00:00:00.000What we have seen is that Prime Minister Carney traveling to Beijing describing Canada's alignment
00:00:04.560with Beijing's new world order. It wasn't just a series of trade agreements that the Prime
00:00:08.660Minister had made on behalf of Canada. It included security arrangements and security dialogues.
00:00:13.540This is, I think, a fundamental misunderstanding of the threat to the Canadian strategic interest,
00:00:17.720especially our own sovereign Arctic region. This whole thing with China didn't happen overnight.
00:00:22.620For months now, Carney has been quietly signaling a shift towards Beijing, talking about re-engagement,
00:00:29.160stability, expanding cooperation, even as Canada's relations with Washington have been getting more
00:00:35.580and more hostile. You've seen it in the tone, you've seen it in the meetings, and you've seen
00:00:39.640it in how often Canada sides with Europe and other globalist organizations instead of the U.S.,
00:00:44.800even on core security issues. But here's the part most people are missing, and this is critical.
00:00:50.440China doesn't separate trade, diplomacy, or security the way Western countries do, and that
00:00:56.460means that any deeper cooperation with them always comes with strings attached. So the real question
00:01:01.720isn't whether Canada is getting closer to China. It's what Ottawa has already given up to make that
00:01:07.080happen. Good morning. My name is Kyle Matthews. I'm the Executive Director of the Montreal Institute
00:01:11.660of Global Security. We're pleased to be here today at the Canadian Parliament to launch a report
00:01:16.320published by the London-based China Strategic Risk Institute to talk about threats the Canadian
00:01:24.400Arctic, particularly coming from China. We've seen in the past year increased
00:01:29.560geopolitical competition, unraveling of the world order, and increased focus on
00:01:33.880Canada's Arctic. And so we feel that there's a need to inform the Canadian
00:01:37.840public, to inform policymakers on the challenges we face from authoritarian
00:01:42.580states that are eyeing our resources, eyeing our territory, threatening our
00:01:47.160sovereignty. So we're here today to talk about this in detail. We really want to
00:01:53.560ensure that the Canadians around the country from west to east, north to south, understand that
00:02:01.240there are actors that we should not be dependent on and we should actually take measures to protect
00:02:06.760our sovereignty and protect the Arctic and work with our allies on this. Now the Arctic is entering
00:02:11.480a new phase of strategic competition and China has become the most active non-Arctic player in the
00:02:17.000region. China's growing presence raises two core concerns for Canada related to sovereignty and
00:02:23.080security on sovereignty china support promotes the idea that the arctic should be treated as a
00:02:28.200global commons where non-arctic states have equal access equal rights of access and extraction that
00:02:34.360directly challenges canadian long-standing position that water such as the northwest passage
00:02:39.560fall under canadian jurisdiction it also risks undermining the autonomy and governance of local
00:02:44.360communities that live in the canadian arctic as well as environmental protections on security we
00:02:49.240We see expanding presence and dual-use infrastructure can create long-term dependencies and surveillance
00:02:55.840risks for northern communities as well as Canada as a whole.
00:03:00.260Our report details how Chinese activities fall across the spectrum, from economic investment
00:03:05.620in mining to scientific collaboration and polar research vessels to offers to finance
00:03:10.180critical infrastructure in remote communities.
00:03:13.360But the cumulative effect of an incremental strategy that builds access, relationships
00:03:18.080and influence in the arctic over time this also reflects a broader pattern of foreign interference
00:03:24.160canada has been confronting as a country many arctic communities face significant infrastructure
00:03:29.760gaps this is true in areas such as broadband and transportation and so these infrastructure
00:03:34.800investment offers from china can appear attractive because they're addressing real community needs
00:03:39.440but these proposals also carry significant and potential national security implications
00:03:44.720This also reflects a similar trend and pattern and playbook that we've seen in Belt and Road
00:03:49.120initiatives where China is offering critical infrastructure in under-resourced areas in
00:03:53.520exchange for economic access or long-term leverage. We've seen these dynamics play out in Sri Lanka
00:03:58.400where Chinese financing for the Hambatantori port ultimately resulted in a 99-year lease to China
00:04:05.600or in Djibouti where infrastructure investment ultimately was followed by the establishment
00:04:09.840of China's first overseas military base near the port facilities.
00:04:13.760China, as we all know, has been the disruptor, the rupture from over a decade ago to the international system.
