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37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION
Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade
EVIDENCE
CONTENTS
Tuesday, June 10, 2003
| ¿ | 0910 |
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The Chair (Mr. Bernard Patry (Pierrefonds—Dollard, Lib.)) |
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Mr. Ernie Regehr (Executive Director, Project Ploughshares) |
| ¿ | 0915 |
| ¿ | 0920 |
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The Chair |
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Dr. James Fergusson (Deputy Director, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, University of Manitoba) |
| ¿ | 0925 |
| ¿ | 0930 |
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The Chair |
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Mr. Deepak Obhrai (Calgary East, Canadian Alliance) |
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Mr. Ernie Regehr |
| ¿ | 0935 |
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Mr. Deepak Obhrai |
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Mr. Ernie Regehr |
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The Chair |
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Ms. Francine Lalonde (Mercier, BQ) |
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Dr. James Fergusson |
| ¿ | 0940 |
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Ms. Francine Lalonde |
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Dr. James Fergusson |
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The Chair |
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Mr. John Godfrey (Don Valley West) |
| ¿ | 0945 |
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Dr. James Fergusson |
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Mr. John Godfrey |
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Dr. James Fergusson |
| ¿ | 0950 |
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The Chair |
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Ms. Alexa McDonough (Halifax, NDP) |
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The Chair |
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Ms. Alexa McDonough |
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Dr. James Fergusson |
| ¿ | 0955 |
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The Chair |
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Mr. Ernie Regehr |
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The Chair |
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Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan (York North, Lib.) |
| À | 1000 |
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Mr. Ernie Regehr |
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The Chair |
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Dr. James Fergusson |
| À | 1005 |
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The Chair |
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Mr. Leon Benoit (Lakeland, Canadian Alliance) |
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Dr. James Fergusson |
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Mr. Leon Benoit |
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Dr. James Fergusson |
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The Chair |
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Mr. Ernie Regehr |
| À | 1010 |
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The Chair |
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Ms. Aileen Carroll (Barrie—Simcoe—Bradford, Lib.) |
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Dr. James Fergusson |
| À | 1015 |
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Mr. Ernie Regehr |
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The Chair |
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Mr. Claude Bachand (Saint-Jean, BQ) |
| À | 1020 |
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Mme Francine Lalonde |
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Mr. Ernie Regehr |
| À | 1025 |
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The Chair |
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Mrs. Karen Redman (Kitchener Centre, Lib.) |
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The Chair |
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Dr. James Fergusson |
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Mr. Ernie Regehr |
| À | 1030 |
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The Chair |
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Ms. Alexa McDonough |
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The Chair |
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Dr. James Fergusson |
| À | 1035 |
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The Chair |
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Mr. Murray Calder (Dufferin—Peel—Wellington—Grey, Lib.) |
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The Chair |
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Dr. James Fergusson |
| À | 1040 |
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The Chair |
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Mr. Ernie Regehr |
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The Chair |
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Mrs. Cheryl Gallant (Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, Canadian Alliance) |
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The Chair |
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Mr. Ernie Regehr |
| À | 1045 |
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The Chair |
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Dr. James Fergusson |
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Mr. Art Eggleton (York Centre, Lib.) |
| À | 1050 |
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Dr. James Fergusson |
| À | 1055 |
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The Chair |
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Mr. Ernie Regehr |
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The Chair |
CANADA
Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade |
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EVIDENCE
Tuesday, June 10, 2003
[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
¿ 
(0910)
[English]
The Chair (Mr. Bernard Patry (Pierrefonds—Dollard, Lib.)): With your permission, we have to start.
Our order of the day, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), is consideration of missile defence.
We have as witnesses this morning two professors. We have Mr. Ernie Regehr, who is the executive director from Project Ploughshares. From the University of Manitoba, we have Mr. James Fergusson, deputy director, Centre for Defence and Security Studies. Both have already appeared many times in front of our committee.
Welcome to both of you.
We'll start with Mr. Regehr, please. The floor is yours, Mr. Regehr. Welcome.
Mr. Ernie Regehr (Executive Director, Project Ploughshares): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate very much the opportunity to address the committee on this important project.
I've left a copy of the paper, which has a bit more detail in it, with the clerk, and I would be pleased if it could be made available to the committee.
My remarks begin with the assumption that a ballistic-missile-borne threat is real. The search for protection from that peril is an urgent imperative. It's appropriate for Canada to discuss with the United States ways to mitigate that threat. But it does not make sense to confine these discussions to ballistic missile defence, in essence, a single experimental program. If Canada is to engage with the U.S. on the nuclear missile threat, it should be on the broad question of how best to reduce the nuclear dangers we face.
My focus will be to suggest some questions and issues that should be central to the Canada–U.S. discussions occasioned by American ballistic missile defence plans. The first set of issues revolve around space security and three subsets of that.
The first subset is on weapons in space. The concern that U.S. ballistic missile defences will inevitably involve the testing of weapons in space is real and widely shared. A great deal of expert opinion is skeptical about the feasibility of actually deploying a credible weapon system in space, but the United States is explicit in claiming the prerogative to weaponize space and thus to break the global norm of preserving space for peaceful purposes. The missile defence agency reports that its pursuit of boost-phase interceptors will initially focus on land- and sea-based interceptors, but that eventually interceptors are to be deployed on satellites in low earth orbit.
Development of space-based kinetic energy interceptors is to begin in fiscal year 2004. The agency's 2004-2005 budget projects the deployment of a weapons test-bed in space by the year 2008, with the initial on-orbit testing to commence with three to five satellites in the 2008-2009 period.
This is a familiar red-line issue for Canada. Foreign Affairs Minister Graham has told the House of Commons that current U.S. plans have nothing to do with the weaponization of space. There is a straightforward, internationally supported way to test that proposition. The United States simply needs to agree to talks at the Geneva-based Conference on Disarmament, leading to a space weapons ban that's on the agenda of the CD, before proceeding further with BMD deployment.
Then there is the question of anti-satellite weapons. Space security is more than assuring the non-weaponization of space. There is also an imperative to preserve space as an arena in which wars will not be fought. Unfortunately, whether or not space weapons are actually deployed, the deployment of a BMD system could be a decisive move toward converting space into the kind of combat zone envisioned by some Pentagon planners, involving combat into space, from space, and within space.
BMD interceptors, whatever their likely rate of success in intercepting ballistic missiles, are effectively also anti-satellite weapons. While the interceptors that will be deployed in 2004 and the foreseeable future will have limited capacity as missile interceptors—the proponents themselves say that—they will have a more advanced capacity against other satellites that make a more predictable target. What is to be deployed in 2004 might really be more accurately described as the world's first deployed anti-satellite system.
ASATs, as they're known, are not explicitly prohibited in laws. A variety of legal instruments do exist to prohibit interference with other states' satellites used for disarmament verification, or for activities in the peaceful exploration and use of outer space.
Canada should, in the context of its BMD discussions, make it clear that Canada also regards anti-satellite weapons as contrary to the global norm of preserving space for peaceful purposes. A minimum step toward preserving that norm would be U.S. cooperation in pursuit of a multilateral agreement confirming a ban on all ASAT testing and deployment.
¿ (0915)
Then there's the space environment. Weapons in space and the prospect of fighting in space, quite apart from their strategic implications, would have serious consequences for the space environment. Even testing mid-course interceptions of ballistic missiles within the low-earth orbit range could generate space debris that would continue to orbit for significant periods, endangering vital low-earth orbiting communications and other satellites. The destruction of satellites in higher orbit would result in permanently orbiting debris. As you will know, space traffic monitors already have to track thousands of pieces of space junk.
There is an urgent need for improvements in the management of space to prevent the replication of the most destructive elements of terrestrial military behaviour in the fragile space environment, an environment that ought to be and must be preserved as a global commons.
A second set of key issues relates to the U.S. nuclear strategy. Since Canada has now agreed to talks on BMD, it should ensure that the discussions seek explicit clarification and disavowal of those elements of the U.S. national security strategy and nuclear doctrine that appear to assert the prerogative to use, or threaten to use, nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states.
The United States claim that it must maintain nuclear use options against non-nuclear-weapon states like Iraq, Iran, Libya, and Syria is a dangerous and provocative assertion of a right that it denies all others, a right that has no basis in law and flies in the face of explicit treaty commitments.
The point is relevant in the context of ballistic missile defence discussions, inasmuch as it belies the claim that BMD is a defensive system. Shields may be protective, but linked to swords, they are part of an offensive and provocative system. The U.S. ballistic missile shield program, which Canada is now considering making its own, is being aggressively linked to an ever-sharpening nuclear sword.
The United States continues to explore new generations of nuclear weapons, notably theatre weapons designed for use against targets and non-nuclear states. The result is to make the acquisition of a nuclear deterrent all the more attractive to countries in a state of enduring conflict with the United States. In other words, U.S. strategy contributes to the proliferation pressures that it says require a BMD response.
