THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON THE ARCTIC
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Wednesday, April 3, 2019
The Special Committee on the Arctic met this day at 11 a.m. to consider the significant and rapid changes to the Arctic, and impacts on original inhabitants.
Senator Dennis Glen Patterson (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Ullaakuut. Good morning and welcome to this meeting of the Special Senate Committee on the Arctic. My name is Dennis Patterson, and I’m the chair and senator representing Nunavut.
Before we start, I would like to quickly propose a motion, which is:
Notwithstanding the usual practices, and pursuant to rule 12-17, that the committee be authorized to receive testimony on April 3, 8 and 10 without quorum, provided that any two members of the committee be present.
Is it agreed?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
I would ask senators around the table to introduce themselves, please, beginning with our deputy chair.
Senator Bovey: Patricia Bovey from Manitoba.
I would like to thank you all for coming and for your patience. This is a busy day, and everyone is everywhere. We appreciate your perseverance.
Senator Coyle: Mary Coyle from Nova Scotia.
Senator Anderson: Dawn Anderson from Yellowknife. My apologies; I’m actually quite ill.
The Chair: Senator Anderson, thank you for leaving your sick bed to help us make quorum. It is appreciated.
Today we continue our study on the significant and rapid changes to the Arctic and impacts on original inhabitants. We will be a little tight on time, so that may shorten our question period.
For our first panel, I’m pleased to welcome, from the Canada Research Coordinating Committee, Ted Hewitt, Chair and President of Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, commonly known as SSHRC. We also welcome Tammy Clifford, Vice President, Research Programs, Canadian Institutes of Health Research; Marc Fortin, Vice President, Research Partnerships, and Chief Operating Officer, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada; and David Moorman, Senior Advisor, Policy and Planning, Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI).
Mr. Hewitt, I believe you’re starting, and we will afterwards have a brief question and answer session.
Ted Hewitt, Chair and President of Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), Canada Research Coordinating Committee: Thank you for inviting us here today. It’s a real pleasure to join you, senators and colleagues.
As Chair of the Canadian Research Coordinating Committee, which we affectionately refer to the CRCC, and President of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, I welcome this opportunity to outline the really broad range of research activities that can enrich Canada’s Arctic Policy Framework in the future.
[Translation]
The federal research granting agencies — the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, or CIHR, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, or NSERC, my own agency, SSHRC, as well as the Canada Foundation for Innovation, or CFI — invest significant funds in northern research, including research on the Arctic. In the past five years, for instance, the tri-agencies have collectively invested more than $340 million to advance research on northern priorities.
[English]
It is important to understand that most of these funds are allocated through demand-driven, peer-reviewed research competitions across all fields and topics of research, as opposed to targeted calls. In other words, significant research on Arctic issues is funded because the research community itself recognizes the importance of advancing knowledge to address issues ranging from health and community wellness to climate change monitoring and adaptation, Arctic marine ecosystems, satellite remote sensing, greener mining practices, and social, cultural, technological, environmental and economic challenges.
The following are some concrete examples of our research that is making a difference in the Arctic. Through working with national and international partners, such as the Arctic Council’s Sustainable Development Working Group, CIHR is aiming to improve mental wellness among northern communities. I believe they have also submitted a brief that expands upon this work.
[Translation]
SSHRC’s OceanCanada project brings together partners from across Canada to understand and address threats facing Canada’s Arctic, Atlantic and Pacific coastal-ocean regions and to seek opportunities to develop a shared vision for the future of our oceans — one that promotes the health and well-being of people living on coasts as well as the marine environment.
[English]
I will also note today that many of the witnesses you’ll be hearing from in the course of your time here are SSHRC-funded, so I hope you will press them on that, ask them how much money they got and whether that provided good value for investment.
NSERC’s support for northern research and training spans multiple priority areas, including climate change monitoring and adaptation, weather forecasting, Arctic marine ecosystems, satellite remote sensing and greener mining practices.
Finally, a projected funded by CFI and its partners is developing an Arctic data management system to enable research in Canada and abroad to access information on Canada’s northern regions and communities.
[Translation]
These are precisely the kinds of collaborations the Canada Research Coordinating Committee is working to advance. The CRCC brings together the heads of federal research, science and health organizations. We are tasked with reinvigorating Canada’s science funding system to meet the current and future needs of our country’s scientists, scholars and students. Our mandate is to deliver on this goal through greater harmonization, collaboration and coordination among the granting agencies and CFI.
[English]
By creating alliances between the research community and other sectors, funding organizations can share resources and better coordinate the use of facilities to optimize national research investments.
One of the CRCC’s top priorities is to strengthen Indigenous research in Canada. SSHRC, on behalf of the CRCC, has led 14 engagement activities with Indigenous organizations, including events in Yellowknife and Inuvik, and a round table with the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami. These sessions included participation by elders, knowledge keepers, community leaders, researchers, students and youth.
[Translation]
Linked to the CRCC priority to develop, in partnership with Indigenous communities, an interdisciplinary Indigenous research and research training model that contributes to reconciliation with First Nations, Metis and Inuit, 116 Indigenous Research Capacity and Reconciliation — Connection Grants were awarded by SSHRC in the fall of 2018, on behalf of the CRCC, for a total investment of $5.6 million, to identify new ways of doing research with Indigenous communities.
[English]
More than half of these grants were awarded to Indigenous not-for-profit organizations and nearly a dozen went to projects related to communities in the North and the Arctic. There will be more opportunities for both Arctic and Indigenous research thanks to the recently launched New Frontiers in Research Fund, a new CRCC-designed tri-agency program. It’s intended to accelerate bold, imaginative and high-risk research that crosses disciplines and encompasses the globe. It has three funding streams, which you will hear a lot more about in the course of the spring: exploration, transformation and international.
[Translation]
This fund is expected to deliver more research support for interdisciplinary, circumpolar collaboration to tackle issues critical to the Arctic.
[English]
I have only really scratched the surface in this short presentation describing how Arctic research can inform the development of Canada’s Arctic Policy Framework. However, my colleagues and I are more than happy to answer any questions you may have about our current engagement on this front.
Thank you very much.
The Chair: Mr. Hewitt and colleagues, we are privileged to have you here today. I will turn the floor over to our deputy chair for the first question.
Senator Bovey: I have a couple of questions. I really want to thank you for what you’re doing. I have been well-connected with various funding organizations over many decades and well aware of the work of SSHRC. I really respect the peer-jury, peer-assessment process. It makes it arm’s length and heightens the significance of the projects that are getting the money.
However, wearing my hat from the Arctic and as one who has been involved in peripheral academic work, coming from the art museum world and, thereby, not having been eligible for SSHRC funding for many years because we got funding elsewhere, I’m concerned about how all of our colleagues up in the Arctic can apply for funding.
With Internet service in and out, we heard from one civic administrator who said it took him six days to get his annual report for his community down to the South, and that was without images. You well know that many research funding applications have graphs and everything that goes with it.
What really is the accessibility for people to apply? I appreciate the $5.6 million given for the North and I appreciate the numbers you have given, but I also know how much other work is going on up there. How many people are deterred because of technological inaccessibility?
We know that the North, the Arctic, comprises 40 per cent of Canada, and it is no secret that everybody knows I feel it’s the future of the country. Are our research policies really geared to encapsulating the kind of work that has to go on in order to realize the significance and the gravity of some of the issues being faced up there?
I have another question after this, if I may.
Mr. Hewitt: I’m going to start and then turn it over to my colleagues.
One thing I can say assuredly on behalf of all is that we are very interested in exploring further how we encourage research about and for northerners, to be done by northerners. The reality — and I think our own agencies will attest to this — is that the vast majority of research originates in the South and may be done hopefully with collaboration with northerners. We would like to see that now inverted. So we are taking steps to ensure that northerners are encouraged to apply. That may go to your second question.
Senator Bovey: Can I ask further question on that, because I think this is really important.
We have been hearing that the policies of the North need to be made for the North, by the North, in the North. I was on the Canada Council board many years ago when they were going to put SSHRC and Canada Council back together again, so this is not new territory for me. But we know that SSHRC traditionally is funded university research. We also know that universities in the North, for the North and of the North are as yet not existent. They are about to be.
Mr. Hewitt: Let me try that one, then I am going to hand it over to my colleagues, because we recognize that as well. The reality now at SSHRC is we do fund research at colleges. So all of the three northern colleges — and I believe I can attest to this — have received funding at some point and continue to receive funding. I think that’s important to note.
The other piece is that at SSHRC — and I only speak for SSHRC now — we have expanded programming now in place that allows applications for most of our funding opportunities from not-for-profit organizations. So they are eligible to apply and they are eligible to receive funding. They still have to go through peer review. As a point of proof on that, of the 116 wards that were given as part of the Connection program to support the Indigenous engagement exercise, 50 were given to Indigenous not-for-profit organizations. So we’re starting to expand out the range of what we can consider to be research and the range of who we consider to be researchers in order to try and accommodate this.
I can’t speak to the Connection issues other than to affirm that. We have heard in the North that this is an issue, and it’s something we would like to talk about further with our northern partners.
I’ll turn it over to whoever would complement that.
Marc Fortin, Vice President, Research Partnerships, and Chief Operating Officer, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada: I would like to first talk about the question of program accessibility that you raised.
At NSERC, we are in the process of reviewing, redesigning the partnership programs which represent about $270 million a year of expenditures, partnerships between different groups, academia and sometimes industry. We are in the process of simplifying those programs, broadening eligibility to those programs, including not-for-profit organizations and community organizations, and we are thinking specifically of communities in the North.
We are also funding colleges, as Dr. Hewitt has mentioned. We are on the cusp of delivering that new program in a few weeks, which I think will be a game changer for many of those communities.
We are also looking at the appropriate review of research proposals coming from those communities. We have work to do, because if we apply the classical or the conventional peer review approach, we know that it will be a challenge for some of those not-for-profit organizations, smaller community groups or community associations. So there is work ongoing at the moment to adapt our ways of doing peer review to those communities.
David Moorman, Senior Advisor, Policy and Planning, Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI): Thank you, senator. The question around connectivity is a really important one. It is, in a very basic sense, an infrastructure issue. The Canada Foundation for Innovation funds research infrastructure, and those infrastructures that are related to research itself, that is our business.
