Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Fisheries and Oceans
Issue 9 - Evidence, May 13, 2008
OTTAWA, Tuesday, May 13, 2008
The Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans met this day at 6:36 p.m. to examine and report on issues relating to the federal government's current and evolving policy framework for managing Canada's fisheries and oceans. Topic: Arctic Study
Senator Bill Rompkey (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: We are pursuing our study of the evolving plan for fisheries and oceans, with particular focus on the Arctic and, within the Arctic, a more particular focus on the Canadian Coast Guard, CCG, and its past and future roles as we attempt to assess the impact of climate change on the Arctic. We will travel to the Arctic during the first week of June for meetings to hear witness testimony.
In Ottawa, we have heard from numerous witnesses, including the current Commissioner of the CCG, Mr. George Da Pont; Dr. Michael Byers, from the University of British Columbia; Dr. Rob Huebert, from the University of Calgary; Mr. Duane Smith, President of the Inuit Circumpolar Council; Dr. Scott Borgerson, from the Council on Foreign Relations; legal advisors from Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada; representatives from Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated and Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami; and others from Nunavut and elsewhere.
Today, it is my pleasure to welcome Dr. Louis Fortier, Scientific Director of ArcticNet. Dr. Fortier has studied at various universities in Canada and elsewhere. He holds the Canada Research Chair on the Response of Arctic Marine Ecosystems to Climate Change and has sat on the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada, NSERC, since 2005. Senators have Dr. Fortier's biography before them this morning.
I will introduce members of the committee: Senator Robichaud, from New Brunswick; Senator Cochrane, from Newfoundland and Labrador; Senator Hubley, from Prince Edward Island; Senator Cook, from Newfoundland and Labrador.
The presentation on the screen this morning is in English only, but senators have before them the same slides in English and in French. I need the agreement of senators to proceed, given the parliamentary practice to operate in both official languages. Is it agreed, senators?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Thank you.
We know that ArcticNet is doing a great deal of work and perhaps Mr. Fortier can tell us about the relative level of Arctic activity by Canadian government departments. We have heard that the budget of Fisheries and Oceans Canada might not have kept pace with other agencies in the Arctic. I hope that Dr. Fortier can shed light on the overall Canadian effort as well as that of ArcticNet.
Louis Fortier, Scientific Director, ArcticNet: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and senators, I am pleased to be here. My concern is that I am speaking to the committee after Dr. Byers, Dr. Huebert, Dr. Borgerson, Mr. Da Pont and many others, I wonder what is left to say. You must be aware of the situation in the Arctic and the roles that the Canadian Coast Guard and Fisheries and Oceans Canada play in the renaissance of Canadian Arctic research.
To answer the question that you raised, in the 1950s and 1960s Canada had a leadership role in Arctic science, especially after the precedent International Polar Year. In the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, there were major cuts to the capacities of departments that have a stake in the Arctic to operate. Since then, the tide has reversed under the pressure of climate change. The research is pretty good today, and many activities are ongoing and into the future as well.
All of this is linked to global warming, and nowhere else on the planet is it warming as fast as it is in the Arctic. One of the first consequences of this warming of the Arctic is the melting of the sea ice that covers the Arctic Ocean. That sea-ice cover is often thought of as being similar to a skating rink, which is static, immobile and never-changing. In fact, it is more like a living organism because it moves constantly with currents, tides and winds. This slide of actual data depicts the evolution in 2005 of the sea-ice cover over the Arctic Ocean. The ice grows in the winter and shrinks in the summer. It is very dynamic and thermodynamic. Now we are moving into what is called the Northern Route along Siberia. In 2005, the Northern Route was fully open to navigation for six weeks. Then in October and November, the ice was building up again, entering into the Bering Sea and moving into the Northern Pacific Ocean. It is extremely dynamic and difficult to study.
The climate models are telling us that this sea-ice cover should already have started to shrink. It has existed for millions of years and is now slowly disappearing.
We can determine that because we take the extent of the sea-ice cover at its annual minimum at the end of the summer, in September. If we look at this for approximately the last 30 years, we see in the previous century that the ice cover was about 6 million or 7 million square kilometres over the Arctic Ocean in September. As we move forward in time, we see that the ice cover is variable. However, it has a tendency to decrease, and that tendency accelerated in the year 2000. We set the record in 2005 with very little ice over the Arctic Ocean in September.
The situation improved somewhat in 2006, and then we had a big surprise in 2007. The best specialists in the world were not prepared to see what occurred. We had simulations of future climate indicating this would happen by the end of the century or by mid-century. Now we see it happening in 2007. The forecast for 2008 is grim. As far as we can predict, the striation will be worse; that is, we can go below that of 2007 or way below that of 2007 depending on what happens. This is our forecast for September 2008.
From a scientific point of view, it will be exciting to see where it will go. However, it is very alarming if you are concerned with the climate change on this planet. For us, it brings the agenda of climate warming, of a shift in the climate of the northern hemisphere, from the end of the century to maybe five years from now. Things are moving fast and extremely fast in the Arctic.
We are beginning to understand that there are two types of sea ice over the Arctic Ocean: annual ice, which forms and will mostly melt each year; and multi-year ice, which can be five, six, or even ten years old. The latter is very thick ice that resists melting every year. Therefore, it is the capital of cold that we have in the Arctic Ocean, and this capital has been shrinking extremely fast in recent years.
On this animation, the white mark moving around is the distribution of multi-year ice. You can see it flowing into the Fram Strait north of Greenland, and it is slowly disappearing. As years pass, especially in the 1990s, you see the multi-year sea ice being flushed out of the Arctic Ocean into the Atlantic Ocean where it melts. In September 2005, very little multi-year ice was left in the Arctic Ocean. We have lost our capital of sea ice, our basic cold region.
As multi-year ice vanishes in the Arctic Ocean, conditions will be increasingly similar to what we see in the St. Lawrence Seaway with the formation of annual ice. That will open up the Canadian archipelago to navigation because that multi-year ice is the one factor that prevents the possibility of navigation in the Arctic Ocean at this time. If we only have annual ice in the Arctic Ocean, it will be as navigable as the St. Lawrence Seaway. This means it will be possible to cross the Arctic Ocean for 12 months of the year.
