- Member of Parliament
- Member of the Subcommittee on Review of Parliament’s involvement with associations and recognized Interparliamentary groups
Deputy House leader of the New Democratic Party
- NDP
- London—Fanshawe
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 66%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $131,911.16
- Government Page
- May/9/24 9:52:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the federal housing advocate has called out the government for failing to uphold Inuits' right to housing. For the people in Nunavut especially, and my colleague has done an incredible job of representing them, there have been significant failures to address the significant housing shortage there now.
We were pushing for the federal government to provide Nunavut's request of $250 million in housing in this fall economic statement. Could he explain why that did not happen and when the federal government will meet its obligations to people in Nunavut?
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- Nov/27/23 6:35:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this concurrence debate, although I will note, of course, that it is within the usual tactics and games used by members of the official opposition. However, it is an important topic, so I am glad to speak to it tonight. I will be splitting my time with the member for Nunavut; I look forward to hearing her incredible contributions to this debate.
First of all, this was a really important report to put forward. I am so grateful to all the witnesses who came before us, the members of the armed forces who spoke to this report, the academics, the community leaders, the policy-makers, the analysts from the Library of Parliament, our committee clerk and the interpreters. We are truly lucky in this place to have such an incredible group of people to work with and whom we can hear from to create better legislation and better policy within the government. I appreciate those workers and all the evidence provided by the participants. After hearing the recommendations and reflections from the committee, we worked on the study to look into Russia's threat to Canada's Arctic, China's threat to Canada's Arctic, the security of the Canadian Arctic archipelago and the security of the Northwest Passage and NORAD modernization.
This report's recommendations strayed from the mandate a bit. Sadly, we ignored one of the largest points and most imminent threats to our Arctic, which is climate change. According to the report:
The committee was reminded by Dr. P. Whitney Lackenbauer that we must distinguish “between threats passing through or over the Arctic rather than threats to or in the Arctic”.
The committee did not quite get that in terms of the recommendations, which is a real shame.
The committee's recommendations focused heavily on “potential threats to North America passing through the Arctic, at the expense of centering threats to the Arctic itself.” The warming rate of the Arctic's oceans:
...is up to seven times faster than the global average. The United Nations estimates that by 2050, up to 70 percent of Arctic infrastructure will be at risk from loss of permafrost. This is a direct threat against both the Canadian Armed Forces and Arctic communities....
With climate change, we have already seen the number of voyages in Canadian Arctic waters triple in the last three decades. New sea lanes are being opened by melting ice, which will cause increased fishing, transportation, tourism and research activity in the area. Further, the loss of permafrost is also increasing the viability of access to the Arctic's massive oil reserves, natural gas and precious minerals.
This threat to Arctic security was discussed at length throughout the committee by top officials. We heard from the chief of the defence staff, General Wayne Eyre, who stated that there was a challenge in “making that infrastructure durable and sustainable into the future with the changing circumstances related to climate change.” Vice-Admiral Topshee, the commander of the Royal Canadian Navy, told us about the important holistic approach necessary to deal with the increase in traffic. He said that the CAF is working with territorial governments and indigenous partners to build Canada's capacity, from unauthorized vessel detection to search and rescue.
In the same study, we heard from the national security and intelligence adviser, Jody Thomas, that more than 40% of Canada's territory and over 75% of its national coastlines are Arctic. She stated:
The Arctic is fundamental to Canada's identity and its sovereignty....
Rapid and enduring climate change is making the region more accessible for navigation. New commercial and military technologies are connecting the North to the rest of the world and eroding the region's historical isolation from geopolitical affairs.
We took all this into account. We heard it as part of the testimony, which, of course, was rooted in the context that the increased activity caused by climate change is highly disruptive. It is a problem. It is the major threat.
It is very alarming that, within those recommendations, we did not actually see recommendations calling to address climate change. Certainly, I tried to bring that forward, to have the consideration of climate change as the existential threat to Arctic security be known. Sadly, we do not see those recommendations in the report. It is truly a mystery, but maybe not a mystery for anyone who has heard arguments from the official opposition's side. However, I will leave it there.
It is imperative that the federal government treats climate change as a national security threat, as outlined by all these officials and academics. This summer alone, 45.7 million acres of forest in Canada burned and released the equivalent of 1.7 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions.
