[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Tuesday, May 7, 1996
.1048 
[English]
The Chairman: Order, please.
We have five witnesses this morning and we only have the usual hour and a half, so we'll have our usual introductory statements. These panel members will address the themes of trade and economic development and maritime transport. Thursday's panel will address legal sovereignty and security. You may want to look at that part of our research document for Thursday. From a research point of view, the information is contained in the part on trade, economic development and maritime transport.
Perhaps I'll ask the witnesses to speak in the order in which they appear on our agenda. We have Captain Patrick Toomey and Gerald Lock, who are here as individuals.
Captain Toomey, could you start?
.1050
Captain Patrick R.M. Toomey (Individual Presentation): Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, good morning.
I'm a former Canadian Coast Guard ice-breaker captain and I'm particularly interested in ice navigation. I'm certainly not against any kind of commercial development in the Arctic regions, as I feel that northern residents have as much right as anyone else to make a decent living in this modern age. I do believe, however, that there has to be some control over the way in which such development takes place, in view of the fragile nature of the Arctic ecology and the traditional lifestyles of the indigenous peoples.
In my opinion, commercial development of any nature, be it industrial or touristic, will increase transportation needs one way or another, much of it by sea. It is this increased sea traffic that concerns me most.
Even without significant commercial development in the Arctic, shippers are already looking towards shorter sea routes across the Arctic Ocean as a viable alternative to the long open-water routes, trans-Pacific through the Panama Canal and transatlantic. Anybody shipping from Japan or the northern part of the Pacific has only to look at the map and see that it's a much shorter distance if you go over the pole, not necessarily right over the pole itself, but through the Arctic Ocean. It's about one-third of the distance to Europe.
I believe that transit shipping can be expected to begin and to increase quite rapidly in the comparatively near future. I'm not talking about next year, but the next five or ten years.
Since I retired and became an ice-navigation consultant I have discovered that there is a very small reservoir of ice-navigation expertise in the world. Most navigators hardly, if ever, encounter ice in their voyages. Sometimes they're sent on one trip into the ice just for a few weeks or a few days and not even into Arctic ice, just into southern waters ice. That's all they get.
Navigating in winter ice in the Gulf of St. Lawrence is dangerous enough. Navigating in Arctic ice is extremely dangerous. It's not just difficult, it's dangerous. Arctic ice navigation requires a lot of skill and it requires well-found ships, well-prepared ships that can operate independently.
In my opinion, proper training to international qualification standards, examination for those standards, and certification for professional ice-navigator specialists must be established before such transits become commonplace.
We cannot have the situation that we have now in the Gulf of St. Lawrence where any old ship can come in, with any old people on board. They're asked if they would like to take an ice pilot but they're not obliged to, and the result is damage. In the Arctic this is multiplied tenfold.
The Arctic nations, the ones surrounding the Arctic Ocean - Russia, Canada, Norway, Denmark in place of Greenland, and the U.S.A. - must be prepared to supervise and assist such polar ocean navigation by the harmonization of standards with competency in ice navigation for the navigators and by standardization of ice classification for ships.
Right now each nation has their own standards of classification and to try to get them equal, to say which ship is equal to another ship, is almost impossible. They're working on it. All countries are working on it. But I feel it must be in place before this becomes commonplace.
There must be a means of enforcement of these international rules. It's all very well if you lay them down, but somebody has to supervise them. And shipping has always been a very independent industry. Shippers hate to be regulated and hate extra enforcement: it costs them money. But the trouble is that they will always try to get away with the absolute minimum, and in the Arctic the minimum has a horrible habit of multiplying.
.1055
At present Russia is the only one of the Arctic countries that has an ice-breaker fleet capable of operation in the Arctic Ocean. Nobody else has, not even us. Canada has no ice-breakers capable of routine operation in the Arctic Ocean, outside of the Canadian Arctic and Beaufort Seas, notwithstanding the one extraordinary voyage the coast guard ship Louis St. Laurent made to the pole in 1994, in company with and the assistance of the U.S. Coast Guard Polar Sea. This was a scientific experiment. They had all the time in the world to do it. Even so, they had trouble getting out. The Polar Sea was damaged.
Since the demise of the Polar 8 project, which was killed in 1990, there appear to be no plans in Canada to upgrade our ice-breaker fleet, or even to replace the aging fleet we have now. Unless Canada is to leave Russia in total control of the Arctic Ocean by default, I feel Canada should do something fast to get back into serious consideration as a player in the Arctic Ocean.
As a side note, the combined Swedish and Finnish Baltic Sea ice-breaker fleet, which has nothing to do with Arctic ice, is better equipped and more powerful than ours.
We should not miss the opportunity to take control of the situation. If Canada is going to opt out of ice-breaking, I'm sure the Russians, the Scandinavians, and even commercial interests might be interested in building ships capable of looking after Arctic Ocean navigation.
Polar navigation left purely to commercial interests to exploit, without government supervision and regulation, to my mind is a recipe for ecological disaster, and human disaster too. Witness to that is the amount of ice damage that happens in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, never mind the Arctic. Usually every voyage in the north, somebody gets damaged. In the Gulf of St. Lawrence somebody always gets damaged.
To date commercial shipowners have been remarkably reluctant to build ice-breaking cargo ships, with the notable exception of Canarctic, who run the MV Arctic very successfully. When the Russians were still under communist rule, they developed a beautiful class of multi-purpose carriers called the SA-15, which are Arctic class 3 ships and can operate independently in Arctic ice.
If this is going to be the case, independent ships working in the Arctic Ocean, Canada will have to make up its mind whether it's going to have ice-breakers capable of going to the aid of these ships - I don't say they have to be escorted from one ocean to the other, going to the aid of them - or else we will have to say, as they do in Antarctica... I go to Antarctica fairly frequently, and we are told down there that in case of disaster there is no rescue, you are on your own. We have to make up our mind which we're going to do, one way or the other.
The Chairman: Thank you very much.
One very quick question, just yes or no. My understanding was that most of those Russian ice-breakers were built in the former East Germany when it was part of their system.
Capt Toomey: No, very few of them in Germany; most in Finland. Finland has the reputation of building the best ice-breakers in the world, and it's well deserved. I've sailed in many of their ships.
The Chairman: Thank you, Captain.
Mr. Lock.
Mr. Gerald Lock (Individual Presentation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm going to offer my remarks in the context of the priority objectives we should pursue as we prepare to chair the Arctic Council, touching on many topics, in particular the two you mentioned in your introductory remarks. I'll focus them in two areas: first, the Arctic Council and its relationship to the International Arctic Science Committee, or IASC for short; and secondly circumpolar trade.
