Defending Canadian Arctic Sovereignty

[GAP]

In a month or so, the Canadian Forces will be posting a recruitment video for the special task force on its website.

Lordy..lordy....I can just see the recruiting threads balloon with wannabe's in heat........ :

 

[MikeL]

http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/canada-s-secret-military-task-force-unveiled-1.929414

CTVNews.ca Staff
Published Friday, Aug. 24, 2012 10:07PM EDT
Last Updated Friday, Aug. 24, 2012 10:54PM EDT
Canada’s top secret task force isn’t so secret anymore, emerging from the shadows and landing in the public spotlight Friday in an unprecedented show of its specialized military skills.
Members of Joint Task Force 2, an elite group praised for its counter-terrorism operations around the world, participated in a complex simulation exercise in Hudson Bay and Churchill, Man., in front of cameras for the first time, as Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Defence Minister Peter MacKay looked on.
The simulation was part of Operation Nanook 12’s annual summer exercises and involved dropping Joint Task Force 2 operators from Griffon helicopters on a “vessel of interest,” played in the scenario by an oil-and-gas exploration ship from Cape Breton. Other soldiers, clad in black, surrounded the ship on inflatable boats.
The exercise helps special forces prepare for any ships entering Canadian waters illegally and other sea, land or air threats.
Harper, MacKay and Gen. Walt Natynczyk, chief of defence staff, watched Operation Nanook 12 aboard the HMCS St. John’s.
“I was deeply impressed, and frankly, as a Canadian, I was unabashedly proud … of the skill and precision with which you performed,” Harper said later, addressing the Canadian Forces.
Until now, Ottawa hasn’t publicly acknowledged the existence of Joint Task Force 2, which has done work in Haiti, Libya, Afghanistan and reportedly in Iraq, where a Canadian hostage was rescued.
The faces of the special group will never be seen, but officials say it’s important that the world knows they are a significant part of Canada’s military muscle.
“It's important for them to be seen and be contributing to Canada's overall defence because a lot of what they do is in the shadows,” Brig. Gen. Denis Thompson, commander of the Canadian Forces Special Operations Command, told reporters.
“It's more demonstrative today because there's more interest up there in just showing that we have the ability to reach out, anywhere, at any time,” said Maj. Gen. David Fraser, a retired military commander.
In a month or so, the Canadian Forces will be posting a recruitment video for the special task force on its website.
With a report from CTV’s Daniele Hamamdjian


Read more: http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/canada-s-secret-military-task-force-unveiled-1.929414#ixzz24fPrwHvg

 

[MikeL]

 

[MikeL]

http://winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/harper-presides-over-military-exercise-in-hudson-bay-during-operation-nanook-1.928831

Harper presides over military exercise in Hudson Bay during Operation Nanook

By Stephanie Levitz, The Canadian Press
Published Friday, Aug. 24, 2012 1:34PM CST
Last Updated Friday, Aug. 24, 2012 2:37PM CST
CHURCHILL, Man. -- An eco-tourism boat carrying suspected illegal immigrants who pose a danger to Canadians was the focus Friday of the military's summer operation in Hudson Bay.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper observed the exercise from the so-called "vessel of interest."
The scenario was also of particular interest to a Conservative government that's been preoccupied with the issue of human smuggling since boatloads of migrants arrived off the shores of British Columbia in 2010.
It recently passed legislation which the Conservatives say will address the problem by imposing stiff fines and sentences on smugglers, and also by detaining people who are suspected of having been smuggled into the country.
The 12th Operation Nanook exercise in Hudson Bay included 650 members of the Canadian Forces, include some of Canada's elite special forces.
The cost of the exercise, as well as one being carried out simultaneously in the Western Arctic, is estimated to be $16.5 million.
"In an uncertain world, where demand for resources is growing, where any number of civilian needs can suddenly come upon us, and where conflicts and potential conflicts remain ever present, you, our men and women in uniform, are here, to, literally stand on guard for the True North strong and free," Harper told the troops on board the HMCS St. John's after the exercise concluded.
The Conservatives have set aside substantial funds for the military's Northern capabilities.
Some $100 million is being spent to build a deep-water facility in Nanisivik, Nunavut, while a further $3.1 billion is being allocated to purchase new offshore patrol ships.
Those ships, first announced in 2006, now may not be operational until 2023.
They've been rolled into the government's overall shipbuilding procurement strategy.
The prime minister acknowledged the delays Thursday while in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, but said the goals are meant to be long-term and pursued on a step-by-step basis.
"I agree it's taking time, but we are taking the time to make sure we get this right, that we spend the right amount of money and we develop this kind of shipbuilding expertise in Canada in the long-term," Harper said.
The Defence Department recently acknowledged it actually doesn't believe Canada is under any kind of military threat in the Arctic. But there's more to Arctic spending than defence, Harper said.
"I think it's critical that we be capable of all kinds of purposes, not just direct military purposes -- sovereignty purposes, search and rescue and other things -- to be able to access all of our Arctic at all times of the year," he said.
The military has been carrying out summer exercises in the North since 2005.
They are billing this year's event as the most complex, partially because they are running two simulations at the same time.
The one taking place near Inuvik involves a rescue mission following a boat collision.
"Sadly, possible scenarios sometimes become tragic realities as we saw last year in Resolute Bay with the crash of a First Air jet," Harper said. "It was a sad reminder that, in an uncertain world, constant preparedness is a soldier's occupation."


