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International Affairs

Canada’s Arctic claim needs roads before rhetoric

Canada’s title to the Arctic is sound in law, but law is tested where the state is thin. Macdonald bound the country with a railway; Canada must hold the North with runways, a port, and patrols.

By Cartier

· Updated October 12 · 12 min read

Editor's note: This In Focus feature first appeared on Feb. 27, 2020, before Canada and Denmark settled the Hans Island dispute in 2022.

Canada’s Arctic covers about 40 per cent of the country’s landmass. By the federal government’s own account, the Canadian Arctic is Canada's by claim, but practically sits beyond the reach of the government's administrative capacity. Much of the Canadian Arctic is unreachable by road, unserved by ports, and disconnected from the rest of the country. The distance between title and presence is where other states, allies included, are pressing in.

The sparsely populated Arctic is a crowded neighbourhood. Canada’s submission to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf overlaps with the submissions of Denmark, for Greenland, and of Russia. Beyond that, the U.S. have maintained their long-standing position that the Northwest Passage is an international strait; a claim that contradicts Canada's position that the Passage is internal waters. Even the diminutive Hans Island, claimed by both Canada and Denmark, remains unresolved. While most of these conflicts principally exist on paper, we are beginning to see certain states and new belligerents impose their version of the map, testing the resolve of the other claimants. Each incursion tests Canada's ability and willingness to administer what it claims.

While Canada must defend its legal position in the forums where such questions are settled, it should also make that position credible with all-season runways, a deep-water port, roads, icebreaking, and a larger Canadian Rangers presence, built in partnership with the Inuit who are the custodians of the land in question. Sir John A. Macdonald held a half-settled country together with a railway. The North needs its own version of that bargain, and it needs it before the traffic arrives.

What Canada claims, and who contests it

The disputes come in three kinds.

The first is about the seabed. Canada’s Arctic submission to the commission, filed on May 23, 2019, and described by Fisheries and Oceans Canada, overlaps with Denmark’s submission for Greenland and with Russia’s.

The second is about the water. Canada’s position is that the Northwest Passage is Canadian internal waters clashes with the long-standing U.S. position that it is an international strait.

The third is the oldest, smallest, and perhaps quirkiest dispute. Hans Island is a small island that Canada and Denmark have both claimed since 1973. It is a quarrel between NATO allies, and it demonstrates that even a minor claim in this region can stay open when neither side has a reason to close it.

The tension that sits behind all three of these disputes is the right of access. 2013 saw one of the first public tests to Canada's claims. On Sept. 6, 2013, the Danish bulk carrier, MS Nordic Orion, left the Port of Vancouver with 73,500 tons of coke coal. Its destination was Pori, Finland, but instead of turning south to traverse the Panama Canal as it had done countless times before, the Danish carrier turned north. The MS Nordic Orion would become the first bulk carrier to transit the Northwest Passage, cutting 1,000 nautical miles from the traditional Panama Canal transit, saving US$ 80,000 in fuel, and allowing the carrier to hold 25% more cargo.

Thankfully, this navigation was done in cooperation with the Canadian Coast Guard, which provided free ice-breaking services, and without whom the MS Nordic would have been trapped in the shifting sea ice. As The Globe and Mail reported, one voyage does not make a shipping lane. It does, however, mark the point at which the Passage stopped being only a question for lawyers and explorers and became a question for the maritime freight industry as well.

The people who hold the land

Any honest account of Arctic sovereignty has to begin with who owns the ground. Much of it is not Crown land in the ordinary sense.

The Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, 1993, is an agreement between the Inuit of Nunavut and the Crown. Under it, according to Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada, Inuit in Nunavut hold title to 352,191 square kilometres of land. The territory of Nunavut itself was created on April 1, 1999. Farther west, the Inuvialuit Final Agreement was signed on June 5, 1984, and took effect on July 25, 1984, the first comprehensive land claim settled in the Northwest Territories. It covers a settlement region of about 435,000 square kilometres, of which the Inuvialuit own about 91,000.

Across the three territories, Inuit, First Nations, and Métis hold rights under distinct agreements, and they should be recognized as part of any discussion about Arctic sovereignty. Inuit, First Nations, and Métis also make up the largest permanent population in the Canadian Arctic and form a lynchpin to Canada's territorial claims. These groups also hold title over the largest northern settlements, which will be the natural destinations for any runway, road, or port in the North. For these reasons, the Inuit, First Nations, and Métis are key partners in Canadian Arctic sovereignty.

