Public Accounts Committee on March 6th, 2023

Evidence of meeting #51 for Public Accounts in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was surveillance.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

Report 6, Arctic Waters Surveillance, of the 2022 Reports 5 to 8 of the Auditor General of Canada

Committee Business

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Arun Thangaraj Deputy Minister, Department of Transport

Bill Matthews Deputy Minister, Department of National Defence

Chris Forbes Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment

Andrew Hayes Deputy Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General

Lisa Setlakwe Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport

Steven Waddell Deputy Commander, Royal Canadian Navy, Department of National Defence

Rob Chambers Assistant Deputy Minister, Infrastructure and Environment, Department of National Defence

Nicholas Swales Principal, Office of the Auditor General

Nancy Tremblay Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Material, Department of National Defence

Ken Macdonald Executive Director, National Programs and Business Development, Prediction Services Directorate, Meteorological Service of Canada, Department of the Environment

1 p.m.

Executive Director, National Programs and Business Development, Prediction Services Directorate, Meteorological Service of Canada, Department of the Environment

Ken Macdonald

First of all, on the weather side, we have a full public weather program for communities in the Arctic. All the communities get public weather forecasts and warnings. For the marine communities, we have a full marine weather program, which includes weather conditions and sea state. Finally, we have an advanced—from a world's perspective—ice monitoring and prediction program. We co-operate extensively internationally on ice. We are considered a lead nation in understanding sea ice, tracking sea ice and characterizing sea ice, which is critical for the operations now of both the navy and the Coast Guard.

As I said earlier, we took on responsibility to provide the same information for all international waters all the way to the pole, from north of Alaska, north of Greenland, to across the Arctic, to support all international activities.

1 p.m.

Liberal

Brenda Shanahan Liberal Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC

Actually, I'm wondering about co-operation with the United States, again, in this area. Can you talk to me about some of the projects that you have with the United States?

1 p.m.

Executive Director, National Programs and Business Development, Prediction Services Directorate, Meteorological Service of Canada, Department of the Environment

Ken Macdonald

There are several. Probably the strongest one particularly relevant to the Arctic is on sea ice. We have a trilateral arrangement with our ice service and the ice service in the United States, which is part of NOAA, and also with the international ice patrol, which is part of the U.S. Coast Guard for tracking icebergs. We have a trilateral arrangement with the U.S. on all aspects of sea ice. We actually deliver service seamlessly among the organizations. For example, for ice on the Great Lakes, the forecast may come out from Canada one day and from the U.S. the next day, for the same forecast. It's totally harmonized between the two countries.

1:05 p.m.

Liberal

Brenda Shanahan Liberal Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC

Even as far as Fahrenheit and Celsius...?

1:05 p.m.

Voices

Oh, oh!

1:05 p.m.

Liberal

Brenda Shanahan Liberal Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC

Have you ironed that one out yet?

March 6th, 2023 / 1:05 p.m.

Executive Director, National Programs and Business Development, Prediction Services Directorate, Meteorological Service of Canada, Department of the Environment

Ken Macdonald

We haven't worked that one out yet. Scientifically, though, they agree that Celsius is the right scale, but publicly, it's another question.

1:05 p.m.

Liberal

Brenda Shanahan Liberal Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC

That's interesting. Does it ever come up, though? Are there disagreements? Is there a difference in approach, especially over...? With Alaska being there, of course, there must be Americans that have very much a vested interest, as well, in how things are done.

1:05 p.m.

Executive Director, National Programs and Business Development, Prediction Services Directorate, Meteorological Service of Canada, Department of the Environment

Ken Macdonald

It's not a difference of opinion. I think we learn from each other, particularly because they do a lot of work with coastal communities on travel on sea ice, and we're learning from that to broaden our programs for sea ice. Traditionally it's been about vessel traffic and supporting vessel activity, but we've increasingly learned about how we can support community activity, travel on sea ice, hunting on sea ice, where it's a very different environment with landfast ice versus open-water ice. We're working collaboratively to learn from them.

1:05 p.m.

Liberal

Brenda Shanahan Liberal Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC

Very good. Can you share with us, speaking of communities, any projects that you have with the indigenous communities, with the Inuit in the area?

1:05 p.m.

Executive Director, National Programs and Business Development, Prediction Services Directorate, Meteorological Service of Canada, Department of the Environment

Ken Macdonald

Ours are particularly through university partnerships, and they have the programs with the communities. This is on things like ice thickness—measuring ice thickness and techniques for ice thickness. That's what the strongest one is. It's sort of indirectly through the universities that we're largely co-operating.

1:05 p.m.

Liberal