Read more: http://winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/harper-presides-over-military-exercise-in-hudson-bay-during-operation-nanook-1.928831#ixzz24fQRYidu

 

[Good2Golf]

Good stuff seeing the ski team come out a bit behind the cloak!

Would have loved to see the lads repeat this at night, it's impressive enough in the day, but especially so after the sun goes down.

Good show.


Regards
G2G

 

[Old Sweat]

Mods

Can we merge the posts starting here with this one?

http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/16198/post-1167545.html#msg1167545

 

[Armymedic]

Lordy..lordy....I can just see the recruiting threads balloon with wannabe's in heat........ :

Let them come and join up. The next sound won't be the popcorn....

 

[GK .Dundas]

[i

Geeze all that non issue kit. Somewhere there is an RSM  having a coronary!

 

[Armymedic]

Geeze all that non issue kit. Somewhere there is an RSM  having a coronary!

Non issue to you.

 

[GK .Dundas]

Apparently humour unless accompanied by smileys is either verboten or at least frowned upon  I have apparently just lost lost 100 mil points. Not that I care about the loss of milpoints.
Therefore could I have a list of those sacred cows that I am not allowed to poke fun at? I'm sure this will make life so much easier for all those who found my posts offensive ....
Oh and one other thing if I am forced to use smileys ,could I have  a smiley that consists of a smiley character "Flipping the bird" so to speak ?

 

[Colin Parkinson]

[

JTF detaining two suspicious charactors found to be hiding on the ship.

 

[George Wallace]

;D

However, there is a nose there that I recognize.

:camo:

 

[The Bread Guy]

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, the Honourable Leona Aglukkaq, Minister of Health, Minister of the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency and Minister of the Arctic Council for Canada, and Villy Søvndal, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Denmark, met today in Ottawa to discuss a range of issues of common interest and, in particular, engagement in Arctic matters.

The ministers announced that negotiators have reached a tentative agreement on where to establish the maritime boundary in the Lincoln Sea, the body of water north of Ellesmere Island and Greenland. This will resolve an issue between the two countries that arose in the 1970s. Once ratified, the agreement will also provide an opportunity to modernize provisions of the 1973 treaty that established the current boundary south of the Lincoln Sea.

(....)

The tentative agreement does not address the issue of sovereignty over Hans Island. That issue is the subject of continuing discussion intended to arrive at a mutually satisfactory solution.

(....)

DFAIT Info-machine, 28 Nov 12

The solid black line is the boundary agreed in the 1973 treaty. The broken black line is the boundary agreed ad referendum. The broken blue lines indicate 200-nautical-mile zones.

1. Lincoln Sea
2. Nares Strait
3. Baffin Bay
4. Davis Strait
5. Labrador Sea

 

[CougarKing]

Necroposted this thread back to life since it's the most relevant among the dozens of threads related to Arctic Sovereignty.

The article does not say whether the Danish vessel Nordic Orion has an ice-strengthened hull or if it had a Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker for an escort, both of which were true for the SS Manhattan in 1969, if I can recall correctly.

