Yes, we’ve seen that over and over in the trade disputes over softwood lumber. ETA: I think the US actually lost that dispute.
It’s entirely possible that passage through the Northwest Passage will be covered under NAFTA (for the US and Canada).
Yes, it would also be in the best interests of Canada to be able to call upon the US Navy to help with any high seas altercations in the region.
What benefit does Canada receive my strictly controlling the Northwest Passage?
What about Russia’s side of the Bering Sea? When it comes to charging or allowing access to this passage the US clearly has to compete with Russia (unless both countries work in conjuntion). If one country was too heavy handed in allowing access then ships could simply go through the others territorial seas. Free market being what it is though, one of the countries is bound to allow fiscally reasonable access.
Russia has a greater history of putting nationalistic belligerence before economic concerns. So the idea that Russia will behave rationally in this is not as easy to assume as that of Canada. And Russia has a greater military capacity to enforce their claims than Canada does, along with less close economic ties to the United States of America.
Russia may very well work it like Canada will, or else they won’t. It’s a lot less easier to predict with Russia I should think. But it might put Canada in a good position as its Arctic ports may end up doing more business than Russian arctic ports for the simple fact that they are more accessible.
If the internal water (baseline/archipelago) claim were to fail, that still leaves us with the passage being within our territorial waters, such that even although a right of passage would exist, such right could still be regulated within the bounds of international public law.
To this end, Canada put in place the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act (R.S., 1985, c. A-12), which regulates civilian transit of the passage. Have a look at the act and its regulations. http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/acts-regulations/acts-1985ca-12.htm The effect of this law is to regulate passage as Canada sees fit, regardless of whether the passage is internal or not. This law led to the art. 234 arctic exclusion in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. UNCLOS and Agreement on Part XI - Preamble and frame index
What I wonder is whether art. 234 will still have any effect once there is no ice for most of the year, or will no longer be applicable, and weaken Canada’s ability to enforce its AWPPA.
Now here’s where it gets interesting. If art. 234 were to be applicable even after the ice is no longer there that often, that would lend great weight to an internal waters argument based on the people who have lived there for thousands of years not distinguishing between land and ice.
Conversely, if art. 234 were to no longer be applicable due to ice no longer forming, Canada would be in a poorer position in enforcing the act against non-American nations (I say non-American because the USA would not be able to take the problem to the International Court of Justice because the USA does not recognize the ICJ). As far as the USA goes, we have an Arctic Co-operation Agreement with them for icebreakers – they have to follow our regulations, but we won’t keep them out: http://www.lexum.org/ca_us/en/cts.1988.29.en.html I expect that eventually we will negotiate a similar agreement for US commercial ships.
Overall, I think the Russians have taken a better approach. For well over a century, they have made strong efforts at exploring and then developing the commercial viability of the northeast passage, to the degree that they now have defacto authority over ships on that route. If Canada gets its act together and takes a true leadership role in developing northwest passage shipping, I expect that we will end up with control, be it control through internal waters, or control through reasonable regulation of the right of passage through an international straight.
Canada should be able to charge a modest toll for traversing these internal waters. This money will be needed too:
- Build new harbours
- Increase safety patrols and inspections
- Create better navigation devices, charts
- Clean up any ecological damage
- Provide military security
The point being that it’s not going to happen this way. Canada depends as much on the US as the US depends on Canada for access.
Can you explain further? To me there are two separate issues - navigating Canada’s Internal Waters (aka Northwest passage) and navigating the Bering Strait. A ship going from England to Japan would consequently make arrangements to go through both separately. In the first case said ship would make arrangements with Canada. In the second case the ship could make arrangements with either the US or Russia. Canada wouldn’t need to be involved with the latter arrangements.
As you’ve stated, Russia may be less likely to allow access. But then again - they may not be. They have nothing to gain by refusing commercial access and would lose a chance to charge tolls.
I was mostly thinking about how American and Canadian ships would use it. As was mentioned above it would likely be addressed by NAFTA in that case. How each country deals with the ships of foreign nations will be what it will be.
Why should I pay for a harbor I did not use?
If I am not docking in Canada why should they have the right to inspect my ship?
I don’t think this is relevant as most of that stuff is done by American satellites.
Fair point.
Ahh yes, the good old protection racket. 
mswas - you have good counter points. But, as far as charging tolls it must also be remembered that for the near future at least going through the Northwest Passage is very dangerous. Last year 23 ships made the trip, and 2 of them made calls to the Canadian Coast Guard. Despite being navigable, there will still be lots of ice and opportunities to either get stuck in ice or strike it.
Hence the need for better navigational beacons, the potential need to inspect many ships to determine if they are sea-worthy enough to make the passage and definately the important need to increase safety patrols - which in turn create the potential need for new harbours so those coast guard boats have somewhere nearby as a port of call.
Well I think that we’ll need a lot more melting for it to be viable. The problem here is that the need for the services you are talking about will reduce with the viability of the Northwest Passage as a route.
I’m sure that charging a toll will prevent the weekend yachters, but as I mentioned in an above post the average toll for going through the Suez Canal is $250,000. Hardly chump change, yet shipping companies still pay it. The time they save must easily make up for it.
I sure Canadians would charge a much friendlier price than a 1/4 mil anyways. A couple kegs of Labatts might be enough to square it away.
Going through a canal is not the same thing as going through an ocean. A canal is artificial and must be maintained. An Ocean not so.
Mapping of ice (started with Lancasters after WWII, but now by sat), staffed and non-staffed weather stations, charting, sea bed charting, navigation aids, transit coordination, piloting, ice breaking, assistance, rescue, cleanup (nothing big yet). Ain’t cheap.
No, a quarter million dollars is fine.
- Polar bear refuges.
I think the right to inspect any ship is important, regardless of whether they’re docking. As pointed out, this is a dangerous area to navigate, and it would probably be good to know which ships have nuclear waste on them or whatever.
Victoria Jason could have used them in her transiting of the northwest passage.
Going through a strait is not the same thing as sailing the open ocean, either. Even if the channel is natural, and relatively wide, a pilot and/or rules of passage are often needed. We’re talking several hundred miles of navigation through channels betweeen 10 and 150 miles in width, potentially with shoals, submerged rocks, and other such navigational hazards, in an area that is both inhspitable to underequipped humans and ecologically fragile.
I’m not necessarily ready to argue that the Northwest Passage is more like the Mississippi or the Rhine than the Caribbean, but there is a clear distinction between narrow straits and the open ocean that is recognized in law.
International treaties are… negotiated. They’re agreed to, or ignored, according to the dictates of realpolitik. So, my point that this sort of thing is determined by negotiation and realpolitik appears to stand.