there is the recognition that for all the mining and exploration going on up north and all the flying happening up north because of the mining exploration, there is a hole in the communications and weather services provided by the north.

At the Canadian Space Agency we were asked to take a look at a long-term plan for how we would approach the priorities of government. So we did that. We did a long consultation process, and the number one activity that came back was to provide social and economic development for the north. For us, that meant this PolarSat satellite system.

It's a system in a patented orbit that Canada owns—if this is the earth, with the north pole here and the south pole there, it hangs at 44,000 kilometres out, over the north, and as it skirts around the south, it hangs, again, over the north. It has a 12-hour period, so you need two of them to get complete communication coverage of the north.

By bringing this system in, you will equalize the service, from a communications point of view, for all Canadians. You'll have the latest and greatest technology supporting your Internet, supporting your aircraft, supporting your weather services, etc. That's the communications aspect of this system.

It also provides weather. There is no weather north of 60 right now. Now there is an interesting phenomenon—the tropopause up north is about 20,000 feet, wherein most of our weather is below the tropopause. The tropopause at the equator is 50,000 feet. So if we provide weather, you'll get the same information that you see on your CTV or CBC every evening, except it will include the north. If we provide that weather, we are actually able to improve the models in the south as well.

This proposal is to bring communications and weather infrastructure to the north. We also have an air quality experiment that we probably will fly on it. That hasn't been quite decided.

This is a major proposal. It's at the proposal stage. We've finished phase A of the design. I have been asked to come to cabinet to describe the long-term space plan, and I am hoping they ask me about the social and economic development of the north, where PolarSat would be the number one item.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Okay.

Do I have some time yet?

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Very short.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Speaking of the long-term space plan requested by Minister Prentice just a few years ago, the government has been perusing it, I guess, and that's one of the reasons you're here.

Can you tell us briefly where it's at and when it might be made public?

[Dr. Steve MacLean]

We were asked—in fact that’s the reason I took the job as president—to produce a long-term space plan for the benefit of Canada. We had an extensive consultation process starting in September of 2008. Over the following 18 months, we had round table discussions with all of industry. There are about 200 institutions that are involved with space in Canada. We had round table discussions with 23 universities and 14 government departments that are involved.

Each group wrote up what they thought this plan should entail, and we distilled that down to a long-term space plan. We have submitted that to the Government of Canada and it's in process right now.

It's my hope that it's made public soon, but it is in a cabinet process that we have to basically act out.

What that plan does is align with government priorities, which are safety, sovereignty, security, natural resources, the environment, and health. So we align with all of those.

The safety, sovereignty, and security, given the purpose of this meeting, is a major portion of what we can do. We can handle the northern perimeter, we can handle the western approach and the maritime approach, and all of those are part of the plan.

What's interesting when you do those kinds of things...the plan shows that if you want one outcome—and let's say that's the sustainable and economic development of the north—you need several assets to do that. You need the RADARSAT data that we now provide with RADARSAT-2 inside the plan. And three more of these RADARSAT-type satellites were approved in Budget 2010.

Let me show you this. The quality and the quantity of—

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Doctor, I'm going to have to cut you off for now. I hope someone else will ask a question that will bring the rest of the information out, and I'm quite confident they will.

Thank you, Mr. Harris, for your questions.

Mr. Gravelle, you have up to seven minutes.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Dr. MacLean.

I'm very interested in hearing about your experience taking two trips into space 14 years apart. I'm interested to hear, taking our study into consideration here, if you saw any changes in the north from space, such as changes in the Arctic waters or the ice cap. Is there any evidence of planetary warming in these trips 14 years apart?

[Dr. Steve MacLean]

Yes, I did.

I was fortunate to fly in the same month, October, in 1992 and then again in 2006. As you know, seasonal changes are still larger than the yearly climatic changes that we're seeing, and so having the privilege of flying in the same month allowed me to see the climatic changes and not just the seasonal changes.

The amount of ice in the mountains all over the world is substantially reduced. I was so impressed with that reduction that I went and got RADARSAT data from 1995 and RADARSAT data from 1996 and used the software to see how much the ice has been reduced. The tongues of the Columbia Icefields, for example, are reduced by two to three kilometres depending on where you are.