.1100
Turning first to the Arctic Council and its relationship to IASC, the International Arctic Science Committee, I'll make four statements here, and then, because of time limitations, say only a few brief remarks about each.
First, in my opinion, circum-Arctic cooperation is fundamentally compromised by Eurocentrism, and I come to that conclusion through my work with IASC.
I think everybody here knows about the Arctic Council, but perhaps not about the International Arctic Science Committee, so let me just say very briefly it's an overarching body, a kind of umbrella body, that purports to offer advice on Arctic science to whoever needs it, and I think that's a valid claim.
It's organized in two parts, and this is rather important. Its council, the membership of which comes from any country in the world that wants to work in Arctic science, currently has sixteen members. China was appointed just two weeks ago. It has the job of planning the science and implementing the science, if you like - doing the science.
On the other hand, there is a regional board consisting only of the eight Arctic countries. I represent Canada and happen to chair this board. Its function is very different from the council's. This is an important point. Its function is to ensure that IASC activities are consistent with the interests of the eight Arctic nations. That to me is a very important function. I'd like to say it discharges it well. I'm not able to do that, and I don't think that bodes particularly well for Canada.
For example, if you look at the structure of the eight countries, apart from Canada, Russia and the United States, the remaining five out of eight, and therefore numerically superior, are all Nordic countries, which tend by and large to vote as a bloc, and that's much as it is in the Arctic Council. So there are lessons to be learned here, because IASC has been in existence for six years, and I suspect some of its teething troubles will emerge in the Arctic Council. Therefore Canadian policy should reflect this.
But it's not just the Europe bloc versus the rest. I'm perhaps exaggerating there, but I'm really not, because those Nordic countries are either affiliated with the European community or are members of it, and therefore they, together with the European countries, constitute a very significant majority of the council of IASC and therefore dominate and dictate Arctic science policies, and the board can't do too much about that. As I say, I don't think this serves Canada's purposes particularly well.
You might say ``Well, this is science. What does this have to do with us?'' But in fact you can't do science in a vacuum. Science applied presumably has to be for the benefit of the people who sponsor the science, and therefore it should be geared to the socio-economic objectives of that society. It's clear that European socio-economic objectives will not always be congruent with our own, but if they dominate the agenda, then we have an obvious problem.
The second statement I want to make is to suggest that the Arctic Council must treat all three sectors of the Arctic equally to survive, and this follows from my first point. What we are considering in the regional board of IASC is to have a sort of tripartite executive representing each of the three regions, because the Euro-Nordic group represents 25% to 30% of the Arctic, leaving out most of it, half of which is Russian and half of which is North American.
So, for example, as we chair the Arctic Council, it might be prudent to appoint a vice-chair from Russia and a vice-chair from the Nordic countries and use that as an executive to ensure questions are dealt with in a fully circum-Arctic way before the agenda allows full discussions by the council. That's a suggestion.
The third statement I want to make is to suggest that Canada should insist that traditional knowledge complements scientific knowledge for any issue affecting Arctic residents. That seems an obvious statement in the Canadian context, but it's not a view that's shared by all Arctic countries, and it's certainly not a view that's shared by non-Arctic countries, which, as I say, may well control the agenda.
I don't want to get too philosophical, but how do we know whatever it is we know? How does mankind ever know anything? There are only three ways we know. We know by rational knowledge, we know through empirical knowledge, and we know through metaphorical knowledge.
.1105
Science is almost exclusively confined to the rational knowledge - not entirely, but it focuses there - whereas traditional knowledge takes part of empirical knowledge and part of metaphorical knowledge to do its thing. So if we do both, we have the total picture of human knowledge, which is what we ought to have. If we allow science to dominate and relegate traditional knowledge to an inferior position, I think that's philosophically wrong and socially unacceptable.
My fourth point under this heading is this. I would suggest that Canada insist that Arctic science be directed primarily towards the benefit of Arctic residents. Again, that seems obvious in an Arctic context, but again I say it's not a view shared by all Arctic countries and certainly not by non-Arctic countries.
For example, the scientists of the non-Arctic countries in Europe tend to think of the Arctic as some kind of laboratory. They go and do their thing in the Arctic and then return home at the end of the summer. From their point of view that's okay, but our point of view is that the Arctic is a homeland and we have to recognize the cultural implications of that.
Let me turn to the second major topic, Mr. Chairman, which is circumpolar trade. I have three statements I want to make here. The first is that the Arctic Council should seek to strengthen Arctic transportation and telecommunication networks. I don't intend to say much more about that in view of the presentation that's just been made with respect to Maritime transportation, but if you add to that aircraft transportation and telecommunication, it seems to me that's very important for us to facilitate trade, to look after security in the Arctic, and of course to facilitate the science on which we all depend.
The second statement I want to make is to suggest that the Arctic Council should explore an Arctic free trade agreement. You may recall that when NAFTA was floating around, the principal argument or certainly one of the big arguments was about the size of the market to the south of us. If you add up the GDPs of the eight Arctic countries, I don't know what the number is, but it's certainly several trillion dollars bigger than the U.S. market. This simple fact alone suggests that we ought to be looking at balance of payment studies between ourselves and the other seven Arctic countries as a bare minimum.
I think it might also help if that's done effectively to reduce some of the boycotts on northern products and some of the trade barriers that exist, for example, on fur bearing animals.
Thirdly and finally, Mr. Chairman, I want to suggest that cold region science and technology, especially in an environmental protection sense, should be promoted within government labs, industry, and universities throughout Canada. I say that not just to build on the achievements we've had in the past but to emphasize that there are very large markets there. We're a trading country and that's a natural thing that we ought to be doing and have done to some extent.
For example, if I can move from the North Pole to the South Pole very briefly, in Antarctica, in support of all the scientific research that's done every year, there's an expenditure or a market of about $500 million, and it must be greater than that in the Arctic. So this is a very significant market and we should exploit it.
I realize that this committee and governments in general have a limited ability to take an initiative like that, but it seems to me that if we could encourage government labs to do research in cold region science and technology, if we could encourage industry to take the risk and the initiative, perhaps through tax incentives, and if we could encourage our universities to develop programs and create students and graduates who are expert in that area, that would facilitate the development of a very natural market for us. The Europeans have recognized that market from the beginning and they're extremely active and extremely competitive. Perhaps we could take a lesson from them.
Thank you, sir.
The Chairman: Thank you very much for those helpful recommendations.
Our next witness is Mr. Luce, who is the president of the Canarctic Shipping Company.