Connectivity in the North, in particular, is a major challenge for everyone, and this is an eligible expense within the CFI awards. We’re starting to see much more sophisticated approaches to overcoming some of the barriers around distance, around the lack of the physical wires that we all enjoy in Southern Canada, and in particular the ways of building databases of information that incorporate both Indigenous knowledge and scientific knowledge in very sophisticated ways.
The use of knowledge — what comes out of science and the observational capacity, especially of the Inuit — is really what is driving the ability to train youth, solve problems and address environmental concerns. The researchers, particularly on a number of projects, are exploring ways of overcoming the question of how to access this information. How do you structure it? How do you make sure it’s available not just to researchers in the South but to communities in the North? This is very expensive and a long-term enterprise, but something we build directly into and make eligible in our awards. We have some really good examples around exactly that.
Senator Bovey: Those are for northern organizations applying as much as or more than the southern organizations that are working in the North?
Mr. Moorman: Absolutely. We are constrained by our legislation, of course, and who is ineligible to receive CFI awards.
Next week, we will be discussing with Yukon College its ambitions to become a university. We have a number of colleges. We fund colleges that are eligible. There are also stages of development in their capacity to conduct research that we can support but have to be very attentive to. As Dr. Hewitt said, we respond to the research community. Through our merit review process, we insist that the local interests are not only taken into consideration but incorporated in the research in itself.
Senator Bovey: Mr. Chair, I find that encouraging. I have one caution with what we heard from high school graduates from the North when we were up North, with their A-pluses in English and math. When they came down to do their post-secondary education, they were testing at a Grade 7 and Grade 5 level respectively. So when I talk about access, I’m talking about all sorts of access. I think that’s a caution.
I have another question. I am pleased to hear that there are projects regarding Indigenous knowledge. I would ask that the new program materials that you are bringing out and that have come out be sent to the clerk so they can be appended to our report, because I think that transition is a very important one to document. It will let us get it out to our wider community.
I would like you to talk more about circumpolar collaboration which again, given my past, is a field I have worked on, particularly between the Inuit and the Sami. I don’t mind which circumpolar area you are looking at. I am wondering if you could give me examples of the substantive circumpolar research that you have funded for and with our Arctic citizens.
Mr. Hewitt: I’m looking at my colleagues. Perhaps they would like to start while I find my examples.
The Chair: This could subsequently be provided to the committee.
Mr. Hewitt: Perhaps you would like a fuller accounting. We have worked with the Sami already and have other projects that link to them through the partnership funding initiative, as do our other colleagues.
Senator Bovey: Rather than take time now, if each of your organizations can get us some of that material, it will allow us to build a base. You’re at the benefit of coming near the end of our various hearings, feeding into some of the comments we have heard.
And, please, that would be critically important.
Mr. Hewitt: We will undertake to do that and forward it to the committee.
The Chair: Particularly through the CIHR. I believe quite a bit of work has been done.
Senator Bovey: And the medical research, wellness research.
Tammy Clifford, Vice President, Research Programs, Canadian Institutes of Health Research: Exactly.
Senator Coyle: Thank you all for being with us this morning.
My first question is quite general. At the end of your presentation, Mr. Hewitt, you said that you have only scratched the surface in describing how Arctic research can inform the development of Canada’s Arctic Policy Framework. My question to you and to your colleagues is this: How do you see Arctic research not just informing but being a part of Canada’s Arctic Policy Framework?
Mr. Hewitt: Obviously, in this kind of setting, we’re providing you with information as we can and supplementary information on the detail.
One of the perspectives from SSHRC — and I have to speak primarily from SSHRC here — is that we’re unique in the sense that we actually fund research on policy and on the implementation of policy. As policies are implemented, as this will be, there will be a lot of interest on the part of researchers in examining how it was implemented, with what success, what the notable gaps or failures were, and we will be the source of funding for that work.
That would be our primary contribution, not only through research grants but through students, who we would fund, working either on the ground or in government in the implementation of that policy framework. That’s how I would respond to that.
Mr. Fortin: As a granting council, a granting agency, we don’t define policies. We work with federal departments to support the definition of policies, the evolution of policies and regulatory frameworks. In a sense, we provide the connection to the research community that then can provide the evidence base for the development of policies.
An example of working with federal departments is a small program that we launched last year with Environment and Climate Change Canada, ECCC. We had a small program where they defined a certain number of gaps in knowledge for the development of their policies in relation to climate change. We provided funding with them to the academic community for them to provide the evidence base and the knowledge required for plugging those gaps, essentially.
The Chair: Ms. Clifford?
Ms. Clifford: Thank you very much.
First of all, I need to acknowledge that today is a privilege for me. I’m here on behalf of CIHR’s president, Dr. Michael Strong, who is currently in Nunavut taking part in ITK’s executive training program. Again, the commitment of CIHR to our Arctic and our Arctic peoples pervades the entire organization.
I’d like to bring up two particular initiatives of CIHR that actually relate back to CIHR’s mandate, as outlined in the CIHR Act. CIHR is to fund knowledge creation and its translation in order to improve the health of Canadians. So we produce and support the production of evidence to inform policies.
From its inception, CIHR has had one of its institutes dedicated to Indigenous peoples’ health. Right now, that is the Institute of Indigenous Peoples’ Health. That institute’s mandate, which has $180 million of CIHR’s investment over the past five years, is to improve the health and well-being of Indigenous peoples in every part of Canada, including the North, by stimulating Indigenous health research, creating new knowledge, forming those research partnerships with organizations and, importantly, respectfully involving Indigenous communities in the relevant projects undertaken. This institute provides strategic and scientific leadership for knowledge creation, its translation and capacity building.
I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention a recent launch of an initiative called the Network Environments for Indigenous Health Research, or NEIHR. This is noted in the brief. This is a research investment of over $100 million over 16 years, so recognizing this requires sustained investment in order to achieve the desired outcomes. The focus there again is on capacity development, so recognizing the importance of building the capacity in the North instead of, as Dr. Hewitt initially referenced, the work being done by those in the South. Again, CIHR is committed to building the evidence that will inform the policy.
Senator Coyle: You’re clearly addressing the importance of trying to build both individual researcher capacity and institutional research capacity in the North, for northerners and for one particularly large subset of northerners, the Indigenous people.
What do you see as the major obstacles/opportunities that exist in building the human scholarship capacity as well as the institutional capacity in the North, for the North and, in particular, among Indigenous institutions and researchers?
Mr. Hewitt: That’s a great question because we are right now in the middle of an exercise designed to better understand those needs and what the agencies collectively should be doing to support them. We spent about eight months on the road, all across Canada, listening to Indigenous community representatives talk about everything from support for students — and some of these were in the North: Yellowknife, Inuvik. We were listening to students, listening to Indigenous not-for-profit organizations. We talked to representatives from territorial governments and so on.
We had a wrap-up national meeting three weeks ago. All the people we funded and met with, or at least their representatives, came to Ottawa, 300 of them, to talk about what they found through their own research and what would be useful for us to know. We are now in the process of collating and putting that information together.
That speaks to your policy question also in terms of direct engagement. Although it’s not exclusively linked to the North, it is in good measure linked to the North. We worked very closely —
The Chair: We would be most grateful to have that collation.
Mr. Hewitt: Absolutely. We’ll make a note to share that.
There are already a few things coming out that are real eye-openers. One is the need — and I know you’ve discussed this — to take into account the traditional ways of knowing and traditional knowledge. People in the North generally and — sorry — Indigenous people specifically are sick and tired of what they’re increasingly calling helicopter research, where people fly into the North, do their thing, disappear and away they go. They want to have more control over the information produced as a result of any research that’s done and they want to participate in the research. Whether they’re profs from St. FX, or from Western — my institution — or from McGill, they want to be able to participate effectively with others, certainly, and in the process control that information on the ground to the benefit of their own community.
These are the kinds of things we’re hearing. Now it will fall on us to take all this information and to try to work together to seek pathways forward to address these issues. But we are certainly hearing it and we’re hearing it in spades.
Senator Coyle: Do you expect that report to be done fairly soon?
Mr. Hewitt: We are in the process of preparing the main elements. One piece will be just a collation of everything we heard over that long period of time. The second will be directed more toward the path forward, the kinds of things we think we can do short-term and the kinds of things that may need to be addressed long-term. All of us have attended some or all of those meetings across the country with our colleagues at our agencies, and it has been a colossal eye-opener. We know that will be useful to you and to others as we go forward.
Mr. Moorman: To address that question directly, I have a brief example from two projects, one that CFI funded and one that CFI didn’t fund. The positive and the negative are important.
In the context of what we heard from our adjudicators and particularly from northerners in relation to the Arctic Policy Framework, from their point of view it’s not just community involvement that’s important and setting out the research questions in the context of northerners; it’s the development of northern research capacity. This is both at the individual level and at the institutional level.
From the northerners’ point of view, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, it is the opportunity to train youth in how to do research, how to understand both the observational capacity to create knowledge on the Inuit side and the science knowledge that comes from scientists, whether they’re homegrown within the North or from elsewhere. This policy discussion came through the merit review process.
One project was turned down because there weren’t enough opportunities for youth in particular to act as researchers, to gather data, to learn how to use the technologies and to be out in the field working directly with the professors who are the leaders of the research enterprise in itself. That was a real eye-opener because it was a major project, and the universities from the South who were proposing it did not do their work, did not engage enough, and we turned it down.
Another project we did fund, and Dr. Hewitt highlighted it, started off with the premise that northerners have to not only be in the lead on this but have to take advantage of the training opportunities to use new technologies, especially digital technologies, to develop capacity themselves. They were very blunt in saying that this has to be an element of the whole northern research policy framework in itself, the link between education, educational institutions, research institutions, and producing people who are sophisticated, capable and part of their community as well.
This is a tough thing because, of course, there is jurisdictional responsibility involved. But one of the good things about being involved with CFI is that we fund institutions directly. As those institutions develop, we can assist in making sure that they are providing the training opportunities for youth in particular.
Senator Bovey: I applaud what you’re doing. I find it very exciting and look forward to the policy results.
May I ask you about governance? How many northerners and Indigenous northerners are on your boards of governors?
The Chair: Dr. Hewitt, I think we’ll turn to you.
Senator Bovey: That may be a mean question, but I think it gets to a point about participation.
