Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Fisheries and Oceans
Issue 9 - Evidence, May 27, 2008
OTTAWA, Tuesday, May 27, 2008
The Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans met this day at 6:20 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. The topic was Arctic study.
Senator Bill Rompkey (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: This is a meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. My name is Bill Rompkey and I am a representative in the Senate from Newfoundland and Labrador, as is Senator Cochrane to my left, who is the vice-chair of the committee, and as is Senator Cook to my right. Senator Hubley is from Prince Edward Island. Senator Comeau is from Nova Scotia, and he is the Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate and the former distinguished chair of this committee. Senator Cowan, also from Nova Scotia, is the opposition whip. Senator Robichaud is from New Brunswick and very knowledgeable about fisheries, having served in the cabinet in that capacity.
We will continue our study of the evolving fisheries policy, and are focusing on the Arctic and more specifically on the Coast Guard. We are going to the Arctic next week to hold public hearings. In that context, we will hear about the Coast Guard but also, I am sure, about fisheries, quotas, the prosecution of the fisheries and so on.
We have heard from many witnesses on the Arctic. We have heard from academics, and the head and former head of the Coast Guard. We had an excellent presentation from Dr. Pharand who is also in the building tonight appearing before the energy committee.
We are pleased to welcome tonight K. Joseph Spears, Principal of the Horseshoe Bay Marine Group which is a marine consulting firm.
He has degrees in biology, economics and law from Dalhousie University and, if he graduated from Dalhousie, he must be good. He has an M.Sc. in sea-use law, economics and policy from the London School of Economics. We have had several distinguished graduates of the London School of Economics around here, two of which have been Pierre Trudeau and Ed Broadbent. There may be others. You are in good company.
Mr. Spears has been a frequent speaker at marine conferences in Canada and internationally has organized and acted as chair for a wide variety of maritime conferences. He has written a number of papers on marine matters and has participated in a wide range of maritime organizations. In June, he will be the guest speaker at the Voisey's Bay and Beyond Conference in Goose Bay, Labrador. I am looking forward to that as well.
Please make your presentation after which we will ask questions.
K. Joseph Spears, Principal, Horseshoe Bay Marine Group, as an individual: I consider it a privilege and a pleasure to be here tonight to speak with you about Arctic issues. I speak this evening as an individual. I have acted for a number of government departments as legal counsel and have had a lifelong interest in Arctic issues.
I have prepared a paper, submissions and testimony. As well, I have provided a PowerPoint presentation which I will refer to. In addition, I have a number of recently written articles on the Arctic that are relevant to your committee's work.
My comments are based on my personal experience in working on Arctic issues over the last 30 years in a variety of disciplines. It is safe to say that Canada can and must lead the world in Arctic Ocean management and this must become the cornerstone of a robust Canadian northern strategy.
I would like to preface my comments by saying the Arctic presents a great opportunity for Canada. Prior to coming here this evening, I reviewed some of the testimony of the variety of speakers. How we respond to Arctic issues will take a combination of domestic and international responses and I dare say a creative approach, which is a Canadian trait when it comes to problem solving.
Canada has led the way at the Arctic Council and continues to do that at the International Maritime Organization, the IMO, which is probably the most effective UN organization that deals with practical matters related to shipping. Canadians have played a key role in the IMO. Canada does not shy away from leading the development of international law. I want to trace some of that in my presentation tonight because it is important to understand.
We have heard much about the issue of sovereignty. Using one example, the issue of exercising jurisdiction over certain issues to strengthen the Canadian position, I will focus on search and rescue. In The Globe and Mail yesterday, there was an article on the Buffalo aircraft. I think other news made the front page today, but I want to look at that and use the example of Goose Bay as a portal and as a lens to look at how Canada can move forward. That is tied to the Arctic Ocean and fisheries issues.
One of the things Canada did prior to the 1980s was, when the Manhattan came through the Northwest Passage in 1969, there was great concern about Canada's sovereignty, and that led to Canada passing the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act. Throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s, Canada led the way on pushing for the adoption of Article 234 of the Law of the Sea Convention, known as the ice-covered waters provision. It is the international legal foundation of Canada's regulation of Arctic marine shipping. That is found at the first page of my paper. I have set that out. I would like to read it into the record. That is the international foundation of what Canada can do in the Arctic and it is unique.
At the time, in 1970, it was thought to be radical when Canada adopted the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act. Article 234 of the Law of the Sea Convention states:
Coastal States have the right to adopt and enforce non-discriminatory laws and regulations for the prevention, reduction and control of marine pollution from vessels in ice-covered areas within . . . and pollution of the marine environment could cause major harm to or irreversible disturbance of the ecological balance. Such laws and regulations shall have due regard to navigation and the protection and preservation of the marine environment based on the best available scientific evidence.
For example, in some of your early testimony, I noted you talked to some of the witnesses about making NORDREG mandatory. This gives Canada, in my view, the basis for adopting mandatory NORDREG requirements. The underlying purpose of a mandatory NORDREG system is to protect the marine Arctic environment. It is critical to know where vessels are in the Arctic at all times for the purposes of pollution response; article 234 supports that. That is not to say Canada should not use other means to maintain Arctic marine domain awareness.
When you travel to the Arctic — I know some of you have lived, worked and travelled there extensively — you will see it is a vast area. It is important for us to maintain an understanding of what is happening in our ocean domain. We should use both passive and active means, such as sensors, satellites, UAVs, unmanned aerial vehicles, fixed-wing patrol aircraft and also the Canadian Rangers. This is the opportunity I want to stress to you tonight — to merge the traditional use of the land and traditional knowledge with modern technology. That will be the secret of how Canada exercises jurisdiction and sovereignty. That is an important point as you travel into the Arctic, to talk to people and to look at how you deal with these things.
For example, defence research is putting a monitoring camera in Lancaster Sound this summer and they are making structures. One of the issues is this is happening in a known polar bear denning area. Polar bears like to break into buildings. You might have a high-tech camera, but if it is being ripped apart by a polar bear, to quote Churchill: "However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results."
Being from Nova Scotia originally and having lived in British Columbia for many years, I tend to take a practical approach to these things. As we look at the Arctic, we need to keep an open mind and bring technology together with the traditional uses. I want to stress that this evening.
The other thing I want to bring to your attention before we turn to search and rescue is the preamble to the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act, found on page 3 of my paper. I do not want to read this paper. It is some nine pages and we will be here into the early evening, but I just want to highlight some points.
The Chair: We have it in English only. It will be distributed. What we have is the PowerPoint presentation.
Mr. Spears: I understand that is being translated. I will read this into the record because I think it is important and often overlooked. I have practiced maritime law for 20 years and continue to do so. It is important for this committee to look at that act. It clearly sets out the Canadian position over the unique nature of the Arctic waters. I will read the second paragraph of that preamble.
And whereas Parliament at the same time recognizes and is determined to fulfil its obligation to see that the natural resources of the Canadian arctic are developed and exploited and the arctic waters adjacent to the mainland and islands of the Canadian arctic are navigated only in a manner that takes cognizance of Canada's responsibility for the welfare of the Inuit and other inhabitants of the Canadian arctic and the preservation of the peculiar ecological balance that now exists in the water, ice and land areas of the Canadian arctic;
That statement was written in 1970 and it is more so today. It is clear what Parliament said. Preambles like this are unique and uncommon in most pieces of legislation. We need to look at that. This position has been set out for 37 years and no one has challenged it. I think that is the challenge we have as a nation. When travelling to the Arctic, I urge you to look at how we balance the use of the waters with a very unique and sensitive ecosystem. That is the challenge. We have the opportunity in this country to get it right. We are looked at throughout the Arctic Council as a leader in ocean issues. We led the negotiations at the Law of the Sea. I continue to hear that the sky is falling with respect to sovereignty, but this is an opportunity for Canada. We can strike the balance.
I will now return to my PowerPoint presentation and go through it.
With melting sea ice driven with climate change, we are basically a speed bump, to use the vernacular, on commercial shipping routes. We need to have in place the ability to respond and exercise our sovereign rights over our waters. No one challenges our right to the territory or to the islands, but they do challenge the ability — and this is the point I want to stress here tonight — to control activities within our waters. That is the issue. When we talk about sovereignty, no one is saying those islands are not Canadian or that the sea ice is not Canadian, but the countries are saying, "We have a right to transit passage to go through there when we see fit." The challenge we have in the international community is to look at all these conflicting issues and to develop a Made-in-Canada approach to come right back to the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act and to maintain that ecological balance.
When the ice was thick, and it was there for much of the year, there was not much traffic. All of a sudden, as we saw last summer, there was no ice on the Northwest Passage. This was hit home to me in 2000 when Sergeant Ken Burton took the patrol vessel Lindsay, a lightly built aluminum RCMP patrol vessel. There is one on the East Coast that does a lot of work through St. Pierre and Miquelon. There was an issue of what would happen with that vessel if it got stuck in the ice. The CBC has in their archives an interview of Sergeant Burton when he returned to Victoria. In 2000, he said that they saw no ice. He said, "I urge the politicians and scientists to pay attention because there is no ice." That was in 2000. In 2008, again we have no ice in the Northwest Passage.