Again, the solution is simple and already the subject of international agreements. Canada should thus remind the United States that a simple way for it to dispel much of this proliferation pressure would be for it to disallow the pursuit of new weapons by ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the CTBT, and by an unambiguous recommitment to the negative security assurances mandated by the Security Council in 1995, by which nuclear weapon states declare they will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, we need to recognize the centrality of non-proliferation diplomacy in reducing nuclear dangers. U.S. BMD enthusiasts insist that their system will only be effective against a very limited threat. In other words, BMD depends on successful non-proliferation diplomacy. The more ballistic missiles there are, and the more diverse the geographic location, the more difficult it is for BMD to defend against them. It follows that successful non-proliferation efforts are a key to the success of BMD as well.
The other side of that coin shows how easy it will be for states to frustrate the effectiveness of BMD. If the ballistic missile threat is not effectively contained, any BMD system will be easily overwhelmed. Thus, for those states with an interest in posing a threat to the United States, the answer is obvious. If they have the capacity to acquire a ballistic missile attack capability at all, they will not find it a major challenge simply to expand the number of attack missiles available.
The BMD proponents will argue that the appropriate response to such an escalating threat is more effective BMD technologies and a credible deterrent, all of which is another name for the arms race that they tell us will not be a consequence of BMD deployment.
¿ (0920)
The United States and Canada should have a shared interest in effective non-proliferation diplomacy. If such diplomacy were sufficiently successful to limit the missile threat to levels that are amenable to BMD interception, Canada might logically suggest to the United States that rather than spending hundreds of billions of dollars in response to a minimal threat—a response that could never be 100% successful—those resources might be better spent on additional disarmament, non-proliferation efforts, and the myriad of other threats to human security that claim large numbers of victims on a daily basis.
In conclusion, therefore—I won't go into some comments on NORAD, we'll leave those for the discussion—we need to remind ourselves that mitigating the nuclear missile threat requires a broad range of responses. It requires the banning of weapons in space, a ban on ASATs, a space security and management regime, a disavowal of nuclear-use strategies, ratification of the CTBT, reconfirmation of negative security assurances, and a recommitment to non-proliferation diplomacy.
Without these measures, BMD won't work, in any event. With these measures in place, the pursuit of BMD becomes superfluous, or at best a relatively benign, if still obscenely expensive, technological experiment.
[Translation]
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Regehr.
[English]
Mr. Fergusson please.
Dr. James Fergusson (Deputy Director, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, University of Manitoba): Thank you very much. It is a pleasure to be here this morning.
I'm going to keep my comments very brief for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is--as I believe some of you may be aware--that I spoke to the Standing Committee on National Defence two weeks ago, and some of my comments about the issues of Canadian participation in the U.S. missile defence are on the record in that committee.
Basically, what I wanted to focus on is what I would call the general confusion about the debate surrounding U.S. missile defence plans, U.S. strategic thinking today and for the future, and Canadian participation in missile defence for North America. This confusion is the product of the mixing of two separate debates.
One debate, which my colleague has largely spoken about, is the debate on U.S. strategic plans, looking at issues of U.S. policy projections, thinking, and development, etc., in the area of outer space, in the area of strategic doctrine, strategic thinking with regard to nuclear weapons and broader forestructure--conventional military forces and the like--and of course the related issues of non-proliferation and negative security guarantees.
That is what I would call the international debate on missile defence, trying to examine how missile defence fits into this equation. I would add here that I think it's very important that this committee at some time in the future take a very close look at the whole issue of outer space, separate from missile defence, because much of outer space is separate from missile defence. And it's important not to confuse, even though there is overlap, the issue of missile defence itself and issues of space control, outer space, and defence and denial relative to a variety of issues and political, civilian, and commercial interests with regard to outer space.
In this sense, that debate, the debate of weaponization, the debate of the international strategic, is the larger American debate. And historically in Canada we have tended to focus upon the American debate, to the loss, I think, of an important understanding of the Canadian debate. Because the Canadian debate--and let me focus the remainder of my comments on the Canadian debate--is really not about that, at least not in the current form or issue that confronts Canada, which is the simple issue of Canadian participation in a part of U.S. missile defence plans.
It's important to understand and to have it very clear that the issue confronting Canada is negotiating Canadian involvement in one component of much broader U.S. missile defence developments. This component, of course, is the ground-based system that is earmarked to deploy or become operational in an emergency capacity some time next year at Fort Greely, Alaska, and Vandenburg Air Force Base in California.
The issue confronting Canada is the relationship between this operational development, this one segment of U.S. missile defence plans, and the issue of the future of NORAD, particularly the assignment of command and control for that system relative to NORAD, if Canada negotiates and agrees, versus Northern Command, which will make it a U.S.-only command. It does not include discussions or negotiations about Canadian involvement in other aspects of the Laird U.S. missile defence system. That system includes future deployed naval systems, ground-based systems, air-launched air systems, the airborne laser system, and possibly in the future space-based systems, depending upon how you read the tea leaves of the current U.S. political debate--the current U.S. policy debate--on the question of weaponization of outer space as it relates to missile defence.
In other words, Canada is negotiating participation in only one simple component, and this component refers to the assignment of command and control. Other issues about Canadian involvement are not, as far as I understand, on the table or open for Canada's involvement. This is particularly important when we consider the issue of space. Space is entirely separate from Canadian involvement right now. Space is entirely separate from NORAD by virtue of one decision made last year, which was the decision on the part of the United States in its unified command plan to separate space command from NORAD and assign space command and merge it with strategic command located in Omaha, Nebraska.
Strategic command has the mandate for space and all elements of space.
¿ (0925)
NORAD's involvement and our participation simply would be as a supportive command, as it is right now, being supported by data or information for early warning and tracking purposes from U.S. space-based assets. That is the end of what Canada is negotiating to be involved with relative to missile defence, and in particular, the future of that mission for NORAD, and in turn, the future of NORAD's role, functions, and interests in Canadian terms.
Space is not on the table, and it's presumptuous of Canadians to believe that space would even be put on the table, even if Canada thought differently. The United States is not trying to trap Canada into space. The United States is fully aware, in my view, of longstanding Canadian policy on the weaponization of space, and has for all intents and purposes separated it out from the issue of continuing cooperation on the aerospace defence of North America, which is what we're asking to participate in--what they are thinking, or we are thinking about participating in.
Let me conclude by pointing out one thing very clearly. What will evolve.... And I'm very confident that Canada, at the end of the day, will participate. This is no different from Canada's longstanding relationship through NORAD to strategic command, or what was formerly known as strategic air command in the United States.
For decades NORAD has provided ballistic missile early warning and threat assessment to both national command authorities. In the case of the United States, the President of the United States or his designate would take that threat assessment in the case of ballistic attack on North America and make decisions regarding the potential of U.S. strategic nuclear forces.
We had no role to play in issues of U.S. strategic nuclear forces. That was completely out of the umbrella or the ambit of NORAD. Similarly, no matter how the debate goes with regard to other elements of strategic doctrine development and thinking in the United States with regard to the weaponization of outer space, issues concerning whether Canada is or is not able to influence those debates independent of NORAD are independent of NORAD and are independent of Canadian participation, in my view. Regardless of all those things, what Canada is looking at, what is open to Canada, is continuing aerospace defence cooperation, aerospace surveillance and control. It is in the current interest of Canada to continue cooperating with the United States, independent of other developments in American strategic thinking.
I'll leave my comments there. I'm happy to answer many of the questions I'm sure you have with regard to either of the two debates.
Thank you.
¿ (0930)
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Fergusson.
Before we have a question and answer period, I just want to tell the committee that after tabling the African report on Thursday morning, there will be a press conference at 11 a.m. in the national press theatre. I have asked Mr. Cotler to head up the press conference. I just want to warn my colleagues.
Now we'll go for five minutes of questions and answers. Mr. Obhrai is first, please.
Mr. Deepak Obhrai (Calgary East, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you to both the witnesses for coming and giving us a different perspective on this issue.
About three weeks ago I had the opportunity with some of my colleagues from the other side to go to NORAD for a briefing to see first-hand how things are working in NORAD, the importance of the missile defence system to Canada, and how the whole NORAD operation works. It was quite an interesting learning experience, and it really convinced me of the importance of Canada being at the table.
Let me ask a question of Mr. Regehr.
Canada has historically been the voice of caution and reason in our relationships with the U.S.A., whether in trade or any other issue. Canada has on many occasions, when I've been there, worked with the U.S. to bring other voices that have spoken internationally to the ears of the administration.
Recently, through the Iraq war, and now, if we were not to participate in the missile defence system--fortunately we are, after the announcement--we would lose that reasoning with the U.S.A. We would have no voice with the U.S.A. We would be marginalized in future relationships with the U.S.A. and lose that important clout. We don't have an economic clout; this is the only clout we have for cooperation with the U.S.A.
