U.S. ships may challenge Canadian Arctic claims
A report to Congress by the U.S. Department of Defense appears to call for American ships to challenge Canadian claims in the Arctic.
The Department of Defense “will preserve the global mobility of U.S. military and civilian vessels and aircraft throughout the Arctic, as in other regions,” reads the Report to Congress on Strategy to Protect United States National Security Interests in the Arctic Region, dated December 2016.
“This includes conducting Freedom of Navigation operations to challenge excessive maritime claims when and where necessary.”
The U.S. has three active marine disputes with Canada in the Arctic, including over 21,440 sq. km in the Beaufort Sea and two smaller areas of the Dixon Passage, between B.C. and Alaska.
Then there’s the big one — whether the Northwest Passage is an internal Canadian waterway or an international strait.
Basically the Americans agreed to always ask permission before sending a ship through the Northwest Passage and Canada agreed to always grant permission
While the 17-page policy presentation doesn’t state whose “excessive maritime claims” the U.S. would seek to challenge, it’s a small club of nations jostling to stake their claims in the warming Arctic.
“One would think Russia and Canada are the two countries they are concerned about,” said David Vander Zwaag, a law professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax and the Canada Research Chair in Ocean Law and Governance.
“I think they are looking generally at protecting freedom of navigation in the Arctic.”
The U.S. Department of Defense did not respond to a request for comment.
Canada and America may boast the world’s longest undefended border, but it isn’t a settled one. Below the Arctic circle both countries lay claim to where the Strait of Juan de Fuca empties from the Salish Sea into the Pacific Ocean and to a valuable lobster ground in the Gulf of Maine.
In recent decades negotiations have largely amounted to agreeing to disagree.
After the U.S. Coast Guard sent the ice breaker USCGC Polar Sea through the Northwest Passage without seeking Canadian permission in 1985, public outrage north of the 49th parallel led to frantic negotiations.
“Basically the Americans agreed to always ask permission before sending a ship through the Northwest Passage and Canada agreed to always grant permission,” said Michael Byers, Canada Research Chair in Global politics and International law.
“But they didn’t resolve the underlying issue ” — that issue being whether Canada has sovereignty over the Northwest Passage.
When Canada and the U.S. asked the International Court of Justice to settle the maritime boundary in the Gulf of Maine in 1979, both countries agreed to not include the barren 8.1-hectare Machias Seal Island in their proposals. That left about 110 sq. km of water around the island, known as the “grey zone,” that are claimed by both countries.
For Byers, this method of not resolving border disputes works only until there’s something for people to fight over.
That became apparent in 2002 when rising lobster prices and increased landings drew Canadian lobster boats into the disputed waters, where Maine fishermen were already setting traps.
“It’s the boats from Nova Scotia that hold New Brunswick licences — they don’t care,” said Lawrence Cook, a Grand Manan lobster fishermen who fishes the area.
“They don’t have to come into port and tie up next to any of us. Two summers ago a lot of them went over (to the grey zone) and run over American gear, cut traps.”
Though last summer’s fishing season was less tense, the grey zone remains unresolved with no negotiations in the offing.
Farther north, the competition for resources almost boiled over last March when the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management issued a proposal for new offshore leases that included the energy-rich, pieshaped area of the Beaufort Sea also claimed by Canada.
That debate was cooled in December when Barack Obama, in one of his last acts as president, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau jointly signed a moratorium on new oil and gas leasing in Arctic waters.
But with a new president in the White House — one who has campaigned on tapping energy resources and striking deals that put America first — there’s less certainty.
“I don’t expect the Trump administration to engage on the issue of the Beaufort Sea in its first term,” said Byers. “This is a second-term issue. As much as we may think the Arctic is an important issue, in Washington it’s not.”
Meanwhile, the warming Arctic draws more ships and the price of lobster remains high.
Cook has hopes for the Gulf of Maine dispute based upon his experience of what happens when men get to know each other working side by side in an unforgiving environment.
“We’re neighbours. We hear them on the (VHF) radio and stuff,” said Cook. “If you know someone you’re not likely to try and intentionally destroy their gear. It’s just civility is what it is.”
Whether civility will prevail in the North remains to be seen.