Technologically, it is possible with ship design for vessels to transit the Northwest Passage. The question becomes: Is it financially possible because there are commercial restraints with marine insurance and it is too costly to do so? Once that ice starts to melt, people will look — especially now with rising oil prices — to see if this may be a feasible route. We will start transiting this. If you go from Southeast Asia to northern Europe, you can save 4,000 or 5,000 kilometres, depending on which route you take. That means time and money. That is what we as a nation must be cognizant of — namely, international constraints that are upon us.
On page 3 in my PowerPoint presentation, I have touched on the exercise of Canadian jurisdiction. This will require a whole-of-government response which cuts across all federal departments and must involve the territories, the northern communities and the Inuit. I know your committee has looked at the role of the Coast Guard and you have heard from the director general of marine safety for Transport Canada, Bill Nash, but these agencies must work together. The Canadian Ice Service provides ice information for vessels. In the Arctic, we have these nodes and clusters.
One summer in 1980, I worked with the wildlife service on Digges Islands. From a marine law perspective, I cannot tell you what a sea bird is worth, but I can tell you what 800,000 smell like. You can hear the noise 10 miles away. In the waters where these vessels might transit, we have important seabird nesting areas, for example, in the entrance to the Northwest Passage and Lancaster Sound. There are beluga whales and polar bear dens where commercial traffic wants to enter. We have to look at that and find out how to exercise our jurisdiction in order to protect the environment and the people. That is the challenge. That will take a response across the whole of government. It cannot be left to the Department of National Defence, DND, the Canadian Coast Guard or to marine safety.
As you travel to the North, you will find that getting around is a real problem. If you have to go aboard a ship to the Northwest Passage tomorrow, you will encounter all kinds of problems trying to get out to that vessel. If you are going by air, you may have to use small vessels, the Inuit community or the Canadian Rangers. It would take a holistic response.
One of the things I want to congratulate your committee on is the important work you are doing on the Arctic. Trying to work through this subject, you will find that it is spread out over a wide area. It is not just one discipline. You cannot go to a nice book to read about it. I brought a couple of things that the Government of Canada has published. There is no one source of any of this information. Your committee testimony and the materials you are maintaining on the website is probably the best in Canada. I have been researching and looking at Arctic issues. You have people talking about the international legal aspects of it; little is written on the shipping side of things. We have heard a lot recently with RADARSAT and marine domain awareness. This needs to be brought together. You when you travel to the North, I urge you to look at some of these issues and to talk to the local people. You have heard a variety of testimony. I understand you will be boarding a Coast Guard icebreaker. Talk to these people. We need to find practical solutions.
I have talked a bit about the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act. By way of example, off the Labrador coast in West Greenland presently, there are vessels fishing. There are 75 major cruise ship vessels planned for off the West Greenland area. That will bring 150,000 passengers. For any of you who have followed the history of the Titanic and the awareness of icebergs and their danger, these vessels must dodge icebergs. Are they entering the Canadian 200-mile limit? I do not know, but that presents a real problem.
As well, 300 polar flights cross the North every day. When I talk about these passenger vessels, they are not expedition cruise ships. These are major vessels with 2,000 to 3,000 bodies on ship. We have witnessed the MS Explorer sinking off Antarctica. That was a small vessel. Luckily, a Norwegian vessel was alongside, a vessel of opportunity. Those people were still in lifeboats. That vessel frequented Canadian waters. It was in the Arctic.
We have had groundings of vessels in the Arctic. Victor Santos-Pedro, one of your previous witnesses, testified to one that occurred some years ago. These vessels are out there. We have all this activity just off the Greenland coast. What is our search and rescue capability? These are real, live, substantive issues that I urge you to consider.
As I said, I come here as an individual but having been involved in many of these issues. In my presentation, I tried to narrow this down. The Coast Guard has a huge role to play as do other departments. I want to look at this through the lens of search and rescue, SAR. Canada has international obligations to provide search and rescue, and in Canada SAR is coordinated by the Department of National Defence, which operates a number of joint rescue coordination centres. It is truly an amazing operation, given the size of the territory. The Coast Guard tends to provide dedicated search and rescue vessels, and the military provides aircraft.
The distances are vast and the people are world class, and that is often overlooked. In our traditional Canadian understated way, we do not make a big deal of these rescues, but some of them are truly incredible. A Hercules crashed off Ellesmere Island. The SAR Techs from Greenwood jumped out at night in strong winds. That story was made into a movie entitled Death and Deliverance. I was personally involved in the rescue in 1980 of a research scientist, working with an Inuit guide. It is truly impressive that you can send a mayday message by radio and a day later see a Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker steaming around the corner and a Hercules arriving from Trenton, Ontario.
Luckily, the person wearing a climbing helmet had only 400 stitches and was back working by the end of the summer. Seeing that response has stayed with me, and I feel strongly about this. When you travel to the Arctic, you think about this, with more and more commercial activity occurring.
The response to an oil spill would be the same as for a search and rescue. It takes a coordinated team effort to make this happen.
My next slide shows some of the communities. Because of Mercator projection, we think that the Arctic is "up there," but we need to change our focus. This photograph is taken looking down at the North Pole. As an aside, much interest has been generated by the Soviets putting a capsule on the seabed at the North Pole. The reality is that Canada has already been to the North Pole.
In 1994, the Louis S. St-Laurent with a U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker, the Polar Star, transited the North Pole. In the Institute of Ocean Sciences at Patricia Bay, British Columbia, there are core samples that were taken at the seabed at the North Pole. We did that 10 years ago. This is something Canadians need to know about. We are world class when it comes to ocean science and search and rescue in the North. We need to celebrate that, build on our strengths and work with the Russians. Multilateral approaches are important.
Former Prime Minister Clark made a statement after the U.S. Polar Sea went through the Arctic in 1985. Canada has essentially closed the Arctic Archipelago with straight baselines, and essentially those waters are internal. I want to talk to you about what we do within our backyard.
On September 10, 1985, former Prime Minster Clark stated to the House of Commons:
The Arctic is not only a part of Canada, it is part of Canadian greatness. The policy of the Canadian government is to preserve the Canadian greatness undiminished. Canada's sovereignty in the Arctic is indivisible. It embraces land, sea and ice. It extends without interruption to the seaward-facing coasts of the Arctic islands. These islands are joined and not divided, by the waters between them. They are bridged for most of the year by ice. From time immemorial Canada's Inuit people have used and occupied the ice as they have used and occupied the land. The policy of the Government is to maintain the natural unity of the Canadian Arctic archipelago and to preserve Canada's sovereignty over land, sea and ice undiminished and undivided.
That was the position in 1985, and I think it been has continued by successive governments.
There are pressures in the Arctic, and this is what has led to much attention on these issues. One is the melting ice, whether through climate change or natural variability. I do not think it makes any difference. The reality is that, as the ice decreases, people are wanting to look at these resources. There is a great deal of increased resource development in the Arctic. You will hear about that when you travel to the North. Resupply of these sites and mines is a problem. There are capacity issues with getting vessels in and resupplying communities as well.
There are also issues around hydrocarbons on the extended continental shelf and, with rising fuel costs, suddenly the Arctic shortcut looks more viable.
I do not know how they come up with these numbers, but it is estimated that 25 per cent of the world's undiscovered oil reserves are found in the Arctic Basin. This is the number that is kicked around. This slide talks about some of these issues.
On the next slide, called "Canada's Oceans Estate," the darker blue areas are the areas outside the 200-mile limit that Canada is claiming. There was recently an announcement of another $40 million to map this area. That work is ongoing. The research icebreaker Amundsen has been in the western Beaufort and much of that is being mapped. We have to submit a claim to the United Nations committee to support our claim. When the Russians signed the Law of the Sea Convention, they claimed the Lomonosov Ridge, a large area that Dr. Huebert of the University of Calgary has spoken to you at length about. That is another issue that is often mixed in with the Northwest Passage.
I want to show you a snapshot of what is happening in the Arctic Basin. The next slide shows what was happening in 2004. Again, we need to think about the Arctic and ocean issues in the context of looking down at the North Pole. There is a great deal of activity. There is a lot of activity in the Russian Arctic. They have built purpose-built vessels. I think you have heard testimony about Azipods that ice break using their stern. The technology is there to go through the ice, but is it financially feasible? If someone wants to go through the Northwest Passage today, they need only sign in under the marine security regulations 96 hours beforehand. There is no requirement to get permission from Canada. They would just show up and notify NORDREG that they are coming through. I think we will see that this summer.
Again, the Russians have been promoting what they call the northeast sea route. Through Japanese and Norwegian interests, they have spent $150 million looking at the route and various issues affiliated with that. They have spent a lot of time and effort on that. Presently only 20 per cent of the Arctic is charted to modern hydrographic standards. There are issues around transiting vessels. There is an old Nova Scotia saying and they may even say it on the Island — always keep a little water under your bottom. We do not really know in many of these routes until you put a deep draft vessel through. We saw that in the Western Arctic with the pingos in the Beaufort Sea when the Manhattan went through — there were all these submerged pingos that were below the surface and were not showing up on any of these charts. We have a lot of work to do in the Arctic. It is something that, if we are serious about, we need a whole-of- government response. It has started but, again, we need to get thinking around some of these issues.