Now, in all your assessments--and assessments made in the past by those who were opposed to the missile defence system--it has been what you just said: the arms race, the weapons in space, and diplomacy. Aside from the issue of weapons in space, which James articulated very well--and we can discuss that down the road as a voice of reason to ensure what even you said out there.... However, from what I understand, in the last 30 or 40 years, we've had international agreements, we've had diplomacy working at its best, and today, as we stand, there are more countries that have the nuclear capacity to be a threat than there were 15 or 20 years ago. If I'm not mistaken, there are now 30 countries that have the technology to pose more threat than there was before, which would indicate to many of us that the diplomacy and international agreements have failed. There may have been little successes here or there, but looking overall, it seems to have failed. Hence there is this debate going on over whether we should have a missile defence system.
The argument coming from you about a different system tying into this is something I would say we would have to revisit, and it should not form part of the missile defence system. What would be your view on that?
Mr. Ernie Regehr: Thank you very much.
The separation of the missile defence system into one little category that is separate from all other issues simply doesn't face the reality of the situation. The ballistic missile defence system you're advocating or pursuing, by its own definition, by its own intention, is designed to address very isolated missile attacks. It doesn't address, as you know, any of the Chinese or Russian missiles; it has no capacity against that whatsoever. The Pakistani, Indian, and Israeli missile systems are dangerous in their own particular context.
For the ballistic missile defence system that you expect to be successful, the threat needs to be at a very minimum. There can be only a very small number of weapons that can be a threat. So you should be the most concerned of all about making non-proliferation diplomacy successful, because without it, ballistic missile defence has no role to play whatsoever. It only works if it's very limited. In fact, it has been kept limited over the years. There is no state, other than the traditional nuclear weapon states, that has the capacity to threaten the North American mainland. Sure, there are countries like Brazil, and there are a variety of countries that have the technology and could do it--
¿ (0935)
Mr. Deepak Obhrai: But most countries will have the technology to do it, possibly, in the future.
Mr. Ernie Regehr: The additional point is if all of the countries that have the technology to threaten us with ballistic missiles did so, then ballistic missile defence would have no impact on that whatsoever.
The only credible option that we have available is continuing to persuade those countries that have the technological capacity not to choose that option. That's fundamentally a diplomatic endeavour.
[Translation]
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Regehr.
Ms. Lalonde, the floor is yours.
Ms. Francine Lalonde (Mercier, BQ): Thank you both. Mr. Fergusson, you said it would be presumptuous of Canadians to believe that the debate on space would be put on the table. But Mr. McCallum said that Canada must take part in these discussions to influence the United States. You have just illustrated the futility of Mr. McCallum's argument that it would be much better to be inside the tent.
[English]
Dr. James Fergusson: Thank you. I think that's a very important question, and it echoes the question by the previous parliamentarian on the issue of influencing the United States.
It's very difficult for any nation, not just Canada, to be able to influence the United States. It's no different, I would suggest to all of you, from the problem of any nation influencing Canada. There are a variety of political and domestic factors that affect the way political debates policy is developed in any nation, and of course they may be more pronounced because we pay more attention to Washington than we do to any other country in the world.
Let me put it this way. I would agree with you. I don't think that being inside of NORAD, being in on missile defence, is going to have any significant impact upon influencing the debate inside Washington, inside the Beltway, between the Pentagon, the State Department, all the think tanks, and within Congress.
NORAD, of course, is far away, and it has its own ideas, and the Canadians and the Americans have separate ideas as well. So to suggest that these officials in NORAD and thereby Canada, particularly when the level of knowledge in the United States within the Beltway of what Canada does and does not do is not very high, as we all know.... And I don't mean that in a pejorative sense, because sometimes the level of knowledge about Washington is not very high in Canada either, but certainly the idea that we're going to be able to leverage NORAD into actually influencing the outer space debate in Washington I think is somewhat misguided.
But--and here is I think the most important but--what NORAD gives us by being in on missile defence is the continuation of that key ballistic missile early warning tracking and command and control role, the addition of the command and control role for the ground-based system. In so doing, Canada maintains what the Americans love to call a need to know about bigger developments, other developments that are going on. We need to know what's going on in outer space. We still need to have access to the U.S. space surveillance network. We need to know about U.S. strategic thinking, because we have that window. That window, that information, has great value added in understanding the bigger picture in the United States, which enables us in Canada more so than any other ally--and this has been the traditional importance in many ways, or one of the traditional important aspects of NORAD--to have a picture or a window or a knowledge of what is going on in the United States.
¿ (0940)
[Translation]
Ms. Francine Lalonde: At what political price?
[English]
Dr. James Fergusson: The fact of the matter is it's at very little political price. We can develop more sophisticated policies. We have a better understanding of the world we live in by having that window of information than by having that window closed, because if it's closed, then we don't need to know, and if we don't need to know, the United States is not going to tell us what's going on, what they're up to in space. They're not going to tell us about their strategic plans and thoughts, so we will be in the dark like a lot of other countries.
By our being in the picture or being in the dark, is it going to impact how we influence debate in Washington on whether or not to weaponize space or what to do about space? I don't think it's going to have much impact, but it will enable us to develop sounder policies and make decisions on a clearer, better-based set of information than walking around in the dark--unless, of course, Canada is willing to spend billions of dollars to invest in acquiring that information on our own, and the historical record in Canada is that we're not.
The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Godfrey.
Mr. John Godfrey (Don Valley West): Professor Fergusson, I want to pursue the line of questioning my colleague has been referring to.
How can we not put this development in the larger context of the Bush doctrine? Because it seems to me that, as President Bush described the missile defence plan on May 20, it's an evolving architecture, and as Professor Polanyi puts it, a conveyor belt.
That seems to lead inevitably, as Mr. Regehr pointed out, to the funding from the Missile Defense Agency, starting in 2004 with $13 million to $14 million and then going up to $121 million in 2005, with the first rockets up in 2008. Clearly that's the direction. It's going towards the weaponization of space. To pretend that we are signing on for one part when this is an evolving thing seems to me to be simply naive.
Worse, it seems to me, is that we're dealing with this radical doctrine of the United States that it and it alone has the right to be dominant in space. It seems to me that the breadth of that claim that they can capture the high ground....
There is an article from the Daily Telegraph in London, referring to James Roche, the U.S. air force secretary. It says “America's allies would have 'no veto power' over projects designed to achieve American military control of space...” and that the chief point of the American plans is “described as 'negation'--the denial of the use of space for military intelligence, or other purposes, without American endorsement.”
If this were the 19th century and the United States were to say “You know what, the high seas are off limits to you. I'm sorry, you're not going to have them, I don't care who you are”, from the point of view of the community of nations and the common interests of mankind, to allow that pretension, to allow that claim to go unchallenged is simply a denial of the sovereignty of other countries. It suggests there are two kinds of sovereignty in the world, American sovereignty and everybody else's sovereignty.
For us to say, “Well, we're just going to put our blinkers on, and as long as this little bit that we've got is controlled by us, that's okay”.... I think you're right: we cannot change anything by being part of NORAD, but what we can do is lend some kind of moral legitimacy to one of the most breathtaking claims in modern history. And should we do it?
¿ (0945)
Dr. James Fergusson: There are several questions there, and I have a feeling many of them we'll go back to in detail, so my apologies if I'm not able to address all of them right away.
First of all, I think we have to be careful about suggesting that U.S. sovereign claims are in any way any different from the sovereign claims of any other nation, including ourselves. In this regard, I find the current administration in Washington a breath of fresh air, because at least they tell us bluntly what they are thinking. What they are thinking is important, relative to what will develop, rather than hiding behind many times rather moral platitudes while disguising the narrow, naked self-interests of other states. I think we have to be very careful about those assertions.
In that regard, the high seas analogy that you brought up is a very apt one. Of course, we have, on the high seas, the United States and all nations as signatories of this UN Law of the Sea recognizing them as international waters, with the provision of certain belligerent rights.
In the current status of outer space, the Outer Space Treaty, although there have been no negotiated belligerent rights, per se, as there are in the Law of the Sea, the way the outer space dimension or environment is conceptualized is in fact on an analogy to the high seas as international, as open to the free and peaceful use of all.
In this regard, one could suggest that, as the rights have developed by practice, with regard to belligerency on the high seas, to freedom of passage relative to belligerency of war, those are natural developments or occurrences when people start to think about further developments of the exploitation of outer space.
I think that's one of the reasons we need to think very closely about that assertion.
Mr. John Godfrey: But how does that tie in with negation? That is to say, you're denying the rights of other nations to do what they could do on the high seas, which is to have their own, let's say, warships out there. If you're saying no, only we get to determine whether you can have your warships out there, that's not the Law of the Sea.
Dr. James Fergusson: Let me be very clear. What the United States is saying is, as you put it, no ally is going to act as a veto on its outer space planning. I think we have to add into this that weaponization is not inevitable. What is a budget line in the wishful thinking of the Missile Defense Agency and the thoughts of certain elements in the Pentagon and space command or strategic command is not necessarily official American policy.
