The cold rush to the North

What do Canada and Russia have in common?

A giant size, cold winters, and the Arctic, but of those, according to a recent poll, it is the Arctic that matters most to Canadians. The majority listed military security in the Arctic as a top national priority, according to an EKOS poll released in late January.

A Canadian Ranger snowmobile leads a sovereignty patrol on Ellesmere Island, Nunvaut.

What is different between the two giant northern neighbours? Their approach to the Arctic.

While Canada is still contemplating what to do with its chunk of the region, Russia is more aggressive in its northern policy.

In 2008, Russia adopted its official Arctic doctrine, with a year-by-year plan for future development in the region.

Militarization takes up a large part of the document, calling for the creation of new border control stations and military units “that would be able to ensure the country’s security in various geopolitical conditions.”

These plans have already started to come true on within the Russian north on Dixon and Belyi Islands, as well as on Franz Josef Land, where the country has started to build new border control stations, Russian presidential Arctic envoy Artur Chilingarov said in an interview to the news portal Severny Flot.

“The President and the Security Council gave us the push [with the National Arctic Strategy] – and now we are not going anywhere from the Arctic…I’m for international cooperation, but protection of national interest is sacred,” he said.

The Russian activity in the Arctic is not surprising, says Robert Huebert, University of Calgary political science professor and Arctic expert. “By virtue of their geography...the Arctic is one of their most critical security environments.”

"We don’t want the return to the Cold War, but it doesn’t mean we can’t get into conflict with the Russians at one point or another."

Canada on a “revised schedule”

The Canadian response to Russia’s militarization in the Arctic hasn’t been sufficient, says Huebert.  “It will become an adequate response when we actually turn around and get the instruments we need for the Arctic surveillance and enforcement.”

In 2007, the Canadian government announced it would build several patrol vessels for the Arctic, and two years later it released Canada’s first northern strategy. Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon made an ambitious Canadian Arctic foreign policy statement last summer, but all this is just talk, say analysts.

“Although we say we’ve made a decision, we haven’t taken any action on building the six to eight Arctic patrol vessels or getting the new icebreaker,” says Huebert.

“There’s a lack of follow-up [by the Canadian government] in terms of equipment investment,” says Michael Byers, University of British Columbia political scientist and Arctic expert. “It seems...new prisons are on Harper’s priority list, not the Arctic.”

Prime Minister Stephen Harper during a dive exercise at Operation NANOOK 10.

The promised patrol vessels are a part of the Canada Arctic/Offshore Patrol Ship project that is now stalled. No shipbuilding contracts are signed, waiting for the government’s approval of a new shipbuilding policy, says Jocelyn Sweet, a public affairs officer with the Department of National Defence. 

The estimated delivery date for the first vessel is now 2015.

“We are on schedule...on a revised schedule,” says Sweet, adding that the delays are caused by the government’s desire to ensure the quality of the vessels.

Meanwhile, the competition for Arctic resources is picking up.

Russia and Canada disagree over Lomonosov and Mendeleev ridges, located near the North Pole. Each country is trying to find evidence to present to the United Nations proving that the ridges are extensions of its continental shelf, and, therefore, according to the Law of the Sea, belong to it.

“The extended continental shelf gives you the right to claim the soil and subsoil, which in fact means oil and gas,” notes Huebert. As global warming melts the Arctic, these resources are becoming easier to reach.

A Russian research ship has recently returned from Lomonosov Ridge with evidence that it belongs to Russia, the scientists from the vessel said in interviews with Russian newspapers.

Originally, both countries planned to present their cases to the UN in 2013, but Russia will try to file the claim in 2012, The Barents Observer reports.

Another Cold War in Sight?

The territorial question and Russian planes flying near Canadian airspace have raised a bit of Cold War rhetoric in Canada, but the Russian embassy states that the Arctic question is not that serious a dispute between the two countries.

A patrol group during survival training in Resolute Bay, Nunavut.

Speaking to Carleton University students in Ottawa last November, Russian Ambassador Georgiy Mamedov said that Russia and Canada have too much in common to get into a real fight over the Arctic.  “Let’s leave [the confrontation] to Conan the Barbarian. We are civilized people – we decided to relegate it to the United Nations.”

Byers says there’s no reason to fear a second Cold War, as the Russians so far have been playing by international rules. “It looks like the Russians mean what they say,” he adds.

While Huebert agrees, he says there will be a “complexity of competition and cooperation.”

“Of course we don’t want the return to the Cold War, but it doesn’t mean we can’t get into conflict with the Russians at one point or another,” he concludes.

Front page photo courtesy of Canadian Forces Combat Camera

Mapping the Forces

For over a century, Russia and Canada have maintained a military presence in the North. This map indicates where each country's northern military forces are located today. Click on the Canadian Forces to learn more about our methods of defence.