'Will Canada Get the Cold Shoulder in the Arctic?'
By Aaron Goldstein (08/19/07)
Most Americans give precious little thought to the Arctic. Well, you might perhaps if you live in Alaska. But most of us only really think of the Arctic around Christmas time when it comes time to play Santa Claus. The North Pole is so remote and far removed from our perceptions it is almost a mystical place. A snow capped Atlantis if you will.
But the North Pole is very real and in the coming years what transpires in the Arctic will have implications not only for Americans but for the rest of the world. Just ask the Russians. Earlier this month, two Russian submarines made an expedition and planted a Russian flag beneath North Pole’s seabed. This has been largely dismissed as a publicity stunt. But only days later a Danish expedition set sail for the North Pole to possibly stake its claim. The United States is expected to join the fray soon as well. Norway has sent expeditions to the Arctic in the past as well and might very well do so again in the near future.
Yet the country with perhaps the most at stake in all this is Canada. On August 10, 2007, Prime Minister Stephen Harper journeyed to Resolute Bay in the territory of Nunavut to announce that Canada would be building two new military facilities in the area to further assert its sovereignty in the Northwest Passage, a sea route in the Arctic Ocean which connects the Atlantic to the Pacific. A new army training center is to be built in Resolute Bay to train soldiers to fight in cold conditions. A deep sea port that already exists in Nanisivik and will be refurbished into the second new military facility. Construction is expected to begin in 2010 and is expected to be fully operational by 2015. In the meantime, there is extensive environmental cleanup as the facility was once used as a mine that was shut down in 2003 and is contaminated with heavy metals. Nanisivik is situated at the eastern entrance of the Northwest Passage. “Canada’s new government understands that the principle of Arctic sovereignty is: Use it or lose it,” said Harper.
Canada ratified the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea in 2003 and has ten years to make a claim under its auspices. The construction of the military facilities will certainly bolster Canada’s case. What makes Canada’s position controversial is that it considers the waters of the Northwest Passage to be part of its territorial waters while the United States, Denmark and Norway amongst others consider the area international waters. For years, the U.S. Navy has sent nuclear submarines through parts of the Northwest Passage. Canada’s Conservative government wants the United States to discontinue this practice. In 2006, Jason Kenney, a Conservative MP, who until recently served as Harper’s Parliamentary Secretary said, “Any foreign government should ask permission before entering our territorial waters, and they’ll take more seriously our approach to sovereignty if they know we actually have assets up there.” For its part, Canada’s opposition parties worry that Harper is spending too much time focusing his energies on military matters and should instead focus on scientific expeditions that would legitimize Canada’s claims in the Arctic as is being actively done by the Russians and the Danes. Ujjal Dossanjh, the Foreign Affairs Critic for the Liberal Party, said, “This is the same government that has decided to spend more than $3 billion dollars to buy equipment that doesn’t have the capacity to break through the Arctic ice during winter. Why don’t they spend that money on increasing our research presence in the North, which is desperately needed.”
The key here is the Lomonosov Ridge, an underwater mountain range spanning more than 1,200 miles spanning the Eastern Siberian Sea to Ellesmere Island – the most northern part of Canada. Russia and Canada argue that the ridge is an extension of their continental shelves while the Danes argue it is an extension of Greenland, which is a Danish territory. Given that the polar icecaps are melting (largely attributed to global warming) the Lomonosov Ridge has created new opportunities for both oil and natural gas exploration as well as for shipping. Needless to say whoever prevails will reap an enormous windfall. It will also be a source of immense national pride in all three countries.
