44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 27, 2023 11:00AM
- Nov/27/23 6:35:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this concurrence debate, although I will note, of course, that it is within the usual tactics and games used by members of the official opposition. However, it is an important topic, so I am glad to speak to it tonight. I will be splitting my time with the member for Nunavut; I look forward to hearing her incredible contributions to this debate.
First of all, this was a really important report to put forward. I am so grateful to all the witnesses who came before us, the members of the armed forces who spoke to this report, the academics, the community leaders, the policy-makers, the analysts from the Library of Parliament, our committee clerk and the interpreters. We are truly lucky in this place to have such an incredible group of people to work with and whom we can hear from to create better legislation and better policy within the government. I appreciate those workers and all the evidence provided by the participants. After hearing the recommendations and reflections from the committee, we worked on the study to look into Russia's threat to Canada's Arctic, China's threat to Canada's Arctic, the security of the Canadian Arctic archipelago and the security of the Northwest Passage and NORAD modernization.
This report's recommendations strayed from the mandate a bit. Sadly, we ignored one of the largest points and most imminent threats to our Arctic, which is climate change. According to the report:
The committee was reminded by Dr. P. Whitney Lackenbauer that we must distinguish “between threats passing through or over the Arctic rather than threats to or in the Arctic”.
The committee did not quite get that in terms of the recommendations, which is a real shame.
The committee's recommendations focused heavily on “potential threats to North America passing through the Arctic, at the expense of centering threats to the Arctic itself.” The warming rate of the Arctic's oceans:
...is up to seven times faster than the global average. The United Nations estimates that by 2050, up to 70 percent of Arctic infrastructure will be at risk from loss of permafrost. This is a direct threat against both the Canadian Armed Forces and Arctic communities....
With climate change, we have already seen the number of voyages in Canadian Arctic waters triple in the last three decades. New sea lanes are being opened by melting ice, which will cause increased fishing, transportation, tourism and research activity in the area. Further, the loss of permafrost is also increasing the viability of access to the Arctic's massive oil reserves, natural gas and precious minerals.
This threat to Arctic security was discussed at length throughout the committee by top officials. We heard from the chief of the defence staff, General Wayne Eyre, who stated that there was a challenge in “making that infrastructure durable and sustainable into the future with the changing circumstances related to climate change.” Vice-Admiral Topshee, the commander of the Royal Canadian Navy, told us about the important holistic approach necessary to deal with the increase in traffic. He said that the CAF is working with territorial governments and indigenous partners to build Canada's capacity, from unauthorized vessel detection to search and rescue.
In the same study, we heard from the national security and intelligence adviser, Jody Thomas, that more than 40% of Canada's territory and over 75% of its national coastlines are Arctic. She stated:
The Arctic is fundamental to Canada's identity and its sovereignty....
Rapid and enduring climate change is making the region more accessible for navigation. New commercial and military technologies are connecting the North to the rest of the world and eroding the region's historical isolation from geopolitical affairs.
We took all this into account. We heard it as part of the testimony, which, of course, was rooted in the context that the increased activity caused by climate change is highly disruptive. It is a problem. It is the major threat.
It is very alarming that, within those recommendations, we did not actually see recommendations calling to address climate change. Certainly, I tried to bring that forward, to have the consideration of climate change as the existential threat to Arctic security be known. Sadly, we do not see those recommendations in the report. It is truly a mystery, but maybe not a mystery for anyone who has heard arguments from the official opposition's side. However, I will leave it there.
It is imperative that the federal government treats climate change as a national security threat, as outlined by all these officials and academics. This summer alone, 45.7 million acres of forest in Canada burned and released the equivalent of 1.7 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions.
Additionally, indigenous peoples in Arctic communities need to be central to what we are talking about in terms of Arctic security. The impacts of climate change are felt first and foremost in the Arctic. Indigenous people are often on the front lines as first responders, and all government spending on the Arctic security question has to reflect this truth. As the report notes, “As part of Arctic security, we must see investments in the north help northerners access safe housing, clean drinking water, fresh food and healthcare.”
It is easy to fall into the escalating calls for the militarization of the Arctic, but I believe this is a disconnect from what the committee heard from witnesses. We heard that the best Arctic security policy is an investment in the communities themselves and in their people.
One clear message heard at committee was the need to invest in the Canadian Rangers to address the threats to the Arctic. We heard from Calvin Pedersen, a fourth-generation Canadian Ranger, about his work in monitoring vessel traffic in the northwest. The report notes, “The Canadian Rangers are essential to meeting the security needs to address the impact of climate change and increased economic activity in the Arctic.”
