Canada’s Arctic sovereignty claims ring hollow

Canada has the law on its side, but lacks the ships, ports and infrastructure needed to exercise real authority in the North

Churchill sits just under 59 degrees north, below the Arctic Circle and south of Yellowknife. But under federal vessel traffic regulations that took effect on March 31, any ship of 300 gross tonnes or more entering Hudson Bay, James Bay or Ungava Bay is subject to Canada’s northern vessel traffic rules. It must file a sailing plan with the Coast Guard and report its position.

But while Canada has the law, it lacks the infrastructure to make its authority meaningful.

The container ship Dubai Tower was to leave Ningbo, China, for England over the top of Russia on Aug. 15 until its operator moved the date because of weather. What matters is not the ship. It is the paperwork.

Ships using Russia’s Northern Sea Route operate under a detailed system of state control. The captain applies to Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear corporation and the designated infrastructure operator of the route, up to 120 days in advance, meeting criteria based on ice class, season and 28 numbered zones. Every day he is up there, he reports position, fuel and ice at noon, Moscow time. Moscow can cancel its permission outright.

Russia does not merely claim authority over its Arctic route. It exercises it under Article 234 of the Law of the Sea Convention, a provision Canada helped create. After the American tanker Manhattan crossed the Northwest Passage in 1969 without Canada’s permission, Parliament passed the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act, and Canadian negotiators helped secure the treaty provision. That provision governs shipping rules, not ownership. Canada’s claim that the Passage is internal waters rests separately on historic title and straight baselines.

Beijing’s own Arctic navigation guide tells Chinese operators that Canada treats the Northwest Passage as internal waters and directs them to the Canada Shipping Act and Canada’s reporting rules. Canadian Arctic sovereignty scholar Adam Lajeunesse highlighted those instructions when he examined the guide in 2016.

But while China tells its ships to follow Canadian rules, Canada still lacks the infrastructure to exercise real authority in the Arctic.

At Churchill, the Coast Guard facility is little more than an unstaffed equipment depot. Vessel traffic is monitored from Iqaluit until mid-December, when that work moves 2,500 km south to Les Escoumins, Que. Even the waters themselves remain poorly mapped. Hydrographers rated just 15.8 per cent of Canadian Arctic waters adequately surveyed in 2023, and that measurement stops at the 60th parallel, leaving Churchill out of the count.

In May, Ottawa announced an $816-million maritime security package spread over seven years. It includes a year-round intelligence hub in Iqaluit, four new Arctic long-range marine radar sites and drones. Those are the means to watch a ship go aground, not to chart the shoal or pull her off.

Sovereignty in this country’s North is not a legal opinion. It is steel: survey ships, icebreakers, a deepened harbour, reliable rail, power and communications infrastructure.

Churchill is already moving zinc from mining company Hudbay’s operations at Snow Lake, and on July 17 prairie grain was to roll north over the Hudson Bay Railway for the first time since 2020. Yet Ottawa referred Churchill to its Major Projects Office in September 2025 and aimed to publish a strategy in the spring. What appeared was a $248,600 market-sounding study.

The Kivalliq Hydro-Fibre Link would bring hydroelectric power and fibre-optic internet from Manitoba into Nunavut. Yet the project was never referred to the Major Projects Office.

Ottawa could publish its Churchill strategy and refer the Kivalliq link this month, at almost no cost.

Canada has spent decades establishing its legal authority in the Arctic. Other countries increasingly recognize it. Now Canada needs to build the infrastructure that makes that authority real.

Dr. Marco Navarro-Génie is vice-president of research and policy at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, which will host Reclaiming the North in Winnipeg on Sept. 14 and 15, featuring retired lieutenant-general Michel Maisonneuve, former Norway House Cree Nation chief Ron Evans and Frontier president David Leis. Marco is the author of three books, including the 2023 release Canada’s COVID: The Story of a Pandemic Moral Panic, co-authored with Barry Cooper.