The other thing I wanted to show you is a maritime Arctic of the future. I was at a conference in Edmonton talking on Arctic shipping. By the way, there is a Port of Edmonton and it has a ship's registry. The Terry Fox, Canada's second largest icebreaker, was originally registered in that port when it was operated by Dome Petroleum. However, there is much talk about actually going right across the Pole, and the head of the Canadian Ice Service said we cannot predict what will happen this year. All of the predictive models for climate change are not helpful. We do not know what will happen.
One thought is that vessels would actually transit right across the top of the Pole, called the transpolar route, and bypass the Northwest Passage. We do not know. Again, that would have incredible importance for Canada — if there were pollution incidents, how would we respond, or if vessels got into trouble and drifted into the Canadian archipelago. Either way, whether we see a development of a transpolar route or a route through the Arctic Archipelago, we have to be ready for this.
To give an overview, that brings me to looking at the concrete examples of the Arctic. One of the issues around jurisdiction, and exercising jurisdiction, is it does not occur in a vacuum. I mentioned search and rescue earlier. We can use that to buttress Canada's claim to the Arctic, and it is merely one function of a sovereign nation.
Arctic SAR is not without its challenges and Canada has pioneered the development of Arctic SAR. We can be proud as a nation of our expertise and the heroism and professionalism of the volunteer search and rescue members who make SAR work in one of the world's most hostile environments. This discussion — and I want to focus in on Goose Bay to come back to in using this as a tangible example — could equally apply to marine pollution response, aids to navigation, enforcement of Canadian shipping legislation, our salvage capability, marine domain awareness and hydrographic charting, to name a few of Canada's exercises of jurisdiction related to in-transit international shipping. All of these items require Canada to take a positive step.
Over time, there will be increased marine traffic, including cruise vessels. We will see cruise vessels, especially in the changing world security regime. Vessels will want to come into Canadian waters. The cruise ship industry on the West Coast is a major industry, moving almost 1 million people. That really grew out of the Achille Lauro incident in 1985. People wanted to be on a cruise in a safe environment.
One of the problems in Alaska now is congestion. Companies are looking at the Labrador coast. We are seeing more cruise ships coming into Nova Scotia and Quebec City. We are seeing more and more of them, and on the northern Labrador coast, Hudson Strait is a unique environment. The Makivik Corporation runs Cruise North Expeditions. They are running cruises in Hudson Strait and Hudson Bay. There is a lot of history there. Henry Hudson first went there in 1620. There is wildlife, there are villages, and all these issues and attractions make people want to come and pay a lot of money.
When it comes to providing search and rescue capability, we need assets, we need facilities, and we need to work as a whole-of-government response. As I indicated earlier in the slides, search and rescue is a DND-led response, but it will take a team effort among a variety of different departments and the coastal communities working together.
Changing geographical forces driven by a changing world economy and global climate change makes the strategic importance of Goose Bay, for example, even more compelling. During the Cold War, Goose Bay played an important role as a base for NATO and NORAD in the defence of Canada and that importance continues today. We saw that with 9/11. The flights were diverted. Having that runway and the capability there is important.
We fast-forward to 2008 and new geopolitical forces are at play, partly driven by climate change causing the sea ice to diminish. I set this out in my paper in detail. The strategic importance of Goose Bay is useful, and I have listed them out in seven headings. First, it could be used as a staging area for CP-140 flights. I have uploaded an article on the CP- 140 flights which are important for Arctic sovereignty. The less time spent in the air the better. You have hangars and all those facilities there. One of the issues we have is maintaining awareness of what is happening in our Arctic. That is one role for Goose Bay.
We have offshore development occurring on the Labrador shelf. We have cruise ships. Again, that base is important for vessels, for aircraft supporting vessels. Transport Canada operates a number of Dash 8 aircraft flying around the Canadian coast, as well as the Arctic. The Provincial Airlines of Newfoundland operate a variety of fisheries patrols. Having that air base is important, and also for offshore supply.
Again, we have heard in the media about the use of UAVs. There is a lot of discussion of how they will save all of the problems and give us domain awareness. The experience has been that UAVs need to be used in conjunction with the Mark 1 Eyeball and, again, Goose Bay could be used for that purpose.
With RADARSAT-2, we need to integrate that earth imagery information into Arctic domain awareness. We need to pull that together because, at present, that resides in a number of federal departments. It is important for search and rescue; it is not just for military use.
I was at a conference where a Norwegian expert indicated that satellites are probably the most important tool for climate change research in order to monitor sea ice. That all needs to be brought together and, again, in the case of Goose Bay, having the ability to base UAVs there makes a lot of sense.
The other issue that needs to be looked at, and I urge your committee to look at as you are travelling to the Arctic, is the Canadian Rangers. They are a reserve unit of the Canadian Forces, predominantly an army-led unit but they do not have a marine component. That is something that needs to be examined. When it comes to search and rescue, they can support other government departments, whether it is marine safety going out to a vessel, an oil spill or search and rescue. Having that capability is a key aspect to the Rangers. Again, Goose Bay would be a place where this training could take place.
We need fixed-wing search and rescue aircraft. Those could be deployed at Goose Bay or in other locations. That is something your committee needs to look at as well. The other thing we need to look at is the use of a centre for search and rescue. Right now, it is across a number of departments. There is something called the National Search and Rescue Secretariat.
We need to bring people together. It has been my experience in dealing with marine incidents predominantly on the West Coast but also on the East Coast that, when people have a working relationship, things get done.
You heard Mike Turner, the former deputy commissioner of the Canadian Coast Guard, say personal relationships are important. Having Goose Bay as a centre for Arctic search and rescue as a bringing-together point of different departments could be useful.
Those are some of the uses of Goose Bay I set out in my presentation. That is just one example of one piece of exercising jurisdiction in the Arctic. Again, we need staging areas in Iqaluit and across the Arctic for increased search and rescue, having dedicated aircraft stationed and getting the local communities more involved.
At the end of the day, the issue of Canadian sovereignty will be dealt with by bringing together all of these different groups and exercising jurisdiction. It is not enough to just have Arctic patrol vessels patrolling the Arctic. We need to be able to make use of these assets and bring them together in a coordinated fashion.
Having the personal relationships and having this brought together will be key in Canada's success in the future. As the Prime Minister stated, we either lose it or use it.
This is a great opportunity for Canada to showcase its ocean expertise. I am thinking a holistic approach can be applied into ocean science, ice technology, ice monitoring and all of those issues. It is my view we should exercise Canada's Arctic jurisdiction in a manner that benefits all of Canada. We must do this in a confident way that is the result of a clear and cogent Arctic policy involving the whole-of-government response that is flexible to new developments and new challenges.
If we see the ice melting, as we did last year, we will see commercial vessels and international shipping moving through the Northwest Passage. We have to be ready for that and all the ancillary things that go with it. The Inuit must also become part of this process because they bring in valuable skills and knowledge.
In the long run, the international community, our allies and Arctic neighbours will support Canada's course of action. When it comes to the Arctic, we have to maintain and enhance our traditional leadership role. We have heard much about Hans Island. I believe there is a conference occurring right now in Greenland. That is a border dispute between neighbours.
We have to move beyond that and think about how we will regulate these activities as well as coming back to the preamble of the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act and protect that unique ecological balance.
The Chair: I would like to move to questions. We have about an hour, but much of the amplification of what you said will come out in question period.
Mr. Spears: Certainly. I have one final thing to say. You read my mind.
This is a vast subject and it is difficult to convey in a few minutes. I am usually guided by the words of the late Justice Estey: ". . .be brief, be clear, and be gone."
I hope I have assisted the committee. If I can be of further assistance, I would be pleased to assist or answer questions. I urge you to take a holistic view. When you look at the Arctic, look at it as an opportunity for Canada to lead the world. Thank you.
Senator Cowan: Welcome, Mr. Spears. It was an interesting presentation. We look forward to the document that you presented.
On this "use it or lose it" phrase that you have used, I wanted to ask a few questions about NORDREG. When Dr. Pharand was here, he was asked: Why do we not make it mandatory? He speculated that it is probably because we are not in a position to enforce the regulations if they were made mandatory.
Is that your view? First, do you think they should be made mandatory?
Mr. Spears: Yes, I do. I think we need to have a robust marine domain awareness technology using cameras, the Rangers, UAVs and RADARSAT-2. One of the problems is — I will come back to your question — there is often no coordination of this data. We have seen this in the marine security area — need to know versus need to share and who is entitled to certain information. We really need to say, "This is our territory. These baselines are Canadian waters. It is Canadian sovereign territory. We want to know what is happening within those waters."
If you have non-compliance, how will you enforce that? We need air bases. How will you get out to a vessel if it is foggy, if there are no vessels of opportunity in the area? Trying to get in a twin otter and the weather is down is difficult.
I think we have the opportunity with NORDREG. It was set up as a voluntary service back in 1970. Today, what we have on vessels are AIS, automatic identification systems, which provide a chip that tells us where the vessel is. We could link that with RADARSAT-2. This is what the Norwegians do — rather than sending out patrol aircraft, they have developed technology that allows the surface tension of the water to act as a target to send aircraft to when picked up by satellite.
