Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thanks for the opportunity to appear before the committee.
With a long-standing interest in the Arctic, not as long as Dennis Bevington, who lives there, but from a southern standpoint, I've had a couple of decades of work there and have been fortunate to travel through the north—in the north, not just to the north—with the Canadian Rangers and other groups, and also internationally, to get a feel for the pulse of how Canada's messages are being perceived around the world.
So to start as a historian, historically the catalyst for our foreign policy interest in the Arctic has been a rather neurotic concern about sovereignty over anything else. We have a long history of perceiving sovereignty threats, particularly from the United States, followed by a brief surge of political interest and commitments to invest in our north. Then when the immediate crisis passes and Canadians realize sovereignty is not in clear and present danger, our usual track record is to lose interest in the north and fail to fulfill political promises.
This time I hope, and I sense, it is different.
Since 2007, Canadians have been keenly interested in the Arctic. Unfortunately, popular attention again fixates on an alleged sovereignty crisis precipitated by climate change, a supposed international race for resources, and uncertainty about boundaries. This attention has been useful insofar as it's propelled the Arctic back to the top of the policy agenda. Unfortunately, an ongoing sense of alarmism is fed by problematic phrases like “use it or lose it”, which I have been grateful not to hear uttered in official circles for the last few years.
These phrases continue to echo in Canada and internationally. Alongside Russia, Canada finds itself bizarrely cast in a position of the primary Arctic aggressor, in words if not in deeds. This has the unfortunate effect of deflecting attention from the constructive leadership role that Canada can and should play as a mature actor in the circumpolar world.
I'll begin laying out what I see as some key misconceptions that sometimes lead us away from conveying a clear, confident international message that reflects our northern strategy and our Arctic foreign policy statement, both of which are reasonable, sober documents that reflect a foreign policy grounded in our national interests and values and that are in sync with those of our circumpolar neighbours.
First and foremost, threats to Canadian sovereignty have been dramatically overblown. Our strong legal position in the Arctic is owed to more than a century of careful and prudent diplomacy, and the logic of “use it or lose it” simply does not apply. If you don't take anything else away from what I say than that, please take that away.
As you probably heard from Alan Kessel on Tuesday, sovereignty is a legal concept that entails ownership and the right to control over a specific area. So under international law, Canada has successfully established its ownership to all of the Arctic lands that fall within our nation, except for the very minor question surrounding Hans Island. Our maritime boundary disputes are manageable. Our efforts to secure international recognition for the full extent of our continental shelf are on schedule. These are unfolding according to international law.
Our position that the northwest passages through our archipelago are internal waters is legally strong. So confused messaging that suggests searching for Franklin's lost ships or investing in surveillance capabilities bolsters our legal position at this point is both unfounded and counterproductive and should be avoided.
How, then, should we think about Arctic issues in the foreign policy domain? First, I think we need to be careful in differentiating between global dynamics that play out in the Arctic region but are best dealt with through global instruments. Second, truly regional issues, meaning those that are particular to the Arctic, are best handled through Arctic Council or bilateral agreements with our circumpolar neighbours. Third, we need to distinguish domestic issues or messages that are best dealt with in Canada.
Some Arctic issues, as they're popularly understood in Canada, are global issues. Climate change is an obvious one. Yes, we can pursue some adaptation measures domestically and with our circumpolar neighbours. Efforts at mitigation have to be explored globally. The same holds true for mercury and other pollutants.
I think the same logic applies to defence issues. Commentators like my friend Rob Huebert suggest we find ourselves in the midst of an Arctic arms race. This argument conflates capabilities that are intended for global force projection and those that are a direct response to Arctic dynamics. The Arctic ones tend to be constabulary and defensive. These are not offensive capabilities. This in turn has a direct implication in whether we examine defence and security trends as Arctic issues or whether we look at them as broader ones.
NATO's relations with Russia and the strategic balance between nuclear deterrent forces are grand strategic issues. We can't manage these issues through a narrow Arctic lens.
In a similar vein, deciding on how to respond to Russia's growing authoritarianism, or Chinese takeovers of Canadian companies in the resource sector, should not be hived off and treated as “Arctic” issues. These are issues of broader foreign policy and international trade.
