Earth Equity News

Canada Expands Its Arctic Claims. By Steven Chase, Toronto G&M, August 28, 2008. "Canada is expanding by half a million square kilometres the amount of Arctic Ocean it will consider to be Canadian territory for the purpose of policing pollution violations, and will make it mandatory for all ships entering its polar waters to report their presence. The move is intended to demonstrate that Canada is serious about asserting its territorial claims to the Arctic, including the fabled Northwest Passage, which no other country recognizes as a Canadian waterway... During a stopover in the Arctic Ocean hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk yesterday... [Prime Minister] Harper said the race for mineral and petroleum wealth in the polar region, combined with melting Arctic ice, has led to a record number of ships in northern waters [which] '... raises the potential for shipwrecks, smuggling, illegal immigration... threats to national security... [and] the potential of environmental threats, like oil spills, poaching and contamination'... It's hardly a maverick move in international law, because [Canada] already [has] authority to exploit and manage resources within 200 nautical miles of its coastline. But it's nevertheless a bolder assertion of Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic as an oil-rich and increasingly assertive Russia sends bombers and ships to cast its own bigger shadow there."