Sovereignty, Security, and Surveillance in the Arctic

In 1994, two joint committees of the House of Commons and Senate held extensive public hearings on Canada's foreign and defence policies. Both committees were charged with advising the federal government on priorities and issues into the next century, and both were doing so in the uncertain political context of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the demise of the Cold War.

There is much to applaud in the committee reports released in autumn 1994. For example, sustainable development is suggested as an "overarching foreign policy theme," and environmental security is acknowledged as a policy objective of the first order. Both themes resonate strongly in northern Canada, where pollutants generated through non-sustainable development in the South and in other countries are contaminating the food web and endangering the health of northerners, particularly aboriginal northerners, who eat large quantities of "country food."

Yet, neither parliamentary committee said much about the North. Nor did either suggest how its general recommendations should be implemented in this vast area. This is disappointing and illustrates a lack of foresight, for wide-ranging political and economic changes are under way in the circumpolar Arctic that will likely propel the region into the political spotlight in coming years.

The Arctic is the only portion of the globe bordered by the United States, Russia, and Canada. Past certainties—superpower confrontation over the pole—are giving way to new possibilities, including production of the region's extensive proven and prospective energy and mineral resources. In a few short years the Arctic Ocean may become a route for general cargo vessels linking Japan, east Asia, and the western seaboard of North America with western Europe and the eastern seaboard of North America. Such a development would have profound policy implications for Canada.

In the past, the circumpolar Arctic was dominated by defence needs—a policy arena in which Canada played only a minor role. Today this region is emerging as a venue in which all facets of foreign policy can be exercised, if we have sufficient imagination. Sustainable development and environmental security promise to be the policy touchstones in the circumpolar Arctic well into the next century.

Canada has persevered through the eight-nation Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy (AEPS) to promote circumpolar solutions to shared problems. Since 1989, Canada has sought to establish an Arctic Council to bring together senior ministers of the Arctic nations. The Hon. Andre Ouellet, Minister of Foreign Affairs, recently appointed an Arctic Ambassador and gave her a mandate to pursue the Arctic Council initiative. In the press conference introducing the ambassador, Mr. Ouellet endorsed the concept of a legally binding arrangement—presumably a treaty—to better equip the Arctic nations to deal with environmental and sustainable development issues.

All this is to the good. We cannot achieve environmental security through unilateral action. Moreover, multilateral approaches that serve our national self-interest sit well with the Canadian body politic and reflect our sometimes diffident attitude. Certainly Mr. Ouellet's treaty idea deserves very serious consideration.

But a third objective should guide our foreign and defence policies in the Arctic: Canadian sovereignty over the Northwest Passage. While Canadians believe the Northwest Passage to be "internal waters" subject to our control, this is neither the perception nor the position of the United States, which sees the passage as an international strait. In 1985 the American icebreaker Polar Sea transited the Northwest Passage uninvited and in so doing created a political storm that echoes still. In response, the federal government took both political and legal measures to assert Canada's sovereignty over the passage, including effecting an agreement with the United States regarding Canadian consent for future transits. But that agreement applies only to icebreakers and does not prejudice the legal position of the United States.

These arrangements did not fully quiet the controversy. Sovereignty on paper is one thing: Being there is another. To exercise our sovereignty and jurisdiction over the passage effectively and to ensure that our environmental standards and laws are enforced, we have to control how and by whom it is used. To provide for this, the federal government proposed to construct a polar class eight icebreaker for year-round operations in Arctic waters and to acquire a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines to allow our navy to patrol under the Arctic ice. An Arctic Subsurface Surveillance System (ARCSSS)—acoustic listening devices similar to those used in the north Atlantic— was proposed to monitor underwater use of the passage.

None of these technological components to Canada's Arctic sovereignty has been implemented. Nuclear submarines and powerful icebreakers were abandoned as too expensive. The Department of National Defence (DND) has, apparently, been negotiating for some time with potential contractors to install an ARCSSS, but it is unclear whether or not Canada is actually committed to installing such a system.

The defence and foreign policy committees of Parliament discussed Canada's territorial integrity and sovereignty, but little of this discussion was directed to the North, the very area in which our sovereignty is most directly and obviously questioned. Neither committee recommended technologies the federal government should use to affirm Canada' s sovereignty in the Arctic, although both looked forward to further bilateral and multilateral arrangements in the North and beyond to promote sustainable development and environmental security. The proposed acoustic surveillance system was not mentioned in the recently released defence white paper—an oversight of extraordinary proportions, if an oversight it was.

The sovereignty component of our national agenda in the North must not be lost even as we welcome past adversaries as new friends and collectively come to grips with common economic, environmental, and social problems. Donald McRae, a respected law professor at the University of Ottawa, when appearing before the parliamentary committee on national defence, said that "subsurface transits undertaken without Canada's consent are a serious encroachment on Canada's sovereignty over Arctic waters." He noted that Canada's sovereignty over Arctic waters can be lost through "dereliction," or neglect of duty. That's just what could happen if Ottawa fails to act.