Danita Catherine Burke

Leading by example: Canada and its Arctic stewardship role

The notion that Canada is the steward of the fragile Arctic environment is a part of the fabric of the Canadian narrative about the countrys relationship with the Arctic region. In light of political, legal and environmental changes impacting Arctic politics, this paper argues that it is important to examine the circumstances which led to the creation and success of Canadas stewardship role and its implications for Canadian and international shipping in the Arctic region before any changes are made to the governance of the region through unilateral legislation changes or new international agreements. This paper explores the origins of Canadas image as the steward of the Arctic environment which started with the 1970 Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act legislation and addresses the central research questions of how did Canadas role as the steward of the Arctic environment begin and evolve, and how important is the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act for international acceptance of Canadas stewardship role and maritime jurisdiction in the Arctic region?

Marlene Laruelle, Russia's Arctic Strategies and the Future of the Far North

strictly one that investigated Americans while abroad to determine if there were foreign links. Penetrating foreign intelligence agencies, he writes, was too difficult a task to obtain this information. CIA therefore recruited Americans, as a ‘logical step’, and placed them in the domestic student movement to ‘build up his bona fides’ and ‘legitimacy’ before being sent abroad. These recruits, he writes, inevitably ‘saw some things’ within the US, which the CIA then reported to the FBI. The CIA then opened files on these reported individuals, which the author dismisses as an insignificant number and then claims this activity was proper because counterintelligence cannot operate without extensive databases, and therefore it was not illegal. This is, in fact, the crux of critics’ arguments because US law forbids the CIA from engaging in domestic surveillance of Americans, which this clearly was (pp.55, 61). While the author’s argument about the propriety of MHCHAOS is wholly unconvincing, some details he offers about the programhint, significantly, at the CIA’s use of separate filing procedures. We know about J. Edgar Hoover’s extensive use of separate filing procedures to isolate and protect FBI files containing sensitive information or evidence of illegal activity, and scholars have discovered several examples of the CIA doing the same. The author reveals, interestingly enough, that MHCHAOSmade use of files thatwere notmade part of theCIA’s central filing system (which could allow CIA officials to claim, in a technically truthful way, that their central files contained no information on subject X if asked in a court-ordered discoverymotion).He states, quite clearly, thatMHCHAOS ‘did not send any of these documents to CIA’s record section for filing; all documents were filed by our own secretaries or by each officer in the unit’ (p.24). Further, the files and computer database of information was kept ‘in-house, rather than housing this information in the DDO [deputy director for operations] or the DCI [director of central intelligence]’ (p.55) and the files were kept in a basement vault with strict document controls (pp.58–59). Finally, the author writes that no one except MHCHAOS officers had access to these files, and the ‘files were sacred within the unit’ (p.202). In summary, apart than offering a few new details about Operation MHCHAOS, this book is otherwise a stridently partisan account and unconvincing defense of at best a highly controversial and, at worst, an illegal CIA program.

Bridging Troubled Waters: History as Political Opportunity Structure

Abstract This article seeks to provide insight into the formulation of non-governmental organization (NGO) and transnational advocacy network (TAN) campaign strategy. We argue that the history of previous campaigns comprises an important aspect of the political opportunity structure faced by NGOs and TANs. We also argue that when formulating campaign strategy, campaigners should not only consider the legacies of previous campaigns, but also how their current strategies could impact on political opportunity structure and thereby influence future campaigns. This article uses the case study of the movement against seal hunting in Atlantic and Northern Canada and considers the potential for collaboration between previous opponents on other environmental issues. We examine the history of the anti-sealing campaigns looking at the various actors involved, and the impact that these campaigns had on these actors and their current relations with one another. The case study demonstrates that the history of previous campaigns matters and that history is a vital component of political opportunity structure.

Chapter 4: Who Owns the Northwest Passage?