Yahoo News: Daily Brew section

Danish freighter traversing Northwest Passage a sign of things to come – is Canada ready?

The Danish-owned freighter Nordic Orion's sailing this month through the Northwest Passage with a load of B.C. coal is a historic one. It's only the second commercial bulk carrier to traverse the Arctic route since 1969.

But the vessel is likely a harbinger for the future as climate change makes the ice-bound Northwest Passage increasingly navigable.

The implications for Canada are profound, given we claim sovereignty over the region and want to assert control over commercial traffic through the passage.

You can follow the Nordic Orion's progress here as it makes a its way across the top of Canada, scheduled to arrive at Pori, Finland in early October.

It's been more than four decades since the oil tanker SS Manhattan, its bow reinforced to deal with ice floes, made its much-publicized trip through the Northwest Passage to test its feasibility as a trade route to deliver Alaskan oil to the U.S. East Coast, avoiding a long trip south to the Panama Canal.

The Manhattan was ahead of its time. Its journey through the passage wasn't easy and the Americans opted for an oil pipeline to move Alaskan crude south. But as warming Arctic waters make the route navigable for longer each year, the passage could finally become a viable commercial shipping route.

“I think this pretty much cements our position as a world-leading ice operator,” Christian Bonfils, managing director of Nordic Bulk, told the Globe and Mail. “In four years, we have created history in two new shipping routes – we are a small company and that’s pretty special.”
Nordic Bulk shipped a load of iron ore from Norway to China via the Northern Sea Route, which runs through Russian territory, in 2010. The Nordic Orion's sister ship, the Nordic Odyssey, last year took on 65,000 tons of iron ore from Murmansk, in northern Russia, destined for China, according to the New Yorker.

“For some routes, it [the Northwest Passage] can save up to 7,000 kilometres – and that’s not just a distance savings, that’s a savings in terms of fuel, time and salaries,” Michael Byers, an international law expert at the University of British Columbia, told the Globe. “Time is money in the international shipping business and a 7,000-kilometre shortcut is of great interest.”

Byers, who writes a blog Who Owns the Arctic?, last month reposted an article he wrote for AlJazeera.com on the impact of opening Arctic waters.

China, especially, is looking for ways to speed the flow of goods to and from the the global trading superpower, he said.


"In China, the media refer to the Northern Sea Route as the 'Arctic Golden Waterway,' Byers wrote. "Professor Bin Yang of Shanghai Maritime University estimates the route could save his country $60 billion to $120 billion per year."

Russia has taken an aggressive approach to readying its waterways for increased traffic, he said, using icebreakers to escort commercial ships for a fee, and planning to add new search-and-rescue stations, upgrading its Arctic ports, improving weather and ice forecasting and streamlining shipping permits.

A 2006 paper on Arctic sovereignty prepared for the Parliament of Canada noted the climate change could result in nearly ice-free conditions for the entire summer as early as 2050, though probably not before 2100. However scientific studies suggest sea ice is receding even faster than predicted.

"The impacts of climate change heighten the existing dispute over the status of the Northwest Passage," the paper says. "Canada claims that the Arctic waters of the Northwest Passage constitute 'historic internal waters,' and thus fall under Canadian jurisdiction and control.

"However, this claim has been disputed, especially by the United States and the European Union. The United States has consistently argued that the Northwest Passage represents an international strait [international waters], which allows the right of transit passage [beyond 'innocent passage']."


Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said asserting Canada's sovereignty in the region is a priority but the Conservative governments ambitious northern strategy, which included a new fleet of icebreaking patrol ships, a naval refuelling station in the High Arctic and other measures, has stumbled amid budget cuts and the shift to other policy priorities.

The problem alarms some observers.

“The Russians have 10 bases, you would hope we could at least get one going,” Rob Huebert, an Arctic expert, told The Canadian Press last month.

(...)

 

[Good2Golf]

Time for glasses...I thought the ship's name was the Nordic Onion.

 

[McG]

Looks like we might have more arctic over which to maintain sovereignty.

Canada’s new claim for up to 1.7 million square kilometres of Arctic seafloor may include North Pole
Bob Weber
National Post
01 Dec 2013

Some time this week, Canada is expected to make its case to the world to dramatically expand its boundaries by an area equivalent to the size of all three Prairie provinces.

