From here with some history
Posted on 01/26/2006 3:31:23 PM PST by AntiGuv
TORONTO - Canada's next prime minister used his first news conference Thursday to tell the United States to mind its own business when it comes to territorial rights in the Arctic North.
Testing the notion that he would kowtow to the Bush administration, Stephen Harper, whose Conservative Party won general elections on Monday, said he would stand by a campaign pledge to increase Canada's military presence in the Arctic and put three military icebreakers in the frigid waters of the Northwest Passage.
U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins had criticized the plan Wednesday, describing the Arctic passage as "neutral waters."
"There's no reason to create a problem that doesn't exist," Wilkins said during a panel discussion at the University of Western Ontario, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. "We don't recognize Canada's claims to those waters. Most other countries do not recognize their claim."
No reporter brought up the U.S. ambassador's views Thursday, but Harper said he wanted to comment on them.
"The United States defends its sovereignty; the Canadian government will defend our sovereignty," Harper said. "It is the Canadian people that we get our mandate from, not the ambassador of the United States."
Harper's surprising salvo was likely intended as a message to those in the Bush administration who might be cheering the election of a Conservative government and view Harper as a pushover when it comes to prickly U.S.-Canadian relations.
Arctic sovereignty has been a sensitive subject for decades, with U.S. Navy submarines and ships entering northern waters without asking permission. Ottawa has generally turned a blind eye to the United States' sending ships through the area.
Canadian media reported last month that a U.S. nuclear submarine traveled secretly through Canadian Arctic waters in November on its way to the North Pole.
The Northwest Passage runs from the Atlantic through the Arctic to the Pacific.
Global warming is melting the passage — which is only navigable during a slim window in the summer — and exposing unexplored fishing stocks and an attractive shipping route. Commercial ships can shave off some 2,480 miles from the trip from Europe to Asia compared with the current routes through the Panama Canal.
Harper said during a campaign speech in December he would dramatically increase Canada's military presence in the Arctic North. He intends to construct and deploy three new armed icebreaking ships and construct a $1.7 billion deep-water port and an underwater network of "listening posts."
"The single most important duty of the federal government is to protect and defend our national sovereignty," Harper said in the December speech. "There are new and disturbing reports of American nuclear submarines passing though Canadian waters without obtaining the permission of, or even notifying, the Canadian government."
Harper has not said whether he would order military action if the ships or port detected an unauthorized submarine in Arctic waters.
Harper, meanwhile, said he had a friendly conversation with President Bush on Wednesday but had not fixed a date for their first meeting. He said he had also received calls from other major allies, including Mexican President Vicente Fox, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Australian Prime Minister John Howard.
see my post #35. I don't have the paper she wrote about it on me. If I have it at home I'll post it, had some good sources.
British Foreign Minister George Canning proposed that the US and the UK join to warn off France and Spain from intervention. Both Thomas Jefferson and James Madison urged Monroe to accept the offer, but John Quincy Adams was more suspicious. Adams also was quite concerned about Russia and Mexico's efforts to extend their influence over the joint British-American claimed territory of Oregon Country (see New Albion).
At the Cabinet meeting of November 7, 1823, Adams argued against Canning's offer, and declared, "It would be more candid, as well as more dignified, to avow our principles explicitly to Russia and France, than to come in as a cockboat in the wake of the British man-of-war."
He argued and finally won over the Cabinet to an independent policy. In Monroe's Annual Message to Congress on December 2, 1823, he delivered what we have come to call the Monroe Doctrine. Essentially, the United States was informing the powers of the Old World that the Americas were no longer open to European colonization, and that any effort to extend European political influence into the New World would be considered by the United States "as dangerous to our peace and safety." The United States would not interfere in European wars or internal affairs, and expected Europe to stay out of the affairs of the New World.
12 miles, the internationally accepted norm. I'm not talking about the exlusive economic zone that goes further out, but strictly speaking 12 miles is the limit of the U.S. territorial sea. A foreign warship could park 12.5 miles off the coast and as long as it didn't polute or start mining operations etc., we couldn't do anything about it.
What does Santa Claus think about this?
"Two, "International Waters" are defined as two nautical miles from the shore, and the NW Passage is wider than that."
Canada's "Territorial Waters" are defined as extending 200 miles from Canadian Territory. The North West passage is bounded on both sides by Canadian territory. So the Passage is an inland channel or straight. Is not an international waterway.
