THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORT AND COMMUNICATIONS
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Wednesday, November 29, 2023
The Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications met with videoconference this day at 6:49 p.m. [ET] to study the impacts of climate change on critical infrastructure in the transportation and communications sectors and the consequential impacts on their interdependencies.
Senator Leo Housakos (Chair) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Chair: My name is Leo Housakos. I am a senator from Quebec and the chair of this committee.
[English]
I invite my colleagues to make brief introductions.
Senator Simons: I’m Paula Simons, a senator from Alberta, from Treaty 6 territory.
Senator Quinn: Jim Quinn, New Brunswick.
Senator Klyne: Good evening and welcome. I’m Marty Klyne, a senator from Saskatchewan, Treaty 4 territory.
[Translation]
Senator Miville-Dechêne: My name is Julie Miville-Dechêne, and I’m from Quebec.
[English]
The Chair: This evening, we continue our study on the impact of climate change on critical infrastructure in the transportation sector and our study of the issues facing Northern Canada.
For our first panel, we are pleased to welcome, by videoconference, officials from the Government of the Northwest Territories: Julian Kanigan, Assistant Deputy Minister for Environmental Management, Monitoring and Climate Change, Department of Environment and Climate Change; and Gary Brennan, Assistant Deputy Minister for Regional Operations with the Department of Infrastructure, who is accompanied by Ziaur Rahman, Manager of Surface Design and Construction with the Department of Infrastructure.
Welcome. Thank you for joining us. We will begin with opening remarks of five minutes each and then proceed to questions from senators.
Gary Brennan, Assistant Deputy Minister, Regional Operations, Department of Infrastructure, Government of the Northwest Territories: Thank you to the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications for this opportunity to appear before you to discuss our northern winter roads in a changing climate.
The Government of the Northwest Territories is responsible for operating and maintaining 3,900 kilometres of all-weather highways, winter roads and access roads and the four ferries that are part of our highway system.
For most of the year, 13 of our 33 communities are accessible by marine or air transportation only. However, as winter approaches, nine of these communities become accessible by winter roads. Nearly 1,400 kilometres of winter roads are built each year by our government and maintained through areas where all-weather roads do not exist. This means winter roads, ice roads and ice crossings, roads that are fully built either on water bodies or both on water bodies and land, represent 35% of the highway system in the N.W.T.
Depending on where the winter roads are located, they initially open from late November to early January. By mid-April, they are closed for the season. Construction of a winter road can take up to a month to complete, and these timelines are heavily dependent on weather and ice conditions.
Our short winter season is critical as this seasonal transportation becomes the primary way to deliver essential goods to our remote communities, including diesel and gasoline for electricity generation, heating and transportation, but also dry goods and construction materials. Without our winter roads, these supplies would have to be airlifted at a significant cost increase.
Winter roads also connect our communities, enhance social connections and allow our residents easier access to larger regional centres for shopping, medical appointments and many other facilities that are not available in their home communities.
Finally, seasonal roads are vital transportation links to industrial sectors, particularly the mining industry. The mining sector is a significant contributor to the N.W.T. economy, and winter roads are crucial to their operations.
However, the rapidly warming climate in the North is shrinking the operating window for seasonal roads and creating challenges in operating and maintaining this critical infrastructure.
Some of the main challenges we have observed in recent years are variability in water levels, heavier snow loads, ice quality, warmer temperatures and the increased runoff and overflow of water in sections of these roads. Significant temperature fluctuations are causing more cracking on frozen water bodies and requiring more maintenance and oversight than in the past.
It is taking a lot more effort to build and maintain winter roads to our usual standards and have them stay open for the periods of time that our residents and businesses are used to and expect. We have increased flooding activities to increase ice thickness, using lighter ice spraying machines and increased maintenance activities due to more extreme weather events and warmer temperatures.
We continue to rise to these challenges because we know how important winter roads are to move people, goods and materials in and out of our remote communities. We are doing that by being innovative and coming up with solutions to these challenges. Some examples include using ice engineering to allow for heavier loads on our winter roads and using lighter equipment to allow us to go safely on the ice earlier so we can start the winter road construction season as early as possible. We are employing ice profiling technology, like ground-penetrating radar, to assist in determining ice quality and thickness. We are changing the alignment of our winter roads when necessary to avoid problematic areas. We are taking part in studies on topics such as ice loads, so we can learn more about our operating environment to help us continue to innovate and find solutions to the challenges facing our winter roads.
The Government of the Northwest Territories is also investing in our transportation infrastructure to make it more resilient to changes in weather patterns that impact winter roads. One example is advancing the construction of all-season roads. The Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk Highway and the Tłı̨chǫ Highway, which were opened in 2017 and 2021 respectively, are recent examples of successful road projects that connect the communities year-round.
The GNWT has also built many bridges along the Mackenzie Valley Winter Road to make it more resilient to a warming climate and is continuing to advance work toward the establishment of an all-season road up the valley with a current focus on the portion from Wrigley to Norman Wells.
Many of you are aware that the Northwest Territories experienced an extreme wildfire season in 2023. You may be wondering if the fires will impact our winter road season. Those impacts are difficult to predict but will be assessed when our season ends. There are concerns from our crews about increased runoff through less vegetation being in place due to the fires and the amount of soot and ash in our lakes, rivers and creeks, which may impact our freeze-and-thaw processes.
I’ll end my remarks there. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to the committee today. I’m happy to answer your questions.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Brennan.
Julian Kanigan, Assistant Deputy Minister, Environmental Management, Monitoring and Climate Change, Department of Environment and Climate Change, Government of the Northwest Territories: Thank you to the committee for having me here. I plan to provide some environmental context to the conversation, particularly on environmental conditions in the Mackenzie River Basin. As you know, it is the longest flowing river system in Canada, and it holds tremendous importance for Northern Canadians, certainly in the N.W.T., and for northern ecosystems.
To give you a sense of the scale, the area of land that supplies water to the Mackenzie River is massive. It is almost 2 million square kilometres or, to put in another way, one fifth of Canada’s land mass. It includes areas of many different provinces and territories — Northern B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan and the Yukon, as well as a large part of the Northwest Territories. As you’ve previously heard, the Mackenzie River serves as a major marine river transportation corridor, serving remote communities along the river and western coastal communities. The Mackenzie River itself begins at the outlet of Great Slave Lake.
Just to set the stage, the amount of water in the Mackenzie River at any one time is the aggregate or the net result of all of the rain, snow and evaporation and storage that occur over this huge land area. Water levels on the Mackenzie River are most impacted, as they are this year, when the majority of the basin experiences similar climatic conditions over the same period of time. I’ll talk about that a little more.
With respect to conditions in the summer of 2023, this most recent year, water levels have been extremely low across much of the Northwest Territories, including in Great Slave Lake and the Mackenzie River. These low water levels are a combination of record-low rainfall and record-high air temperatures over much of the basin, including northern B.C., Alberta and the southern N.W.T. These hot and dry conditions began last year in approximately July 2022 and carried on right through the entire summer of 2023. These are the same conditions that led to the extreme wildfire season that was just referenced.
In terms of a broader context, over the period of the last five years, the range of fluctuations included the largest fluctuations seen in water levels on Great Slave Lake and the Mackenzie River. Those who live here know that water levels on Great Slave Lake and the Mackenzie River at Norman Wells, for example, have shifted from very low in early summer 2019 to the highest levels on record in both 2020 and 2021 — that creates its own attendant problems — and now again to the lowest levels on record in 2023. To put that in perspective, the magnitude of those fluctuations has not been previously seen on either Great Slave Lake, which has an 88-year record, or the Mackenzie River, which at Norman Wells has a 78-year record. In the North, it’s hard to come by long-term datasets. These happen to be fairly long-term datasets, and yet we have never seen a fluctuation at such extremes. Observing two extreme-but-opposite conditions across such a large geographic area within three years introduces a lot of uncertainty in predicting and preparing for future water-level scenarios.
You may be wondering about long-term trends. There is no statistically significant trend in the total volume of water measured during the open-water season on the Mackenzie River at Norman Wells since monitoring began in 1943. We do note over the period of record that there have been extended periods of high water and low water throughout, but there is no historical precedent for either of these extreme events that were recorded in 2020-21 nor in 2023.
It’s difficult to isolate a specific cause for these extreme conditions. We do know that, on a broad scale, weather conditions are driven by large-scale weather systems which are a combination of global weather patterns, like La Niña and El Niño events, but we can’t discount the probability of climate change playing into that as well.
In conclusion, with respect to transportation, and particularly marine transportation, in the Northwest Territories, adapting to climate change is going to involve planning for a very broad range of conditions. We cannot necessarily assume that this range is defined by what we know right now as either the high or low water levels found in the historical record. The implication of that is that it will be difficult to predict but also expensive to adapt to, particularly with little advance knowledge of what’s coming.