Mr. Hewitt: It’s not a mean question, but it’s not an uncomplicated one either. I want to be careful in choosing my words. The answer is very few, by the way, although we’ve certainly been entreated by our colleagues at ITK and others that we should pay attention to this.
At SSHRC, I can tell we do have Indigenous persons who are members of our council and our committees. They are not northerners to my knowledge, but that’s a need we’ve recognized.
We, as councils — and I’m sure this is the case, although I’m not sure about CFI; it’s a little bit different because the tri-agencies are agencies of government — recommend for nomination people who in turn self-nominate in the system and are vetted by the Government of Canada and then appointed by the minister. I’ll just leave that there.
But I will also say that we are strongly encouraging of and supportive of increasing the numbers. I believe we all have grids. We have to make sure: anglophone, francophone, male, female, all parts of Canada, as you know. But in this particular case, there is certainly strong support for that.
Ms. Clifford: I would underscore what Dr. Hewitt mentioned. At CIHR, one member of its governing council is part of the Indigenous community. As I mentioned, our Institute of Indigenous Peoples’ Health has its own institute advisory board. That’s where there is extensive representation of elders and community members. But, again, I underscore that more can be done.
Senator Bovey: Are they from the North or are they southern Indigenous?
Ms. Clifford: No. That’s a very good point. The individual is based in Saskatchewan. I don’t know where they might have come from.
Senator Bovey: Saskatchewan is not part of the Arctic framework.
Ms. Clifford: Exactly.
The Chair: Thank you.
Did you want to add something, Dr. Fortin?
Mr. Fortin: I’ll have to double-check this, but I believe we have one person on our council as well. The previous president, before his departure, put together an advisory group with a majority of people from the North on those questions, to advise us on those questions as well.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Senator Eaton: We’ve certainly heard how northerners hate to have policies made in the South and impose them in the North. Are current Arctic research priorities informed by input from Arctic governments and Indigenous communities?
Mr. Moorman: For any application for research infrastructure that is to be used or located in the North, they must be. It is a requirement within our merit review process.
Senator Eaton: Do the ideas come from the North?
Mr. Moorman: In general.
Senator Eaton: They’re not from somebody at a southern university saying it would be great to know this?
Mr. Moorman: They come from both. However, they must be not just confirmed but they must involve the concerns.
Senator Eaton: That’s not the same thing. Can I do this up North, or is it coming from the North to you?
Mr. Moorman: Given the lack of institutions in the North, this is very difficult. Almost all of the proposals come from southern universities, but they must —
Senator Eaton: You’ve answered my question. You consult with them, but you go to them; it’s not them coming to you to say they are having this terrible fish problem now with salmon invading the waters of Arctic char. You’re going to them.
Does anybody have anything else?
Mr. Hewitt: In the preponderance of cases, that is true, but not all cases. That’s what we’re trying to encourage through our work with the colleges and the territorial governments and not-for-profits so that more will come from the North in order to try to redress that imbalance. I have the list.
Senator Eaton: It’s not southern curiosity; it’s what the North needs.
Mr. Hewitt: Exactly.
I can share the list with you. For SSHRC, the top institutions that do work in the North are all in the South, and you know what they are. This is what we’re now trying to address.
In the case of Indigenous research, one way we’ve addressed it at SSHRC is to say that, under our policies, if you’re doing work in an Indigenous community, you must do this work with the Indigenous community. They must be co-applicants or we won’t fund you.
We’re saying forget about ethics. There’s a whole chapter on ethics in the tri-council policy statement. This is about what we will and will not fund.
We’ll also ensure that the proposals will be adjudicated on committees where there are representatives of Indigenous communities.
Senator Eaton: But you’ve just all said that very few northern people who live in the North sit on your governance councils.
Mr. Hewitt: Yes, that’s right. It is true, but in the way that we assess projects, we use peer review. We use reviewers from the universities, the colleges and communities who actually assess the worth of the projects and then make recommendations to fund. I’m saying that when proposals come from the North or from Indigenous communities specifically, we work to ensure that on those peer review committees there’s representation from the North, and certainly it has to be from Indigenous communities if the proposal comes from an Indigenous researcher, however that is defined by us. These are the steps we’re taking now in order to try and reverse this outcome that has occurred over many decades.
Senator Eaton: To go back to Indigenous cooperative research, it is done based on a different model, as you were talking about. A lot of it is observation, experience and oral tradition. Academic research is peer reviewed. How do you judge the validity of Indigenous research as opposed to academic research? How can you weigh it?
Mr. Hewitt: The first thing I want to say is these are precisely the kinds of questions we’re grappling with as part of this Indigenous community engagement process we’ve been undertaking in the last eight months. These issues come up again and again.
From the perspective of SSHRC, we have a guiding policy that says, number one, if you’re doing Indigenous research, it has to be by and with Indigenous communities — rule one.
Second, traditional ways of knowing or knowledge are admissible as legitimate forms of evidence in research.
Third, peer review will be undertaken with Indigenous people in the room at the table when these are being discussed.
Senator Eaton: Will this be helpful when some of it is digital because they can record things digitally as opposed to the written tradition?
Mr. Hewitt: I don’t want to answer that because I think we have left the determination of what constitutes evidence and knowledge to the researchers. In this case, if they are Indigenous researchers, how that works would be totally up to them.
I don’t want to take up the whole thing, but I think in terms of how things work at the other agencies, we are moving towards one approach to this, through this process that I am describing.
Senator Eaton: Thank you.
The Chair: Colleagues, this has been a very informative session. You might have been reading some of the testimony we heard earlier in our study because you have answered a lot of questions and issues that we have already dealt with or heard about in our travels in the North. We are privileged to have had you all here today. Thank you very much.
A small note of apology. You’re all PhDs, and forgive me for not recognizing that in my earlier salutations.
For the second portion of this meeting of the Special Committee on the Arctic, I’m pleased to welcome, by video conference from Whitehorse, Jocelyn Joe-Strack, Consultant and PhD student, Subarctic Research and Strategy, University of Saskatchewan. Good morning to you. In person with us this afternoon we have Theo Ikummaq, Iglulingmiut, Hunter, Environmentalist, Cultural Advocate; and Gita Ljubicic, Associate Professor, Carleton University. Thank you all for joining us.
I invite you to proceed with your opening statements and then there will be opportunity for questions and answers. Please proceed.
Jocelyn Joe-Strack, Consultant and PhD student, Subarctic Research and Strategy, University of Saskatchewan, as an individual: Thank you for having me.
[Editor’s Note: Ms. Joe-Strack spoke in her Indigenous language.]
Hello, my name is Jocelyn Joe-Strack. I’m a member of the Champagne and Aishihik First Nation of southwestern Yukon. I’m a trained hydrologist, microbiologist and stem cell researcher. I was introduced to policy as a Gordon Foundation Jane Glassco fellow and working for Polar Knowledge Canada. I now concentrate on evolving policy.
Today, I’m working as a consultant with my First Nation to develop a 200-year land plan, a vision for my community and the land we care for. I’m using this experience to concurrently complete a PhD where I ask the big questions of how we can call upon the wisdom and resilience of our ancestors to advance the strengths of today in order to return to harmony with earth.
I recently returned from a speaking tour with the Canadian embassies of Spain, Sweden, Germany and France where I discussed climate change. I sit before you today as a philosopher and policy visionary. When the leaders of my father’s generation travelled to Ottawa in 1973, they went with a message of “together today for our children tomorrow.” Myself and other children of tomorrow are entrusted with carrying forward the vision set by our past leaders, a vision that sees our people thriving with self-reliance and prosperity as understood by our culture.
In preparation for today, I read through Mary Simons’ report and, immediately after, I read through the discussion guide. I did this purposely as I wanted to consider how Mrs. Simons’ spirit was reflected and diluted in this first step of integrating knowledge.
The North has always been a place of renewal and opportunity. My people remember the Ice Age. Only 150 years ago, our village was under a 70-kilometre-long lake. We have ever endured and thrived through change. We moved. We lived with resilience and integrity as a guiding fact. I believe that’s partly why we have been so adept and successful in modern society. We are implementing world-envied agreements and novel legislative frameworks that are based on the spirit of partnership.
In writing the land plan, I’m tasked to define what is mining dän k’e? What is energy dän k’e? “Our way.” It’s not a land-use plan. We didn’t own the land; we cared for it. It’s a plan to reconcile our hurt relationships with government, with each other, future generations and, most importantly, the land. The plan is rich with vision and spirit, and I believe modern policy can evolve by better understanding the legislative ambitions of self-determined nations. Policy must be rooted in value and humanity rather than technical and procedural pragmatism; entrenched policy in truth and spirit in order to uphold the best of humanity — skill, gratitude, self-worth and connectedness. In dän k’e we only counted to 10. We never had the arrogance to assume we could make certain decisions about the power of earth, and today we solely depend on numbers to make decisions. I believe this condition is one of the key drivers of climate change.
We must seek to understand prosperity beyond economics and technical monitoring. The First Peoples remember harmony. I wondered the other day how often they were dissatisfied with their lives, despite starvation and cold, but it’s not a sentiment that we ever heard in our stories.
I met people in Europe who were dissatisfied. The youth are marching. They wished for some of the peace, clarity and wisdom that connection with nature and spirit offers. Indigenous people have ever recognized that this is a right for all earth people.
The task of this Arctic policy is to empower northern people to live better lives based on their own notion of prosperity and well-being. I believe that if empowered, we could unveil a solution to living well that does not depend on economics and ongoing development.
The opportunity of this Arctic policy is that the world is looking to the North and Indigenous people for these exact lessons in order to safeguard our planet. This policy must be like no other policy ever written before. The committee must be cautious of colonial terminology: incorporated, integrated, for, protect, support. Your words must reflect policy for people today and tomorrow. The words must be dynamic, breathing and as alive as you and I.
Be bold. The North has always been for the strong-willed and innovated. Empower, share, refresh, imagine and celebrate the strength of the North for all Canadians.
Kwänaschis. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
We will now turn to our two witnesses in the room, beginning with Mr. Ikummaq.
Theo Ikummaq, Iglulingmiut, Hunter, Environmentalist, Cultural Advocate, as an individual: I was born in 1955 in a snow house, or an igloo as we know it. That was when centralization was occurring in my part of the world, which is Igloolik in the Baffin Region.
Back then, when I was born, we were living a nomadic life, meaning we lived off the land and followed the animals wherever they were as a family group, a family unit. For the first six years of my life, I was living that kind of life where other cultures weren’t really influencing how we were living back then.