Mr. Martin Luce (President, Canarctic Shipping Company Limited): Thank you,Mr. Chairman.
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to confine my remarks to two specific areas that reflect on my company's experience. I'll explain what Canarctic Shipping is and how it came into being as part of my remarks later on.
I want to deal with commercial marine shipping in Arctic waters and the technology that has been developed in Canada to support such shipping. It's difficult perhaps to appreciate the problems of shipping in Arctic waters while sitting here in this comfortable room, so I've brought along a few photographs, and with your permission, sir, I'd like to show these as illustrations as we go along.
.1110
To familiarize ourselves with the Canadian Arctic, this is basically our area of operation.
Today shipping in Canada's Arctic comprises two elements: the export shipment of mineral concentrates from two lead and zinc mines located at Nanisivik and also on Little Cornwallis Island - we're now looking at the area of Lancaster Sound - and the inbound movement of supplies and refined fuel products to these two operating mines, as well as about 28 Arctic communities. Export shipments out of the Canadian Arctic total about 350,000 tonnes each year and inbound shipments probably a little in excess of 200,000 tonnes. All of this trade is conducted on a north-south access, with none of the movements being tied to other circumpolar countries.
The two base metal mines currently operating in the high Arctic are expected to deplete their reserves early in the next century. Exploration is now being conducted in several locations, and new mines will likely replace the existing production with no substantial increase in future export shipping activity.
It is also worth noting that larger ships have recently been introduced into the export trade, thus reducing the overall number of vessel transits made during each navigation season. Inbound shipments of course will increase slowly to support growth as the north develops.
With one exception, which is our operation, shipping is generally tied to the open-water navigation season in August and September.
Outside of Canada, ice-capable shipping is used to move goods into Greenland and Russia in the main. Russia's known sea routes, as you've heard, are used to move goods to northern communities and into major rivers that flow north into the Russian Arctic Ocean. These provide a summer waterway to the vast interior of Russia. Timber and minerals move out through the same system.
The volume of commercial shipping in the Russian Arctic is probably two to three times greater than that in the Canadian Arctic. However, the Russian Arctic has huge untapped reserves of oil and gas. Several major new oil and gas fields are being examined for production, which will be exported by tankers. Any major resurgence in Arctic shipping therefore is likely to be centred on oil and gas development in Russia.
The shipbuilding capability of the Nordic countries, and indeed of Russia itself, is well placed to produce the large crude-oil tankers that likely will service oil development in northern Russia. Our Nordic neighbours, particularly Finland, have a long history of ice-breaker construction for the Russian market. In fact, the design of crude-oil tankers is already under way in Finland.
This is not a market Canada has been able to break into. Canada's role may be linked more to the support technologies that have been developed as a result of our Arctic shipping operations over the last 20 years.
I'd like to go back a little bit now. In the mid-1970s Canada embarked on an initiative to achieve excellence in navigating in ice-covered waters. As part of this initiative, the Canarctic Shipping Company was established as a joint venture between the federal government and private industry to build and operate an ice-breaking cargo ship called the MV Arctic.
Since 1978 the experience with this vessel has propelled Canada to a position of leadership in the development and use of computerized ice navigation systems that improve both the reliability and the safety of commercial Arctic shipping. The MV Arctic was built as a commercial vessel, but she has doubled as a research platform, a unique combination that has been used to support technological development.
The ship was upgraded in 1985 and converted to carry oil cargoes as well as dry bulk cargo. This was done to support a demonstration crude-oil production project, which came on stream in the high Arctic in 1985. This project will sunset this year, but it has provided ten years of valuable operating experience in shipping crude oil through the sensitive Arctic environment.
.1115
Using this hands-on experience, new operating procedures and standards have been developed in cooperation with the Canadian Coast Guard and tested, thus providing Canada with experience to be found nowhere else in the world.
To support its extended operations, the Canarctic Shipping Company has pioneered the use of remote sensing for navigation on ice. Satellite and airborne radar images of ice ahead of the ship are downlinked to computer systems on the bridge of the ship.
This picture generally shows the schematic of how the information is transmitted by communications satellite to a shore receiver and then back up by satellite to the ship itself.
As I said, satellite and airborne radar images of the ice ahead of the ship are downlinked to computer systems on board, where they provide an electronic road map of the ice. The display is linked to the ship's marine radar, gyrocompass, and global positioning system, allowing the navigator to plot and monitor the best track through the ice. This is particularly useful in the long period of Arctic winter darkness or in conditions of poor visibility. You have to relate to having to navigate in the north in heavy ice in this type of condition 24 hours a day.
The ice navigation system developed by Canarctic was introduced on commercial ships operating on the Gulf of St. Lawrence this past winter. Interest in the system has also been received from the United States and Russia, as well as a number of the countries active in Antarctica.
As a result of these improvements, MV Arctic sails into Nanisivik in northern Baffin Island in the middle of May of each year, unescorted, using only its own resources. To do this, it must break up many kilometres of ice, two metres in thickness. In March 1991 and December 1995 the vessel completed unescorted voyages to Deception Bay in Arctic Quebec.
This is a picture of the ship delivering fuel on New Year's Eve in 1995. This has demonstrated that year-round commercial navigation to this area of the Canadian Arctic is possible.
Canarctic is using its position of leadership to seek ties with circumpolar partners. The company has been working for some two years for the Inuit-owned Arctic Slope group in northern Alaska to develop shipping concepts to move high-quality coal from Alaska to Japan.
In Greenland a joint venture has been signed with KNI, the Greenland government-owned company responsible for oil supply. Under this agreement, MV Arctic is used to move oil into Greenland over the next three years.
Last year, KNI joined with Canarctic and Tapiriit Developments, a Canadian Inuit company, to form a new joint venture to enter the oil supply market in the Canadian Arctic. Ties have also been made with a partner in Russia, where a major project is under way supported by funds made available under CIDA's technical assistance program. This interesting project is a good illustration of the type of technical cooperation that builds a foundation for the future.
A Canadian geographical information system has been built for the Russian Arctic offshore. The system has been designed to store the vast collection of ice and weather observations that exist in Russia going back to 1890. When completed at the end of this year, this powerful GIS system will support resource development in the Russian Arctic offshore areas.
Through this joint development, we'll have access to Russian data for one-half of the Arctic Ocean. The next step surely must be to input the Canadian data and create a system that will have circumpolar applications for project planning, environmental monitoring, and ice forecasting.
Finally, Canarctic has closely monitored the environmental impact of its operation on northern residents and their traditional lifestyle. The company works in cooperation with local groups to document and minimize the effects of vessel operations on the physical Arctic environment.
