Vanguard Magazine

www.vanguardcanada.com FEBRUARY/MARCH 2021 45 A Less Attractive The LAST woRd By Col pieRRe leBlanC (ReT'd) B ack in 1998, when I was the commander of the Canadian Forces Northern Area, I be- came concerned with the im- pact of global warming and the disappearance of the ice in the Cana- dian Archipelago. Although there were no apparent military threats to the Canadian Arctic at the time, there was nevertheless a concern with increasing risks to human security. As ice would recede, maritime access to the Arctic Archipelago would in- crease. From a sovereignty point of view, I was concerned with potential challenges to Canada's sovereignty over the waters of the Arctic Archipelago. Many coun- tries claim that the Northwest Passage, and there are several routes a ship could follow, is an international strait between two oceans which gives them the right of transit. This right would also apply to sub- merged submarines and aircraft over the strait. Canada's position is that those wa- ters are internal by historical title. Having complete jurisdiction is extremely important. It allows Canada to be a true steward of the Archipelago and it denies the right of transit. It allows Canada to en- act laws and regulations such as the Arctic Pollution Prevention Act to protect a very fragile environment and a very short vertical food chain in the Arctic. It allows the man- agement of all activity, especially maritime activity, to reduce the possibility of an envi- ronmental disaster that would likely affect the livelihood of Inuit communities and damage marine sensitive areas. Following a symposium on arctic secu- rity in 1998 which highlighted our lack of domain awareness in the Arctic, I sound- ed the alarm with the National Defence Headquarters in 2000 and initiated the Arctic Security Interdepartmental Work- ing Group to better coordinate the work of all the federal departments responsible for security aspects in the Arctic. We ab- solutely had to improve our situational awareness. I am now less concerned with a chal- lenge to Canada's sovereignty or secu- rity issues over the waters of the Arctic Archipelago. There are several reasons for this. Back in 2000, there was serious concerns that the Northwest Passage and the Northeast Passage would become ac- tive maritime transit routes that would in- crease the likelihood of search and rescue accidents and potential environmental di- sasters. The attractiveness of those routes was mostly due to reduced transit time between Asia and Europe or the Eastern Seaboard of North America by several oveR tIme, ImpRovementS By the InteRnatIonal maRItIme oRganIzatIon to the polaR Code wIll fuRtheR ContRIBute to ReduCe RISk. feweR ShIpS wIll alSo ReduCe the lIkelIhood of a SoveReIgnty Challenge. NoRThweST pASSAge iS good FoR CANAdA days, but it also included the lack of pi- racy, a problem in places like the Strait of Malacca. Those concerns have not materi- alized for the Northwest Passage. The traffic over the Northeast Passage, which follows along the Russian coastline, has seen a modest increase, but has not met any of the aggressive targets set by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Much of that traffic has been destinational in support of the oil and gas industry. With the fast disappearance of sea ice, eventual- ly, the North Pole route will be preferred as it will provide deeper waters, straight lines, and shorter distances. On the Northwest Passage, the amount of maritime traffic has increased over the years but it, too, is driven more by desti- national traffic to support the annual sea- lift to the Arctic communities or mining activity such as the Baffinland Mary River iron ore mine or the potential shipping of grain out of the port of Churchill. The one exception has been an increase in ad- venturers and cruise ships. There are several reasons for the lack of commercial transit over the Northwest Passage. Although there is less ice during the shipping season, there is a lot of ice that moves unpredictably because of cur- rents and winds. In 2018, for example, a Photo: The European Space Agency

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