Additionally, indigenous peoples in Arctic communities need to be central to what we are talking about in terms of Arctic security. The impacts of climate change are felt first and foremost in the Arctic. Indigenous people are often on the front lines as first responders, and all government spending on the Arctic security question has to reflect this truth. As the report notes, “As part of Arctic security, we must see investments in the north help northerners access safe housing, clean drinking water, fresh food and healthcare.”
It is easy to fall into the escalating calls for the militarization of the Arctic, but I believe this is a disconnect from what the committee heard from witnesses. We heard that the best Arctic security policy is an investment in the communities themselves and in their people.
One clear message heard at committee was the need to invest in the Canadian Rangers to address the threats to the Arctic. We heard from Calvin Pedersen, a fourth-generation Canadian Ranger, about his work in monitoring vessel traffic in the northwest. The report notes, “The Canadian Rangers are essential to meeting the security needs to address the impact of climate change and increased economic activity in the Arctic.”
We also heard from Dr. Peter Kikkert, who said:
The Rangers wear lots of hats, so they’re often volunteers on the ground search and rescue teams in their communities. They’re often members of the Coast Guard auxiliary units that go out to do marine searches.... The training that is given to Rangers is not always just used in an official capacity, but is often used to bolster the search and rescue system on a voluntary basis.
The report goes on: “Investments in the Canadian Rangers will increase our domain awareness, increase the CAF’s operational capabilities, and will bolster search and rescue capacity.” There were some good recommendations, especially recommendations 21 to 25, as part of this report, and I hope the government will act upon them very quickly. They include a change to the way rangers have faced mistreatment from successive governments. Often, rangers are expected to continue service while being undercompensated for equipment usage, and they are slowly and inadequately reimbursed for damaged equipment. They also lack funding for administrative supports.
Just last week, I questioned the Minister of National Defence about this, because in the study, witnesses clearly called for the equipment usage rate to be tied to inflation. I did not get the answer I wanted, but I never really do from the minister, unfortunately. I hope that will change. I hope he will take the recommendations from this report seriously.
In addition to that support, the defence ombudsman reported that rangers lack adequate access to the health care, housing and basic infrastructure needed to do that work. We keep hearing the same messages over and over again. We need the government to hear them.
The report notes, “As the need for Canadian Rangers increases, we must act immediately to solve these concerns.” In addition to the permanent Arctic search and rescue round table that has been called for, the committee received a written submission that called for the need to build up community resilience.
This brings me to recommendation 13 of the report. The report says:
[I] wish the language in the recommendations went further to mandate the Government to prioritize investments that serve Indigenous peoples and Arctic communities. As we expect more and more from Arctic communities, Canada’s history of neglect and harm must be reconciled with meaningful investments. In prioritizing the backlog of NORAD modernization and the backlog of infrastructure gaps in the Arctic, we can address [a lot of the] shared needs.
The government has a clear opportunity here, and it needs to “use funding allocated for NORAD modernization to address the infrastructure and service gaps in the Arctic. We must give greater attention to the water crisis, housing crisis, and health care crisis in Arctic communities”.
I also want to address a recommendation that I agree with in this report, which is recommendation 3. In witness testimony for this study, General Wayne Eyre stated, “I think policies related to ballistic missile offence are becoming less and less relevant.” The recommendation reads, “That the Government of Canada reconsider its longstanding policy with respect to the U.S. Ballistic Missile Defence program.” I am 100% against that.
We heard from Dr. Adam Lajeunesse, who stated:
Arctic security and defence are very important, and we need to make serious investments, but we need to zero in on what exactly the threat environment is. What I have argued is that we are not seeing, and are not likely to see, a great power threat to the Arctic.... I'm arguing that it would be a waste of money and an inefficient use of our resources to build the Arctic defences in such a way as to gear them towards Russia or China.
Again, he pointed back to the existential threat. This all points back to the inappropriate and disappointing wedge in a conversation of our study that refused to put those recommendations forward, in terms of climate change. I—
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Mr. Speaker, there is something I have been working on with the member for Nunavut. In Ontario there is a group of eight first nations, and they are first nations with a school collective in mind. We are talking about first nations education by first nations, and we are rewriting a curriculum that is made for indigenous people by indigenous people.
Could the member talk about how that could be a step toward that reconciliation we are talking about today?
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