Canada’s deadline is Friday to apply to a United Nations commission for exclusive rights to what is likely to be another 1.7 million square kilometres of Arctic seafloor. The application under the Convention on the Law of the Sea will be the culmination of a decade of work and more than $200 million in public money.

The lines on the map will have been drawn by scores of scientists working everywhere from Ottawa labs to ice camps off the northern shores of Ellesmere Island, peering under the stormy black waters to discern the shape and composition of sea floor thousands of metres below.

The effort required more than a dozen icebreaker voyages, as well as trips by helicopters, airplanes and an unmanned, remote-controlled submarine that spent days under the ice.

With the co-operation of three Arctic neighbours — Denmark, Russia and the United States — more than 18,000 kilometres of sea-floor data was collected from a part of the globe less familiar than the surface of the moon.

“It was a huge effort and enormously challenging,” said Michael Byers, an expert on Arctic and international law at the University of British Columbia.

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea governs which nations exert what kinds of controls over their surrounding waters. In addition to the 22-kilometre territorial waters and the 370-kilometre exclusive economic zones, coastal countries are allowed to claim additional sea floor if they can show their continental shelf extends beyond the economic zone.

Canada has previously released maps on the likely boundaries of its claim. Russia filed its claim in 2002 and Denmark released its last week.

The U.S. has not signed the convention, but has agreed to follow most of its articles. Its boundary dispute with Canada involves the exclusive economic zone and doesn’t directly impact Friday’s claim.

Conflicts are likely to be few. One calculation puts the amount of overlap between claims at a mere 75,000 square kilometres out of millions and millions.

Rob Huebert, an Arctic expert at the University of Calgary, will be watching to see if Canada stretches its claim past the North Pole. The geologic justification — an undersea mountain range called the Lomonosov Ridge that stretches north from Ellesmere Island — is there, he said.

“I don’t think there’s something magical that stops [the claim] at the North Pole,” he said.

Canadian officials have acknowledged mapping flights over the top of the world and into Russia’s claim, which does stop at the pole.

But Byers said there’s no evidence that Canada has collected the kind of data it would need to challenge Russia.

“We may have some small overlaps in the middle, but for the most part there will not be any overlap between the Russian submission on the one side and the Canadian and Danish submissions on the other,” he said.

It all depends on how valuable Canadian officials think that real estate is, said Huebert.

“Maybe it’s simply not worth it. Maybe we said, ’You know what, for the sake of international peace and stability, it’s not important. We’ll only do our science up to that and that will be the basis of our claim.’

“(But) it means we didn’t go as far as we could.”

Whether or not Canada will claim the North Pole, a decision on its fate is still probably 20 years off. Just checking the science on Canada’s claim will likely take five years, said Huebert.

And there isn’t any particular rush, said Byers. These claims cover some of the remotest and harshest points on the planet and commercial exploitation of resources is a long ways off.

But just getting to the point where countries have filed claims is a triumph, he said.

“In this former Cold War frontier we have an agreed set of rules. That has a huge payoff.”

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/12/01/canadas-new-claim-for-up-to-1-7-million-square-kilometres-of-arctic-seafloor-may-include-north-pole/

 

[The Bread Guy]

In response, not only are the Russians reportedly beefing up their military presence way up north, but they also appear to be telegraphing more latent fears:
"Canada goes to the North Pole from the rear" (original in Russian here)
;D

 

[CougarKing]

Wouldn't something like this indicate the urgency of completing the Diefenbreaker? As the Northwest Passage gets more and more navigable that is...

Military.com

Coast Guard Proposes Bering Straits Shipping Route

Associated Press | Dec 05, 2014 | by Seth Borenstein
With global warming leading to increased traffic to a vulnerable Arctic, the U.S. Coast Guard is proposing a 4.6-mile wide shipping route through the Bering Strait to try to protect the region.
Any accident in the sensitive area can be a major problem and traffic has increased tremendously, so the Coast Guard mapped out a voluntary two-way route — akin to a highway for ships — said agency project officer Lt. Kody Stitz.

"We see more traffic and envision more traffic to continue," Stitz said.

Last year ships went through the Bering Strait 440 times, twice what it was in 2008, according to a study in the journal Marine Policy.