Thank you. I look forward to your questions.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Kanigan.
Mr. Kanigan, Mr. Brennan and Mr. Rahman are available to take your questions, colleagues.
Senator Klyne: Welcome to our panellists.
I have one big question, but this might get split up between different functional areas. Whoever feels free to answer, please go ahead.
First, from 2011 to 2021, Transport Canada’s Northern Transportation Adaptation Initiative, or NTAI, helped northern agencies prepare for challenges anticipated from climate change for transportation infrastructure built on the permafrost environment. Did the Government of the Northwest Territories find this to be a beneficial program?
Mr. Brennan: Yes, the GNWT did partake in the NTAI initiative. That initiative essentially created a network of cold-weather experts, I guess we would call them, between researchers, academia and the government folk like myself, and it connected the three territories, northern Quebec and Alaska. That in itself was, in my opinion, very useful. It allowed us to share knowledge with other jurisdictions who were experiencing similar events with the climate. Research was done by multiple, different jurisdictions. We were able to join together with the Government of Yukon for a common theme of a highway that traverses both territories. Absolutely, we found that to be very helpful. Perhaps with that program, although not a lot of money, the value was in the actual networking itself. Thank you.
Senator Klyne: As a follow-up question to that, what measures has the Government of the Northwest Territories taken to change the construction practices required to effectively remediate highways and airport runways due to permafrost degradation and to ensure new infrastructure is more resilient to the effects of climate change?
Mr. Brennan: I’ll start off and then pass it over to my colleague Mr. Rahman.
Through that initiative, we were able to install monitoring equipment on multiple areas of our highway system. For example, on the newly constructed Inuvik Tuktoyaktuk Highway, which was constructed on permafrost using winter construction, we have probably over 200 thermistors, and we’re tracking the data on a regular basis to see how it’s performing. We have test sections on that part of the highway looking at a control section and some different, innovative techniques to see how they are performing over time. These are longer-term items. We haven’t seen long-term data. In the short term, though, we’re starting to see some of the impacts that climate change is having in those control sections with that data that we’re collecting.
Also, on our highway that leads out of Yellowknife, we had a test section established back in about 2010 or 2011 with the funding from NTAI. We were able to determine that, yes, the testing that we were doing was very useful, but the cost of doing that for the length of an entire highway may not be economical.
I will turn it over to Mr. Rahman who is involved in some of those actual tests as well. Thank you.
Ziaur Rahman, Manager, Surface Design and Construction, Department of Infrastructure, Government of the Northwest Territories: Thank you for giving me the opportunity for further clarification.
Definitely, that NTAI program was involved with a lot of resource programs, and a lot of data we got from there was utilized in our real-life project delivery in highway construction in terms of mitigating climate change and to make the road more resilient. I can give a few examples on that.
Definitely, Mr. Brennan mentioned that we use a lot of thermistors and cable, and that gives us the ground temperature information. As you know, once we go to build a road, there are a few steps we follow, especially once we build the road on permafrost.
First, the active layer is important to know due to climate change and depending on the temperature, the frozen and unfrozen layer. That’s very important to know. We can know that from geotechnical investigation and those thermistor and cable readings.
Once we know what the active layer is, then definitely, as a designer, that is super helpful to designing the road, especially how much embankment thickness we need to protect our permafrost. That comes from the thermistor reading. I can share the information that the embankment thickness is basically utilized to protect our permafrost degradation because this embankment material is utilized as a low thermal conductivity. Basically, we use this embankment. This embankment has a thermal resistance to slow the heat flowing into the embankment foundation. Definitely, that data is super helpful for the designer.
Not only that, but these test results also help us to know what the subsurface condition is. Once the designer knows the subsurface condition, then we can design the road, especially if the road needs to be designed on the muskeg. Definitely we use the geotextile things to minimize the settlement, and also systems we design for more resilience of the road.
Senator Klyne: Thank you for that, gentlemen.
Mr. Brennan, you mentioned something that sparked a question in my mind. You had mentioned there was some collaboration amongst other areas or other regions. You found that collaborative effort to be beneficial. Did anybody keep records of that, lessons learned, to transcend to perhaps other territories or for consideration down the road?
Mr. Brennan: I’m not entirely sure about what records were kept on the collaboration. What would normally happen under the NTAI program is that there would be annual meetings where the researchers would present the findings from these cross-jurisdictional programs and research projects that they’re running. It was shared with other jurisdictions that way. I know that the NTAI group was working to establish a database of all studies that were completed as well. I don’t know where that ended up and if a database was created that was shared with all the regions.
Senator Klyne: Perhaps we can find the repository, because there is probably some good information there. Thank you so much.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: This is, first, a question to Julian Kanigan.
[Translation]
When you were describing the connection between climate change and what’s happening in the Northwest Territories, I found it a bit vague. You seemed to be saying that there were a number of contributing factors. I appreciate that the very quick rise and fall in water levels makes it difficult to predict scenarios. I’m wondering whether you can draw a more direct link between climate change and what’s happening in the Northwest Territories.
I realize this may be more appropriate for another witness, but the committee heard from Mayor Pope, of Norman Wells, and he said that the answer to everything was a good old 300-kilometre gravel road all the way to Norman Wells. You don’t work at the municipal level, but you understand the big picture on a territorial level. Is that a good idea? Is it something you’re considering? Do you have any such plans?
[English]
Mr. Kanigan: I’m so sorry to have to ask. I just got my translation working as you were finishing your question.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: I will repeat the first part of my question. I thought — or maybe I didn’t understand — that you were a little vague or noncommittal on the link between climate change and what was happening in the Northwest Territories in terms of water level and what to expect. This is the first part of my question.
The second part is that we heard from Mayor Pope from Norman Wells, who said that the solution was a 300-kilometre road to Norman Wells because of what was happening around the Mackenzie River.
I would like your thoughts on those two questions. Mr. Kanigan, maybe you could start with the climate and the water.
Mr. Kanigan: If I understand the question correctly, it’s about not being able to commit about whether it’s climate change or not that’s having an effect on the basin. I should mention that I’m not a hydrologist, but the folks who have briefed me and work with me are hydrologists. Of course, as you know, scientists are very careful to make sure that they are not making a conclusion unless they have verified evidence that has proven their hypothesis correct. I can tell you that, for many years, I have been coached by my team to not say that climate change is definitively a factor in some of the changes that we’re seeing in the N.W.T.
However, that has changed over the past few years with some of the evidence that we’re seeing in the basin around the large-scale changes. With some of the areas I mentioned — like these global teleconnections like La Niña and El Niño — we know that those patterns seem to be changing, and that is having a real effect across large areas of Canada, like the Mackenzie Basin. That is as close as I can get to saying that this is linked to climate change without being so definitive that the scientists who are behind me on this would be upset.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Who can talk about the roads? Can anybody talk about a possible gravel road to Norman Wells?
Mr. Brennan: I can try to answer a question, if you have a particular question on the roads.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Will they get the road? What do you think about this road? Is this a sensible project, or is it just dreaming? I would like to hear you about that. They all, including the mayor, seemed to think it was a great idea, especially if there is no water, eventually, in the Mackenzie.
Mr. Brennan: I’ll take a stab at that. The Mackenzie Valley Highway is a project that has been on the books of the Government of the Northwest Territories for years and years — actually, decades. Our last legislative assembly had as one of the priorities the advancement of the construction of the Mackenzie Valley Highway to Norman Wells. It is still a priority of the government. We want to advance that highway. Most recently, we just reopened the regulatory process by submitting a developer assessment report. That was completed in October 2023. Now we’re into the regulatory process, which we estimate will take about two years to complete. Upon completion of that, we’ll be looking to Canada to fund the construction of that road to Norman Wells. It’s a 321-kilometre road from Wrigley to Norman Wells. I hope that answers what you are asking.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Yes, partly. But are you confident? What are the discussions with the Canadian government? You are doing some work, but do you have any clues that you are going to be able to go ahead?
Mr. Brennan: I would like to say that we have been successful so far in getting the money required to advance it to a stage where we can get to a regulatory process, so that’s an indication of Canada’s support for the project. I can’t predict the future and what the Government of Canada might do, but we’re going to keep chasing that project as long as our government keeps it as a priority. I can’t speak for the legislative assembly that we have, but we’ll keep pushing it and hope that Canada comes up with some cash in the future to fund it.
I think it is absolutely a good project. It would absolutely give folk in that region a chance to get out more often. It will put some certainty around resupply and should reduce the cost of living for people in the Sahtu Region. Thank you.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Merci.
The Chair: Thank you.
For the benefit of our viewers, Senator Cardozo from Ontario has joined the committee this evening.
