[ccebook.cn]The World in 2010

During the cold war, Canada and the United States constructed a Distant Early-Warning detection system
against any attack by Soviet bombers. Apart from this DEW line, Canada paid little heed militarily to the Far
North. Soviet and American submarines roamed under the Arctic ice without Canada having any ability to
monitor them. The Canadian government outfitted a few Inuit with baseball hats and rifles, called them
Rangers, and forgot about the region.
Now, the rush is on to discover the Far North, quite literally in the sense of research into atmosphere, ice and
animals; and more urgently to get ready for the widening of sea lanes caused by global warming. Higher
temperatures mean less sea ice and more scope for mineral and fossil-fuel exploration, more foreign ships
traversing the north, and potential conflicts with other Arctic states over the seabed, sea lanes, and sea and
land borders.
The Arctic is full of unresolved border delineations. Canada and the United States
disagree over the maritime boundary between Alaska and Yukon. Canada and
Denmark have both planted flags on tiny Hans Island. Canada will continue working
in 2010 to prepare its claim under a United Nations convention for underwater rights
extending as far as the North Pole, a claim that will surely conflict with one already
filed by Russia.
No country agrees with Canada’s contention that the Northwest Passage (there are
actually two or three possible routes) belongs to Canada. The United States, Russia
and the European Union all believe the passage constitutes an international strait.
Copyright © 2009 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.
The trickiest
decision for
Canada is
whether to
consider the
United States as
friend or rival
The trickiest decision for Canada is whether to consider the United States as friend or rival in the Far North, a
decision that has to come soon. Do the two countries co-operate in managing the sea lanes? Do they sort out
their maritime border dispute? Do they support each other against Russia, or go their own ways?
Canada’s belated interest in its Far North is somewhat ironic given that climate change has hit the Far North
harder than any other part of the Earth, and yet Canada’s record in curbing greenhouse-gas emissions is the
worst in the G8. In the Kyoto climate-change protocol, Canada pledged to reduce emissions by 6% from 1990
levels by 2008-12; instead, emissions have risen by 27% and will rise again in 2010, especially if development
intensifies in the tar sands of Alberta.
No matter who governs Canada in 2010—the country’s fractured political system has thrown up a series of
unstable governments—all parties agree that the rush to research, develop and protect the Far North has
become a national priority. The Conservative prime minister, Stephen Harper, made the Far North one of his
signature issues after being elected in 2006. That the other parties now agree with this priority, without giving
him any credit of course, means that the days of benign neglect of the Far North are over.
Jeffrey Simpson: national-affairs columnist, the Globe and Mail
Jeffrey Simpson: national-affairs columnist, the Globe and Mail
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