[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Tuesday, April 30, 1996
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[English]
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. English): I call the meeting to order.
In the absence of the chair, Mr. Graham, who was speaking in the United States last night, I'll introduce the witnesses today.
Our topic is circumpolar affairs, and we're honoured to have the Ambassador for Circumpolar Affairs, Mary Simon, here today. She was appointed in October 1994.
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She is accompanied by Jack Stagg, the assistant deputy minister for policy and strategic direction; Harald Finkler, the director of circumpolar liaison; Franklyn Griffiths, a professor with the department of political science at the University of Toronto; and Robert Huebert, a professor with the department of political studies at the University of Manitoba.
As I've said, the subject this morning is circumpolar affairs, and the ambassador has agreed to speak to us. This is very important for our work in this committee in the next few months.
With that introduction, I will call on Ambassador Simon to make her comments this morning.
Ms Mary Simon (Ambassador for Circumpolar Affairs, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
I was just looking at your schedule for your northern trip, and I think you're going to have a very informative and productive trip into the north. I'm sure you're looking forward to it, and I think you'll have wonderful time.
I want to talk a little bit about my mandate before I get into the substance of my report to you. As you probably know, I report to two ministers: the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. My mandate is to represent Canada at international meetings on circumpolar issues, both Arctic and Antarctic issues. I also have the mandate of consulting with interested Canadians - and that's how it's worded in the appointment - particularly northern governments and aboriginal groups, and to coordinate federal efforts on circumpolar issues.
One of my priority activities is to advance Canada's Arctic Council initiative, which will be a new forum for multilateral cooperation on Arctic issues and whose members will be the eight Arctic states. Those eight Arctic states are: Canada, of course; the United States; Denmark, which includes Greenland; Norway; Finland; Sweden; Iceland; and Russia.
The goal is to have the foreign policy ministers of the eight Arctic states establish the council on July 10 in Canada. We're trying to keep to the schedule. We haven't quite finalized the negotiations for the declaration as yet, but we're going to be having a meeting at the beginning of June to finalize them.
I would also like to tell you a little bit about the history of this initiative and describe its objectives and structure. The creation of an Arctic Council of the eight Arctic nations was first proposed formally by Canada in 1989, although the concept dates back at least two decades. The other seven Arctic states support the initiative, and consultations have taken place over the last three years. Canadian northern aboriginal leaders and the governments of the Northwest Territories, the Yukon and the State of Alaska, as well as the Greenland Home Rule Government, have also been consulted and have pledged their support for the council.
An Arctic Council could bring about the following benefits:
Canadians and others would have a forum to make collective decisions that would help to resolve crucial matters facing the people who live in northern regions. In this regard, the Arctic Council is intended to go well beyond the scope of the Arctic environmental protection strategy, more commonly known as the AEPS, in which Canada and the other seven Arctic countries have participated since 1991.
The council will consider a broader range of issues with economic, social, cultural and other dimensions. For the first time the Arctic's peoples, governments and organizations together will be able to formally identify and act on priority problems of common concern.
In addition to the eight member nations, three organizations representing the indigenous peoples throughout the circumpolar Arctic will be permanent participants in the council: the Inuit Circumpolar Conference; the Saami Council; and the Association of Indigenous Minorities of the North, Siberia and the Far East of the Russian Federation.
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This permanent participant status recognizes the primary interests of indigenous peoples in the Arctic and provides for their meaningful participation in the council. As other indigenous organizations in Alaska, the western Arctic and the Russian Federation that are not represented by the existing three permanent participants have also expressed a desire to be part of the council, provision will be made for additional permanent participant seats in the council to accommodate them.
This level of participation of indigenous peoples is unique in international fora, where such groups are ordinarily observers and not participants. In this way the Arctic Council breaks new ground in creating a framework that allows those who are directly affected by government policies, particularly indigenous peoples, to participate in the discussions of the issues that affect them and to influence the decision-making process among the member states.
The Arctic Council will be an intergovernmental forum to promote cooperation and concerted action, and to bring political focus to addressing the urgent issues affecting the circumpolar north. These issues go well beyond those related to the protection of the environment and include the economic development of northern regions, the utilization of renewable and non-renewable resources, circumpolar trade, the improvement of transportation and communication systems, the health and welfare of northern residents, tourism development and cultural exchange.
The objectives and activities of the council will be grouped under two main initiatives: the AEPS and an Arctic sustainable development initiative, which is being developed. Sustainable development is both a goal and integrating concept of the Arctic Council, to incorporate not only environmental protection but also the economic and social aspects of the Arctic agenda.
Canada hosted the last ministerial meeting of the AEPS in Inuvik on March 20-21. The AEPS has accomplished a great deal with positive work in a relatively short period of time, and the council will incorporate it as a cornerstone and reinforce its objectives.
One of the essential objectives of the council is to advance in concrete ways the principle of sustainable development. Sustainable development refers to planned development that is clearly within the carrying capacity of the arctic and global ecosystems. Such development must contribute to a safe and healthy environment, as well as safeguard the cultures of indigenous people and respect their fundamental rights, values and priorities.
When development is initiated, efforts should be made to achieve an adequate measure of social justice through direct participation of indigenous people through all stages of the planning process. Environmental and social impact assessment and monitoring are basic requirements. Also, we must ensure that the benefits of development accrue to northern people in a manner acceptable to them. The sustainability of planned development should be measured in terms of both present and future generations, and in this regard we must avoid any severe limitations on future options.
In carrying out the important objectives of the council, the Arctic states are committed to ensuring respect for the use of the knowledge and experience of indigenous people. This is a principle of the 1992 Rio declaration on environment and development, and is one of the accepted principles of cooperation through the council.
How will the Arctic Council benefit the peoples of the Arctic? In terms of relating to people at the grassroots level, the council will provide an opportunity to address many local, regional and national issues internationally for action and discussion among all Arctic countries. It will be the responsibility of the representatives of indigenous organizations to bring forward community concerns to the council if these concerns are not already being addressed.
The Arctic Council will provide a unique forum for the governments of the eight Arctic countries to seek consensus-based solutions for problems facing the Arctic, in close collaboration with indigenous people. The open agenda of the council will allow it to address an extensive range of issues. The council will meet at ministerial level biannually. The chair and the secretariat of the council will rotate concurrently every two years among the eight Arctic states, beginning with Canada in 1996.
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Will the Arctic Council create duplication and add to what some may see as the proliferation of organizations? Will it simply add another level of bureaucracy? The purpose of the council is not to duplicate important and existing initiatives such as the AEPS, the Barents Euro-Arctic Council, which involves the five Nordic countries and Russia, or the Canada-Russia agreement on cooperation in the Arctic and in the north. The Arctic Council is designed to be an umbrella organization with a strong coordinating function.
The council will reinforce those initiatives and organizations that are already working to address and resolve Arctic issues and focus attention on areas where more cooperative efforts are needed. Most importantly it will bring high-level political attention to Arctic issues, especially in developing new ways of cooperation, sharing of expertise and cost-sharing in resolving many important issues.
The Arctic Council secretariat is already in place and has begun preparations for the launch of the council at the inaugural meeting in July. The secretariat is supported by both the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade is providing an executive director and support staff to the secretariat, while the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development is funding the cost of a part-time senior adviser and research officer. Operations and maintenance funding will be provided by DIAND in the amount of approximately $275,000 over two years, while office space and common user costs are being provided by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.
The Arctic Council secretariat will manage all of the administrative and logistical arrangements for the first formal ministerial meeting of the council in 1998, for preparatory meetings of senior officials and working groups, and respond to the requirements of all eight Arctic countries for documentation and liaison.
My office, which consists of myself, an adviser and a secretary, will continue to function and will retain its policy development and directing role. Over the past year we have had extensive discussions with the other seven Arctic governments and have almost finalized the text of the declaration on the establishment of the Arctic Council. The most recent meeting of senior officials was held in Ottawa in April, and the next meeting is scheduled for June 8 and 9, where we hope to reach a final agreement on the text of the declaration and settle the remaining few outstanding questions.
A true partnership may finally be emerging where governments and indigenous people can together develop a vision for the Arctic where national agendas can be harmonized and cultural diversity encouraged. If this is to be achieved, it is my hope that we can quickly move on to properly define and apply the principles of sustainable and equitable development in the Arctic.
It is clear that the Arctic Council is intended to be action- and results-oriented. Like any forum, the Arctic Council will have reasonable limitations. For example, not all concerns can possibly be addressed at once. Priorities will have to be identified both domestically and internationally. Funding arrangements involving the reallocation and reorientation of resources, for Canada as well as the other member states, will have to be determined. Ultimately, the effectiveness of the council will depend upon the joint efforts of all those involved.
Before concluding, I would add that I would be pleased to offer any suggestions and advice to this committee concerning your travelling to the Arctic.
Thank you.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. English): Thank you. I'm sure we will welcome that advice on our travel.
The next speaker is Jack Stagg, assistant deputy minister, policy and strategic direction, of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. Mr. Stagg.
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Mr. Jack Stagg (Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy and Strategic Direction, Department of Indian and Northern Affairs): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Following Ambassador Simon's presentation, I'd like to just provide a few supplementary comments relating to Canada's current approach to circumpolar cooperation and how I believe this should be complementary to an Arctic Council when it's formed.
First I'd like to say that the inauguration of the Arctic Council this summer - and we're all hopeful that it will actually happen this summer - will mark the culmination of at least thirty years of Canadian efforts in the area of circumpolar cooperation. At the same time, we may argue that this reflects also upon the significant developments that have taken place in Canadian northern development as well.
The Arctic Council is the new umbrella forum of the eight Arctic countries. Designed to address the broad range of Arctic issues, it will provide new opportunities to enhance Canadian involvement in a circumpolar scene, I believe, in three ways.
Firstly, it will establish a framework to ensure better cooperation and coordination of Canadian federal, provincial and territorial circumpolar activities. My sense is that Canada and its governments will have to get more focused, more cooperative and more coordinating, in part because of the existence of the Arctic Council itself.
Secondly, it will help us move from a reactive to a more proactive approach to Arctic issues. We're hopeful that an Arctic Council will in fact give Arctic and circumpolar issues a much higher profile than they've enjoyed in the past.
Finally, it will provide a forum to promote national interests.
On the first item, establishing a cooperative framework among polar states, I'd like to mention that over the past several years, various levels of government in Canada have played an active role in bilateral and multilateral circumpolar cooperation. In this area, my own department has pursued a long-standing involvement in circumpolar cooperation, especially through the Arctic environmental protection strategy, called AEPS, upon which the Arctic Council will build, and through cooperation first with the U.S.S.R. and more recently with Russia.
The department has been instrumental in facilitating the current involvement of the Government of the Northwest Territories with northern regions of Russia and Greenland as well as that of the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation and the northwestern part of the NWT with northern Russia. One tangible product of the Canada-Russia cooperation effort is a contract by the Yellowknife architectural firm of Ferguson Simek Clark, which has gained approximately $50 million in contracts in northern Russia. They're involved in building both a village housing project and an airport. So there can be tangible results for both Canada and its circumpolar partners from that kind of cooperation.
