Public Accounts Committee on March 6th, 2023

[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.

[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?

[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.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Even as far as Fahrenheit and Celsius...?

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Have you ironed that one out yet?

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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?

[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.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Jean Yip]

Thank you very much.

Thank you to all the witness for coming yet again.

I'd like to say congratulations to Mr. Thangaraj on his new role as deputy minister of transport.

Do I have consent to adjourn the meeting?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Jean Yip]

Very good. We're adjourned. Thank you.