This chapter focuses on the territorial disputes over the Northwest Passage. The Northwest Passage is one of the most recognizable features of the Canadian Arctic, and the dispute over its legal status has been a reoccurring subject of political and popular debate within government and media discourse in Canada and abroad for almost 50 years. The Northwest Passage dispute best demonstrates the positive correlation between the influences of predominant ideas and the placement of a disputed subject or symbol within a group’s perception of its identity. This chapter suggests that the higher the profile of the dispute, the more intertwined within the cultural-political relationship between the nation-state and the subject, in this case Canada and the Arctic region.

Chapter 2: Riches in the Wilderness

This chapter delves into the economic frontier mentality that underpins the second predominant way in which Canadian society frames and projects views about the Arctic region. It investigates the history of resource development and extraction in the Canadian North and Arctic and the role this has played within the Canadian public’s imagination of the Arctic region as a frontier region with riches that can be obtained only by those who persevere. It argues that though these economic ideas have many similarities and overlapping historical moments with the romantic ideas, the focus on the Arctic as a frontier to be explored in the pursuit of riches is a key distinguishing factor between them.

Chapter 5: Get Off My Property! Approaching the Boundary Disputes in the Arctic Archipelago Region

This chapter covers two case studies—the Beaufort Sea boundary dispute and the Lincoln Sea boundary dispute—to round out the examination of the implications of the Canada-Arctic cultural-political relationship dynamics on dispute negotiations. This chapter argues that the Beaufort Sea’s placement within the collective imagination of the Canadian public decreases the Government of Canada’s options to resolve the dispute by lessening the number of acceptable outcomes to the dispute’s resolution. At the same time, the Lincoln Sea’s detachment from the Canadian narratives about the Arctic and the North, coupled with the small size of the disputed area and the extremely limited public awareness of the dispute, all help to make a resolution with Denmark possible by increasing the number of possible resolution outcomes.

Chapter 3: Protecting the Home Front

This chapter concludes the examination of the predominant ideas by looking into the security ideas about the Canadian Arctic. It argues that the predominant security ideas about the Canadian Arctic have developed into two main themes—traditional security ideas and stewardship security ideas. The traditional ideas are centred upon the military dimensions of security while the stewardship ideas focus on Canada’s self-appointed role as the guardian of the Arctic environment and mediator between the romantic ideas of the pristine Arctic environment and the economic ideas of the Arctic as a frontier for economic development. Both fall under the overarching umbrella of the predominant security ideas because the notion of protection of Canada’s northern-most frontier region is at the core of narratives for both the traditional and stewardship ideas.

Chapter 1: No Canada Without the Arctic

This chapter begins the three part exploration of the emergence and evolution of the predominant ideas about the Canadian Arctic within Canadian society by detailing the formation and evolution of the romantic ideas. Drawing upon over 150 years of British and Canadian history, this chapter explores the Canadian fascination with the idea of the Arctic and how this fascination has been constructed, promoted and maintained within Canada since its time as a British colony.

Singapore's use of Education as a Soft Power Tool in Arctic Cooperation

Singapore is expert at using education as a means of projecting soft power internationally. For years, it has offered free and subsidized education opportunities in Southeast Asia, and now, with its interests in the Arctic, it is offering education opportunities to indigenous peoples as a way to involve itself in regional governance.

Debating the Arctic during the Ukraine Crisis – Comparing Arctic State Identities and Media Discourses in Canada and Norway

Abstract Previous studies have argued that domestic factors, including each state’s Arctic state identities, may explain why some Western states (e.g. Canada) have been more critical of Russia in the Arctic than others (e.g. Norway). The present study analyses part of the link between Arctic state identities and foreign policy by showing that these identifications affected domestic media discourses about the Arctic in Canada and Norway during the first years (2014–2016) of the Crisis. Canada’s territorial identification made it difficult for the newly elected Trudeau government to push for a less assertive course vis-à-vis Russia. In Norway, the strong economic discourse coloured early debates about the crisis, but after the widening of economic sanctions against Russia in the summer of 2014, territorial discourses played a more important role. The article thus illustrates that Arctic state identities shape media debates, but that the identifications themselves can change. In general, the article advocates for a comparative approach towards the analysis of Arctic state identities.