Northern Canada a “rudderless ship,” NWT says

OTTAWA — Few people doubt that the Arctic is warming up. The issue has been well publicized, though poorly acted upon. The question that remains is: What can we do about global warming?

Participants at an Ottawa conference last week, organized by the Canadian Arctic Resources Committee, the Institute for Military and Strategic Studies and the Canadian Polar Commission, spent two days pondering the implications of global warming for the Canadian Arctic.

Conference participants — a grab-bag of government officials, military experts, researchers and northern leaders — said the federal government needs to develop a vision for the new, warmer Arctic.

They condemned the tendency of politicians to ignore the region until a crisis occurs.

Territorial leaders at the gathering slammed the federal government for its lack of attention to sovereignty and security in the Canadian Arctic.

“Is Nunavut on the federal radar screen? I don’t think so,” said Manitok Thompson, Nunavut’s minister of transportation and community government.

Thompson said Nunavut needs more infrastructure, including telecommunications systems, to deal with security, which may become a major concern as the Northwest Passage opens up to more sea traffic.

Joe Handley, finance minister for the Northwest Territories, said outside economic and environmental forces — not the needs of residents — determine what resources the North receives.

Although Canada has had an official northern foreign policy since 2000, there’s still no domestic policy for the North.

As a result, Handley said, Canada’s North is floundering, without direction, like a “rudderless ship.”

“Who’s looking at the big picture?” Handley asked. “Where are we going in the North?”

To better prepare for the future, conference participants recommended:

• High-level politicians develop a northern domestic policy, take a stand on Northern issues and stop leaving bureaucrats in charge;

• Cabinet should have a minister responsible solely for northern issues;

• The federal government support and involve residents of the North — particularly indigenous people — in decisions that affect them.

Sheila Watt-Cloutier, Canadian vice-president of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, said southern politicians shouldn’t ignore Inuit when it comes to climate change.

Watt-Cloutier called for Inuit to be included in all policy decisions concerning climate change — as they have been on contaminant issues.

“The problem is, bureaucrats from the South have set the agenda,” said Franklyn Griffith, a political scientist from the University of Toronto who has studied the politics of the Northwest Passage.

“No one is asking Inuit what they think. I think there’s a mentality that isn’t open to Inuit.”

Griffith suggested Inuit and the Nunavut government make more noise about what goes on in their waters.

Practical ways to develop new policies could include activating the Nunavut Marine Council, which is called for in Article 15 of the Nunavut land claims agreement and giving this new board enough resources to do its job.

Most scientists now agree polar sea ice is retreating and that widespread ice cover in the Arctic could be gone by 2060.

They are also forecasting a temperature increase in the Canadian Arctic of between one and five degrees in the next 100 years.

This means that for most of the year, ships could travel from Europe to Asia through the Northwest Passage, cutting 10,000 km off the trip from London to Tokyo.

Some believe the Northeast Passage — the sea-lane above Russia — will prove easier to navigate, and that Canadian sovereignty over the seaway won’t be as urgent a question in the future.

But an open Arctic sea will certainly send circumpolar nations scurrying to divvy up the polar seabed and to stake a claim to its rich resources.

At the same time, the Arctic peoples and animals will be faced with a drastically different environment.