A navigable Arctic Ocean will have tremendous environmental, strategic, geopolitical, socio-economic and climatic impacts, which you have been discussing with the various experts. You have seen all the intricacies of the geopolitics of the Northwest Passage, which is a totally different issue than Canada's claim on a large section of the Arctic Ocean.
The Canadian Coast Guard, in general, is fulfilling its mandate at this time. However, somewhat paradoxically, as the sea ice regresses, we will need more icebreaking services because of an increase in navigation and the continual formation of sea ice in the winter for as long as we can predict. Therefore, we will need more icebreakers for increased navigation, industrial activity and research.
The current situation of the CCG fleet was explained to you by Commissioner Da Pont and others. However, to reiterate, we have two aging heavy icebreakers, the Louis S. St-Laurent built in 1968 and the Terry Fox. The Louis S. St-Laurent is well-equipped for science. We have four medium icebreakers. The Amundsen is the best equipped for science amongst the four. You will be visiting the Arctic later in the year on the Henry Larsen, which is the same class as the Amundsen. We also have one light icebreaker. Therefore, we have a few icebreakers that are deployed in the Arctic. Recently, we heard the announcement that the Louis S. St-Laurent will be replaced by a polar-class icebreaker, which is something we have needed for a long time.
Comparing Canada with other countries, Germany, Sweden, China and the U.S each have one heavy research icebreaker at this time. Korea will have one soon. However, the real champion, the most well-equipped country is Russia.
Russia has three active nuclear icebreakers of the Lenin class. These are huge ships such as the Yamal. They are about 10 times larger than the Amundsen, our research icebreaker. These nuclear-powered ships operate on close to 100,000 horsepower. A ship can normally cruise at 11 knots, and these icebreakers will do roughly 11 knots as well in three metres of ice. They explode the ice away from the ship. This is why Russia is empowered to back their claim for a large part of the Arctic Ocean. They can easily go to the North Pole with their ships.
They also have several conventional fuel-powered heavy icebreakers. They have had the capacity for a long time to keep the Northern Route open for internal navigation in the Arctic Ocean along the Siberian coast. This has been done since the Soviet era.
Canada is in a relatively good position at this time relative to many countries. We have more icebreakers, which is normal given our Arctic dimension. However, these icebreakers are aging and need to be replaced. Canada is not up to par compared to Russia. They are the dominant icebreaking nation in the world.
The Canadian Coast Guard has superb expertise in patrolling the icy waters of the Canadian Arctic. However, they do not have the infrastructure needed to fulfill their expanding mandate in the Arctic. The situation is changing very quickly, but the fleet is aging as quickly as the situation is changing.
The icebreakers are maintained in excellent condition. However, all of them are in the last quarter of their expected life span. The icebreakers are in good shape, but they are not powerful enough; their power is limited. They were not built for the Arctic Ocean but for the St. Lawrence Seaway. That limits the operations from June to November. We cannot go into central areas; although the Louis S. St-Laurent can, but it will retire soon.
We have limited capacity at this time to maintain circum-annual navigation in the Canadian Arctic and, especially, for the deep ocean basin. We have limited capacity to conduct crucial studies of the continental shelf. It is possible, but it is not the most efficient way to do it. It is difficult to achieve the desired results.
At this time, we have virtually no capacity for rapid, efficient intervention in case of an accident or extreme ice conditions. For example, if we had a catastrophe similar to the Exxon Valdez near Resolute Bay, there is nothing we can do to mop up the disaster.
We have a good basis with which to start, but we need to develop the CCG capacity in the Arctic very quickly. If I had a mandate or were elected to make recommendations, they would be as follows: the icebreaking mandate, the survey of the Arctic, if you will, the federal presence in the Canadian Arctic should remain with the Canadian Coast Guard. As we published in policy options in 2006, we need two polar-class icebreakers for a circum-annual presence over the entire Canadian archipelago and the deep Arctic basin.
At this time, a "9-3" icebreaker has been announced. A 9-3 icebreaker has the capacity to operate fully in the Arctic for nine months and then for three months in the south. I think we will hear about a new one; I do not know, but my feeling is that the government will announce another one. This is on a time horizon of 10 years. If we decide now to build them, it will be 10 years before they are operational. In the meantime, the fleet will age again, and we will have a gap of several years where we will not have a large heavy icebreaker in Canada.
We have an urgent need to replace the existing four medium icebreakers by more powerful ships for spring and fall operations. Given the current schedule, that will not happen for the next 17 to 20 years. If you talk to the industry, to the researchers, to the Northern community, it is important that all new icebreakers must be multi-task ships. In addition to icebreaking, escort navigation, search and rescue and sea-lift task, we need to boost the environmental security capacity of those ships.
Also, the CCGS Amundsen has been used as a clinic, as a medical clinic to visit all the villages of the Inuit. This has been extremely successful. From that experience, we feel these new ships should be given some medical capacity to support the health system in the Canadian Arctic. It is a health system that is in dire need of an upgrade. We need some science capability, of course, on all those ships. They would have the mandate, also, to enforce whatever fisheries or shipping policy that we promote in Canada.
The Canadian Coast Guard must engage now the Northern communities and governance in developing their new mandate. Currently, there is not much you can do in the Arctic if you do not have the approval of the Inuit communities or their governance.
Also, we must enlist industry as a major client because the exploration and exploitation is increasing. Several major projects are developing at this time in the Arctic, and all these projects will need icebreaking support and Coast Guard services. In general, we should use the St. Lawrence Seaway as a model of the magnitude and complexity of the challenge. You all remember the magnitude of that mammoth project; we are facing the same type of challenge in the Arctic.
The Chair: Thank you. I wonder if you could clarify something. You mentioned a couple of times the mandate of the Canadian Coast Guard. However, we have not been able to find a mission statement for the Coast Guard. As far as we can tell, there is nothing on paper that defines the mission of the Coast Guard.
Do you know of a mandate for the Coast Guard?
Mr. Fortier: I will not be able to locate the document. However, I meant that at this time, they have a mandate of search and rescue, navigational aids, escort and icebreaking. My point is that the mandate in the Arctic will be expanding very quickly. We are seeing the first signs of increased traffic. Several nations, such as Korea and Finland, are building new ships that are icebreaking ships. Their goals are obvious: They want to transit from Asia to Europe and vice versa through the Arctic Ocean.