Senator Simons: I wanted to start by asking a Mackenzie River question. Mr. Brennan talked about the fact that his department is considering the possible impact of last year’s fires in terms of ash and erosion spurred by loss of trees on winter road construction, but I want to hear what we think the impacts of those fires might be on the flow of water out of Great Slave Lake and into the Mackenzie. Are you at all concerned that the fires, which were so devastating, may have an impact on the flow of water?
Mr. Kanigan: Thanks for the question.
One of the things we end up understanding as residents in the Northwest Territories is that the water flow in Great Slave Lake and the Mackenzie River actually has a lot to do with the weather and conditions in the provinces really far away from us. We can have local lakes that are high, but we can go to Great Slave Lake and it’s low. The reason is that it fills up from the Slave, Peace and Athabasca Rivers that come from British Columbia and Alberta.
Senator Simons: We apologize for that.
Mr. Kanigan: That’s okay. It’s something that is just a fact of life here.
Senator Simons: But my question is this: Is there any concern about deadfall in the river, ash in the river or more erosion into the river because the trees aren’t there to hold up the river banks or stop the flooding of nutrient stuff into the river? Are you concerned at all about the impact of the damage from the fire on the flow of the waters?
Mr. Kanigan: Yes, you are onto something there. There is definitely an effect, especially with the depth of burn that we saw this year in some areas where there was really high drought. The burn goes deeply into the active layer, and there are essentially no roots and maybe not as much organic layer left, so there would definitely be less storage in the system, and that would lead to more runoff and potentially sedimentation and bringing constituents from the ash or the soil into the water.
What I would maybe say here is that there is a need for further research and monitoring to understand what some of those effects are. We had another large fire year in 2014, and afterwards, we were able to mobilize a number of research resources so that we could answer similar questions to that.
Senator Simons: Mr. Brennan, my colleague Senator Miville-Dechêne mentioned that we heard from the mayor of Norman Wells about his road project. We also heard Brendan Bell from West Kitikmeot Gold. He wants a road all the way from the tippy top tip, where he is, straight down to Edmonton. I wondered what you could tell us about the plausibility of his ask.
Mr. Brennan: Mr. Bell was actually a minister for our government a number of years back, and he is talking about what we call the Slave Geological Province Road. North of Yellowknife, we have an all-season highway that goes for 69 kilometres, and then that ends. Then we have winter roads that go up to diamond mines, including one mine in Nunavut. He is talking about putting in an all-season road from basically Yellowknife over to Nunavut, connecting through their eventual Grays Bay Road and Port.
We have worked with Nunavut for numerous years on this potential project. Each area of road has had various levels of support and nonsupport. Our government, in the last assembly, also made the Slave Geological Province corridor a priority. We have been planning for that road as well. We’re working on an eventual application to the regulatory process. We recently submitted a land-use permit for geotechnical studies, looking at bore sources and gravel access along the proposed routing and to finalize the proposed routing.
That road is actually undergoing what is called a regional environmental assessment right now. We have to get through that process before we move into a formal regulatory process, but, yes, it’s a priority of our government to get roads over there as well. We would love to, when they hook up with Mr. Bell, be right in the middle of that highway.
Senator Simons: You say that 35% of your road network is winter ice roads. I just don’t know how much longer that’s a sustainable model.
Mr. Brennan: Yes. I would like to put on my genie hat to and figure out that one as well. Currently, we manage to make resupply in every community. That road up through the SGP, towards Nunavut, is a private winter road currently, constructed by a consortium from the diamond mines.
Senator Simons: Thank you very much.
Senator Quinn: Thank you, witnesses, for being here. The testimony given so far is very interesting, and I want to explore it a bit more.
You talked about the historical records; I think you said 70-some years and 60-some years for water-level fluctuations. Are the Indigenous communities in the North involved in any way? Is the traditional knowledge taken into account as you look at the more modern records versus historical levels from the Indigenous historical perspective? Can you take advantage of that? Is it valuable?
Mr. Kanigan: Thanks for the question.
Yes, that’s a huge part of how we work in the Northwest Territories. Some of the information that I shared with you tonight is exactly what we used in a territory-wide meeting that we held in a smaller community called Dettah, which is just south of Yellowknife. We brought together Indigenous government representatives, environmental and land and resource users and elders. We talked about water levels. It’s interesting that the local and Indigenous knowledge was similar in that these types of fluctuations haven’t been seen before. Folks are searching for answers, wanting to know why. There have been previous questions about dams along the river as well. Folks know about Site C being built, too, in B.C. Certainly, we have lots of good conversations, and we make sure to include Indigenous knowledge in the information that we look at when we’re making decisions.
Senator Quinn: To explore this a bit more, in different parts of Canada, a dichotomy often exists between Indigenous traditional knowledge and science. I think it was Mr. Brennan who said you need to be careful to respect the background advice from scientists who advise you not to tie this too much to climate change — whatever it was that you said. I was a little bit surprised to hear that kind of statement. If that’s the thought process with climate change, how does the science community deal with Indigenous knowledge? In the south, that’s often a conflict across the country. Are there tensions between the advice which Indigenous communities are providing versus your science advice?
Mr. Kanigan: No, I don’t think so. At an operational level and in our daily living here, we can all recognize the signs of climate change around us. In my work, advocating for the N.W.T. with respect to climate change, I’m letting people know that we have been living with the climate change reality for the past 30 or 40 years. I think you folks spoke to Dr. Steve Kokelj in the last few days. The climate record in Inuvik, for example, shows a 4-degree increase in the annual air temperature since the 1970s. There is no question that climate change is happening and the impacts are being felt here.
I was referring to specifically attributing these changes seen in 2023 and in 2020-21 to climate change. We haven’t actually studied all of the factors going into those changes. Scientists are careful about how they make conclusions on things. This presentation is mainly based on meteorological and hydrological information, so the conclusion is a bit couched in terms of the reasoning.
Senator Quinn: I want to be a little bit more precise in what I believe my colleague Senator Simons was getting at, but I will ask from slightly different perspective, a marine perspective. Shoreline erosion is occurring because of fires and other things. What is the sedimentation like? What is the dredging situation on the rivers? Is sediment increasing overall, or is dredging not an issue at all?
Senator Simons: Yes, dredging. That’s the right word.
Mr. Brennan: We just recently initiated a dredging program this past fall in the Port of Hay River, being where the rail line comes in and where our barges go upriver. That’s the starting point. A lot of silt has been gathering up there for a number of years. The port used to be dredged by Canada up until, I think, 1997, at which time Canada stopped doing that. The task was handed over to the town, but it didn’t have the capacity to maintain that work. The area was not dredged, with the exception of a few spot dredges, for the last 25 years. You may not know that Hay River had a significant flood in 2022 which deposited a lot more silt into the basin, and travel was not safe. Coast Guard vessels, fishing vessels and some of our barges got stuck in the sand just trying to get out of Hay River. We have started the dredging program. It was a bit of a late start, and completion was impacted by the Hay River wildfire evacuation for about five weeks. Next year, we’ll do more dredging in Hay River to finish off that program.
I think the Coast Guard also did some dredging work in Norman Wells about three or four years ago. We haven’t dredged any other areas. A few other locations on the river system still need to be dredged, from what I’m hearing. Dredging is not technically a mandate of the Government of the Northwest Territories. What we’re doing now is mostly funded by the Government of Canada. More funding for dredging from the Government of Canada would help us open up those trouble spots that keep barges from getting upriver. So, yes, we would like to dredge more, but funding is an issue.
Senator Quinn: What about further upstream? Are there shifting channels? How do you survey the water so that the barges have better knowledge for navigation? I ask that question because of the types of cargoes carried and the possibility of bottoming out. Sedimentation is great, but sometimes there are rocks hidden in the sediment that can cause serious situations. Is there survey work being done? How do you know that this marine highway is safe, basically, for these barges to carry upstream these vital materials, including hydrocarbon products?
Mr. Brennan: I believe that we’ve done some hydrometric work in the past to look at some of those areas, but I’m going to pass it over to my colleague Mr. Kanigan because his department works closely with areas that have an interest in this with lots of water survey equipment that is placed long the river to look at the water levels. I’ll pass it over to Julian.
Mr. Kanigan: Thanks, Gary.
We do have a hydrometric network that we maintain with Environment and Climate Change Canada, and that can give us information on flow and level. However, it can be a bit challenging because we do have ice jam flooding in the North. Some of that equipment can be taken out if there happens to be ice pushing through. We try to feed a lot of information about water levels in the preceding season with our infrastructure colleagues so that they can anticipate what’s coming. The federal Coast Guard is responsible for putting out navigation buoys that are followed by everyone that uses the river. I do take your point that navigating the river is obviously much more difficult in low-water conditions.
Senator Quinn: Thank you, witnesses.
Senator Simons: I want to thank Senator Quinn because that really did help to answer my question.