I should also mention that Alberta is a member of the Northern Forum, and Alberta of course is not generally seen as an Arctic government. The Northern Forum is an organization made up of representatives of sub-national governments - states, provinces, territories, counties, prefectures and autonomous regions - from the U.S.A., Canada, Mongolia, China, Japan, South Korea, Finland, Norway and Russia. The Northern Forum's mandate is to improve the quality of decision-making in governments of northern regions through the exchange of experience and ideas.
From a Canadian perspective, the framework of an Arctic Council will provide for a better integration of these activities, critical in this period of fiscal restraint. In fact that was one of the main impetuses to the idea of an Arctic Council. There was a proliferation of organizations around the circumpolar region, and it was felt, I think by both parliamentarians and officials in all circumpolar countries, that we needed a coordinating focus for all of that increased activity.
With respect to the two other items - being more proactive in circumpolar matters and promoting national interests - I would like to emphasize the importance of a Canadian northern foreign policy that is fully consistent with our own domestic agenda.
In an April 1994 northern foreign policy conference in Ottawa, my boss, the Honourable Ron Irwin, put as a question: How could a truly effective and comprehensive foreign policy not have an important northern dimension? He was referring to Canada's interests in promoting northern economic development, environmental integrity and the welfare of the peoples of the circumpolar world generally.
We believe we have recognized the importance of a northern foreign policy agenda responding to our domestic objectives and our own northern reality. That's why our northern foreign policy hopes to serve the aspirations, concerns and interests of Canada's northerners, especially aboriginal peoples. That is also why we have built into the Arctic Council an opportunity for the full voice of such peoples. It was Canada that in the early talks spearheaded the move to put together an Arctic council, the notion of creating a permanent participant role that goes beyond an observer role in any Arctic cooperative body like an Arctic council.
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Through its current commitment to circumpolar affairs the federal government has taken the responsibility to live up to its own national agenda, including among others things the protection of the Arctic environment, ensuring sustainable economic development of northern communities, and the major role of territorial governments and aboriginal peoples in shaping the future of Canada's north. I would submit that these issues constitute the main substantive framework for Canada's involvement in the circumpolar north, and what we will pursue in a new Arctic council.
Preservation of the integrity of the environment in Canada's north is critical since it constitutes, for many aboriginal people, their livelihood and culture. The presence of transboundary contaminants and their effects on the fragile Arctic environment and its people have been a prime concern to northerners.
Canada has invested and continues to invest a great deal of effort and resources at the national and international level to address Arctic environmental issues. Canada's active involvement in AEPS, including the recent outcome of the Inuvik ministerial meeting, reflects this commitment.
At the same time, Canada cannot disregard the new challenges and issues of significance to northern development that confront it, and which go beyond the protection of the Arctic environment. These include, among others, helping to promote economic viability of local northern communities and the social well-being of northerners.
As an aside, in Canada's north, especially in the eastern north, we have a demographic profile not unlike what we see on native reserves in southern Canada. The birth rate is about double the rest of Canada. About 60% of northern Canadians are below 30 years of age. These people are getting into the young family formation and need jobs. The role of an Arctic council, if nothing else, should be to promote community economic development and wealth creation locally.
There are common realities that the northern regions of Canada, from Yukon to Labrador, Alaska, Greenland, the Arctic regions of the Nordic countries and on a larger scale, the northern regions of Russia, must address. Traditional use of wildlife resources is an important dimension of the north's economy and is critical to aboriginal peoples and to the future of many communities. Promoting trade and economic activities in ways that benefit northerners constitutes an important element for the northern economy.
Also of importance to aboriginal people is the sound co-management in conservation of wildlife resources with our Arctic neighbours. Enhanced circumpolar cooperation is means of addressing transboundary issues related to resource management and the maintenance of environmental quality. We have learned only within the fairly recent past that the Arctic environment was and is a transboundary issue and can only be cared for through transboundary cooperation.
The Canadian government is committed to the involvement of northerners in circumpolar affairs. We've demonstrated this commitment through the AEPS process and on the ongoing Arctic Council discussions.
While addressing these issues I believe we have a responsibility to promote and share with our Arctic neighbours our successful experiences, including those in aboriginal self-government, environmental protection and sustainable development. The Arctic Council will be a key mechanism to achieve this objective.
In conclusion, I would like to bring your attention to the situation in the Russian north. As I referred to earlier, my department has been involved for the past 30 years in cooperation with Russia on Arctic issues. Based on our experience I submit that an extremely important factor in achieving sustainable development in the circumpolar north is improvement in the socioeconomic conditions of the Russian north. Canada is in an excellent position to assist in this area.
Over the years Canada has gained a unique and impressive experience in northern development. We are now facing an increased responsibility on the international and circumpolar scene. I believe both our domestic and international experience in Arctic matters stand us in good stead to meet the increased responsibility. Thank you.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. English): Thank you, Mr. Stagg.
Our next speaker is Harald Finkler, director circumpolar liaison with the department.
Mr. Harald Finkler (Director of Circumpolar Liaison, Department of Indian and Northern Affairs): I wasn't going to address the committee.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. English): You can answer questions later then.
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We'll move to Frank Griffiths, who's an old friend of this committee. He recently testified to the foreign policy review on cultural policy, about which he's written a book. I'd like to plug his book right now. But today Professor Griffiths is going back to a more traditional field - the north - on which he is an expert.
Mr. Griffiths.
Professor Franklyn Griffiths (Department of Political Science, University of Toronto): Mr. Chairman, my thoughts are going to be on process. Perhaps I should come last, because I'm not going to talk so much about substance and what's going on.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. English): Okay, let's move on to substance then.
I would ask Professor Huebert of the University of Manitoba to come forward.
Prof. Griffiths: What would you like?
Professor Robert Huebert (Department of Political Studies, University of Manitoba): The interesting thing is that I'll be talking on process.
Prof. Griffiths: Then let me take a run at it.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. English): We know that political scientists love process.
Prof. Griffiths: It seems to me that in establishing an Arctic council, a long, important and momentous journey will have been completed.
The Arctic Council and the meaning of this new institution should be celebrated. I think we should understand as fully as we can what has been contemplated here and what is going to happen, because I think it's very significant. You can talk about the significance of it in many ways, but I think the process aspects of the Arctic Council are as interesting and as significant as anything.
Canada, in proposing and in taking the initiative on this matter, has done something very creative and original. We are proposing, and other Arctic states are agreeing to, an intergovernmental Arctic forum at which non-governmental organizations will have a major say. We're going to have international aboriginal organizations at the table, fully enabled to speak on all the issues that are going to be before the council. This is not going to be states talking among themselves while the peoples whose interests they are deliberating on are far away. This is going to be an institution at which those people most directly affected and concerned will be at the table itself.
If you think about the Organization of American States or other regional intergovernmental organizations, there is nothing like this out there, as far as I'm aware. We are creating something very new and interesting, and we should be aware of this. We are opening up a new model, a new way of doing things that may have significant implications elsewhere in this world.
So my first point is that we need to be very sure this thing works well and that we make a success of this new initiative, not merely for what it may do to us, but for the demonstration effect it may have about a new way of doing business.
When the Arctic Council is up and running, I think the profile of Arctic international issues and domestic issues will increase in this country. There is going to be more interest in what is going on in Canada. As the first hosts of the Arctic Council, we as a country will be required to lead and to show active leadership in ways that we've only just started to do.
I believe this means we will have to be rather more organized than we have been about our Arctic policies. As far as I know, at this moment there is no process whereby in Canada we may systematically create a set of Arctic policies that are based upon the judgments and inputs of all the interested actors in this country to produce an ordered and active Canadian Arctic policy.
Mary Simon and others are doing a great deal in this, but I believe there is an institutional gap. I think there needs to be a new structure created that would allow us to be more proactive, to be able to set out priorities for what we want to do first, second and third in some systematic order, and not the order of a few people sitting at a table somewhere, but an order or ranking based on the real interests and real input of Canadians.
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We will also need to develop a process that allows us to really take advantage of interconnections and, shall we say, synergies, interdependencies, among issues so we know what the shortcuts are and where the best places are to attack the policies. As we know and understand them, we see the interconnections. We see that by doing one thing we can have two or three good results, perhaps. A good process will start to produce this.
We will also, as Mary Simon has mentioned, be needing to consider the redeployment of resources. There's not going to be a lot of new money, maybe none. Therefore, if we're going to make new contributions, we're going to have to institutionalize ways of saving costs and doing more with less. These are things a process will require of us.
A process, I believe, should give a very loud voice, if I can put it that simply, to northerners in this country. It should not be southern-based.
It should also, in my view, be a process that deals with northern affairs generally. For your discussion, I would suggest it makes no sense any more to talk about northern foreign policy. Especially in the north, policy no longer begins at the water's edge and ends at the water's edge. We are talking about transboundary flows, commonalities and all kinds of things that reach right into our country. Therefore, if we want a process that works, this will be a northern policy process, not a northern foreign policy process.
Once upon a time there was something like this in Canada, and it was suited to attitudes and thinking of some years back. There was an institution called the Advisory Committee on Northern Development, the ACND. This was an interagency, or intergovernmental, Ottawa-based, federal coordinating body that helped all of the main federal departments interested in the north put together a common position. It was run by DIAND, and for a while it ran very well and was indeed a meeting ground where all kinds of good things happened. But as far as I know - and Jack can correct me if I'm wrong - DIAND killed this institution in due course, because it took it over and made it the instrument for DIAND's particular institutional requirements. It became less of a neutral meeting space, and eventually the ACND died.
I think there's a need to reconsider and perhaps re-establish an advisory committee on northern development and to think of it in some ways as practising at home what we preach abroad. I'm suggesting a new formula for institutional cooperation and policy-making in this country. I'm suggesting a formula whereby we would also have, as we propose for the Arctic Council, non-governmental players at the table of a Canadian coordinating body.
Arctic and other aboriginal organizations should be at a table in Ottawa trying to coordinate northern policy. It could be that some southern-based NGOs should also be at the table. I should think the Canadian Arctic Resources Committee would have a lot to say on a good many issues. Maybe the Arctic Petroleum Operators would have something to say.
Basically, as I see it, this body would be a place where the departments of the federal government, the territorial governments and the provinces also would come to talk about issues of common concern.
Finally, the rules would be those of consensus, and I would think, in so far as we're talking about the federal mandate, any decisions made would be made simply by those federal institutions represented at the table. This is again a little like the Arctic Council proposal, where international aboriginal groups would have plenty to say, but finally the decision is going to be made by the Arctic states. Because it's by consensus, everyone would really have had a great chance for input into the process.