There will be a lot more traffic. It may not necessarily be all in the Northwest Passage. Even internal navigation for Canada is increasing now in the Canadian Arctic. That is what I meant. The mandate of the Coast Guard will necessarily increase.
The Chair: You would support an expanded mandate for the Coast Guard and, presumably, a written mission statement that sets out what it should do.
Mr. Fortier: In my view — and this is the vision shared by many of my colleagues, also — the Coast Guard has a major role to play in the controlled development of the Arctic at this time. If the Coast Guard does not develop a policing mandate, surveillance mandate or enforcing mandate, it could turn into a chaotic "Klondike" — a race for whatever the resources are available there.
[Translation]
Senator Robichaud: Mr. Fortier, I do not see anything in your recommendations about the Canadian Coast Guard becoming a separate department rather than an adjunct to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, as it is currently. Would this be a good idea?
Mr. Fortier: I would prefer not to say.
Senator Robichaud: Go ahead; there is no need to feel embarrassed.
Mr. Fortier: Our consortium works very closely with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. We also work closely with the Canadian Coast Guard in the Arctic. We have had these partnerships for about 15 years, and in that time opinions have changed as to whether the Canadian Coast Guard should separate from Fisheries and Oceans and become an independent agency. It is very difficult to say. It will have to be done on a trial basis. Certainly, there are tensions at present related to the mandate of the Canadian Coast Guard, which manages the ships used by Fisheries and Oceans. There are problems between the two bodies that I would describe almost as family problems. The only way to decide would be to have the Canadian Coast Guard become a separate agency or department on a trial basis for a time. That is my personal opinion.
Senator Robichaud: You were invited here to share your experience and knowledge with us. As I understand it, if you held the purse strings, you would be inclined to invest more in the Canadian Coast Guard than in the Department of National Defence?
Mr. Fortier: Yes, definitely, considering the Arctic and especially Canada's mandate in the Arctic. It is a multi- pronged mandate that includes more than just patrolling or conducting military surveillance. In my opinion, at this time, the Coast Guard is better placed than the Navy to perform most of these tasks. They have the experience and the capacity. For example, the logistics of mobilizing icebreakers and training captains and crews to perform this very difficult and complicated task are quite different. I believe that the Coast Guard has far more experience than the Navy. The Navy has excellent expertise, but in other areas.
I therefore feel that the Coast Guard could easily handle seven or eight of the 10 areas, whereas the Navy could handle perhaps one or two.
Senator Robichaud: With the melting of the ice, you are seeing an increase in mining, oil and other exploration, and that could be huge, is that not true?
Mr. Fortier: This is just getting started, but if I could show you an additional slide, there is, for example, the Mary River mine project, an immense development where $200 million has been invested this year. It will require the construction of a railway, which will be difficult because of the permafrost, as well as many Coast Guard escorts and services for the ships that will be loaded in this region. The port of Bathurst Inlet is also being developed, and a number of exploration activities are under way in the Beaufort Sea. In fact, we will be starting to drill seriously with a view to operation.
These are the early signs, if you will, but given the quantity of mineral resources in this region — particularly gas and, to a lesser degree, oil — activity will grow by leaps and bounds, in my opinion. This may be Canada's new economic frontier.
Senator Robichaud: You say that development should take place with the cooperation and consent of the Inuit communities. Has enough been done on this front to date?
Mr. Fortier: No. We need to put the problems facing these people into perspective. Fifty or sixty years ago, they had a superb neolithic culture, with no metals, just a little copper in the central Arctic. These people had an absolutely phenomenal culture, whereas now, they are coming to grips with rampant modernization, I would say, in the age of the Internet. The culture shock and economic shock, as well as the shock to their health—our studies of mental and physical health in Nunavik revealed some extremely dire and alarming conditions—show that the transition to a modern world, which they want, in my opinion—Senator Adams knows better than I do, certainly—is very difficult. The Inuit are extremely adaptable and independent and are capable of taking charge of their own lives, but they need the resources to do so.
Senator Robichaud: The point I want to make is this: are we perhaps not talking a bit too much about icebreakers or machines for getting around in the North and too little about the people there? Do we not seem to think that they are just going to watch the boats go by and put up with the change, with no help from us?
Mr. Fortier: That is exactly what could happen. There could be somewhat anarchic and uncontrolled development of the region, essentially industrial development. My vision would be for the Coast Guard to incorporate the development aspirations of the Aboriginal peoples as it broadens its mandate, which it has no choice but to do in the Arctic. The opening of the Northwest Passage will create jobs, a bit like the St. Lawrence Seaway. These people should be trained to administer and work in these sectors so that they can benefit directly from them, which will not be easy, because their culture is completely different from ours. It will be extremely difficult for them to adapt. Changes such as high seas navigation are coming to them from the South. They are excellent navigators, but not on an icebreaker. The potential is there, but their aspirations must be taken into account. They will tell us what they want. I do not believe they will necessarily be opposed to industrial development, especially in the Western Arctic, where people are very much in favour of it. I do not believe there will be very strong opposition to these developments, provided that the Aboriginal peoples are involved and can benefit from them.
[English]
The Chair: We have some history to go by, though, in terms of the change in the life of Aboriginal people. Already in Senator Adams' area and in my own, there are Aboriginal people who go to sea on shrimp boats and other vessels. They have trained in that, and they have permanent jobs; that works out for them at sea.
Because of the building of military bases during the Second World War, a lot of Aboriginal people came from their homes to learn trades and still have them today. The military bases were the best vocational education tools that could have been provided, both by the Americans and by the Canadians.
We have some experience to go by in terms of adaptation. The point I am making is that the Inuit people are adaptable if we provide the means for them to adapt.
Senator Robichaud: That is the question, to provide the means.
The Chair: Yes.
Senator Cochrane: You mentioned that the Coast Guard should have a policing mandate. Did they have a policing mandate at one time? If so, when; and when did this change?
Mr. Fortier: It is not their main mandate. However, if you look at the seal hunt, for example, they have a mandate there. They have the task of avoiding the skirmishes between the hunters and the media or a group such as Greenpeace.