The Macdonald precedent

The one comparison worth making is with Sir John A. Macdonald and the Canadian Pacific Railway.

Macdonald understood that a confederation of scattered regions would hold together only if goods and people could move between them on a permanent, reliable line. British Columbia entered Confederation in 1871 on the promise of a railway to the coast, and the line was finished with the last spike at Craigellachie on Nov. 7, 1885. The railway turned a claim on a map into a country that could be governed, supplied, and defended from Ottawa.

Then, as now, Canada held a vast and thinly served territory by right of law and treaty, and then, as now, the claim was only as strong as the state’s ability to reach it. Macdonald did not argue that British Columbia was Canadian; he built the infrastructure that made it self-evident.

There are, of course, differences in these endeavours. Macdonald’s railway was built to carry settlers into a West the government meant to fill. The North does not need filling. It has communities already, many of them Inuit communities with rights under modern agreements. The purpose of infrastructure there is to serve the people who live in the Arctic and to let the state do its work to ensure territorial integrity. The second difference is the nature of the challenge. Macdonald’s worry was the pull of a continent: that territory without a Canadian line would drift toward American commerce and settlement, a fear documented for British Columbia after the Alaska purchase. The Arctic contest is narrower. No foreign power is proposing to annex Nunavut. The question is how effectively Canada can enforce its claim.

Roads, runways and the cost of distance

Nunavut has no all-season road linking its communities to the south, and no all-season roads between most of its communities internally. Freight and people move by snowmobile, all-terrain vehicle, dog team, and aircraft. Building materials, excavation equipment, and fresh food arrive slowly and at high cost, and every project begins with the question of how to get its inputs there.

The usual case for northern roads leans on a gross domestic product comparison between the Northwest Territories, which has highway connections to the south, and Nunavut, which has none. Statistics Canada’s 2018 provincial and territorial economic accounts, expenditure-based real GDP (2012 dollars), put the Northwest Territories at about $4.9 billion, Nunavut at about $3.0 billion, and Yukon at about $2.7 billion.

The Northwest Territories has the larger economy. But Nunavut grew faster: 7.6 per cent in 2018, against 1.9 per cent for the Northwest Territories and 3.3 per cent for Yukon, on the same measure. Nunavut is growing 4 times faster than the Northwest Territories. Much of that growth has been driven by mining. Mines are building their own airstrips, roads, and ports. A hamlet, a small contractor, or a household cannot. An Arctic strategy should consider the dual-use applications for these private investments, see where they can be connected to local communities, and direct the tax and royalty revenues from mining operations into permanent roads and runways for communities outside the mine's operating areas. This infrastructure will also lower the cost to develop resource projects in the North, making more exploration viable, increasing the jobs, population, and funds available to invest in greater service delivery.

Where roads cannot reach, runways must. Northern Public Affairs has reported that there are only 10 paved runways across Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut combined, and that many communities depend on gravel strips built decades ago, limiting the season and aircraft that can use them. A runway that takes a modern aircraft year-round is the North’s version of a highway. It carries food, medical evacuations, building supplies, and, when needed, soldiers and search-and-rescue crews. A Canadian Arctic strategy needs to commit to building year-round, paved runways for remote northern communities. These runways must be dual-use to build real capacity to dispatch modern search-and-rescue and military personnel.

A commercial deep-water port belongs in the same plan. Some cargo is too heavy or too bulky for aircraft, and an Arctic coastline without a port of its own leaves the Coast Guard, shippers, and communities dependent on short seasons.

Food is where distance becomes a personal problem. In 2017/2018, 49.4 per cent of Nunavut households were moderately or severely food insecure, according to Statistics Canada’s Canadian Community Health Survey (released Feb. 18, 2020). Shorter supply chains help: a wind-and solar-powered community greenhouse in Gjoa Haven, Nunavut, has successfully produced vegetables at the time of this writing, as CBC News and Nunatsiaq News reported. Greater investment in local food production capabilities and improved (permanent) transportation links will continue to decrease the cost of food, which will raise real household incomes and lower the cost of living, and ease internal migration and labour mobility.

