I wasn't aware of this, apparently Canada wants to claim not just a northwest passage but the whole thing and the North Pole itself:
Cold wars:
why Canada wants to claim the North PoleOn Friday, the Canadian government was expected to submit an application to the UN Commission tasked with evaluating which countries can claim exclusive rights to resources — namely oil and gas — found in waterways far beyond their borders. Instead, however, the country made a surprising pivot: at the insistence of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, they submitted a partial application rather than a full one. That's because, according to The Globe and Mail, Harper wants government scientists to seek additional data that would support a more expansive claim — one that includes the North Pole.
The 18-million-square-mile region, though largely unexplored, is thought to contain around one-third of the world's oil reserves — all of them thus far untapped.
Canada appears to be pushing ahead — and doing so with uncharacteristic aggression. Harper's decision to scrap the proposal assembled by government-funded scientists and push for a bigger chunk of the Arctic wasn't exactly the diplomatic approach some experts were hoping for — and could catalyze discord with Russia and Denmark,
"The North Pole has extreme emotional value; people have an image that's essentially of Santa's workshop," Byers says. "
So there's a huge domestic political angle to this, the idea of claiming the North Pole for your country."
http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/9/5191740/canada-russia-fight-over-north-pole-arctic
Russia to boost military presence in Arctic as Canada plots north pole claim
Vladimir Putin tells defence chiefs to build up infrastructure in region that he says is key to Russia's strategic interests
The political temperature in the Arctic rose on Tuesday when Vladimir Putin vowed to step up Russia's military presence in the region in response to a claim by Canada to the north pole.
In typically trenchant style,
the Russian president told his defence chiefs to concentrate on building up infrastructure and military units in the Arctic.His comments were a direct and rapid riposte to Canada, a rival Arctic power. On Monday Canada's foreign minister, John Baird, said his government had asked scientists to work on a submission to the UN
arguing that the outer limits of Canada's territory include the north pole, which has yet to be claimed by any country."It's often said that the Russians act with their Arctic policy in an aggressive, nationalistic and unilateral way. The same thing can be said about the Canadians," said Andrew Foxall, director of the Russian Studies Centre at the Henry Jackson Society. "Harper has said Canada is an Arctic nation. He frequently goes up into Canada's high Arctic. There are large-scale military exercises there."
http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/9/5191740/canada-russia-fight-over-north-pole-arctic
Also, whatever happened to Canada being a leader on climate change and environmentalism?
That seems to have been out the window now ever since the tar sands, and dreams of climate change melted ice and northwest passages and arctic exploitation. Canada can't ever take climate change seriously now, that would be two incompatible national goals, with them now heavily invested in the arctic melting.
I would certainly agree that if the ice melts, well, may as well not let it go to waste. Just kind of ironic. The worse climate change gets, the more oil is revealed and we have access to. And a Northwest Passage to boot.
Will Russia or Canada care about climate change? If they have bumper crops one day, in warmer climates, and all that oil too? I guess money talks, polar bears and rainbows can take a walk.
If even Canada can't care about climate change, previously one of the most progressive and conscientious nations in the world, the country now adding rocket fuel to the problem with the tar sands and dreams of a Canadian industrial north pole -- then you can't ever expect the developing world to cut back. China, Brazil, all the others.
What Canada is doing about climate change:
That's cute how it still gets blamed on the US, "to feed America's oil addiction." That's not even true. We won't be using tar sands oil -- Canada is looking to export tar sands to the whole world, Latin America first then China one day. Whereas in the US we're at least talking about finally moving to natural gas vehicles and we're going toward EVs and doing a lot of things.
WE would never tear up Alaska like this. Our environmentalists have protected ANWAR. These tar sands look so horrible -- how can the environment ever recover? And it's got to be toxic to the people living up there. How can anyone say this doesn't get into the soil and ground water? These tar sands look like moonscapes.