At one point, if I remember well, there were actually jails on the icebreakers — I think there was a jail on the C.D. Howe. I would not say that they have a policing mandate such as that of the RCMP, but certainly in the fisheries domain, they have a mandate to enforce fisheries policies — for example, of surveillance and of control of overfishing or illegal fishing.
During what was called the Greenland turbot war with Spain, the Coast Guard and the Fisheries and Oceans Canada actually stopped ships and brought them into port. Therefore, a sort of policing history exists.
Senator Cochrane: Are you saying that they always had that policing mandate?
Mr. Fortier: The question should be addressed to the RCMP commissioner. I do not know if they always had it. I cannot answer that.
Senator Cochrane: The central objective of ArcticNet is to translate our growing understanding of the changing Arctic. Is Fisheries and Oceans Canada, DFO, involved in ArcticNet?
Mr. Fortier: Yes, we have five departments that are heavily involved. We also have several agencies that are involved in ArcticNet. Our main partner in the federal departments is DFO, but we also collaborate closely with Natural Resources Canada, Environment Canada, Health Canada, National Defence, Parks Canada, the Museum of Nature, et cetera. Arctic Net collaborates with all those departments and agencies that have a stake and interest in the Arctic.
Senator Cochrane: What role do the Inuit play in your ArcticNet study?
Mr. Fortier: One of the founding principles of ArcticNet was to engage the northerners, the Inuit people. Culturally, we limited ArcticNet to the Inuit world to start with. ArcticNet focused on the coastal Maritime Arctic, and the inhabitants of the coastal Maritime Arctic are the Inuit. We asked them to tell us what type of research they wanted and then to join us at all levels of the network. We have Inuit representatives sitting on the board of directors of the research management committee. We have one Inuit facilitator in each of the four Inuit regions, and things are going pretty well.
Senator Cochrane: What is their role?
Mr. Fortier: They facilitate the exchanges between the communities and the researchers. It is extremely important for us because ArcticNet does not deal only with the natural sciences but also with the social and health sciences. When it is time to go into the communities, whether for health or economic surveys, it is important that we are coordinated.
At one point, the Inuit were somewhat saturated with scientists, and they resented being the subjects of studies. They have a joke among themselves: The typical Inuit family is made of five people, the mother, the father, the two children and the anthropologist. That gives you an idea of the role.
Not only are Canadian scientists focussed on the Canadian Arctic but so are all of our international collaborators. You have to remember that there are only about 75,000 Inuit in Canada so if too many scientists go to the North for their studies, it can be a problem.
Senator Cochrane: Are you telling me that the Inuit feel as though they are being exploited?
Mr. Fortier: I would not say exploited.
Senator Adams: It is not too bad, although scientists might even ask how many people sleep in a bed.
Mr. Fortier: These days, the number of studies on the lifestyle, health and environment of these people is staggering.
Senator Cochrane: I would like to see many Inuit become career people within the industry of ArcticNet. Will that happen?
Mr. Fortier: It is not part of our mandate, but the pressure from our Inuit partner for that to happen is so strong that we are looking at possible ways to achieve that. Examples of success in that area are that 12 Inuit lawyers have been trained by a university on the West Coast — the University of British Columbia, I believe — so it is possible.
The biggest problem is that if you want to train young Inuit in a Southern university, it is extremely difficult because you have to uproot them from their world. When they are uprooted, they experience all of the difficulties faced by young people in a big city. During our second mandate funding cycle, we will look at ways to improve that in conjunction with Mary Simon and the ArcticNet board of directors.
The first possible approach is to consolidate the Arctic colleges located in the different regions, better connect them with the university system and, for example, make them eligible for grants from research councils. At this time, they are not eligible. We are able to channel some money toward them, but it is pushing the envelope of eligible expenses.
Another avenue to explore is the potential for more academic centres. There is one in Ottawa where young people from the North can be among their own people, and it helps them to resist integration into the city while they study. We would like to develop one in Quebec City. It is possible. In the legal sector, they trained several lawyers, and it has worked. However, in the natural sciences and health sciences it is much more difficult.
Senator Cochrane: We are continuing to try.
Mr. Fortier: Yes, ArcticNet is continuing to try.
The Chair: Instead of bringing the Inuit to the university, would it be better to bring the university to the Inuit? With the technology we have today, it could be possible. For example, in Newfoundland and Labrador, they pioneered medicine to remote communities via a television hook-up. I heard an interview this morning about a doctor who sat at a council and remotely performed an operation. Technology is changing so rapidly that it must be possible for us to bring the university to the student in the Arctic rather than the student to the university.
Mr. Fortier: We have the international University of the Arctic, which works on the principle that you explained. However, my interpretation is that southern students participate in this University of the Arctic. A student, who has been through college, is accustomed to sitting in a chair and listening to a professor and is able to resist falling asleep. However, people in the North are accustomed to schools that are much more interactive with more physical aspects to them. I am not sure that it would be extremely efficient. A virtual teaching approach should be tried, but I am not confident that it would work.
We need something that is truly adapted. The method I discussed with Mary Simon and Duane Smith is more like the way they have been used to teaching themselves. It is an interaction with a professor or elder or other. We need to design a university course that is adapted to their culture. As long as we try to force their culture or their competencies into our system, we are bound to fail.
Senator Adams: It is coming slowly. This year we will build a university in Rankin Inlet to train tradesmen for Nunavut. Four or five years ago, lawyers and nurses went south to school, and now they are building the Nunavut Arctic College campus at Rankin Inlet for $10 million and a correctional centre for $50 million. Young people are either going to jail or to school. We are different up there. Sometimes people have been sent for alcohol problems. We took the young people out on the land so that they could learn to hunt with guns. We had to teach them how to live.
Today, the government and scientists need to talk more with the politicians in Nunavut. We have 19 members of the Legislative Assembly of Nunavut in Iqaluit and a premier. The Nunavut Arctic College is working more with other universities in the South.
Inuit find it easy to learn. The chair mentioned the establishment of the DEW Line in 1954. People in the community were hired as heavy equipment operators. Men from down south, such as those from Winnipeg or Toronto, said that it was too cold to operate a Caterpillar without a cab. Local people built the runways and roads.