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These are some ideas that I lay before you, because before your hearings are over you will have heard a great many ideas about what we might do in the international north. Unless we find a way of institutionalizing and regularizing our discussion, we will not really make the most of the Arctic Council initiative. We will not serve ourselves, shall we say, by this initiative as well as we could. We would not build a wider base of support for Arctic affairs in this country. We will find it harder to really give northerners the lead that I believe they should have.
So I suggest we think a little bit about a new institutional mechanism that would allow us to create a coherent, comprehensive and proactive approach to our Arctic policies, domestic as well as foreign.
A last point is that I think this body should be chaired by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. The ambassador has just indicated to us that part of her mandate is the coordination of federal activity. I think perhaps the ambassador should be the person to chair this body.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. English): Thank you, Professor Griffiths.
Our final speaker is Robert Huebert of the University of Manitoba.
Prof. Huebert: Thank you. I'd like to begin by echoing very loudly two points that were made by both the ambassador and Professor Griffiths. One is indeed the very unique nature that the Arctic Council now has in terms of international organization formation. Also, the inclusion of the three aboriginal groups as permanent participants is indeed - again, this is something that has to be underlined extensively - a new element in basically what the jargon referred to as international governance. This is probably some function, some event, that we have not seen occurring before. Indeed, it is of extreme importance that it goes.
Having said that, I'd just like to very quickly go through the three major points I would like to address in my talk.
First, I would like to just very briefly touch upon the formation of Canadian northern foreign policy. Those of us who have studied it over any length of time have noted that there are very strong trends and tendencies that occur. Obviously, any creation and implementation and ultimate success of the Arctic Council from a Canadian perspective will be affected by these factors.
I would also like to spend a brief bit of time looking at new domestic and international forces that are going to be affecting any new initiative that we bring into the international fora, which obviously may not necessarily be normally thought of in the context of Arctic affairs, but will nevertheless have a major impact on its ultimate success or failure.
The last point I'd like to touch on is some of the future directions in which we can probably expect the Arctic Council to be heading in terms of Canadian foreign policy, and possibly, steps that we can avoid to prevent certain difficulties.
First, just briefly touching upon the issue of the formation of Canadian northern foreign policy, it is indeed a paradox. That's because when one examines it over any length or period, you can see that it is event-driven. Our reaction to the Manhattan and voyages of the Polar Sea illustrates this quite clearly. It tends to be ad hoc, sporadic and very quick to lose people's interest.
Paradoxically - this is where the rub really lies - at the same time, it is extremely professional. We are probably the leaders in terms of international cooperation, even though I don't think Canadians get the full extent of acknowledgements in terms of exactly how important our contributions are. We are the leaders, to a large degree, even though we do not take credit in many instances.
To a large degree, one can understand the reason why we have this paradox by simply looking at the actors involved in terms of our Canadian foreign policy. Once again, taking a longer viewpoint, you can see that the political leadership tends to have a relatively short attention span when it comes to the issue of northern international cooperation.
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Where our strength comes from - I will be touching on this issue momentarily - is indeed in its bureaucratic expertise. Even though it is of course quite common to slam bureaucrats, etc., and the usual media misperception - that's what I claim - within the Canadian context, the extreme strength and success of many of our international efforts are indeed completely due to the expertise and dedication of several key individuals.
Just as an aside, one of the interesting points of those of us who study Canadian foreign policy is that you will see - those of you who have looked at the issue - the same names coming up again and again starting as early as the mid-1970s up to 1996. A name such as Fred Roots obviously immediately come to mind.
This illustrates some of these small elements, but nevertheless professional components.
In terms of media attention, once again, one aspect to which we have to be very attuned is the fact that the media tends to have a very shallow attention span in this regard. What's a good example? Compare and contrast the media attention given to the voyage of the Polar Sea in 1985, in what was admittedly a slow press period, to the total and complete lack of media attention given to the recent hosting of the AEPS. I would contend very strongly that in terms of a long-term impact on Canada, the AEPS would have a much more substantial influence than the voyage of the Polar Sea. Nevertheless, we can see quite clearly that the media found the voyage much more of a ``sexier'' topic to cover, and as such, as far as I'm aware, there was no coverage in southern media sources in terms of the recent meeting in March.
In terms of the public, there is of course a superficial interest in terms of what happens in the Canadian Arctic, at least from a southern perspective. How extensive is this? It's an issue of some debate, but I would contend that it's probably not much greater than what the media shows.
The last and most important thing, I would say, in terms of driving new policy initiatives, is of course the NGO groups. One of the paradoxes of course is that these groups within the Canadian context are increasingly receiving less and less support. Here's one aspect just to illustrate how powerful and important a role some of these groups play. I would like to point out that the whole focus on sustainability in terms of the AEPS came from an initiative from the ICC, not from any of the government organizations. Once again, this illustrates clearly the importance and professionalism that these groups give.
Moving to my second major point, which is in terms of the 1990 context, there are two major trends that I'm afraid usually get overlooked when we consider issues of Canadian northern foreign policy. I think they are going to have key influences on ultimate success.
First, looking at the domestic elements, first and foremost, we know that within all government policies there is a move toward deregulation. The question now becomes: how will that deregulation affect any policy initiatives that we may want to pursue in terms of both international cooperation and northern development? Will we have the policy capabilities in the context of the policy deregulation that we see occurring?
There's another factor that often gets laughed off, but I nevertheless see it as becoming of extreme importance given the expertise that our bureaucratic element has displayed. It's a fact that if you look at our overall public administration, the state of bureaucracy within Canada, one of the realities is that there's no new hiring.
This simply means that we can expect to see the existing bureaucratic members who are indeed experts in this field to be reaching retirement age without replacement. This indeed will be a major, long-term impact. And there seems to be little consideration that when we are supposedly cutting the fat, we are in fact eliminating our capabilities in this regard.
The third factor from a domestic perspective is the reduction of budgetary allocations to NGOs. Once again, many of the major initiatives indeed flow from Canadian NGOs. Professor Griffiths mentioned the role that CARC could play. Once again, if you look at their overall budget, you'll see that from about approximately the mid-1980s onward, there have been continuing increased reductions. The question remains: will we be able to support them into any period in the future?
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Moving into the international forum, there are two very important contradictory trends that we have to take into consideration in considering the Arctic Council. First and foremost, on the positive side, is the increased cooperation. With the end of the Cold War, we remain in a period of international cooperation probably unachieved since the end of the Second World War. This is indeed a time to move forward in that context.
However - this is important to consider, and it often does not receive the importance it needs - at the same time, we have an increasing emphasis on privatization, reduction of regulation and reduction of government spending. It goes beyond being simply fiscally responsible. It's an entirely different and new - once again, I'm using the jargon that we academics seem to like so much - paradigm of international relations. In other words, the idea of actually having government taking a proactive position in terms of international cooperation, has definitely been on the decrease.
One only has to look at the rewriting of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to see a perfect example of where we've moved from an approach of what could be best characterized as a common-heritage approach to one of privatization. This is just so you can see this particular phenomenon in effect.
This leads me to my last point, which is where we can expect to see the Arctic Council in Canada move into the future.
First and foremost, on the issue of security, the United States has made it abundantly clear that the Arctic Council will not be considering issues of traditional security concerns. In other words, they will not allow anything that touches on the military side. This probably is, ironically, a strength for the Arctic Council, because it obviously is an issue that would threaten to break down any form of consensus.
On the environmental side, Ambassador Simon has already mentioned that one of the cornerstones will be emerging with the AEPS. The question that will be facing the Arctic Council is where does it go in the future with this?
Those of us who have looked closely at the documents that have come out from the AEPS acknowledge that it has played a major role in our understanding of Arctic environmental issues. But the two major focuses of the AEPS have been on the examination of existing international cooperative measures and how bad the problem is. The question now that will be facing the Arctic Council is what steps will be taken?
For example, if we really want to address the issue of persistent organic pollutants, which is one of the major sources of trans-boundary pollution, we are going to have to enter into major negotiations with southern latitude countries. That's because, in many instances, the major sources of POPs come from fertilizers and agricultural run-off. The question becomes: in what will we be able to interest India, Indonesia and the Philippines in terms of negotiations? What will we be able to give to them to either change their fertilizer policy or perhaps reduce it? These will be expensive questions, I would contend.
My last point in terms of the Arctic Council - I will conclude on that - is the issue of resources. Eventually, the international recession will end. At least, one hopes so. That being the case, we can indeed expect to see further resource development.
Several questions at the Arctic Council that haven't been addressed that will inevitably come up will be the interaction between any resource development in the northern regions in terms of its interactions with what is indeed included within NAFTA, the free trade agreement, and the European Union. In other words, have we already, in some context or another - this is an open question - without even recognizing it, tied our hands in terms of any resource development?
For example, one may have to have a closer look at the energy requirements of NAFTA to see whether there will be any ramifications in terms of resource development in the north. Once again, this is an open question for which there is no apparent answer at this point.
Nevertheless, this whole international globalization and the Arctic Council with regard to resource development is a question that will have to be faced, assuming we are able to see further development begin once again.
I'd like to end on this point. Thank you very much.
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The Vice-Chairman (Mr. English): Thank you very much, Professor Huebert. This is very interesting testimony. I'm sure it raises many questions.
Mr. Paré.
[Translation]
Mr. Paré (Louis-Hébert): I would like to thank our witnesses this morning. They had expressed very interesting opinions.
Before I ask my question, I would like to say that I have noted some of their statements. Among other things, Mr. Griffiths said that our action should not be Southern-based, and that we should practice what we preach and let non-governmental organizations have a say. He concluded by saying that it will be difficult for us to allow Northerners to play the role they should have.
On the other hand, Mr. Huebert raised several issues, two of which I found particularly interesting: first of all, the impact of deregulation on Northern development and then, the financial constraints placed upon non-governmental organizations.
You are raising important issues. I presume that for Northerners, people living in the South have very little credibility. Nevertheless, you said that we should practice what we preach. I believe it will not be easy, judging by the problems we have with the Indian Act in Canada. If we were to take this approach to tackle the Northern development issue, I believe that we would not go very far. So, we have very little credibility and a lot of efforts are needed if we want to turn things around.
If we take into account the experience of Canada and of Western countries - I won't single out Canada - , don't you think it would be advisable to allow Northern peoples to veto any development project?
In the document presented by Ambassador Simon, it is mentioned somewhere that these projects should at least be acceptable. I don't think that saying that projects should be acceptable would be sufficient. Are we ready to directly involve Northerners to the point of giving them veto power? This is my first question.
Last week, one of our witnesses said that if we wanted our action in the North to be really efficient, we should try to get the eight countries sitting on the Arctic Council to sign an agreement which would be legally binding for all parties. He added, however, that it would probably take ten years to do that. I assume that over those ten years, lots of time will have been spent talking and not getting much done.
[English]
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. English): Who would like to respond? Professor Griffiths.
Prof. Griffiths: That was a very interesting intervention. It raised a lot of questions.
