Evidence of meeting #90 for Science and Research in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was north.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Valerie Bradford
Thank you.
We'll now turn to Dr. Vincent for an opening statement of five minutes.
12:10 p.m.
Dr. Warwick Vincent Professor, Centre for Northern Studies (CEN), Université Laval, As an Individual
Thank you, Madam Chair, and members of the committee. Thank you for this invitation and the opportunity to appear before you.
My name is Warwick Vincent. Throughout my career, I have conducted research on environmental change in the polar regions.
I have recently retired from Université Laval in Quebec, where I held a senior Canada research chair and was a full professor in the department of biology. I continue my work as an emeritus professor and researcher at Université Laval and the Centre for Northern Studies—Centre d'études nordiques, which is the inter-university research centre in support of sustainable development in the north. I was scientific director of the Centre d'études nordiques for eight years and I am a founding member of ArcticNet, the Canadian network for northern research and for knowledge co-production with Inuit and first nations.
Over the course of my career, I have witnessed first hand the enormous impacts of climate change in the Canadian north. In consultation and partnership with federal agencies and Inuit communities, we established a small research station on Ward Hunt Island, on the northernmost coast of Canada in a region now referred to as the “last ice area”. This Canadian station is the furthest north in the world. It is 4,000 kilometres due north of us here in Ottawa and it is logistically supported each year by the vitally important federal agency, the polar continental shelf program.
During these recent decades, we have seen and reported on massive changes in this far northern region of the Canadian Arctic. These are driven by recent warming and are without precedent for thousands of years. For example, the ancient ice shelves—thick permanent ice that fringed the northern coast of Nunavut until very recently—have largely melted and collapsed into the Arctic Ocean. We now observe that many of our northern glaciers are also shrinking at accelerating rates, resulting in the further extinction of unique habitats and biodiversity.
At the same time, I have had the great honour and privilege of working with indigenous elders, communities and young people in the north and to witness their resilience to change. I have been humbled by their depth of indigenous connection to northern lands and seas, and by their deep knowledge and sense of connectedness of people, the natural world and the environment.
Other testimonies to this committee have drawn attention to how the lack of a Canadian strategy for Arctic science is holding us all back, whether that research be southern-led, indigenous-led or co-produced knowledge. I would like to add my voice to this concern.
In my professional activities over the decades, I've had the opportunity to sit on many research advisory and funding panels in Canada and abroad, including, at present, on the scientific advisory board for the Alfred-Wegener-Institut in Germany, which is the largest research institute in the world conducting Arctic climate research.
These experiences have always been very informative and enlightening. Unfortunately, they have also been reminders of how far behind we are in Canada compared with other nations that are continuing to advance their Arctic science strategies and activities. This includes countries such as China, which is newly branding itself as a near-Arctic nation, and India, which is an emerging leader in space technology and whose stated objective in India's Arctic policy is to expand satellite remote sensing of the Arctic.
Canada has a pressing need to develop a Canadian strategy for Arctic science that indicates our ambition towards international leadership in both applied and basic fundamental Arctic research and that draws upon and is strengthened by the indigenous sense and knowledge of connectivity and resilience. Such a strategy would be uniquely Canadian, identifying science objectives relevant to indigenous and other national, as well as international, priorities. It would connect our many sources of expertise, resources and infrastructure for efficient Canadian research and knowledge exchange within the broader context of circumpolar and global science.
A Canadian strategy for Arctic science would send a clear message to the rest of the world that Canada is very serious about the Arctic and it would be an inspiring message to all of us in Canada that science and research in Canada's Arctic is to the great benefit of all Canadians.
Thank you very much.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Valerie Bradford
Thank you very much, Dr. Vincent.
Dr. Murray, I now invite you to make an opening statement for up to five minutes.
12:15 p.m.
Dr. Maribeth Murray Executive Director, Arctic Institute of North America
Thank you very much. I'd like to thank the committee for inviting me to speak on science and research needs in Canada's Arctic and in relation to climate change in particular.
I'm the executive director of the Arctic Institute of North America, a role I've held for 10 years. The Arctic Institute was established at the first session of the 20th Parliament via Bill H., an act to incorporate the Arctic Institute of North America, which was passed by the Senate of Canada on November 1, 1945. Our institute has a long history of studying change in the north.
