Public Safety Committee on April 7th, 2022

[Dr. Paul Goode]

It's an important question.

I think the biggest wild card here is awareness of the extent of casualties and whether or not those will actually impact public opinion. At the moment it's difficult to predict, but it is very clear that the number of casualties is being played down on the Putin side.

There has been also some speculation that the use of groups of volunteers, as well as ordinary soldiers from parts of Russia like the Caucasus, is specifically aimed to ensure that casualties are primarily ethnic minorities and that as a result the casualties will not resonate widely through Russian public opinion, which is 80% ethnically Russian—

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Thank you for that. I'm sorry, but I have only a limited amount of time.

We've seen how oil and gas has been funding Putin's war machine. All this equipment they're losing in Ukraine must be costing their treasury quite a bit, but we've also seen reports that over the last few decades Russians have been funding groups that seek to oppose the development of oil and gas resources in the west and in other areas.

How effective do you think the Russians have been at using this sort of propaganda to ensure that Europe in particular remains dependent on Russian energy?

[Dr. Paul Goode]

I don't want to speculate, because I don't have any specific data on that. I will say this: I think it's well known that Europe turned primarily to Russian energy for what appeared to be a stable alternative to Middle Eastern energy, especially from the 1990s onwards.

A lot of that, I think, was not so much to do with Russian propaganda, although certainly I can see how that would play a role in ensuring that public sentiment in areas that have traditionally been more cordial towards Russia, as well as parts of old Europe, remained opposed to weaning Europe off of Russian energy.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Thank you for that.

We've seen some reports of people cancelling certain aspects of Russian culture, like Dostoevsky, but I really appreciate your recommendation about supporting Russian exiles and émigré communities as a means of providing a bulwark against Putin's regime.

Do you think that this “cancel culture” which we've seen—not from governments, necessarily—would be unhelpful to supporting Russian émigrés?

[Dr. Paul Goode]

I do. I think there are some things that make sense. A lot of this has been focused on, for instance, the cancelling of appearances or competitions by Russian sports competitors. Sports have been an important source of Russia's self-power and an important part of its claim to international legitimacy, so there is a rationale there.

More broadly, though, it's important to remember that nobody does a better job of cancelling Russians than the Russian government. That's the thing that really needs to drive our support for émigrés and exiles who could be allies.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

I have only a little bit of time left. We've seen a lot of Russian propaganda saying they're fighting fascism in Ukraine. Do you think that spreading disinformation in the west about the far right in Ukraine as a real threat has been an effective narrative for the past few years?

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

You have 10 seconds.

[Dr. Paul Goode]

I would say, very briefly, yes, it has been effective and it has been a stable part of Russian propaganda.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much.

Mr. McKinnon, we turn it over to you for four minutes of questioning. The floor is yours.

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I'd like to thank all the witnesses for being here.

My questions will, initially at least, be addressed to Dr. Lajeunesse.

Doctor, in your remarks you talked about the importance of enhancing surveillance capabilities in the north. You mentioned the DEW Line and the northern warning network, which seems to follow the track of the old DEW Line.

The DEW Line was created in an era of ICBMs and threats of long-range bombers and so forth. Is that still relevant today, and in what way do these systems need to be upgraded? Do we need a warning line even farther north than that?

If you could speak to this point, I'd appreciate it.

[Dr. Adam Lajeunesse]

The DEW Line and the NWS were put into place at a time of very different strategic context. Both of them were looking for Russian bombers, simply put. The DEW Line was quickly made obsolete by the arrival of ICBMs, but the NWS was brought in as an upgrade with the advent of Russian cruise missiles. The hard security threat we're facing today comes from new Russian weapons with much longer ranges. If this is of particular interest, I would direct committee members to a paper written by two NORAD officers, Fesler and O'Shaughnessy, called “Hardening the Shield”. They do a very good job of outlining the strategic considerations and threat.

Today that danger is still Russian hard power. It is still Russian bombers and weapons that could theoretically be launched from the Arctic as first-strike weapons. However, it's a very different context in the sense that we need a much more holistic look at surveillance, because it is not just Russian bombers we're looking for, as was the case in the 1950s, but now civilian craft, maritime militia, hybrid threats, illegal fishing fleets, trespassing and pollution threats. All manner of different aerospace and maritime threats are emerging.