That is the part that is missing from the Government of Canada. We had a witness here a couple weeks ago from the University of Ottawa who is retired now, who told us that Inuit should be taught how to run the Coast Guard in the future. There are Inuit in the communities from coast to coast. They know how the water and the ice operate. They do not need equipment to tell them where the ice is going; yet, we now have the satellite radar.
Senator Comeau and I went on the Louis S. St-Laurent from Resolute to Kugluktuk, which used to be known as Coppermine, about four or five years ago. We need a bigger icebreaker because as soon as we travelled into the permanent ice, we got stuck a couple times. The Louis S. St-Laurent went through Baffin Inlet and Cambridge Bay. It was an interesting trip, especially right after leaving Resolute Bay. You have 24 hours of daylight, permanent ice, and you can see the polar bears on the ice.
We need to work together more as we move toward the future. Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, INAC, was operating a residential school in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories in 1966. At that time, we did not know what the future would hold. We only taught English in the schools. Every community is now changing, and people can go up to Grade 12 in the community. Things are getting better.
There were a lot of dropouts in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. People did not want to stay in the residential school. They wanted to go home. However, if you want a job with the government, you need to have Grade 12.
The people of the North operate differently. A lot of companies do not have even one person working for them from the community because they require paper qualifications, for example, a mechanic's licence. You can find 100 Inuit mechanics and heavy equipment operators in the communities and municipalities. However, if they want to work for a private company, they need Grade 12 or a driver's licence or a certificate. That is a problem.
If any local person buys a machine such as a Ski-Doo or four-wheeler, if it breaks down, he can fix it. I can do that myself. I do not call a mechanic.
The federal government and Nunavut are trying to reach agreement over who owns mining, oil and gas deposits. The companies say that it belongs to Canada. What about us? We live up there. The Inuit need to have a future up there.
Arctic Rangers patrol more every year. The Inuit want to do the patrolling in the Arctic. The Prime Minister said that we are working on Arctic sovereignty a couple years ago, yet nothing has happened.
We should work together with the Inuit. They can learn just the same as anyone from the South. If they go to school, they can do that.
Mr. Fortier: In general, we see examples of Inuit achieving the highest university degrees in all the fields. However, many obstacles still stand in the way for the majority to do that.
Senator Adams: In the RCMP now, Inuit are signing up to police 25 communities in Nunavut. Since Nunavut separated from the Northwest Territories, 70 per cent of the RCMP hired in the community are Inuit.
Other government departments, Public Works or social services, hire mostly people from the South for positions as carpenters, electricians, equipment operators, et cetera. It is typical because of government regulations.
I do not know how we change it. Perhaps we could look into it next month or some time soon. The municipality has nearly 100 per cent Inuit working in the community, except for one secretary that comes from the South; the rest are all Inuit.
I do not know if there will be an environmental study on the Mary River mining project close to Pond Inlet. They are talking about 100 kilometres of railway, and it is rough terrain up there. I have flown there a few times.
What do you think about that? Will it work out?
Mr. Fortier: It looks largely engaged.
Senator Adams: I have been through Igloolik and Hall Beach. If it moves over to the other side of Baffin Island, closer to these communities, there is more open water.
Mr. Fortier: Yes.
Senator Adams: I do not know if you have been up there in the winter.
Mr. Fortier: I have not been there.
Senator Adams: Between those two communities, people can go out on the open water, get a walrus and come back in one hour.
The Chair: I want to make the point that there is a land claims agreement that affects how people are engaged. If you were a private company, you would have to follow that land claims agreement and provide an Impact and Benefit Agreement and get priority in hiring, funds for education, et cetera. The government, on the other hand, is probably not constrained in the same way as the private sector. Would that be a fair statement?
Mr. Fortier: That is way beyond my competence. I could not answer that. However, the government must be to some extent because they are signatories to the land claim agreement.
The Chair: They are signatories. It is a question that we should explore.
Senator Cook: Thank you. Welcome, witnesses. This is my second meeting with this committee. I have come in in the middle of a study, so the committee may have already dealt with some of my questions.
We are talking about managing change. I am sitting here looking at a map and, if I recall my school days, the Amazon Basin was always called the lungs of the planet. What is the polar ice cap in relationship to that? If we say that the Amazon Rainforest is essential for civilization as the lungs of the planet because it helps us breathe, provides our oxygen, what is the impact of that melting polar ice cap?
Mr. Fortier: That is a very interesting question. The ice cover on the Arctic Ocean, which is different from the glacier in Greenland, plays the same role for the climate as those reflectors that we put in a car in a parking lot in the summertime to keep the interior of the car from becoming too hot. That is the analogy I often use. It is reflecting 90 per cent of the energy of the sun toward space. If we remove that ice cover, the ocean is underneath. The ocean is dark blue, and it absorbs about 55 per cent of the energy.
We can understand easily that by removing several million square kilometres of this huge reflector, we are changing what we call the radiative balance of the Northern hemisphere; we are, in fact, cranking up the heat on the Northern hemisphere.
Beyond all the environmental, geopolitical and strategic impacts the most important impact for the planet is that the removal of this ice cover — especially in the summer months — is accelerating climate change. It is the tipping point or the factor that will bring us to a new climate equilibrium in the Northern hemisphere and for the rest of the planet. The problem is that, as scientists, we are not sure exactly what that means. Some of us think it will be a very rough ride; others think we can probably adapt to it.
However, the general opinion is that if we do not start now to curb our greenhouse gas emissions, we are in for a very rough time. People often think that once we have stopped using fossil carbons, things will return very quickly to the former situation. However, as we understand it, it will take 10,000 or 15,000 years to return to the climate we had.
We are changing things not for the next generation or the following generation but for all the generations.
Senator Cook: I am looking at a map where there are approximately 30,000 Canadian Inuit people living in Nunavut. Their way of life will be changed forever. If we — the people of the South — do not listen to them, how will we manage the change that is here and real?
The other thing that preoccupies me is the jurisdictional aspect of it: Who owns what up there? Is there a map where we can see who owns what? I hear about the Canadian High Arctic and the Canadian Eastern Arctic. There are jurisdictional problems.
Mr. Fortier: I do not have the map of the four Inuit regions.