At about the age of six, I was carted off to residential school for the next seven years, which, luckily, I survived. In the residential school, all kinds of abuses were happening. To wit, this is the Chesterfield Inlet Residential School, which was open from 1944 to 1969.
If you’re familiar with the TB treatment that Inuit went through, I lost both parents when I was in residential school, my mother in 1964 and my father in 1967. We couldn’t locate them for the next 20 years. I had to look for them. I found them, and now my family is resting in peace knowing where they are. I can’t say the same for a lot of the other Inuit who might have gone through that.
Right after residential school, I was living in an outpost camp, which is a camp outside of town. With centralization occurring, we were unique in that, being Roman Catholic, we were allowed to live back on the land for the next nine years of my life. My brother’s theory was to get the Inuk in me back, to get back the little brother whom he had lost to residential school.
He explained it this way. The first year I went to residential school, I came back as Theo. The second year, the body was there, but there was a different person that was starting to get inside of me. The third year, the body was there, but there was a totally different person inside that body that he couldn’t even recognize anymore. That was the first three years of my life in residential school. I stayed there for seven, so you can imagine the distance we survivors had to go through getting back to town.
It was hard, but we persevered in that a lot of our elders decided that because we had lost culture and language, they were going to reteach us, even at a later age. What we were normally taught at about five or six years of age was being taught to 12- or 13-year-olds, so you can imagine how far removed we were from our culture.
After those things that I went through, I became a cultural advocate in that I decided, having been given my culture and language back, I should do the same, and I’m still doing that to date. I just did an igloo-building venture for the last two weeks, so we do have some large igloos in Igloolik at the moment, which is very culturally sound. The name Igloolik means the place of igloos, and traditionally that’s what it has always been. Banking on that, we decided we were going to build an igloo village, which we did successfully, even with a lack of snow. So, we’re still doing quite a bit of work on culture.
The food insecurity, which occurred way back in the centralization part of Inuit where Inuit from outpost camps were required to come to Igloolik, started right there and then, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and food insecurity has been ongoing since. If you really look at it, the dogs started starving once they became centralized because they came from a place where hunting was different. They got to a place where hunting had to be quite different, to wit, hunting on land-fast ice and land; then they had to switch to moving ice, which to them was unheard of. This was a new event they had to go through to relearn culture as we know it. This was a culture they weren’t aware of.
It’s the same for any community. If you go from community to community, you’ll find that the culture is quite different, so you can’t really pinpoint Inuit culture as being one. It’s governed by the environment you are living in, so the environment governs culture as we know it.
For example, if I was to go to Pangnirtung, the land is high and the sea ice isn’t the same, so I am quite lost when I get there to do some hunting and I have to adapt to that location. The same thing occurs to people from Pangnirtung going to Igloolik. You can’t really say the culture is the same all over Nunavut. It’s quite different from community to community, even though they can be up to 60 kilometres apart.
The Chair: Ms. Ljubicic.
Gita Ljubicic, Associate Professor, Carleton University, as an individual: Thank you. My name is Gita Ljubicic. I’m an associate professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at Carleton University here in Ottawa. I also grew up in Ottawa on these unceded Algonquin lands upon which we meet today.
After being away for a number of years at university, I was really happy to return back to Ottawa in 2008 to take up this position at Carleton University.
The first opportunity I had to go to the Arctic was to Taloyoak in Nunavut in 2001. This was part of my masters research. Later that year, I returned for the summer to spend two months camping on Boothia Peninsula. That was part of learning about tundra vegetation, again for my masters research.
Having never camped outside of a campground before, and with just three of us in camp for the summer, this was a truly life-changing experience for me to spend that two months on the land. It was that experience that set a path for me, to which I have been dedicated to ever since, which is learning about environmental issues in Inuit Nunangat, from Inuit knowledge and according to community-identified priorities.
Since then, I have worked most closely with the Qikiqtani communities of Igloolik, where I met Theo, as well as Cape Dorset and Pangnirtung on a project learning about Inuit knowledge of sea ice and, following that, a project in Gjoa Haven in the Kitikmeot Region of Nunavut learning from Inuit knowledge of caribou.
Each of those projects spanned more than eight years. We have ongoing connections and follow-up efforts with all of these communities. Through other collaborations and through supervising graduate students, I have been fortunate to be involved in different projects across all four regions of Inuit Nunangat.
I’m a geographer with training in natural and social sciences. I work mostly at the intersection of cultural and environmental geography. My work is driven by a deep commitment to respecting and learning from Inuit knowledge alongside science in order to address complex socio-ecological issues. My work is grounded in partnerships based on community engagement and guidance through all phases the research. Over the years, our projects have focused on sea ice and caribou but also plants and water. And it relates to implications of climate change for northern lifestyles and livelihoods, and contributions to decision making across different scales.
In all that we do, a strong emphasis is placed on exploring how we best work together in cross-cultural research, and how to ensure that Inuit and scientific knowledge are respected in their own right, and that they are also used in complement to inform more representative and meaningful decision making.
I am very honoured to be invited to be here today in front of this committee. I am especially happy to be here with my long-time mentor and research partner and friend Theo Ikummaq. Qujannamiik.
The Chair: I will have to be a little arbitrary about questions. I would like to be able to give everyone a chance, beginning with Senator Bovey.
Senator Bovey: I want to thank you all. I very much appreciate the different intersections of your research, your community and the traditions.
Mr. Ikummaq, I was touched by your stories and how you had to regain the knowledge you lost going to residential school.
I want you to tell us a little more, if you can, about why you got engaged with the work of Dr. Ljubicic. We are very intrigued and serious about the question of the interrelationship between academic researchers and techniques and the real Indigenous knowledge. You’re obviously the lead in her work, and I would like to know how you have helped her work to move along to inform your people and future generations.
Mr. Ikummaq: I noticed at an early age that the Inuit language had deteriorated quite drastically. I found myself to be a little above most of my peers. Interpretation was now an issue when I was listening to it, and the information wasn’t totally getting across to the people who were being interpreted to. So I decided to get in there and assist. First, it was assistance, and it was a hostile takeover pretty much after that. It was more assistance on what was to be done. Again, their lack of speaking ability was why I got into what I am today.
I am quite knowledgeable in both languages. I have a Grade 12 degree from 1979, a four-year university course, three years of teacher education and two years of interpretation. I have got quite a bit under my belt to be able to do something like this, to assist other people. That’s why I got into this kind of work.
Senator Bovey: Very impressive. Thank you for your leadership.
Dr. Ljubicic, I wonder if you want to add to that. Obviously your research partnership is very strong.
Ms. Ljubicic: Thank you. The first time I was in Igloolik, I was searching for advice. We met with many different organizations from a very early exploratory visit, trying to get advice and trying to understand community priorities. That’s how I met Theo. And it also was recognizing through those early suggestions how important it is to emphasize language and for the research to be in Inuktitut. Many of the elders we wanted to speak with and learn from about sea ice were only speaking Inuktitut, so it was really important to have a good interpreter. Theo has been an amazing interpreter, but so much more than interpreter, helping to identify the right people to speak with, who are most knowledgeable about sea ice issues or safety or changes over time.
He has played a role in guiding the project all the way through, from interviewing people, to doing mapping workshops, travelling on the ice, keeping me safe on the ice, so many aspects. There was also a lot of work together in terms of how we share the results in the end. Language has been such a foundation of that.
We were talking yesterday about translation. I do want to highlight the importance of not just looking at verbatim translation, not just taking it at face value. There are so many limitations when you’re translating between Inuktitut and English and back again. Something we have tried to do is understand the underlying concepts of the terminology and what is being said, because without that, we’re missing so much of the context, and it can lead to misinterpretation or misrepresentation. We really worked hard to avoid that.
Senator Bovey: Thank you.
Senator Eaton: Thank you all. I would love to spend a half an hour with each of you, however I will start with Joe.
We spent a lovely time in the fall in Whitehorse. Representatives from the Sahtu Nation came to us and talked about how they were developing their land management and the environment. It seemed very cohesive, and I think it will have far-reaching effects on all Indigenous land claims, good for all of Canada.
In the land management that you see in the future for your community, do you see the development of natural resources as part of that land management?
Ms. Joe-Strack: I do. In consultation with my community, people never said no mining, but it was: How do we do mining in a way that best serves us? Much of it is related to scale and some investigation of mining that’s not driven by market economies, because market economy mining doesn’t serve local people. We need mining that actually provides benefits to us beyond the lip service or the smaller expectations of today. Granted, there are great things that have happened because of mining — roads and hospitals — but it’s more a matter of how that is the change.
When we think about energy too, there’s a nexus there that is intriguing, innovative and forward-thinking. We’re long-term thinkers. I think that’s the greatest difference. Twenty-five years is a tiny snippet. Our vision is 200 years. When I talk to people about that they ask, “Why even 200?”
Senator Eaton: Do you want to combine Indigenous knowledge with science when you look at land management?
Ms. Joe-Strack: Indigenous knowledge is an aspect of humanity, being and living that is often missing from science and policy. I want to advance science and policy to better reflect the realism of our being, which is what Indigenous people walk with. We walk with emotion and spirit, but that’s not how we make decisions today. Without that integrity and honour, we make decisions that hurt earth and hurt people.
Senator Eaton: But you also give them jobs, training skills and a little money to look after food insecurities. I’m not trying to be sarcastic. I’m just asking whether it’s a difficult balance.
Ms. Joe-Strack: Certainly it is.
Part of my work and dreaming of what could be, I think a lot about jobs and the securities that we’ve decided we need. Our original people were independently capable. Any one person could survive on the land. I’m not saying I want to go back to living in the bush, but I want to remember that skill was one of our greatest capacities, and now we’re completely reliant on the market economy and the provision of goods and energy from the South. We’ve become completely dependent. I think that’s a real shortcoming.
I’m interested in trying to seek ways to increase our self-reliance as a people while also still being a part of modern society. It’s very tricky.
Senator Eaton: It’s a very nice way of putting it. Thank you.
I would like to ask the professor and Theo about caribou, because it’s so endemic and important to the North. In some areas I gather there are quite good herds of caribou, but in other areas we heard, such as in Labrador and around Kuujjuaq, the herds have been decimated.
The Chair: In the Baffin Region as well.
