Canada “too small” to develop Northwest Passage shipping: diplomat

Here’s a view from the Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker Amundsen as it breaks through ice in the Northwest Passage. Russia has stolen a march on Canada in developing the Northwest Passage as a commercial shipping route, a French diplomat says. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

BEATRICE FANTONI
Postmedia News

Canada will lose out to Russia’s Arctic shipping routes because it is too small to finance the infrastructure, France’s ambassador for the polar regions said Monday.

Melting polar ice will make Canada’s Northwest Passage more accessible in the next decades, but Canada does not seem interested in exploiting it for shipping, said Michel Rocard, who recently returned from a tour of the Arctic aboard the Canadian icebreaker Amundsen.

“I have the impression that Canada has given up on the competition to attract a large part of the traffic in 25 or 30 years,” Rocard said.

The former French prime minister said Canada is “too small to finance itself the infrastructure” needed to spur commercial shipping through its Northwest Passage — a shorter route between European and Asian markets than the Suez and Panama canals. In contrast, Rocard said, Russia is an “Arctic force” with several icebreakers, including four new nuclear-powered ones.

Rob Huebert, a professor in circumpolar relations at the University of Calgary, said it’s not a question of being “too small” but rather one of political will and economics determining how fast Canada moves on developing transpolar trade.

“We still haven’t really made up our minds if we want international shipping coming though our waterways,” Huebert said. “Because there’s still ice there’s not the economic argument for transpolar shipping.”

Huebert said shipping companies that transit through the Panama Canal or around the tip of South America still can’t be convinced to take the northern route because it requires an icebreaker escort and the shipping season is shorter.

He added there is no “concentrated effort” to chart Canada’s Arctic waterways to reflect recent changes in sea ice, making it dangerous in some cases for vessels to travel through.

U.S. researchers have said global warming could leave the region ice-free by 2030.

Michael Byers, an expert in international law and the Arctic at the University of British Columbia, said the Northwest Passage will “almost certainly” be open in September and October for vessels of any kind, not just icebreakers, because the sea ice is growing weaker.

“The ‘deepwater route’ from Lancaster Sound through Barrow Strait . . . has the depth and width to easily accommodate supertankers and other supersized vessels,” Byers told Postmedia News in an email.

However, Byers said, opening up to transpolar shipping raises some difficult questions on how Canada will protect against oil spills or criminal activity — while its sovereignty over the waterway is still a matter of dispute.

“Foreign shipping companies want world class navigation aids, charts, search and rescue, ports of refuge, policing and icebreaker assistance. If Canada builds an ‘Arctic Gateway’ to the world through these kinds of investments, foreign companies and governments will quickly become more accepting of Canadian sovereignty,” Byers said.

Rocard said that Russia’s Arctic passage along the Siberian coast is less winding and has fewer islands than Canada’s Northwest Passage, but it is a bit longer. And while Resolute Bay in Canada’s far north has a mere 280 inhabitants, Russia’s northernmost port cities of Murmansk and Arkhangelsk are home to 300,000 and 350,000 people, respectively.

With files from Agence France-Presse