New Northwest Passage rules may violate international law

So what we need to do is withdraw from what ever international treaty that we are "breaking"

What we need are a load of big-fuck-off ships with large guns and loads of missiles that can navigate in ice.

Oh and they should have HUGE Canadian national flags fore and aft.

Muscle talks and bullshit walks.

Get used to it, BIMC. That passage is OURS. We really should put some huge guns on our coast guard ships and tell them to fire on anything or anyone who does not acquiesce to our requests.

Too right Zip. It's about time we muscled up in our Arctic.

If we can send 3000 guys to some sandy shit-hole 10,000 miles away and kick-arse, we should be able to strut our stuff up north.

Two sides to this...

Bear in mind I have always sided with Canada on this topic, that said...

Chile allows international shipping unfettered access to their territorial waters in the Strait of Magellan and if Canada withdraws from the body of international law that keeps this as an open seaway then Chile would be well within their rights to interdict Canadian-flag ships transiting that strait.

The same would happen at Gibraltar, Suez, the Panama Canal, the Bosporous, the Kiel canal, the straits that go from the North Sea to the Baltic, the Strait of Malacca, the Java strait, and etc.

So I think you're eventually going to lose this argument because of two reasons:

1. Canadians ultimately will not want to withdraw from international treaties. No offense, but you're kind of obsessed with internationalism and I think it would just go against your grain to isolate yourselves.

2. Canada won't want to see international sea lanes and passages closed to Canadian warships and merchant ships.

Well, I see your point Bart but we as a nation have been less than forthcoming on dealing with incursions into our waters. The Danes took the piss and the Faroese just take shrimp from under our Newfy boats noses.

We should look at this as an opportunity to re-affirm our sovereignty over our own territory otherwise others will see people taking the piss out the Canadians inherent good nature.

We can still have warships saying nice things to people, but we should have warships up there.

EB, I just don't see Canadians being willing to buck up and spend the money on a decent Arctic military presence until after the Russians and the Chinese start bickering over whose sailors get to hit the bars in Churchill on Friday nights.

Well, I never really saw the Canadians sending 3000 guys to Afghanistan or buying C17's.


Once these guys get behind something, nothing stops them. It's all that Vimy Ridge stuff mate.

Well first off if you read the claims you'll note that both groups are only making claims for international waters, whereas the US has actually made claims on Canadian territory.

You seem to think that they are being aggressive unless they acknowledge that the US and Canada have total claim to the entire arctic area including all international waters. Seems to me we are the ones being unreasonable. So far all China has said that the mineral rights belong to all based proportionally on population. Not a bad idea in my POV anyway.

You might also recall what Ziggy used to say about developing in that area after all he has spent most of his adult life doing that. Hazardous and very expensive. The profit margin basically eliminates any chance to include costs for a military presence and protecting any of the infrastructure would be next to impossible in the long run.

China knows this. Russia knows this and I think we know this too. It makes far more sense to agree to develop the region jointly. Share access and costs. Everybody will get resources and they'll get them much cheaper.

This dick measuring exercise will solve nothing. China isn't going to go to war over the possibility of developing the Arctic. Why would they? They know full well Canada could depend on many allies to help us out (even if the US did not). They know full well Russia wouldn't allow this since they could suffer as well. Hell even if they pushed a military advantage what good would the resources do when they lose their largest markets, namely Canada and the US, as we outlawed all their goods?

Diplomacy in the end will prevail.

Soft power is like a flaccid penis Derby.

If we want to make a point we need to be able to back it up with a nice grey ship with guns.

Hard power is like an erect penis when you have no vagina around. All you can do us play with yourself.

I don't mind having a larger navy and have repeatedly said so. No offence but I don't think Canada will ever have a large enough navy/military for yourself and many others because it will mean gutting every other department. The cost associated with even 1 or 2 nuke subs alone puts that prospect on the imaginary list. There is a reason why Harper has cancelled/post phoned so many key purchases including the arctic navy.

Now if you have a financial plan of attack then by all means but the last time we talked about finances you were concerned about child tax credits (and I'm not attacking you for that). Removing ourselves from Afghanistan aside the key to a larger military is an aggressive attack on the federal debt (as Martin was doing) but I think you probably agree 100%

All that aside my opinion is that conflict over arctic resources is simply not going to happen for all the above reasons.

Concur. And having a few of our naval forces on patrol periodically would help as well. Nothing too rash, a couple of frigates and a destroyer.

The Northwest Passage belongs to us, as it lies well within our borders. Fuck anyone that wants to question this.

-J.

Concur. And having a few of our naval forces on patrol periodically would help as well. Nothing too rash, a couple of frigates and a destroyer.

The Northwest Passage belongs to us, as it lies well within our borders. Fuck anyone that wants to question this.

-J.

All the other international passages then belong entirely to their host nations to do with as they please?