On another topic are we gonna have to come down there and burn DC AGAIN ... The Passage... It's OURS... I'll give you alla chance mend fences and gang up on a Canuck LOL...
680news.com
Americans disagree over Canada's claim to historic Northwest Passage
October 31, 2006 - 15:58
By: MURRAY BREWSTER
United States Ambassador David Wilkins, says the U.S. position on whether the Northwest Passage belongs to Canada has not changed and the passage is international territory as far as the Bush administration is concerned, Tuesday, in Ottawa. (CP/Fred Chartrand)
David Wilkins
OTTAWA (CP) - The issue of whether the Northwest Passage belongs to Canada or the world has put the current U.S. ambassador to Canada at odds with his predecessor.
Washington's representative in Canada, David Wilkins, says the U.S. position has not changed and the passage is international territory as far as the Bush administration is concerned.
That is in direct conflict with statements by former ambassador Paul Cellucci, who this week told a foreign affairs conference in Ottawa that the disputed waters in the North should be recognized as sovereign Canadian territory.
Cellucci said it would be easier for Canada to police than the United States and the decision should be made in the context of North American security.
Wilkins denied Cellucci's comments signal a shift in attitude by Washington.
"Our position is that the Northwest Passage is a strait for international navigation and that's been our position and continues to be our position," he said following a speech to a defence industry association.
Upon leaving his post 16 months ago, Cellucci - a former Republican governor - hinted the United States might recognize Canada's long-standing claim, but the door was firmly slammed shut by the administration of President George W. Bush.
Allowing Canada to claim the waterway around the scattered archipelago would set a precedent, in the view of U.S. lawmakers, affecting other more strategic passages, such as those surrounding the South China Sea.
With global warming melting Arctic ice, it's been suggested the Northwest Passage could be opened to regular shipping, making it quicker trading route to the Far East. There's also growing interest in potential undersea resource development, such as oil and natural gas.
Resources and environmental concerns are two of the major reasons the federal government has shown renewed interest in asserting Canada's sovereignty in the North. Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government has pledged the construction of armed icebreakers as part of an overall strategy to boost the country's military profile in the Arctic.
Soon after being elected in January, Harper said foreign governments - including the United States - had to obtain Canada's consent before traversing the passage.
Cellucci's position has left Arctic experts wondering why he didn't press the case for Canadian sovereignty while he was still in the ambassador's post.
"It's frustrating," said Rob Heubert of the University of Calgary Centre for Strategic Studies. "We always see this, where the ex-ambassador always comes after the fact and says, 'You know, the Canadian position makes sense."'
He said he can't understand how successive American presidents don't see the security gains of allowing Canada to simply manage its own territory. The only explanation in Heubert's mind is that the U.S. doesn't trust Ottawa to put the resources into properly defending the Arctic.
As the Cold War was winding down in the 1980s, former president Ronald Reagan provoked a fierce debate with Canada by sanctioning the transit of the tanker Manhattan and the U.S. icebreaker Polar Sea through the Northwest Passage.
Even back then the American position didn't make much sense, said Heubert.
By declaring the passage international waters, it potentially allowed Soviet submarines to come and go as they pleased, whereby if Canada's claim had been recognized, being caught inside Canadian territorial waters would have had more severe consequences, he said. |