I want to come back to where we started, which was the state of the ice roads. It’s the end of November. We had previous witnesses from Nunavut telling us that they don’t have enough snow on the ground to run their snowmobiles. When I left Edmonton, there was no snow. There is no snow here in Ottawa. What are you looking at this season for ice road-building conditions? Have you been able to start any yet? What is the prognosis for when they will be opening this year?
Mr. Brennan: Thank you for the question.
What we’re seeing here in the southern part of the territory is warmer temperatures this year than normal. In the Tlicho region, we would normally be constructing some ice crossings right now across the Mackenzie and Liard Rivers. We’re definitely behind the eight ball there. I’m not quite sure we have a time frame for how much we’re behind. In the Inuvik region, we have two ice crossings that are part of our highway system currently under construction and will possibly open as early as this weekend, weather permitting, of course, like everything with the ice roads. We’re definitely a bit behind the eight ball.
We’ve seen trends in recent years where fall has been warmer so we’re getting a later start. Our general comment is that Mother Nature seems to catch up as we go. One of the items that may help us is that the lower water levels in some of our crossings should make freezing faster. Lower flow generally means that we can freeze faster. We’re hoping that we will catch up. It’s too early to predict how far behind we are and what the impacts will be. We’re really concerned about getting to the heavier weights, but we can speed up that process with some of the innovative techniques that we mentioned earlier.
That’s a good question. Hope for cold weather.
Senator Simons: What I’m concerned about is how often you’re able to test the roads for safety. It doesn’t matter so much if you’ve got an ice road that’s got big ruts in it. However, if we’re talking about a river crossing and there is a heavyweight vehicle coming across a river crossing and the ice cracks, you have a potential for real human disaster. What are the safety protocols you employ to make sure that the roads are safe enough for people to drive, especially with larger vehicles?
Mr. Brennan: That’s a good question.
In terms of keeping our employees safe during the start of construction, we have a buddy system where two people go out. They’re tied off in case someone breaks through the ice. They’ll drill by hand to see how much ice is there so they can safely get out there. We’ll do that until such point in time that we can get lighter equipment out there. We’ve moved toward lighter equipment to get out on the ice earlier.
We’ll use ground-penetrating radar, GPR. That will tell us the thickness of the ice. We’re interested in the minimum thickness. We’ll scan the entire alignment and look for the weakest point. Depending on where it is and how big it is, we’ll either come back later, when it’s safe to get on it, or start flooding if necessary.
We also establish weight limits using a standard formula and publish those weight limits so that equipment and trucks don’t use the roads until it’s safe to do so. It’s critical for any ice road to make sure that equipment and trucks are within the weight limit. Allowing trucks over the weight limit can damage the ice, and it could be catastrophic for us if we lose an ice road in the middle of the winter.
Senator Simons: Do you maintain weigh stations?
Mr. Brennan: Yes. We have a self-weigh station before you go on the road. We also have our highway transport officer patrol the road and check for compliance with the weights.
The Chair: Colleagues, we have ten minutes left and three senators left on the list, so we’ll go to three minutes each.
Senator Quinn: What happens if climate change advances to the point where winter roads are no longer viable? What impact will that have? What should the Government of Canada and the Government of the Northwest Territories do and think about in terms of addressing that which will eventually happen? What should we be thinking about when we prepare our report? Basically, what happens if the roads fail because of climate change? What’s the impact, and what are the options to correct it?
Mr. Brennan: Those are good questions.
What are the options? Build an all-season road. If there’s no ice, we need a road into the communities to bring in fuel, construction supplies and other dry goods. Flying fuel across the North is not something that we want to be in the business of doing. Not only it is expensive, but also there are significant environmental concerns. All-season roads to communities is definitely the answer in terms of what we can do there. I don’t think that we have any other options in terms of resupply to these communities.
What would happen to the communities without resupply? Well, I don’t know if you guys lose your power down here, but if you have no fuel, you have no power in these communities. With minus 40 temperatures, you can do the math for what’s going to happen pretty quickly.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: You mean they’re going to leave the community with just their clothes. That’s what you are saying?
Mr. Brennan: Yes. Most of our communities use diesel-generated power. Without diesel, we have no power. Without power, we have no heat. Without heat, it gets pretty uncomfortable in a hurry.
[Translation]
Senator Miville-Dechêne: For more than a decade, the Northwest Territories Association of Communities has been calling on the government to map climate-related hazards in the territory. The work started in 2019, so where are you in the process? I’m told that ice hazard maps identify sensitive areas and show which areas are more suited to development. Where are you in the process?
[English]
Mr. Kanigan: I’m really pleased that you were able to speak with the NWT Association of Communities. They’re a key partner in our climate change planning, and we are working with them in a number of areas.
One of the things that we’re doing as a territory is a territorial risks and opportunities assessment, working with partners and looking at all of the climate change risks that are out there, making sure that we have a complete inventory of them and potentially looking at the opportunities as well. Sometimes there are ways to view changes in a positive light. Then we work together with our partners to prioritize which actions need to be taken and which ones need to be taken first. The NWT Association of Communities is part of that planning process which will inform our next climate change action plan. They are part of that planning process.
With respect to the mapping that I’m aware of, we’re involved with a community hazard mapping program with the NWT Association of Communities. You likely know that there are 33 communities in the N.W.T., so there are a lot of communities to map. One of the key base layers that we need first is something that you were speaking with Dr. Kokelj about recently, which is an understanding of the permafrost conditions, which means that we need the superficial geology layer. That is the first piece we’re working on, but it will also address one of the points that you raised, which is ice. Where is the ice in the ground that has the most risk associated with building on it? That can be used by community governments to do the planning that they need to do. Thanks.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: So that means it’s under way, but it’s in no way finished? Where are you in this mapping?
Mr. Kanigan: It’s under way. I don’t have the number in my head of the number of communities. There are over 10 communities where this has been started, and there is someone hired to do this community hazard mapping surficial geology work. That said, without greater resources and capacity, it’s going to take some time to put all the maps together, go back to communities and ground-truth the information, and then have it in a state that can be understood and used by community governments.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Thank you.
Senator Klyne: Mr. Brennan, in your remarks earlier, you mentioned that you would switch to lighter loads and lighter equipment to start — I believe it was — the transportation on the ice roads earlier, to get a good start on them. How does that, overall, impact your key performance indicators, or KPIs, or your load factor? Does that diminish prior years, or are you still able to accomplish what you did in prior years as a comparative benchmark?
Mr. Brennan: If you’re talking about KPIs in terms of the number of days open, which is kind of a guideline that we use for winter roads, we want to be open as long as we can to get the resupply, and one of the key benchmarks is gaining up to the full weight load for resupply. What happens on all ice roads is that we build them up, starting with light traffic, and then we’ll go up as the ice thickens. We’ll open up to say, 5,000 kilograms, which would be light passenger vehicles, and then we’ll build more ice — either naturally or through flooding — and go to 10,000, then 20,000, et cetera, until we get to a full load, which is considered 64,000 kilograms.
We haven’t had any significant changes recently. We are getting all of our resupply done. I think in 2017, we closed about two weeks early because of a significant warming event in the middle of March, when we saw plus 20-degree temperatures in the Sahtu Region, which is the Norman Wells area, and we had to get special permits to get the equipment out of there because they went in and then it heated up quickly and the ice road failed. At that point in time, it was failing out of portage, so on land. The ice was still safe, but the portage was failing, and we have environmental permits we have to meet the standards for. We’re still meeting all of our needs and getting all of our resupply done. Some years are longer than others, but we are getting done what needs to be done, which is resupply and getting our residents out to visit their families and friends in other communities as well, which is very important to them.
Senator Klyne: Critical weather events and the frequency of them haven’t had any substantial or significant impact on you?
Mr. Brennan: We’re seeing more significant weather events. Snowstorms, for example. On an open lake that’s 20 kilometres long, that will blow in fairly quickly. On an ice road on a lake, 30 metres wide is the standard, and it will blow in. We’re spending more time on the maintenance of roads because of significant weather events. We’re seeing increased changes in temperatures and fluctuations, which causes havoc with the ice. They can create cracks or pressure ridges depending on warm versus cold, and again, that requires more oversight and maintenance. We haven’t seen any catastrophic events that shut us down significantly early or that have ended our season, so we’re able to manage those events so far.
Senator Klyne: Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you to our witnesses for appearing today.
[Translation]
Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne (Deputy Chair) in the chair.
The Deputy Chair: Honourable senators, we are now meeting to continue our study on the impacts of climate change on transportation infrastructure in northern Canada.
[English]
For our second panel this evening, we are pleased to welcome, from the Chamber of Marine Commerce, Paul Topping, Director of Regulatory and Environmental Affairs, and Maguessa Morel-Laforce, Director of Government and Stakeholder Relations. We also have Joseph Sparling, Director of the Northern Air Transport Association and President and Chief Executive Officer of Air North, joining us by video conference. Also by video conference, we have Stephen Laskowski, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Ontario Trucking Association, and he is here on behalf of Manitoulin Transport, a trucking company that operates in the Yukon and the Northwest Territories.