To take up the last point first, about spending a lot of time talking and not getting much done, as I understand what is planned for the Arctic Council, we are considering here an institution that amounts basically to a standing conference. It gathers every now and then. People make commitments. These commitments do not have the force of law. There are no treaties. Instead, people understand that they will be meeting within two years and earlier, and the implementation will be open to public review. There will be some suasion efforts, some capacity of others perhaps even to put pressure on one another to see that commitments are lived up to. But in no way, I think, should an Arctic council be looked at as, so to speak, a dental operation - that is, an institution with teeth in it. Nor is it toothless.
An Arctic council will have a way, I believe, of emphasizing all that we can agree upon. Building on this experience of trust and cooperation, perhaps we'll find that we get things done faster as we come to work together more and more. Indeed, I think this is one of the virtues of an Arctic council. We will work through consensus and on the basis of what everybody is ready to do.
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Some conflict is likely in the work of an Arctic council. It may be that someone wants to develop certain areas and run roughshod over the environment for all kinds of urgent and perhaps compelling reasons, and that some others say no to this. As an Arctic council, this is surely a place at which we should be working these things out.
There's no predicting that we will necessarily succeed on all issues in an Arctic council. But it could be that if the participants in a council see there are very real difficulties on a given issue, they may tend to circumvent it and not face up to it, in which case others at the table may wish to go public. They may wish to speak to the press and say so and so is not behaving according to what they said before or to some set of principles. So suasion and pressure can be exercised.
I don't think anyone I've heard of has been talking about a veto for northern peoples on development. Again, the procedure is one of consensus. In the case of an Arctic council, NGOs, except by going to the press and perhaps raising a stink, will not be able to stop whatever it is that governments in their wisdom decide they wish to do. But before this all happens in an Arctic council surely there will be discussion, compromise and listening to one another, and here we have an institution where all of these things can come together.
Anyway, it might be interesting for you to hear a critique of or an attack on the Arctic Council. You're probably going to hear a lot of things in support of it, but if you wish, at some point I could develop an attack on the whole idea as an American or somebody else might. The idea is not without its vulnerabilities, but on balance I think it's well thought out. It is a fabulous way ahead. It is a great new departure that I think we should support.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. English): Ambassador Simon, you indicated that you wanted to make a comment.
Ms Simon: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a short response to Professor Griffiths.
I think the questions you've raised are very important and have often been discussed in deliberations with the other Arctic countries. Some of the key issues in the discussions have been how decisions are going to be made, what kind of resourcing is going to be available to the council, and what kind of priority-setting process are we going to agree on. We could create an empty shell if those issues aren't addressed appropriately.
When we were drafting the declaration that is now before the Arctic countries, which isn't completely finalized yet, the issue of how indigenous peoples would participate was one of the first items that was discussed in the Arctic Council. It was agreed that there are three levels of participants in the Arctic Council.
One is that the Arctic nations will be the members, that is, they're the ones who ultimately make the decisions. But indigenous peoples and other northerners felt that in order for them to make those decisions in a manner that would be consistent with what was happening in the north, as well as with the aspirations of northerners, there had to be some meaningful input into the process. It had to be a different category of participation, however, because these are non-governmental organizations. That is why the category of permanent participant came into this forum, and that category is one level above the observer status.
Permanent participant status will allow organizations to participate in Arctic Council deliberations. Permanent participant status will allow for the indigenous organizations to be involved in all aspects of the Arctic Council's work.
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We hope we can strike a balance without giving any veto power to any organization, because nobody would agree to that. We're trying to find a way to balance the input of northerners with the decision-making power of governments. It's certainly an area that is of concern.
One weakness in the Arctic Council could be if we shut out the northern organizations too much, because governments ultimately have the right to hold their own meetings. So we will have to be careful in terms of when we have closed-door sessions without the northern peoples involved.
Another weakness of the council may be the funding aspect, because it's all voluntary funding. None of the Arctic nations want to agree on shared funding for the council, because this is not a legally binding agreement. It's a declaration and at this time the countries aren't prepared to share the resourcing of the Arctic Council. So this is all based on voluntary funding.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. English): Professor Huebert, if you could respond briefly....
Prof. Huebert: In terms of the important question about the veto, the Canadian experience provides an interesting example of exactly how we can expect the coordination of the three non-government organizations to function.
We only have to look at our own Arctic environmental strategy, which was introduced as part of our Green Plan. Contained with that is the northern contaminants program, in which aboriginal groups are allowed to act as full participants. From all accounts this particular component of the Arctic environmental strategy has worked very well in addressing issues that normally would not be addressed.
The two questions or issues in which it doesn't work well are whether or not the body is allocated the proper budget, and whether or not the issues the bodies are allowed to address are indeed the important ones. In other words, it's who's controlling the agenda in terms of the negotiations. In that context, you may not need a veto. In other words, you do get the cooperation, but the problem becomes whether or not it is the issue that you have to be addressing.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. English): Mr. Mills.
Mr. Mills (Red Deer): I have a couple of questions.
Professor Stagg, you mentioned some things about the people in our north. How comparable are the other seven countries in terms of their northern people? Are they similar? Do they have double the birth rate and 60% of the population under 30? Is it similar across all of the countries, something that we could discuss?
Related to that are the land claims that we made in setting up Nunavut and so on, and some of the Yukon land claims, as well as any future claims. Are those similar? Are we going to be talking apples to apples, or are there some bananas in there?
Mr. Stagg: I'll take a stab at that. In terms of the populations across the north, I don't have the exact number, Mr. Mills, but I can probably get those for you. The biggest contrast in terms of numbers between first nations and Inuit people in our north and other countries has to be with Russia. There are approximately one million what one might term indigenous people in northern Russia - i.e., north of 60 degrees north latitude - as compared to somewhere in the neighbourhood of 40,000 to 50,000 indigenous people in our north. So the numbers are quite a bit larger.
Many of the northern indigenous people in the circumpolar nations face the same kinds of difficulties - the cultural challenge in meeting southern populations and how that's dealt with, the difficulty with respect to wealth creation in the local communities given the long distances, the same kinds of problems that non-indigenous people have in the north - the balance between a traditional lifestyle.... The Saami and several of the indigenous communities in northern Russia are making the balance between traditional economies and the new economies that have come from other parts of the country, including the south. And there are deep concerns about persistent organic pollutants coming into the north and finding their way in the food chain.
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Northern indigenous people are the largest consumers in the north of the local foods, wild foods where these persistent organic pollutants tend to end up. They have a particular and acute concern about the environment, about the existence of those pollutants and about cleaning it up.
In terms of comparisons between our settlement with indigenous peoples in our north and other countries, there isn't a similar kind of process - certainly in Russia. But there is greater and greater demand for self-governance, and other countries are handling it somewhat differently. For instance, you have the Saami parliament, which is meant to give a measure of authority to the northern Saami in Finland, Norway and Sweden. Greenland, of course, has a home rule provision and a government separate and apart from Denmark. A very rough translation of that might be the creation of Nunavut in our own north.
In terms of the relationship between southern populations and the northern indigenous ones, the common thread among the circumpolar countries is the dissimilarity in which the relationship has developed and persisted within those countries.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. English): Mr. Iftody.
Mr. Iftody (Provencher): The ambassador is gone, but maybe one of the other gentlemen can answer this question.
I've had some experience in working with aboriginal people in the north over the last 10 years or so, and I appreciate the work that your group is doing. I'm going to be travelling in the eastern part of the country and visiting some of the northern communities - I have visited Whitehorse and Yellowknife and a few years ago worked for the Native Council of Canada and several other communities; I've been to Rankin Inlet and others. And I can't imagine meeting with the chiefs or council members and getting into a removed and esoteric discussion about foreign policy in the Arctic, and I say that with all respect.
My sense is that most of the communities in the north, particularly the aboriginal communities, are so hard-pressed with the immediate issues that fall under the rubric of economic development and social needs, that these kinds of discussions and the work we might be undertaking are a step removed from their immediate difficulties. In my own riding of Provencher in Manitoba I have three aboriginal communities that, even in the south, continue to deal with very difficult issues. My first line of thinking on some of these problems and dilemmas is to deal with more immediate concerns, such as how northern communities will get some housing for their people. I think that has been presented again and again.
I've become particularly distressed by some of these concerns and the very unfortunate and sad social outcome of some of these difficulties. As the government of Canada, I think our first line of defence and attack on some of these issues has to be immediate in terms of economic development, housing, infrastructure in terms of sewer, water and transportation, whether airport or road, leading in logical linkages to more global kinds of initiatives. You can't think globally until you start to act locally, and I think those basic kinds of hinges are missing in some of the things we're talking about.
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Has your committee stepped back from some of these more generic things that you want to do? Could you provide this committee with some advice in terms of what we might recommend to our colleagues about setting priorities in some of these more immediate areas? I don't think some of these larger things that we're attempting to undertake will happen unless we have some basic infrastructure.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. English): Thank you, Mr. Iftody.
Mr. Stagg, you indicated that you wanted to respond.
Mr. Stagg: Let me take a stab at it.
I tend to agree that there are difficulties in northern communities and that we have to address those. There are a number of ways in which I think we've been trying to do that over the last 15 or 20 years. One is to establish fair and equitable land claims settlements with northern communities.
This means a couple of things. It means a wealth flow into those communities and the potential for increasing infrastructure, development and education within those communities - a kind of general betterment. I think the land claims process also has brought a tremendous awareness of the larger world. We're not finished up there and it's not a perfect process, but we've made considerable progress in the last 10 to 15 years.
Second, with the northern territories - soon to be three territories - we've established a process for formula-like funding that allows northerners, including northern small communities, to plan what their priorities should be. Right now about $1.1 billion to $1.2 billion annually goes as public transfers from the federal government to the two territories. With the three territories that will increase somewhat in the next five to seven years.
It is extremely important that Canada deals fairly and urgently with domestic problems that we know exist in small northern communities, but we should also remind ourselves that northern indigenous communities began on-the-ground cooperation before we had thought about establishing an Arctic council or the Arctic environmental protection strategy.
In 1977 the Inuit Circumpolar Conference was formed among the Inuit who lived in at least three of the regions in order to compare problems and solutions. Linking that to the creation of wealth, I think one of things the Arctic Council can do if it does nothing else is to share the successes that small communities have had in sustainable development projects, and small business projects, and creating wealth locally. God knows it's a difficult challenge both for ourselves and those people who are partnering up there in the small communities.
If the Arctic Council does anything initially, and I disagree with the gentleman who said that it likely will talk and do nothing for a while.... My sense is that the real challenge is getting it up, getting it going, and getting it doing concrete things that quickly benefit those small communities. This is not to be some larger kind of international foreign policy forum. Those of us who worked towards it have seen it much more as a practical forum and a tool that will mean something to people in small communities in the various circumpolar regions.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. English): Thank you, Mr. Stagg.
Ambassador Simon indicated that she would like to comment on this, as well as Professor Huebert and Professor Griffiths. Please keep your responses fairly brief.
