229
Arctic Yearbook 2013
Natural News, State Discourses & The Canadian Arctic
relationship between military and Arctic spaces. There was, however, considerable overlap in the
positioning of environment and economy – either as oppositional or mutually constituted issues. In
other words there was a political context to environmental policies which preconditions the
outcome of resource development initiatives in terms of regional economic effects.
In one way, therefore, the states‘ continued focus on this exclusive security motif is very ‗2010‘. It
has proven difficult to ‗deliver‘ and since then, increased militarization of the Arctic, promised
through new government spending on vessels, ports, airplanes and other infrastructure has not been
forthcoming despite its rhetorical importance. Instead other means of ‗militarization‘ have been
accentuated: the increased attention to Operation Nanook, Canada‘s northern defence exercise in
the Canadian Arctic, or the increased numbers of Arctic Rangers, a more home grown, ‗low tech‘
and arguably less expensive means of providing surveillance and protection in the North. Moreover,
although increased transits raise potential for increased human tragedies and environmental
destruction, the ‗sovereignty threat‘ imposed by such transits has yet to materialize, just like the
promised ships, planes and ports. China has been accepted as an observer state in the Arctic
Council, suggesting that tales of ‗conflicted‘ Asian challenge are overblown. Instead, the Canadian
government has reopened the region for resource development – specifically, but not exclusively,
for oil extraction. This involved reframing geopolitically ‗strategic‘ issues as geo-economic ones. In
2008, for example, the Canadian government‘s ‗McCrank Report‘ (2008) recommended significant
changes to co-management processes in the Mackenzie Valley area, to streamline environmental
assessment. It promoted development strategies in tandem with the Canadian Northern Economic
Development Agency‘s renewed focus on promoting business and development opportunities in the
North.
All this suggests that resource development is, rather than a secondary prong on the agenda of
Arctic security, a companion to the climate change discourse, which, until now, had focused steadily
upon the opening of transportation routes and challenges to Canada‘s singular control over the
Northwest Passage or its potential icy treasure trove. Still, as the
Hill Times
reported as early as 2006,
the connection between Arctic boundary-making and resource extraction was probably more cogent
than any appeal to nationalist sentiments, and it was embedded within the sovereignty discourses
which subsequently emerged. Defence Minister Gordon O‘Connor stated, in 2006, for example, that
―the basic problem in these disputes is a matter of resources – who owns which resources. For
instance, let‘s take the Beaufort Sea. We may declare that a boundary goes to the Beaufort Sea in one
position and the Americans in another. If a country wanted to drill for oil in the Beaufort Sea, and
there‘s a lot of oil and gas there, they, at the moment, if they‘re in this disputed area, wouldn‘t know
who to approach, whether it‘s the United States in Canada to get drilling rights. So these sorts of
things have to get resolved‖ (Vongdouangchanh, 2006). In this sense, economic development was
an important part of the rationale for strategic defence and it was captured in a narrative that
conflated climate, resources, borders and power.
While speaking to a securitization agenda more publically, the Canadian government has also created
structural capacity for northern development initiatives, and most recently, the press has reported
that oil exploration and extraction are looming on the horizon, encouraged by Ottawa and its