I'm also a full professor at the University of Calgary, with my personal research focused on climate change impacts, human and environmental history in the Arctic and ways to improve Arctic observation for societal benefit. In addition, I represent the Arctic Institute as the head of delegation to the Arctic Council, where the institute holds non-state observer status.
I'm very pleased to be speaking to you today from Cambridge Bay, Nunavut.
As we've heard from Dr. Vincent and Dr. Kutz, climate change is having a profound impact across the Arctic. Changes in phenomena such as temperature, sea ice dynamics, precipitation and others are having cascading effects through the ecosystems to people and to the wider global system. Changes to the cryosphere—snow, sea ice, river ice, lake ice, permafrost—are unprecedented and present significant challenges to adaptation and sustaining civic infrastructure and supporting people, fisheries and wildlife. For example, as the glaciers thin and retreat, regional hydrology is impacted by freshwater flow to streams, rivers and lakes potentially resulting in dramatic lowering of lake levels or drying of streams, or alternatively rapid melt of glaciers leading to flooding and landslides.
In the case of the Greenland ice sheet, during the melt season we're seeing increasingly vast quantities of fresh water discharged into the marine environment, contributing not only to sea level rise in regions far removed from Greenland, but also leading to the freshening of the North Atlantic Ocean, with not yet well understood impacts on marine productivity, the marine food web and the carbon cycle. The consequences are too many to enumerate here, but suffice to say that research infrastructure, investments and capacity can help us to ameliorate impacts in Canada and to better understand present change and the trajectory of change going forward, and most importantly, inform solutions to adaptation and mitigation.
Over the past 60 years, Canada has made significant, but sometimes sporadic, investments in Arctic research infrastructure. We have many small facilities across the north that are operated by universities, the northern colleges, northern research institutes, indigenous organizations and communities. We also have a patchwork of federal and territorial facilities. All of these facilities serve one or more functions in support of research on land and in the coastal areas, and we have research vessels that facilitate marine science and community-based research programs and monitoring activities. There are Arctic researchers, I would venture to guess, in nearly every institution of higher learning in our country and in many federal and territorial departments and indigenous organizations. There are indigenous-led programs and established indigenous strategies on research and the management of indigenous data and information. Our research relationships with northern and indigenous people, including support for self-determination research, is slowly improving, and Canada is leading the way among Arctic countries in this area.
On the surface, then, we—Canada—seem well-equipped as a nation to provide scientific leadership for the Arctic and to understand and tackle climate change and the consequences of climate change going forward, along with leading across a whole range of other forms of scientific inquiry.
Individuals and coalitions of partners can drive important initiatives like the Arctic pulse initiative, which Dr. Jackie Dawson brought to the attention of this committee earlier, and the Canadian Consortium for Arctic Data, which is an ongoing movement to build interoperability across Arctic data centres in the country. Individuals can and do build collaborations with our colleagues across sectors and cultures to improve Arctic observation, such as this understanding of muskox and population dynamics that Dr. Kutz talked about.
However, these individual and coalition efforts are necessary, but not sufficient for pushing research where it needs to go and for leveraging our research infrastructures to best effect. For that, Canada needs a national plan that clearly identifies our science priorities—and I would include indigenous priorities for research here, obviously. This plan also needs to have an implementation strategy so that it can be realized. It needs to be developed with all parties at the table—indigenous, academic, territorial, provincial, federal, relevant NGOs and others. Also, they need to be at the table in sufficient numbers to reflect the diversity of expertise and experience across the community of Arctic researchers.
Canada—
12:20 p.m.
Executive Director, Arctic Institute of North America
Okay. Thank you.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Valerie Bradford
You can speak to those issues further during the questioning.
I'll now open the floor to questions.
Please be sure to indicate to whom your questions are directed.
We'll kick off our six-minute round with MP Rempel Garner.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Thank you, Chair.
I'll start with Dr. Vincent.