[Translation]
Welcome and thank you for being here. We will start with five-minute opening remarks. First up will be Mr. Topping and Mr. Morel-Laforce, followed by Mr. Sparling and Mr. Laskowski. After that, committee members will ask their questions.
[English]
Mr. Topping and Mr. Morel-Laforce, the floor is yours.
Maguessa Morel-Laforce, Director, Government and Stakeholder Relations, Chamber of Marine Commerce: Thank you very much.
The Chamber of Marine Commerce is a binational, private sector, not-for-profit association representing some 100 marine industry stakeholders operating in the Great Lakes, St. Lawrence, coastal and Arctic regions. Our members include Canadian ship owners, Canadian and U.S. ports, industrial shippers, the Seaway and other marine stakeholders. We are pleased to come before you today to contribute to this study.
For the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence region, marine shipping activities bring $66 billion a year in economic value to both Canada and the United States and employ over 350,000 people. Marine is the most ecofriendly way of transporting cargo, using less energy than other modes.
Paul Topping, Director, Regulatory and Environmental Affairs, Chamber of Marine Commerce: Climate change impacts critical infrastructure in the marine transportation sector across the country. Water currents, important for navigational purposes, can fluctuate in a more unpredictable manner along the St. Lawrence River and Great Lakes, with strong water currents moving fine sediments around the river bottom. As sediments move more unpredictably, the charts’ depths are invalid and there is a greater risk of ships grounding. Our captains, who are experienced and know the rivers and lakes, are well aware of these risks and continue to manage our member vessels safely and reliably. Going forward, we may need more current monitoring and depth soundings to ensure navigational information is accurate.
The St. Lawrence Seaway pays close attention to these water levels as the depths dictate how much a ship can carry. Shallower means they have to load less cargo, and higher means more cargo but also more risk and cost to maintaining safe navigation. Shipping needs that sweet spot where we can carry the most cargo to serve our customers while at the same time ensuring safe navigation.
Canada recently experienced record storm events and more severe weather occurring more frequently, leading to unpredictable water levels. In 2019, we saw high water levels, creating havoc for the property owners along the shore of the St. Lawrence. A decade ago, they were declining and cargo restrictions were put in place. We need resiliency designed into our systems and an international joint commission committed to the three founding principles, which include commercial navigation.
Canada’s port infrastructure is aging, and in order to maintain and expand Canada’s ability to receive imports and exports through the marine mode, the country needs to assess the state of the marine transportation system and invest needed capital to ensure it is climate ready.
In the winter, we can see differences in ice formation in the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence system. A heavy ice season means greater reliance on the coast guard’s icebreakers to keep shipping lanes clear and respond when vessels get stuck. The ice service plays a central role in planning the early winter closing and spring opening of the shipping season in the St. Lawrence and Great Lakes as well as keeping channels open for the parts of the system that continue to operate in winter shipping.
Our members operate in the Arctic as well, where shipping serves a different purpose. As we all know, we move the food, clothing, fuel, appliances, vehicles, equipment, construction materials and everything else northern populations and industries depend on to survive and grow. In short, we ensure the survival of Arctic settlement while being a visual display of Canadian sovereignty in the North.
The Arctic climate is seeing the greatest challenges observed in generations. Record temperatures were recorded this summer. Many see the overall warming trend as leading to more shipping, and it is increasing, but these numbers are very small. Ships that operate in the Arctic amount to a few hundred a year, while the South sees thousands and tens of thousands.
The changes in the Arctic also bring more uncertainty. Our Arctic resupply operations use ships that are not ice strengthened. We don’t need them. They do depend on relatively ice-free water. We’ve been safely managing these operations for decades in the warm-weather seasons. Even at the height of summer, though, small ice sheets can enter channels and break up, while others will combine, and those that can combine will sometimes block shipping lanes. The changes in the Arctic bring more unpredictability for planning safe operations, but our ships still need to reach the communities for local resupply even if ice gets in the way. This is where the Canadian Coast Guard ice-breaking service and the Canadian Ice Service play critical roles throughout the Arctic shipping season.
Mr. Morel-Laforce: In conclusion, we press the committee to acknowledge that efforts to prepare a national transportation infrastructure against the growing impacts of climate change need to increase in order to maintain our capacity to carry goods to market and consumers.
Joseph Sparling, Director, Northern Air Transport Association and President, Chief Executive Officer, Air North, Northern Air Transport Association: Good evening, and thank you for giving the Northern Air Transport Association, or NATA, an opportunity to provide input to this standing committee. I’m Joe Sparling, President of Air North Yukon airline, and I’m pleased to represent NATA here today.
Canada is the second-largest country in the world. However, with a population density of just ten people per square mile, we rank 222 out of 232 countries. The Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut, being Canada’s three territories, together account for more than 40% of Canada’s land mass but only about 0.3% of the population. The North has fewer than 0.1 people per square mile. Most communities have no road access with one another, and the nearest southern centres are close to 1,000 miles away. Therefore, air travel within the territories and between the territories and southern centres is a necessity rather than a luxury.
I recently had an opportunity to attend meetings in Ottawa with several government agencies on behalf of NATA. At those meetings, we were asked — and we described — the top three challenges facing northern airlines today. They are staffing, infrastructure and what I will describe as tooling.
With respect to staffing, there are many more challenges than the well-documented shortage of pilots and maintenance engineers. Airlines are struggling to recruit personnel in ground handling, passenger service, reservations and administrative positions. Others in the supply chain, including airports and navigation and security providers, are experiencing staffing challenges as well.
With respect to infrastructure, while airlines operate aircraft, our aircraft can’t move without airport, navigation and other support infrastructure. Much of the aviation infrastructure in the North was built during World War II, with only a handful of paved and unpaved runways built to accommodate the DC-3 aircraft, which is also World War II vintage.
Age and climate change are working together to magnify the impacts of infrastructure deficiencies in the North. We heard that from the other panellists with respect to the winter roads and water transportation, and we’re seeing them with respect to air transportation. The forest fire activity impacted our flight operations significantly last summer. The unusually warm fall that we’ve had has created low ceilings. We missed getting into Dawson City three days in a row, and I can’t ever remember that happening. The impact of climate change is real, and it illustrates or magnifies the infrastructure deficiencies. Infrastructure deficiencies are also preventing northern air carriers from the necessary fleet upgrades in order to ensure the most reliable, cost-effective and fuel-efficient operations.
It should be noted that our user-pay model for aviation is unique to Canada and may be making it difficult for governments to justify infrastructure investments in the North. This model is not used in our highway, rail or marine systems, nor is it used in other countries or regions like Alaska, which has more paved runways than all three of Canada’s territories combined.
With respect to tooling, in order to provide safe, reliable and affordable air transportation in Northern Canada, air carriers need to have the necessary tools at their disposal in order to take region-specific weather, geographical, infrastructure and operating challenges in stride. With our large area and small population, a regulatory model that is suitable in other parts of the world or even in Southern Canada is simply not a good fit for the North. In particular, neither the Air Passenger Protection Regulations or the flight duty regulations adequately account for the unique operating environment in the North, which is characterized by multi-sector scheduled flights which depart from and return to a northern centre with multiple stops at infrastructure-challenged airports in between.
Climate change has become a growing topic of discussion, not just in Canada but all over the world, and aviation is often criticized for its impact on the environment through greenhouse gas emissions which relate directly to the consumption of jet fuel. While the actual impact that aircraft have on the environment is subject to some disagreement, there would likely be general agreement that burning less jet fuel would be a good thing.
There are only three ways to reduce jet fuel consumption. The first is easy — fly less. During COVID, we proved that aviation can easily meet its environmental targets by not flying. The second way to save fuel is to operate more fuel-efficient aircraft. The third strategy, which is not so apparent, is to make flights more efficient. While direct routings and single-engine taxi procedures all serve to increase efficiency, the single most significant way to improve per-passenger fuel efficiency is to fly larger aircraft and to increase the percentage of seats filled on those aircraft. Neither the second nor the third strategies can be actioned in the North without infrastructure improvements.
Safe, timely and affordable movement of air travellers is a priority for governments today, and so is climate change. Climate change is exacerbating the inadequacies of northern aviation infrastructure, and those inadequacies not only hamper our ability to deliver safe, timely and affordable transportation, but they also hamper our ability to move forward on climate change initiatives.
Thank you.
Stephen Laskowski, President and Chief Executive Officer, Ontario Trucking Association: I am president and CEO of the Ontario Trucking Association and president of the Canadian Trucking Alliance. The alliance itself is a federation of the nation’s seven provincial trucking associations, with over 5,000 members. CTA represents a cross-section of the industry that serves as the backbone of the Canadian supply chain. Our members employ approximately 250,000 Canadians and are responsible for the lion’s share of the freight movement in Canada, between Canadian points and the United States.
