Canada waging Arctic campaign

Defends sovereignty claims; Senate report urges more local control for 100,000 residents of Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut

Gary Park

For Petroleum News

Canada is talking tough about defending its Arctic sovereignty claims, telling Russians and Europeans to back off, at the same time a Canadian Senate committee is cautioning the government to transfer more of its control over Canada’s North to those who live in the region.

Coming right on the heels of a Russian government report that warns of possible military conflict over Arctic oil, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said Canada’s priority is to “work peacefully” with “our northern partners in the Arctic.”

If that isn’t possible, Canada is “an Arctic power and our government understands the potential of the North.

“Therefore, when and if necessary, this government will not hesitate to defend Canadian Arctic sovereignty and all of our interests in the Arctic,” Cannon said.

A similar message is being spread across Europe, as the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper wages a campaign to present Canada as an “Arctic power” and the owner of one-third of the Far North, including land and any oil, natural gas and minerals lying beneath the waters.

Cabinet ministers and ambassadors have been told to follow up on Cannon’s statement to European leaders in Norway in April that “Canada is an Arctic nation and an Arctic power.” That is being accompanied by the opening of a Canadian International Center for the Arctic Region in Oslo, a political institution designed to rebuff messages being sent by the European Union and Russia, and the unveiling of cultural banners and sculptures in London and Paris.

Cannon said the office will also play a research role, largely to “promote Canadian interests and influence key partners” on Arctic-sovereignty issues.

“Through our robust Arctic foreign policy, we are affirming our leadership, stewardship and ownership in the region,” he said.

However, it’s not all a bristling confrontation.

Meetings with Russia

Cannon’s bold stand occurs amid mixed and conflicting signals from the Russians, which have ranged from a public pledge by top Russian officials to resolve potential Arctic disputes peacefully under a United Nations treaty governing the law of the sea and to submit its territorial claims in the polar region jointly with Canada and Denmark, to a clash with Canada over an Arctic test flight by two Russian bombers in February.

Cannon has previously said Canada will not be “bullied” by Russia and will use its Canada First Defense Strategy to “take action” to protect sovereignty claims.

The government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper said it will spend billions of dollars to strengthen Canada’s military presence in the North as part of its “use it or lose it” Arctic strategy.

Move for local role

Liberal Senator Grant Mitchell said the North is “not a frontier to be exploited. … It is a place to develop as northerners would have it developed.”

To that end a report entitled “With Respect, Canada’s North” said the 100,000 people who live in the Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut should have a larger role in shaping policy for the region.

Committee members found climate change is dramatically affecting the lives of northerners and is advancing faster than expected, with melting permafrost causing buildings to tilt and creating roads like roller coasters, while rising sea levels are causing coastal flooding and hunters report declining caribou herds.

Senator Tommy Banks, also from the opposition Liberal party, said that while climate change is an “abstract concept” to southerners that “may or may not be happening, to the people of the North it’s a fact of life.”

The report recommended that the government provide more money for research in the North, with a greater emphasis on measuring climate-change trends, and called for more funding to help municipalities and the territorial governments adapt to the change.