So Stephen Harper has taken up pole dancing. The word is that the prime minister has told his minions to redraft Canada鈥檚 Arctic offshore claim at the UN to include the North Pole.
Big deal. 91原创 postal authorities assigned Santa Claus鈥檚 residence the postal code H0H 0H0 long ago. The wonder is that Canada hasn鈥檛 bared its Claus before now.
It became an issue last week because Friday, Dec. 6, was supposed to be this country鈥檚 deadline to stake its Arctic offshore claim before the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.
Well, 91原创s don鈥檛 pay much attention to what happens north of 60. It doesn鈥檛 seem that our geologists and seismologists have been working very hard to meet that deadline. They came up with proposals that might have reflected 91原创s鈥� typical modesty but not the ambitions of our fiercely patriotic PM, who obviously has been practising pole-dancing moves like the Back Hook Spin and the Bum Up.
When the Law of the Sea was drawn up in 1982, it entitled coastal states to make claims up to 350 nautical miles beyond their 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zones based on the ridiculous assumption that rocky bits on this joined-up planet can be called extensions of their continental shelves.
This makes about as much sense to me as basing offshore claims on magma or mushroom spores lying beneath. And if Canada鈥檚 coastal shelf is connected with the Siberian shelf, what鈥檚 to stop us from laying claim to all of Russia and Eurasia, as an official of the Geological Society in London once asked?
Or vice versa, for the Russian bear hasn鈥檛 been hibernating. The underwater rocky bit that has provoked conflicting and overlapping claims is called the Lomonosov Ridge. It was discovered by the Soviet Union in 1948 and is named after an 18th-century Russian scientist.
Russia, though its claim deadline was not until 2009, made a formal claim in 2001, though the UN commission told it to go back and do more homework. Undaunted, a Russian planted a titanium national flag on the seabed near the North Pole in 2007.
Instead of sending a fellow with similar cheek 鈥� Rick Mercer, for instance 鈥� to plant a Maple Leaf flag there, Canada tut-tutted: Peter MacKay as foreign minister called it an attempted 鈥渓and grab鈥� reminiscent of the 15th century.
91原创 scientists have been taking soundings along the ridge, usually jointly with other nations with better equipment, but don鈥檛 seem to have concluded whether there鈥檚 a break in it that fractures a prospective 91原创 claim.
That didn鈥檛 stop Gary Lunn as natural resources minister declaring in 2008 that 91原创 and Danish research showed the Lomonosov Ridge is connected to both the North American and Greenland plates. It didn鈥檛 stop Lawrence Cannon, visiting Moscow as foreign affairs minister in 2010, stating flatly that the ridge 鈥渋s an extension of our territory.鈥�
And it doesn鈥檛 stop Harper, in Aerial Invert on his pole today, from ordering 91原创 officials to assert a national entitlement to that other pole and demand more time to prove it.
The pole itself, though, isn鈥檛 much of a prize. The North Magnetic Pole has more global influence, but it鈥檚 drifting farther from Canada and closer to Russia, too.
What Canada, Russia and Denmark, which is scheduled to stake its claim next year, want are the resources along the Lomonosov Ridge 鈥� gold, diamonds, manganese, tin and other minerals, but especially oil and gas.
Self-declared experts in geopolitics say all this will be settled peacefully, and Russian President Vladimir Putin has said co-operation and collaboration among Arctic nations is essential.
Yet he spoils things occasionally by saying the region is important for 鈥渄efence capabilities鈥� and that American rockets from the Barents Sea can reach Moscow in 15 or 16 minutes.
And on the other side of that chilly pond, agitators are warning of becoming 鈥渄angerously dependent鈥� on Russian energy if its Arctic claims aren鈥檛 challenged.
That鈥檚 why Harper鈥檚 performing Wiggle Hips on his pole.