With regard to the issues that are going to be raised today by the Canadian Trucking Alliance and the Ontario Trucking Association, examples of climate change that impact transportation include more frequent and more intense precipitation events, which you’ve already heard about in previous testimony, extremes in temperatures and variable freeze-thaw cycles. It depends on your definition of Northern Canada, but this impacts throughout Northern Canada, depending how far you go north, but, quite frankly, in southern parts of Canada as well. The Canadian Trucking Alliance will touch on these issues and our solutions to the matters impacting the industry.
I will talk very briefly about the background on truck emission regulations. Our members emit greenhouse gases. It is our commitment to the Government of Canada, to our industry and to the people of Canada to reduce our carbon footprint. We have been supportive of the GHG Phase I regulations in our sector that were introduced in 2014, the second round of GHG emissions that were introduced in 2021, and we are currently working with the Government of Canada and the United States with regard to zero-emission vehicle requirements for our sector that will most likely be introduced next year.
With regard to the issues at hand, I will deal with the flooding issues first with results of climate change. For example, last year and the year before, in British Columbia when we had the severe flooding, roads were washed out. As a sector and as an economy, we need to plan for that. Part of that planning is policy introductions such as in-transit movements. This would allow the Canadian trucking industry to move through the United States to make point-to-point moves between, say, Ontario and British Columbia through the United States and into Canada. Currently, that’s not allowed. During the B.C. floods, though, the Canadian Trucking Alliance worked with both Canada and the United States, and 4,500 movements were made during those floods to allow trucks and goods and supplies to get to the West. These are the types of measures that we need to look at as a society. The inability to move in transit between points in Canada through the United States is increasing our carbon emissions and making our supply chains more inefficient.
There are other lessons from the flooding and fires in Canada. Highway 5 repairs in British Columbia are expected to be completed this Christmas. That’s 25 months after the flooding. According to the British Columbia Trucking Association, the lesson is the vulnerability of bridge construction everywhere in Canada. Where bridges are built without sufficient armouring to prevent undercutting of supports, you are at risk of ending up with Highway 5 situations throughout Canada. There needs to be a comprehensive review of structures on major routes throughout Canada to identify those bridges that are at risk for washouts. This also applies to rail and highway corridors where the impact degrades separation, the same issues that were revealed in the floods. With regard to northern Ontario, the same issue occurs at Nipigon, where Highways 11 and 17 are the connections between the West and the East. There is only one bridge there, and if it, in turn, has an issue due to climate change, the west and the east links are broken.
With regard to aligning and improving winter road maintenance standards, as we have heard from other testimony prior to this group, we are seeing more precipitation. Obviously, in the winter, that comes in the form of snow. Poor and inconsistent maintenance standards create an environment where truck drivers do not feel safe on our roadways and can often lead to them refusing to work during inclement weather conditions because of safety concerns. This also creates supply chain bottlenecks, leading to deliveries not being made within their usual time frame. For example —
The Deputy Chair: I will ask you to conclude, because you have passed your five minutes.
Mr. Laskowski: Thank you, Madam Chair. I’ll be prepared to deal with the freeze/thaw regulations and with that impact that we talked about, permafrost, in the previous panel. Thank you, Madam Chair, for your patience. I am prepared to questions later.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you for your opening remarks.
[Translation]
Now we will move into questions and answers, beginning with Senator Klyne.
[English]
Senator Klyne: Welcome to all our guests and experts. I have questions for each one of you, but I’ll begin with Mr. Sparling from NAT.
In a CBC article that mentioned you, Mr. Sparling, it was said:
He’s looking to see longer, paved airstrips, improvements to weather infrastructure, and the improvement of approach capability so pilots are able to safely land during bad weather instead of turning back.
As well, complementing that, in an interview with the Nunatsiaq News, Mr. Aaron Speer, who is the president of the Northern Air Transport Association, explained that another priority is to find ways to increase the number of local and Indigenous workers in the northern flying industry.
In your remarks, I heard things about climate change, aging infrastructure and staffing challenges. Certainly, the various issues faced by your industry and NAT operating in the North are quite a challenge. We could cite a number of challenges, which I just did, but what is your most pressing challenge?
Mr. Sparling: We ranked staffing as the number one challenge, infrastructure as number two and tooling number three.
As you can appreciate, there are a lot of moving parts associated with dispatching an aircraft with passengers or cargo from Point A to Point B. If there is any breakdown in the system at all, be it our own staffing, staffing at the weather stations at the airports, people that clear the runways, the airplane is not going to fly. If the infrastructure is deficient in any way so that — generally, we’re dealing with non-precision approaches, which have much higher weather limits than the approaches that you find in the southern centres, so our ability to get into northern and regional airports is hampered or reduced due to the approach capabilities at those airports. That’s an infrastructure issue that, again, will result in the turnbacks that Aaron Speer described in his interview.
The third thing was local employment. That goes back to the staffing issue. We have always found in our own operation that we have way better luck with recruitment and retention if we can hire people that live here already and train them to get the skills that they need. We have better luck with that than we do by bringing somebody up that’s already skilled and hoping they like living in the North.
Senator Klyne: I’m going to use that as a segue to go back to this being challenge number one. Is it a fair assumption that much of the training takes place in the south at, say, NAIT? In that regard, if I’m right or close to being right, what’s been done to help bring the training to where the people are living to complement what you just identified, which is that you have a better opportunity to retain if you hire people locally? Is there any way to bring the training to them?
Mr. Sparling: Yes, there is. Using the Yukon as an example, our educational institutions in the past generally focused on tourism and mining and construction jobs. Since we established our airline infrastructure in the North, there are many more high-skilled jobs available in the North — dispatchers, pilots, flight attendants, aircraft maintenance engineers. We have to do a better job of working with our governments and our educational institutions to make sure that those skills are available locally. We now have, or have again, a flight-training centre in Whitehorse. There was one some years ago, there were a number of years where there wasn’t one, and now we have got one again. Those sorts of initiatives will help us to recruit and hopefully retain more local workers.
Senator Klyne: Well, it seems like you have a steady hand on the rudder there, so good luck.
Senator Quinn: My question is for the Chamber of Marine Commerce. I’m just wondering, given he level of activity that your members do in the Arctic, what are you hearing in terms of their biggest challenges as it ties to climate change?
Mr. Topping: One of our key members, Desgagnés, basically does 75% of Arctic resupply, reaching into communities and into the resource development projects, from the large, successful ones such as Baffinland to all the small, exploratory sites.
Staffing is definitely one of the main things, by which we’re talking about marine recruitment. It’s something that the entire marine industry in Canada faces. In the Arctic, it can be especially challenging. In the Great Lakes, a crew member that is sick or wants to visit home often has opportunity to do so in the south. In the Arctic, the crew member is onboard for approximately a month, just to get to the communities and do the circuit to visit the communities. Hiring people from the south can be a challenge. In response to that, we have been working with the Nunavut Fisheries and Marine Training Consortium to establish and open opportunities to Inuit and other northern residents to come and join the marine industry. It’s interesting to see people grow and get their skill sets. It does take time to go through the training, but they can enter in, get certified and get on the vessels, and there they flourish. But we need more of them. That’s probably the biggest challenge.
Other elements would be things like not having any port infrastructure. That’s been the way of things for decades, but as centres get slightly larger, that’s where port infrastructure happens. In Nunavut, we had a successful completion of a wharf, and that’s changed the efficiency of offloading. The vessels don’t have to bring their own tug and barge and then move the cargo piece by piece. They can go up to a wharf, and their own cranes offload it. The first time they did it, they actually overwhelmed the back end of people trying to move it, whereas before, the pace of the offloading through the small tugs and barges that move it was easily met with the people bringing it back into the community. That can work for Nunavut with a population of 6,000, but is it going to work for Gjoa Haven? Is going to work for Igloolik there? The cost benefit might be more difficult, but we still need to supply those people.
Senator Quinn: If I may, on the operational side in the North, what challenges are being reported? The seasons are getting somewhat longer. How does the increasing incidence of weather events affect the operation as you are trying to get into Gjoa Haven and places like that?
Mr. Topping: Things can get more unpredictable. Captains are reporting variations in ice. Ice floes change unpredictably. We are not running icebreakers. We are running general cargo class vessels, carrying containers and equipment and fuel.
When an ice floe comes in and blocks, we depend on the coast guard to cut a path through to get out. If that can’t happen, the reality can be that a community is missed at the scheduled time, and hopefully they are able to get out of the block.
Again, everything is dictated by the Arctic Zone/Date System. One of the challenges we do see operationally is the Zone/Date System is needing to catch up to the precise, actual conditions we see on the ground or on the water. The Zone/Date System has 16 areas which dictate when a ship can go in and out, and it’s quite tight, and often, if there is a problem, you will have some difficulties coming back again because you may find yourself not being able to return because the window on the Zone/Date System for that region has closed.