We also heard from Dr. Peter Kikkert, who said:
The Rangers wear lots of hats, so they’re often volunteers on the ground search and rescue teams in their communities. They’re often members of the Coast Guard auxiliary units that go out to do marine searches.... The training that is given to Rangers is not always just used in an official capacity, but is often used to bolster the search and rescue system on a voluntary basis.
The report goes on: “Investments in the Canadian Rangers will increase our domain awareness, increase the CAF’s operational capabilities, and will bolster search and rescue capacity.” There were some good recommendations, especially recommendations 21 to 25, as part of this report, and I hope the government will act upon them very quickly. They include a change to the way rangers have faced mistreatment from successive governments. Often, rangers are expected to continue service while being undercompensated for equipment usage, and they are slowly and inadequately reimbursed for damaged equipment. They also lack funding for administrative supports.
Just last week, I questioned the Minister of National Defence about this, because in the study, witnesses clearly called for the equipment usage rate to be tied to inflation. I did not get the answer I wanted, but I never really do from the minister, unfortunately. I hope that will change. I hope he will take the recommendations from this report seriously.
In addition to that support, the defence ombudsman reported that rangers lack adequate access to the health care, housing and basic infrastructure needed to do that work. We keep hearing the same messages over and over again. We need the government to hear them.
The report notes, “As the need for Canadian Rangers increases, we must act immediately to solve these concerns.” In addition to the permanent Arctic search and rescue round table that has been called for, the committee received a written submission that called for the need to build up community resilience.
This brings me to recommendation 13 of the report. The report says:
[I] wish the language in the recommendations went further to mandate the Government to prioritize investments that serve Indigenous peoples and Arctic communities. As we expect more and more from Arctic communities, Canada’s history of neglect and harm must be reconciled with meaningful investments. In prioritizing the backlog of NORAD modernization and the backlog of infrastructure gaps in the Arctic, we can address [a lot of the] shared needs.
The government has a clear opportunity here, and it needs to “use funding allocated for NORAD modernization to address the infrastructure and service gaps in the Arctic. We must give greater attention to the water crisis, housing crisis, and health care crisis in Arctic communities”.
I also want to address a recommendation that I agree with in this report, which is recommendation 3. In witness testimony for this study, General Wayne Eyre stated, “I think policies related to ballistic missile offence are becoming less and less relevant.” The recommendation reads, “That the Government of Canada reconsider its longstanding policy with respect to the U.S. Ballistic Missile Defence program.” I am 100% against that.
We heard from Dr. Adam Lajeunesse, who stated:
Arctic security and defence are very important, and we need to make serious investments, but we need to zero in on what exactly the threat environment is. What I have argued is that we are not seeing, and are not likely to see, a great power threat to the Arctic.... I'm arguing that it would be a waste of money and an inefficient use of our resources to build the Arctic defences in such a way as to gear them towards Russia or China.
Again, he pointed back to the existential threat. This all points back to the inappropriate and disappointing wedge in a conversation of our study that refused to put those recommendations forward, in terms of climate change. I—
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- Nov/27/23 7:28:00 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, who is the shadow minister for the Arctic and Northern Affairs for the Conservative Party.
I am glad to get the debate back on the report. We just listened to a bunch of bafflegab, but I am going to drill down on the issues at hand.
I am really pleased with the third report, which came from the national defence committee, on having a secure and sovereign Arctic. I like how the report was organized. It started off by talking about the threats in the Arctic, climate change and its impact, the great power struggles going on that also pull in the Arctic, like the Russian threat, the threat from Beijing and how we might be able to overcome that.
Then it talks about what we are doing there from the standpoint of domain awareness and surveillance. It talks about the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, as we call it, and its modernization, as well as missile defence, which is very important. That is not just about ballistic missile defence but also other threats, such as cruise missiles and hypersonics, and what types of air defence systems we should have in Canada to defend the Arctic, as well as our coasts.
I will talk about readiness in the Arctic: the equipment, the personnel, the search and rescue, and the infrastructure. I want to drill down on the threat environment; all too often, this is one thing that Canadians do not think is at risk at all in the Arctic. We know for a fact that the People's Republic of China now sees itself as a near-Arctic state or near-Arctic power. It has great interest in having a northern passage to move its goods from Asia to Europe and the other side of North America, for that matter, the Atlantic side, and making use of the Northwest Passage to do it.
The PRC has more icebreakers now than Canada and the United States combined that are employed by our coast guards and navy. When we start talking about the heavy Arctic polar icebreakers, the People's Republic of China and the People's Liberation Army Navy have more than the United States and Canada do. That is a very strong indication of their seriousness about accessing the international waters in the Arctic, as well as fulfilling their own belt and road initiative. We know that, within the belt and road initiative, there is a policy called the polar silk road and using the polar silk road as a way to move more of the goods they need to sell and export out of China, as well as to bring more imports back. That transit through the Arctic cuts off over two weeks of what it takes if it needs to go through the Panama Canal. That interest is something we have to take very seriously.