When we look at NORDREG, I think the issue of enforcement is one thing. I know there is a lot of discussion about making it mandatory. We need to back that up. What happens if people do not report in? Some years ago, a Chinese icebreaker showed up in Tuktoyaktuk and 150 people walked up to the local RCMP detachment saying, "We are here." How do we back that up?
We need to go beyond NORDREG and think about this whole issue around marine domain awareness. Transport Canada is running patrol aircraft for ice reconnaissance for the ice service, we have the Department of National Defence flying the Auroras, and we have the Canadian Space Agency and Canadian Ice Service taking some of this data. How is that coming together? We need to expand that.
The context of security is outside your committee's mandate. However, security is everyone's business; it is an ocean issue. If you combine that with AIS, we have an opportunity to get this right if you go back to the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act.
Traditionally, in Canada, when we have had a challenge throughout our history, we have always risen to that challenge. I think we can be creative and develop that. When you go north, talk to the people out on the vessels and to the Coast Guard officers. I think we have to make NORDREG mandatory, but we also need to go beyond that.
We have RADARSAT. We have all the ingredients to make a domain awareness regime but we need to back it up.
Senator Watt: This is an interesting presentation you have brought forward. I think I met you at some point at the Arctic Council meetings, possibly a few years ago.
What you brought forward to us is something that is not an easy area to put a handle on in terms of being able to identify immediate priorities. Ice disappearance in certain areas seems to be continuing. I do not think there is hope for the ice to come back in the same way that it has been accessible to us or that it has been on the planet for a number of years.
You have been involved with the Arctic Council. Do you feel the seven Arctic countries have discussed this particular matter, not in depth but have touched upon certain areas in case it becomes inevitable that it opens up and things of that nature? I have been participating in those discussions, but have never left the meetings with a good feeling that constructive work was being carried out. All it needs is for someone else to pick it up and move it forward. Right now, there is no one to do that. A lot of good materials have been put forward over the years.
The infrastructure needs of the Arctic are the most important item to be worked on, probably from an engineering perspective. If the Northwest Passage becomes accessible to other countries to channel through, we have no meaningful ship that can actually conduct a rescue operation if any problems arise in the Arctic with regard to an oil spill, for example. The United States is not equipped and neither is Canada. We are hearing bits and pieces about what the Russians are trying to do with the other countries in terms of raising funds to build the kind of ship they need in order to move around in the Arctic. I think the Russians are doing things that we do not know about. There is information, but it is not sufficient enough to say that we can rely on the Russians if a major oil spill takes place in the Arctic. I am not sure we can say that at this point. Where do you go?
Mr. Spears: There are a couple of good news answers to your question. First, Canada has led the way at the IMO. There has been a movement in the International Maritime Organization, and that is found on page 20 of my slides. Victor Santos-Pedro is chair of that committee. There has been movement toward development of harmonization of international regulations for ship operation and construction. The IMO has put together guidelines for ships operating in ice-covered waters. As well, the classification societies that are essentially the building codes for vessels internationally have developed a unified requirement for polar ships. I will leave with the committee a document put together by Garry Timco of the Canadian Hydraulics Centre as part of the National Research Centre, who has been looking and working with Transport Canada on ice regime rules.
In 1970, there were no ice classification rules other than for the Baltic Sea. Polar 8 means that you can go through a certain thickness of ice. The higher the number, the thicker you can go through. Canada has been working with industry and that trend is occurring internationally.
By way of an aside, the Russians want to link up the Port of Churchill with Murmansk, Russia. Last year, there was one voyage from Murmansk with fertilizer going to the Port of Churchill. The Port of Churchill wants to run a shuttle service. Some senators from the East Coast will like this. They want to run grain from Churchill into Halifax, for example, or to Sydney or Trois-Rivières to get that out of Hudson Strait and then transship it. The Russians have icebreakers available that they use commercially.
The Russians want Canada's help. That is the read I get on this. The Russians want to have partners. The United States has very little capability in their Coast Guard. They have the Polar Star and the Polar Sea which were essentially Antarctic resupply vessels. That is one of the vessels that went with the Louis S. St-Laurent in 1984. While up there, they were having a soccer game. The nuclear Russian icebreaker went by at 14 or 15 knots and ice was flying 14 to 15 feet in the air. I think they were showing off; I do not think that was their normal modus operandi.
On the shipping side, there is a movement on that. This is the role of this committee in your report and recommendations — namely, to look at these practical implications of moving forward and of building on the good work Transport Canada has been doing, to look at domain awareness, and to look at our neighbours in the Arctic. If anything was to happen, you will need aircraft, even to get a ship into the Arctic. This is one of the issues that make marine insurance in the Arctic very costly because underwriters do not like to have no salvage capability in the Arctic. The Terry Fox is an offshore icebreaking resupply vessel. It has the ability to do towage, but a lot of salvage comes down to making use of the resources that you have, vessels of opportunity and equipment. We need to plan and practice that. What would that look like? If you took an MS Explorer and, instead of having it off the coast of Punta Arenas, had it off Hudson Strait, what would it look like? The Malik Corporation has three or four Hercules aircraft. Can they be used in exercises? Can you get the pallets into the aircraft? Those are the nitty-gritty, nuts-and-bolts things.
My thinking about Goose Bay and some of these things is that, if you can bring people together and if they look on their shoulder flash and it says "Canada," that is a good thing. When you go into the Arctic, everyone must work together and help one another. I think it is the same in the Arctic Basin between the nations. We tend to focus on the boundary disputes but we need to look at what is available.
A Coast Guard captain spoke in Victoria last April. We think of the Americans as having great capabilities. When they fly their C-130 aircraft up to Alaska — they have the same issues north of the Bering Strait — there are no hangars north of Fairbanks. They have a problem operating. We tend to think of the Americans as being asset rich when it comes to these things. We need to work together and bring these groups together in practical, functional groupings and make this happen.
As part of Canada's northern strategy, we need to get down into those issues. I have set that out somewhat clearly in my paper. I think there is opportunity. Any oil spill response in the Arctic will need an air capability. How many runways do we have? How much equipment do we have cached? Do we need to look at that again in light of activities? As you travel to the North, you should ask these questions. Working together, it has been my experience, especially in the marine field, that mariners try to find practical solutions and northerners try to find practical solutions. When you mix mariners, northerners and a few Maritimers, things can get done. There may not be any cookbook for this.
Senator Watt: If we did what you suggested — namely, use Goose Bay as a staging point — do you see that as a permanent solution or as a partial solution? Do you see any other steps after Goose Bay?
Mr. Spears: We need to look at this in a holistic approach. I used Goose Bay as one example. We need to look at Iqaluit, Resolute Bay, Tuktoyaktuk. We need to look at port infrastructure. Presently in the Arctic communities, there is essentially no infrastructure. You are using the same techniques and landing barges the same way you did on June 6, 1944, on Normandy. You are coming in on the beach. There is very little infrastructure.
What Michael Byers has written in his book Intent for a Nation about the issue around runways, we should be thinking about pre-positioning some of these for aircraft. The new fixed-wing aircraft should be positioned in the North and working with the Rangers and bringing people together. There is a lot of expertise in this country. When you mix that and get people working together, you do not want to wait until the time of an incident. As Vice-Admiral James Card, retired vice commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, said in relation to the New Carissa that you may have seen on the Discovery Channel, a vessel grounded off Oregon, the time of an incident is not the time to be making friends. You want to have those friends long in advance.
I look at Goose Bay as one piece of a northern response. Things like mapping, right now we have underwater drones that can go out and map. Communities could be doing that. Northerners could be out there working with hydrographic services. The technology is there to map some of these routes.
Senator Watt: Do you think it is also important to do feasibility studies?
Mr. Spears: The thing is we may not have time for feasibility studies. If vessels start transit in these waters as soon as this year, we need to act. We need to do a lot of work on this. I think Canadians and government departments and the private sector are up to the challenge. This can make a lot of sense.
If we think about the Panama Canal or the Suez Canal, people pay fees to go through those waters. There is nothing to prevent Canada from saying: If you want to transit these waters — coming back to article 234 of the Law of the Sea Convention — we will charge for some of these services.
This is why I say the work of your committee is so important. We do not have an interdisciplinary Arctic institute looking at these issues. We need to be looking at this and throwing out, when it comes to shipping, what some of these governance models and responses and war games might look like, what a major pollution incident looks like.
We have four C-17 aircraft. They are powerful air assets but where can they land in the Arctic? Goose Bay? Iqaluit? I do not know if they can get into Alert.
Those are real issues. What do we have? What does that look like? Invigorating the Rangers? They have no vessels. We have a people that are basically on the water that use their own vessels. Every village, in my view, should have some purpose-filled vessels that can be used for search and rescue, for response, for security, for any number of things, climate change research.
These are all issues that can be developed. It takes a bit of leadership. I think your committee can play a role in that in putting these recommendations out because it is a way to link Canada from coast to coast to coast.
Eddy Carmack, an oceanographer at the Institute of Ocean Sciences, has done a lot of the research. Peter Mansbridge did a show when they threw empty bottles of wine proving we are all one ocean. The Pacific is connected to the Arctic as connected to the Atlantic. We need to look at that and get people thinking and talking and coming to go on these issues.
