Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

Thanks, honourable members of the House of Commons Standing Committee on National Defence, for inviting me to share my perspectives.

My name is Dr. Feiyue Wang. I'm a professor and a Canada research chair, tier one, in Arctic environmental chemistry at the University of Manitoba. I lead the new Churchill Marine Observatory, located in Churchill, Manitoba, which was officially opened in August this year. Some of you have probably heard about it, so thanks again for the support from the government. I'm also associate dean of research at the Riddell faculty of environment, earth and resources at the University of Manitoba.

I want to acknowledge that we're here meeting on the unceded traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe nation.

To talk a bit about my own background, I'm an environmental chemist, and I study contaminants in the environment, especially in Arctic and northern Canada. It might sound counterintuitive but, despite the remoteness of its location, Arctic and northern Canada receives more than its fair share of many contaminants, either transported from the south or from local sources such as mining and, in this case, military operations. The contaminants that I study the most are legacy contaminants: Those are the ones that were, primarily, used in the past. The ones that I study the most are mercury as well as emerging Arctic contaminants such as microplastics, and, increasingly, we worry about oil spills. My research addresses the sources of these contaminants; their movement; their changes in the air, snow, ice and waters; their risk to the health of ecosystems and humans; and, of course, ultimately, what we can do to reduce and mitigate the risk.

From that background, it should not come as a surprise that I call your special attention to the Department of National Defence and Canadian Armed Forces contaminated sites in northern and Arctic Canada. One location I work at the most is Churchill, and many of you would know that, from the 1950s to the 1980s, Churchill saw extensive rocket-launching activities by the U.S. army and Canadian government. There are, of course, many Distant Early Warning Line stations throughout the Arctic and, in addition, there are ongoing military operations across northern and Arctic Canada.

Contaminated sites in northern and Arctic Canada are of particular concern for several reasons. The very first thing is that the northern environment is highly vulnerable. Those sites are located in remote and, often, culturally and ecologically sensitive and vulnerable regions. Also, because of the remoteness, they tend to be forgotten. They are poorly documented and even poorly monitored. They are also long-lasting, given that the region has relatively lower temperatures and is covered with seasonal snow and ice, and sometimes perennial ice. The contaminants at those sites are more persistent, probably, compared with those in southern locations.

One area that I study the most are complications due to climate change. If you have contaminants in the environment, ongoing climate change makes things even more complicated in terms of the impact and how to mitigate that. However, when I point out the challenges in northern and Arctic Canada with respect to the sites, I also want to make the committee aware that, in this country, we have great capacity to actually address those issues. Many researchers in Canada, including me, are global leaders when it comes to northern contaminants, and throughout the country we have many state-of-the-art laboratories—of course, including my colleague from the University of Montreal. There are also a lot of research facilities in the south that could help, and there's a network of northern colleges and fuel stations in the north. Throughout the decades of research there's also extensive experience, with knowledge co-development, with indigenous and northern communities. This is demonstrated by many community-based monitoring programs.

Thanks for the opportunity to share my perspectives. I'm happy to speak more to any of those points and beyond if there are questions. Thank you.

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