00:04:19.380The shocks that Beijing has imposed around the world has been something that Canadians have had to struggle with in their day-to-day life,
00:04:26.000in our trade security, our sovereignty, and our ability to carry on in our strategic alliances.
00:04:33.280What we have learned in recent studies is that Beijing is a primary threat to Canada's Arctic.
00:04:38.240The Canadian Security Intelligence Service confirmed this assessment at the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development on February 14,
00:04:46.900underscoring the growing strategic challenge posed by China's expanding presence in the north.
00:04:51.620And so I'm very grateful for this report that I think every parliamentarian, policymaker, minister, and Canadian should read.
00:04:57.780It is a report that discovers some significant gaps, as Elizabeth has described just now.
00:05:02.740Surveillance and domain awareness gaps.
00:05:04.440Canada's northern surveillance infrastructure is outdated and slow modernization under the North
00:05:59.620The China China is not an Arctic nation yet claims to try and be one China's commercial efforts in Greenland and elsewhere is a project of weaponized commerce.
00:06:08.440It has proven as such over the last decade in regions around the world, as has already been described.
00:06:13.080Meanwhile, Ottawa is out here playing geopolitical chess with China, a country that the United States military, the U.S. intelligence community and basically every Western government considers their number one strategic rival.
00:06:28.400And Trump is saying it out loud at this point. China will eat Canada alive, devour its businesses, undermine its economy and use Canada as a tool against the United States to Canada's detriment, by the way.
00:06:46.000And whether you like Trump or not, this part is objectively true.
00:07:11.920I'm the senior fellow for Arctic security at the Montreal Institute for Global Security.
00:07:16.000Today's report provides a valuable window. It provides a valuable window into China as a growing strategic challenge for Canada's Arctic, and that is the fundamental takeaway we need to keep in mind here.
00:07:27.020It argues that Arctic security is Canada's national security, and that a mix of calibrated regional and global strategies and actions are required if we are to meet this challenge.
00:07:37.040As Elizabeth mentioned, this is about a full spectrum challenge. It's about economic security
00:07:43.040to protect our infrastructure, and it's about research security to protect our science.
00:07:48.080China is pushing on all of these fronts, and these fronts also point to the likelihood of
00:07:52.400China's growing future military capabilities in the Arctic. An important point in the paper to
00:07:58.280realize is that China's extensive collaboration with Russia is advancing China's Arctic interests,
00:08:03.940enabling its presence, advancing its capabilities through transfer of technology, skills, and presence.
00:08:11.400China is pushing hard on the commercial front, taking advantage of Arctic sea lanes passing the Russian coast to reach Europe,
00:08:18.860and is looking at technologies, as the report points out, to improve the quality of its nuclear submarine fleet.
00:08:25.860It's important to keep to mind that even on the scientific front, this is dual-use technology,
00:08:30.840dual use knowledge that can be applied in a whole range of domains including in the military one
00:08:36.520it's very important in canada that we have an ongoing conversation about building and
00:08:40.040protecting dual use and multiple use infrastructure a key point in this paper we need a concerted
00:08:46.360effort to devise governance mechanisms to support secure infrastructure development at all levels
00:08:51.480of canadian government ground up and top down china is using all of its tools on the arctic front
00:08:58.440That calls for a whole-of-government approach by the Canadian federal government for the same problem.
00:09:13.780I'll ask, Elizabeth, you mentioned some examples of some concrete threats.
00:09:18.360I'm thinking that Canadians probably remember a lot from late 2020 to early 2023
00:09:23.440with the concerns around surveillance balloons,
00:09:28.000buoys that were found in Canadian waters.
00:09:29.880Are there other examples like that that we're starting to see continue?
00:09:34.760I'd also like to invite my colleagues to address that as well.
00:09:38.660I mean, China's activities last summer, mostly in the North Pacific,
00:09:44.060Beaufort Sea, Chouksey Sea, off the Bering Strait,
00:09:46.380and Alaska is directly relevant to Canada and Canada's security.
00:09:51.160These are so far in line with international law and sailing in international waters, but pushing right up to the edges.
00:09:58.120And they're certainly signaling, just as is China's use of Russia's northern sea route to move to ship via sea routes to Europe.
00:10:08.940I think one of the crucial questions here is around governance and is Russia enforcing the standards that the Arctic community had very carefully devised for safe shipping, environmentally sound shipping?