Senator Cook: These are issues, changes that we have to manage. When you talk about the mandate of the Canadian Coast Guard, Mr. Chair, the Estai was charged under the Fisheries Act. I was on the dock that day when she came in St. Johns, and a unit of RCMPs went aboard, too.
Right now, our Coast Guard is a valuable support system. However, we have to move beyond that to a clear-cut mandate for the Canadian Coast Guard. They are in different departments now. We need to manage change and listen to those 30,000 Canadians who live in the North. Surely we have learned something from the residential schools; we try to change a culture, and look at the end results.
Our governments need to listen to the people who live in the North and manage what is best for them. ArcticNet is correct in their scientific oversight of how to manage change. That is from what I see, and my knowledge is scant. It will all be for naught if we do not listen to the people that live there.
Mr. Fortier: The approach we have that we are trying to implement is called the Integrated Regional Impact Study. It is an iterative process in which you ask the people the following questions: What do you think? What is climate change for you? What is modernization? What is important, and what questions are concerning you?
Once we know that, we start to research those questions in collaboration with the people. After a while, the cycle starts again. We make an assessment of the situation, and then we present it to the people again and say, "This is what we think will happen in 5, 10 or 25 years from now, from what we understand; the way that your environment is changing, the way the permafrost is destabilizing, the way the ice is melting and the way the caribou will change their migration routes. This is where we think you are vulnerable. This is where we think you can adapt, and this is where it will hurt a bit, so you will want to prepare for that."
It is a big laboratory. We are using the Arctic, in a sense, to see if the approach of the Integrated Regional Impact Study works. The study covers not only the change in this environment but also the health and economy of the people. If that approach works for the Arctic, then some of that approach can probably be transposed to what will happen in the South in 20, 30 or 50 years.
Sometimes it is a very humbling exercise. We wonder what we can do for the polar bear, and at what rate the salmon will move into the Arctic Ocean, and what the positive and negative outcomes will be.
When we think about the longer perspective, we see what can happen throughout the rest of the world in a few decades. Suppose the sea level rises by three metres by the end of the century, and then we have to move 60 million of the 120 million Bangladesh people in Eastern Pakistan. Where will put all these people? This century may be the century of mass movement of people if things keep going at the same rate.
Then we think it is important to try to adapt the Canadian Arctic to see how much we can benefit from the change, and how much we can deflect the negative impacts from the change. However, we then think that things may change so much in the rest of the world that at some point it will be a bit futile.
That is a grim picture. I am not sure that what we learn in the Arctic or in the North will be of actual help for what is coming for the rest of the world. Perhaps it is not the end of the world that is coming.
Senator Cook: The end of the world as we know it, for sure. What in your opinion does Arctic sovereignty mean, as a Canadian or as a nation? Where will Russia, Finland and America stake out? Where are we with this last frontier, and where should we move, keeping in mind the 30,000 people that live along this route?
Mr. Fortier: For me, Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic is two things that are totally separate. As you know, there is no problem with sovereignty on the land and on the islands; it was settled in the 1930s.
At this point, people think that we have a major problem with sovereignty in the Northwest Passage. However, it is a technical aspect. It is the right of innocent passage in the Northwest Passage. It is an important issue, but what is more important and totally different is the reclamation, the demand we will make to the international court to get this fraction of the Arctic Ocean. This is where the big issue is at this time, and this is where we have to buttress our sovereignty in the Arctic.
Senator Cook: If there is one thing I would ask of learned people such as you and ArcticNet, it is to listen to the people. They live there and have been there a long time. If change is coming, we have the responsibility to move with them, to see they get the best possible life, and everyone has a right to live where they want.
Mr. Fortier: Absolutely. They are ArcticNet as much as we are ArcticNet.
Senator Hubley: You had reviewed our icebreaker capacity in the Arctic — I think there are seven. You also mentioned that the replacement values for those vessels can take from 10 to 20 years, which seems to present a few gaps in the system.
Is there a northern strategy to ensure there is a continual presence there? Along the same line as Senator Cook's question, is Arctic sovereignty established by the presence of military vessels or quasi-military vessels, or does ArcticNet have more to do with the people who might be living there?
On that, I also want to ask you about other tools that would be available to us. Could you comment on the RADARSAT-2 or satellite surveillance, and are there other steps we should be looking at now to ensure that we can make this transition as smooth as possible?
Mr. Fortier: That is a very wide question. To come back to the first aspect, I think there would be a way. As you mentioned, it will take a long time before we get that icebreaker fleet renewed. If we manage the assets that we have now well, those ships are in excellent condition. If we put a little money toward that, I think we can have a continued presence in the Arctic, a good visibility in the Arctic, until the big ships come.
As far as showing the flag in the Arctic, there are several steps we can take. RADARSAT is one of them, and I think we will keep it; we need to keep it. Perhaps it is oversimplifying the situation, but it reminds me of the Avro Arrow jet fighter that we destroyed at the request of the Americans.
RADARSAT is the same thing. It is something that we need to keep. It is one of the best satellites that we have in the Arctic. It is extremely useful, and we need to keep that technology here.
When we go across the Northwest Passage every year as part of the ArcticNet program, or when the Amundsen spent an entire year in the Beaufort Sea, we have hundreds of foreign scientists that come on board the ship. Their activities on the ship are the subject of interviews on the radio, on television, in magazines, et cetera in their country. The Amundsen was on the first page of the Washington Post and all the subsidiary newspapers — we also made Al Jazeera. This is all for science, and I think this has much more impact, showing the Canadian presence in the Arctic, than the Canadian Ranger expeditions that we had. I do not want to criticize those, but the important point is to have a lot of outreach of media publicity around that, to show that we are in the Arctic.
Presently, we have the BBC doing a series on the Amundsen. We have a reporter on board from the New Scientist, which is one of the most widely read scientific magazines in the world. People abroad see these things. We have no guns; we have no cannons or whatever, but we have a lot of visibility and exposure.
Senator Cochrane: You are saying that we are sharing information. Let me go back to 2005, when the sea route was open for a month and a half. What did you see then? Did you see any activity happening? Did you see other countries coming back and forth or trying to make a presence in the Arctic at that time?
Mr. Fortier: We saw strange things. To give you an idea of the lack of control that we have, in that year or the year after, we saw a research icebreaker from China coming into, I think, Kugluktuk.