We, in our way, have made a small contribution to Canada's very significant expertise in environmental impact assessment, which is one area in which Canada can certainly take the lead in circumpolar cooperation.
Thank you.
.1120
The Chairman: Thank you very much, Mr. Luce. It was very interesting.
From Unaaq Incorporated we have Kevin Knight.
Mr. Kevin Knight (Unaaq International): I'd first like to explain what Unaaq is. Unaaq is an Inuit-owned company, owned 100% by a share between Baffin Island and northern Quebec. It does two things: commercial shrimp fishing in the Arctic Ocean and international development leading ultimately to joint ventures with other indigenous groups around the world.
I'd like to thank the members of this committee and staff for the opportunity to make this submission, but I'd also like to state that Ms Sheila Watt-Cloutier, the vice-president of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, will be making an expanded presentation at a later date.
My comments will attend to three distinct areas of concern. The first deals with international agreements, such as NAFTA, GATT and the EU, and the barriers and opportunities they create for the northern economy. The second attends to northern business interests and the capacity of such interests to either overcome barriers or seize opportunities. The third and last concern will address trade and development programs and venues and the need for a clear focus on how such activities might be more accurately targeted on real needs for northern development.
The presentation is made with the view that many of the things we at Unaaq are interested in developing in relation to northern business are often done in a relative policy vacuum; are done in the absence of familiarity in the south, at many of the policy or programming tables, with northern expertise, products or services; or are done in the relative absence of an appreciation of the evolving nature of the realities of northern development.
While it is true that several new developments, such as the Arctic Council and the establishment of a circumpolar ambassador, offer promise, the important question to be asked is whether they will be supported to the degree necessary in order that they may effectively function and provide a meaningful service to northern development concerns. This, then, is but one of the many challenges facing this committee.
As for northern development, in 1992 the Inuit Circumpolar Conference at its general assembly gave birth to a new organization, the Inuit Business Development Council. This organization was created to deal with pan-Arctic economic development opportunities at a macro level.
In Canada's case, this has led to the establishment of a new joint venture corporation between the Canadian Inuit Business Development Council and a southern company, Frontac. The business at hand is the management of the northern warning system. From it will come northern employment and contract resources.
This has been but one of many undertakings or new northern businesses while many other initiatives are now being explored by the CIBDC in a wide variety of areas, and Mr. Axford will speak to these later.
However, at the ICC general assembly in 1992 another initiative was approved. This was the creation of an Inuit business directory. It was raised as a key concern because no such database currently exists in the north. As a result, it's very difficult to understand who is in business doing what with whom and by how much.
Obviously it's difficult for one region, then, to know the successes and failures of another, or of the joint venture opportunities that exist. Worse still, it is difficult for southern-based government programs to be fully aware of northern goods, services and expertise and to be able to embrace them in their policy and programming activities.
Without such knowledge, work in areas such as sectoral analysis, which in the south is the underpinning to trade and development, cannot be conducted with any sense of certainty, and programs and development initiatives cannot be based on a firm and well-recognized foundation.
To give one small example of what I mean, I'll turn to tourism, in particular to ecotourism. In Canada, as elsewhere in the world, ecotourism has become an increasingly important foreign currency-earner, so important in some cases that some nations perceive this sector as the most important hope for their economies. In Canada ecotourism has been embraced by federal and provincial governments, and we now have a national tourism strategy that deals specifically with ecotourism. Prospects look good and growth in this sector indicates that considerable revenues could accrue to Canada.
But what of the north? What of this region that possesses a unique environment and a very unique culture, and is the last frontier in the minds of many? Given that growth in ecotourism for Canada is rising, can we assume this will also occur in the north? Research tells us that German tourists, for example, are seeking out Canada and are seeking in particular an experience with indigenous peoples. Does this mean growth for the north? Not necessarily so. It's a leap in logic to assume that a growth in primarily southern-based statistics will, by connection, mean the same thing for the north. For the north, we do not know what the tourist wants with the same level of certainty that we have in the south. We are uncertain what they will pay to get it or even how adventuresome they are.
.1125
Once these things are better known, can we say for certain that the north can meet these demands with existing infrastructure and services? Without more accurate information, is it not then difficult to develop sustainable northern businesses in this sector?
Yet at Industry Canada we have a Canadian tourism strategy aimed at attracting ecotourism to Canada and to the north. The strategy was developed without the full involvement of northerners who have succeeded in this business of ecotourism and therefore without adequate attention to northern realities or to the need, perhaps, to attend to niche markets - not mass markets - for the north.
While many things in the north have changed considerably over the past years, has the north evolved in the same areas or at the same rates as the south? Has the northern economy been affected by the globalizing nature of national economies? Further, what barriers to development and opportunities have been created in the north in recent years and what are the ways and means of capturing these opportunities? Finally, what must be the policy positions vis-à-vis the barriers?
While major international agreements such as NAFTA are lauded by many, what is their real value to the north? In one instance it's clear that this agreement provides one thing while others, such as the Marine Mammal Protection Act, provide another. As it turns out, the two are in conflict.
For sustainable development to occur in the north and be supported in the south there needs to be a fuller understanding of the nature of economic development and the areas in which it can be supported rather than just the simple application of approaches specific to the south.
In part, northern development is driven by smaller interests and, to a significant degree, is on a east-west basis. Yet, while east-west markets exist, agreements such as the EU and its sub-agreements make such trade prohibitive in some cases.
Clearly, analysis of the agreements from the context of barriers and opportunities created in key sectors, and from the context of the way in which business and economic development is practised in the north, needs to be conducted. No such comprehensive work has been undertaken, yet it is the very thing that might help focus southern policy and programming.
While we at Unaaq perceive this work as essential, we are, however, in the development and facilitating business, and without relating such analysis to businesses themselves we would have done only half the work.
We know that there is an extensive array of goods and services and expertise in a wide variety of areas in the north, from cold-weather technology to art. We know also there are resources in the north, some of which are being developed, and others, like northern fur products, that need help in regaining world markets. Yet these products and services are not generally well known. Businesses generally operate with different economies of scale than in the south, and the level of expertise in both business and trade is generally less than in the south.
Without a clearer view of not only who is in business, but also of who is ready for meeting new opportunities, and who has been inhibited from development and why, it's exceedingly difficult to support broadly based, sustainable economic development. Examination of opportunities should also not be restricted to the circumpolar region alone.
