Who Owns the Arctic?

John Diefenbaker's Northern Vision

"A New Vision" speech by John G. Diefenbaker at the Civic Auditorium, Winnipeg, 12 February 1958

Ladies and gentlemen, we started in the last few months, since June the 10th, to carry out our promises, and I can tell you this, that as long as I am Prime Minister of this country, the welfare of the average Canadian will not be forgotten. We intend to launch for the future, we have laid the foundations now, the long-range objectives of this party. We ask from you a mandate; a new and a stronger mandate, to pursue the planning and to carry to fruition our new national development programme for Canada. For years we raised that in the House of Commons, and those in authority ridiculed it. Day before yesterday, Mr. Pearson came out in favour of a national development policy. Why didn't they do it when they were in power?

TransCanada CEO pessimistic about Mackenzie line

Reuters, February 11, 2009

HOUSTON - Regulatory delays have worsened the odds that the C$16.2 billion ($13 billion) Mackenzie gas pipeline in Canada's far north will ever be built despite a promise of help from Ottawa, TransCanada Corp's (TRP.TO) chief executive said on Wednesday.

An iron road across the permafrost

A Canadian iron mine company seeks to build a 143-kilometre private railway on Baffin Island

Oliver Moore, Globe & Mail, September 4, 2008

It will be the world's most northerly railway, a private line snaking across the permafrost and rock of Baffin Island at a projected cost of $10-million per kilometre.

The ambitious project is part of a plan to tap iron-ore deposits 900 kilometres northwest of Iqaluit. The plan is subject to regulatory approval and securing financing, but preliminary drilling is already under way, say officials of Baffinland Iron Mines Corp., which is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

Arctic sovereignty not under threat: Cannon

Bob Weber, Canadian Press, January 13, 2009

Canada's Arctic sovereignty is not under increased threat despite recent forthright statements from the United States and the European Union spelling out their interests in the region, says Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon. ...

For the full text, see: Arctic sovereignty not under threat

Northerners eyeing new riches

Oil, gas, gold, uranium. Immense wealth is there for the taking — if we could get it out of there. Global warming can make that happen

Ed Struzik, Toronto Star, November 24, 2007

CAPE CHURCHILL, Man.–Two polar bears cautiously approach each other on the fresh sea ice off the coast of Hudson Bay.

Just before the bears meet, they stand and dance around one another. Then they lock up like a pair of Sumo wrestlers, stand back, then start swatting each other. Vicious as it looks, all these young males are doing is playing.

With me watching the scene is John Gunter, marketing director of Frontiers North, the tundra buggy/adventure tour company that brought me out here with Robert Buchanan, the head of Polar Bear International, a non-profit conservation group. In the long, economically troubled history of Churchill, polar bears, Polar Bear International and adventure tour companies like Frontiers North have been the only steady sources of income for this closely knit community of 1,000 Inuit, Cree, Metis and non-native residents.

Build an Arctic Gateway for the world

Michael Byers, Globe and Mail, November 26, 2007

Stephen Harper has committed $1 billion to the Pacific Gateway Initiative, a series of infrastructure investments stretching across the four western provinces. Seizing on Canada’s geographic location, the plan aims to develop the most efficient and secure transportation corridors between North America and Asia. Now, it is time for the next step. It is time for an Arctic Gateway Initiative.