Senator Eaton: In the Baffin Region as well. What is your read on it, Theo?
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disrespect you, but I didn’t want to mispronounce your last name.
Mr. Ikummaq: No problem. It has been done in the past so you would not be the first.
We were living in the outpost camp up to 1979. We were seeing caribou herds passing through in numbers of about 150,000 to 175,000. About 10 or 15 years ago, for some odd reason they decided to exit Baffin Island. There was not one caribou left on Baffin Island. They went off to the little islands right around Baffin Island and onto the mainland.
Senator Eaton: What did those little islands and the mainland have that Baffin Island didn’t have?
Mr. Ikummaq: I think it was the food for the caribou. We don’t really know why, but for some odd reason they decided to exit Baffin Island and totally get off Baffin Island. We couldn’t figure out what was creating that. We thought it might have been exploration of Baffinland, but Baffinland exploration was somewhat limited to a certain located on Baffin Island, so it couldn’t have affected the whole of the island.
The Chair: That’s the iron ore mine.
Mr. Ikummaq: Yes. We thought it was that, but it’s only limited to a certain area for the mine. It can’t be that, so it has to be something else.
We kept looking, and we found that the food source had diminished so much.
Senator Eaton: What do they eat?
Mr. Ikummaq: Lichen and mosses. With the geese coming onto Baffin Island up in numbers into the millions, probably billions, they were eating the caribou food and they decimated all of the land. That’s what caused caribou to migrate elsewhere. We actually did see die-offs of caribou on the sea ice from starvation. They were in groups of eight to ten animals in a location about the size of this table, side by side. They just died off. Again, a slow starvation that was occurring.
Now the plants are coming back and the caribou are starting to show up again. It’s a natural cycle that the caribou go through. They pretty much eat themselves out of house and home every 60 years. It’s about a 60-, 70-year cycle, the equivalent of a human elder. That’s how Inuit have known it. There is a crash, a peak, a crash, a peak, and those are about 60 to 70 years apart. This was somewhat a natural phenomenon that occurred, but it was a bit more drastic than that, meaning all the animals vanished out of the location where few animals had been left in the past.
Senator Eaton: Do you have anything to add?
Ms. Ljubicic: I am not an expert on caribou by any means. You’re hearing from the expert here. I have not done caribou research around the Baffin Region. In working with Simon Okpakok and a number of elders and community organizations in Gjoa Haven, Nunavut, caribou was defined as a priority for that community. We were learning from Uqsuqtuurmiut, the people of Uqsuqtuuq, Gjoa Haven, about caribou in that region. It was a very important community priority. That’s why the project was developed as it was. It’s also very interesting that Uqsuqtuuq is on King William Island, where it’s called Qikiqtaq in Inuktitut.
In all the different caribou range maps we looked at from Nunavut, Northwest Territories, federal, King William Island is showing as blank on these maps. In some cases it shows “unknown” and in other cases it’s showing some Peary caribou to the north, barren-ground caribou to the south, and King William Island shows as having no caribou.
But what we were learning from the Uqsuqtuurmiut is that there are caribou on the island year-round. Caribou move on and off the island seasonally. There are four different kinds of caribou recognized in the community, according to community terminology, that are present in the region.
It was so important to be able to highlight that and share it. Nunavut is where we mostly focused on sharing that information. I highlight that given that just because there hasn’t been a scientific survey in the region doesn’t mean there are no caribou in the region. This particular island has been overlooked in surveys because there aren’t large populations, but community members and hunters know there are caribou there. It was so important to highlight that and also to emphasize that Inuktitut names for caribou don’t always match with the biological herd names that scientists are using. There is potential for misunderstanding there. It was really important to talk about those names and what that means to facilitate communication.
Senator Eaton: How they translate?
Ms. Ljubicic: Yes.
Senator Coyle: I would love to ask all of you questions, but I won’t.
I’ll ask Mr. Ikummaq because it’s a rare opportunity for us to have you here with our Senate committee in person. You have this vast experience. It’s fantastic to have you with us here.
We will be making recommendations to the government on priorities for the Arctic Policy Framework. I want to ask you to not just talk about your research you have been doing with Dr. Ljubicic but also, from your perspective as someone who has lived the life and who is looking now to the future, what do you see as the top-priority concerns for you and your area? And what are the opportunities? If you could talk about your concerns and the main opportunities we should focus on, we would love to hear from you.
Mr. Ikummaq: Thank you. The main concern we have at the moment is that our language is diminishing fast. We can attribute that to the education system, meaning the youngsters we have today are sounding like Inuktitut, like Inuktut, but with an English mindset. That’s a totally different kind of language coming out of our Inuit. The elders don’t really understand them because they’re not using traditional language. They’re using the language of the street today, meaning what they learned in school is how they’re speaking it.
It’s easy to differentiate between an Inuk mindset and an Inuk with a different mindset in the way they speak. Now we’re hearing Inuktitut with an English structure, English sentence form; that was unheard of in the past.
Inuktitut is not structured in a sentence form. It pinpoints exactly what you’re talking about . “I’m holding a glass” would be a prime example — [Editor’s Note: Mr. Ikummaq spoke in Inuktut/Inuktitut] — which explains a lot in the very short language that I just gave you.
The structure of the language is a priority. If our Inuit are to speak like Inuit, their teachers should learn how to think like Inuit also. We’re finding out about the new teachers of today in the Inuktitut language. They are taught in teacher education programs in English, so you can pretty well see where that mindset is coming from.
If the older people like the teachers are speaking that way, the youth are just going to pick up on that. That’s what’s happening with the language at the moment.
Wildlife management is another priority I would like to mention briefly. With climate change, the environment is changing overnight pretty much. Squid and octopus began showing up about four years back, which we never had. Dolphins and sea lions began showing up in Igloolik as of two years ago; minke whales as of last summer. These are new animals coming into the location of Fox Basin. We don’t know exactly what effect they have on the other animals. We don’t really know what they prey on. Whatever they prey on, they’re not aware there’s a new predator in town, meaning they’re not trying to escape at all. So it’s easy prey for the new predators coming in.
What do I foresee in future endeavours such as, let’s say, mines? That’s one moneymaking source that’s occurring in Igloolik, and that is about the only one springing up at the moment. The cultural programs are another, but the mines are a big-ticket item, more in the Baffin Region area and Igloolik being one of the areas.
Those are the main ones that I can think of at the moment.
Senator Coyle: Thank you very much.
Senator Dasko: Thank you all for being here.
Mr. Ikummaq, thank you so much. You were describing your youth and growing up and living off the land. Do you still live in the community where you were born and raised? Can you still live off the land? That’s my first question.
And does higher education take people away from your community? Do they come back? Do you ever see them again? How does that process impact your community?
Mr. Ikummaq: I mentioned earlier about residential school and coming back as not totally Inuit. I don’t really know how to call them. We looked like Inuit but inside we weren’t. That had a big effect in Igloolik. When we came back from residential school, our brothers, fathers, uncles with whom we were hunting weren’t comfortable with us. We were at an age when we should know how to survive on the land, yet here we were acting like 5- and 6-year-olds on the land. That didn’t go well with the elders. So we got a bit of whacking there, mainly verbal, but deep enough that a lot of our survivors didn’t venture into the Inuit way of life. They came here or to Toronto, to Winnipeg, to Edmonton, and they never came back. That’s the majority of the residential school survivors.
The education system at a later date allowed our youth to be at home to get educated. Now we have Grade 12s in our community. It is a very low-level Grade 12 but Grade 12 nonetheless. With that, our youth are now more at home.
When they venture on to higher education, college, university, we find they can’t really fit into those institutional places. Their English is so low that they can’t really survive in a university course. That’s very bad today. We have had a lot of our students go south just to come back a month or even two weeks later because they couldn’t hack living in the South. The language was way superior to what they were used to, so they gave up on those.
There’s a “but” here. If you look at a class of children, there are usually one or two that excel in that certain class, and I was one, meaning that I could go to further education and actually go through with it. We still have some of those; not many, but we’re fortunate to have that.
What was the other part of the question?
Senator Dasko: I started by asking if your community is still able to live off the land pretty much the way it was when you were growing up there, or has it completely changed?
Mr. Ikummaq: It has changed somewhat. What I mentioned earlier about wildlife distribution, the caribou had moved on, so that part of hunting was out. But the marine mammals have been strong for thousands of years. Igloolik being a large marine mammal harvesting community, we weren’t totally affected by the lack of caribou, meaning the walruses were there. The narwhals, the belugas, the seals and the bowheads are still there. We have another food source readily available aside from caribou, so that part of the culture is still very strong. We make sure our youth are taught how to go after those larger mammals.
The Chair: With that, I would like to thank all the witnesses for their participation today, particularly Ms. Joe-Strack. We’ve taken note of your exhortation to us to be bold and to avoid colonial terminology. Thank you all for joining us today.
I’m now pleased to welcome, for our third portion of this meeting, Professor Robert Huebert, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Calgary. Please proceed with your opening remarks, Professor Huebert, and you can expect questions and answers. I think you’ve been before Senate committees already.
Robert Huebert, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Calgary, as an individual: Thank you, senator. It’s indeed my privilege to be here to address this august body. I appreciate very much the hard work that Senate committees do, particularly the Senate committee looking at the Arctic. You are to be congratulated because, as I will make clear this my comments and hopefully in our discussions, the Arctic is becoming and has become one of the centres of the most important geopolitical relationships in the entire international system.
I’m going to be limiting my comments to response in terms of section 6 of the Arctic policy, which of course is looking at the circumpolar policy framework. I will begin my comments by pointing out that much of this particular draft and, I would say, most policy statements have been based on the assumption that the Arctic is an area of extreme cooperation, Arctic exceptionalism, as many of my colleagues will point out. I, unfortunately, will make the argumentation that this is not true. We have two major sets of existential threats that are now threatening Canadian Arctic sovereignty and security. The first one, of course, is the growing and very serious dangers of climate change. I’m not going to be focusing on that. That is, of course, a discussion unto itself. All of us have probably already had the chance to see the report that came out that illustrated how serious this has become for the Arctic. I do not want to in any way suggest that this is any less than the second threat.
However, I do want to focus my comments on the geopolitical threats to Canada because this is, in my view, one set of threats that we wish was not there. We, as Canadians, have a little bit of difficulty understanding how anyone could see the Arctic in military terms, but the reality is that since 2007, we’ve been facing an increasingly dangerous geopolitical environment that centres on the Arctic.
