Science and Research Committee on June 6th, 2024

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Welcome, witnesses. Thank you for being with us today.

Dr. Exner‑Pirot, in your opening remarks, you mentioned that scientific research in the north is limited because of a lack of funding. I find that very worrisome. Moreover, the type of research being done changes depending on the government. When we had a Conservative government, scientific research was much more focused on defence. Currently, research focuses on other areas, such as the environment and indigenous communities.

What are your thoughts on the need for sustainable, but also diversified, funding to support research in more fields?

[Dr. Heather Exner-Pirot]

Thank you very much for the question.

I think government changes in policy, going from black to white and white to black, are a challenge for many people. In the research that I do, which is more focused on political science and social science, there could be a greater overlap with defence, with indigenous communities and with Arctic research. Think of it more holistically and about how all these different pockets of funding can reinforce and leverage each other instead of being applied, for example, to a particular university, a particular program and a particular set number of graduate students and post-doctoral fellows.

I know this is tricky, but in funding outcomes instead of processes, maybe there's something worth rebalancing there.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Would you say that social sciences and humanities funding for northern research is disproportionate?

[Dr. Heather Exner-Pirot]

There's clear evidence. You'd say objectively and quantitatively that it's very disproportionate.

I appreciate how expensive it is to do natural science research in the Arctic. I don't even know if I'd say there's enough natural science research in the Canadian Arctic either, considering how much territory we have. I think Norway spends more on Arctic research than Canada does right now, which is a bit embarrassing, so we could have more of everything. It wouldn't take a lot more money to get a lot more value out of social science research, especially from political science and economics.

It doesn't always have to be on the land. It's more about just going to communities, which is expensive. I think we could be getting more value out of the money we have. It wouldn't take a lot more money to get a lot more impact.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

I agree that engineering and natural resource science is much more expensive, but, as you also know, it's the higher-ups who set the tone. This government's biggest infrastructure project in Canadian history involves transporting oil for export, and I think you can see that this is also reflected in public policies.

We have a brief from Joël Bêty and Dominique Berteaux, the Canada research chair in northern biodiversity at the Université du Québec à Rimouski. They told us that the majority of research funding programs support short-term projects that focus on novelty, which limits opportunities to implement new long-term follow-up programs. I'd like to hear your thoughts on that.

[Dr. Heather Exner-Pirot]

I agree. If you look at the Canadian research system and the environment, how much money is put into actual proposals and to getting the funding? It's kind of a waste of human resources, and we're all fighting over the same small pie. You're not getting more value from more people competing for that same small pie.

In some sense, having longer-term funding allows people to answer research questions in a more comprehensive way and not have to focus their efforts on always trying to get more funding. I think our best and brightest research chairs are chasing funding. It's probably the major part of their job, which is probably not where we want them to direct their efforts.

In general, yes, I would agree with that.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you very much.

Many witnesses have told us about the value and the necessity of developing a strategy to coordinate the work of different researchers in different fields. We know that the government currently has a number of entities, including the National Research Council of Canada, the Arctic and Northern Policy Framework, ArcticNet and a number of other organizations under federal jurisdiction that are doing various things, but there's no structured overall vision. What are your thoughts on this lack of vision and the immediate consequences of that for the northern research community?

[Dr. Heather Exner-Pirot]

I mentioned that I worked at the University of the Arctic. I still participate in this university, which is a consortium; it's not an actual university.

I think probably the best and smartest thing it's done is what is called thematic networks: It brings together Arctic research across the eight Arctic countries and elsewhere to focus on a particular issue or a particular theme. It has produced very good results, I would say.

It's perhaps organizing around particular outcomes and particular needs of society and having some deliverables and goals for answering some of those, not just producing publications. That's where the system, I think, lets us down. Getting funding and producing publications are what's valued most, but in Arctic research, there's much more need for practical solutions and outcomes.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

From your expert point of view, if you had to define major objectives for northern research in the humanities and social sciences, what would those objectives be?

[Dr. Heather Exner-Pirot]

Some of it is environmental for sure, and understanding it.

I also want to point out that understanding climate change in the Arctic isn't mitigating climate change. You still need to reduce carbon emissions and greenhouse gas emissions. Understanding how it's affecting the Arctic doesn't do anything to mitigate it. There are some things, like reducing black carbon and reducing diesel generation, that actually mitigate climate change.

Community health is obviously a big one. It is reasonably well funded, I think, but that tends to be a priority of communities.

Infrastructure is underfunded. Getting the brightest and smartest people to think about infrastructure with the challenges in the Arctic I don't think happens often—

[The Chair, Liberal, Valerie Bradford]

That's well over our time. I'm sorry.

[Dr. Heather Exner-Pirot]

Okay.

Economics would be the last one.

[The Chair, Liberal, Valerie Bradford]

Now we'll turn to MP Cannings for our final round of six minutes.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you to both witnesses for being here. I'm going to start with Dr. Chircop.

You talked about the challenges that climate change is bringing to the Arctic, the opportunities with increased shipping, especially in your field of study, and the need to involve communities and use the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People to inform that. I'm wondering if you could clarify where we are now compared with other countries and other areas.

How do our safety standards for shipping in the Canadian Arctic stack up to safety standards elsewhere in the world, whether it's the Mediterranean or other quite different areas?

[Prof. Aldo Chircop]

Thank you for that important question.