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Ms Simon: I'll be very brief.
I was president of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference when this question repeatedly came up among the Inuit: how was an international organization going to benefit them at the community level? I think it's an issue that requires discussion. A lot of the difficulties that communities have in terms of housing, some of the services that are not provided for in the community, this is really a national or regional responsibility. So those have to be addressed.
I think that should be in place before you start addressing another process, which is the international process. Jack mentioned that a lot of work was done through the ICC in terms of comparing the situations among the Inuit in different countries, exchange of information and learning from one another. I think the Arctic Council will provide a forum at the intergovernmental level to do some of that.
You're wondering what you'll be discussing with the communities. One of the things that directly relates to northern policy and the involvement of northerners and communities is how development takes place in the north. What kind of advice can northerners give us that works at these different levels? When you look at the transboundary pollution, environmental problems and some of the social difficulties that northerners are facing, a lot of that is due to activities that are not coming from their communities. So they'd like to have some say in how this is going to take place.
I think our domestic agenda in Canada has to tie in very closely to the international dimension, which is the work that I happen to be doing at the moment. The foundation has to be based on whether an environmental and social impact review process - the existing one - is sufficient for the northern regions.
I was on the Kativik Environmental Quality Commission, which reviewed the hydro development project on the Great Whale River. One of the weaknesses was that even though we were charged with the looking at the environmental impacts, the social impact was not taken into consideration. I think that kind of feedback from the communities to your committee is very important.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. English): Thank you, ambassador.
Professor Huebert.
Prof. Huebert: I listened to the concerns listed and of course they must be dealt with, but the important point to remember is that regardless of whether it is the Arctic Council, there are three issues that have to be dealt with from an international perspective. The first is the source of the pollutants. Those are of international origin and a domestic response will not be able to reply the pesticide policies of India, for example. That has to be handled from an international perspective.
Second, the issue of resource extraction will involve multinational corporations. Obviously, once again that will be an international problem of direct ramifications.
Third, an element that sometimes gets overlooked in terms of the benefit of something like the Arctic Council is that this will give a focal point in terms of public attention. It may seem superficial to say this - this gets back to Professor Griffiths' earlier comments about the institutionalization - but part of the problem is just keeping southern Canadians' attention there.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. English): Are there further comments?
Prof. Griffiths: This was an awfully good question. It reflects the need for an institutionalized process of figuring out what we want to do, and what makes sense and to whom. There should be a way of bringing together these opinions and feelings. I've travelled in the north and I've sensed the same at times. But I sense too that if people are interested in food contamination - if they cannot eat the food - it's not just necessarily local contamination. Some of it is international. There's an awareness of this. I think a process should be available to bring all these things together into some common understanding with what we're doing.
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What I really want to say, and I will do so quickly, is that surely because of some of these questions at the community level it's really vital an Arctic council, when it starts, picks out a few things that can be acted on and done in short order to really show results soon.
In other words, it is important in the priority setting for an Arctic council to pick a few things you can really make a difference on in short order at the very beginning and deliver so that people everywhere start to feel this does make a difference and this is not a 10-year talking shop.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. English): Thank you, Professor Griffiths.
[Translation]
Mrs Debien, do you have any questions?
Mrs Debien (Laval East): Yes.
Good morning, gentlemen. As I understand from your presentations, several things led to the establishment of the Arctic Council. We know that spontaneous generation is not the way the concept of the Arctic Council was born, but rather that it was a reaction to what is happening in the North and also to deal with the many problems that exist there, the main one being, I think, the environmental problem.
We know the scope of the existing environmental problems and several were mentioned earlier, including the nuclear mess Russia have been landed with, transboundary pollution and its impact on the food chain and people's health, the dumping of waste in our oceans, radioactive waste, and so on. In fact, I believe you have given us a very good picture of the problem.
This leads me to say that, essentially, the Arctic Council should have a second mandate to develop multilateral cooperation to deal with these problems. As Ambassador Simon mentions in her document, these are environmental problems, with all the negative impact this implies, and one of the main objectives of the Council is to actively promote the notion of sustainable development. In this regard, I am a bit confused, Ambassador Simon, by one sentence in your document. You say,
- The sustainability of planned development should be measured in terms of both present and
further generations. In this regard, we must avoid any severe limitations of future options.
[English]
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bergeron): Madam Simon.
Ms Simon: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll try to clarify this point.
I think what I meant in this particular phraseology was that when you look at development issues in the north, and their pattern, not a lot of regard has been given to either the environment or to the creation of more employment for people who live in the Arctic region. I think when we say we don't want to limit our future options, we're talking about those kinds of issues. Development should not go ahead at the sacrifice of either the environment or the peoples being affected by that development. It should not happen for the sake of resource development. But this is what has happened, not just in the north but in other parts of the world.
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We're saying that in order to have future options for all of those different areas and for the generations that Mr. Stagg talked about - the very young generation that is before us - these options should be carefully looked at when development is considered. We're looking not just at protecting the environment but at trying to find a balance between development and use - not use in the sense of just protecting the environment, but in the sense of making the communities more viable in terms of basic infrastructure, good housing, good running water and sewage systems. These are all important, but most of the people up north are sitting in their homes with no opportunities, and those are the kinds of things we're talking about.
Does that clarify your question?
[Translation]
Mrs Debien: Only in part, but I'll take up the subject again.
[English]
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bergeron): Mr. Stagg.
Mr. Stagg: I think a kind of myth has grown up around the notion of sustainable development, and that is that many people who are engaged in development see the term as meaning environmental protection only. Right from the time of the Brundtland commission sustainable development meant development that could be sustained over a longer period of time, and that cared about the environment. Many other aspects have been added to this, including greater local decision-making over the choices in terms of development versus non-development.
My sense is that one of the positions Canada has taken in putting together an Arctic council is the notion that sustainable development doesn't mean no development. It means intelligent, thoughtful and careful development, but it doesn't mean no development.
[Translation]
Mrs Debien: I would like to make a brief comment regarding Mr. Stagg's statement. I fully agree with your definition of sustainable development. It is not restricted to environmental protection. Let me reassure you: as far as I am concerned, this is not a myth.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. English): Mr. Flis.
[English]
Mr. Flis (Parkdale - High Park): Ambassador Simon, in your presentation you stressed that one of your mandates is to consult with interested Canadians, particularly northern governments and aboriginal groups. You also mentioned that another one of your mandates is to coordinate federal efforts on circumpolar issues.
I assume that on matters such as environmental issues you would have to consult with the Minister of the Environment, on health issues with the Minister of National Health, on Arctic transportation problems with the Minister of Transport, and on developing industry with the Minister of Industry and maybe even the minister for foreign trade, but you are responsible only to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.
You then go on to tell us that in your office you have only an adviser and a secretary. How on earth are you going to carry out your mandates with those limited resources? What should the government give you? Other witnesses have mentioned budget restraints and I'm pleased that the witnesses recognize that, but we are doing something creative and unique in the world, and we are showing leadership, but surely we're going to come out with egg on our faces if that's all of the resources we're going to give you.
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Ms Simon: I don't know if I'm the right person to answer that question. It has been a challenge to try to meet all of the demands, but thanks to Mr. Stagg and his people, we've had some assistance. I think the government will have to reexamine my section if we are going to be taking on a lot more than what we are doing right now.
My assistant, Patricia, is sitting in the back. The department generally treats us like a division, but there are only three people in our office. John Fraser, the ambassador for the environment, is probably in a similar position to mine. The difference between his office and mine is that we are responsible for a major new government initiative. We work with Mr. Stagg and others on it, but the focal point is often my office.
We've had some difficult times trying to keep up with the work, so that's one area where it would be useful for the government to look at it and see whether this section called ATS or circumpolar affairs could be treated more like a division of Foreign Affairs rather than just a special office. Our activities are very broad. We don't just have the Arctic Council, we have many other requests that come in every day on other circumpolar issues.
Mr. Flis: I have a question for Professor Griffiths.
I must have missed something in your presentation, Professor. On the one hand you were saying that we should not be developing Arctic foreign policy, that we should be developing a northern policy, but when this committee met with aboriginals from the Russian Arctic back in 1991 - the Saami, etc. - they were very interested in education. One of the proposals they talked about was an Arctic teachers college funded by the eight circumpolar countries, with teachers from the region rather than imported from the south, so that the students can relate. Developing their own education hopefully would lead to jobs, sustainable development, etc.
How can we not develop an Arctic foreign policy when there are these kinds of demands and requests?
Prof. Griffiths: I was trying to suggest that the distinction between foreign policy and domestic policy seems to be eroding. It's not that we shouldn't have a foreign policy or a domestic policy, it's that the distinction is increasingly difficult to sustain.
Again, if it's food contamination in the province of Manitoba, some of it many indeed be transboundary produced. If it comes from international places, you cannot deal with it domestically.
The north is an international problem. It involves people right down to the locality, and there are other issues or cases of such. Consider the anti-fur movement. That is an issue where the approach to fur of people in Santa Fe affects what goes on in the Canadian north, as does the behaviour of people in Amsterdam. Yet clearly this is also a domestic matter. But you don't deal with it just by looking out. You talk to the people who are on the inside, you try to do what they are asking and need to have done for them.
So my suggestion is not that we abstain from foreign policy, it is that we see policy in its entirety. If there is to be a policy process, I think there should be a policy process for northern affairs, not simply foreign, as though you can somehow carve off the foreign from the rest.
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Nevertheless, I think if there were a policy process and a mechanism set up, Foreign Affairs should chair it. The ambassador should chair such a process, partly because Foreign Affairs is somewhat more detached from the rest of the domestic institutions in this country, if I may say so.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. English): Thank you. Mr. Bergeron.
[Translation]
Mr. Bergeron (Verchères): Mr. Chairman, I believe every one here agrees that establishing an Arctic Council is important and that Canada's involvement in this project is equally important. However, let me play the devil's advocate since, for a number of years, we have been able to see how little concerned Canadians are by their role in the North and by the northern dimension of their country.
For a number of years, we have had a lot of difficulty to make Canadians understand the importance of international development, but little by little, we have managed to make them aware of that. We have also been in a position to note that it will require constant efforts to maintain this awareness of international development, while the task is going to become more and more difficult, given the government cuts in the budget allocated to public information.
As Mr. Flis just mentioned, the amount of money the government sets aside for Arctic Affairs is, to say the least, rather modest. At one point or the other, Canadians are bound to question the establishment of an Arctic Council, as well as the fact that the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs is investing, for instance - these are the only numbers that were given to us - $275,000 over two years to finance operating and maintenance costs, not mentioning the funding provided by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade for office space and common user costs. I presume that Foreign Affairs also pays the expenses of Canadian officials travelling around the world, in the eight countries which are members of the Arctic Council. And then, there is also the costs involved in hiring staff.
