You've raised a fundamental question about what countries are doing with respect to international law and freedom of navigation. I would start by saying that the freedom of navigation is not a case of great states do what they will. Rather freedom of navigation is a grand compromise, a grand agreement, reached in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which one can think of as the constitution of the oceans under the United Nations.
The compromise was between nation-states trying to enclose the seas—as one can argue China is trying to do in the South China Sea at the moment for their purposes to exclude other forces and then be able to become the regional power—and between other nations that argued that the seas should be open and free. The compromise in UNCLOS was very small territorial seas, a very small band around every country, small economic zones, and then the vast majority of the seas are free for use. So any attempt by other countries to carve off part of the ocean as their own is simply going against the international rules-based organization of which UNCLOS is but one aspect and should be viewed with great concern in Canada since that right to the sea is not only something that is in UNCLOS but we know what happens when it's denied, and that is areas are closed off. Countries then become subject to the pressure of the country that has enclosed an ocean. Trade is denied, and on it goes effectively.