In China, for example, a considerable portion of the country is cold-weather country. Why, then, should the Canadian International Development Agency not be accessing the expertise and skills of Canada's north? Why, also, should support not be provided by CIDA and others for linking Canadian indigenous peoples with those of the south, where similar experiences are in evidence and where long-term partnerships could occur?
In our case, Unaaq is endeavouring to transfer the shrimp fisheries model, now in its fifteenth year of operation in the Arctic Ocean. This Saturday we have officials going to Russia to endeavour to establish a joint venture and to apply the lessons we've learned in Canada.
However, Russia is so fraught with complications that we learn something new almost every time we go. Clearly, northern Canadians have a lot to offer to Russia. Yet we find that a clearer understanding of the problems and barriers by governments active in Russia is needed, and clear positions in Canadian policies need to be taken.
.1130
Finally, the last important aspect of the work we are intending to conduct is the examination of various trade and development venues of relevance to the north, both in Canada and beyond. Routinely we see trade venues such as trade missions, trade shows, conferences and the like, and yet most often these are driven by southern-oriented interests and products.
Again, for example, we know of many such venues for tourism, yet how many northern businesses are ready for the market they may attract with these major events? Are northern businesses familiar with the costs of preparing for and following up on these events and which are the trade venues where the best bang for the buck can be had?
Without understanding in the north, without having an appreciation for which businesses are ready for which kind of trade activity, and without knowing more about the match between size and scope of products and relevant markets, some of the trade activities are doubted and then fast drive away interests in the north in outward trade linkages and development. Support then must be provided for northern businesses in understanding and readying themselves for trade beyond the northern Canadian level.
Also, and once more, northern policy must be driven by a full and proper appreciation for the north and how it works, for the nature and scope of the businesses and developing interests that exist there, and for the barriers and opportunities that surround northerners. Anything less would be unfinished work and would demand both program and policy developers, as well as northern development interests, to make great leaps in faith; we would be expecting them to approach northern development without all of the necessary tools.
I applaud your work in this committee in this particular case. I understand how important and difficult your challenge will be, yet I'm hopeful that you'll find means by which a Canadian Arctic policy can be established, as well as provide the support needed for it to become a meaningful instrument for not only northern, but Canadian development interests.
Thank you.
The Chairman: Thank you very much, sir.
From the Canadian Inuit Business Development Council we have Mr. Axford.
Mr. Don Axford (Coordinator, Canadian Inuit Business Development Council): Thank you for giving me the opportunity to come to you today and to introduce the Canadian Inuit Business Development Council to you. That's rather a long name, so we usually refer to it as the CIBDC. It makes it sound a little bit like a bank, but I hope you'll let me use the acronym.
The CIBDC was created in September 1994, so it's only recently been established as a not-for-profit corporation under the Canada Corporation Act. It's federally incorporated by letters patent.
The objectives of the corporation are set out in the letters patent, and they are: to organize the members into a cooperative network to promote economic development and self-sufficiency in the Inuit regions and communities; to develop cooperative economic ventures among Inuit businesses in Canada; to develop economic cooperation, trade and business ties, much as a chamber of commerce might do in the south, among those Inuit corporations and businesses; to create opportunities for Inuit communities and their organizations and corporations to become meaningful participants in national and international economies, including the development of partnerships with other Canadian and international businesses, which is very important in the sense of linking what is often a northern productive capacity or delivery ability with southern expertise, technology, and the mass markets in the south, either moving goods into the north or back to the south; to create economic opportunities for individual Inuit, whether they're in partnerships or corporations; and to promote Inuit employment and training opportunities in cooperative economic ventures.
Again, promotion of Inuit in the business world is seen very much as a part of the objectives of the CIBDC, as is identifying areas where this might happen.
I might just mention that the members of the council aren't actually people; they're organizations. The organizations are the Labrador Inuit Association, as represented by the president, William Barbour; Makivik Corporation, which represents the Inuit in northern Quebec and is represented by its president, Zebedee Nungak; and Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated, which represents the Inuit in Nunavut, which will become a territory in its own right in 1999, if you've read the Nunavut land claims agreement and heard of all the developments in partition of the NWT. NTI is represented by its president, Jose Kusugak.
The fourth member organization is the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, which represents the Inuvialuit who live in the delta area of the Mackenzie River. You may know places like Inuvik, Tuktoyaktuk and Sachs Harbour.
.1135
Currently the IRC is represented by Robert Kuptana, the former president, but when we have our next meeting he will be replaced by the new chair of the IRC, Nellie Cournoyea. The presidents who represent the members on the council obviously live in places like Nain and Iqaluit and Inuvik. They have asked me to come here.
I undertake various coordinating activities for the CIBDC in Ottawa. In that capacity, I would explain or introduce the CIBDC to you. I wish one of them could have been here to do that instead.
I might hand out a pamphlet about the council, which you can keep. There's a map on the back of it.
One thing that you may not be aware of is that the Inuit are represented as aboriginal peoples by the different organizations that I've mentioned are the members of the council. Each of those organizations represents a land claim settlement region. That is because of the realities of Canadian political structures and institutions.
But the Inuit like to remind everybody that they in fact have one Inuit homeland. It's been divided up not of their liking, but of the implications of having provincial and territorial boundaries.
I don't want to address you for very long on this. I would like to mention four things though that the CIBDC is currently involved in and that may be of interest in the activities of the standing committee and in developing an Arctic foreign policy for Canada.
The first of these is that the key role of the CIBDC is to identify pan-Arctic business opportunities. I should emphasize the word ``pan-Arctic''. These are activities that would be within a region, either say on Baffin Island or within the area of the Labrador Inuit. They can do that themselves. They don't need a CIBDC or another level of complexity.
A great many opportunities are currently being pursued. If you go to the north, there's probably an Inuit business being set up every day. They are, in many cases, if not most cases, owned and controlled by Inuit, and many of the staff are Inuit.
They're in all kinds of areas, from delivering pharmaceutical products to communities to dealerships for earth-moving equipment to owning commercial buildings, shipping, airlines. You name it, there's probably an Inuit group setting up a business to take advantage of opportunities.
However, certain types of economic opportunities or entrepreneurial ventures mean that the Inuit themselves have to go outside their region to deal with other regions. It's another level where you get inter-jurisdictional complexities as well as having the different Inuit regions work out ways of communicating with each other, identifying those opportunities and pursuing them collectively. That's where the CIBDC can get involved and can help them.
Many of the business ventures, when you get to a pan-Arctic level, also involve non-Inuit firms from the south bringing in technological expertise or linking whatever you're doing with the larger international and Canadian markets. The CIBDC, I might emphasize, does not invest in or take an equity position in any of these ventures. All we do is coordinate the Inuit regional corporations or their development corporations in acting cooperatively and with a sort of focus to figure out how they will pursue an opportunity.