(...SNIPPED)

 

[Colin Parkinson]

More they are declaring a traffic control pattern, basically painting imaginary lines onto the ocean to prevent accidents and collisions

They would look like the purple lines on this chart

 

[McG]

While many have been commenting on the significance of Julian Fantino's move for Veteran’s Affairs, one commenter takes a look at this significance to Arctic Sovereignty. 

Minister of Arctic Neglect
Matt Gurney
National Post
07 Jan 2015

Julian Fantino's longoverdue dumping from his post as the minister for Veterans Affairs on Monday is probably good news for Canada's veterans. It's probably also good news for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who seems to have chosen Monday as a day to get some unpleasant business out of the way (he also had a meeting with Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, a meeting she had been demanding for months). In a way, it may even be good news for Fantino himself. He was struggling in the job at Veterans Affairs, and after the sting of his very public demotion wears off, he may be glad to be doing something else.

But it is not good news for Canada's Arctic - which is, bizarrely, apparently one of the policy issues closest to the Prime Minister's heart. Because Mr. Fantino is back to being an associate minister of National Defence, and one of the areas of responsibility assigned to him is protecting Canada's Arctic sovereignty.

Oh, well, then. I guess that takes care of that. Your move, Moscow.

Talking about, and talking up, the Arctic has always been central to Mr. Harper's purported vision for Canada. Mr. Harper speaks often of the need to assert Canadian sovereignty over our northern territories, and of opening up our gigantic northern areas to economic (primarily natural resource) development.

The two goals would be mutually reinforcing, of course: Economic development would provide the riches, or so we hope, to cover the considerable costs of guarding said riches, and of having sufficient military capability to deter any incursions by hostile states (read: Russia), counter claims by otherwise friendly states (United States and Denmark), and providing a search-and-rescue capability in the event of an air travel or shipping disaster.

The problem is, despite the boasts, not much has been done. Yes, the Prime Minister makes an annual trip up north for a major military exercise, Operation Nanook, and that's nice. Also, the location of the Franklin Expedition's HMS Erebus last September is a major historical find that the Prime Minister, who made it a personal priority, deserves some credit for.

The list of unfulfilled promises, however, is distressingly long. Most striking was the

proposed major military base in the north. It was going to be a permanent outpost, staffed year round, with a port for warships to dock, supply and fuel facilities to provision those ships, a jet-capable airstrip and an advanced communications array. The fulltime staff would live in proper, climate-appropriate accommodations. After years of no updates, those plans were eventually whittled down to a part-time facility to be staffed only in warm weather, using trailers as living quarters and with handheld satellite phones for communications. Likewise, plans for a northern military training area were reduced essentially to a barracks tacked onto a science station in the middle of nowhere. It won't be used much by the military.

A proposal for three armed naval icebreakers magically transformed into one unarmed icebreaker for the Coast Guard. She'll enter service ... sometime next decade. Six to eight Arctic Patrol Ships for the Navy were announced in 2007. Now, eight years later, the Navy is hopeful that the first vessel may begun construction this fall ... and the auditor-general reported last year that, without more money, six to eight vessels may end up being more like three or four. Similarly, the High Arctic Research Station, discussed since 2007, only saw ground broken in late 2014.

Reduced ambition, delays, outright cancellation of projects - the Prime Minister's support for the Arctic is sadly similar to his support for the Armed Forces in general: Loud, seemingly heartfelt, and only occasionally turned into concrete action. The odd victory or promise kept doesn't, in the end, amount to a legacy or even competent stewardship. The Tories have talked a lot about the Arctic, taken some terrific photos and delivered ... little bits, here and there.

In a way, Mr. Fantino's new job as the minister responsible for our northern territory is symbolic. Mr. Fantino is considered important for his ability to hold his suburban Toronto riding of Vaughan, in Ontario's voterich 905 region and an asset among Italian-Canadians. His long law-enforcement career is certainly in line with the Tories' tough-on-crime agenda. But these facts aside, he's been a disaster as a cabinet minister, possessed of a reverse Midas touch: Every file he has touched has turned to, er, junk. There is simply no way anyone of sound mind and judgment would let him near anything even remotely important.

So Mr. Harper put him in charge of Arctic sovereignty.

No surprise, really. Mr. Harper used to say that Canada had to use its Arctic or lose it. With Mr. Fantino now on the job, it's clear that he's lost it.