Jessica Shadian is the president and CEO of Arctic360.
Canada – we need to talk about the other border. Situated between Alaska and Greenland is Canada’s vast Northern coastal real estate and the Northwest Passage (NWP). Despite Canada’s matter-of-fact conclusion that the NWP is within its internal waters, another story is often told among the international chattering classes. Take U.S. President Donald Trump, for instance, who understands geography by real estate and said he wants the U.S. to have lots of new icebreakers, “built at home.” Assuming those icebreakers are not for acquiring the Panama Canal and given that Russia has its own Arctic Sea Route, is it unreasonable to think that he may want one too?
Mr. Trump’s Arctic interests are longstanding. He first proposed buying Greenland from Denmark in 2019, not long after then-secretary of state Mike Pompeo declared the NWP an international waterway and Canada’s claim “illegitimate.” A year later, a presidential memo ordered a fleet of fully deployable polar icebreakers by 2029, in order to protect “national interests in the Arctic and Antarctic … and to retain a strong Arctic security presence.”
The second Trump administration is far more serious about the Arctic. The rules-based order, shattered by the President’s inauguration day speech, effectively rendered Canada’s co-developed Arctic Foreign Policy extinct. Our Canadian rangers in the North, Indigenous land-claim agreements and 2030 NATO spending targets will not be enough to protect our Arctic sovereignty. But a big idea and swift, strategic action might.
What if we built a North American Arctic Seaway? Assuming responsibilities over our sovereign territorial claims – extending eastward from the waters above Yukon (designating the disputed Beaufort Sea boundary a shared responsibility with the U.S.) to where Canada’s maritime boundaries meet Greenland’s – our mandate would be to build and own our portion of the seaway in a co-operation with the U.S. and Greenland (Denmark), much as we co-manage the St. Lawrence Seaway with the U.S. With a clear long-term vision, domestic maritime infrastructure strategy, roadmap and business plan, we would build our section’s infrastructure and pay for it. Russia completed feasibility and cost analyses prior to initiating its Northern Sea Route, and we can do the same. Our strategy must include mechanisms to attract private capital, enable innovation and Canadian IP, access Canadian expertise and industries and create jobs. Building our portion of an Arctic Seaway would contribute significantly to Canada’s ability to independently defend our Arctic sovereignty, initiate economic prosperity and create Indigenous equity partnerships.
Negotiated strategically, domestic investments would result in a strengthened NORAD and realize Canada’s 2-per-cent-of-GDP NATO defence-spending obligation. An Arctic Seaway could also utilize the new Icebreaker Collaboration Effort (ICE) Pact between Canada, the U.S. and Finland to hasten icebreaker construction. Rather than placing tariffs on Canadian goods, an Arctic Seaway would enable Mr. Trump to impose tariffs – in co-operation with Canada – on others seeking to use it.
We have precedent. The St. Lawrence Seaway is a U.S.-Canada joint operation that reaches back to an 1895 feasibility commission. The Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Deep Waterway Treaty was signed in 1932, and passage began in 1959. Today, the seaway generates US$50-billion in economic activity, employs 357,000 people, and ensures safety standards and environmental protections for the entire Great Lakes region. The U.S. and Canada each have corporations that manage their respective jurisdictions. The seaway has one inspection point on either side, despite several border crossings, and its tariffs generate revenue.
The St. Lawrence Seaway as inspiration for the North American Arctic began with a 2015 U.S. initiative on Arctic Shipping and Ports, which considered “measures for establishing a viable” Arctic seaway through a co-ordinated approach, to ensure the safety, security and reliability of Arctic shipping.
Canada, unfortunately, feigned disinterest in this initiative and instead focused on its Arctic Corridors Research Project, which did result in a treasure trove of knowledge, recommendations and an interactive database for Arctic shipping but no policy action. Today, doing nothing is not an option. A bold domestic strategy and immediate action are imperative; we need to revisit the U.S. seaway initiative and successfully navigate our Arctic geopolitical waters. Safeguarding Canada’s Arctic sovereignty may ironically come via making Mr. Trump’s tariff dreams come true – by building the biggest and most beautiful seaway in the world. He could claim the idea was his and that he forced Canada to co-operate and even pay for it.
Canada’s Arctic sovereignty is no longer guaranteed by international norms or Inuit historical title. The prospect that our Northern sovereignty may become lost at sea is very real, especially with Mr. Trump’s dreams of seaway grandeur and territorial expansion. American manifest destiny is back. Canada needs to be bold and act with purpose to determine its own future. Is there really any other option?