I think it's something that Canada needs to think about in terms of what Russia is doing. It started in 2007 with the bomber patrols over the north and it seemed to be a return to the Cold War. It's difficult to make a distinction between what's bluster and domestic politics, and what is real. I've seen two interpretations. One is that it is going to lead to a militarized north, and the other being that Russia is going to be looking at UNCLOS and going by UN standards to divide up the region.
I lean toward the latter perspective, that it's going to be more of an emergency management issue for states to deal with, with treks in the north, and that the UNCLOS procedure, the UN Law of the Sea, will be busy looking at that ridge and who gets that ridge and that kind of thing. The process seems to be going forward and in my estimation, eventually the lines will be legally drawn up as to which maritime areas belong to whom. In essence, the biggest issue is going to be how to deal with those emergency situations whereby commercial traffic simply is not going to want to avoid going through the Arctic because of the shorter transit distances. As it becomes more and more viable, there's going to be more and more traffic. These are the kinds of things that Canada is going to have to deal with.