Canadians are bound to ask why we invest all this money to create a Council which is going to philosophize, talk about sustainable development and count how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, while exploring security and environmental issues in the Arctic. How can we make Canadians aware of the importance of the Arctic Council, given the fact that the other members - as I understand from the presentations made before the committee today - have not officially committed any funds to the undertaking?
How are we going to convince Canadians that the Arctic Council can survive and play a really useful role when the participation of the other countries remains, up until now, strictly symbolic? Is there a way to convince the citizens of our country that this council is important, even if it starts on the wrong foot, since Canada is the only country providing its operating funds?
[English]
Mr. Stagg: Those are very good observations and good questions.
The reason Canada has agreed to take on the operating costs is that Canada agreed, since it was our idea in the beginning, that we would fund the secretariat for the first two years. The other countries have agreed that on a rotating basis they will provide the funding for the secretariat services.
What we want to try to do in creating the Arctic Council, with respect to the money dedicated.... My sense is that it will probably cost in the neighbourhood of $450,000 a year all together to run the secretariat.
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These are not the only expenditures committed to this process. We would hope to put under this umbrella all of the current Arctic environmental protection strategy activities that have grown up over time under the aegis of the Arctic Council umbrella. Other departments and agencies in Ottawa will want to make a contribution by engaging in one project or another with counterparts throughout the circumpolar world that will come under the aegis of the Arctic Council.
In terms of a profile, there are two responses to that. One, I think the Arctic Council, because of the direct involvement of territorial governments and indigenous people from the communities in the north, probably knows more about this than southern Canadians do right now. Again, their active participation in council deliberations.... We've already had two conferences in the north and south to get ideas from northerners. That's raised awareness in the north about what we're trying to accomplish in an Arctic council.
I think we're going to have to be very clear to southern Canadians about what we hope to accomplish. I don't think we need to articulate that this will be a forum around philosophies of different types of sustainable development. I don't think that will be useful for us or for the Arctic Council.
I think someone here said that we need to get at it early so that we can show some early successes in concrete products. We have some ideas about how we can begin the Arctic Council deliberations to produce those kinds of products that will be seen to be useful and cost-effective. Canadians want to be shown rather than told what we're doing, and I think that until we get the Arctic Council up and going and it appears to be doing worthwhile things, we're going to get a lot of benign neglect from most Canadians.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. English): Thank you, Mr. Stagg.
Professor Griffiths.
Prof. Griffiths: You could perhaps argue that the Arctic Council is a way of saving money rather than costing money. It will make it easier for us to talk to other countries when we need to. If every time we want to talk we have to set up a new negotiation, surely this would be more time-consuming and costly to the Canadian people in terms of serving their interests right down to the local level than having a standing body where you can bring things forward on a regular basis. So it seems to me that there is an advantage in terms of cost saving in the procedure alone.
Secondly, surely in an Arctic council issues will be discussed where we are likely to save money, where we will learn a trick or two from somebody else about environmental impact assessment. We will not have to invent everything ourselves. We may also have things to share with others. Perhaps a list could be developed of ways in which an Arctic council will save money. I think it could be done.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. English): Mr. Anawak has to go to another committee meeting.
[Translation]
Mr. Bergeron: I believe another witness wants to respond.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. English): A very brief question, Mr. Anawak.
[English]
Mr. Anawak (Nunatsiaq): Thank you.
Mine is more of a point than a question. I'm sorry that Mr. Iftody left, because I feel it's important that this Arctic council be ongoing to deal with circumpolar issues. One must remember that four out of those eight circumpolar countries have Inuit as original inhabitants - Russia, United States, Canada and Denmark. The Inuit are the original inhabitants, so they have to try to figure out ways to.... And they're in different countries not by choice, but because of the circumstances that have occurred over the years. Greenland became part of Denmark, we became part of Canada, the Alaskan Inuit became part of the United States, and the Russian Inuit became part of the Soviet Union. So that understanding has to be there in order for us to try to do what we can on the Arctic circumpolar level.
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I also wanted to carry on from Jesse's comment about the lack of resources. I think this committee, and maybe the Indian affairs committee and the other committees, should try to do more for the office of our ambassador to the Arctic. You have to remember that the Arctic ambassador is dealing with eight countries at the circumpolar level. Most ambassadors are dealing with one country.
I think that is an area where different committees should be putting forward how to prop up the office somehow because of all the issues we're going to be dealing with, whether it's airborne pollutants, international airborne pollutants, or other issues of international circumpolar concern. I think more people should have to speak out at different committees. We have to realize the importance of it. So we'll try to do that a little more when you go on your circumpolar cooperation tour.
I just wanted to say that. Thank you.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. English): I apologize for the interruption, Mr. Bergeron and Professor Huebert, but Mr. Anawak had to leave.
You were going to respond to Mr. Bergeron's question.
Prof. Huebert: Yes, on the issue of how we justify to the Canadian public. If I can even further play devil's advocate with that, the issue really is not going to be how we are going to justify it in the Canadian public's opinion, but how we are going to explain - and let me be very blunt on this point - when the next international environmental crisis happens in the north. We haven't really dealt with this particular issue, but it's not a question of ``if'', it's a question of ``when'' we have a major environmental catastrophe in the north. I mean, that's the bottom line.
One only has to look at the state of the Russian pipeline, for one example. Another example, of course, is the fact that the Russians, in following their international requirements for disarmament, have indeed been tying up their nuclear attack submarines and nuclear missile boats. But because of the lack of facilities, they cannot de-nuclearize those vessels. As a result, there are substantial reports coming out now that they're simply tying the vessels along the de-nuclearization wharfs, where they are being allowed to rust. We already know that several of their surface vessels literally have had their bottoms rust out.
So the question becomes, really, what do we tell the Canadian public when there's an international crisis, be it the nuclear vessels in Russia or be it some issue we haven't talked about?
If one wants to be totally cynical, we only have to look at our north to recognize that we seem to have this cycle in terms of our relationship with the Americans. It seems on a 15-year cycle they get new bureaucrats: they forget, we get a little sensitive about our security, and they send some vessel through the north. Yes, it's not going to be an ice-breaker, yes, it's not going to be a strengthened ice tanker. My guess is we're probably going to see an American submarine run into problems one time in the Northwest Passage. That's not covered under any agreement, as it stands right now.
The point remains, we are going to be having a catastrophe at one point or another. How large it is, and whether or not it affects Canada, remains to be seen. The major thing with the Arctic Council is that at the very least, we'll have the institution in place.
There's a second point related to that. Every time we look for further environmental degradation, we find it. I'd just like to point out that many of the findings of the AEPS, which showed how serious our environmental problems are in the north, came because we started looking for it. In other words, the situation is that every time we look further in terms of the linkages, we find worse damage. It's a question of being able to provide the money.
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In other words, the more money we put into this, be it through the Arctic Council or a strengthened AEPS, we'll find more and more linkages. It's not a factor that it's not there; we just haven't found it at this point.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. English): Mr. Dupuy.
Mr. Dupuy (Laval West): Professor Griffiths, you told us the Arctic Council is so important and so innovative in terms of international institutions that we cannot allow it to fail. I very much share that view, both on the importance and on the need to ensure that it doesn't fail.
Now, it seems to me it will sink or swim on two fundamental dimensions. One, obviously, is the work program and the priorities it will decide for its work program. That's the substantive aspect, which brings me to the very question Professor Huebert raised.
It seems to me one of the most dangerous aspects for the Arctic is the situation of these Russian submarines, yet the Arctic Council will keep out of defence issues. It's a time bomb. It's a possible Chernobyl to come, and the Arctic Council will be caught out. That would not be very promising to make it a success. This is my first question, how we can cope with this.
My second question, what will make it sink or swim, is the decision-making process. It's difficult, because this Arctic Council is an innovative creation. You referred to it as a sort of intergovernmental standing conference, but basically an intergovernmental standing conference reaches decisions through negotiations between government representatives. That's the way it works. It's the decision-making process at work.
Obviously, it cannot be quite that, because there are non-governmental representatives. So the question arises, then, does the council, with these non-governmental ``participants'', reach agreement by consensus? If so, is there not a serious risk that it will be a talkfest and it will end up writing resolutions or making recommendations on such a high-level plane that it will be regarded as a rather marginal operation?
Ambassador Simon perhaps put her finger on the crucial points. She said there are several classes of participants. She suggested the non-governmental participants may be out of the decision-making. They may be consulted. If so, the Arctic Council will not be that innovative body you're referring to, because a number of intergovernmental conferences have consultative groups attached to them.
I think these issues are important. I would like to have your comment both on the issue of nuclear pollutants coming out of the submarines and the waffling that seems to be going on in terms of the decision-making process.
Prof. Griffiths: When I say ``good question'', it's not to tell you that I'm going to disagree with you. It is a good set of questions here. You raised a whole set of things.
On the Russian submarines and the capacity of an Arctic council to deal with this, with the time bomb problem, I think there are some real matters here that an Arctic council, and indeed Canada, will have to start to think about. What happens when we are the hosts, if it's a major responsibility of ours if there's a big environmental accident of some kind? Are we ready to deal with a crisis? Is this organization set up to handle a crisis? I think the answer is no, and that needs some thought.
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What happens if there is an Arctic council up and running and there's a problem that logically, it seems, it should handle, but can't? Maybe people have worked this out, but I think it's an item well worth discussing.
In terms of the particular problem with the Russian submarines, maybe they will indeed rust, and maybe in due course there will be some major environmental catastrophe there. Somehow I doubt it. I think this will be dealt with, but it's being dealt with bilaterally between the Americans and the Russians in conversations that may be going nowhere. We are talking to Russia, not about those submarines but about nuclear matters.
As time goes on, it could be that these issues will find their way into an Arctic council. An Arctic council is not prohibited by its mandate from talking about defence and security issues. An Arctic council will work on consensus. So far, the consensus among all the Arctic countries, mainly the Russians and the Americans, who lead here, is that we won't talk about defence or military matters, thank you very much. They don't want to do it. As long as they don't want to do it, it's not likely to happen. You just waste your time, perhaps, trying to get them working on this.
At the edges, though, let's say the Russians wanted to start nuclear testing in their islands in the Arctic, Novaja Zeml'a. I'm sure This would get to an Arctic council. If nothing else, the aboriginal peoples would raise it there. They may be told to go home. They may be told that they don't want to hear about it, or that they're not going to take anything further. But then the aboriginal peoples can go to the press, if they want.
So there are ways of getting these things at least into the public mind and to bring them to the attention of the public, but they're not necessarily acted upon unless there is that consent.
You're raising here, in a way, the larger question of environmental security and whether strictly military security is not the only agenda for an Arctic council but whether environmental security may also be part of it. I choose not to speak of environmental security at this stage, because nobody knows what it means. Nevertheless, it refers to a set of connections that we all know really matters.
If you ask me, environmental security means management on the basis of entire ecosystems. You look at the whole ecosystem and try to work out what is best, how to manage and look after it. That's probably finally what it might mean. Others will give you other definitions.