In 2008, if we take missile defence as an example, if you recall, ten years ago the United States said missile defence would be operational before the turn of the century. Well, we're at 2004 now, and we're just starting to get that operational for North America. So 2008 may be very optimistic for the politics of budget allocation in the United States, but it's down the road. So I want to add that.
Now, let me get to this question of the U.S. policy. It's not a question that the United States is going to violate its treaty obligations in the Outer Space Treaty with regard to the access to the use of space by any nation for peaceful purposes. There's no evidence whatsoever to support that.
What the United States is concerned about is not that it is the single dominant power in space, but that its dominance, its control of outer space, is in fact leaking away very rapidly, because space is very vulnerable.
The United States is torn in two different directions here. One, it dominates in terms of the number of assets and investments in outer space. Any attempt to go to war in outer space, as Mr. Regehr so correctly pointed out, is going to leave a mess up there. Who's going to pay the biggest price? The United States and North America are. So they have that side of that horn of the dilemma.
The other horn of the dilemma is that because of the vulnerability of outer space, the importance of outer space, it becomes a potential obvious threat or target for adversaries. If we think in the current context of asymmetric threats, an asymmetric threat to the economies of North America would be to strike at outer space assets. One would suggest, well, that's in the future; they don't have this development. I'm sorry, but many of the nations do. If you can launch a missile, if you can develop a three-stage rocket, you can put a nuclear warhead on that. You acquire a space launch capacity. You fire that up in space and you detonate it. You are going to wreak a great deal of damage to the western economies. You're going to wreak a great deal of damage to western militaries and particularly the American military.
So on one hand, we're driven by preference and arguments by many in the U.S. air force community and others not to weaponize space, because we're the ones who are going to lose if we cause an arms race in space. The other is, of course, the dilemma of everyone's going to go at us here, so we have to do something to defend ourselves in space, which means potentially trying to negate the ability of adversaries to strike at space-based assets. That's where the linkage of missile defence comes.
¿ (0950)
The Chair: That's fine. It's very interesting.
We'll go to Ms. McDonough.
Ms. Alexa McDonough (Halifax, NDP): Mr. Fergusson, I'm sitting here breathless and really quite terrified by the notion you've advanced. This may seem extreme, but it seems a little akin to saying to a patient that they may have a really severe heart condition but not to worry about it, we're going to operate on your stomach. It is a different part of your body, so it isn't anything to be concerned about. The risk should be ignored, I guess.
I think you're aware that two weeks ago this committee heard testimony from John Polanyi and Lloyd Axworthy, who have done a great deal of homework on this.
The Chair: That's the defence committee, Ms. McDonough.
Ms. Alexa McDonough: I apologize, and I certainly correct that.
Basically they expressed the view that for Canada to sign on to this particular aspect, which you've circumscribed, of Bush's missile defence would be akin to a survival of Canadian sovereignty, in fact, to climbing onto a conveyor belt to the weaponization of space.
If there were any question about that, U.S. space command and air force officials in the last week made it absolutely clear that this was the case. I guess I hear you not really denying that.
So my question really is do you not see the danger in Canada knowing all of that, in deciding that it will sign on to the first step towards the weaponization of space when in the process what we have done is basically reinforced the notion that the Bush foreign policy doctrine of scrapping multilateralism, of scrapping international treaties that have taken fifty years to build, will essentially be what we've signed on to? Don't you see a price in that for Canada's own role in the world and for our credibility as committed internationalists and multinationalists? Do you not see that as a problem we should be concerned about as parliamentarians, and particularly as the foreign affairs committee?
Dr. James Fergusson: The basic answer is that signing on to missile defence with the United States is not going to affect Canadian credibility on the world stage one iota. It is no different from the way Canada has proceeded for the past at least 40 years, since the bruising Bomarc missile debate, the nuclear weapons debate in Canada, which really was a major watershed, where in many ways we broke with the United States without saying so publicly on a variety of aspects of strategic thinking of the role of nuclear weapons, of strategic deterrence, and other things I could point to.
We continued on through the NORAD arrangement cooperating on aerospace defence and controls, even though there was no defence from space targets, from ballistic missiles. Nonetheless, we continued on cooperating and benefited greatly from it, not least of all because of the cost-sharing arrangements, not least of all because it enables us to know more about what is going on in our own territory. It enhanced Canadian sovereignty because it enhanced our ability to know what was going on in the world we lived in. While we continued to do that, Canada then developed that wonderful reputation and credibility through all the multilateral negotiating fora that we always point to in this country: non-proliferation, arms control, chemical weapons, biological, and so on and so on.
Those all work together very nicely. Why suddenly does anyone expect that if we continue what has been in fact longstanding Canadian policy...? What you are suggesting is a dramatic reversal in Canadian policy, overthrowing the foundation of Canadian policy by standing on a principle, independent of one's view of the principle, and paying a price--because there will be a price in terms of North American sovereignty that Canada will pay. If Canada is willing to pay it, that is reasonable enough, but let's be aware what this price will be.
I will conclude. If we're standing on a principle on the assumption that this will enhance or maintain our credibility, in fact it will have no impact. I would suggest to you that if we don't stay close to the United States and we don't keep NORAD, we will undermine our credibility in the long term on the international stage because we will be seen as no longer relevant because we no longer will be perceived with that special relationship to Washington, which states are sensitive to.
¿ (0955)
The Chair: I want to hear Mr. Regehr about this comment. Mr. Regehr.
Mr. Ernie Regehr: Thank you. I want to make a brief comment.
I am a little confused on where Canada's impact is intended to lie with regard to the United States. On the one hand, if we stay within and say yes to the system, we will still be kept out of all information that relates to space issues and we will have no impact on space. On the other hand, if we stay out, then that's a problem, because we don't have any impact on them. I am a little confused about the direction of that argument.
I think that the fundamental point we have to understand is that the United States, whatever the technological capabilities--and they are very much in doubt as to the feasibility of ballistic missile interception and certainly of spaced-based weapons--is committed to an experiment to trying it out. What they are politically most fundamentally committed to is breaking the norm against the weaponization of space and the norm that has been confirmed by UN security resolutions for 20 years running with the United States, the only country, sometimes joined by Israel, in abstaining on the resolution--they don't even vote against it--which says that space will be preserved for peaceful purposes.
That's a fundamental norm, and the political intent here is to break the normative barrier. That's the political point of putting a test platform in space. They don't even have the faintest idea of what they are going to do with this test platform because the technology is not mature. The purpose of the test platform is not to start testing right away. It's to break the political norm. If Canada joins in that venture, joins in giving political affirmation to ballistic missile defence, and by implication the programs that go with it, what I am worried about is not our influence with the United States, but our influence in multilateral fora.
Our way to influence the direction of the non-proliferation of weapons and to preserving the security of space for peaceful purposes relies on our capacity to work with like-minded states within multilateral fora. That's where the solution to that problem lies. I am very afraid that if we tie into a bilateral arrangement that is committed to breaking that normative barrier, then our capacity to work effectively with like-minded states in multilateral fora is going to be seriously undermined.
[Translation]
The Chair: Thank you.
Ms. Kraft Sloan, the floor is yours.
[English]
Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan (York North, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I think this is really the crux of the issue. We were given a presentation by the military attaché for the Americans. Essentially what he said was the Americans wanted the political and international support of Canada.
I think that what you are talking about is a huge problem here, because Canada will no longer have the moral authority to work with like-minded states. I do have a problem with that.
As to our influence if we stay in NORAD, again that may be questionable. As I understand, we have had lack of access on information with regard to space issues.
In regard to some of the things Mr. Fergusson has said, he talked about our long history in NORAD, but I think what we have to realize is that the context is very different nowadays. We have a hyper-power that exists in the world. There is no other national government that can stand up to the military might of the Americans. They have indicated through a number of their policies, and certainly their recent actions in Iraq, that they are supportive of, and will indeed act on, pre-emptive strike.
I have a couple of questions for you. One is that when we are dealing with a situation that we currently have with a hyper-power that will go ahead with this project anyway, what is it that other like-minded states can do to act in a countervailing way against this?
The other concern I have is with regard to the ratcheting up of the terrorist threat by going ahead and proposing this sort of a defence system, which you have clearly indicated is not going to be very helpful.
Could you comment on those two things, please?
À (1000)
Mr. Ernie Regehr: I think the issues that are on the agenda for Canada are the ones that have been there all along.
In the CD in Geneva there has been a long-term intention to enter into negotiations for the prevention of an arms race in outer space, to preclude from happening what Mr. Fergusson has said is in danger of happening. That debate has been stymied by a disagreement between China and the United States. It would be very simple for the United States simply to de-link it from China's objection on a fissile material ban and to begin work on that agenda item of preventing an arms race in outer space, and to confirm rather than undermine that norm against the weaponization of space.