Senator Adams: I wanted to tell you that you forgot to put Kugluktuk on your map.
Senator Cochrane: We had a Chinese icebreaker.
Mr. Fortier: Yes, and they had to be, I would not say intercepted, but made aware of the fact that they were entering what we consider national waters. However, it gives you an idea of the remoteness of the place.
Every year since the beginning of the 2000s, we have seen sailing boats from Scandinavia, families that decide to cross the Northwest Passage on their sailing boats as tourists. In 2007, three of them made it — they crossed the Northwest Passage on their sailing boats because it was free of ice.
In 2007, the Amundsen sailed through the Bellot Strait, which is an extremely narrow strait between the Boothia Peninsula and Somerset Island. As long as we can remember, it has always been an extremely difficult passage and in 2007, the Amundsen sailed it, along with the Fury and Hecla Strait, without seeing a piece of ice. Changes are happening quickly.
The moment the multi-year ice disappears, it will be a sea lane. Intercontinental shipping, at that time, probably could move through the Arctic basin, through the North Pole, instead of trying to go along the Northern Route through Russia, with all the complications with the Russians, or through the Northwest Passage with all the intricacies of the channels.
Senator Cochrane: At that time, who told the Chinese icebreaker that they were in national waters?
Mr. Fortier: I do not remember. Was it the Canadian Coast Guard or the RCMP?
Senator Adams: I cannot remember.
Mr. Fortier: I think it was the Coast Guard.
Senator Cochrane: How costly is your research in the North? Can you put a dollar figure on how much ArcticNet spends annually?
Mr. Fortier: Yes, we have a budget of $6.4 million annually, which leverages about $20 million because we have many collateral investments from other sources of funding. Typically, an ArcticNet investigator will bring all of his funding to the network activities, and we are able to leverage a great deal of money in that way.
Senator Cochrane: This is all government funding.
Mr. Fortier: It is mostly federal government funding plus a little provincial funding. To date, there is no substantial contribution from industry, but we are working hard on that.
Senator Cochrane: Do you see industry funding in the future, and how soon?
Mr. Fortier: Yes, we are trying to emulate the relationship between the Arctic Marine Ecosystem Research Network, ARCTOS, in Norway, and ConocoPhillips Company. We have a representative of ConocoPhillips Company on the board of directors of ArcticNet. We are trying to develop a similar arrangement whereby the private sector funds the fundamental research. The research is determined by the research management committee. In return, we can do some applied research for them that we can do, but they cannot.
Senator Cochrane: What type of research would ConocoPhillips Company require?
Mr. Fortier: We have developed passive acoustic hydrophones that record the vocalization of mammals in the ocean. At this time, in the Beaufort Sea and the Mackenzie Delta, there is little industrial activity, but with the hydrophones, we can pick up the activity in and frequentation of the area by the belugas, seals, whales, et cetera. This technology can be utilized in the development of rigs and pipelines. If the navigation level increases, we can compare the current situation with what it will be in five to ten years. We can determine the impact of industrial development on the distribution and migration of mammals. That is one example of what we can do that they cannot but are interested in.
Senator Cochrane: They are interested in that.
Mr. Fortier: The Amundsen is equipped with the best sonar system in the world, so we can quickly produce a map of the ocean floor as well as the structure of it; and they are interested in that information.
Senator Cochrane: Are there other companies interested in this?
Mr. Fortier: We have a representative from NorTerra Inc., a consortium in the North. They have navigation infrastructure and airplanes; they have representation on the board of directors.
The Chair: It occurred to me, as Senator Cochrane was asking questions, that we have not had witnesses from the private sector before us on this matter. I would like to know what they are doing, whether they are engaging local people, whether they feel they have an obligation to engage local people and, if they do, what they are doing about it.
If we were to invite witnesses from the private sector, who would you recommend?
Mr. Fortier: I would recommend Carmen Loberg, President and Chief Executive Officer of NorTerra, who would be an excellent witness; a representative from Manitoba Hydro, a big partner in ArcticNet; and someone from the Conoco-Phillips Company.
The Chair: Perhaps we could hear from all three at one meeting.
It would be a good idea to hear from the private sector.
Senator Cochrane: I agree.
[Translation]
Senator Robichaud: You say that the ice is melting at an alarming rate and that there is no more multi-year ice, which is thick, hard ice. Why should Canada have polar-class icebreakers, which will not be available for 10 years, if there will be almost no ice left?
Mr. Fortier: Because the annual ice will continue to form, and it tends to pile up, often forming pressure ridges that are very thick and difficult to cross.
Senator Robichaud: But do we need an icebreaker like the Lenin-class icebreakers you mentioned?
Mr. Fortier: No, I would not go so far as the Lenin class. That might be overkill. I would opt for the polar class, which can maintain a speed of three knots in six, seven or eight feet of ice. The classes are a bit esoteric. In Canada, if we want to cover the Canadian archipelago and the fraction of the Arctic Ocean that will revert to us in 2013, and if we want to be able to take action, patrol, conduct surveillance and clean up when there are problems, we will need polar- class icebreakers. They will be useful not only in the summer months, when there will be almost no more ice, but also in winter.
You saw on the animation that the multi-year ice stays in the Arctic Ocean, in the Canadian archipelago. What little multi-year ice remains will stay in Canada. Consequently, if we want to study, manage and preserve the Arctic regions, we need this type of icebreaker, especially if marine traffic across the Arctic Ocean increases.
Senator Robichaud: If we need to take action, I understand, but as far as surveillance is concerned, we have RADARSAT-2, which is far more efficient than having 10 icebreakers in this region.
Mr. Fortier: True. Detection and surveillance are necessarily conducted by satellite. But imagine that the Liberian- registered, Russian-chartered tanker Prestige, with a Filipino crew, decides to cross the North Pole. The winds change direction and the ice or the currents drive the ship onto the Canadian archipelago, where it breaks in two. The oil spill is like the one that took place off the coast of Spain with the Exxon Valdez. We could easily detect the spill with RADARSAT, but we could not do anything to clean it up.
