Canada's Concern Not Ukraine But Our Far North

Where Canada's Interest Should Lie

Russia's illegal occupation of Ukraine and provocative military activity remains a serious concern to the international community, PM Harper said. "The international community will continue to apply pressure until Russia de-escalates. Putin's aggression will not go unanswered.

Russia has a decades-long lead in controlling its Arctic coast. If Canada doesn't catch up in claiming territory, the country may not have the power to decide who navigates the Northwest Passage through a sweeping archipelago of more than 19,000 Canadian islands.

Losing control over access to the waterway could cost Canada any chance of profiting from escort fees and other tolls if climate change permanently opens the meandering route through often tight channels.

By far, the most developed Arctic passage is Russia’s Northern Sea Route, which cuts almost a third off the journey between East Asia and Europe through the Suez Canal, a transit that has marked the global economy’s pulse for decades.

The Suez is a growing headache for shippers, with near constant risks of political trouble and unrest, pirates and other hazards that add steep insurance costs to the long list of fees that Egypt and various agents charge.

Ships carried a record 757,400 tonnes of freight through the route this year, mostly natural gas, iron ore and fish products, according to Russia’s transport ministry.

Foreign vessels accounted for 88.7 per cent of that total through the passage, which was open more than 141 days, longer than last year by a whole month and setting a record for an Arctic shipping season.

Russia expects up to 59 million tonnes of cargo to pass through the Artic route, with another 30 per cent surge by 2030. Increasingly, that cargo will include crude oil carried in supertankers, which environmental activists fear will be too vulnerable to breaking up in the Arctic’s crushing ice and storms.

Murmansk (where all Allied supplies were shipped to during WW2) alone expects to receive $10 billion in public and private investment by 2019 for improvements to railways, a renovated airport, new port facilities for cargo ships, oil and natural gas facilities, and other projects. Far ahead of us.

Russia has definitely taken all of the necessary decisions at the federal level for development of the Arctic in Russia. 

Canada doesn't have anything close to the Arctic infrastructure that’s needed, such as ports, 24-hour rescue stations and an ice-class fleet required to patrol the passage. What do we have a few Eskimo's called Rangers with (WW1 303 Lee Enfields)  patrolling that vast area on skis and snowmobiles.

“We are planning to turn it into a key commercial route of global importance,” Putin told an international forum on the Arctic in the Russian city of Arkhangelsk in September.

“I’d like to emphasize that we see its future as an international transport artery capable of competing with traditional sea routes in cost of services, safety and quality,” he added.

“Don’t we need more armed forces to protect ourselves from that? It’s the same for Canada. Oil rigs in the Arctic Ocean are a potential target for terrorists and need to be protected.”But Putin’s fresh show of force includes a multi-billion program to build a new generation of nuclear submarines to patrol the Northern Sea Route.

“We will also beef up our military bases there, and we will certainly increase national security in the north,” he said in a reply to a Member of Parliament’s question.

The Kremlin also plans to add three nuclear-powered icebreakers, designed to operate in rivers as well as the ocean, and six diesel-electric icebreakers to its fleet before 2020.

Ottawa still hasn’t set a start date for construction of a new line of Polar class icebreaker's.

The U.S. isn’t doing much to challenge Russia’s dominance of commercial shipping in the Arctic.

Russia is also planning a string of seven floating nuclear reactors to power and heat Arctic mines, remote towns and oil and natural gas facilities.Each reactor will cost as much as $600 million. They are beating us badly to the punch.