Last summer we met in Toronto and had a seminar in Inuit business development. It was the first time everybody had gotten together in a pan-Arctic way to discuss these issues. We zeroed in on four areas. I might just mention them to you.
There's transportation and communication. These are areas of potential business opportunity they could undertake on a pan-Arctic basis. Take transportation. For example, Makivik Corporation owns First Air. You probably hear it flying over the city every morning as the jets take off. There are all kinds of communication and transportation activities going on in shipping and aviation and in developments related to the new communications systems.
.1140
Tourism was the second area, which means the marketing of natural resources. That's everything from shrimp to caribou meat to furs and seal products and things like that, and how you can market that and work together. You may be able to have a small plant of some kind within a region or within a community, but if you try to serve a southern market, you often need a larger base of product and more-developed marketing tools and things like that.
The other area was mining, including building stone. The Labrador Inuit Development Corporation - you may not know this - now has a quarry and produces building stone. They do this in cooperation with Italian and German firms and Dutch boats, I believe. They ship it to Italy. It's polished and used on the facing of buildings. It's a remarkable development, and it shows what can be done in a small community that produces a world-class product.
Second, I might mention that the CIBDC is working on the production of a directory of Inuit businesses. We're doing this partly in cooperation with the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, which has developed - we applaud them for this - a federal aboriginal procurement policy. In order for the procurement policy to be applied, we have to know the aboriginal firms in Canada to which the policy would apply.
One subset of that would be the Inuit firms. We would like over the next year or so to develop a good list of those firms. Going along with that would be a list of the services they provide. All of that can be used to develop research and to tell us more about what businesses are set up in the north.
Third, one of the areas the CIBDC is very concerned with is for land claim obligations as set out in the land claim settlement agreements to be respected by Canada, by businesses operating in the north, and in the procurement, purchasing and contracting policies of either the provincial or the territorial governments.
CIBDC has reminded people at various times that they should not only respect these, because that's part of the constitutional framework of Canada, but that the Inuit are in fact very much prepared to pursue business opportunities to undertake these activities knowing that they would participate in both the risks and rewards of business ventures, and to pursue employment opportunities for Inuit in the north, and for Inuit to become involved in the management as well.
Fourth, I'd like to say that the Inuit are clearly reaching out to the circumpolar world and beyond. They are setting up businesses at a remarkable rate. The CIBDC does provide one way for the Inuit in a pan-Arctic way to gain an understanding of where businesses are being set up and what services or products are being provided in the north. It 's also for these businesses to reach out to see where the barriers might be to trade and development.
So if the CIBDC can help, we would like to work in cooperation with Unaaq, departments, or with parliamentary bodies such as this. Thank you very much.
The Chairman: Thank you, sir. Thank you all very much.
If I can just make an introductory comment before I turn it over to questions from members, this is the first concentrated group of evidence we've heard on what I would call primarily economic matters. I think perhaps if this committee can do something very worth while on this report, it will be if we can address the institutional framework within which sustainable economic development consists and what needs of the north can be done. That in itself could be incredibly important, particularly given the complexity of the international framework in which it operates.
Thank you. It's very, very helpful.
[Translation]
Mr. Sauvageau.
Mr. Sauvageau (Terrebonne): Thank you for your presentation, gentlemen. Listening to you, I made some notes and I have a few questions for each of you.
.1145
Mr. Toomey, given your experience in that field - I should say your experience on the ice - and considering the work of this committee with a view to submitting proposals to the Arctic Council, I have several questions concerning potential boundary problems. You mention problems concerning boundaries that are drawn either on the ocean or on the land.
Would you have some concrete and relevant proposals in order to solve these boundary problems? Would these be agreed to by the seven or eight circumpolar countries in the not-too-distant future, so that the council might reach concrete diplomatic solutions without resorting to defence or the armed forces?
What might be the role of the Arctic Council in all this?
[English]
Capt Toomey: The question of borders is very difficult because international navigation is greatly dependent on claims of territorial control over waters. You have economic zones, you have territorial water zones, and so on. Unfortunately, Canada claims the sectoral principle right to the North Pole. This claim is questioned by most, especially the Americans, who see it as a Canadian claim to sovereignty over the Arctic Ocean to the North Pole. Who owns what is going to have to be sorted out one way or another from a territorial point of view, but it can't be done unilaterally. There has to be an international agreement over it, the same as with any other dispute over territorial waters.
With international trade, in general, operating on the high seas is fairly well regulated. This is a major problem for Canada because ice navigation is so totally different to navigation on the high seas, what with the dangers involved in terms of losing the ship in the first place, of just damaging it, or of ecological disaster. The nations need to do something special to have an extra layer of regulations to control ice navigation. It's very difficult to get international agreement on anything like that to override what is already in existence and has been going for centuries for free, innocent passage.
The other problem comes with land claims, in that the Inuit regard the sea as an extension of the land. They walk on it, they drive on it, they fish on it - most of the year, it's just like the land. This causes another problem for international navigation inasmuch as we disturb their territory. This also has to be taken into account in the regulations that are going to have to be applied in terms of when and where you can go, and what you can do when you're there. Canarctic has already had this problem in the early trips into Nanisivik because as an inland fjord it's quite a long way in. It disturbs the hunting, it disturbs the people who are dispersed over the countryside during the winter, and this is another problem that has to be addressed.
I don't know if that answers your question.
The Chairman: It brings up a lot more.
[Translation]
Mr. Sauvageau: But this could soon be part of the Arctic Council's agenda.
[English]
Capt Toomey: I think it should.
[Translation]
Mr. Sauvageau: My second question is for the witness who is presenting the transparencies and who seems to be an expert in northern transportation. This question is somewhat technical and personal.
Have you considered using aerogliders over relatively short distances? Are there any northern countries with the same climatic and geographic conditions using this technology?
If so, why hasn't Canada, or even your company, opted for this type of vehicle?
.1150
[English]
Mr. Luce: The translation came through as ``aerogliders''. I assume we're talking about air-cushioned vehicles, ones that would ride on a cushion of air on top of the ice. They have been developed and tried in the Baltic Sea, with some limited success.
The vehicle that was developed in the Baltic Sea was brought into the Canadian Beaufort Sea for trials. Unfortunately, the ice in the Canadian Arctic is quite different from that in the Baltic. It was found the idea was not as successful in the Canadian Arctic basically due to the amount of ridging and rubble fields that we have in the ice in the north. The vehicle experienced extensive damage to the skirts. In fact the skirts were damaged and had to be repaired almost every time it was used, and it became quite uneconomical. So the idea has been tried.
