Canada plans Arctic eye
BY STEPHEN THORNE
SUNDAY, AUGUST 28, 2005 UPDATED AT 8:22 PM EDT
CANADIAN PRESS
Ottawa - The federal government is looking up - way up - to assert Canada's increasingly threatened claim to Arctic sovereignty.
The Canadian Space Agency is buying $400-million worth of Arctic imagery from Richmond, B.C.-based MacDonald Dettwiler Associates, which owns the soon-to-be-launched Radarsat 2 polar orbiter.
The satellite, scheduled to be airborne next summer, is expected to operate over a seven-year lifespan, said navy Lt.-Cmdr. Robert Quinn, project director.
The federal investment is less than the cost of a new icebreaker - and the satellite can see in all weather, day or night, 365 days a year, Defence officials say.
Passing over the North Pole 14 times daily, recording images of ships, aircraft - even pollution - at a rate of 3,000 square kilometres per second, it will be the linchpin in the Canadian military's Project Polar Epsilon.
"Polar Epsilon is a transformational first step for Canada in using space to support the sovereignty and security of the Arctic region, including maritime security and continental defence together with the U.S.A. at the strategic level," say ministerial briefing notes obtained by The Canadian Press.
"Polar Epsilon has no connection to the U.S. ballistic missile defence program," say the documents, obtained through access to information.
Canada will build ground receiving stations near Halifax and Esquimalt, B.C., to process and relay the images.
It's part of an Arctic "offensive" the Canadian military has undertaken, beginning with an exercise called Operation Narwhal last year, stepped-up Ranger patrols and patrols by Canadian navy vessels.
While Aurora aircraft sorties over the Arctic continue, the military is also looking at unmanned pre-programmed or remote-controlled planes.
"No one sensor can conduct effective and complete surveillance of Canada's large area of interest," said Cmdr. Quinn, who wrote the briefing notes. "The best surveillance architecture is a number of sensors used in combination.
"The strengths of all of them outweigh the weaknesses of each one."
Vincent Rigby, director general of policy and planning at National Defence, said there's no direct military threat in the Arctic like that posed during the Cold War.
"Certainly, the Canadian Forces are not defending against hordes of Soviet bombers coming over the Arctic," said Mr. Rigby.
"The threat now is more broadly in the security and sovereignty realm."
Canada's dispute with Denmark over Hans Island could indicate an increase in territorial rows north of the 60th parallel.
Arctic sovereignty is becoming more coveted as global warming melts the ice and opens new areas for oil and mineral exploration, said Mr. Rigby.
He said the military is increasingly being called on as a result.
"We're looking at enhancing some of the capabilities," Mr. Rigby said in an interview.
Those capabilities are sorely in need of enhancement, said Tory defence critic Gordon O'Connor, who is currently on a northern fact-finding mission to help formulate his party's defence policy.
"Years ago, large numbers of our soldiers were trained in Arctic warfare. Very few of them can operate now in the Arctic," Mr. O'Connor said from his first stop in Whitehorse.
"The capability to look after the North has decayed over a number of years."
While Arctic-capable nuclear submarines would cost prohibitive billions, Ottawa should consider alternatives such as seafloor monitors, as NATO has done in the North Atlantic, he said.
Arctic sovereignty sparked controversy in 1985 when the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Polar Sea traversed the Northwest Passage without Ottawa's permission.
Washington eventually signed an agreement with Ottawa stating it would seek permission before navigating the passage again.
But the issue has never been resolved with a formal acknowledgment that the waters belong to Canada - a critical point as they are becoming passable during more months of the year, says Mr. O'Connor.
The dispute over Hans Island erupted anew when Defence Minister Bill Graham visited the 1.3-kilometre windswept rock in July.
The island in the Kennedy Channel between Greenland and Ellesmere Island was discovered by the British, ceded to Canada at Confederation, and was briefly home to a Canadian scientific station in the 1940s. It is listed as part of Nunavut in the National Geographic Atlas.
Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew will meet with his Danish counterpart next month, 21 years after a Danish minister, Tom Hoeyem, caused a stir when he visited Hans Island.
Mr. Hoeyem raised the Danish flag, buried a bottle of brandy and left a note saying Welcome to Denmark. Danish ships or military officers have visited Hans Island five times in the last 17 years.
Canadian geological researchers have landed once, and before Mr. Graham's visit a squad of Canadian soldiers hoisted the Maple Leaf and built an Inukshuk, a traditional Inuit stone marker.
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will have to be there until the International Court of Justice in the Hague have decided! Unless You guys back down, ofcause! ^-^