The same holds true of the law governing the delineation of our extended continental shelf resources beyond our 12-mile territorial sea, our sovereign rights. We're simply applying generally accepted international principles to an ocean. So when China or other countries raise questions about the Arctic coastal states unfairly dividing up the Arctic Ocean, they are really taking issue with the Law of the Sea as it is written. This is the problem, so this is the message that we should be delivering to them. If we react in an ultra-nationalist way, trumpeting how we are going to “stand up for Canada” against foreign encroachments, I fear we dilute the more substantive message that we are simply applying international law appropriately. That's what we're doing.
So once we acknowledge that the Arctic is not a closed system, that changes in the region are inherently tied to global processes, I think we can develop a greater openness to accepting why non-Arctic states and other stakeholders have some valid interests in the region. And once the Arctic coastal states move beyond superficial rhetoric proclaiming simply that “the Arctic is ours”, once we instead emphasize the more precise and correct idea that we have sovereign rights to resources under UNCLOS, then I think the criticisms emanating from non-Arctic states are going to diminish accordingly. After all, the vast majority of Arctic resources lie within national jurisdictions, resources that the world can most easily access through trade and investment.
So despite all of the media hoopla over this alleged “race for resources”, the simple fact remains that most of the Arctic's exploitable resources lie within clearly defined national jurisdictions. Conflict over Arctic resources remains highly unlikely, particularly in the North American part of the circumpolar world.
Cooperation is the current and growing norm. Nevertheless, some commentators recommend expanding the Arctic Council's mandate to include military security issues. I think this is a bad idea. It would undermine the council as a high-level forum for open dialogue. By introducing military concerns, the council will be trapped in traditional diplomatic posturing rather than open dialogue. If this is the case, I fear that the permanent participants, northern indigenous groups, will be pushed to the margins.
This leads to Canada resuming the chair of the Arctic Council next year. I think a couple of general considerations should guide our approach. First, now that the council has gone through a full rotation of chairs, Canada should celebrate the council's achievements since 1996. We should not get caught up in the push by some pundits to recreate the council as a typical international organization with a treaty and a clunky bureaucratic tail that wags the dog. I think the council can be strengthened, but it does not need to be fundamentally reformed.
As chair, Canada should continue to clarify the place of permanent observers—non-Arctic states and organizations—in the council. The Nuuk declaration began this process. We should take it to the next step, recognizing that if states like China and organizations like the European Union are not granted observer status, they will pursue Arctic issues through other venues, and that will diminish the Arctic Council's place as “the premier forum for Arctic dialogue”, as our Arctic foreign policy statement describes it.
As for our goals as chair, I'm anxious to hear the findings of the dialogues Minister Aglukkaq has held in the north over the last month. I think we should quietly continue to focus on council-directed research programs—this is the bread and butter of the organization—but we should invest more energies in finding ways to package these research findings in policy-friendly formats. The work generated by the council should be more digestible to policy-makers, to journalists, and residents of the Arctic states, particularly northerners, if we want to create a new Arctic narrative to replace that problematic “Arctic race” one that still prevails.
Some commentators seem to measure the Arctic Council's success by the legally binding instruments that are negotiated under its auspices. I think this is the wrong mindset. The desired goal is scientifically informed policy, most of which should be generated at the state level as per the original intent of the council. What this does is it allows policies to accommodate regional diversity, because there are different realities depending on where one lives or operates in the circumpolar world.
Last, a message that Canada cannot stress enough is the central place and role of northerners in our northern strategy and Arctic foreign policy. When we get caught up in overheated rhetoric about the need to defend or assert sovereignty, the world tends to overlook the strongest basis for our ownership of our part of the Arctic: the historic use of our lands and waters by aboriginal people, who are active participants in all aspects of the Canadian state and our northern activities at home and abroad.
We should be reinforcing that our northern strategy is built around a vision where northerners, “live in healthy, vital communities, manage their own affairs and shape their own destinies”. This is the message we want to project to the world, to our Arctic neighbours, to Canadians, and especially to our northern citizens.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
