Hands off our Arctic, Canada tells EuropeansThe Globe and Mail: As countries scramble to grab a piece of the Arctic, Ottawa is fighting back with an aggressive PR campaign across Europe that this isn't an unclaimed wasteland. It's active, it's a home -- and it's ours...
The European Parliament recently stated that it is interested in an international treaty on the Arctic, like the one that governs the Antarctic. The United States and Europe both dispute Canada's claim that the Northwest Passage is purely in Canadian territory...
Behind closed doors, Canada's relations with its Arctic neighbours are actually fairly co-operative these days, in large part because all the Arctic nations agreed last year to settle their disputes using the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea... The Arctic has become a closed club, and the new threat to its integrity comes from outside...
[According to] Peter Harrison, who until last year was the senior federal bureaucrat responsible for Arctic affairs... 'Many people in Europe believe they should take a role in governing areas that are not anyone's territory. Well, the Arctic happens to be owned by the countries around it, and a third of it is in Canadian territory.'...
Canadian officials say they want to project an image of Canada as a responsible, more ecologically careful and aboriginally oriented steward of the Far North... But at its core is a far more simple and relentless message: It may be empty and cold and inaccessible, but it's got a red-and-white flag on it.
Vancouver Sun: Ottawa's stated outrage over a Feb. 18 Arctic flight by two Russian bombers -- a response dismissed by Moscow as 'bizarre' given the 'routine' nature of the training exercise -- appears even more puzzling now that details have emerged about a friendly, Feb. 20 meeting in Moscow in which top Canadian and Russian officials contemplated unprecedented levels of co-operation on Arctic issues.
The two sides... noted a 'high degree of similarity in their positions on the issue of international shipping in the Northwest Passage (Canada) and the Northern Sea Route (Russia)' -- hinting at an allied Canadian-Russian stance against the US on one of the thorniest issues in Canada-US relations.
And the meeting... even involved discussions about a possible 'joint Russia-Canada-Denmark' submission to the UN's continental shelf commission -- a surprisingly genial proposal that would defuse potentially explosive questions about where each other's Arctic territory ends...
Foreign Affairs spokesman Alain Cacchione [said] it was Russian officials who 'raised the idea' -- 'any boundary disputes in the Arctic Ocean will be resolved peacefully and in due course.'
[Michael] Byers also noted that while Russia has been 'quietly favourable' towards Canada's position on the Northwest Passage -- that the shipping route through Canada's Arctic islands is part of the country's 'internal waters' rather than an international strait -- the Feb. 20 meeting suggests Moscow may be ready to voice stronger support for Canada's stance.
Images from articles quoted.
