The Other Sovereignties

Date01 December 2011
AuthorJean-François Payette,Stéphane Roussel
DOI10.1177/002070201106600419
Published date01 December 2011
Subject MatterIV. Subnational Governments
| International Journal | Autumn 2011 | 939 |
Stéphane Roussel &
Jean-François Payette
The other
sovereignties
Québec and the Arctic
Stéphane Roussel is professor of political science and Canada research chair in Canadian
foreign and defence policy, Université du Québec à Montréal. Jean-François Payette is
a fellow at the same institution. The authors warmly thank Kirsten Kramar and Benoit
Ladouceur for their comments.
Since 2004, the Canadian government has been “rediscovering” the Arctic.
The Canadian forces, absent from this region for almost two decades, are
now back regularly, conducting exercises or building new infrastructure,
while a good deal of the equipment acquisition programs are designed to
sustain military operations in the north.
The north is prominent in off‌icial government discourse, as well as in
policy. This discourse emphasizes three interconnected elements. First, the
north is “ours,” a part of Canadian territory, establishing a clear distinction
between “us Canadians” and “others.” Second, Canadian soil in the north is
under siege, both in terms of sovereignty and security. Other Arctic powers
(such as the United States and Russia), non-Arctic powers (such as China),
and nonstate actors (private corporations, criminal organizations, and
terrorists) are staring at the Canadian north and will exploit any weakness
| 940 | Autumn 2011 | International Journal |
| Stéphane Roussel & Jean-François Payette |
in the Canadian determination to protect it. The list of threats is long and
challenging for the Canadian forces. Third, the north is a land of opportunity
for new development and resource exploitation, and it is the responsibility
of Canadians to harvest the bounty of this territory. One of Prime Minister
Stephen Harper’s favourite slogans is “use it or lose it”; a phrase he coined
in 2007 in relation to Arctic sovereignty.1
Many reasons could explain this sudden rush to the north in Ottawa,
the f‌irst possibility being the need to manage the consequences of global
warming and to face an anticipated and signif‌icant increase in human
activity in a region with a great reduction in ice cover. But such motives are
not inconsistent with others, such as the instrumentalization of the north
for domestic political objectives. These objectives are connected to recurrent
themes in Canada’s national and external identity, in which the Arctic plays
a prominent role. As we will see later, the vast majority of Canadians identify
with this region, even if very few of them ever travel to the Arctic. The
image of vast, cold, and pure spaces, as well as the presence of indigenous
communities, are associated with the history and def‌inition of Canadian
national identity, especially since the last quarter of the 20th century. The
polar bear and the inukchuk, rather than the beaver, are today Canada’s
national and international symbols. Off‌icial discourse reinforces this
characterization of Canadian identity. It paints Canada as an Arctic power
or an energy superpower with vast reserves of oil and gas in the north, and
implicitly depicts the defence of sovereignty in the region as a counterweight
to a deeper North American integration which might weaken or undermine
Canada’s national identity.2 From this perspective, these discourses could be
conceived as a part of a nation-building effort.
Precisely because the Arctic is a part of Canadian identity, any external
threat or challenge in this region could trigger an emotional reaction, as is
usually the case when issues such as Canada-US border delimitation in the
Beaufort Sea or the legal status of the Northwest Passage make their way
to the front pages of major Canadian newspapers. In all fairness, we must
recall that this is the f‌irst time that Canadian territorial integrity has been
1 For a critical analysis of these words, see Kristin Bartenstein, “‘Use it or lose it’: An
appropriate and wise slogan?” Policy Options, July-August 2010: 69-73.
2 This association is explored in Stéphane Roussel, “Continentalisme et nouveau
discours sécuritaire: Le Grand Nord assiégé,” in Frédéric Lasserre, ed., Passages et
mers arctiques. Géopolitique d’une région en mutation (Québec: Presses de l’Université
du Québec, 2010), 177-80.

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