Offshore Diplomacy in the Canadian Arctic: The Beaufort Sea and Lancaster Sound

Of /shore Diplomacy in the Canadian Arctic: The Beau/ort Sea and Lancaster Sound E.J. DOSMAN and FRANCES ABELE Introduction Although resource issues have dominated the debate over northern development during the last decade, the 1970s also brought the "Arctic question" onto the permanent agenda of Canadian foreign policy. It is ' not as yet high on that agenda, but it is at least recognized as part of the landscape. The factors responsible for this transformation are more likely to be reinforced · than diminished. An embryonic international sub-system is in the process of formation in the circumpolar north which requires continuous, rather than sporadic, monitoring. In other words, Canada requires a northern foreign policy and a coherent set of policy instruments for its effective implementation. The subject requires research. Among the many areas of possible investigation in this field, the present paper focusses on Canadian relations with the United States and Denmark accompanying offshore resource exploration in the western and eastern Arctic respectively. Compared with such subjects as arms control in the Arctic or northern sovereignty, the literature on this issue is disappointingly slight.I In this paper, preliminary reflections are offered in answer to important questions about the substance and process of Canadian foreign policy in the North: what specific issues have crystallized diplomatic relations with Canada's nearest circumpolar neighbours? Can a pattern of relations be discerned in each case and if so, what differences, if any, can be detected? To what degree has the Department of External Affairs (DEA) exercised a leadership role given the multitude of federal agencies involved in offshore development? Will offshore diplomacy act as a major catalyst in the development of a northern foreign policy? While Journal ofCanadian Studies Vol. 16, No. 2 (Ete 1981 Summer) the scope of this paper is limited, it hopes to provide the initial step in the more ambitious task of developing the conceptual apparatus appropriate for the detailed analysis of the new circumpolar sub-system. The Beaufort Sea The Beaufort Sea and Lancaster Sound share important physical characteristics which are fundamental to their emergence as contentious areas of offshore diplomacy. Both are in the geologically ''most promising'' category for potential petroleum discoveries. Both, as well, are exceptionally important biologically, producing birds and marine and land animals used by native hunters living in and well beyond the regions themselves. This coincidence of important renewable with important non-renewable resources means that the consequences of developmentrelated pollution would be severe locally and also for the extensive areas connected to them by sea currents and wildlife migrations. Compounding the political difficulties raised by this sensitivity is the international dimension: each region is so situated that any medium or major pollution disaster would become an international as well as a Canadian problem. Thus, similar bilateral issues are raised for each region - with Denmark in the east, and with the United States .in the west. These include questions of boundary delineation, the co-ordinated regulation of petroleum exploration and development, transnational pollution liability and compensation arrangements, and the complex interplay of native, regional and international political development. Despite these similarities, ·the two regions have known quite different bilateral relations histories, with different consequences for offshore diplomacy. 1. U.S. Reaction and Canadian Response The ecology of the Beaufort Sea has little respect for the division of the offshore into two national jurisdictions. For sea mammals and birds, as well as in weather conditions, the area has an essential unity. Bilateral relations are therefore bound to be affected by offshore development. 3 The need for systematic attention to CanadianAmerican relations in the Beaufort Sea has long been appreciated, and the initiation of continental shelf offshore drilling by Canada has merely provided additional urgency to this task. According to Gordon Rogers, writing in 1968: The boundaries of the State of Alaska · and the Canadian territories arbitrarily divide the Arctic slope, its resources and its development prospects and problems into political units which require working out of international arrangements for continental shelf development, management of wildlife ranging over areas divided politically (i.e. caribou, polar bear, migratory water fowl, etc.) and convenient access and logistical support of northern defence and development activities. The problems...