Presence is the proof

The security side of the plan is a familiar list. More icebreaking capacity, a steadier Canadian Armed Forces presence, a Coast Guard able to operate in the Arctic through more of the year, a larger Canadian Rangers footprint, and attention to the entry points of the Northwest Passage.

The Rangers deserve particular attention, because they are the most direct way to make Canadian presence routine rather than occasional. The Canadian Rangers are a sub-component of the Canadian Army Reserve who live and work in remote, isolated, and coastal regions of Canada. They are the Canadian military's principal frontier force for the Arctic and represent Canada's permanent presence, ensuring territorial integrity.

Presence also serves the legal case. Canada’s position on the Passage is strongest when Canada is visibly the state that charts it, regulates it, and answers when a ship is in trouble in it. That is not a substitute for the legal claim; rather, it is the record on which the legal argument will be judged.

The strongest objection

The best case against this argument is made by those who say sovereignty is a matter of law, not logistics. Canada’s claim to the waters of the Arctic Archipelago rests on historic title and continental shelves, not on how many kilometres of road it has paved. Further, if Canada were to race against other Arctic claimants such as Russia or the U.S. in an Arctic infrastructure build-out, Canada would be in a competition that it could very likely lose. If that is the case, why invest in a battle that's already lost?

A separate argument is that infrastructure is development policy and should be judged as development policy, not as insurance for sovereignty. If judged that way, northern megaprojects are very expensive per resident, while Inuit organizations and residents have their own priorities that may not match a sovereignty-driven building program, notably housing, food security, and healthcare.

Much of that is right on the surface, but falls short when interrogated with modest scrutiny. First, legal claims are not self-executing. If a state cannot reach its waters, navigate them, or respond in them, it practically hands its claims to its rivals. If Canada is unable to establish effective control, it gives other claimants less reason to treat its position as settled and enforce their claim in the administrative vacuum. Additionally, if Canada is claiming jurisdiction over other claimants, it has a legal obligation to the citizens and residents of those regions to provide adequate services. Regarding the argument suggesting infrastructure investment will spark a building race against great Arctic powers. Even if that did occur, Canada does not need to match base-for-base or ship-for-ship. Indeed, if that were the metric, we would already be in deficit. Canada already hosts permanent communities and military bases in key regions of the Arctic. Canada would not need to flood the field with cutting-edge warships or massive new bases. Canada can exert effective control with strategic investment in what's already there. A year-round runway serves medical evacuations and food supply as surely as it serves a patrol aircraft. A port serves sealift and search and rescue alike. The test for each dollar should be whether it serves the people who live in the North and strengthens the state’s presence there.

Second, Canada's current Arctic communities are underserved. Government should take on projects that advance the public good, even when returns on investment are low or negative. If the government chooses to fulfil its administrative responsibilities and build adequate infrastructure for the North, it would be efficient to make this infrastructure dual-use for military and search-and-rescue. In fact, the dual-use nature of Arctic infrastructure strengthens the build-case. Supporters of this argument against investment force a false development-sovereignty dichotomy that need not exist. Further, increased permanent infrastructure will lower the cost of private sector projects, making more private sector development feasible, reinforcing the economic argument. Beyond this, there is a clear objective return on investment. In 2012, the U.S. Geological Survey famously released its Arctic oil and natural gas resources report estimating the Arctic held 13% of the world's undiscovered conventional oil reserves and 30% of the undiscovered natural gas reserves. If Canada chose to allow the development of these natural resources, the economic case would be undebatable.

The verdict

Canada does not need another grand Arctic doctrine. It needs a list of commitments that can be measured, and the discipline to keep them.

Hold the legal line to our claims. Press the continental-shelf case on the evidence, and manage the Passage disagreement with Washington.

Build in order of usefulness: year-round runways first, then deep-water ports, then roads where the geography allows, with private co-investment where there is a commercial case and with Inuit organizations as partners.

Make presence routine: more Rangers, more icebreaking, and a Coast Guard that operates in the Arctic for more of the year.

Finally, we should judge the policy by what is built. Paved runways, ports built, kilometres of road, and days of patrol are numbers a government can be held to.

Macdonald’s railway was not cheap, quick, and arguably did not make economic sense at the time. It was built to connect the country and defend its territorial integrity. That is the standard the North deserves.

Sources

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