Editorials

Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Rock solid spot to set precedent

By: Staff Writer

Posted: 09/9/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

If we could only settle the issue of sovereignty over Hans Island, a pretty well worthless lump of rock sitting somewhat pointlessly in Nares Strait between Danish Greenland and Canada’s Ellesmere Island, then perhaps the larger, the more difficult, the more controversial and the more hugely economically important issue of Arctic sovereignty could be settled. But we cannot, or at least Canada and Denmark have not yet, and until they do, the question will remain a contentious issue.

Last month's Operation Nanook saw 700 Canadian soldiers, an icebreaker, a submarine and a group of Arctic Rangers, a sort of Inuit paramilitary that patrols the Arctic archipelago, conducting exercises in the far North to assert Canada's claim to sovereignty there.

It is a claim that needs to be vigorously asserted. It has been continually contested by other nations, both friends and foes. Canada's closest ally, for example -- the United States -- disputes this country's claim to sovereignty over the Northwest Passage.

The Canadian contention is that fabled Northwest Passage is an inland waterway to which Canada has exclusive rights, but the Russians and the Europeans join the Americans in arguing against that.

Neither is Canada's claim to the Arctic archipelago secure. Some of those island were discovered by Scandinavians and Americans, which gives them at least a putative claim to sovereignty.

Until recently, this did not matter much. Cold weather and heavy Arctic ice made the Northwest Passage basically useless as a waterway between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and rendered the vast resource wealth under the Arctic seabed unexploitable.

Global warming has changed all that. In a matter of years the Northwest Passage may be navigable for a good part of the year. The shrinking Arctic ice pack will offer access to the oil and gas reserves in the Arctic seabed, estimated to be at least 25 per cent of the Earth's untapped resources.

The U.S.-Canada dispute over the Northwest Passage is perhaps surpassed in drama only by the Russsia-Canada dispute over the North Sea. Using some peculiarly Russian geographical measurement -- Moscow has a unique conception of where its continental shelf ends -- Russia has laid claim to the North Pole, planting a flag on the seabed there using one of the nuclear submarines that Canada does not have.

In fact, Canada has no submarines capable of operating under the Arctic ice for any significant length of time. Nor does it have any credible military presence in the High Arctic. Despite the efforts of the Harper government to improve Canada's defensive role, the Arctic remains vulnerable to other pretenders to authority there that have a bigger gun, a better icebreaker or a submarine that can usefully spend more time under ice.

Hans Island looks like a pointless pancake in the Arctic Ocean, but it could lead the way to resolving Canada's claim to Arctic sovereignty. Denmark's claim to Hans Island is neither less nor more valid than other nation's claims in the Canadian Arctic -- in short, it has no merit.

But because it is strategically useless and economically worthless, it is eminently negotiable between two governments -- Canada's and Denmark's -- that are friendly. A decision by Denmark to give up its claim to Hans Island would set a precedent for Canadian sovereignty over the Arctic in negotiations with other, less friendly nations and it is something Ottawa should pursue.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition September 9, 2009 A14

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