This is particularly problematic for imports and managing imported things coming up from the United States or over from Europe, where customs staff are based in the South. During COVID, they managed a virtual approach. Outside of COVID, they are more returning to having to carry out inspections. Again, that delays a vessel and tightens down the window and causes quite a bit of concern and stress trying to get through things in that way. That’s coming from both directions, clearing through Vancouver and those people that clear through the eastern Arctic directly.
Senator Simons: I want to continue with you, Mr. Topping and Mr. Morel-Laforce. Presumably, climate change, global warming, means that you have a much longer season, but I presume it also means that there are more potential icebergs coming your way as ice breaks off. You say you wait for the coast guard when the iceberg is there, but what if it’s not? What is the most dangerous part of traversing that passage? Is it icebergs? Is it changes in water levels so you don’t know what you might hit underneath?
Mr. Topping: It’s hard to say. It’s not icebergs per se but ice sheets and ice floes that can be formed quickly in currents. If this is also happening during cargo operations where the vessel is stationary, it’s more likely to form and could potentially block it in. When the vessel is under way, a captain has options to go around if they can gain some intelligence on the extent of the floe coming in and use information to navigate around it. Our captains are extremely experienced. We’re quite proud of them. They are able to manage today, so far.
The other main concern that we are seeing is what happens in the South, as well as in the North, wherein waterways can get altered at the bottoms, especially in the shallower parts approaching communities. Charting in the Arctic is improving, but approximately, I believe, 40% of the waterways have modern charting. That’s a bit like trying to drive your car with no map and guessing where the road is, so it’s a problem. Again, our captains have local knowledge because they have plied those waters for many years.
Senator Simons: Those waters are changing.
Mr. Topping: Those waters are starting to change, exactly, and we need the effort. It’s a huge, vast area.
I don’t overly want to criticize the government. We certainly want to see a better approach, but it’s also an enormously vast area that has to be mapped, and it’s expensive to move ships up there, gather the data, process it and then bring it into the chart products. It takes ships going up there and scientists and experts poring over the data and then developing the charts after that.
Senator Simons: Thank you.
I wanted to ask a question of Mr. Laskowski. This study is about transportation infrastructure in the Arctic. I understand that you have other grievances, but you were invited here to speak about the Arctic. I believe that you have knowledge about trucking infrastructure in Yukon and the Northwest Territories, and I would be very grateful if you could speak a bit about that.
Mr. Laskowski: Thank you for the question, senator.
Our members do not have an association in those areas, but what is your specific question about serving the Arctic?
Senator Simons: Well, you were invited here today based on your expertise with Manitoulin and its operations in Yukon and the Northwest Territories.
Mr. Laskowski: What was asked of me was to speak on northern Canada and not specifically Yukon.
Senator Simons: Okay, northern Canada. You said something at the end of your remarks that you knew something about permafrost and testing. I would just ask of you, since you are here, can you tell us anything that is germane to what we are doing?
Mr. Laskowski: Well, sure, if you are asking me about what was germane to what I said in my opening speech.
Senator Simons: I would really like you to speak about — not about British Columbia, the U.S. border or those issues. What can you tell us about the difficulties of trucking on winter roads or on roads that are damaged by permafrost?
Mr. Laskowski: Senator, if you let me speak, when roads are closed through northern Canada and there is only one road to move through the North, then moving through the United States is our only option, as we said in British Columbia. When I brought up the bridge at Nipigon, if that bridge is closed —
Senator Simons: I’m sorry, I’m going to cut you off there. Thanks very much.
Senator Cardozo: I want to ask a rather global or larger question. I’ll start with Mr. Laskowski, and maybe our friends from the chamber can answer as well.
This is a longer-term, bigger-picture issue of the best way to transport goods across the country. I don’t know enough about this, but one might argue that transporting goods by rail is more environmentally efficient than by truck. I understand I’m putting you in a position where I suppose in some ways a railway is your competition. I’m kind of asking you, longer term, is your competition not more efficient than trucking in certain areas where rail lines exist as opposed to where they don’t exist?
Mr. Laskowski: Sure. I think there’s no arguing that moving bulk product across Canada on a train configuration, by its nature, is more environmentally friendly from a carbon footprint perspective. We do serve two very different markets, both the trucking and rail sector. Quite frankly, the rail and trucking sector partner together where it’s feasible and where it makes sense for both businesses, including our customers. As I said in my opening remarks, the trucking industry is doing its part by investing in less carbon-intensive equipment. We are developing two rounds of regulations with the Government of Canada.
The Deputy Chair: Sir, we are doing a study on northern Canada, and we are interested in trucking in northern Canada.
Mr. Laskowski: Yes, I heard that, senator. I’m answering a question about rail and trucks, so how would you like me to apply that to northern Canada?
The Deputy Chair: Well, please continue.
Mr. Laskowski: Am I answering you or am I answering the other senator? The senator asked me —
The Deputy Chair: You are answering Senator Cardozo.
Mr. Laskowski: Senator Cardozo’s question, as I understood it, was the difference between truck and rail competition in Canada. Am I correct, senator?
Senator Cardozo: If you could complete your answer, then we’ll move on. Thank you.
Mr. Laskowski: Sure. In terms of moving freight into the North, that is predominantly moved by truck and will move by truck by the nature of rail infrastructure and the demand for trucking freight and the commodities that move into the North, as is with most of the freight in Canada, whether it’s east-west or north-south.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you very much.
Senator Cardozo: Could I ask the chamber if they have any comments in terms of rail versus trucking and how it relates to ports?
Mr. Topping: First off, we’re the marine sector. Rail and ships are more efficient, but they don’t necessarily drive into Walmart and into the Northmart in the Arctic or supply stores directly in Iqaluit. Trucks that can do that. Our ships move the bulk of freight north on the Eastern Arctic. On the Western Arctic, there is road and rail. On the island, the archipelago up in the North, it’s ships that deliver the goods directly to the communities through the tug barge arrangements that the ships themselves bring to move the cargo to the beach. There are coordinators in the local community who then pick up the cargo and distribute it, be it a new vehicle, a new fire engine, someone’s flat-screen TV, food stocks for the stores or construction materials. All of it is shipped up there via Desgagnés as well as other groups like NEAS and Woodward.
Senator Cardozo: On the land, there will be various types of vehicles that pick up those goods?
Mr. Topping: Yes.
Senator Dasko: Thank you to our witnesses for being here today.
My question is mainly for Mr. Sparling. I appreciated your comments about air travel. I had to smile when you said that the airport infrastructure is from World War II because my father used to tell stories of building airstrips in Terrace and Prince George, and I can’t fathom the thought that they might actually still be using those airstrips. That just made me smile.
In any case, you mentioned that user pay is a principle that is unique to Canada. I wonder if you could elaborate on that just a little bit. I took that as a critique that user pay is unique to Canada. I wonder if you could describe that a little bit in terms of whether there is a better model we should be using and how that might be constructed and who is going to pay.
You did also say that if we had better infrastructure, we could use larger aircraft. My question to you about the aircraft is this: Do we have the markets right now to justify larger aircraft, even if we had better infrastructure? Is that something we could be doing economically speaking if we had better infrastructure? Would that be economic for this country, for you and the industry to be using larger aircraft? There are a couple of questions rolled together.
Mr. Sparling: There are two broad questions. Let’s deal with user pay first.
The Canadian model is that the users of the air travel network should basically pay the costs of operating the network. Compare that with the U.S. where the air transportation network is treated as general infrastructure, much like highways are. The average cost per available seat mile for a Canadian airline is about 20% higher than the average cost per available seat mile for a U.S. carrier. That illustrates the difference.
The industry has long been critical of the government for treating aviation as more of a cash cow than an economic enabler. There are an awful lot of studies that illustrate how aviation enables the economy and fosters economic development. That’s a big question. It has been a long-standing debate. The bottom line is the user-pay model is what we use in Canada, and it’s different from other countries. The aviation industry in general would like to see less infrastructure costs borne by the airlines themselves.
Moving on to your second question with respect to larger aircraft, the northern carriers in general would like to modernize their fleets. We can’t modernize our fleets with the most modern aircraft today. The more modern and fuel-efficient aircraft don’t operate on gravel. We are limited to aircraft that are a generation or two behind the aircraft that are in use in the more populated parts of the country.
The use of larger and more modern aircraft would generate fuel savings. In our own market, we’re in the midst of a fleet upgrade to our jet fleet now, and we’re looking at fuel savings that could be 15% to 20%. Those are significant savings. It takes larger, more modern aircraft to do that. It takes modernized infrastructure in order to be able to operate the larger and more modern aircraft.
Senator Dasko: Thank you.