The Chair: Thank you. Senator Robichaud.
Senator Robichaud: You have often mentioned the holistic approach and we have to work together. If you were in charge, where would you start? How do we bring all these people together? There are a lot of people and departments involved right now. Where would you start?
Mr. Spears: I was flying down here and ran into Senator St. Germain. He said: If you go to the fisheries committee, you better wear your flak jacket; they will ask you some hard questions.
One model I had experience with was in Vietnam when they wanted to bring oil and gas to shore in the early 1990s. They set up something called the continental shelf committee. Dalhousie law school did a lot of work in Vietnam creating a regulatory regime. The continental shelf committee was run by one of the former Viet Cong army generals. They looked at this. It was a committee that reported basically right to the Prime Minister's Office, PMO. We need to park something in the PMO or the PCO, Privy Council Office, to coordinate all of these things.
At the same time as the coordination function, we need to be able to get research and work being completed in a multidisciplinary nature. Presently, we do not have a vehicle for that. I would think we need to bring something together, whether we call it the northern strategy group or something. I do not think it really matters what it is called, but we need to bring ideas and approaches together.
We should have a number of options of what a regulatory regime or response group would look like. We need to think about that. I do not think we have the time.
Last year was a momentary blip. You had Commander Scott Borgerson who wrote an excellent article in Foreign Affairs on the melting Arctic talking about the changing geopolitical factors. There is an international element; there is a resource and an environmental element. We need to do that.
The Brits have something called the QUANGO, quasi autonomous non-governmental organization, where they create a private-public partnership. They bring people from government. You are seconded to that group and it advises government. Perhaps we need an Arctic QUANGO concept to look at Arctic shipping because regulation of shipping is really the issue. Arctic patrol vessels are just a piece of that.
In my article with the Aurora flights, enforcing Canadian laws, having the air crews fly over is a good thing. They know how to get the attention of surface vessels, but we need to bring all of that together and use it. Presently, it is a coordination function. We are a serious Arctic nation and need to develop a mechanism. It cuts across all the jurisdictions.
This is a challenge in any ocean issue. We look at oceans; we tend to think across different departments. I did some work in the Vancouver harbour and there were 25 different federal agencies involved. One of the most effective things we did was have the barbecue. Everyone got together and it was great. They said, "I didn't know you folks did that. Here is some information."
I run into this all the time on marine cases in marine activities. If you can bring everyone together, because this country is so large and everyone is so spread out, they never come together. It is a coordination function that the QUANGO idea is something we may need to look at and it may be something in your deliberations to look at the British experience and also Vietnam with the continental shelf committee. It was effective because they wanted to bring oil and gas onshore.
If we talk about the Arctic and our sovereignty, much of this does not cost a lot of money. It is putting people together and having the structure. We are talking about Arctic patrol vessels that will cost — you know better than I — the number keeps changing. It is a lot of money for a piece of hardware. You need to man that and create the thinking. That is the challenge. That is why I feel privileged to come speak to you today on some of these issues.
Senator Robichaud: You just said that shipping somehow must be regulated. We found out a couple of weeks ago from Transport Canada officials that we have the power within the Canada Shipping Act to make NORDREG mandatory without having any new legislation.
Mr. Spears: Correct.
Senator Robichaud: Our question was: Why have we not done it yet? You say we need to do more. However, I believe that NORDREG should be made mandatory as soon as possible.
Mr. Spears: I wholeheartedly agree. I sometimes teach Transport Canada marine investigation courses. There is a lot of power under the Canada Shipping Act. At Transport Canada, there are professional mariners, people involved in commercial shipping, and people like Mr. Santos-Pedro going to the International Maritime Organization with those IMO guidelines. Canada is leading the way on this.
We do not recognize that in this country. Just like with the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act, in 1970, it was quite radical. If you searched the international legal journals, there are probably 50 articles on whether Canada could do this. We have done that. It is the same with NORDREG. It is something that I think you will see happening. It is a function of time, staff and putting in place the legislation because there is an international element to it.
Senator Robichaud: The Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act, we have done it.
Mr. Spears: Yes.
Senator Robichaud: Some were questioning how we could do it, and you just said we did it.
Mr. Spears: Just watch us. I think that is the approach we need to take with NORDREG: Just watch us.
Senator Robichaud: It is not as mysterious or complicated as we would think it could be. We have done it.
Mr. Spears: I am advocating going beyond NORDREG. Worded marine domain awareness is like saying what is happening in your backyard or in your territory. Again, it is a whole issue that, when you match NORDREG with this automatic reporting system — and they are using that on fishing vessels — it is quite effective to know where they are. If a vessel is coming into Canadian waters, put a transponder on if they do not have one. Here it is. The Ranger goes out in his canoe and says, "You are entering Canadian waters. You have to have this on or put an observer."
Depending on the type of vessel — if it is an ice class vessel run by a major firm — it is not a problem. Right now, we have these explorers coming into the Northwest Passage and what happens if there is substandard shipping? What will we do? That is one piece of this story. It is a good piece.
Senator Robichaud: With RADARSAT-2 now, we have the capability of every ship that could be within Canadian waters, do we not?
Mr. Spears: That is right. Again, it is a question of coordination. I will mention a story.
A friend of mine crashed in the Rockies last year. Ron Boychuk was his name. I had come from a conference in Halifax on defence research I had done on Northern Watch. I called up when I saw it on the news on the Sunday. I called the searchmaster. I got through to him and said, "I am not a madman. Do you have any imagery?" He said no.
A lot of this information is in the satellite imagery, and they were able through some people I met at the conference to find a private satellite that was just flying over the Rockies. This was the aircraft you might have known — there were a few other plane crashes. There was a young girl trapped, three or four years ago, and they were able to get there in 40 minutes. They were searching out of Kamloops with 25 aircraft. It was an incredible search.
However, the searchmaster did not have access to the data. At that time, we did not have RADARSAT-2 up.
Again, it is a coordination function of getting this data and getting this brought together. There were three or four other satellites that were going to go with RADARSAT-2 called RADARSAT Constellation Mission. Those still need to be built and funded. If you match the earth imagery work up with NORDREG, these aircraft, and what Transport Canada is doing, we could have a clear picture of our Arctic marine domain awareness. That is good for many reasons.
Again, it is a coordination function. The point is that the searchmaster did not have access to this earth imagery data. The potential — especially in a lot of areas such as what the Norwegians have done, and Canada has tried this a little bit — is to use the satellites before you send out the aircraft. It is more effective.
All of this is out there. It is bringing these things together. It is the same with sonar rays and some of the channels. Given many of the shipping routes you will go through, it would be pretty easy to have buoys or people watching like during World War II with coast watch programs, people there saying, "Report all vessels." I think the Rangers do that with periscopes from time to time.
The Chair: Could you send us some more specific information on QUANGOS?
Mr. Spears: Certainly. This is something I have thought as I have looked at these issues. It does not live in any one place. It is vast. You are talking about search and rescue. That is a Coast Guard/DND function. You are talking about science and technology. You are talking about international shipping, marine insurance and commercial activities.
The Chair: What we are looking for, or what I was anticipating would come from QUANGO, is some kind of model we could look at. You have talked about bringing everything together. We are looking for a model.
Mr. Spears: There are a number of them out there that the British government has used on crime policy and a variety of things. When I was explaining this to a person from England, they said you must have a QUANGO and I said, "A what?"
Senator Comeau: Senator Watt asked me what a twango was and I said it is when two people are dancing and stepping on their feet. I will not go there.
The Chair: It is too late for that.
Senator Comeau: My geography is a little off. Where is Horseshoe Bay?
Mr. Spears: That is in West Vancouver.
Senator Comeau: My understanding is that there is no issue of recognizing Canada's jurisdiction over the land masses and islands in the Arctic. What some of us have been looking at is the issue — or I guess there is an issue — with Canada's management over the shipping lanes in the Northwest Passage. Am I right?
Mr. Spears: That is correct.
Senator Comeau: You brought a number of practical means by which Canada can exercise or exert influence over the eventual recognition of our jurisdiction or management jurisdiction over these transport routes. One of the more practical ones would be search and rescue. I assume there are other practical ones — and you have mentioned them — such as satellite imagery of the motion of ships, probably air capability close by, ports, actually looking at periscopes coming out of the water, and a number of practical things which are common-sense, practical approaches.
One of the things that bothers me is why the U.S. would not show interest in Canada managing those waters and shipping lanes. I would think the U.S. would jump with joy at a nation next door that is a good friend and neighbour having jurisdiction over these waters, rather than having an international community of 190 countries trying to exert management over the Arctic passage.
Mr. Spears: That is a good question. If you had a Chinese container vessel going through with North Korean containers and an Iranian crew, the United States may not want that as an international passage. That is taking it to an extreme.
It always harkens back to the U.S. navy wanting control of the sea lanes and not wanting interference with the mobility of their naval forces and the projection of force throughout the world. That has been a traditional view of navies.
The reality is, when you look at international straits, and you have heard from a witness who has written and published extensively on this, the Northwest Passage is a theoretical strait. It is not one route on the front of my PowerPoint. There are a number of routes through there and you can draw in a few more. There are over seven. The main one is Parry Channel, the deep draft route. The other ones are narrower. It has never been something I have been able to quite understand.
