Terry Kruger
Northern News Services

Calgary (Aug 06/01) - When the West won the Cold War, arctic security became an afterthought.

"We packed up and went home," said University of Calgary political scientist Rob Huebert. "The government let the ball slip on a lot of issues."

While that's starting to change, Huebert believes Canada has to start paying more attention to the North now. He belongs to the university's Centre for Military and Strategic Studies and has written several papers about arctic security.

He says the reason why Canada has "to start spending big money now" is because of the changing threat to sovereignty over the next two decades.

The spectre of global warming and an ice-free Arctic Ocean, the lure of oil, natural gas and mineral resources, increasing numbers of overflights by commercial aircraft and the prospect of faster, cheaper shipping lanes to Asia through the Northwest Passage are the new challenges.

"We going to see Japanese, European and American vessels in the Northwest Passage. In terms of keeping Canadian control, we should be showing a complete ability to monitor the Arctic," says Huebert. "We cannot."

He says the military relies on "some bought commercial satellite imagery" and called the country's ice-breaking capacity "limited."

The military has tested underwater listening devices and remotely controlled underwater vehicles that would give it the ability to monitor for submarines in the key channels in the Arctic Archipelago, but has yet to install any.

Open to challenge

At one point Canada asked the U.S. for underwater listening equipment.

Huebert says the equipment was "basically a steal" at between $50 million and $100 million, but "it was still deemed too expensive."

Claims that the Northwest Passage is Canadian territorial waters could easily be challenged in international court.

But, warns Huebert, "even if we did everything on our wish-list to assert sovereignty ... the court could still rule against us."

He also accuses the federal government of "dropping the ball" on the International Law of the Sea Convention calling for mapping of the continental shelf.

Canada is one of two "major maritime powers" to not ratify the convention: the other is the United States.

And "we're going slowly" on the mapping project that would give Canada legal claim to the continental shelf.

Despite his concerns, Huebert says "we are making inroads."

The recent signing of the treaty controlling persistent organic pollutants and the formation of the Arctic Security Interdepartmental Working Group are a "major step forward."

He also applauds the military's move to expand its intelligence section.

"It's a direct result of the working group effort and McLeod's lobbying for them to designate extra bodies."

He says doing more is "a Canadian challenge" because most people's knowledge of the North is limited to what they read in Farley Mowat's books.

Even so, he suspects that, given the way the Canadian government functions, it will require a crisis to drive the message home.