Senator Klyne: I have a comment and question for Mr. Laskowski, and then I would like to ask a question of the Chamber of Marine Commerce.
To finish up where things were left off, Mr. Laskowski, I imagine that cargo loaded into intermodal containers will move seamlessly between trucks, trains and cargo ships. That’s where you were trying to convey a message, I believe. I got it. Thank you.
Mr. Laskowski: Yes, thank you.
Senator Klyne: I have another question for you. Somewhere midstream in your remarks you mentioned that, regarding greenhouse gas emissions, you’ve made a commitment. I don’t know if it was through Canada and/or the U.S. You said you would be introducing it, rolling out what I assume would be a new way of transportation to address the greenhouse gas emissions and make your commitment to reductions. I would like you to tell me what that is. Can you tell me what might be needed to ensure that the essential services provided by truckers in the North would be able to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and what they would need in infrastructure to do that?
Mr. Laskowski: Absolutely.
What is coming out next year is expected to be a proposal to move to zero-emission vehicles. Now, what that technology is, we can only guess, based on California regulations. What those California regulations state is that the trucking industry, including my membership — whether you serve the great North or in southern parts of Canada — has to move to a certain number of electric vehicles. It’s hard to talk in 2023 about electric vehicles operating anywhere in the cold. The distances don’t work. They don’t work in the winters with great distances in Toronto, and they definitely are not going to work in the Yukon and Northwest Territories and the distances they are working there.
I’m not trying to be negative here. When they do, and whatever that technology is — whether it’s electric, hydrogen or a combination thereof — infrastructure and charging infrastructure, if indeed that’s the future, as opposed to diesel stations, will have to be built. Now, that’s a concern in high-density populations, let alone in areas that are far more sparse. We have great challenges ahead of us as a society in making this transition from diesel to zero-emission vehicles in heavily populated areas, even more so in areas that are less populated and colder.
Senator Klyne: What about the biofuels being developed for diesel and also for jet fuel?
Mr. Laskowski: Yes. Again, bringing it to reference, as the chair has asked me to keep referring back to the North, biofuels — particularly biodiesel — gel, particularly at cold temperatures. There are different companies making claims that they’re getting better at the gelling. The fact of the matter is, it does, and that makes our engines less reliable.
Again, that is not to be negative. It is just the reality of the engineering of this equipment. The trucking industry is committed to exploring alternative fuels, but we need to be aware of the limitations of these devices and technologies, particularly in colder temperatures.
Senator Quinn: Coming back to Mr. Laskowski, Manitoulin Transport Incorporated is a member of your association. Is that correct?
Mr. Laskowski: Both a member of the Ontario Trucking Association and other associations that form the alliance, yes.
Senator Quinn: Thank you. I’m going to zero in on MTI with respect to their operation in the Northwest Territories. I understand they operate in the Yukon. In the Northwest Territories, relevant to climate change, what is it that you’re hearing from that member of the unique challenges that they’re facing in the North?
Mr. Laskowski: I can’t speak for Manitoulin. I can speak to the general trucking industry and climate change and challenges. Do you want to talk about their operational challenges, senator?
Senator Quinn: No. To help the discussion, I’m trying to focus on north of 60.
Mr. Laskowski: Yes.
Senator Quinn: And what the challenges are north of 60 for truckers with respect to climate change and the current infrastructure.
Mr. Laskowski: You’ve brought up the freeze-thaw cycles and the unpredictability of that. Weights and dimensions are controlled in trucking based on axles, except during freeze-thaw periods. In simple, when the roads are frozen, you can carry more product. When the roads thaw, there are weight reductions. That causes complexities in logistics. It also causes challenges with regard to supplying. You need more trucks and more drivers. As we’ve heard from others, we have a challenge in our sector with labour. That challenge is even more so in the North.
Senator Quinn: Any comments on winter roads versus all-season roads? Are there some potential solutions in that particular area?
Mr. Laskowski: Whether it’s north of 60 or south of 60, the Government of Canada and the provinces have a challenge at hand, and that is with regard to finding the money that is required for modern infrastructure moving forward, not just with impacts of climate change but years of neglect and not investing in the infrastructure. Climate change is only amplifying the problem.
Senator Quinn: Thank you, sir.
Senator Simons: I wanted to ask a question of Mr. Sparling, because I haven’t had a chance to do that yet.
You talked about the fact that we have this user-pay system, and you and Senator Dasko delved into that, but let’s just be blunt here: Do the territorial and federal governments need to think about more direct funding of not just air cargo but passenger air service? We’re already seeing all across the country — even south of 60 — the airlines cutting back and back and back on services as they attempt to recoup the losses of COVID. In the North, there were routes that were routinely flown in the past that have all been cancelled now. The companies have to make money. Does there have to be a more direct federal investment or subsidy — whatever you want to label it — to make those routes viable and to provide the infrastructure that we need for the future?
Mr. Sparling: Speaking for our part of the North, I don’t think the routes need to be subsidized, but the emphasis should be on the infrastructure. The notion of user pay — life in the North relies on aircraft service. It enables the economy, as I mentioned before, and it makes the North a better place to live and work. It makes us less of a northern outpost. We don’t have toll booths on our highways, and I think the airport and aviation infrastructure, in particular, ought to be funded out of general revenues rather than out of specific charges to the users of the services. There is tax upon tax upon tax. Many of the taxes the users don’t see, because it’s buried in the airfare, but the fact of the matter is, as I illustrated before, the average cost of operating an airline in Canada is significantly higher than the average cost of operating an airline in the U.S., and it is primarily because of the user-pay model that we use and the tax structure. The amount of money that we extract from travellers through taxes is excessive, in my mind. We need to turn that around if we want to have reliable and affordable and safe air transportation. We need to make investments in the infrastructure and not rely on the users to pay for all of those investments.
Senator Simons: I suppose the problem is, if you’re talking about Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary and Halifax, those are big enough airports. You’re drawing on a big pool of payers. In Norman Wells, there are only 900 people. They can’t fund an airport out of 900 people and the miners who go in and out.
Mr. Sparling: That is exactly correct, and that maybe partly explains why the infrastructure in the North goes back to the World War II era, because there simply isn’t the population base to pay for the necessary infrastructure. Yet, as a country, northern sovereignty is a mandate for us now, as is reconciliation. I think there are a couple of key government mandates now that perhaps could direct a little bit more interest on modernizing northern transportation infrastructure.
Senator Simons: Thank you very much.
Senator Klyne: I have a quick question for the Chamber of Marine Commerce. I never thought about this, but I see that there is a United Nations agency that regulates the global rules for safe shipping and marine environmental protection, the International Maritime Organization, or IMO, has committed to reduce 50% of shipping greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 compared to 2008 in absolute terms. I had never heard of this, and I never thought about somebody regulating this and putting targets on what you need to accomplish. I’m not sure where you are at with that, but in order to reach those greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals, it will require significant investments in research and development, including things like new zero-carbon technologies and propulsion systems, such as green hydrogen, ammonia, fuel cells, batteries and synthetic fuels produced from renewable energy sources.
Could you tell this committee about any innovations that are taking place in your sector to meet these goals that have been, I guess, prescribed by the United Nations agency? Is there anything you can do or that the federal government should be doing to help support what you need to get done here, particularly in new innovations?
Mr. Morel-Laforce: That’s an excellent question.
I would say our members are committed to surpassing that goal from IMO, and there are technologies today that can actually do that. A biofuel made out of waste that would just lay in a field today can be transformed and produced into a biofuel that can be used in a vessel, 100%. There are additives you can add to it so it doesn’t gel up, and it can reduce your emissions by 80%. Today the marine industry is able and is doing it. Companies such as CSL or Algoma Central Corporation have ongoing trials right now with those fuels. Desgagnés that goes in the Arctic uses liquid natural gas, or LNG. Nothing is stopping it to actually use green LNG, if it was available.
If you’re asking what the federal government can do today to help decarbonize the marine industry and, I would argue, also the air industry, it is to put the regulations in place in order to create a marketplace where there are incentives for producers to start producing those fuels that we understand we are able to produce today, and there is a market for it. Unfortunately, I would say the federal government right now is not doing that. Today, it is very difficult for a marine operator to go and use a biofuel because it will need a special regulatory exemption to do so, and there is not a marketplace for buying it. It is more expensive, and it’s not available. That is because the federal government is not there promoting its production.
Hydrogen is not so feasible. The energy density of the molecule is not high enough, so it takes a lot of space to store it in the vessel, so it is not really practical today.
The Deputy Chair: I will have to cut you off. I’m sorry, but we are completely out of time, even over time.
[Translation]
Thank you for your contribution. That concludes our second panel. On behalf of my fellow senators, I would like to thank the witnesses for being here, answering our questions and sharing their insights.
Thank you, senators.
(The committee adjourned.)