Let me be very clear in my comments. I am not talking about a war over territory in the Arctic; I’m not talking about the use of force per se in the extension of our continental shelf. I am talking about the interaction between the fact that the three strongest and most significant states in the international system — Russia, the United States and China — all are increasingly coming to odds from a geopolitical perspective and that each and every one of these states has core security interests in the Arctic that are increasingly clashing. In other words, it’s not a question that they are arming to seize territory or to invade or force each other in terms of the northern seaways, but, rather, the logic of military security for all three of these countries means that they have to increase their capabilities in the Arctic. As they do so and as they face an international environment in which they are now increasingly at odds with each other, that will mean that the Arctic becomes a critical tension point.
Where does this logic begin? We can trace it back to 2007, when President Putin tells us that he will no longer accept, at the Munich speech, the agreement that Russia had with Western states to basically cooperate. We see the Russians under Putin strengthen their military capabilities, and at the heart of this is a strengthening of their nuclear deterrent.
Once again, you may ask the question: What does this have to do with the Arctic? Geography and technology mean that as soon as the Russians decided to revise their Arctic capabilities for a nuclear deterrent, which is their number one security policy, it has to be in the Arctic. Their northern fleet hosts their submarines and nuclear weapons, and that requires air capabilities to protect. From 2007 to 2019, we can see the Russians spend extensive amounts of money to rebuild this capability in the Kola Peninsula. That means that as long as we get along with the Russians, that doesn’t bother us. But following 2008, when Russia used its military force to stop the expansion of NATO and then repeated this in 2014 with the Ukrainian crisis, it means any time we have a crisis with the Russians, it involves their military capabilities being deployed from this region.
We also have to factor in China, now. China doubled its budget from 2002 to 2004. Basically, it was tied with Canada for defence expenditures, and it is now the second-largest defence budget at $200 million a year and will probably catch up to the Americans in the foreseeable future.
The logic of the Chinese military expansion is to become a peer competitor to the United States. Under that logic, they cannot allow Russia and the United States to have safe sanctuary in the Arctic. If they are a peer competitor, the logic of that military component means they need to have the capability to pursue and engage both American and Russian forces in the Arctic.
Are they showing signs that they are developing that capability to do so? Absolutely. Since 2015, they have been deploying their surface vessels higher and higher north. I strongly suspect we will be seeing the Chinese giving an under-ice capability to two new classes of submarines they are now building.
Where this becomes extremely dangerous for Canada is that the Chinese have been very public in the development of what is known as hypersonic weapons. These are long-range, very fast cruise missiles that ideally would be sent from under the cover of ice.
This leads us to the third superpower, and that is, of course, the United States. I don’t have to go into the difficulties that we now face with the Americans under the current administration, but I would argue that the American push to a greater degree of what many identify as isolationism is not necessarily only a Trump orientation. We are facing a power — our closest friend and ally — that is feeling increasingly threatened and acting in certain ways that we identify with isolationist policies but that serve to undercut the special relationship we have always had with the United States, in particular with the Arctic. We are seeing that the United States is very concerned with enclosing its own borders, and we have to remember that we share one of the most important northern borders with the Americans in the Arctic region.
Where does this all take us in terms of overall interaction? By capabilities alone, it’s dangerous enough. The problem is that we have this increase in distrust of intent. Since the Russian intervention in the Ukraine, we know that relationships have seriously deteriorated between the West and Russia. We can see that relationships between Canada and China have seriously deteriorated. We have a geopolitical reality where the intents of China and Russia are increasingly at odds with Canadian interests and values.
We also have to be looking over our shoulders at the fact that we cannot assume that the special relationship that has always cushioned our relationship with our American ally and trading partner will continue into the future, even in a post-Trump environment.
What does this mean ultimately? It means that the issue for Canada is that the new great power environment that has begun to emerge since 2007, and is very clearly upon us in 2019, places the Arctic at the fulcrum of this interaction. Once again, I want to emphasize it’s not about fighting over the Arctic, but each of the three major powers that are increasingly at odds with each other base their military security, above and beyond the Arctic, in the Arctic. As a result, any crisis that continues to develop will inevitably draw us into the Arctic.
That takes us to my conclusion. What does it mean for us to be concerned?
For the United States, we have two factors. You had the privilege of having one of the best Canadian experts on NORAD, Dr. Andrea Charron, speak before. I watched some of her presentation and I know that she filled you in on NORAD. We are facing a very big challenge with the renegotiation of NORAD because we are balancing both a forward and backward threat.
The forward threat is that we need to have the ability to detect these new hypersonic missile systems at a much greater range than we ever had to do during the Cold War. They are much more difficult and they will require extensive expenditures and new infrastructure put in place, as Dr. Charron told you.
Looking behind, however, we also have to recognize that we will have difficulties negotiating with the Americans. We will not have the same type of concurrence that we had with the Americans in terms of how to pay, how to develop and how it is to be done. It needs to be done, and we can expect that we will have to pay more.
I would warn the committee that we are seeing signs in the open literature that the Americans are considering reopening the Northwest Passage crisis. The Secretary of the Navy has stated twice on the official record that the Americans are thinking about engaging in a freedom of navigation operation in northern waters. There would only be two waters that they would do this against. They would either do it against the Northern Sea Route or the Northwest Passage.
The secretary has basically slurred his words. If you see the actual testimony he gives, he always starts with the word “Northwest Passage” and then changes the terminology. Is he signalling? Is he sloppy? I don’t know, but it’s significant that he has twice publicly stated this.
And the Americans are moving their forces farther north. This may be a repeat of the crisis that we faced in 1969 and 1985.
The Russians continue to use power projection from the Arctic. One of the great challenges that the Arctic policy needs to address is this: What happens if our friends, the Finns and the Swedes, decide to join NATO? Since 2007, the Russians have used military force to stop NATO expansion. Where would our position deal with that particular crisis? I dare say if it happens I’m very pessimistic about the future of the Arctic Council or any forum of meaningful discussion if that happens. Do we simply ignore our Swedish and Finnish friends in this regard? But we will see a continued militarization of the Arctic. That will not stop.
For China, watch for their continued expansion of their military capabilities and assets. They are building a new civilian icebreaker, but what is forgotten is that they are currently building a class of navy icebreakers that are roughly the same size as the Harry DeWolf class. We don’t talk about the Type 272s, but we once again have to ask: Why does their navy need specific icebreakers in this context? What is a ship such as the Xue Long doing when it goes through the Northwest Passage in terms of mapping? What is happening in terms of their future submarine capability?
All in all, I hate to leave you with a somewhat darker picture than I know many of my colleagues often present in terms of the circumpolar cooperative story, which indeed is a very positive story, but if we take these factors into account, I daresay we have to have a much higher degree of caution and perhaps less optimism.
Thank you very much.
The Chair: Thank you. We have heard from your colleagues, Professors Lackenbauer and Byers and there was a different tone.
Senator Bovey: I don’t know whether I want to thank you, but I do thank you. I’m not surprised by what you say. Yes, we have heard a rosier tale of the countries, but even with a cursory look at headlines and a memory of being a child in Manitoba during the Cold War, one is aware of what has gone on, as you say, in the past, and the headlines help us direct us to the future.
I think I feel more comforted hearing your pessimistic realities, because I have always felt that one hopes for the best case scenario but plans for the worst case scenario.
With what you have said and given that we’re writing a report on all these aspects of the Arctic for the federal government, what are your key recommendations for us? Maybe not just the high-level recommendation, but could you take a minute and give us some of the subcategories and what we can do about them?
And when you talk about sovereignty, what do we need to do? What do we need to be planning for in the very short term and the longer short term? I’m not even getting into the long term.
Mr. Huebert: Thank you very much.
There are three major things I would recommend in terms of the policy. The first one gets into the understanding and methodologies of how any policy paper is made. I would think that we need a very decent challenge to the overall assumption that we continually see in any Arctic policy that the Arctic is in a period of exceptionalism and somehow has been able to keep itself separate from the powers and pressures of the greater international environment.
There is no denying that the Arctic has done amazing things. The work in terms of the Arctic Council and Canada’s leadership in that, all is great. But I think that creates a false sense of assumptions in terms of where we are proceeding. So it’s setting the tone.
The second thing is that we need to validate some of the policy statements that have already been developed within the government to respond to some of the growing threats. We see within the defence policy that was put out at the beginning of the Liberal government term some very important contributions. The first one was, of course, the need to expand and develop the NORAD nexus or the various terminologies. NORAD needs to be modernized. The expansion of the air identification units was a very good step, but having said that this is our airspace, we now need to control it. That gets to the sovereignty issue.
I think it was a positive move when the Liberal government said it will address its NATO allies. That’s a major thing. We may not like what the Germans say about the Northwest Passage. We may have suspicions about the French and the Spanish with their involvement with the North. The reality is that we are facing an increasing threat from outside, and we have to make sure that we are singing from the same pages with our actual allies in this regard. So we need to ensure the NATO aspect.
For the actual protection and promotion of our sovereignty and security, we absolutely need to be doing what we say we’ll be doing. The joint efforts of what both the Harper and Trudeau government have pronounced in terms of the development of the Arctic and Offshore Patrol Ships, the improvement of the surveillance capability, the ability to give the Rangers a greater capability. All of these things have to be followed through. In other words, I wish I could have more of a silver bullet saying, “If we only did this.” We have got the ideas; it’s a matter of making sure that, first and foremost, we know what is happening in an overall context.
The third thing — this is the difficult one, because we have challenges politically— is how to engage the Americans on this issue. I very strongly suspect that the Americans will be aggravating us with a sovereignty challenge. We have to be able to manage that and recognize that as much as it’s going to irk us — that there’s going to be a red button with us if that happens — the protection of Canadian Arctic sovereignty has to be working with the Americans. The problem is, how do you do that under the current political environment we are facing? That’s a real difficult task because it means holding your nose in certain instances.
It also means recognizing that the Americans are not going to be following the special relationship that has always cushioned these particular sets of relationships. It means we have to be more willing to say in certain instances, such as when it comes to sovereignty, we need to know what is happening. That means satellite surveillance. That means having better drone capabilities. It means buying things that are going to be out of sight, that let us know, and that are expensive. It also means we have to have the political will such that when people start pushing us, we can push back.
