According to documents obtained under access to information legislation, the former chief of the defence staff, Gen. Walter Natynczyk, issued a directive in September 2012 that ordered Canadian Forces’ “operations in the vicinity of Hans Island be minimized with the exception of search and rescue (SAR) or emergency operations.”
Hans Island, which is only 1.3 square kilometres, sits between Canada’s Ellesmere Island and Greenland. While a maritime border has been agreed upon since 1973, the land border has caused diplomatic tension over the years.
Starting in the 1980s, Danes and Canadians waged a passive-aggressive “battle of the bottles,” over the island, where territory was marked by bottles of Canadian Club whisky and Akvavit, a Scandinavian liquor. However, this tension escalated when Danish navy vessels began landing on the island to place Danish flags in the early 2000s.
In July 2005, a contingent of Canadian soldiers descended on Hans Island in an operation code-named Exercise Frozen Beaver, and erected a 12-foot flagpole and an Inukshuk. Tensions settled shortly thereafter when a statement was issued jointly by the Danish and Canadian governments stating that “all contact by either side with Hans Island will be carried out in a low key and restrained manner.”
As the federal government has always taken a firm stance on Canada’s sovereign presence in the region, experts are divided on what the recent moratorium on military operations near the island means for Canada’s Arctic.
“We enjoy friendly relations with the Danes … this is very much a continuation of that spirit of co-operation, and Canada’s way of ensuring that we don’t create friction in an otherwise friendly relationship,” said Whitney Lackenbauer, an Arctic sovereignty expert at the University of Waterloo.
“There is no way that we are going to create some sort of international incident, or create political turmoil, over Hans Island by going and undertaking exercises there,” he said, adding that the message this sends is that the dispute over Hans Island will be dealt with diplomatically.
However, Rob Huebert at the University of Calgary, said the suspension of operations shows a lack of seriousness about sovereignty on the part of the government, despite the fact that this is a small issue in the overall context of Arctic issues.
“The best way to (defend sovereignty) is with military representation, to be blunt, with military force,” he said. “By Canada backing off, do we send a message that when push comes to shove we’re relatively soft on enforcing our sovereign claims?”
Huebert said this stance could set a precedent for how other nations approach Canada when it comes to further sovereignty disputes and political issues.
It appeared a resolution of the sovereignty claim was close at hand last year, when the solution appeared to simply be to divide the island in half. However, Lackenbauer said that to his knowledge, this deal never actually came to fruition.
While the dispute has always had the potential to become politically charged, Lackenbauer said, “there is no looming doom and gloom over this at all.”
Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: Tyler Dawson
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