I want to come back to the point you make. My view is that, once we have enclosed those waters as baselines, they are ours. What people are challenging is our right to control shipping. The Americans say that, under the Law of the Sea Convention, they have a right to transit passage through our waters and we cannot prevent vessels from moving. We may want to say we have that power in Canada under the Canada Shipping Act. A marine safety inspector — and this goes back to the Titanic — can come down and detain a cruise ship of 2,000 people wanting to leave Halifax Harbour or Vancouver. That is part of our sovereign right of regulation of shipping.
The United States is saying that this is an international strait and, as long as they meet our environmental requirements, they want to sail through without any restriction.
Senator Comeau: That is without needing to seek permission.
Mr. Spears: Exactly. There is a requirement under the marine security regulations that you have to give 96 hours notice, but that is just notice. Most of that is done when vessels are transiting into Canadian waters, if they are trading. Commonly, it is called in-transit international shipping. If you had a route from Southeast Asia through to north Europe, it might make sense to save 5,000 or 6,000 miles, with the price of fuel. If these vessels are ice classed, and we are happy and they meet all of the international requirements, maybe there is no problem.
I worked as a young biologist on seabird colonies. Les Tuck from Newfoundland went out in the 1940s and 1950s. We were going along with a highly scientific capture device, essentially a dip net on a bamboo pole, and we captured one of these. It looked like a toothpaste tube. These seabird bands were stainless steel. By the end of the summer, you had a grip like a lobster fisherman and then some after doing 10,000 of them, but it turned out a bird on one of those cliffs was banded by Les Tuck. We sent it off to the U.S. wildlife services and they used an electron microscope. That bird was over 30 years old. It would swim every year from Hudson Strait off to the Grand Banks and back. I use that to highlight this. We know very little about many of these ecosystems.
We may want to say as a nation that we want to protect this area because it is a fisheries habitat or a nursery or a polar bear denning area. We do not want vessels going through there. We want the ability to say that that is our territory, just like someone with horses in a barn not wanting you to go by there making noise, cows are calving or whatever. We want to have that power. What the United States says is that it is an international strait; you cannot stop us.
We have to be vigilant and confident that we have the power. That is why I stress the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act. We want to protect that ecological balance. We want to be able to control that. This is where all these pieces need to fit together. How do we do that?
You met Bill Nash. Shipping is regulated throughout the rest of our country in our waters every day. The United States, for whatever reason, has hung onto this. I do not think — if they thought it through — they would want that as an international strait. It would not be in their interests, especially looking at the defence of North America and the way they look at it, having an open route across the top of your territory.
Senator Comeau: This leads me to the question of whether we are talking to the Americans about this. In light of the response to 9/11, you would think that would be one of the considerations, that they would have changed their thinking on some of these things. Are we as Canadians talking to the Americans about the benefits of having Canada as the custodian, for lack of a better word, of these ocean areas? Who should we be talking to? Should we be talking to the politicians, to the policymakers, the permanent civil service or their equivalent? Who should we be talking to if that is not the case? Maybe Canada-U.S. friendship groups would be people to get involved in this.
Mr. Spears: That is a valid point. That is why I was so pleased that Commander Borgerson came and spoke. The U.S. Council on Foreign Relations is an influential group. There was some work that Michael Byers did on an exercise with the former ambassador. That is one process, but I think we need to create more dialogue on some of these issues to get beyond the rhetoric. We need to work together. Have you thought about this? My view on this, and I am not an international diplomat, is that we need to have vehicles and processes where the civil service talks, where the academics talk, where the Inuit people talk, where the circumpolar nations talk. We used to have a circumpolar ambassador. We need all of these dialogues, but we all tend to be thinking about boundaries. In my presentation, I say that Canada needs to assume a leadership role in this and really lead the light.
In the long run, the Americans' Arctic capability is much less than ours. They have three icebreakers, two of which are close to 30 years old, and the Healey, which is essentially a research icebreaker. Its capacity is not large. When you hear the U.S. Coast Guard talk, they are facing the same challenges of maintaining domain awareness and these sorts of issues in northern Alaska.
Senator Comeau: I do not know if we still do today, but in the past we have had an oceans ambassador. We have had a sealing ambassador. Right now, Loyola Sullivan is Canada's ambassador for fisheries conservation. Should we have an Arctic ambassador?
Mr. Spears: The more dialogue we can engage people in, the better. We should be out there saying we need to be looking at a whole variety of scenarios. I will give a little plug here for Dalhousie. I know Senator Cowan was a chancellor, but this is a marine security conference that the Dalhousie Centre for Foreign Policy Studies is having. I am sitting on a panel on the Northwest Passage and it is being funded through the Department of National Defence in Dalhousie. We look at these issues, and bring the Danes together in the context of a ship scenario in the Northwest Passage. We need to do more about that. We need to get people discussing. This is why I keep coming back to the work of your committee. You are essentially the only central portal, working on these issues, to get any of this information brought together.
The people in academia who are working on some of these issues are spread out across the country. Some of this is pretty practical stuff, and we need to engage people in the U.S. navy and the communities.
We were talking about Hans Island. What would a cruise ship look like that is in peril off Greenland dodging icebergs in Canadian waters? There are 3,000 people aboard. It is foggy. The call will come in to the command centre here and what will we do? It is better to think about this now rather than later. That is all part of exercising sovereignty. It requires a commitment of funds and a process. We need to get people in the North involved. We cannot simply say what we need. We need to ask whether this is even practical to do.
I heard a commodore in the Canadian navy say that they do not go into Hudson Bay because they do not have the ability to refuel. The Preserver and the Protecteur are our ice strength and they were last in there in the 1970s. Churchill has a tank farm; fuel can be cached. What does that look like? What is the ability in a major pollution incident? What aircraft are out there? How do you find that out? It will be a number of people getting on the phone and finding out what charter flights are around, but is this all on a plotting board somewhere showing that we have three Hercules here and four here? These are practical things.
At the same time, we can work with the Americans and the Russians. In Scott Borgerson's article, Arctic Meltdown, he talks about this new world order and the militarization of the Arctic. I think we can defuse that by trading with the Russians, by welcoming them into Churchill, letting them bring their ships into Halifax with their grain and getting them talking. I think they can do more that way, but that will take a lot of different efforts. We need someone coordinating that or holding that vision on these things.
I hope I have answered your question.
The Chair: We did have an Arctic ambassador, an ambassador for circumpolar affairs. It was Mary Simon but when her mandate expired no one was appointed. The position is there but it has not been filled.
Senator Cook: Thank you for an enlightening presentation. My knowledge of this topic is limited, and my understanding is even less. We are talking about an ocean. We have an oceans ambassador, and maybe it is time we added the Arctic to his mandate.
How do you manage change? Will it be governance by consensus, or will it be governance by economic interests? We are currently talking only about waterways and right of passage. What will happen when someone strikes oil?
I read the travel section of The Globe and Mail on Sunday. There are a number of Arctic cruises this year — 11, I believe. Where do they get their permits? We have all those tourists up in that land that is being newly exploited, and it seems things are happening by consensus.
I think Canada has a responsibility to develop a prototype, if you will, that will allow other nations to come in at will and take whatever they need, but with Canada holding fast to jurisdiction. Who better to do it?
There is currently a conference underway in Denmark. People are stepping up to the plate to protect their as-yet- unidentified interests. We have one thing that the other countries do not, and that is people to take care of. There are approximately 30,000 people living up there who call themselves Canadians, and their way of life is changing. The things that happen up there will impact them, from oil spills to tourists. We have a number of elements at our disposal that we could pull together to put a prototype in place that would meet the needs of the people who want to develop this land and water.
What role do you see the Coast Guard playing? We will have to build infrastructure. We saw what happened to Ellesmere Island last year. We cannot do anything about that; we cannot manage.
What role do you see for our Coast Guard? They are a valuable resource. They know the North better than anyone. We have some infrastructure. Would it not be feasible or practical to build a harbour as a beginning?
Mr. Spears: On your first point, the Arctic is an oceans issue. The issue is shipping regulation and how that will affect Canada. We have many capable people in this country who have a lot of experience in Arctic operations, and the Coast Guard is a great source of that. The challenge is the loss of the collective memory of these organizations as people retire. The navy recruiters will tell you that, as the population has aged and people have left, a lot of this history is lost as it is not recorded anywhere. This is a real problem. How do you pass this along? In traditional Inuit culture, this is story telling. A lot of these things are new, but they are old. We tend to reinvent some of these things. The Coast Guard has to play a key role. Again, the Coast Guard does not have an enforcement function. We have heard a lot about giving guns to the Coast Guard. Transport Canada used to include the ship safety branch and the Coast Guard. Some years ago, Coast Guard was hived off and became part of Fisheries and Oceans.
The more you can get people in the departments working together the better, be they RCMP, Rangers or Coast Guard. Canada has a long history of these organizations working together. Your point is a good one. We have to start somewhere, getting a harbour happening, getting kids interested in this. This is an opportunity for Canada.
There is great opportunity in ice technology and development of undersea mapping technology. There are incredible things out there. There are drones now that are not much larger than this table that can stay in the water up to 10 hours and go down to 2,000 feet. We can map. This takes coordination. We are building these things in Canada but Canadians do not know about it.