Senator Bovey: To clarify, you are saying that the current government and the previous government had articulated what our goals needed to be.
Mr. Huebert: Yes.
Senator Bovey: I would like to know where you think we are on following through on those goals. Have we started?
Mr. Huebert: We have started on the maritime side. In other words, the shipbuilding strategy, in my view, has worked when it comes to the Arctic offshore patrol vessels. In other words, anybody who has been to Halifax will see the Harry DeWolf and the follow-up ships. I will say that’s a success story. But where it hasn’t worked is that we need a new fighter replacement and we needed it yesterday. We don’t need it today. That is a critical part when we are engaging with the Americans in NORAD discussions.
I dare say, what the Norwegians have taught us, they were the first ones to go to the Americans and say, “We will go with the F-35.” I will simply go on record as saying that you can talk technology and expenses, but in terms of the overall system, if you’re trying to tie the Americans in, I think the Norwegian recognition that you go with the F-35 rather than the Gripen or any of the other ones you can argue from a technical perspective may or may not be better, and I have opinions on that — but you have to engage. You need to have that fighter capability in place.
The one thing we have talked about where we probably have not gone far enough is in terms of satellite capabilities. I’m hoping that this sign that we are working with the Americans now in terms of the next moon mission means that that will have a spillover effect, that we will be able to then martial that with the Americans in that context. But, once again, we have to see what happens there.
Senator Bovey: That leads to my final comment.
I had the opportunity last week to meet with one of the researchers at NASA who was also a climate researcher and has done a great deal of work in circumpolar security, so I see all those coming together with a conversation I had with him. He was saying that rather than go government to government on some of these issues, we should be going head of military to head of military.
Mr. Huebert: That can work, but we have seen within the Canadian example that there is a certain limitation, given our structure of governments, as to how far the military can go.
To give you one example, we did start with the militaries really going at each other, where we did have a head of the military. In the heyday of cooperation, all eight members of the Arctic Council got together. What happened was as soon as the political relationships went south, that particular forum and interaction went aside. The problem is the militaries cannot get out in front on this issue.
Senator Bovey: Thank you.
Senator Eaton: We had a session at Finance Committee last night on military procurement, because we’re doing a study on that. They were talking about governments. Ever since they came back to Chrétien with the same helicopter he cancelled, the governments now are very interested in the outcome.
To follow up on Senator Bovey’s question and your comments about the U.S., it’s a pleasure hearing you, because we have had three academics tell us how wrong we were and China was no threat and nobody wants the Northwest Passage.
Do you think the Americans, if we showed a bit more gumption — right now, we have no submarines that can work underneath the ice. We have those aging submarines that will need to be replaced. As you know, the CF-35s are in abeyance, so we can’t really go under the radar and patrol the Arctic.
We don’t spend the money we should for NATO. I think we have neglected the Rangers. The work on the deepwater port in Iqaluit has been slow. If there was a national thing to fly the flag a little more — you are right; we are not up there to go to war. But if we had a couple of submarines that could patrol that coast and CF-35s that could fly over it occasionally, if the Russians felt we were serious, if the Americans were happy — maybe the Americans feel they need to be up there because they want to control the Northwest Passage but also they feel if something happens, we’re not in the game and can’t do anything.
Mr. Huebert: There’s academic terminology for what you have described; it’s called defence against help. This is one of the major theoretical foundations of why we have a defence policy. It’s not so much that Canadian decision-makers have necessarily felt that we have been threatened, though I think they often misunderstand where the threats are coming from, but that if we don’t do it, the Americans will do it for us.
I think you’re absolutely right on that context, because historically speaking, when we have been able to cooperate with the Americans the best, we have assets. NORAD, in the period of 1957-58, when it came to the defence of North America, the reason we were able to work out such a great deal with the Americans in terms of cost-sharing and all the other arrangements that came into play — shared sovereignty, no problem — is that we had true assets in terms of the air force. At that point, we probably had about the fourth-largest air force in the world. We tend to forget these statistics. We can see that it ebbs and flows in terms of capability.
I would push your theme even further. It’s not just about showing the flag, showing we had that capability in a tokenism manner. The new threat environment and the new technology requires that we not just have tokenism but we have true control of the region. Not even to make the Americans feel good, but in order to provide for Canadians, both northern Canadians and all Canadians, proper security.
When we talk about a hypersonic missile, we are basically talking about a cruise missile that can go six times the speed of sound and above. The Chinese are talking about 15 times the speed of sound. At this point in time, detection capability becomes almost virtually impossible. That means you need the capability not necessarily to stop the missile, because you are probably not going to know when the missile is coming, but you need to know who is launching it.
I think Andrea talked to you folks about the archer-and-the-arrow philosophy. That means, for Canadian security, we are looking farther north as the ice opens up, and we get back to the environmental security issue that I started with. As we get into that context, for the protection of Canada, not just to make the Americans feel better, we need to know the locations of those submarines and long-range cruise missiles, either air-launched from aircraft or from submarines. It goes beyond tokenism, I would say.
Senator Eaton: I’m glad you said that. I look at the fight or the mésentente we are having over Huawei; the two Canadian men imprisoned unlawfully in China; the canola crisis; and the fact that last September at the Maritime Security Conference we found out that India is building a fleet of submarines. Singapore, India, China, North Vietnam — you name it — are all building up their navies. China is building, what, three new aircraft carriers, and the Northwest Passage is of no interest to them? I find it extraordinary.
Do you think we’re a bit Boy Scout-ish in our views toward the Chinese and the possible threat to our North?
Mr. Huebert: A bit? I think we are totally Boy Scout-ish. I think we’re just whistling past the graveyard to be honest.
Senator Eaton: A big, fat goose ready to be carved up?
Mr. Huebert: It may not be quite in the oven yet because they haven’t quite got the capabilities. The submarines will be the big issue. They will be the game-changer, in my view. I provided pictures and graphics of the Type 93s and Type 95s. When those start showing up in the Arctic region, that will be the real issue. I am under no illusions. A lot of my colleagues say, no, that’s not it.
Senator Eaton: How will we stop them?
Mr. Huebert: You have to monitor. It will be very difficult to stop in this context. The Chinese are very good at playing by the rules until they feel it is against their interests. They are the ones that tell all of us in terms of — think of it. This is an authoritative government that has never seen democracy, and it comes out with a white paper on the Arctic. They don’t have a white paper on any aspect of their internal governance. They don’t have a white paper on how to treat minorities, say, in Western China, but they come up with a government white paper. If you read it, it says nice things to the Russians; it says nice things to us; it says nice things to the Americans. But, once again, look at it. You highlighted many of the issues that I think really underline much of their policy.
We come back to where their capabilities are. You are absolutely right; they now have almost the same number of ships in their navy as do the Americans. Now, the Americans are much more advanced; they have the carriers and the sub-class of carriers, but the Chinese are doing a lot of work.
Senator Eaton: They are building three this year.
Mr. Huebert: The icebreaker that they are about to build with nuclear power is probably a test bed for how they will build nuclear-powered aircraft carriers in the future. Once again, marry that into carriers and hypersonic weapon capabilities, put that into intent and watch the Chinese progression, watch their economy, and I think it’s naive to say there is anything but a concern.
Senator Eaton: Thank you.
Senator Coyle: Thank you very much, Dr. Huebert. What we’re hearing from you is sobering. We have heard a whole range of views on the very same issue. I don’t think anyone can question what you have said here, that we are entering a new era of great power competition. I don’t think anybody would argue. What we do about that and what that looks like is where we find quite a significant difference of opinion. I’m sure you know that better even than we do because you’re operating in that space every day.
In some of the other conversations with witnesses before this committee, we have heard about this relationship between diplomacy and defence. I would be curious to hear your views on Canada’s diplomatic role in the great power competition that is on our doorstep. How does it relate, if at all, to our defence approach?
Mr. Huebert: Where do we have the greatest impact? History shows this over and over. I know my good friend Suzanne Lalonde, Whitney Lackenbauer and Michael Byers will cite these as examples of cooperation. The diplomacy of Canada has been the most powerful when we have had a vision of an idea and when the global politics are benign. In other words, as long as these are not stepping on the core interests of the Americans, Russians and increasingly the Chinese, we can put forward some of the most powerful ideas when we think it through.
I go back to the core example of the Arctic Council. Equally important is the inclusion of those who have now become known as the permanent participants. Those are Canadians. I’m an academic and we are not supposed to say nice things about government, but the reality is there has been a really good, bipartisan agreement on the promotion of northern Indigenous peoples as a diplomatic idea. If you go back in history and you see the manner in which the Arctic Council was the AEPS, when we were coming forward with the idea that you give a special standing within a diplomatic concept, that’s an idea. The Europeans scratched their heads. The Russians were basically willing to say yes to everything as long as we provided them aid at the same time. The Americans were kind of asking what we were talking about.
It was a powerful idea. The environment was benign, so they were willing to recommend it. Man, look at the impact. The Arctic Council is an amazing cooperative venture. It’s the only international entity that has given special status to Indigenous peoples. Even after the treaty on the rights of Indigenous peoples had come forward, you can’t find another example of an international multilateral body that has said, “There is a special interest here and we will recognize it.”
Do we provide enough funding? Do they support it? That’s another issue. So Canadian diplomacy works well.
I have these arguments with Michael, Suzanne and Whitney all the time: As soon as the geopolitical interests start coming to the forefront, the Canadian influence fades. This gets back to the point that was made earlier: When we don’t have some real assets in the game, we become irrelevant. We were irrelevant, for example, when the Americans and the Russians got rid of the intermediate missile treaty. That’s an American-Russian action that will have massive ramifications, because now it gives the Russians and the Americans the international right to have long-range cruise missiles that “mean” to the North. And we don’t have a play. If we were a player in that, maybe, but we don’t.
My contention is that history tells me that diplomacy has a major role when things are relatively good. When things aren’t good, we have a major role diplomatically. It goes back to my example about NORAD. When we have the assets, we can play a role; we can negotiate; we can be there with a good idea. But we need to have the assets when things go bad. Good ideas work great when things are great, but good ideas with assets are necessary when things are going bad. That’s where diplomacy married to security policy becomes critically important. I would argue that is required today.
Senator Coyle: I hear what you’re saying. We are now trying to formulate recommendations related to Canada’s Arctic Policy Framework here, with your help and the help of others. Are you saying that we need a major wake-up call for Canada with regard to the Arctic?
