Posted on 07/23/2005 12:04:13 PM PDT by janetjanet998
The government has hardened its claims over a portion of the Far North after Canada's defence minister quietly set foot this week on a tiny Arctic island that has become the object of an ownership dispute with Denmark.
Bill Graham took the extraordinary steps onto Hans Island on Wednesday in a symbolic move that helps to stake Canada's claim to the area when and if the dispute comes to a head. Military personnel landed on the island a week earlier, planted a Canadian flag and built an Inuit stone marker known as an inukshuk.
The island is little larger than a football field and is about an hour away from Canadian Forces Station Alert on the northern tip of Ellesmere Island. However, Mr. Graham's decision to visit is one of the first moves toward fulfilling the government's pledge to become more active in the North and thereby protect Canadian sovereignty.
The island is uninhabitable, but the onset of global warming could increase ship traffic in the area.
“I'm not unaware of the fact that, obviously, this island is the subject matter of discussions,” said Mr. Graham, who was accompanied by a helicopter crew and a few other officials. Mr. Graham said he was in the Far North touring Canadian installations and doing other work when he decided to stop off.
“[But] I don't see it as a kind of big statement in terms of Canada-Danish relationships. I see it as part of the fact that we've always said this is Canada and it was perfectly normal for me being in the region to go by and see what the troops had done when they'd been there the week before.
“Our position has consistently been that it's Canadian.”
The Danish ambassador was informed of the landing yesterday, Mr. Graham said. Officials could not be reached for comment late yesterday afternoon.
The two nations failed to settle the ownership of the island when borders were drawn between Canada and Greenland, a part of Denmark, in 1973. Mr. Graham explained that the island lies near what would be the boundary between the two nations. The island and about 1,000 metres around it are in dispute. The waters could include important fish stocks and have been the subject of dispute between native peoples from Canada and Greenland.Canada's claims to sovereignty were put into some question in 2003 after crew members from a Danish frigate landed on the island and placed a Danish flag there.
The Danes who visited had planted her flags on the island in previous years, while Canadian geologists flew to it four years ago.
Canadian energy companies have also made surveys on and around the island.
Mr. Graham noted that the recent defence policy statement articulated that Canada's forces would become more active in the North.
He said the department will be using more unmanned aerial vehicles in the Arctic, as well as increased satellite coverage and looking at ways in which it can use a radar presence to better understand traffic through the Northwest Passage.
“There's other shipping going on through the area and we have to be cognizant of that,” he said. “We have to be active in making sure that we're the ones that control that if we're going to be able to say that we have sovereign rights over the Arctic.”
Mr. Graham said he believes the two nations will be able to resolve the issue without taking it to an international adjudication.
Gotta secure the isle for Canadian gay marriage rights.
If global warming continues despite Kyoto, won't the island likely be submerged?
Funny you should say that. Bill Graham used to keep a toy boy when he was a law professor at the University of Toronto.
Quagmire
The "onset of global warming" was about 12,000 years ago, as the last ice age ended. Eventually the pendulum will swing the other way and the ice will return.
They had better hope the Danish military is not sent out there. The Canadians have limited force projection and would have a hard time maintaining a military force that far out against the Danes.
Where's the UN? Where's the smelly Hippy protestors? Where are the WMDs (Walrus Manure Dumps)? Why aren't we marching in the streets? It's time we gave Peace a chance.
Do you think this will come to WAR!!
Who do you think would win Canada or Denmark? Who would the UK and the USA back in this dispute? Would the UN need to be involved.
Yup... definitely the makings of a quagmire.
"DANEGELD", Rudyard Kipling
IT IS always a temptation to an armed and agile nation,
To call upon a neighbour and to say:—
“We invaded you last night—we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away.”
And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you’ve only to pay ’em the Dane-geld
And then you’ll get rid of the Dane!
It is always a temptation to a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say:—
“Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away.”
And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we’ve proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.
It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray,
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to says:—
“We never pay any one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost,
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that plays it is lost!”
Hope they're not holding their breath.
May it melt and sink.
I would hate to see a neo-colonial nuclear* war between Canada and Denmark fought over possession new territory. /sarc.
*Nuclear war: Lobbing obsolete radium dial watches at each other with slingshots, from row boats.
The possibility also exists that Canada and Russia may have overlapping claims for the continental shelf in the high Arctic. But since Canada has never bothered to ratify the United Nations Law of the Sea Convention, it has yet to determine the northern limits of its shelf! Thus, it is not yet known if a dispute exists.
Given the importance of precedence in international law, the unfavourable settlement to Canadian interests of any of these disputes will have ramifications on the others. If Denmark wins its case, other states may come to regard the Canadian ability to protect its northern interests as weak.
http://tinyurl.com/7qlhl
Opps! That is about 320 acres, a LOTTLE bigger than a football field, even including the parking lots. IOW a rectangle 1/2 mile by a mile. Plenty of room for a runway & radar station + power & other support facilities.
Seems to me that while they're at it the Canucks might as well just seize Greenland altogether. It makes more sense than the Danes administering it. JMHO.
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