Your Either Use It, Or You Lose It

When I heard US Ambassador David Wilkins say last week that “the US simply doesn’t recognize Canadian sovereignty over the Northwest Passage” well... let's just say I felt really upset. Who does he think he is?

Naturally, I took for granted that this was simply another case of the Americans trying to look macho by bullying smaller states. I was sure that if the US decided to use those waters for shipping, the world would stick up for Canada’s rights. How more naïve could I have been?

No, the world won’t stick up for us, at least not the countries who would benefit from the Northwest Passage being international waters. We might have North Korea, Venezuela and Iran on our side, but I doubt that would be enough to fend off a US-EU-China coalition.

Let’s face it, nobody lives there. The population density of Canada’s territories is of about 0.36 people per square kilometer. If you were to parachute somebody in the arctic, they’d have no way of knowing it was Canada, and there wouldn’t be anyone living in the area to tell them. That matters! We’d love to think that we can simply call the Arctic Canadian territory and expect other countries to follow suit, but if it’s in those other countries best interests to disagree, they will.

Now, we mustn’t forget to keep in mind that the Passage is not yet navigable. The U.S. Navy anticipates that it will be open to conventional shipping "for at least one month each summer" by 2011 and that it will provide "entirely ice-free summer seasons" by 2050. This gives us a small window of opportunity to act.

I’m no specialist on the issue, so I’m not going to get into details about the type of action we should take. My gut feeling is that infrastructure is the beginning middle and end of the solution, but again, I don’t specialize in international relations.

What I do know is that action must be taken now! We need to have a concrete plan to assert Arctic Sovereignty, and that plan needs to be ready by the spring. We have four years before the Passage starts to become a viable shipping route. Four years, that’s all!

If in 2011, American, European and Chinese ships start going through the Northwest Passage without paying duty, Canadians will be able to say to themselves: “we are a bunch of shortsighted fools.”