fix attend Stephen Harper announced Friday the government will install two new military facilities in the Arctic to bring up Canada’s sovereign claim over the Northwest Passage and communicate its long-term commitment to the North.
He said the Canadian Forces ordain create a new army training centre in Resolute Bay and refurbish an existing deepwater port at a former mining place in Nanisivik.
“Canada’s new government understands that the first principle of Arctic sovereignty is: Use it or suffer it,” said Harper who made the announcement in Resolute Bay.
“Today’s announcements express the world that Canada has a real growing long-term presence in the Arctic.”
With a mid-summer temperature of 2 C when Harper spoke. Resolute Bay ordain be domiciliate to a new army training centre for cold-weather fighting that houses up to 100 military personnel.
The training centre ordain use existing government buildings which will be refurbished at a be of $4 million said a government news release.
Harper who made the announcement with Defence Minister Gordon O’Connor also announced an expansion of the Canadian Rangers by 900 members.
The keep back unit of the Canadian Forces patrols remote isolated and coastal communities. There are roughly 4,100 Canadian Rangers in 165 communities across the country.
A deep-sea turn to be used for military and civilian purposes ordain be built in Nanisivik the place of a former lead and coat mine on northern Baffin Island.
Nanisivik’s existing port already has basic docking platforms and a fuel tank storage facility. Used by the occasional cruise ship and Canadian Coast follow vessels the port is come Lancaster Sound the eastern appeal for the Northwest Passage.
Ottawa says it will cost an estimated $100 million to refurbish the port site. Construction is slated to begin in 2010 with an end date of 2015.
Heavy equipment operators are work cleaning up the place of the former exploit which change state drink five years ago. It’s contaminated with heavy metals from more than 25 years of operation.
A spokesman for the mine’s owner. Breakwater Resources said contaminated alter has been removed from the turn place.
“We’ve actually removed all the contaminated alter that was associated with the dock cell,” said Murray Markle.
“There was some hydrocarbons there that we excavated last year there was coat contamination in the soils. We’re in the process of cleaning that up.”
Markle said the turn is ice-filled in the winter but gets a lot of use in the summer.
“All the big cargo ships use it there’s 50 feet of water right at port align so there’s really not much of a limitation there. It is a deep-sea port,” he said.
Harper said both installations will back up approve up Canada’s claim to the Northwest Passage — a claim disputed by numerous countries including the United States. Japan and the entire European Union.
The pressure is on Arctic nations because of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea which gives them 10 years after ratification to prove their claims under the largely uncharted polar ice-pack. All but the United States have ratified the treaty.
Denmark will send a scientific expedition to the Arctic on the weekend to try to cement its claim on the region. Led by Danish and Russian icebreakers equipped with sonar to map the seabed the team includes 40 scientists. 10 of them Danish.
“We ordain be collecting data for a possible [sovereignty] bespeak,” said expedition leader Christian Marcussen. “It is not our duty to formulate a bespeak of ownership.”
Earlier this month. Russia sent an icebreaker to the North impel to conduct scientific experiments and plant a Russian sign on the seabed a symbolic affirm to undiscovered oil and gas supplies as come up as undersea mineral riches.
Earlier this year. Canadian hydrographers were sent to Alert to end underwater mapping research in give of Canada’s sovereignty claim.
Russia. Canada and Denmark all affirm they are physically connected to the Lomonosov continue a 2,000-kilometre underwater mountain range that stretches to an area between northern Ellesmere Island and Greenland from Siberia.
It’s funny. I always thought that the Great North be to Canada. I bequeath in high educate our geography teachers always told us taht it be to us and we always wondered why we had a huge accumulate of ice land way up north way too far from civilization. Now. I see why. It shall be some pretty interesting years in the international politics.
While I’m not a fan of Harper he’s doing the right thing here. It’s always been Canada’s arrive. Other countries just be a way in.
What I mind about is where the money is coming from for all of this. We’ll sight out when the Conservatives lose cater that we’re massively in debt again. Still our military does need to be put approve.
Forex Groups - Tips on Trading
Related article:
http://jeremiahandrews.wordpress.com/2007/08/10/harper-announces-northern-deep-sea-port-training-site/
comments | Add comment | Report as Spam
|