I think a thing that Canada has to be very careful of is that the very limited system we are in the process of trying to negotiate a role in is, as I was saying, effectively an anti-satellite weapons capability. As Mr. Fergusson has said, if the United States deploys that kind of a system with an explicit anti-satellite capability, there are other states that can do the same. Then we move towards the race.
Why initiate the race toward anti-satellite weapons when you don't need to? Satellites are not now imperilled. In fact, anti-satellite weapons would not be able to take out the similar weapons that others might be persuaded to deploy.
I think that with those two items our strength lies in multilateral attention to the nuclear threat, and it's a dangerous nuclear threat. The very minor element of it is the proliferation of weapons into new directions, into new states. The major part of the threat is the threat that nuclear materials will leak away from the Soviet Union. Canada is spending a large amount of money on that element. That's where the focus needs to remain.
The Chair: Mr. Fergusson, a short comment, please.
Dr. James Fergusson: I think it's important to keep the terrorist issue completely separate from the missile defence strategic issue. They're two different things. We don't go very far by suggesting that doing one means that one is not doing the other.
In regard to your question about the hyper-power and what Canada can do with other like-minded states to act in a countervailing manner, the closest like-minded state to Canada in the world is, I would suggest to you, south of the border in the United States. They are a like-minded state. Moreover, I think it's important for Canada and Canadians to recognize that despite errors, mistakes, and problems south of the border relative to their responsibilities on the international stage--which are responsibilities countries like Canada do not possess for a variety of reasons--the international system is one that has largely been created by the United States, and it is in Canada's self-interest in that regard.
Let me conclude by pointing out, on the question of non-proliferation, that what many people suggest is the failure of the non-proliferation regime, the failure of diplomacy, is a function of the fact that there is no way for the international community to enforce sanctions against cheating. We've seen it time and time again. Condemnation doesn't work. Sanctions, such as in the case in Iraq, turned on ourselves, with reports of starving Iraqi children. Pre-emptive strikes, of course, are not part of the equation. Here we have the United States leading the international community suggesting that it will develop these three other tools in the basket as part of a multidimensional approach to non-proliferation. It doesn't mean no diplomacy, but it also means missile defence to make that regime more effective.
À (1005)
The Chair: Thank you.
Now we'll go to Mr. Benoit.
Mr. Leon Benoit (Lakeland, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, gentlemen. It's good to have you here.
It's tough to know where to start. I will start by saying that the Canadian Alliance took a position three years ago in support of becoming very involved in the talks with the United States on missile defence. We were for acknowledging to the United States that it sounds like an almost natural extension of NORAD and a good fit with NORAD, and a move that would provide more security for Canadians. For that reason, we took the position that we should become involved. At least if we're at the table we'll know what's going on and have some ability to influence, possibly, what's happening--although I think the Americans pretty much determined what missile defence would be some time ago, although that is evolving to some extent.
I know you've commented on this, Mr. Fergusson, to some extent, but I want your opinion on it to be really clear. Do you think we could possibly maintain NORAD if Canada chooses not to become involved in missile defence?
Dr. James Fergusson: If Canada says no to missile defence, NORAD will not disappear. It will revert back to its original mission, which was the air defence surveillance and air control of North America.
To that regard, relative to debates about the marginality of the air defence, or the air-breathing threat to North America, it will decline in importance, particularly in Washington. In so doing, it will alter the way the United States sees Canada and is willing to invest in cooperative air-breathing areas for that part, on what will be the only dimension of the NORAD cooperative arrangements. Space will be closed entirely to Canada. The arrangement.... There's still logic behind cooperating.
Mr. Leon Benoit: What would the consequences be to Canada of that happening?
Dr. James Fergusson: Very briefly, very quickly, the consequences are that we would lose all access, except what is provided in the good wishes of the United States, to space-based information on tracking, on ballistic missiles, on the space surveillance network. All that becomes closed, depending on what the United States decides we need to know and don't need to know. We would become more dependent rather than less dependent on the United States and their good wishes.
It undermines Canada's overall outer space strategy in significant ways. This strategy has always been to attempt to leverage very small investments, niche investments, to exploit outer space for Canadian interests. That will largely evaporate because it has been centred upon the close NORAD relationship and NORAD's entree into outer space.
Canadian access to a global strategic picture of the world we need to know..... We needed to know about Soviet military capabilities because we were NORAD, because of NORAD's mission. That's why we knew where all the Soviet ICBMs, etc., were, and all of what the Soviets are up to. That sense, that example of the strategic global picture we got, we will lose. We will become more peripheral and marginal in our picture, in the picture of the world we get, and hence what we can develop and understand about the world we live in.
Finally, we'll revert to a relatively marginal air defence, air control cooperation arrangement. With new technologies the U.S. is going to deploy in terms of surveillance from space, unless Canada is willing to invest billions and billions of dollars--and I mean billions and billions of dollars--the United States will largely be able to do air surveillance from space-based assets and new constellations that are being developed and deployed over the next decade.
So when it comes time for Canada to modernize its own air surveillance systems, the North Warning System, etc., the United States is not going to give us one cent. We will pay billions to do that. We will have to become more independent, and we will have to invest billions and billions of dollars. If that's the will of the Canadian people, that's fine, but let's know what we're going to pay.
The Chair: Do you have a comment, Mr. Regehr?
Mr. Ernie Regehr: The comment is that the United States and Canada will continue to cooperate on security issues common to them as they need to. The United States is not going to put a blanket of darkness over top of Canada if it believes its own security interests are threatened.
The security relationship between Canada and the United States is very simple: Canada has an obligation to provide the United States assurances that what happens within its air space, for example, in the case of NORAD, does not represent a security threat to the United States. The United States has an interest in maintaining that capacity on its own territory and on Canadian territory, and that is an enduring common defence interest. There isn't a very strategic element to that air defence system now—it's more Piper Cubs than Soviet bombers that are of interest to NORAD radars these days—but it's a shared system, and as Mr. Fergusson said, the United States is in the business of sharing information on a need-to-know basis. That's what the commitment needs to be: it is to continue to share security arrangements, both in air and maritime matters. Maritime sharing of security arrangements doesn't even require a joint command structure.
NORAD will be there and will be useful as long as it's in our mutual security interest. It won't be sustained for a moment longer, and it won't be abandoned a moment before.
À (1010)
The Chair: Before I pass the questioning to Mrs. Carroll, I just want to pinpoint that we have with us as guests this morning members of Parliament and senior officials of the Government of Ukraine who are part of the Canada-Ukraine Legislative and Intergovernmental Project. Welcome to you, ladies and gentlemen. It's a pleasure to have you here this morning.
Mrs. Carroll, please.
Ms. Aileen Carroll (Barrie—Simcoe—Bradford, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Actually, gentlemen, when one's name is at the bottom of the list, most of what one would have queried has already been largely answered.
However, Dr. Fergusson, I would like to know what makes you so confident that our participation will result in this access to the strategic planning the United States is developing. Initially when we looked at this, there was considerable discussion that if we declined to come to the table and at least talk we would see NORAD sidelined, and that this part of the motivation, as put forward from some sources, was that we must move forward because we cannot have that happen.
I agree with that. NORAD is an excellent system. It is a relationship between two countries and two militaries that has worked very well, and I for one would not want to see it sidelined.
However, like you and others, I accept that command and control—the trigger for BMD—will obviously not be in NORAD. It will be in Northern Command, just as it will be in Pacific Command should a launch come from that part of the world. When I listen to you, a very knowledgeable person on this, talk about it, I'm still a little confused as to the link there.
What I really would like you to tell us a little more about is why you are so confident that the need-to-know dynamics will kick in and the Americans will assign Canada a very high rating on “what they need to know” and will therefore make sure we know it. How will our coming with no chequebook to the table assure that we'll get that? I don't challenge that we need to know it; it's just that you're more confident than most.
Dr. James Fergusson: It's for two reasons. It's interesting that no one in this country ever talks about making a contribution to this. It's an issue we should talk about but we don't.
There are two basic answers. One is, with command and control assigned to NORAD, NORAD will maintain the early warning tracking information role it already has. It has to keep that role because it has to know, using U.S. space satellites, when a missile is launched so that it can put on warning its interceptor batteries, which would be on American soil right now.
It then has to have access to tracking so it can inform the radars, located roughly with the interceptors, where the object is in space, so that these radars can search the space and find it. Once they find it, of course, they then inform the missile where to go and launch it before the on-board system.
That's why we have to know what's going on in outer space. What does that mean? Let me use two examples. In order to perform that mission, we need to know or have an idea exactly where all the potential launch points are of potential adversaries to North America. We have to know where all the silos are; we have to know where the pre-planned deployments of mobile systems are likely to be. That makes the system work more effectively, so that you can distinguish quickly a real and threatening launch from something else—a peaceful launch or a notified launch. You need to know all that.