Suppose a Boeing 747 is flying over the Canadian Arctic. It is an area 400 kilometres by 400 kilometres where, if the Boeing goes in but does not come out again after a certain time, we have no idea what happened. And if it crashes anywhere in the Arctic, we have no response capability, especially during the winter months.
In other words, the Arctic is a huge area where we have no control and no response capability. The Russians have capability because they have polar-class and Lenin-class icebreakers. It is a bit ironic, because the ice is disappearing far more quickly on their side than on ours.
Senator Robichaud: Is it not true, though, that the Russians did not have the capability to rescue their sailors in a submarine that was lying I do not know how deep and that someone else had to step in?
Mr. Fortier: Yes.
Senator Robichaud: Is the Greenland ice sheet shrinking at the same alarming rate as the ice on the ocean?
Mr. Fortier: That is the fear. The IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said that the melting of the Greenland ice sheet would raise the sea level by 25 to 30 centimetres by the end of the century. The figures of one or two metres are far more commonly used, and some studies even talk about three metres.
A three-metre rise in the water level starts to cause problems. If the entire ice sheet were to become unstable, it would discharge ice into the North Atlantic as icebergs. And if this whole immense mass of ice were to become unstable, the sea level would rise by up to seven metres.
If the sea level rises by seven metres, it is estimated that just over 30 per cent of the world's population will have to move or grow gills. You will say this is science fiction and could not happen.
Senator Robichaud: Considering the area of Greenland, it almost sounds like science fiction, to have so much water spread across the planet.
Mr. Fortier: The pack ice we are talking about has an average thickness of two metres — it used to be three metres, but now it is a little less than two metres — and it is already floating on the water. Whether it melts or not, the sea level does not change. In some places, the Greenland ice sheet is three kilometres thick, and most of that mass of ice is above sea level.
The glacier is moving. They can hear it. With microphones, they can hear the glacier starting to move, which is disturbing. If the Greenland glacier was the only one, this would not be too serious, but there are two similar ice sheets in Antarctica. If these two glaciers became unstable, the ocean level would rise by 70 metres. With the Greenland ice sheet, that makes 77 metres.
You will say this is science fiction, but it happened 18,000 years ago, during what is called the Flandrian transgression, when the ocean level rose by 100 metres. But at the time, 18,000 years ago, people were nomads, living like the Inuit did 50 years ago. They moved from place to place and likely did not notice.
All that is left of the tradition is probably the idea of the great flood. Otherwise, it probably did not have much impact on populations. Today, though, much of our infrastructure and many of our cities are built at the edge of the sea.
Senator Robichaud: Should we start building our ark?
Mr. Fortier: No, but the next IPCC report will likely have to do with the situation in Antarctica. Obviously, we are talking about an increase of two to three metres in water levels by the end of the century, mainly because of the Greenland ice sheet, which is becoming unstable, and also the surface layer of the oceans, which is warming and expanding.
Over a century, we can adapt to the situation and move. The melting of the Antarctic ice sheet is really cause for concern, but it is not expected to happen in the short term, but over thousands of years.
Senator Robichaud: Yes, but the ice was not expected to melt so fast in the short term.
Mr. Fortier: Senator Robichaud, you just put your finger on the problem. Our climate change models cannot predict everything, and we are often surprised. The accelerated destabilization of the Greenland ice sheet is another surprise. We are starting to look over our shoulders. I do not want to scare the members of the committee.
Senator Robichaud: We are not afraid, but we are concerned about what we are hearing.
[English]
Senator Adams: Could you put your map back on so we may see Kugluktuk? There is a community missing there.
Mr. Fortier: You are absolutely right.
Senator Adams: They have a radar set up now for commercial airlines. Could you do a study on commercial airlines in the North? I do not know how the military and the Coast Guard plan to work together in the future. There will be 300 or 400 people there in the middle of winter. How will they survive in the cold weather? Does the military look into that sort of thing?
Living in Rankin Inlet on the Hudson Bay, as soon as the sky is clear, tourists come from Europe and New York. They are flying over the Arctic. Traffic has increased up there now. Does the military or Coast Guard have anything to do with that? Will you be able to study the commercial airlines in the future?
Mr. Fortier: The military do not tell us.
Senator Adams: Not even transport.
Mr. Fortier: I would not say that there is reluctance, but there is no tradition of intense collaboration between the Canadian Coast Guard and the military in the Arctic. When the opportunity arises, they help each other. However, they are quite independent operations.
Senator Adams: Even private aircraft land almost every day in Iqaluit to gas up and go on to Europe. With the increase in traffic up there now, we have to train more local people; they have to be equipped for this.
We heard from the Canadian Polar Commission that every time something happens, they have to phone North Bay. It is a long way from Resolute Bay and Grise Fiord.
The Chair: I have a final question about our capacity for a study on the continental shelf that you mentioned earlier.
Can you tell us briefly what capacities we have, or do we have enough capacity for researching our claim to the continental shelf?
Mr. Fortier: It was an allusion to the fact that, at this time, we are able to fulfill the mission that we have there, that is, to re-look at the edge of the continental shelf. This is the distribution of sediments beyond the limit of the shelf and is the important data set needed to buttress our claim for a section of the Arctic Ocean.
Once this is completed, we still have very limited capacity to map the interior of the continental shelf itself, which is the region between the end of the continent and the limit of the continental shelf along the archipelago. Once we have made our claim and determined which area is ours, we still need to map inside that region. However, we have very little capacity to do that.
The question is whether we want to do it now, and whether there is an urgency.
The Chair: There is an urgency to file a claim by 2013.
Mr. Fortier: Yes, I agree. However, I was talking about within those boundaries that we will have established in 2013. Is there an emergency to map everything there?
Potentially, a lot of oil and gas reserves are there. We need to understand the geological structure of this region. It is the last part of Canada that we need to study and understand.
Senator Cook: Can you indicate on your map where the edge of the continental shelf is?
Mr. Fortier: We can only roughly indicate. We are not sure exactly. I am sure the Russians and the Americans have much better data.
Senator Cook: You may be sure.
The Chair: I want to thank you for being with us. You have added to our deliberations immensely. You have been patient with your time and providing your knowledge. We thank you for answering our questions thoroughly.
Mr. Fortier: It has been a pleasure. I wish you all an excellent trip to the Arctic.
The committee adjourned.