What is required is a much more complex, holistic system of systems that allows Canada and the United States to gain a much more complete situational awareness.

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Are you talking about an integration amongst subsea detectors as well as CWS and satellite surveillance as well?

In terms of satellites, those are vulnerable to attack. I'm wondering how that vulnerability affects the integrity of the system.

[Dr. Adam Lajeunesse]

We have been developing the subsea systems since the 1970s at least. How effective they are remains classified and beyond my pay grade.

On the satellite networks that you're talking about, we do have a fairly good satellite imaging capability through our RADARSAT system.

You are right that the Chinese and the Russians have both successfully tested anti-satellite weapons. However, we are in a different world in 2022 than we were 10 years ago, say, with the extraordinary decrease in the cost of launching satellites in a crisis scenario. For instance, if we had backup surveillance satellites, we could launch much more quickly at a much more affordable cost. I believe that Elon Musk, even just a week or two ago, said that he could launch satellites faster than Russians could shoot them down—

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much.

I would now invite Ms. Michaud to make the most of her minute and a half. The floor is yours.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Etkin, in a media report, you commented on the flooding that hit Sainte‑Marthe‑sur‑le‑Lac in 2019. This is what you said:

Sainte-Marthe-sur-le-Lac was flooded not because there was a lot of rain but because we build communities in flood plains.

We are our own worst enemies in terms of how we create risks in society by short-term thinking, pursuit of profit and denial.

When it comes to disaster, risk and incident management, would you say that Canada is in prevention and preparation mode, or reaction mode?

[Dr. Paul Goode]

First of all, I have to apologize. I'm not sure I got the entire question there.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

The question was for Mr. Etkin, the disaster and emergency management expert.

[Prof. David A Etkin]

Thank you.

I think we don't do nearly enough in the sense of mitigation and being proactive. The risks we create are significantly caused by poor decisions that we make. There's too much emphasis on being reactive on response and not nearly enough on mitigation and prevention.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much.

Mr. MacGregor, now it's your turn with a minute and a half. Go ahead.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Professor Goode, I'll pose my last question to you. You spoke a lot about the way in which sanctions have impacted oligarchs and the fact that they are very much competing with one another for Putin's favour. I'm just wondering, though, if your department has been reviewing any open-source intelligence about how the sanctions from the west are impacting Russian citizens.

I know that there's a fervent amount of nationalism and patriotism among Russian society, but is the fact that they can't get access to high-tech consumer electronics and certain foodstuffs...? They must be noticing a shortage on the shelves. This is a society that's become used to having access to those, especially since the downfall of the Soviet Union. Is there anything you can inform our committee about in that regard?

[Dr. Paul Goode]

This is something that I've been keeping an eye on.

I will say that the impact is differential. It's hitting first in the areas that are already fairly internationalized, especially, for instance, in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Deeper into the country, though, it takes a while for these sorts of effects to work their way through the supply chain. People in western Siberia have noticed that iPhones suddenly cost twice as much, but they have not been hit with the shortages of supplies yet.

There have been growing public concerns about the cost of staples too—

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Shipley, when you're ready, the floor is yours for four minutes.

[Doug Shipley, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Thank you, Chair. Thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

I'd like to start with Dr. Goode.

Dr. Goode, some of your opening remarks I found very interesting. You mentioned that sanctions would cause the oligarchs to turn on one another and not necessarily on Putin. Could you please expand on that and tell me that if you don't think this is a good area that we should be in, what could we do to help in the Ukrainian situation?

[Dr. Paul Goode]

First of all, I'm not opposed to sanctions. I think the problem with sanctions is that oftentimes they do not have the effect of shifting people's understanding that the world has changed without them. The effect of the last round of sanctions from 2014 up until the present crisis was to demonstrate to most people that sanctions are something they can live with.

At present, the new sanctions are far more far-reaching, but they could go further. Turning the oligarchs against one another is, ultimately, still weakening the regime, so I think they are worth pursuing. However, we need to go much further—by “we” I mean the west—in completely cutting off Russian energy.

[Doug Shipley, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

You also mentioned a couple of times in your opening remarks that you were aware of Putin's approval rating. I know this could be a tough question to answer, but since the war has broken out, do you have any indication of whether his approval rating with the Russian population is up or down?