The point here is that an Arctic council I think can possibly get into some of these areas when the members are ready. But there is this matter of crisis.
A last point - you asked many things - had to do with the character of Arctic council ``decisions'', as you called them. I don't think the Arctic council is going to decide anything. It will make statements. There will be undertakings. There will be understandings. There won't be decisions. Things will not be going well if there are votes in an Arctic council, because everything will be done by consensus.
These understandings, these undertakings, will not have binding force, but they will have a moral force, a political force, if you like, and people can hammer at one and other for not living up to their undertakings. This is the way the whole CSCE worked, the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe, for many years. It proved highly successful until the time came to change that from a conference to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
What we're starting with, or what Canada is proposing, as I understand it, is a lightly institutionalized, not heavily bureaucratic, way of bringing us all together onto common ground, not through taking of decisions that have teeth and that you can enforce but through working your way through conversation to the common purpose.
Mr. Stagg: First of all, I agree with Professor Griffiths's characterization of how we think an Arctic council should operate - through consensus. I think it would be unfair to characterize it in advance as waffling. My sense is that it'll be a useful organization that may make statements on important public issues that deal with the north, both here and in other circumpolar countries.
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On the first question, about military strategic issues, I think the countries going into the Arctic Council had their eyes open. Those countries, including Canada, have a number of other fora within which they deal with military strategic issues. I think the feeling was that we would not want to burden this. We would want to basically try to stay out of the military strategic, again, because there were not just sensitivities there, but also the members would be members of perhaps different alliances and different organizations to deal with this.
Second, I guess, is the fairly narrow gap in some instances between what one might judge to be military and what one might judge to be more domestic or international non-military. Take, for example, the issue of the Komsomolets submarine. This is a Russian submarine off the Norwegian coast. We all know it's down almost two miles. It contains a nuclear reactor. There's some threat now that in fact there may be a splitting open. Is that a military strategic issue or is it an environmental issue? Some may say that because of the nature of the object down there it must necessarily be a military consideration. Many others would say, look, a piece of junk down there is threatening the environment of a good many of the northern nations in the circumpolar area; why don't we somehow find a way of cooperating to fix this problem?
So my sense is that many of these issues, I think, one might very narrowly determine to be military strategic. A much broader view may in fact decide it's other than military strategic and it's open for discussion and statement-making.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. English): Thank you. Mr. Assadourian.
Mr. Assadourian (Don Valley North): My questions are for the ambassador. Most of the discussion we've had here today so far relates to the environment, yet you say you only report to Foreign Affairs and Indian Affairs and Northern Development. Why isn't the Minister of the Environment involved in these discussions? Why aren't you reporting to that department? That's my first question.
Second, how do you rate your office compared with the seven other countries? Are we average in terms of staff, in terms of funding? How do we rate compared with other countries' offices?
Third, are there any similarities in the position they have in the European countries - in this case maybe Russia could be considered as part of Asia - and North American countries regarding the situation in the Arctic now?
Ms Simon: Environmentally?
Mr. Assadourian: Yes, environmentally - the whole issue.
Ms Simon: I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch the first question.
Mr. Assadourian: Why don't you also report to the Minister of the Environment or have Environment involved in the daily operation of your office?
Ms Simon: Technically, I suppose, I should be reporting to about fifteen departments.
Mr. Assadourian: The environment is a major issue. That's what I asked about that department.
Ms Simon: We work with the environment department. Right now we've set up an interdepartmental committee that brings together I think eleven departments. I chair that interdepartmental committee. We discuss how we can coordinate better the various activities of the government related to the Arctic, particularly in relation to the Arctic Council.
So without reporting directly to the environment department, we work with them. It's like that with other departments as well. It's hard enough reporting to two ministers. Reporting to more than one is difficult.
How do we rate compared with other countries in terms of our resourcing? That depends on the country. In terms of the United States, the representatives we deal with are from the State Department. It seems to us they don't have a lot of resources to put into their Arctic work in relation to the Arctic council. When you look at the pattern in which they funded the AEPS, it has been.... It depends on what they're really interested in.
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Canada has put a lot more funding into the AEPS process than have other countries, such as the U.S. Norway, on the other hand, has a big Arctic program. They have, I think, a fairly large budget to deal with Arctic issues. They subsequently would like to take over most of the Arctic activities in 1997. Denmark.... It's hard to say. It varies from country to country. In terms of ambassadors such as myself, there are four, one each in Sweden, Norway, Iceland and Canada. The other countries don't have ambassadors.
Mr. Assadourian: What about Russia? How does it rank?
Ms Simon: Russia has no resources at all.
Mr. Assadourian: And they have more problems than anybody else.
Ms Simon: Yes, they have more problems than anybody else, with no resources. Often Canada has helped them attend some of the meetings that relate to Arctic work. They really have no resources for any of this.
Mr. Assadourian: Was it the same during the communist era, or is it just now?
Ms Simon: I don't know the answer to that.
Mr. Stagg: In the previous year, when we had bilateral cooperation with Russia, there was a series of meetings where Russia - or the U.S.S.R., at that time - would pay for Canadian delegations going to the old U.S.S.R., and we would in turn pay back here. Since the creation of several states in what used to be the U.S.S.R., it's a little more catch-can. In some cases we've financed some Russian delegates to come here to talk about a number of things - not the Arctic Council. The Russians have always produced senior delegates here.
Russia's interest in the Arctic Council is both environmental and economic. Russia sees the Arctic Council as a potential area for generating interest in Russia, for getting some joint ventures with other countries. They see - happily - an Arctic council as being a very practical mechanism and something that will in fact be of direct interest to them and to their northern communities. They're taking a very practical view.
If they weren't interested, they wouldn't be there. As Ambassador Simon said, they have very few resources. They don't come with delegations of four and five people to talk about the issue, but they do send senior people and they do finance these people well when they come here. They in fact do have an interest in the Arctic Council and what it might possibly do.
Ms Simon: Could I just respond, Mr. Chairman, on one small point to Mr. Dupuy in terms of this council's potential of being a talkfest?
I think that potential is there. It will really be up to the Arctic nations, including Canada, to make it work. I think we'll have to build it over time. I found through the environmental protection strategy process that a lot of confidence-building is needed among the Arctic nations. We're just developing this notion that we can be partners in a multilateral process. Building trust and building confidence together, developing a vision for the Arctic, is something very new. We don't want it to be just a council that's created to solve emergency problems or crises related to the environment or other situations. Rather, we want it to be a place to develop policies so that we can avoid some of those pitfalls we've confronted in the past. I think the policy-making aspect of the Arctic Council is a big issue for northerners so that we can avoid some of the emergency situations we've faced, particularly in the Russian Arctic, that are spilling over to our region as well.
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The Vice-Chairman (Mr. English): Thank you, Ambassador Simon.
[Translation]
Mr. Sauvageau.
Mr. Sauvageau (Terrebonne): First, I would like to know if all the countries participating in the Arctic Council conference have agreed. Have the United States also agreed or are we still waiting for their decision on this matter? Have the seven countries agreed?
[English]
Ms Simon: They've agreed.
[Translation]
Mr. Sauvageau: Even the United States?
[English]
Ms Simon: Yes. A year ago June, Canada and the other seven Arctic countries met at the senior officials' level and there was a decision at that time that all eight would be participating in the council, including the United States. They've been full participants in the four meetings that I talked about.
[Translation]
Mr. Sauvageau: My next question is this: do we know which country is going to take Canadas' place regarding the funding. You said earlier that there would be a rotation. Was this matter discussed?
[English]
Ms Simon: We're under discussions right now in terms of how the Arctic Council secretariat will be rotated. A chart was given out by Sweden at the last meeting on possible options, whether we're going to do it alphabetically or another way. That's still under discussion. It's not settled.
The country that seems most interested in taking the Arctic Council and the AEPS is Norway. At the present time Norway seems to be the keenest. But that's not a decision that has been made by the Arctic countries.
[Translation]
Mr. Sauvageau: There was a lot of discussion regarding the notion of sustainable development and the Arctic environment. In the Rio Convention, is the North specifically mentioned or does it apply generally everywhere?
Among the countries who signed the Rio Convention, are there any who are members of the Arctic Council and, in that case, do we have any way to assess whether their environment improves or deteriorates or whether these countries abide by the terms of this agreement that Canada has signed, particularly in the North?
The question of how to define sustainable development was raised. We could simply use this definition because, I think, it is useful and adequate in that part of the country.
[English]
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. English): Who would like to answer that question?
Ms Simon: The Rio Declaration doesn't specifically address the Arctic; it's not a region that is mentioned. The thing that we have in the Rio Declaration, or in Agenda 21, is chapter 26, which deals with indigenous peoples. In that way there is some attention given to indigenous peoples, but not to the Arctic region itself.
One idea we've had in thinking about the creation of the Arctic Council and the work it's going to do in sustainable development is the idea of the Arctic Council hosting a sustainable development conference. That could be seen as a regional implementation of Agenda 21. With the so-called report card that has to be given in 1997, perhaps this is a way that we as an Arctic country can illustrate that we are implementing the principles of the Rio Declaration within a region, the Arctic region, in collaboration with the other Arctic nations. This is something we're discussing right now, and hopefully after the council is created we can do something with it.
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Mr. Stagg: To add very briefly to that, there is some thought about putting a reference to section 15 of the Rio Declaration into the Arctic Council's declaration. This has to do with precautionary, preventative measures towards development - in other words, environmental protection screening processes to be established where development may occur. So there may in fact be a specific reference to section 15 of the Rio Declaration in the declaration of the Arctic Council.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. English): Mr. Huebert, did you want to make a point?
Prof. Huebert: Yes. On the interaction between Rio and the Arctic Council, one point that has a very important bearing here and that perhaps gives us an indication of how we can expect the Arctic Council to function is that if you look at the original focus of the AEPS, founded in 1991 before Rio, of the four main working bodies, none of them dealt with sustainability. In fact, it was very much through the efforts of the ICC and several important studies they conducted that the AEPS then created a task force on sustainability. In other words, working to a large degree with the existing structure, it was very much the cooperation between the government players within the AEPS and the ICC that led to the task force on sustainability.
I suspect very much that we can expect to see the Arctic Council functioning in this somewhat confidence-building, cooperative way; I don't know quite what the terminology would be. This sort of illustrates the consensus-building manner that Professor Griffiths was referring to earlier.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. English): Mr. LeBlanc.
Mr. LeBlanc (Cape Breton Highlands - Canso): I'd like to probe a bit further along the lines of Mr. Dupuy's inquiry a few moments ago concerning the issue of the extent to which the Arctic Council would be able to deal with issues involving, for example, military security and the overlap with environmental problems of nuclear submarines and other related issues.
Would it be possible for the witnesses to describe the nature of the compromises that were made in discussing the extent to which the Arctic Council would tread in these waters, and what the Arctic Council received in return for not being involved in this issue, in a sense? Is there a way of describing the nature of the discussions that took place on the extent to which the Arctic Council would be involved in discussing matters related to the issue Mr. Dupuy raised earlier about the Russian submarines, and other areas where potential environmental disasters overlap with issues of security, whether it be with the United States, Russia or other countries?
