Arctic sovereignty: dead in the water

Despite the noble intentions of its organizers, last weekend’s Ottawa conference on global warming and Canadian Arctic sovereignty was, ultimately, a sad and sometimes amusing exercise.

Sad, because some well-meaning participants still appear to believe in the possibility that Canada might yet be capable of asserting some degree of sovereignty over the waters of the Northwest Passage — or, at least, a form of sovereignty that’s capable of addressing the issues raised at the conference.

As various academics, lobbyists, consultants and others wrung their hands over the prospect that within 15 to 40 years, global warming will open the Northwest Passage to uncontrollable levels of international shipping, it took a senior military official to signal the obvious.

And that is that Canada is now well on its way to becoming an economic and military colony of the United States, utterly dependent on the U.S. to protect its borders, and a sovereign nation in name only. If current trends continue, it won’t be long before the Canadian government’s relationship with the U.S. resembles the Greenland government’s relationship with Denmark.

The compromise is always the same. Canada surrenders a certain amount of its sovereignty to the United States. In exchange, Canada receives guarantees of military security — provided at the expense of U.S. taxpayers.

Canada began surrendering its military sovereignty to the U.S. nearly 60 years ago. The Crystal II air force base at Iqaluit, built by the Strategic Air Command in 1942, was a result of such an early compromise. The NORAD agreement, under which the DEW line and North Warning System were built and operated, is a result of later such compromises.

The sovereignty-for-security compromise has allowed Canadians to sustain the hypocritical illusion that we are somehow nicer and more peace-loving than those nasty Americans, and, of course, morally superior to them. Meanwhile, U.S. money continues to do our dirty work for us, supplying Canadians with essential national security arrangements that we are either unable or unwilling to provide for ourselves.

Lt. General George Macdonald, vice-chief of Canada’s defence staff, this week served notice that we are about to enter into new compromises that will likely eliminate any possibility of Canadian Arctic sovereignty ever again becoming an issue over which the Canadian government has effective control.

On Jan. 28, Macdonald told a House of Commons committee that talks between U.S. and Canadian defence officials aimed at creating a “single command structure” for all land, sea and air forces in North America are well under way.

This sounds, essentially, like an expansion of the NORAD agreement, in which U.S. commanders operate North America’s continental defence system along with a few token Canadians. Since the U.S. pays for most of NORAD’s costs, this is not inappropriate. But if Macdonald is to be believed, it’s only a matter of time before the Pentagon will assume effective control of Canada’s armed forces, thereby cementing Canada’s status as a U.S. dependency, fully integrated into a Greater North America.

The carrot-haired Art Eggleton, Canada’s defence minister, told reporters afterward that “Canada will not surrender one ounce of sovereignty,” but this is a hollow claim.

A few days earlier, General Macdonald told participants at the Ottawa Arctic sovereignty conference that if the United States were to be somehow blocked from using its base at Thule, Greenland, as a support site for its National Missile Defence project, loyal little Canada is willing to offer its base at Alert on Ellesmere Island as a substitute.

Why not? Canadian military leaders, whose budgets have been slashed numerous times over the past decade by cynical, poll-driven governments in Ottawa, have no choice but to ingratiate themselves with their U.S. colleagues. To ensure that Canadians play at least some role in the defence of the continent, they have no other options.

But what an illustration of Canadian powerlessness — a Canadian general offering a Canadian NMD site to the U.S. at a time when Ottawa is still officially undecided on the NMD issue.

So to hear conference participants calling on the Canadian government to “do something” about Arctic sovereignty is, as we said, sad and amusing. Many climatologists predict that the waters of the Northwest Passage — most of which are adjacent to Nunavut’s Arctic Islands — will be open to commercial shipping within 15 to 40 years.

But it’s clear that it won’t be the Canadian government that will protect the Canadian Arctic against polluters, smugglers and terrorists. It will be the U.S. government, essentially. Any Canadians involved in such efforts will be under U.S. command, and their work will reflect U.S. priorities.

Why should Nunavut residents care about this? When ore-carrying freighters begin to ply their way through the Northwest Passage, using ports such as the one proposed for Bathurst Inlet, it will be impossible for Canada to apply Canadian environmental laws, such as the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act.

That’s because U.S. and most European nations consider the Northwest Passage to be an international waterway, not Canadian territory. Even if the Canadian government were willing and able to enforce Canadian law in the Northwest Passage, which it can’t right now, the international community wouldn’t recognize Canada’s right to do so.

That also includes Canadian laws, such as the Nunavut Act and the act giving effect to the Nunavut land claims agreement. It’s a certainty that the U.S. and Europe will not agree that these laws apply to the Northwest Passage.

The Inuit of Nunavut, who surrendered their aboriginal title to Canada in exchange for the increasingly dubious rights and benefits contained in the Nunavut land claims agreement, are in for a nasty surprise. They will soon discover that the government to whom they surrendered is powerless to protect Inuit sea-ice from the consequences of global warming.

JB