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Secure the Arctic environment

The prospect of cleaning up a major naval disaster should quickly clarify who has responsibility for the Northwest Passage

I was puzzled when I read recently a survey statistic indicating that many Canadians placed the environment in the Canadian Arctic ahead of sovereignty. I suggest that first and foremost we must establish what is ours before we protect it.

Some claim that sovereignty and security are not well understood.

That may remain so until there is a major disaster in the Arctic Archipelago, something akin to the Prestige oil tanker that polluted the coast of Spain in 2002. The clean-up operation cost in excess of 2.5 billion euros ($4 billion) in an area close to port facilities and manpower.

I estimate that it would be at least $10 billion to do a similar clean up anywhere along the Northwest Passage especially if the oil is mixed with ice.

With such a bill to swallow there would very quickly be a discussion as to who has sovereignty rights over what area, who authorized the ship to come through, who can take legal action to recover the costs, who will co-ordinate the cleanup and to what environmental standards, etc. Since the Northwest Passage is in Canadian internal waters there is no discussion; the Canadian government has full authority over those waters.

In 1985, Canada formalized the limits of its internal waters in the Arctic using the straight baseline method. With this method, one draws straight lines between the outside points of land of the islands on the outside of the Arctic Archipelago. We do this until such a time as the entire Archipelago is covered. The waters inside those lines are internal waters. Over those waters 100 per cent of Canadian laws and standards apply just as they would in Lake Winnipeg or downtown Ottawa.

Extending outwards and parallel to this line is the 12 nautical miles of territorial waters, then the contiguous zone, the Arctic Pollution Prevention Act zone, followed by the Exclusive Economic Zone and ultimately international waters. These waters are governed by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) to which Canada is a signatory since 2003. Canada has various rights and privileges over each of these zones but not 100 per cent.

The best way to protect the very fragile ecosystem of the Arctic Archipelago is to have all of its waters as Canadian internal waters. This way all of our laws and environmental standards can be applied. Given the international track record of environmental protection, it would be irresponsible for Canadians to leave part of our waters in the hands of some international committee or commission.

In 1998, one of the scenarios considered by the then Canadian Forces Northern Area Headquarters was of a foreign ship coming up to Prince Patrick Island in the high Arctic, anchoring off its coast, running a pipeline to a fresh water river, loading half a million gallons of fresh water, dumping the same amount of sea ballast from another ocean (with the possibility of introducing something like the zebra mussel into a very fragile ecosystem) and departing to sell that bulk fresh water. Canadians would naturally object to this but in those days there was no way of even knowing that it was taking place given our lack of surveillance. The resources to intercept that ship were and are still extremely limited.

Canadians must realize that the Arctic is huge. It is larger than continental Europe. To protect it we have only five or six Coast Guard vessels that only operate there for a fraction of the year. And incidentally, all of them are coming to the end of their design life. The government has announced a program to build only one replacement for the icebreaker Louis St-Laurent. We have to this date no capability to continuously monitor sub-surface activity. The North American Air Defence Agreement has a good capability in so far as the air threat is concerned. On the land the Canadian Rangers provide some degree of surveillance.

Some argue that the Canadian Forces should not perform the constabulary function in the Arctic, since the state-to-state threat has somewhat receded. I do not dispute that. But somebody must guard the Arctic. At this time, I believe that the Canadian Forces are better structured, equipped and trained to do this function but maybe it is time for the Coast Guard to be tasked to actually guard the coast.

Canada does not want to block maritime traffic in the Arctic Archipelago. It does want to manage it in a responsible manner and in accordance with our environmental and transportation standards. If there is an environmental disaster in the Arctic, Canadians are likely the ones who will foot the bill if a ship has a flag of convenience that would make it difficult to take legal action to recover the cost of the remedial actions. The cleanup would also have to be done to standards that we are prepared to live with.

Canadians should also be aware that there are multiple routes that ships can take to go from the Arctic Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean through the Arctic Archipelago. The "classic" Northwest Passage would use the McClure Strait, the Barrow Strait and the Lancaster Sound, but there are at least five other possible routes and many more permutations. If, according to other countries, the Northwest Passage is an international strait, then one could argue that all those routes are part of the international strait including the waters underneath them and the air space over them.

This would magnify the environmental risks many times. Would we want a North Korean ship transporting nuclear material through any of those routes and claiming the right of transit passage?

Suzanne Lalonde, a law professor who has been examining the Arctic situation for a number of years, recently told the Standing Committee on National Defence that "Canada doesn't only have to be visible in the Northwest Passage, it has to exert control over the waters of the Northwest Passage. ... I think any unauthorized transit by a foreign vessel ... will severely undermine Canada's legal case. Such a public violation of Canada's sovereignty would call firstly into question Canada's ability to effectively govern those waters which is an important and essential component of our historic waters claim."

There is a large degree of uncertainty about the impact of global warming in the Arctic. All the models used less than 10 years ago have been exceeded by Mother Nature. Some say that the route over the North Pole will open first. Others say that the cost of insurance for travelling the Northwest Passage may reduce its attractiveness as a shortcut between the Asian and European markets. Time will tell but so far many of the predictions, if not all of them, have been proven wrong. We should not wait to see yet another prediction go wrong. We should act now to protect our national interests.

The government has announced that NORDREG system for monitoring Arctic traffic will be made compulsory. Not a moment too soon. At this moment, and despite all the security measures taken after 9/11, maritime traffic reporting in the Arctic waters is still done on a voluntary basis.

Maritime traffic has increased significantly in the Arctic Archipelago and we know that some of the ships do not report on NORDREG. In 2008 more than 60 foreign ships operated in the Arctic waters. Last year, Resolute Bay, a small community on the Northwest Passage, was visited 17 times by cruise ships. Yes, cruise ships, à la Alaskan cruises. Arctic cruises are becoming increasingly fashionable. This summer the Citizen featured such trips on the front page of its travel section.

Canadians will recall the sinking two years ago of the Canadian-operated MS Explorer in Antarctica. The possibility of a similar accident in the Canadian Arctic archipelago is not a theoretical exercise.

In 1996, the cruise ship Hanseatic ran aground in the Simpson Strait. Fortunately, it did not sink nor did it cause an environmental problem. But what if it had? How prepared would we have been to deal with the search and rescue and clean-up operations? If you scratch the thin veneer of public statements you might be disappointed.

The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that as much as 30 per cent of the world's undiscovered gas and 13 per cent of the world's undiscovered oil may be found north of the Arctic Circle. The exploitation of those reserves, especially the crude oil, may pose a grave risk to the environment in the Arctic Archipelago if supertankers the like of the Manhattan decide to use the Northwest Passage as a transit route, or if the exploitation takes place within the Arctic Archipelago as it did in the past.

Somebody once said that we did not inherit the land from our forefathers but that we have borrowed it from our children. The Arctic is a vast and beautiful part of our country. We must look after it well. It is in our national interests.

Col. (retired) Pierre Leblanc is former commander of Canadian Forces Northern Area. He is currently principal at Canadian Diamond Consultants Inc.