We also know that the People's Republic of China's navy has been there doing surveillance. We saw in a report by The Globe and Mail on February 21 that, in fall 2022, under Operation Limpid, the Canadian Armed Forces retrieved a number of surveillance buoys that were floating in the Arctic Ocean. Retired General Joseph Day assumed that those buoys were there to watch over not just the transit of Canadian ships but submarines, etc., from our allies, especially the Americans, and monitoring their passage through the Northwest Passage and farther north through the Arctic. It has already been there dropping surveillance buoys, electronic surveillance with which it can collect all the data and send it back to Beijing.
In February, there were spy balloons over the Arctic from Beijing. One was shot down in Yukon. One went through Alaska to B.C. and across western Canada down to the United States, which was finally shot down. That one is still being completely analyzed to find out what information the PRC was picking up. Therefore, we really are concerned about what the interest is of the Chinese Communist Party in our Arctic.
Then there is the Russian Federation. We know about Putin's war in Ukraine and how bad it is. We all stand with Ukraine. Despite the rhetoric that comes from the other side, all of us in the Conservative Party stand with Ukraine. The only way this thing ends well is if Ukraine wins, so its sovereign territory has to be protected.
However, as Canadians, we can never forget that we are a neighbour to Russia in the Arctic. We are sharing the Arctic Ocean with Russia, which has a great interest in it. As a matter of fact, we remember a stunt from about 10 years ago when the Russians sent a mini-submarine to the North Pole and dropped a Russian flag on the seabed to claim it as their own. They have put in claims under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea claiming the entire Arctic seabed as their own, coming right up to within 200 miles of the continental shelf in North America. Right up to where Canada's economic maritime zone ends is what they are trying to claim as a Russian interest and what they want to develop. Of course, we can never forget that the Russians continue to fly fighter jets and Bear bombers into our airspace.
We must look at those threats and combine them with North Korea and its aspirations to have nuclear warheads. It is estimated right now by the Arms Control Association that North Korea already has 30 nuclear warheads and has enough fissile material to build another 50 to 70 nuclear warheads. If it ever accomplishes its intercontinental ballistic missile program, it will be able to reach out and touch North America.
This is why we have to take a very serious look at how we protect our Arctic sovereignty and protect Canada and our allies. We have to project our power and protect our Arctic. This is our backyard. Canadians see themselves as an Arctic nation, yet 95% of Canadians have never been to the Arctic. They expect us to protect it, and we better protect it. “Use it or lose it” is the way we often talk about our sovereign territory.
We also have to deter and defend. We have to deter those who want to attack us and defend our continent, not just Canada. We have a responsibility to the United States and our other continental partners to ensure that we are secure here at home. Maintaining continental security, being a trusted ally and being a neighbour and friend are things we have to do, and that is why NORAD modernization is so critical.
However, as we are looking to put all these dollars into modernizing NORAD, the Liberals just cut $1 billion from the defence budget. They have allowed $10 billion to lapse. The question is, how do we rebuild the Canadian Armed Forces? We are short 16,000 troops right now and have another 10,000 troops who are undertrained and non-deployable. How do we do that if we do not have the budget and we do not have the kit? We have to do more.
If we look at the recommendations that came out of this report, there is so much the government should act upon. We came to an all-party decision on all of these recommendations; it was a unanimous report. We need to make sure we have underwater surveillance capabilities in the Canadian Arctic. As in recommendation 2, we need new submarines that are able to go under the ice. How are we going to pay for that when we have a government that continues to cut from national defence? The best way to surveil and deter submarines, which is one of the biggest proliferation weapon systems out there right now, is to have submarines, and our old Victoria-class submarines are at the end of their life and there is no plan to replace them.
We need a partnership with the U.S. ballistic missile defence system. BMD is the way we can protect against things like the North Korean nuclear warhead threat. However, what about other air defences? How are we going to protect against cruise missiles and hypersonic missiles, which are now being proliferated around the world and could be used to attack Canada? We need to make sure we continue to have those discussions.
We have talked about upgrading NORAD with the over-the-horizon radar system, which has a big price tag. It is over $25 billion to put a couple of those in place. At the same time, what about updating RADARSAT? What about getting drones? We were promised in “Strong, Secure, Engaged” that the Liberals would buy new drones by 2025, and that has been punted down the road to at least 2028. We also need low-earth orbit satellites.
All the equipment and personnel we need to defend North America, protect our Arctic and secure our own sovereignty costs money, and the Liberals are not serious about investing in the Canadian Armed Forces or the Arctic.
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