Mr. Stagg: I don't know whether any specific trade-offs that you could point to were made. I would like to reiterate that most of the countries sitting there had military, strategic and other fora to deal with those matters. My experience is that if you tell a group of intelligent people from western democracies not to talk about something, that's generally the first thing on the agenda. So it wasn't a matter of telling people not to talk about something; it was a matter of setting priorities collectively amongst the countries that were there.
Those priorities dealt in part with sustainable development matters and in part with environmental concerns, because we had worked cooperatively as circumpolar countries in that area for about three or four years already.
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Also, there was a concern among indigenous peoples that we would deal with everything from emergency measures - and there is an intent to set up some kind of structure to deal with emergency measures, both environmental and otherwise - to the broad range of socio-economic problems and health matters.
So it was a matter of setting priority areas outside of what one might call traditionally military-strategic ones, and there was a consensus or an agreement around the table that they would include these matters rather than military-strategic ones. This also included indigenous people who were there. There isn't a part of the declaration that says ``Thou shalt not talk about...'' any particular thing; it was just a matter of setting priorities in a different direction.
Prof. Griffiths: Just to go back a little bit and to acknowledge a non-governmental effort here, the basic ideas for Canada's initiative for the Arctic Council come out of the work of the Arctic Council panel, a private effort funded by the Walter and Duncan Gordon charitable foundation, whose work in all of this should be acknowledged. Without their input, that panel could not have come together, travelled through the north, and figured out ways to deal with this whole set of problems in setting up an international Arctic institution that would meet the needs of Canadians, especially northerners.
One of the things that panel found - and its 1991 report is available from CARC, the Canadian Arctic Resources Committee, where all of these ideas are coming from - was that if you stress, and the Government of Canada does it now, the fact that the rules for an Arctic council are consensual decision-making or consensual resolution of differences, then in fact there really is no need here for compromise on the question of whether or not to talk about military matters - or at least not so much need.
One day, if everybody is ready to talk about military matters in an Arctic council, they will surely be discussed, fully and frontally. Some people, of whom I'm one, believe they should be talked about now, but it seems as if it's not on.
The U.S. navy will never have this. It won't open the door to it by even a crack. I'm sure the Russian navy is exactly the same. Who's going to take on the U.S. and Russian navies right now? It's just asking for a lot of trouble, and it seems to me that if you want to get something done in this forum you don't bother with that. I think the Americans, the Russians, everybody, became aware that in a procedure that's based on consensus, if it is important to keep something off the table it will be kept off the table.
I believe there were no compromises or trade-offs or paybacks to an Arctic council agenda on this. It's simply something that will come in due course, in its time.
So in answer to the question of whether military security is possible as an agenda item, I think the answer is yes, in due course, and maybe sooner than one might expect, depending on what happens. But today there's no chance of dealing with it.
I've argued that the effect is really like keeping the Arctic as, in some way, a domain for dinosaurs. This region is not demilitarized in the way it should be; it's a kind of Jurassic Park for submarines. The whole thing has been, in its own way, kept free from arms control and confidence-building military discussions, when indeed you could argue that there's a need to go ahead and do this. But they're not ready for it, so it will come later.
[Translation]
Mrs Debien: I have a question for Mr. Huebert. You told us - and as far as I am concerned, this is very important - that in the area of Canadian and international foreign policy, there are two major trends that usually get overlooked and that people avoid to discuss.
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Regarding the domestic scene, you said that deregulation and privatization are greatly reducing the policy capabilities of governments.
Regarding the second trend, you indicated that within the public administration, there is no new hiring and that our experts are white-haired people who are reaching retirement age and who are not going to be replaced, which also eliminates some of our government's capabilities.
Third, you mentioned that the reduction of budgetary allocations to NGOs - while they have played a leading role in getting projects started in the Arctic - would also reduce our capabilities.
You summed up what is happening on the international scene in one sentence, which I noted: we have moved from an approach of what could be best characterized as a common heritage approach to one of privatization.
Regarding the domestic scene, what recommendations would you make to the committee in terms of those three major trends?
I would also have liked to ask a question regarding NGOs to Mr. Stagg. Unfortunately, he is not here. I'll ask him later.
So, what recommendations would you have in terms of these three aspects of the Canadian domestic and foreign policy?
[English]
Prof. Huebert: The first and obvious one is there has to be substantial rethinking on how we are dealing overall with public administration. This wholehearted belief that we still have fat here - and this goes way beyond anything in terms of just the Arctic policy.... The reality is we are hitting a time in which, from a systemic perspective, we will hit the wall in terms of our ability to continue with the policy.
The obvious answer, though I don't know how to reconcile it with our financial situation, is to somehow come up with a more rational rehiring program in the public administration. In other words, these wholesale freezes and cuts now in existence may be a short-term answer to many of our problems, but we are going to be creating very substantial problems in the future in our ability to respond to it.
As to the NGOs, I think the response is once again quite obvious: try to reverse the trend that more or less started in the late 1980s, when we not only cut the funding to the NGOs but completely eliminated their existence. For example, there was the elimination of the Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security, which had a major focus on northern affairs. Once again, something like that could perhaps be rethought. Also, there's been a cut in the funding government provides to both CARC and ICC. We've seen time and time again that the major initiative comes from those organizations.
We are not talking about huge funds in this particular aspect. The problem becomes how to do it when the overall paradigm is so anti-government spending. For that I wish I had an answer. Unfortunately I really can't think of anything else, except to simply hammer at the point: we are going to be paying a substantial cost, probably in the not-so-distant future.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. English): Thank you. Mr. Dupuy.
Mr. Dupuy: I would like to come back to Mr. LeBlanc's question about the defence dimensions.
I appreciate that we're focusing on the Arctic Council, and I find Professor Griffiths' response to Mr. LeBlanc's question quite satisfactory. Obviously the council is master of its own agenda. If one day they are sitting around the table and they come to the conclusion that they have to reach out to these delicate issues, let it be.
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In the meantime, should Canada try to address these delicate issues of defence, sovereignty and nuclear environment outside the Arctic Council? Is it not a matter that requires a certain priority? If the answer is yes, do you have any advice to give us on the forum or the approach that would be most productive?
Prof. Griffiths: Because these matters are delicate, there is sort of a reluctance to deal with them. Let us take one Canadian delicacy, which is our sovereignty over the waters of the Arctic Archipelago, the Northwest Passage. You might say that now is a good time to deal with this. Let's not have another crisis; better deal with it now and find a way of tacking down the remaining problems in this area. The remaining problems with regard to the Northwest Passage really concern the possible use of our waters by American and conceivably Russian nuclear-powered attack submarines without our even knowing it.
For many years the Department of National Defence had on the books a program to put in place a bottom-mounted or other acoustic sensing system at two or three choke points in the passage so that we would know if anybody was going through. There has been some discussion of this lately. The minister, David Collenette, has not said a final no to this, but he's pretty well said that it's off the books, it's not active, it costs too much money. I think it really wouldn't cost a great deal of money. You could probably rent a system from the Russians right now if you wanted to. They have lots of hardware and they need hard currency.
But to be serious, the problem here - and I could go on about all of this - is that for sovereignty, in a way there's an institutionalized need not to know what's going on up there. If we really knew, what would we do about it? I guess we would protest. The Chinese used to protest daily about the nationalist occupation of Quemoy and Matsu islands. These were daily protests in defence of Chinese sovereignty. I don't know if they added to a record; in fact they probably didn't.
On the environment and these other issues, on other things we should be doing now, in many ways I think that if you can keep a thing on the back burner or off the stove altogether, the wise thing is to do so, unless you can see a moment when, ahead of trouble, you can get stuff together and deal with the problem before it's too late.
On Arctic sovereignty and the things we should do now, there's no way we can address Russian nuclear submarines right now, at least not bilaterally with the Russians. Who are we to talk to them about their nuclear submarines? And if we are to talk, they're going to ask us to pay. That's the only way you would get their attention. I don't know that we're ready to pay for these things.
In the array of issues confronting us that are not going to be on the agenda or on the table of an Arctic council right away, there are some things we can do unilaterally for ourselves and maybe some things we can do bilaterally with others where possible, without the outlay of new funds. But that's putting a lot of limits on the possible.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. English): If there are no more questions -
[Translation]
Mrs Debien: I have a question, Mr. Chairman.
Let me get back to you, Mr. Huebert. You just answered my question regarding public administration, the reduced capabilities of governments and NGOs, but you said nothing about the reduction of our government capabilities due to deregulation and privatization.
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Then, I would have a brief question for Mr. Stagg.
[English]
Prof. Huebert: I'm sorry. You're absolutely right. My apologies for that.
The privatization aspect, from my understanding at this point, will become a particular major issue in regard to Arctic issues when resource development once again is renewed. Of course, as many members have said, it's in the context that we are dealing mainly with environmental issues, for the simple reason that the economics are not currently allowing for the type of resource development many predicted would be occurring.
When they do occur, the question of privatization, I suspect, will become a major one in terms of the Arctic for the simple reason that as we move toward more privatization, less government regulation, less government control over corporations, and what government can actually do, we can go to our international agreements. What does NAFTA actually allow us to do for regulations? For example, would we be allowed to subsidize any form of resource development in the north? Would that be going against any of our international requirements?
It's an open question. Would the Americans protest if they saw that as an unfair trade production? I don't know. Say, for example, we wanted to subsidize an industry to make it more environmentally sensitive. Would that be in contrast with some of the push toward privatization?
I don't have an answer for it, but I suspect we will be seeing problems. I think the biggest problem is that the two may not be initially recognized as being connected. This is where I foresee major problems, when development does indeed start occurring again.
[Translation]
Mrs Debien: Mr. Stagg, I don't know if you will be able to answer me, but I would like to ask two questions which are related to one of the answers given by Mr. Huebert, when he mentioned the reduction of budgetary allocations to NGOs. I would like to know through which mechanism are Arctic NGOs financed? Is it through CIDA or other programs? And what is the amount of the funding allocated to Arctic NGOs? Can you answer my question?
[English]
Mr. Stagg: No, I can't. I'm sorry, but I don't know where some of the organizations get their funds. For example, in terms of the Canadian Arctic Resources Committee, we occasionally fund a project that we have a joint interest in. We do not provide core funding to them.
I think these organizations get their money from a whole variety of different sources. You'd probably have to look at each one separately. I can't even tell you if there's a kind of pattern.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. English): Thank you very much, Mr. Stagg.
If there are no further questions, I'd like to thank the witnesses for the testimony, which I think has been tremendously helpful for our committee, for our trip. We didn't get any travel tips from Ambassador Simon, but I'm sure we'll be asking her along the way. Thank you for coming and for helping us so much in our work on this important project.
This meeting is adjourned.