Should the construction of these military bases along the Northwest Passage bolster Canada’s claims it will become an important part of Stephen Harper’s political legacy. If he is successful, the Conservative Prime Minister might very well become a 21st Century version of Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first Prime Minister. Macdonald, a Tory, was Prime Minister for twenty of its first twenty-five years as a country and arguably his greatest legacy was the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway which connected the east coast to the west coast. Indeed, British Columbia agreed to become part of Canada in 1871 solely on the condition that a transcontinental railway be built. It took nearly 15 years to build. Before construction began a bribery scandal concerning the funding of the railway would oust Macdonald from power in 1873. But Macdonald would be returned to power five years later. The last spike of the CPR was driven into the ground 1885 and it still runs to this day as a freight rail service. The building of the CPR is captured in the Gordon Lightfoot classic “The Canadian Railroad Trilogy.” If Harper can do for Canada’s North what Macdonald did in bringing together Canada’s East and West he will have secured his place in Canadian history. Harper will have effectively become a new Father of Confederation and perhaps Gordon Lightfoot will have to write a new song about the Northwest Passage. If Harper does not succeed, the Northwest Passage might become for him what the cancellation of the Avro Arrow became for John Diefenbaker, another Tory Prime Minister. Canada might have become a leader in the aerospace industry if not for Dief the Chief’s ill-fated decision to cancel the Arrow project in 1959 ostensibly due to the high cost of the project. Many who built the Arrows moved to the United States to join NASA and made great contributions to the Apollo missions. The Arrow cancellation still generates heated discussion in Canada to this very day. Suffice it to say, there is a great deal at stake here.
Complicating matters for Harper are long standing disputes with Denmark on Hans Island and with the United States on the Beaufort Sea.
Hans Island is a tiny island that is all of a half mile in size. It is situated in the Kennedy Channel that separates Ellesmere Island from Greenland. It is also just north of the Northwest Passage. Over the past two decades, Danish flags have been planted on Hans Island. In 1984, Tom Hoyem, who was the Minister responsible for Greenland, planted a Danish flag along a bottle of either brandy or cognac. This was evidently in retaliation for Dome Petroleum (which is now part of Amoco) conducting research on the island without the Danes knowledge. In 2005, the ire of the Danes was raised when Bill Graham, then Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs made an unscheduled visit to Hans Island. However, both governments are talking and last month Canadian officials, with the help of new mapping technology, ceded that the international boundary runs somewhere in the middle of the island as opposed to east of Hans Island. If it means getting the rest of the Northwest Passage, perhaps losing Hans Island isn’t such a bad thing.
Further west, the Beaufort Sea is a source of contention between Canada and the United States because of the vast oil and natural gas reserves contained in its wedges and both countries are making efforts explore these resources. It is worth noting that the United States has not ratified UN Convention on the Law of the Sea although President Bush has urged the U.S. Senate to ratify the Convention as recently as May 2007. It is also worth noting that on August 15, 2007, a coalition of Aboriginal and environmental organizations successfully petitioned the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to put a halt to oil exploration in the Beaufort Sea, near the also disputed Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, that had been planned by Shell Oil. The Ninth Circuit will review whether the Minerals Management Service, part of the U.S. Department of the Interior, had conducted a proper environmental assessment of the situation. If the Ninth rules in favor of the plaintiffs, Shell would no doubt appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. No doubt this setback for Shell gives momentum to Canada as last month, Calgary based Imperial Oil and ExxonMobil Canada bid nearly $600 million (Canadian) to be granted an oil exploration license. There, of course, might be opposition from Aboriginal and environmental groups in Canada but at this point none have taken legal action to stop the exploration.
Stephen Harper is taking an enormous gamble in the Arctic. Canada might reap a windfall of cold hard cash or it might get the cold shoulder from the UN and the rest of the international community. Although scientific and geological exploration helps, Harper recognizes that possession is nine tenths of the law and that one cannot become sovereign unless one asserts himself in an act of sovereignty. The construction of the two military bases is that act. What if the UN and the rest of the international community says no but the bases have already been built? What country is going to compel Canada to tear down its military bases? Harper is banking on the fact that no country will commit its troops to close down a Canadian military base situated in the Arctic. The United States and Denmark would look awfully silly in attacking an ally. However, the Russians are a little more unpredictable. It is difficult to know what the state of Russia will be in a decade much less a year from now. If the Russians chart a more authoritarian course it is not inconceivable they might act on their ambitions. But Canada will only cross that strait if it comes.
So long as energy prices remain high, the Arctic will become more and more attractive as a source of accessing oil and natural gas. It might also become an alternative shipping route to the Panama Canal in navigating from the Pacific to the Atlantic. Canada would be foolish not to assert itself especially given its geographical proximity to it all. As Harper says, “Use it or lose it.” If it is successful in using its sovereignty, the 21st Century could very well belong to Canada.
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