When you go up to outer space, space has lots of stuff in it, as Mr. Regehr pointed out. It has a lot of junk; it has a lot of satellites. You need to know everything that's going on up there, so that when you're reading the screens of your computer systems you know, when you see something going up there, that you can distinguish it from all the other clutter around it. All that clutter includes all the U.S. civilian satellites and all the U.S. military satellites.
You also need, if the U.S. does deploy anti-satellites or boost-phase space-based systems, to know the full picture. So it is simply the technological requirement from command and control and the early warning mission that requires the United States to tell us. You need to know everything that's going on out there. You have to have a picture of the strategic threats to North America—all those things we find out. In so doing, of course, we then gain privy access to Americans who are saying “These are the things that are out there. These are the things we're thinking about. You need to know those things as well. ” So that we fit in properly--that's how we need to know.
The second aspect is simple personalities. The Canada-U.S. defence relation runs many times on personalities, on friendships. By virtue of being inside the door, or inside the tent, to use that metaphor, we're allowed into areas of which I've heard many examples where, instead of their remaining areas where the United States is even supposed to throw Canadians out the door, the Americans say—because they know us and we're close friends and we go over to dinner with their families—“That's all right; you guys can sit here; you're all right.”
That way personalities and close friendships work in our favour as well. Hence, the two lead us to find out things we have the need to know.
The Chair: Mr. Regehr, do you have a comment?
À (1015)
Mr. Ernie Regehr: Well, all the things in that list that we need to know are not what we need to know or will know; it's what the Americans need to know. Those are things that need to be known by those who will launch the interceptors, if there are interceptors to be launched. We will not be launching those interceptors.
Mr. Fergusson has also made a big deal out of the information coming on a need-to-know basis. We don't need to know any of those things because we're not sitting with our hand on any trigger anywhere. All of that information is not relevant to what Canada is engaged in. It's the United States that needs to know those things, because it's the United States that controls the systems that will respond to them. We will not control the systems that respond to them.
And if by being in NORAD a few individuals at Cheyenne Mountain are not removed from a radar screen when something interesting comes up, as they may be now, the idea that this has great national impact is lost on me, I'm afraid.
All of that technical information is not what Canada needs to know, in the sense that it can do something with that information. The only entity that does anything with that information is the United States, because it commands and controls the system.
Our participation in the system is political. Our work in non-proliferation and the defence of North America from the nuclear threat is political. It's our effectiveness on that level that we need to be concerned about. My concern is that our effectiveness on that level will be undermined, even though we have plenty of technical information.
[Translation]
The Chair: Thank you.
Mr. Bachand, it is your turn.
Mr. Claude Bachand (Saint-Jean, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I think that in this debate we often avoid the whole philosophical and moral side of creating such a system. Do we want to live in a world with more weapons or fewer? Do we want to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor, between rich nations and poor nations? I think we must come back to these concepts from time to time. I do not put a lot of stock in the arguments in favour of this system because I feel there is no real threat at this time.
The only countries that are currently able to launch a nuclear weapon at the United States are North Korea and Russia. We can leave Russia out of it because no one would be able to block a mass attack: that would simply be the end of the world. But let us consider the case of North Korea and the military doctrine of mutually assured destruction. I think if North Korea launched a missile at New York City, that would be the end of North Korea. Pushing the button is not a decision that would be made lightly.
We also question the reliability of the system. Out of eight trials with a planned trajectory there were three failures. If there were an attack, which by definition would be unplanned, the reaction time would be such that we risk completely failing to intercept it. We would be unable to counter a mass attack because that requires a much too expensive system. Mr. Fergusson told us it is important to be at the table so that we are not left in the dark.
NORAD can only detect antiballistic missiles, not respond to them. A response would result in mutually assured destruction.
In my view, we are missing the boat. What would we learn from sitting down with them? How much would we pay for the knowledge that a missile from North Korea aimed at New York City will pass over the Ontario-Quebec border? Would a Canadian general be able to prevent the missile from being intercepted over Canadian territory? Do you think they would allow New York to be destroyed to avoid having debris fall on Canadian soil? We would have no decision-making power.
I would like your reaction to all this. It seems like we would be giving the United States a consolation prize for not having supported them in the war on Iraq. I think the solution is disarmament; otherwise we are reinstating the arms race. In my view, if we used half the budget for this project to help poor nations and narrow the gap between the rich and the poor, we could resolve the whole problem without having to satisfy the military industrial complex.
That is probably the root of the problem, but no one talks about it. Excuse me for taking so much time, but I would like—
À (1020)
Mme Francine Lalonde: You were excellent, and I applaud you.
[English]
Mr. Ernie Regehr: I appreciate those comments very much.
We have an extraordinary opportunity, and that is to prevent the weaponization of an environment before it takes place, like Antarctica. We have the capacity now to prevent the movement toward a system that would have an extraordinarily complicated and expensive set of consequences to it if we started to allow moves toward that weaponization.
On ballistic missile defence, we need to understand that if we are intended to protect Canadian population centres from nuclear attack, there is no difference between a 90% success rate and failure. Those are the same thing. What technological system is available that is going to be 100% successful 100% of the time? It will not be there. As long as there are nuclear weapons deployed against us, the only horrific option that we have is mutually assured destruction. We will continue to depend upon that system.
We are looking for a way of protecting the people of North America, and you cannot do it with a system in which.... As I say, a 90% or a 99% success rate means utter and total disaster, regardless of the level of money that is spent. So we have an opportunity now to do two things. One is to make sure we preserve the space environment for peaceful purposes and that we do not permit, against the current norm, to place weapons in space, and that we redouble disarmament diplomacy to reduce the nuclear weapons that are there and to reduce the weapons that are pointed at us.
I must say that nonproliferation diplomacy has been extraordinarily successful. There are 186, I think it is, non-nuclear-weapons states that are signatories to the non-proliferation treaty. One of those states has withdrawn, Korea, along with the boast that it has a nuclear weapon. And that's more a boast than a statement of fact. We don't know what it has, and it doesn't have the capacity to launch them beyond its own region.
So diplomacy has been extraordinarily effective. My concern is that the United States, under the current administration, is pursuing a set of nuclear use policies that is undermining that diplomacy. We need to be very careful that we do not provide political cover for that kind of activity. I think that is the fundamental interest of the United States. It's not our money, it's not our industry, it's not our territory they are in need of; it's political cover and support of a state committed to human security.
À (1025)
The Chair: Thank you.
Now we'll go to Mrs. Redman.
Mrs. Karen Redman (Kitchener Centre, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I had to step out for a moment, so my apologies if I'm asking something that was already covered.
I'd like to pose a question to Mr. Regehr and one to each of you.
It sounds to me as if you're very much saying that participation in NORAD with the anti-missile defence system is probably the way Canada should go right now, but that we should look for an off-ramp. I guess I'd like to hear from you how realistic that off-ramp requirement is and what that might look like.
The Government of Canada's stand really has been opposing militarization of space. My question to the two of you is do you think it's enough to say that the government still maintains that stand, and how does our participation in NORAD figure into our international obligations? I mean, we're signatories to many international treaties. How do we go forward with that stand on behalf of the Canadian government?
The Chair: Mr. Fergusson.
Dr. James Fergusson: Very briefly--and I hope I get a chance to get back to some of the questions.
I assume by an “off-ramp” you mean an off-ramp from weaponization of outer space. There's no on-ramp. Right now, in the negotiations, the participation issue does not include a ramp to get on, so we don't need to get off. Simply as a function of the way the U.S. has structured its command, there's no guarantee, in my view, that the United States will ever give Canada, or anyone else, an on-ramp.
This administration and the way we portray this administration, which is always interesting, brings me back to a point I wanted to make about the importance of Canada providing that stamp of legitimacy according to the U.S. defence attaché. Look at the way you portray the Bush administration. Do you think they need any stamp of legitimacy from Canada, or they care? That doesn't fit with our own portrayal.
So we don't know. There is no on-ramp. The question is whether the United States would open an on-ramp, and that depends on Canada changing its policy. So there's nothing to get off.
If Canada wanted to negotiate a weaponization of outer space exclusion clause in the agreement in NORAD, I would lay odds the United States would say “Fine, that's no problem to us at all. That's not a big deal.” If that's what Canada wants, to reassure ourselves of an off-ramp, or to create an off-ramp when there isn't an on-ramp, I think we can probably go ahead.
As to NORAD and our other obligations, the NORAD arrangement does not in any way affect any of our other obligations in international law. They are treaty obligations, period. No case can be made, unless you want to make some rather strange cases about norms, improper interpretations of the foundations of international law, which some people do. But by and large, I think all international lawyers would tell you there is no conflict whatsoever between our obligations.
Mr. Ernie Regehr: Well, there's no on-ramp to Canada having control or a participation in command and control of U.S. plans for weaponization of space. That's clear. We're not being invited to participate in that system.
