We will have no choice but to partner with the very same folks who are eyeing these lucrative areas. I guess we'll get a taste of what it feels like to be a country where to protect our resources and land we'll be forced to give some (most?) rights away in exchange for military augmentation and favourable procurement prices.
When your so-called friends ignore your sovereignty and we are so small population-wise what choices do we have for defence? I know the US wouldn't stand for it if the situation was reversed.
Good luck with search and rescue too we have a tough time now finding ships and planes we know about let alone some unknown ship who knows where. The recent Coast Guard helicopter crash is a good example the ship that the helicopter came from knew where they were but still couldn't get to them before they occupants froze to death. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/three-die-in-ca...
Prime Minister Harper is putting a push on lately to visit the north but it's more PR than anything but his party has spoken about building massive Coast Guard ships to patrol the arctic in the winter. I think they had giant tracked wheels on the front to help break ice; the bows of ice breaking ships ride up onto the ice they don't push through the ice.
I guess it's useful for Canadian politicians that they can wrap things like jockeying for a cut of international shipping in both the maple leaf flag and the Canadian inferiority complex.
"Good luck with search and rescue too"
Waters you can't secure, waters you can't patrol, waters you can't provide search and rescue for...You need to be able to at least give a decent pretense of doing those things in order to board ships and demand money without being called a pirate.
However, our territorial claims will be ignored if we don't boost funding in a navy fleet, coast guard fleet and/or ports to assist with patrolling. Unfortunately, it's easier said than done given our lack of appetite for even higher taxes which would probably come in the form of a GST hike.
It seems our options are:
1) Raise funds to patrol or enforce our territory;
2) Partner with other countries and attempt to negotiate minerals, resources or access in exchange for adherence and continued international recognition of Canada's territorial claims; or
3) Do nothing.
look at climate changes during last 2-3 thousand years and how whole empires/civilizations got appeared and disappeared as a result.
On the [kind of] positive side [for high-tech industry i mean] Canada will become a big customer for air-, ground-, navy- and submarine drones :)
We're talking shipping that's not coming from or going to Canada. According to Canadians in this discussion, we're talking about that shipping going through remote, unsecured areas where the Canadian government struggles (or fails) to provide services like search and rescue.
All fringe interest in banning shipping through these waters aside (as Canada will not actually do that), the Canadian claim here seems to be a naked grab for money. It can't provide services in that area and it can't meaningfully regulate shipping activities there. All it can do is sit at a few choke points and collect fees.
Similar debates have happened with respect to developing Canada's oil and potash resources (in the interior). I don't see the need for the military to get involved.
My point is not that we must go to war, but that if we expect other countries to obey our laws typically the best way of enforcement is an actual show of force via patrols.
Ironically, as I read about the Canadian Coast Guard, it is one of the few coast guard services that has a strictly civilian mandate with no military nor law-enforcement responsibilities[3].
[1] http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2007/jul/11/climatech... [2] http://opencanada.org/features/the-think-tank/comments/2013-... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Coast_Guard#Civilian_r...
I don't think so, because those ports won't be ice-free, and will therefore be of little use.
Valdez (the end of the AK pipeline) is the most northerly year-round ice-free port, and it's not North at all, by AK/Northern Canada standards (I have to drive many hours South to get there...)
Canada could bargain with the US and seek to get backing for their EE zones and counter any claims by EU states. Canada and the US already have a close military relationship and the trade between the two countries is larger than any other trade between nations at ~$300B USD thanks to NAFTA.
Military warfare is a thing of the past when it comes to nations of our size and strength and what it would do to both. Economic warfare is the new way that Canada can fight.
IMHO Canada has a lot to negotiate with.
But yes, Canada could do that in hopes of getting a cut of potential future shipping money. Their politician probably aren't that foolish, though.