The vehicles themselves are not large. Air-cushioned-vehicle technology has been used, for example, in cross-channel ferries between Britain and France, and I think the larger vessels probably take about 100 vehicles. They're not as large as, for example, the MV Arctic. That technology is still for fairly small volumes of trade - mainly passenger trade, in fact.
[Translation]
Mr. Sauvageau: On this folder that we were given, the southern boundary is not the same everywhere in Canada. It might be a printing mistake, or else a misconception, but why is the line a little farther to the south in Quebec than it is in the Northwest Territories? Is it a printing problem or a misconception?
[English]
Mr. Axford: No, it's not. In Quebec, under the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, there were two areas set out. One was the James Bay territory, where the James Bay Cree reside. The other is the area in which the Inuit of northern Quebec live - it's now referred to as Nunavik - for which the Kativik regional government was created. The line that separates the Crees from the Inuit is the 55th parallel. The line you see on the left, which is the southern part of the NWT, is the 60th parallel. So there is a difference of five degrees of latitude. Where the line was in Quebec had more to do with the boundary between the Inuit and the Crees than it did with the line separating the provinces from the territories. It's purely a political line in the west; it was just following the 60th parallel.
If you like to think of it in Quebec, it's generally where the tree line is. Behind the trees are the Crees. Where there are no trees, that's where the Inuit are. That's why the line is there.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. English): Thank you.
Mr. Penson.
Mr. Penson (Peace River): I notice that a number of panel members have talked about barriers to trade, particularly as they affect people in the Arctic. The example of fur, which I'm well familiar with, was given. The point raised by Mr. Knight, I believe, was that there is a conflict between NAFTA and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. I would like some comment on what that conflict is.
The other question I have pertains to page 3 of the Canadian Inuit Business Development Council statement. In the second paragraph it says: ``In the case of Canada's far north, with the introduction of national boundaries, new trade agreements have had to be reached.'' I don't understand that. I'd like a little clarification of what it means.
Mr. Axford: I might respond just to the comments about the Marine Mammal Protection Act and NAFTA.
.1155
NAFTA is aimed at freeing up trade between Canada and the United States. The impact of the MMPA is to impose certain restrictions on what kinds of products can come into the United States, based on views of the environment. For example, if Inuit harvest and eat a walrus and they have the bones and the tusks and the hide left, an artistic product or whatever made from that tusk can't go into the United States. It's a product from a marine mammal. A walrus is a mammal.
So you see an act that may be set up for good reasons acting as a non-tariff barrier to coming into the United States. Nobody has seemed to push this very much - I don't suppose there's a huge trade in walrus tusk artifacts or whatever - but it's the kind of thing you see in the north, where an act may act as a non-tariff barrier of one kind or another, stopping what seems to make a lot of sense, which is to use the whole animal. Certain whale products or other products can face similar barriers to the U.S. market.
Did you want to answer the other one?
Mr. Penson: It's the line underlined on page 3. You're talking about national boundaries.
Mr. Knight: I think it's more historical. Right now what we're talking about is national boundaries - for example, the trade that occurred historically between Greenland and in particular Baffin Island. With Greenland now being part of the Nordic countries, there are these national boundaries, which to some degree have altered this capacity to move back and forth, with a free flow of people, for example hunters, and so on. The agreements that surround those block arrangements - the EU, NAFTA, and so on - have created a change, or in some cases at least an inhibitor, for what used to be practised in the north.
In particular, one issue that is very much alive in the north is the free movement of people from one country to another, be they hunters or whatever else. One good example that used to exist was that if an Inuk in Greenland made a pair of fur boots for his cousin in Baffin Island, if he went to give them to him he was contravening a trade barrier and would be in violation. A lot of those kinds of issues are ones the Inuit in particular feel very personal about.
Mr. Penson: I guess we won't be changing national boundaries, so you're suggesting that we have to have special provisions there to deal with historical arrangements.
Mr. Knight: That's certainly one issue, yes.
Mr. Dupuy (Laval West): My question is to Captain Toomey and concerns RADARSAT. I understand that this was mainly a Canadian initiative, and I would like to know whether it is up to expectations, whether it is fully operational in the whole Arctic, and if Canada is still a leader in the running of the system.
Capt Toomey: As I understand it, RADARSAT is not fully up and running for everybody yet. There are very few ships that can actually get downlinks directly from it. It comes down to a central ice office here in Ottawa, and they use it now as a much more all-embracing ice reconnaissance than they could do before, which was all done by aircraft. They started with visual and then they got up into synthetic aperture radar, and now RADARSAT is an extension of that, because this can see through cloud and darkness and so on.
I'm not in Canadian ice-breakers any more. In fact I work in Russian ice-breakers now and I do my Arctic cruising aboard a ship called the Kapitan Khlebnikov, which was built in Finland in 1982 and is well equipped but does not have any expensive toys on it. We do not have any kind of RADARSAT. You can go on the same ship in the Antarctic and there is almost no ice reconnaissance. They are used to working from basic principles on that ship, and they really don't know and don't care.
.1200
RADARSAT is a big improvement on ice reconnaissance, but it's very hard for ships nowadays to get the expensive equipment to get immediate down-links. They usually use a product produced by somebody else.
Mr. Luce can probably explain what the MV Arctic has.
Mr. Luce: We've been quite involved with commissioning the RADARSAT satellite and getting the imagery out to commercial ships. In my presentation I showed a slide of the MV Arctic discharging fuel at Déception in very northern Quebec on December 31 last year. On the way in, the ship received a RADARSAT image to give it a clear picture of the ice in the entrance to the Hudson Strait. That was the first direct transmission of a RADARSAT image to any ship anywhere in the world.
We are working very closely with RADARSAT International to find markets for the RADARSAT products. Captain Toomey is correct: the satellite is still in a commissioning phase. The imagery should be commercially available later this year. With the expertise we have we see possible markets for not only RADARSAT imagery but also the ice reconnaissance and ice navigational expertise in Antarctica. Canarctic certainly is aggressively addressing this market.
So RADARSAT does push us ahead. It's a sensor that I think is going to allow Canada to maintain its leadership position in terms of ice reconnaissance and ice navigation.
Mr. Dupuy: Concerning your vessel in the Arctic, where was it built? Is it making money or losing money? Do you have plans to develop your fleet with similar vessels?
Mr. Luce: The ship was built in St. Catharines' Port Weller dry docks, in actual fact. It was also upgraded at that particular location in 1985.