The on-ramp is a political one. We are being invited to endorse an overall system. An explicit part of it, an explicit part of the planning, is an explicit part of Secretary Rumsfeld's commitment to pursuing weaponization of space. That's a political commitment that we're being asked to make. Whether or not it's technically feasible is another question, but we're being asked to make that political commitment.
That is a political commitment that would have significant consequences for Canada in the pursuit of our traditional arms control and disarmament objectives within the context of multilateral arrangements.
I'm not sure I understood the comment that the United States would happily negotiate a non-weaponization clause in any agreement between Canada and the United States. That would be a surprise to many people. If by that it's meant that the non-weaponization clause would be that when we weaponize space, you're not part of it, well, we don't need an agreement for that with them. We wouldn't be, in any event.
If he means that the non-weaponization clause would mean we would commit to not weaponizing space, then it has a forum in which it can do that. That is the CD, where the item has been on the agenda and not acted upon because of American refusal since 1995.
À (1030)
The Chair: Thank you.
Now we'll go to Ms. McDonough.
Ms. Alexa McDonough: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I have three brief questions, and I'd be interested in responses from both of you.
Mr. Fergusson, you spoke about the will of the Canadian people to do thus and so. Do you consider the government has a responsibility to consult Canadians, as the Prime Minister promised again and again would be done, before proceeding in any way with Canadian participation in Bush's missile defence?
Secondly, you indicated that you considered the Bush foreign policy doctrine “a breath of fresh air”, I guess because it is raw self-interest. I'm not sure if I understood. But I have to ask, are you not worried about a superpower, the superpower, the only superpower in the world, essentially leaving multilateralism in many international agreements in tatters while we try to sort of curry our self-interest in some kind of notion of partnership? I don't even want to go there in terms of what your notion of the elements of a healthy partnership would be.
Thirdly, you've indicated that you think we should keep the whole question about ballistic missiles separate from the issue of terrorism. We have hundreds of millions of people around the world who are struggling for survival because of poverty, because of pollution, because of pandemics. I'd be interested in your comment about thinking we should be addressing the question of Canada's contribution, that you think we need to be discussing this not costing us anything, but actually what Canada's contribution should be to Bush's ballistic missile system. I'm wondering if you could put a dollar sign on that and how you arrive at it.
The Chair: That's a lot of questions.
Mr. Fergusson.
Dr. James Fergusson: I should never use comments about the wishes of Canadian people.
As for consulting with Canadians, I guess my answer is that this issue has been around since at least 2001, when the Bush administration made it very clear—and even before it came into office—what was about to happen. If you wanted to consult, the time was then, when everyone knew what was happening. Perhaps we could go back to 1996, when Clinton announced the “three plus three” plan for national missile defence. Perhaps we could go back to 1991 and the passage of the National Missile Defence Act.
Ms. Alexa McDonough: When Canadians said no.
Dr. James Fergusson: In all of those circumstances, it's a little late in the day for consultation, whatever that means. I'm always puzzled by what consultation means. I'm sure you're aware of the many academic articles written about the problems of consultation and participation in democratic states like Canada. Right now, I think it would be considered as more something to delay a decision that is very pressing in time.
Secondly, I see the Bush doctrine as a breath of fresh air in two different ways. One, as you pointed out, I agree they have been very forthright and straightforward in spelling out to the world what their doctrine is.
Does it mean they are leaving multilateralism? I don't know why we look at particular one-off examples to suggest this is the end of multilateralism. Multilateralism is a two-way street; it's not simply a situation where a group of sovereign states get together and the majority in a democracy rules. Multilateralism is about taking into account and trying to craft solutions that recognize, at a minimum, that the interests of a superpower with global responsibilities are different from the interests of great powers with regional responsibilities, and different from the interests of middle powers with relatively marginal responsibilities. When multilateralism is used by others as a forum or political tool to point their fingers to try to drive the United States into actions that it perceives to be vital to the interest of its own people, or its self-interest, it's of course going to depart. But that does not mean the state most responsible for multilateralism on the international stage, the United States, is departing from multilateralism in any way.
In this regard, let me add to that on the doctrine of pre-emption. One has to calculate the political utility or value in terms of deterrence or of threatening pre-emption as a means of maintaining international peace and security. We tend to think this means the United States is suddenly going to go around and drop bombs on anyone who says bad things about it. Well, it's not. But it alters the political environment in a world where only the United States has the capacity—which we've seen time and time again—to intervene and lead the international community. Sometimes it does when many in the community don't want to go; other times, it happily does so when the rest of the community is willing to. And sometimes it won't lead, and the rest of the community flounders around. Using your issue of starvation, we can point to the problems of Africa as a classic example of the problems of multilateralism in the international community.
So I think we need a little more nuance in how we understand American thinking. It's not a divorce from multilateralism. Certain elements seem to indicate that the U.S. doesn't like things, but we have to put that against the backdrop of a much larger multilateral regime in which the United States is fully engaged, and leading in many respects.
As to the costs to Canada or the contribution that Canada would make, I think we need to be careful trying to put this as an either/or. If you want to look at American investment in defence and security for its own people, you also have to look at American investment in aid or where it stands in aid, and what it's doing elsewhere in the world through a variety of different programs. It's never an either/or. The idea that if we do this, we won't do that, is always misleading.
As to what a Canadian contribution would cost, it largely depends on the way we would negotiate. What we do know is very clear: with a more effective mid-course missile defence, using ground-based missile defence, to defend Canadian and American population centres, a 90% effectiveness rate may not be great, but I'll tell you, if ten warheads are coming over and you can defend nine cities and you only lose one, that's better than losing all ten.
À (1035)
If we make the system more effective, Canada could contribute territory for more effective radars, and we could also consider providing territory for a potential base of interceptors, which would make the system more effective without us necessarily putting up any significant capital.
I could go into more details.
The Chair: Thank you. We'll have to come back after. Sorry, but when you have three questions, it takes time.
Mr. Calder.
Mr. Murray Calder (Dufferin—Peel—Wellington—Grey, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Within the project for the new American century, the main mission statement basically states that the United States is the only superpower today, and should try to maintain that position as far into the century as possible. So as I see it, that's the hub everything spins around.
I liked your analogy when John Godfrey brought forward the rules of the high seas. When I see the United States discussing the fact of weaponizing space, I'd like your point on how we should go about establishing rules for space similar to what's on the high seas, given the fact that it has taken centuries to establish. What would be the best way to get that process started?
The Chair: Mr. Fergusson.
Dr. James Fergusson: I think that's a very important point. We have to begin by rejecting--and this is hard for Canadians to do--the blanket condemnation of the weaponization and simply seeing the only option possible for Canada being to negotiate this in the CD. That's unrealistic. It has no political value in the issues we are confronting, and it definitely amounts to Canada having no influence.
We do need to talk about the rules of outer space. We do need to talk about the issues of the importance of outer space to the western economies, to the western way of life. We have to talk about the increasing importance of outer space to our ability to intervene internationally in peacekeeping operations, in military interventions in the case of humanitarian concerns, and other inner-state concerns or threats to international peace and security. All these require us to begin to talk about the rules of outer space, about how we can conceptualize belligerency in outer space.
Remember one thing about outer space: it's not like the high seas in the sense that you have, by virtue of the ability to navigate, full manoeuvring. In outer space you're by and large--not least of all because of the costs of energy generation in outer space--locked into fixed orbits. There are ways you can develop rules, belligerency rules, about deployment of systems in outer space, which could function to do certain things but not other things in terms of rules on belligerency. They could function to defend rather than strike at. There are a variety of different ways, passive and active measures, but all these require us to begin talking about the thing we don't want to talk about--that is, developing the idea of rules of behaviour.
Once those rules are developed, they will eventually go to a multinational forum. That's where they will have to go, because it will require everyone to sign off. We will build a multilateral regime to effectively manage outer space for everyone's security, rather than in fact driving the United States, in a way, by virtue of our own multilateralism, to exactly what we don't want to be done.
À (1040)
The Chair: Mr. Regehr.
Mr. Ernie Regehr: It's not a matter of now starting from scratch and building rules for outer space. Rules for outer space are well advanced. From the SALT I treaty, the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, to the SALT II treaty, to the INF treaty, these all have provisions in them that prevent other states from interfering with assets related to the verification of those treaties. In fact, there are already anti-satellite laws that relate to outer space. There's the 1972 liability convention, which places liabilities upon states if they are engaged in interfering with the assets of other states in outer space.
Article IX of the Outer Space Treaty provides for consultations among signatories to the treaties if any one member of the treaty feels that another state is about to interfere with activities related to the peaceful exploration or the peaceful use of space. There's already a provision there for states to seek amenities. There are rules already in place about assigning orbital slots in outer space. There's a great deal of law and regulation already built up in outer space. What we're pursuing here is the preservation of that system and the expansion of it, not the denial of it and the sweeping it aside by a single state that is acting, in this case, not multilaterally by any means.
The Chair: Thank you.
We'll go to Ms. Gallant, and then Mr. Eggleton.
