The Shipping News
| Published date | 01 June 2003 |
| Date | 01 June 2003 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200305800202 |
| Author | Ranklyn Griffiths |
| Subject Matter | Article |
RANKLYN
GRIFFITHS
The
shipping
news
!nada's
Arctic
sovereignty
not
on
thinning
ice
SINCE
11
SEPTEMBER
2001,
Canadians
have
produced
an
extraor-
dinary
amount
of
comment
on security,
sovereignty,
and
policy
towards
the
United
States.
In the
midst
of
it
all,
a
particular
concern
has
arisen over
what
could
happen
to
the
Northwest
Passage
and
to
Canada's
sovereignty
if
global
warming
opens
the
waters
of
the
Arctic
archipelago
to
increased foreign
navigation,
us
commercial
vessels
included.
As
one who
has seen
Canadian
interest
in
the
Arctic
and
in
Arctic
sovereignty
wax
and
wane
since
the
'northern
vision'
of
the
1958
federal
election,
my
inclination
is
not
to
ask
what Canadians
should
be
doing
to
affirm Canada's claim
against
an
impending
chal-
lenge, be
it
from
the
United
States
or
another
maritime
power.
Instead,
my
question
is
why
southern
Canadians
so
exaggerate
the
threat
to
sovereignty
over
the
Northwest
Passage.
My
answer
is
that
we slip
all
too
easily
into
the
realm
of
motivated
error when
it
comes
to the
Passage
and
challenges
to
our
jurisdiction
there.
Arctic
ice
is
decidedly
not
what
it
used
to
be.
But
neither
is
the
threat
of
commer-
cial
shipping
to
Canada's Arctic sovereignty.
To
show
that
the
sovereignty-on-thinning-ice
thesis
is
misguided,
I
will
oudine
the
argument
and
make
clear
what
is
wrong with
it. Then
I
will
attempt
to
account
for
systematic
error
and
show some
of
what
it
costs
us.
Finally,
the
elements
of
an
alternative
and
more
productive
southern
Canadian
approach
to
what
goes
on
in
and
around the
Northwest
Passage
are
oudined.
Franklyn
G6rffiths
is
Ignatieff
Chair
Emeritus
ofPeace
and
Conflict
Studies
at
the
University
of
Toronto.
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Spring
2003
Franklyn
Griffiths
ERROR
Canadians
who
should
know
better
have
begun
to
propagate
a
wisdom
that
could
soon
become
conventional.
Consider
the
following
para-
phrases
(when
I
did
not
take
down
the
exact
wording)
and
quotations
from
a
few
of
the Arctic-related
meetings
I
attended
in
2002.
Referring
to
a
heavily
attended
conference
on
climate change
and
Arctic
sover-
eignty
that
it
co-sponsored
in
January,
the
Canadian
Arctic
Resources
Committee
reported
views
to
the
effect
that
the
Northwest
Passage
might
become
'navigable
for
much
of
the
year
within
the
next
three
decades,'
and
that
possibly
'other
nations
will
ignore
Canada's
claims
to
sovereignty
over
waters
between
the
Arctic
islands."
At
the
University
of
British
Columbia's
Liu
Centre
in
May,
a
member
of
the
Canadian
Polar
Commission
declared
that
the
possibility
of
a
sover-
eignty
challenge
had
never
been
greater; an
ambassador
commented
that
it
was
now
likely
that
the
Northwest
Passage
would
be
opened
to
shipping;
and
a
former
foreign
minister
was
of
the
opinion
that
Canada's
northern
waters
would
become
increasingly
navigable,
bring-
ing
security
and
sovereignty
questions down
like
a
sledgehammer
on
a
Canada
that
needed
to
be
prepared.
Later
in
the
year,
Louis
Fortier
of
Laval
University
stated that:
'A
cli-
mate-induced
extension
of
the
ice-free season
could open
the
Northwest
Passage
to
intercontinental
navigation
as
early
as
2015-
2025.'
This
remark
was
made
in
the
context
of
a
proposal
to convert
the
icebreaker
Sir
John
Franklin
into
a
state-of-the-art
research
vessel
that
would,
among many
other
things,
serve
to
'build
predictive
ice
dynamics
and
distribution
models
to
develop
management
strategies
for
decreasing
the
risk
of
marine
disasters
while
maximizing the
poten-
tial
shipping
season.'
2
Further
comment
along
these
lines
might
be
considered,
but
let me
simply
refer
to
Mel
Hurtig
who
in
December
drew
the
attention
of
a
sovereignty conference
in
Toronto
to
his
latest
book
in
which
it's
stated
that
'the
Northwest
Passage
...
in
a
few years
will
be
navigable
for
commercial
or
military
vessels
for
most
or
all
of
the
year.
'I
i
'On
thinning
ice,'
Northern
Perspectives
27(spring
2002),
1.
2
Louis
Fortier,
'A
Canadian
research
icebreaker
to
study
the
changing
Arctic
Ocean,'
Meridian,
fall/winter
2002,
2.
3
Mel
Hurtig,
The
Vanishing
Country:
Is
It
Too
Late
to
Save
Canada?
(Toronto:
McClelland
&
Stewart
2002), 329.
258
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL Spring2003
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