As I mentioned during my presentation, the concept of the vessel was somewhat of an experiment at the beginning. It was partly research and partly for commercial application. We restructured the company on the operation in 1994 and we are making money. The company is economically successful.
In terms of future buildings, we've just completed a life extension, under Lloyd's Register, of the MV Arctic and have actually rolled the ship's age back to the equivalent of five years of age. So the ship still has at least another ten to fifteen years of useful life in it.
New ships have recently been built to support the mining activity in the north. They are operated by Fednav of Montreal, one of our shareholders. At this point we don't have any plans for new building. The business certainly isn't there in Canada to support new buildings at this point.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. English): Thank you very much.
[Translation]
Ms Debien.
Ms Debien (Laval East): I have a question for the two representatives of the business sector, people who, if I understood correctly, specialize in commercial transportation.
I'm very concerned about the upheaval suffered by the Arctic ecosystem, something that has already happened in the south. I believe that any sustainable development should promote above all the interests of the people who live in the north while preserving their environment and their cultural heritage. This should be a very important aspect of any discussion concerning business in the Arctic.
As you can see, my concerns are principally with the people who live in the north and not with the businesses.
In your opinion, what kind of a priority should Canada attach to the development of a potential surge in circumpolar economic and commercial cooperation and, compared to other countries, what are our strengths or advantages in order to promote a type of trade that would be sustainable and benefit the northern community?
.1205
[English]
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. English): Who would like to respond?
Mr. Luce: That's a large question, a very broad question. A theme that's run through most of the presentations has certainly been transportation. I think Canada does have a lead in terms of transportation in the north, certainly in the airline industry. I know I'm representing the shipping industry, but I think we can be proud of the airline industry that's been developed in Canada's north. Greenland, as an example, has nothing to compare with it, and I don't think Russia has either.
Because of the vastness of the north, we don't have a road system. There are limited roads, so most of the bulk commodities have to move in and out of the north by shipping. While Canada doesn't have a very large fleet of ships that service the north, I think we have a good fleet of ships, and there's been very useful experience gained over the years.
I agree that one has to be aware of protecting the environment in the north and of sustainable development. I think a lot of effort in Canada has been placed on studying the impact of shipping on the northern environment. Certainly as part of our operation, we've spent many years conducting studies of the mammals and the impacts of ship noise and ice-breaking, for example, on the mammal population in the north, as well as the transportation of the northern residents.
Captain Toomey mentioned the problem of the Inuit looking on the sea as an extension of the land for at least nine months of the year, because that's the period when it's covered with solid ice. When we go in early in the season and break that ice, it disturbs the over-ice travel. A lot of work has been conducted in Canada looking at that problem and finding ways of mitigating the impact on the traditional Inuit way of life. They have to cross the ice to get to the spring hunting grounds at the ice edge.
I think the assets we have are our know-how and our technology. In terms of looking at what role Canada can play in fostering economic and commercial growth in the circumpolar area, I think we need to look at our strength, which I believe is our experience and our technology, of which RADARSAT is a prime example, and use that technology to assist other circumpolar areas. This is not just in the north; we're even looking at Antarctica now because we see there's certainly a great need there for the transfer of that type of technology.
I mentioned the Russian project we were involved with, which is also a good example of the transfer of technology. We are at the forefront of GIS technology in Canada, and that project was really to transfer Canadian GIS technology to Russia, which has no GIS technology, and to train Russians in its use. It so happens that it's being applied to assist Russia in understanding and being able to plan for development in its north.
I don't know whether that answers your question.
[Translation]
Ms Debien: I don't know whether it was you or your colleague who mentioned two mines located in the high Arctic and that are on the verge of becoming depleted. This is a matter of great concern to me and what I'm seeking is some clarification. Where does the high Arctic start? Where are these mines located? Which one is about to be depleted? What kind of mining operation are we talking about and what are its effects on the environment?
[English]
Mr. Luce: It's difficult to interpret. I'll just orient you on this map, and then I'll put the other map up, because I think it's easier on the eyes.
This is Baffin Bay and this is Lancaster Sound. This is Baffin Island, and one mine, the Nanisivik mine, is located right here in this fjord that Captain Toomey mentioned. So one mine is there. The other mine is on Little Cornwallis Island. This is Resolute, and Cornwallis Island is this island here. Little Cornwallis Island is this small speck to the northwest. That's where the second mine is located.
While I have the map out, the crude oil production is coming out of this island here, Cameron Island, right up in the high Arctic islands. By the way, this chart represents the regulatory framework in existence in the Canadian Arctic. Each of these numbered zones represents a differing regime of ice severity for navigation purposes. Zone 1 is the most difficult ice and zone 16 is the easiest.
.1210
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. English): So the numbers are the levels of difficulty.
Mr. Luce: That's correct.
[Translation]
Ms Debien: It might be a matter of translation. The translator talked about an oil mine. Is it really what you said, an oil mine?
[English]
Mr. Luce: No, it's an oil production site. It's not a mine for petroleum. It is a producing well in the Canadian Arctic. As I explained, an experimental project has been run by Panarctic Oils Ltd. It will cease operation this year, but has given us ten years' worth of experience of shipping limited quantities of crude oil out of the Arctic islands.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. English): Mr. Dupuy.
Mr. Dupuy: I understand that there have been very significant natural gas discoveries in the Arctic. There were even plans at one stage to have the liquefaction plants there and transport either to the United States or Europe by tanker. I suppose the energy situation of the world has postponed these plans. Do they still exist? Are they still on the horizon? This would mean a significant increase in maritime traffic.
Mr. Luce: Yes. The larger gas deposits are on King Christian Island, which is right in the middle of zone 1, the most difficult ice area. In the mid-1970s there was a proposal called the Arctic Pilot Project to bring some of the gas down to Melville Island, liquefy it and send it to markets in Europe. That has never been pursued. I think with the current energy market, as you say, it's certainly not viable. There are now vast reserves of gas easily accessible in the Russian Arctic as well as in southern Canada. I think the bloom has certainly gone off Canadian Arctic energy as a source, certainly in my lifetime.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. English): Are there any other questions or comments? If not, I'd like to thank the witnesses today, who have made excellent presentations that will greatly assist us in our work. On behalf of the committee, I'd like to thank you for all of the information you've given us today.
The clerk has asked me to make one final announcement for the committee. The business meeting scheduled for this afternoon has been deferred to Thursday, May 9, at 11 a.m. We'll sit from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. and then we'll do the other business from 11 a.m. to noon.
This meeting is adjourned.