NUNAVUT
Canadian Arctic waters are heating up, but not because it's spring.

The People's Republic of China, which is the world's top exporter of containerized cargo, according to the World Shipping Council, announced in early April it will be taking advantage of the Northwest Passage as it opens up to marine shipping.

According to the state-run China Daily newspaper, "guidance from China's Maritime Safety Administration, released on April 5, offers elaborate information on the route, which follows the northern coast of North America via waterways through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The information includes nautical charts and sea ice situations."

The Chinese-language document is more than 350 pages long.

"China could be preparing to challenge Canada's sovereignty over the Northwest Passage," screamed one American newspaper headline.

The United States also contests Canada's ownership of the Northwest Passage, one among many countries that consider it an international strait.

Chinese ministry spokesman Liu Pengfei is quoted as saying at a news briefing, "Once this route is commonly used, it will directly change global maritime transportation and have a profound influence on international trade, the world economy, capital flow and resource exploitation."

Wu Yuxiao, senior official at the maritime administration who helped write the guide, said the route will lower transportation costs by up to 30 per cent and be strategically important to China, reported China Daily.

The People's Republic of China has had observer status on the Arctic Council since 2013, along with five other states. The interest in Arctic waters is high.

Meanwhile, closer to home, The Pew Charitable Trusts, an independent non-profit, non-governmental organization based in the United States that "works to protect our shared environment, encourage responsive government, support scientific research and improve civic life," released The Integrated Arctic Corridors Framework: Planning for responsible shipping in Canada's Arctic waters, also on April 5.

The report's authors note that since 2012 "the Canadian Coast Guard began to address some of the systematic deficiencies in Canada's Arctic shipping policy by launching the Northern Marine Transportation Corridors Initiative. The initiative seeks to establish a system of voluntary marine corridors toward which the Coast Guard and other agencies could direct their financial, material and human resource capacity to support vessel safety in the Arctic."

But, say the authors, a corridor initiative "must be widened to account for the environmental and social complexity of Canada's Arctic Ocean."

The report calls for the development of an integrated corridor system to "fully and formally include Inuit in Arctic shipping policy creation and implementation."

"To support the development of the (initiative), The Pew Charitable Trusts conducted an analysis of the most recent shipping patterns in the Canadian Arctic Ocean, worked with shipping experts and undertook a review of existing policy proposals to provide a road map to advance the Coast Guard's safety aims while expanding the approach to encompass environmental features and Inuit rights."

Global Affairs Canada is working on replies to questions from Nunavut News/North.

On April 28, another report was released by the Council of Canadian Academies: Commercial Marine Shipping Accidents: Understanding the Risks in Canada, exploring risk by focusing on the likelihood of commercial marine shipping accidents across Canada as well as the potential social, economic and environmental impacts of such accidents.

"Thus, the harsh, inadequately charted waters of Northern Canada contribute to a risk environment that increases the likelihood of a shipping accident," that report concludes, after discussing the dangers of multi-year ice.

The Pew report also states hydrographic data, charting and facilities are inadequate to support shipping growth in Canada's North.

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