Pollution indexes were visible to the naked eye. Back in 1992, China was dirty at the centre of Beijing, for example. The air was dirty. Now the entire region is dirty. I just came back from China, and it's a major problem for them over there. I saw that with my own eyes, but we have satellites that measure that as well and have been collecting data. It's a system called MOPITT. It's been collecting data for 10 years, and it shows that there is a substantial increase of this local pollution in China. What's interesting, though, is that it also shows the upward transport phenomenon that takes it up over the north. That local pollution problem is causing a pretty substantive problem in our north.

So yes, those changes are evident.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

As a scientist, you're saying there is scientific data showing that there is global warming?

[Dr. Steve MacLean]

I have to be careful with that answer.

If you were to look at what's happening up north in the summer...the ice, for example, used to be open in M'Clintock Channel four weeks of the year. Now it's open six weeks of the year. In the time we've been measuring it, that is a substantial difference. The average temperature in the north is several degrees higher. There are parameters that indicate that change is taking place.

Whether this is global warming in the long term, that's a big step to take. There are definitely changes taking place in the north, and if you don't react to them, you can consider them a disaster or you can consider them an opportunity. If you consider them an opportunity, you need to react to and mitigate them.

That's the approach I would take if I were asked.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Okay.

There were news stories this month about a massive Arctic ozone hole—two million square kilometres, twice the size of Ontario—opening up. Twenty-nine scientists are reporting that this means higher degrees of harmful ultraviolet radiation hitting northern Canada and the northern hemisphere.

This news occurs as our government cuts Environment Canada's ozone monitoring network system. I understand governments and groups around the world rely on work that Canada is doing. Neil Harris, an atmospheric chemist in the United Kingdom, says, and I quote:

Canada has been a linchpin of Arctic ozone observation.... It has contributed very substantial data to research that allows us to be diagnostic about what's happening in the Arctic stratosphere. If we were to lose one-third of our monitoring capability in the Arctic the overall loss in scientific value will be much greater.

Can you comment on the ozone hole, its dangers, Canada's work here, and these cuts?

[Dr. Steve MacLean]

Yes, I can. In 1987 I flew over the northern depression measuring ozone. We have a vortex that goes around the North Pole, and it takes three weeks in the spring to complete its circle. If you fly through that vortex in the spring you will see what, until this year, was a depression. I was studying the difference between dynamic depletion and chemical depletion of ozone in that depression.

Canada is famous for its world ozone monitoring network based on an instrument called the Brewer, which was developed by Alan Brewer, a Canadian. Because of that work we flew instruments on the shuttle that measure ozone. We have two satellites now--SCISAT and Odin. Odin is a Swedish satellite, but the instrument is Canadian. We are using them to measure ozone, among other trace elements. The measurements we take show the seriousness of what happened this spring in the Arctic. So it is something we have to look after.

It's a tribute to the leadership of our country that over the last 20 years we've been tracking ozone. We are the best at it. We have the best instrumentation and the best scientists. We're kind of in a parking spot, and we just need to stay there because we're the best at it. We don't have to leave and let someone else take over.

So I have strong feelings that our history in this area is stellar, and the expertise we have developed over the last 20 to 25 years has been nothing short of a service to the rest of the world.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

What will these cuts do to the service we give to the world?

[Dr. Steve MacLean]

The cuts are not within my mandate. I'm not sure what the cuts are, so I can't really comment. I can say that the United Nations has asked the Canadian Space Agency to bridge the gap, starting in 2014, to build another satellite that will measure greenhouse gases and trace elements, including ozone. They are asking us because we're the best at it. It's something that is worth looking at.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Okay.

Do I have more time?

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

You have a few minutes.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

This is a question for the mining sector. The private sector is using this space data to pursue mining and resource exploration activities, and to monitor and protect vital oil and gas pipelines. Looking at the substances around well heads and along with the length of the transmission line to market, can you give examples of the data you are gathering?

[Richard Moore]

I can't give any examples for the oil and gas industry because that's not what we do. We do mining exploration. But the satellite data is extremely useful for us in the Arctic. It hasn't been talked about, but there are other forms of data collected from satellites. It can be used to inference what the rock types actually are. This is where they're not covered by sand, gravel, or vegetation, which is often the case in the Arctic.

RADARSAT-2 is widely used for exploration in the Arctic, as well as some other satellites that are multi-spectral. I don't believe that Canada is the owner of those satellites, but they're also extremely useful. I know our Canadian government has an arm that has done really great research on using hyper-spectral work from space and low-flying aircraft to determine rock types and potential sites for mineral deposits.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Gravelle.

We'll go now to Mr. McGuinty for up to seven minutes.