Canadian Arctic, the New Geo-Strategic Issue

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By Anne Pélouas
Le Monde
Friday 26 May 2006

Canada's motto - "From Sea to Sea" - is the symbol of its geography: between the Atlantic and the Pacific. Some people have recently proposed that it should rather be: "From One Sea to the Others," to also include the Arctic. The Canadian Arctic covers 3.4 million square kilometers and 40% of the national territory, including an immense archipelago that is nearly uninhabited, apart from a handful of Inuit. Covered with ice, with extreme climactic conditions, it used to barely interest anyone. But times change. Scientists have abundantly demonstrated that it's one of the areas most affected by global warming. Ice melt is accelerating there; the pack ice is thinning and loses thousands of square kilometers a year. A significant retreat of the glacial ice-cap in the next fifty years and the copious liberation of water even sooner is already being predicted.

Canada intends to defend its sovereignty in a region that is exciting more and more greed. Important litigation is indicated: over maritime control (with the lengthening of the annual period of open navigable waters), for the exploitation of natural resources (oil and gas), and in security matters, with the opening of a regular new point of entry into North America.

Ottawa neglected the Arctic for a long time "under the pretext that there was no emergency," says Rob Huebert, an expert in geo-strategy at Calgary University. As long as the ice covered it, "security was free," adds Joel Plouffe, geo-political scientist at the Université du Québec, in Montréal. Ottawa forwent acquiring nuclear submarines to patrol below the Arctic ice and "doesn't even own an all-season polar ice-breaker," emphasizes Michael Byers, a jurist specialized in issues of Arctic sovereignty at the University of British Colombia.

Faced with the consequences of global warning, Canadian politicians have gone into overdrive. "Canada," Mr. Huebert asserts, "must have an Arctic policy endowed with adequate funding to assure that its interests are protected there." In the December 2005 electoral campaign, the present Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper presented an "Arctic plan," notably including the construction of three ice-breakers, a more sustained military and Rangers' presence, surveillance systems for ships and the detection of submarines.

At the end of April, he allocated substantial supplementary funds to defense. A part will go to "the improvement of the armed forces' ability to protect the sovereignty and the security of Canada in the Arctic." In the meanwhile, the Coast Guard and the Army are doing their all to "demonstrate" a sovereignty that is already being contested. For since 1969, American ships have penetrated several times into Arctic waters without Canadian permission. The latest incident: In December 205, a submarine crossed without authorization by the way opened in 1906 by Roald Amundsen through the Northwest Passage. In 1986, Canada traced "straight archipelagic baselines" around its Arctic archipelago, a method recognized by the United Nations to delimit the territorial waters around islands. The United States and the European Community evinced their disagreement, which is growing acrimonious today as the waters free up.

"Open" Several Months a Year

The most important dispute surrounds the legal status of the Northwest Passage, which snakes along over 5000 kilometers. Ottawa claims "historic sovereignty" over these waters and wants to control the comings and goings of all ships. One day, there will be many coming there, attracted by this seaway which, by avoiding the Panama Canal, will shorten the distance between Europe and Asia by 7000 kilometers. In the short term, Canadian scientists think that the "old ice" and icebergs will make navigation through the Northwest channels of the archipelago more dangerous. But in ten or fifteen years, the Northwest Passage will be "open" several months a year, facilitating a navigation that will bring its share of problems (risks of oil spills, wrecks, drug, weapons and immigrant trafficking, a port of entry for terrorists ...).

The United States, like Europe, deems that this passage opening on two oceans should be an international free-access channel. Canada runs the risk of finding itself quickly isolated on the international scene. As a way out of the impasse, Mr. Plouffe suggests "abandoning the sovereignty rhetoric, a battle already lost in advance for Ottawa, which will be unable to assure control of as strategic an area for the United States. It would be better," he believes," to cooperate with the Americans to protect our environmental, economic, and security interests."

He doesn't believe that the Americans really want an international channel, which would be an additional threat to their security. According to Mr. Huebert, Canada "lost a good opportunity to put the subject on the table with Washington after the 2001 attacks." And Mr. Byers adds, "It is high time to persuade the Americans that their own security interests would be better protected by a Northwest Passage with fortified Canadian control than by abandoning it to a lax international regime." De facto, only an American-Canadian agreement would avert the waters' internationalization.

Two other "Arctic conflicts" affect Canada. In the east, it's been arguing with Denmark for thirty years over Hans Island, situated between Greenland and Ellesmere Island. The issue is strategic for both the control of maritime traffic and the exploitation of oil and gas reserves. In August, after years of "flag wars," the two countries opened negotiations on the island's status.

In the Arctic Northwest, which could hold up to a quarter of global oil and gas reserves, the ice melt also allows a premonition of a future Eldorado. In the Beaufort Sea, Canada drags out an old quarrel over the maritime border with the United States ... in the heart of an area of significant undersea oilfields. Mr. Huebert foresees a "great battle in store for Canada, at a time when the Americans are talking so much about energy security."

The same challenge exists in the extreme Arctic, very rich in oil and gas ... and the conjunction point for the Canadian, US and Russian continental plates. There, each may claim ground and undersea rights adjacent to their own plate by virtue of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea....

Translation: t r u t h o u t French language correspondent Leslie Thatcher.