{"id":27817,"date":"2014-09-14T11:26:32","date_gmt":"2014-09-14T15:26:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=27817"},"modified":"2015-02-14T11:41:45","modified_gmt":"2015-02-14T16:41:45","slug":"the-franklin-expedition-discovery-as-a-tool-in-canadian-claims-to-the-arctic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2014\/09\/14\/the-franklin-expedition-discovery-as-a-tool-in-canadian-claims-to-the-arctic\/","title":{"rendered":"The Franklin Expedition discovery as a tool in Canadian claims to the Arctic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canada has long claimed sovereignty over the Arctic islands and the waterways around them. The United States disputes that claim, saying that the Northwest Passage is an international waterway. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been using the search for the Franklin Expedition to bolster Canadian claims, and the Guardian<\/em>‘s Nicky Woolf<\/a> reports disdainfully:<\/p>\n

Apart from these findings, the fate of the expedition remained a mystery for almost 170 years \u2013 until this week, when the wreckage of one of the ships was found by a Canadian scientific team. Ryan Harris, one of the lead archaeologists on the expedition, said that finding the ship was \u201clike winning the Stanley Cup\u201d.<\/p>\n

The official announcement of the find was made by Stephen Harper, the prime minister of Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is truly a historic moment for Canada,\u201d he said, in a bombastic statement to the press. \u201cFranklin\u2019s ships are an important part of Canadian history given that his expeditions, which took place nearly 200 years ago, laid the foundations of Canada\u2019s Arctic sovereignty.\u201d<\/p>\n

The certainty of the statement was perplexing to Suzanne Lalonde, a professor of international law at the University of Montreal. \u201cI\u2019ve been struggling with it \u2013 the way Prime Minister Harper announced the find as if there was a monumental confirmation of Canadian sovereignty,\u201d she told the Guardian.<\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s position is that the North-West Passage is already Canadian. In an official statement to the Guardian, Christine Constantin, a spokeswoman for the Canadian embassy in Washington, said: \u201cAll waters of the Canadian Arctic archipelago, including the various waterways known as the \u2018North-West Passage\u2019, are internal waters of Canada \u2026 Canada\u2019s sovereignty over its waters in the Arctic is longstanding and well established.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one disputes that the various waterways known as the \u2018North-West Passage\u2019 are Canadian waters.\u201d<\/p>\n

The routes usually taken to constitute the North-West Passage pass between Canada\u2019s mainland territory and its Arctic islands.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n