I don't where you got the 2 mile definition. Are you saying all waters 2 miles off the coast of the US are international waters?
British Foreign Minister George Canning proposed that the US and the UK join to warn off France and Spain from intervention. Both Thomas Jefferson and James Madison urged Monroe to accept the offer, but John Quincy Adams was more suspicious. Adams also was quite concerned about Russia and Mexico's efforts to extend their influence over the joint British-American claimed territory of Oregon Country (see New Albion).
At the Cabinet meeting of November 7, 1823, Adams argued against Canning's offer, and declared, "It would be more candid, as well as more dignified, to avow our principles explicitly to Russia and France, than to come in as a cockboat in the wake of the British man-of-war."
He argued and finally won over the Cabinet to an independent policy. In Monroe's Annual Message to Congress on December 2, 1823, he delivered what we have come to call the Monroe Doctrine. Essentially, the United States was informing the powers of the Old World that the Americas were no longer open to European colonization, and that any effort to extend European political influence into the New World would be considered by the United States "as dangerous to our peace and safety." The United States would not interfere in European wars or internal affairs, and expected Europe to stay out of the affairs of the New World.
If you're looking for a place to apply the Monroe Doctrine, take a look where Venezula is getting its arms.
So, what would we do with this bunch of losers if we were to "take them over"? Just that many more welfare kings and queens to support.
You mean we wouldn't send some tin cans to pull up next to it and watch and if it hung around long enough some destroyers, missile frigrates and the like? Just curious really. I don't know diddly about this, I just don't figure we'd let a hostile park that close without some form of at least a "passive" response.
I hate to burst your girlfriend's bubble, but twelve natuical miles is the generally accepted limit. There are some rules concerning situations where two points of land are less than separated by less than 24 miles of water and the nation in question can calim the waters in that bay as national waters.
The Hudson bay and the NW passage to not fit those rules any more than the Gulf of Sidra did with Libia. The U.S. routinely conducts freedom of navigation operations through international waters that some country is trying to claim as territorial waters, since to do otherwise could be seen over time as recognizing those claims as legitimate.
At least a portion of the Monroe Doctrine appears to have gone out of style.
200 miles has to do with a country's exclusive economic zone, it has nothing to do with territorial seas when it comes to a right of passage.
I agree completely. Canada has the right and the duty to protect and control its inland waterways, and Prime Minister Harper deserves respect for taking this position. The United States Government is in the wrong on this.
American conservatives (rightly) scorned Canada for being unwilling to protect its national interests in the War on Terror. We should not now scorn Canada for being willing to protect its national interests at sea. Even if you believe Canada is in the wrong on this matter, it's still better than them gutlessly having no position at all.
Ok. I'll compromise with you. Make it twelve miles.
We still own it.
If someone is demonstrating hostile intent, we could send them to the bottom no matter where they were parked. However, if we didn't have reason to believe they were doing anything more than listening to whatever broadcast they could get then no, we couldn't do anything.
In the cold war "Russian Trawlers" would routinely sit off our ports to listen in and monitor traffic. When we were running on the surface, we used to waive at their crews doing laundry up on deck. Thew were more than 12 miles off the coast, and not demonstrating hostile intent, so the most we could do was waive.
Don't get me wrong, we did keep an eye on them and monitor them, we just couldn't shoot them without additional reason.
"In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt added the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which asserted the right of the U.S. to intervene in Latin America. This is the largest extension that has ever been added to the Monroe Doctrine."
It has been generally understood, since the time of Roosevelt, that the Monroe Doctrine extends to any case where a foreign state (not just European powers, as under the original Monroe Doctrine) threatens U.S. interests in the western hemisphere with regards to access to international territory.
True, there was the Clark Memorandum in 1940 (related to FDR's "Good Neighbor Policy"). However, the Clark Memorandum was subsequently nullified by subsequent U.S. interventions in the hemisphere from Eisenhower on.
I honestly have no idea what claims Canada makes to the Arctic north of Alert. There is no landfall in that area. Just the icecap.
I'll admit that I'm no expert here on International/maritime law. It would be interesting to know the facts. The bottom line with me is that we, Canada, establish some presence in the area to protect our interests and ultimately contribute to the protection and intelligence gathering of North America.
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