Starting with a harbour and bringing people together is key, as is bringing the 30,000 Canadians into the picture so that they have some say in the decision making.
I want to commend your committee for taking this on. It is an oceans issue. The North brings the whole country together like nothing else. We saw that with RADARSAT. Every time a vessel transits the Northwest Passage, it awakens something in Canadians. Many people have written on this, and we need to coordinate and show leadership on these issues. Wherever you turn, there are issues. We have the opportunity to get this right.
When I talk to people in coastal communities about what will happen with climate change, I hear that they are scared.
This is an opportunity for Canada, and if it is brought together and not seen as a problem, we can work through it. It has been the Canadian way. It is the whole history of our country. We build railways; we built the seaway. The Arctic is no different. We just need a coordination of policy, energy and vision to make it happen. The Americans are looking for leadership on this. They do not know what to do.
The point you make, senator, will get them thinking. It is important. I use Goose Bay as an example. It is something on search and rescue.
We have all these things happening out there. Let us get Inuit kids teaching traditional skills on the land and using these different uniquely Canadian vehicles to solve some of these problems.
Let us make NORDREG mandatory, and let us get RADARSAT and the rest of the satellites up there and make this a nation-building process.
Let us get the Coast Guard more vessels.
I ran into Minister Ambrose one day leaving Ottawa. It was just after the Soviets had placed the flag on the North Pole. One of the points I made was we need to get more young Canadians into the North. When I was a student, there were all kinds of programs. Government departments had research assistants in research. Once you travel to that land, you become connected to it. Many Canadians have not seen it. It is a theoretical thing. We need to somehow encourage that, and I urge you in your report to look at funding research. We need more people to be aware of that.
I raised that with Minister Ambrose when we were going through the check-in at the airport. I said that it is something we need to fund because it will pay dividends in the long term as our country develops. As you can see, with all these resources, we do not know what is out there. It is an incredible storehouse and pantry of things out there.
In Australia, for example, the geophysical claims such as Australia's continental shelf claim are part of their high school curriculum. Here, to find out what is happening out there, you have to dig. I am a bit of a Newfie Colombo. It is hard to find information. It is held very tightly, and I do not think it is on purpose; it is just the outreach side of it. There are a whole lot of reasons why we should be getting young Canadians interested in oceans issues, especially with climate change. We do not know what the future holds.
I hope that has answered your question.
Senator Cook: Is the concept of a prototype feasible? If we have all this material and it is housed here, there and someplace else. If Canada took the responsibility to pull that together and make it into a living thing, would that not be a reasonable start?
Mr. Spears: That would be a great start. In the U.K. at Cambridge University, they have the Scott Polar Research Institute. You can go there and smell Shackleton's anorak. I know from Steve Bigras at the Canadian Polar Commission, which is an entity set up that reports to Parliament to advise Parliament on Arctic issues, that one of the points he made is that a lot of research scientists have spent their whole careers on Arctic issues. They pass away and their family wants to donate all their papers and books to the Canadian Polar Commission. They have no space to keep them. The archives does not want them. There are all kinds of things. We are not keeping that. As part of an Arctic strategy, we need to record and look at these things.
All of the ingredients are there to have a great party and a great cake. You need to start somewhere. It will never be perfect, but you need to take those steps. If we do not, and we are simply reactive, it is coming. People are looking at those vessels. I think you will see — I recognize I am on public broadcast — as soon as this summer, vessels coming through the Northwest Passage. The future is now. It is here.
Senator Cook: As a matter of fact, I could have had one cruise for 166 days that went to the Arctic and the Antarctic. It is not coming; it is here. We would be fooling ourselves as Canadians and as a government if we did not recognize it. If, as you say, you give 96 hours notice, you may enter those waters and then something happens, who is responsible? The person who gave the permission for the 96 hours?
Mr. Spears: That is what marine lawyers dream of: Who is at fault? That is a real live issue that needs to be looked at. We have to plan and develop this.
Senator Cook: It is Canada's people. I will close on this. I think Canada must take the responsibility, Mr. Chair.
Senator Cowan: I realize we have imposed a lot on you, Mr. Spears.
Mr. Spears: It is my pleasure. I am pleased to be here.
Senator Cowan: It is good to have you. We have heard the point you have made a number of times about the need to coordinate information and agencies. I think all of us would agree that it is so logical, but why has it not been done? It seems reasonable to do it, and there would seem to be no public policy or other reasonable budgetary reason to separate the various agencies and groups that have an interest and some knowledge.
If not tonight, then perhaps if you have a chance to reflect on it in the next little while, give us specific suggestions as to how this coordination can be done. It does not seem to me that that part of it, at least, is a costly matter. It is simply that collective will has to emerge to do it. There should be little or no cost associated with it. I would be interested in your views on that.
The other part, from the hardware or physical asset point of view, is the specific things that need to be done to assert and protect Canada's interests in the North. You were discussing with Senator Watt the construction of a port there and infrastructure in the North, which is clearly lacking. What needs to be done? Where does it need to be located?
You were discussing with Senator Comeau the specific points you had made about the utilization of Goose Bay, which will certainly be of interest to all of us. That is a practical suggestion.
We have had witnesses appear before us. The government has come in and made a number of announcements with respect to the construction of various types of vessels in the future, and that takes a long time to do. However, if you do not start, you never get there. I welcome your views, when you have a chance to reflect, on not only the specific measures that need to be taken to collate the information to coordinate the efforts of the various agencies involved, but also your views on the specific physical assets that need to be acquired and operated. Those do, we recognize, have significant budgetary implications. I would appreciate your views on those two general issues.
Mr. Spears: I would be pleased to provide some thoughts on that.
Just on the comment about coordination, historically in the ocean sector — this interdisciplinary approach is one of the things I studied 25 years ago at the London School of Economics and Dalhousie — most of ocean management is on a sectoral basis. It is the activity; it is fisheries, ships, environment, ecotourism. It was a sectoral base and it was never brought together. It is easy to say this is the ocean, but superimposed on that is economic activities. All of a sudden, the Arctic and this melting ice have highlighted this issue front and centre once again.
There are examples. In the marine security area, there is an interdepartmental working group on marine security that is made up of different departments. That is something that could be set up fairly easily on the Arctic. There are informal linkages, just like these things at the maritime security conference where DND is working with the Coast Guard, private interests and the commercial interests and how does this all come together. We need to do more of that.
When it comes to the hardware, I will reflect on those and provide the clerk of the committee with my thoughts. It is not an insurmountable problem. Oftentimes, these things do not happen until there is a threat. When it comes to hardware, I think we need to bring people together as we talk — just a simple thing like giving the Rangers patrol vessels. These are not complicated things. I am sure there are a lot of boat builders in Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and British Columbia that could build these. They can be moved by trailer; they can be moved by Hercules aircraft. Those are small things. They do not get the attention of an Arctic patrol vessel, but when you have an incident, those things become invaluable — having those stockpiled and having people trained.
Ship boardings: What is it like to come aboard a vessel where you have to get someone on board? It is perfect for the Rangers. The Canadian navy has been doing that going back to the days of the Second World War. They reactivated the naval boarding party training. Maybe we need to look at that with the Rangers.
These are simple things but it builds a momentum. We need to be looking at this whole-of-government response and get a plan. Maybe that is something that needs to be looked at outside of the different specific departments.
With respect to infrastructure, the search and rescue fixed-wing aircraft can also do patrol. For example, the Danes use Bombardier jets for some of their Arctic patrol. It is not a multi-engine aircraft, but they have been using them and they are buying them from Bombardier. We are not.
We have the Transport Canada Dash 8s. Maybe we need more of those. Those are the things when you get people out there sitting around the table, thinking about this and throwing ideas out — what is the best case scenario? Maybe we need 50 small vessels in the Arctic. Right now, what do we have? I do not think anyone can answer that. Freighter canoes are great, but is anyone doing any sort of patrolling?
The Makivik Corporation has signed their offshore land claim. You are now taking jurisdiction over ocean waters. What is the pollution response around some of these seabird colonies?
There are a lot of things to be done out there. If we get people sitting around talking about some of these issues, not necessarily looking just at the security and the international threats, just working within the family within Canada, saying we have these issues and how do we solve them? Maybe putting a little WD40 where sometimes the gears are grinding a bit and get people working, I think we can mobilize this and lead the world.
The expertise is here. We do not need to go out and find it about a lot of things. We led the Law of the Sea Convention in the development of that. At the time, people said that could never happen. We only have a few Arctic nations to deal with. I think we can use this as an opportunity. When we go, we have to put our house in order as well and recognize some of the things we are doing.
I will provide an answer in more detail. I hope that has answered your question.
Senator Cowan: It has. Thank you very much.
Senator Watt: I feel the same way that Senator Cowan just mentioned, that we agree with you on the points you have raised. They are very important. There is urgency on this matter.
The point is trying to bring the group of people with varying expertise together. Maybe some sort of a think tank group should be operating under the Arctic ambassador concept. Maybe that is something we should look at and revisit and see what kind of recommendations we can make.