Mr. Huebert: Back in 2007 we needed it. Putin told us to our faces. You can go back to the video and you will see he was looking right at Merkel; he was looking right at the American vice-president; he said things are changing now. Everybody just pooh-poohed it and said he doesn’t mean it. But we need it today, definitely.
Senator Coyle: Are we waking up?
Mr. Huebert: When I saw the security policy we issued, I would say, yes, it seems to be showing some signs. When I look at the follow-up, I have mixed feelings. I can’t say, hand over chest, there has been no follow-up. I see the monies put into the Harry DeWolf. I see the efforts. I know that our commander at NORAD is tasked with the modernization. I know those tasks are going on. It’s a mixed story.
Are we doing enough fast enough? I would say probably not when it comes to the Russians; definitely not when it comes to the Chinese. And how do we handle the Americans? I mean that’s the question.
Senator Eaton: That’s completely new territory for us.
Mr. Huebert: It is. To assume that the special relationship is under threat is something that should scare the bejesus out of most Canadians, and I dare say it is not a Trump-only variable. Something within the U.S. has changed and it’s part of this retraction of being a great power. One could argue that this has been successful.
CSIS, for example, has those amazing reports, which are non-attributable, but they’re saying that some of the involvement, say Bre-X, some of the development of the populist movements in Hungary, Poland and the United States are being facilitated by outside powers. We assume that has meant the Russians. Just think what that means. If we have the Russians and possibly the Chinese actively trying to undermine our political system, and then we have to try to figure out how to engage with them in the Arctic, the complexity there is somewhat formidable.
The Chair: “Sobering,” I think, was the word someone used. We’re supposed to engage in sober second thought, but I don’t know if it means being alarmed. I think it means thoughtful, but this meaning is more along the alarm side of sober.
Senator Dasko: As somebody who tends to follow these issues in the media, not being an expert at all, it seemed to me there was much more concern and interest in Arctic sovereignty issues in the Harper years, several years ago, than there is today. If that’s true, I find it interesting because you were saying that the problems started in 2007 and have escalated. Is it your sense that the previous government placed more of an emphasis on issues of Arctic sovereignty, more concerns about the threats coming from other countries?
That’s my first question. It’s a perception that I have and not based on any content analysis of media or whatever, but it seems to me there’s a difference now and we’re not as focused on this with respect to Arctic issues or with respect to international issues overall.
I’m going to roll a couple of other questions in and then you can answer them.
I believe you just raised another question I have; the U.S., friend or foe? They are so erratic these days with Mr. Trump. Are we still looking to build a better, more stable friendship with them, or are they not our friends at all in this respect? Are we actually competing with them now in the Arctic and over Arctic issues and territory?
Finally, and maybe in summary, are Arctic issues a proxy for bigger and different battles with these other countries, particularly China and also Russia? Is this a proxy for other things?
Mr. Huebert: From proxy, absolutely. I want to make this clear. I get into huge debates with my colleagues on this issue and with others on the fact that they say, “Look, no one is going to invade.” We used to have senior military leaders say the first concern they would have if anyone ever invaded would be rescuing people. It’s not about land invasion. It’s about utilization as geographical space; primarily maritime and aerospace. I don’t know if “proxy” is a word that utilizes it, but the military power of the units of the system — Russian, China and the United States — invariably either emanate from the Arctic or spill into the Arctic. In other words, the moment they’re doing anything on a global basis, the Arctic is involved. Do you call it proxy? Do you call it location? I don’t know the right terminology, but I think you’ve hit on it in terms of the spirit of what you’re trying to say.
America, friend or foe? I don’t believe countries have friends. Countries have shared interests. Individual leaders have friendships, and that often is a facilitating aspect in terms of how people interact. You people will have friendships amongst your colleagues across various sectors, within various elements of government and within the United States, but countries will have interests.
I think the way the Americans are defining their interests now is much more inward-looking. The challenge for Canada is to recognize that we share the continent with the United States. Like it or leave it, we’re not going anywhere else. We have to figure out how our interests can then overlap and continue to more or less approximate along with the Americans. As horrible as relations seem to be right now, trying to understand a United States that has ultimately come to the conclusion that Canada does not share the same economic, security and one would even say national interests, I would dare say that all of a sudden we’re going to find out what Finland feels like living next to Russia and what South Korea feels like living next to North Korea, or Pakistan and India; in other words, the norm within the international system. Usually you kind of hate your neighbour. The closer you are, the harder it is. We’re the exception, and that’s the challenge. It’s not a question of friend or foe but how we make sure we do not surrendering our values and that our interests allow us to cooperate as we have since 1941.
In terms of the sovereignty issue, I have a couple of grad students looking at this right now. Once they get their thesis — Ryan Dean, Rob Chilton and others who are looking at this — I can say here’s the content analysis you can look at.
You’re right that the sovereignty issue has been soft-pedalled by the current government which has said they want to be cooperative. Having said that, then you have to look at their defence policy, which definitely wasn’t soft-pedalling. For defence policy, you have to go to page 71, 75, around those sections. It’s much harder core than even what “Canada First” said about the Arctic.
It’s mixed messaging in this context, because I think there’s an appreciation that things are changing, but in Canada we still have this overall desire that we want the Arctic to be this peaceful, loving, cooperative place. It’s wishful thinking in this context.
There’s no question whatsoever, when the new government came in in Canada, there was an effort to try to distance itself with the whole idea of reigniting a policy framework. Many of us who look at policy frameworks are always taken by the fact that there are certain key themes. It doesn’t matter which government you are, you have to stick to them. If you are looking at the Martin policy, the Harper policy or the Trudeau policy, inevitably they come back to the five or six themes we’ve seen before. It’s repackaging it, but there are certain realities you cannot get away from. You cannot get away from the geography, the demographics or our location in relation to a geopolitical position.
This is a point on which Whitney probably talked to you at length: We can’t get away from certain themes. You can repackage it, but you have to come back. The repackaging, though, has been changed.
Senator Dasko: The narrative.
Mr. Huebert: The narrative is very different from what the Harper narrative was and from the Martin narrative, but then you get into the substance. They may say “potatoe,” but you say “potato.”
Senator Dasko: Thank you.
The Chair: I’m going to wrap up with a few questions of my own.
Concerning the Northwest Passage versus Russia’s Northern Sea Route, we were told by some that the Northwest Passage is less important because it’s harder to navigate, less well mapped, and that, really, concern about increasing traffic in the Northwest Passage is overblown. Would you have a comment on that?
Mr. Huebert: Absolutely. I disagree. I have a good friend, Frédéric Lasserre, who will say no, it’s not going to happen; the companies have told us it’s not going to happen. We were told for the longest time that nobody was going to use it for any large vessels.
Then in 2016, the Crystal Serenity, which was larger than any single warship during World War II, larger than any of the battleships, aircraft carriers, goes through the Northwest Passage. It took a British icebreaker with it just in case, but they had to go looking for ice when they went through.
The environment is changing so rapidly, and anybody who says their crystal ball actually works in terms of saying how busy or not busy it is, I’d love to buy their crystal ball. Quite frankly, every single time I see a prediction about what is or isn’t going to happen, something comes along to disprove it.
In terms of the fact that the Northern Sea Route is much more active than the Northwest Passage is because the Russians actively promote the usage of the passage. Now, the Chinese would love the Russians to tie it into their Silk Road initiative, and they’ve been pushing the Russians to do so. If they’re successful, that will give the Chinese a lot of control within the Russian sphere of exercise. The Russians will have to figure out a way to manage that one in context. Be careful what you wish for; you may get it.
Having said that, the Russians have been investing much heavier than we did. The question, of course, always comes back. If we did the same type of hydrographics, had the same icebreaker capability and put in the same administrative controls as the Russians have, I seriously suspect we would be seeing a much greater increase of activity.
Would it be economic? The Russians can support it because of the increasingly authoritative nature of the Putin government. Could Canada do it? I don’t think we could, because how do you bring investors in if there’s not a profit to be made? But you provide the infrastructure. So if we did that, I suspect we would have a much greater increase.
Having said all that, I read the report on Tuesday about climate change. Many people say, look, the Northwest Passage still has more ice than the Northern Sea Route. If you extrapolate what Tuesday’s report says, the stuff that the ice expert at the University of Manitoba is talking about in terms of the ice patterns, I think you will see the Northwest Passage be ice-free much sooner than people were saying. Most people were saying 2025 or 2030. If you’re talking about the type of increases that the report on Tuesday is talking about, that ice is going to be gone. From the success of the Crystal Serenity, we know that the channels can take some of the largest vessels going through. To the argument that you can’t get a deep draft vessel through the southern route, the Crystal Serenity showed that’s not true.
There is one other question that follows directly. The other thing this committee needs to be aware of is that the Russians have begun to take steps to vastly extend their control over the Northern Sea Route. In retaliation to what we think was a French freedom of navigation operation undertaken last year through the Northern Sea Route, the Russians have just instituted a severe extension of the control beyond anything that Canada does where they are basically saying they have absolute sovereignty. They’re not calling it a territorial sea and not calling it absolute sovereignty, but they’re saying if you come in here as a sovereign immunity vessel, i.e. a warship or any government vessel, you need to report to us.
This is in areas that were clearly identified as high seas. This is something brand new. Maybe that’s what the Americans are talking about when they talk about a freedom of navigation exercise. Once again, we’re looking at tea leaves. But I would dare say what the Russians have very recently done for the Northern Sea Route is upping the game in terms of control.
Where does this come back to Canada? If you are a European and want to make the point that you don’t agree with the extension of control over northern maritime waters, which country would you be more likely to try to make your point against? Are you going to do it against Russia, of whom you are increasingly fearful in terms of direct military action, or would you make the international point against a country you’re already an ally and trading partner with, that you can see in terms of the type of lack of cover that the Americans now provide us? Would you make your point against Canada?
I’m hypothesizing the irony that as the Russians increase control, Canada may become more opportunist as a means for these other countries that disagree with us and the Russians in the control of the Northern Sea Route to make the point against us. That’s just a hypothesis on my part, but I think it’s something we need to be aware of.
The Chair: This has been most stimulating, Professor Huebert. Thank you very much for your testimony, the materials you provided and for coming to be with us in person.
(The committee adjourned.)