Of course, the Arctic is its own context. It's very different from other regions where the infrastructure is much more well developed. The Mediterranean, for instance, has a very long history, with a very extensive port system. Essentially, there are platforms to provide services at sea throughout the region. That is not the case in the Arctic, especially in our part of the Arctic, where the infrastructure certainly leaves much to be desired.

In terms of standards, we are comparable to the other Arctic states. We compare with like states—with, let's say, the other four central Arctic Ocean states—because we are all parties to the IMO conventions. We've all implemented the polar code, which has safety and pollution prevention standards. Essentially, on the books, the laws and regulations are comparable to a great extent.

There are some important differences, however. For us, there is actually something we have more than the other Arctic states. We now have a designated emission control area, which will be formally adopted later on this year. That will be actually a step ahead of the other Arctic states.

In terms of capabilities for search and rescue and so on, if we compare ourselves to the Norwegians, the Norwegians perhaps are farther ahead of us, but they're looking at much smaller areas than the Canadian Arctic.

If we're looking at the environmental standards, we could improve on certain things. For instance, we could perhaps be more precautionary with respect to the amount of noise that is being generated by more ships in the region. We could perhaps take a harder stance on the discharge of grey water from ships, especially passenger vessels. I would suggest we maybe take a harder stance on heavy fuel oil, because we have positioned ourselves, in a way, to grant certain exemptions for vessels to continue to use heavy fuel oil when we know that this poses certain risks.

We're ahead of others in some respects. In other respects, we're perhaps not necessarily ahead.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

To focus on the particular concerns in the Arctic, climate change is affecting the Arctic much faster than it is affecting us down here. Also in the Arctic, communities are much more dependent on the land and sea for food. The Inuit require the ice for seal fishing and whaling and to get out on the land to hunt caribou.

Would you say there is perhaps an even higher priority to maintain the environment and to mitigate pollution—air pollution, water pollution and noise pollution?

[Prof. Aldo Chircop]

Absolutely.

What we also have to consider is that a major difference between the interests of shipping and Inuit interests is that shipping needs to have clear open water. In areas where there are Inuit ice routes and Inuit hunting and subsistence and perhaps temporary camps on ice, the ice is needed for safety. There have been concerns, for instance, that when icebreakers are basically breaking apart the ice, the way the ice reforms potentially poses a barrier for hunters to return safely to their homes.

I would say that we probably have a higher responsibility than the other Arctic states because of the particular geography, the particular demographics in the region and the social and cultural importance of the region. Don't forget too that this is the homeland of Inuit. This is not just a superhighway for ships ready to be opened; this is essentially a space that is important for subsistence, culture, identity and so on, so we do have a higher responsibility, I would argue.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

I would ask you this, then. We've heard testimony about new research policies and programs that are specifically coordinated with communities and developed right from the start within communities throughout the Arctic. Do you think that is the model that Arctic research should try to follow?

[Prof. Aldo Chircop]

I'm involved in one of those. In fact, I mentioned Qanittak. Qanittak is an Inuktitut word that means “freshly fallen snow”, which is a metaphor for a fresh beginning, and it focuses on shipping. Can we think about shipping differently?

This project is co-led by Memorial University of Newfoundland and the Inuit Circumpolar Council. This is the first-ever research excellence fund that is being co-led by an organization that is not a university.

[The Chair, Liberal, Valerie Bradford]

Thank you very much.

We'll now start our second round of questioning for this panel. We'll begin with MP Tochor for five minutes.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Thank you so much.

Thank you to our witnesses.

My first questions will be for Ms. Exner-Pirot.

I found your article on May 16 in the Financial Post riveting. You discussed rare earth mining in the territories and the state of it. It says: “In many ways, we are playing right into their hands,” which means the PRC. Could you elaborate on how Canada's critical minerals policies are playing into the hands of the PRC?

[Dr. Heather Exner-Pirot]

It is our approach of shifting energy systems to things that are critical minerals-intensive, rather than things that we have in Canada, which are uranium and nuclear power that doesn't require enrichment, and fossil fuels, for which you could use carbon capture to make them carbon neutral.

Making our energy systems dependent on what we know are Chinese supply chains—we've seen our American neighbours to the south imposing very heavy tariffs to avoid this problem—is what I was getting at.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

It does play into foreign countries' interests and the current policy that they're utilizing.

To go back to some of your analysis and research on infrastructure in the north, can you elaborate a little bit more on communities that have natural resource projects, such as a mine? What is the infrastructure like around those communities? Is that infrastructure built to withstand climate change better than, say, other communities that have zero economic activity?

[Dr. Heather Exner-Pirot]

That's a great question.

The reason I'm not too worried about too much shipping is that it is still so expensive to get metals and minerals out of the Arctic. There aren't the discovered deposits. There aren't the projects that would indicate that we're going to see, for example, another Mary River iron mine or another Raglan Mine in the Canadian Arctic anytime soon.

The biggest constraint, again, is the price of the commodity and the cost of the infrastructure. Where we have real growth is in diamonds, gold and silver, because you can fly those out, and they don't require a lot of infrastructure. To get more copper or nickel, you would need to have a railroad or some kind of road. The only reason we have that great iron mine in Nunavut is that it's very close to tidewater, so you have a short way to get it to ships, and it usually goes east, not west to the Northwest Passage. The lack of infrastructure is a huge bottleneck to our producing those critical minerals in the Arctic.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

An important strategy for helping the Arctic is helping the territories. We know that under this government, the regulations have changed on natural resource projects. There are no new projects being proposed for the mines, or mines being built, as we speak.

How much of a negative impact has this had on the territories—the change in regulation on natural resources?