If a mandate will be given to bring a group of people with various expertise together, I am not sure if it will be the same group of people that will be asked to come up with a prototype that Senator Cook was mentioning. I think that is necessary in order for us to see the Arctic on the map, knowing what needs to be developed, what the priorities are, what are the sensitive and non-sensitive areas. If the terms of reference will be part of the mandate, describing the mandate will be important to include as well.
Tell me if I am wrong on this. You have already established what you call knowledge by talking to various experts, the people who have expertise in regard to the Arctic, such as doing inventory on what is up there. Not many people are aware, as you mentioned, of what is up there. With respect to oil, you say 25 per cent has been identified. I do not know how they came up with that but, nevertheless, that is the case.
If we want to put Canada on the map, to say that we do not need expertise from anywhere else because we already have expertise in Canada, we better do something and move quickly before someone else makes an attempt to say, if you do not have the answers, maybe I have an answer.
The sleeping giant is our next-door neighbour. We have witnessed that country from time to time saying, if you do not have the know-how, I have the know-how and I will step in. That is a possibility that could happen. That might be under the umbrella of the United States. There is no doubt in my mind it is probably something they have already run across.
You have indicated there is urgency and you are also indicating that, as early as this coming summer, you are anticipating there might be one or two or more that might be popping up in the Arctic. As Canadians, we have not even looked at the environmental impact assessment of it. I guess that will never take place because you already indicated it might be too late. Nevertheless, it will probably have to be executed at some point down the road.
We need to arrive as a committee with a proposal, some sort of mechanics that would help to move this project forward. Like Senator Cook said, it is not happening tomorrow; it is already happening.
Mr. Spears: You used the term "think tank," and we need a think tank backed up with a "do tank."
My experience through all these different fields is that everyone recognizes that they need to come together. It is really just planting the seed. Maybe that is a role for your committee. That is why these hearings are so important because it is spread out. You have heard all the different speakers. You can see Commander Borgerson in the United States raising the flag and trying to get the United States to sign the convention on the Law of the Sea, trying to get them to pay attention to the Arctic. This is the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations. We have the Canada Polar Commission. Again, that is more of a science-based group. This is a shipping issue that may often, on the international side, have no connection to Canada, so we need to pull this together.
I think a QUANGO idea of coming up with some scenarios and setting up an interdepartmental working group would be something that would not take a lot of money. It just takes coordination and planting the seed. We need to be creative and look at this as an opportunity. Here is an issue — how will we regulate it?
We have a changing world with climate change and rising fuel prices and resources. We do not even know how significant some of the resources that we have in the Arctic might be. There are French companies making use of seaweed from Ungava Bay. That is a business that could be a huge, sustainable economic activity.
We do not know what the future holds so we need to give ourselves options. It is really having the leadership and the policy decisions to say that, if we have this vision, the rest of the pieces will fall into place. Something like getting the Rangers vessels would not be difficult. You could have a competition to develop the best design. This could be a fun thing. We need to include, in my view, a whole-of-Canada response to some of these issues that captures Canada's imagination and move forward.
Senator Watt: Another subject that I will raise is for your information but, more importantly, for the committee members. You mentioned Makivik Corporation several times. Makivik, as you know, has provided airline lift from the South to the North and from east to west. We also had a contract with the Coast Guard in the Arctic for a number of years. I am not on the airline board of directors at this point in time, but I know that this contract was lost because the government decided to cut the activities of the Coast Guard.
A number of times, Makivik Corporation has requested of the Government of Canada to become part of an Arctic strategy group. They have not received any response one way or the other and are starting to feel that they have been ignored. One of the reasons they feel they have to be part of this Arctic strategy group is because they provide airline services to practically all the communities around Baffin Island, as well as in the central and western Arctic, all the way to Alaska.
The Inuit want to fund the Nunavik side even though, as you look at the map, some communities are below the 60th parallel. Politicians talk about who is elected and who is not elected, and they tend to look at the lines. Anything above the 60th parallel, yes. Most of our communities are above the 60th parallel. Nevertheless, they are not part of the Arctic strategy group, and I think they should be, if we are to continue providing aircraft. We also have three Hercules, which is very handy. We have to be part of the group making the decisions if we are to be effective. We have to keep that in mind when we start working on the recommendations.
Senator Robichaud: If I heard correctly, Senator Watt said that he was not a member of that corporation.
Senator Watt: Not now, but I am one of the beneficiaries. I am not on the board. That is what I meant. I am not on the board of directors at this point.
Senator Robichaud: I am just concerned about the conflict of interest here, that is all.
Senator Watt: I am a member. I own the airline company, just like any other individual Inuk person who owns an airline company, but I do not get any direct benefit out of it. I do not know if you can call that a conflict of interest if I do not get any direct benefit out of it.
Senator Robichaud: I just wanted it to be clear.
Senator Watt: This is important if we are to continue on. There are two airlines in the North. We have been operating in the North for a number of years now and we have the infrastructure in place. We have different aircraft in place doing the work that needs to be carried out. If we pull out, they have nothing left, other than the Canadians will try to fill in the gaps, but that costs a lot of money.
Senator Robichaud: You made comments to the fact that this committee was right in looking at the Arctic and sovereignty and all those issues. We will be writing a report. I suppose you would suggest strongly that we continue on that track to ensure things happen rather than just to write our report and say we have done our job.
Mr. Spears: I am not counsel to the committee, but you may want to issue an interim report and follow up. It is the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, and the Arctic is an oceans issue. You know your internal governance, but this is something that needs to continue on because it is happening so quickly.
I want to stress how important this work is, and the fact that you have the testimony transcribed and it is available for people wanting to read this, because the information is difficult to find. This is not written down anywhere. It is like pulling a thread or trying to get someone's best fishing spot. It is very difficult. Everyone holds this information and there is no interchange. That is part of the challenge of dealing with a governance issue, and the governmental response is to try to get these different groups.
You are the Arctic portal, in my view. I read through the different materials, and I have suggested to a number of people, including the press, that when they have Arctic issues, to look at your committee's work.
The Chair: Thank you.
I wanted to explore further. You mentioned Goose Bay and, obviously, I was interested in that. You also mentioned there could be other sites that could provide somewhat the same service. Goose Bay is south of 60 and although it has infrastructure and experience — it has a port and an airport — it is in the southern section; it is subarctic, really. I wonder how you see that in relation to the rest of the Arctic. Do you see other ports being established like that?
Mr. Spears: You need to start somewhere. There is infrastructure there that could be started quickly.
For example, on search and rescue, there is the idea of making use of the existing facilities and bringing people from the North together to train while, at the same time, having a number of other outstations in place throughout the Arctic, using Iqaluit and other places that have runways. There are many runways in the Arctic but sometimes you do not know they are runways until you land on them, depending on whether you have tundra tires on your Twin Otter. You need to start somewhere and Goose Bay has all of the ingredients to make that happen. Plus, any place you go into the Arctic, you will have to pass the Labrador coast. We get into the idea of north of 60 but a great deal of Arctic Canada is tundra south of 60. Churchill is an Arctic port but it is well south of 60. We tend to get caught up in that. We need to look at where the tree line is. In Yukon, the tree line is quite far north at the Arctic Circle. When we were there two years ago on the Dempster highway, we were in the trees but within the Arctic Circle.
Goose Bay is an example of part of a defence strategy of "Canada First" but we do not hear anything about it, although we hear a lot about equipment. In my paper, I set out the reasons why Goose Bay could be a catalyst to bring people together. We need to start somewhere. We could do that at Iqaluit but all of the infrastructure, barracks and classrooms are at Goose Bay and we would not have to build all of that somewhere else.
I am sure that the first year we would be pleased to fly people in and out of Goose Bay and get some momentum going on one of these subjects. It is the same with UAVs. If we are to have them, we can do so from Goose Bay where they have the maintenance facilities. Let us not focus only on the infrastructure but on the doing, the training and the interaction. We need to get people talking to develop a focal point of Arctic excellence and begin to look at new problems in new ways. It is just a place and there is no reason this cannot be done throughout the Arctic, but we need to plant the seeds. If we are to give the Rangers marine training, what better place than in Newfoundland and Labrador? I am kind of biased towards Nova Scotia but the facilities are at Goose Bay.
This could happen as quickly as this summer. These are not difficult things to do. The Coast Guard runs offshore survival schools, one being on the West Coast. The U.S. special forces go there to train a variety of people because it is one of the best in the world. Goose Bay has a long history, it has a community and is sort of neutral territory. It makes a lot of sense to me to spend more money on the doing rather than on building infrastructure. I hope that answered your question.
The Chair: Thank you. We have had a long and interesting night. Mr. Spears, you have provided us with a great deal of food for thought and with some suggested avenues the committee can explore to begin to address the issues and problems. We look forward to hearing from you on the questions that have been raised by Senator Cowan. I want to hear more about QUANGOS because we are still looking for ideas.
I hope senators will see that the committee has an ongoing role in this once we complete our interim report. We need to visit other parts of Canada and hear from more witnesses. The Coast Guard operates not only in the Arctic but also on the East and West Coasts. Mr. Spears, we thank you for providing us with your expertise and knowledge.
Mr. Spears: It has been a pleasure. Thank you and good luck on your trip to the North.
The committee adjourned.