Mrs. Cheryl Gallant (Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I just have two questions, and I'd like each witness to respond.
To go from the all-or-nothing statement that the only protection against nuclear missiles is continued non-proliferation policy and mutual assured destruction to the exclusion of all other technology, regardless of whether it is space-based sensors or interceptors, is really a bit of a cop-out.
There's quite a concern over the debris from interceptors intercepting missiles over Canadian land. These same missiles could also be short of their mark and just come down within the range of a Canadian city or not, so why would the safety of Canadians not be better served in using whatever technology possible to counter a missile attack as close to the launch days of the trajectory as possible?
The Chair: Mr. Regehr.
Mr. Ernie Regehr: If there were no other implications, no other consequence of that kind of act--in other words, if the world stayed exactly the same and we simply added a ballistic missile defence system, even if it's not 100% effective, but is prominently effective--then you would have a point.
But the point is, what are the consequences of North Americans trying to defend themselves against a few ballistic missiles? The primary consequence is that it produces an incentive for those who want to attack North America to simply add more missiles to their arsenals. If a state wants to get one or two missiles through to North America, to have that kind of a threat, and the United States puts up a defence system capable of taking those out, why wouldn't it simply add one or two or ten more? That's a lot cheaper than the ballistic missile defence system you're going to put in place in response to it.
So the problem with the way you're presenting the question is that you're implying that the world is a static place, that everything else would remain the same. It won't remain the same. That's the whole point of it. And there's absolutely no capacity for intercepting Chinese missiles, or Russian missiles, in any event, so the safety you're claiming is an illusion and it contributes to the expansion of the threat.
À (1045)
The Chair: Mr. Fergusson, do you have a comment?
Dr. James Fergusson: Yes, I have several comments, actually. I'll try to be as brief as possible.
I find it puzzling. The argument is always made that this system is technologically unfeasible, that it can't work, it can't defend, but if you deploy a system that can't work, can't defend, is pretty well useless, a waste of money, everyone else is going to build more missiles. Well, if everyone knows it doesn't work, who's going to need to build any missiles? They're not. So that argument, the missile defence, has no impact at all.
Second, yes, the world's not static, but I think we need to differentiate between the development of a system that can effectively, at some reasonable level of defence, deal with the Russian and Chinese capabilities, on the one hand--and that is the argument that goes back to SDI, when the Soviets said if you build the SDI we will overwhelm you with more missiles.... The Americans responded by saying you will only overwhelm us with more missiles if it's cheaper to build missiles for attack than for defence. There's a very interesting dynamic. That's different.
There will be issues down the road, and I would agree with Mr. Regehr, about how the system as it develops will impact upon the Russians and Chinese. That's two decades away, as far as I can see, and we'll see how it plays out within a non-static political world. And the U.S. will calculate; all the actors will calculate.
Third, related to this, is the second side, and that is for rogue states who can't attack us. Everyone says they can't attack us. So if the U.S. develops, and we participate in developing, this system that's somewhat effective--we'll say 60% effective.... I mean, if we take 100% effectiveness, let's be realistic, we'd never defend ourselves at all; we wouldn't give police any bulletproof vests because the vests can't defend them all the time. But we still do try to defend ourselves for a variety of political and moral reasons.
If we look at the states who don't have these weapons, we get ahead of them on the curve--that is, we can defend ourselves from them. They will then have to calculate--and I don't know if they will calculate in rational terms, as that's open for debate--whether it's worth continuing to spend billions of limited dollars to build missiles that aren't going to work and moreover are not going to be able to overwhelm the system, because there's no way they can compete with the United States. Or will they effectively then choose some alternative way to try to threaten the United States?
The answer, I think, will probably be the alternative. In fact, missiles will start to wain as the weapon of choice, strategically.
Mr. Art Eggleton (York Centre, Lib.): Gentlemen, I appreciate your being here.
Of course, I have expressed on a number of occasions my support for involvement with the United States in the system. I think it is in our national interest to do so. I do not think it will have the negative consequences that have been mentioned.
I know we are very much part of the command and control system at NORAD. We are in the control room all the time, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There is a reporting procedure up through the leadership of both countries, so I think there is valuable information and involvement from this being part of NORAD's responsibility.
The concern for a lot of people is the weaponization of outer space. When we talk about the weaponization of outer space, a lot of people visualize it as planting nuclear weapons in satellite form around the earth, to be brought down when we want them. I don't think any of us want that to happen--absolutely not.
However, there is an interesting point here that needs some further attention--the defence of the things that are up in outer space, whether military or commercial satellites. The destruction of some of those could have a very negative effect on the economy of this country, the United States, and many other countries as well. Donald Rumsfeld has said that he doesn't want to have the United States in a position where there could be an outer space Pearl Harbor.
What are the options in terms of defence of these assets in outer space, of preventing other people from using outer space for things that could be detrimental to us?
As a second question, I wouldn't mind hearing Dr. Fergusson's response to some of the points Claude Bachand was making. He didn't get an opportunity to respond to those.
À (1050)
Dr. James Fergusson: By and large, one of the problems, as you correctly point out, is with the whole issue of outer space. I think in the next decade there will be a dramatic expansion of activity in outer space, not only on the part of America, but from nations around the globe. Many observers believe outer space will become in a way one of the driving forces of modern advanced information economies. It already is.
As I intimated earlier, one of the problems, of course, is that outer space is vulnerable to ground-based assets. For example, missiles launched into outer space to carry payloads can also be used to carry destruction. We know, for example, of the 1998 American MIRACL laser test, which tested how vulnerable a satellite would be to a ground-based laser. They were quite surprised at the vulnerability that was found out.
I think we have to be careful. All these factors do not necessarily mean that the United States is hell-bent for leather to put weapons in orbit, whether they be satellites, kinetic kill for anti-satellite purposes, or to strike at boost-phase weapons. There are a variety of different measures. Some of the vulnerabilities of outer space are that the ground stations, relay stations, are vulnerable. They have to be better defended to have greater security.
There are of course passive measures, like using shutters against satellites so they're not vulnerable to strikes from lasers, of hardening satellites in outer space. We harden for a nuclear attack for command and control reasons. We hardened for World War II and the blitz; we built bunkers that went down in the subway. You can harden satellites. This is expensive.
Let's discuss passive as well as active approaches. There are a range of active approaches, which can do certain functions and not others, depending on the orbital paths. These all can of course be negotiated, depending on what is technologically feasible and what is seen as essential, in security terms, politically. I think it's an issue we haven't explored well because we close our eyes simply by saying, “weaponization--we don't want to talk about that”.
I think I answered some of the questions asked earlier about the philosophical and moral basis, but I want to emphasize that the primary moral foundation and purpose of the state is the security of its citizens--of its citizens, not of everyone else's citizens, but of its citizens. We may not like it; we might like to think about the global village, but that's not the fundamental responsibility of the state. We are debating, in effect, different ways to provide effective security and defence to the citizens of Canada, what is most effective in the interests of Canada and Canadians.
I would suggest to you, and emphasize very strongly, that we support the non-proliferation regime. And no one is suggesting in Canada and the United States that the non-proliferation regime be thrown away. We are asking a question of the extent to which, at least in this area, missile defence will positively or negatively impact non-proliferation.
The strongest argument for a negative impact of missile defence on proliferation is that it might--might, if political conditions change--drive the Russians and the Chinese to expand their missile capabilities, greater decoys, more effectiveness. That's one element. But as I said, that depends on a system that is two decades away.
Under the current system, we're talking about how it will impact horizontal proliferation, the spread of missiles and nuclear weapons in particular, or other weapons of mass destruction, among states who have a variety of interests in obtaining them. When we look at that calculation, I think the argument is much stronger.
What it suggests, if you put it within the much deeper process of other aspects of the regime--diplomacy, the international community, etc.,--is that this in fact will act as another barrier to proliferation. It will have a positive impact.
À (1055)
The Chair: We'll pass now to Mr. Regehr.
Mr. Ernie Regehr: That's getting at the nub of the issue. On the statement that it won't have the predicted consequences, Mr. Fergusson himself says that we have no idea what it's going to be like ten years down the line--and ten years or two decades away is a very short timeline. The Americans MIRVed their missiles back in the seventies, and it didn't even take that long for any of those technological advantages to be overthrown.
Besides Russia and China, there are about 35 countries now who have a major missile capability. Most of those are fast allies of ourselves and the United States, but we don't know the dynamics of the future. If we build a system in which we trade diplomacy for mutual defence systems, then we could be setting ourselves up for an extraordinary escalation of capacity and for undermining the non-proliferation system, which is our final defence.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
I want to thank both witnesses, Mr. Regehr and Mr. Fergusson. I know it's Mr. Fergusson's second trip here to Ottawa within two weeks. We really appreciate it. It's not just a defence issue; it's a foreign affairs issue. We're very pleased both of you were here this morning. Thank you.
The meeting is adjourned.