You mentioned that you were listening to the testimony, and you were talking about the need for a coordinated or specific Arctic research strategy. We've heard from some witnesses about what could be included in terms of goals or structures, but you also mentioned that you sat on various different advisory bodies.
Do you think that an Arctic research strategy, if that were something the committee were to recommend, should be formally embedded within the federal government's tri-council funding agencies in terms of helping to set funding priorities?
12:20 p.m.
Professor, Centre for Northern Studies (CEN), Université Laval, As an Individual
Thank you for that question.
I think that would be very helpful, but we have to also be thinking about a distributed portfolio.
12:20 p.m.
Professor, Centre for Northern Studies (CEN), Université Laval, As an Individual
When it comes to the north, there has to be a clear emphasis upon adaptation strategies, on local needs and on application of indigenous knowledge to changes in the north.
At the same time, we need to encourage other scientists who have new ideas, new ways of thinking, to also take an interest in the north, to join forces with northern communities and to participate.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
You're talking essentially about embedding a principle of multidisciplinarity.
12:20 p.m.
Professor, Centre for Northern Studies (CEN), Université Laval, As an Individual
That's right—and to allow some flexibility there in terms of how those objectives are actually defined.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Understood.
With any sort of strategy, I think the strategy is on one side and the key performance indicators are on the other. In terms of what the government should be driving to in terms of outcomes with an Arctic research strategy, are there clear key performance indicators, in your experience, that should be considered therein?
12:20 p.m.
Professor, Centre for Northern Studies (CEN), Université Laval, As an Individual
Again, I think they are distributed across the spectrum: from basic research through to applied research and indigenous knowledge application.
Of course, we would like to see the application of new knowledge to solve immediate problems in the north, but we would also like to see the development of fundamental expertise that is able to produce new solutions in the future. Today's basic research is the solution to tomorrow's problems.
12:25 p.m.
Professor, Centre for Northern Studies (CEN), Université Laval, As an Individual
There are many examples that we could talk about, whereby some of those more basic components will help indigenous communities and that ultimately require close linkages with indigenous communities.
Also, I should say that we need to be encouraging indigenous participation in that basic research, as well as the applied research.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Understood and agreed.
For all of the witnesses—Dr. Vincent, Dr. Kutz and Dr. Murray—I'm not quite sure how to frame this. We've heard from all witnesses that a common theme is the need for international collaboration on Arctic research. That has clearly been a recommendation. On the other hand, we've also heard about some of the challenges given geopolitical complexities, particularly with Russia and also with the current government of China.
How do we square that circle?
As researchers in that area, what do you think the committee should be recommending to the government in terms of developing an Arctic research strategy that also protects Canadian sovereignty in the face of open aggression from hostile nations that have an interest in the Arctic?
12:25 p.m.
Professor, Centre for Northern Studies (CEN), Université Laval, As an Individual
I could pass that to Professor Murray.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
12:25 p.m.
Executive Director, Arctic Institute of North America
Thank you.
Well, it's a challenging question, for sure.
First, I would note that the situation with Russia is a great detriment to Arctic science in general, because we—as I'm sure this committee is well aware—have now lost access to a lot of very critical scientific information that allows us to work on improving climate models, projections and all of those things.
I think it's important for us, as a nation, to build strong partnerships on Arctic research with like-minded countries in the Arctic. I will speak a bit about why I think that's important with respect to research infrastructure.
As I mentioned in my comments, we have a lot of research infrastructure in this country, but we don't have all of it. We work in partnership with our collaborators. I'm thinking of Germany, for example, with their research vessels that Canadian scientists are able to work on. I think the problems we face on a pan-Arctic scale are too big for any one country to tackle independently, so co-operation is key to understanding the whole system and where that system might go. With the absence of Russia, and the absence of information coming out of the Russian Arctic, the only way we're going to get close to having some sort of comprehensive understanding and pan-Arctic solution that can be applied is through co-operation.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
I'd like to flag this for the analysts as they draft the report.
Essentially, what you would be recommending is increased formal collaboration with like-minded allied nations on Arctic research, as well as an Arctic research strategy that highlights the need for research infrastructure in Canada's Arctic, given the geopolitical uncertainty that Russia's aggression has provided in terms of Arctic research.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal