Northwest Passage

Harley514

New member

Interesting video, thoughts on this?
This guy is great btw would strongly suggest subbing to him.

I personally think Canada doesn't have the economic "balls" to make this a money machine, and would probably play nice with everybody instead of charging for the rite of passage like the Panama Canal.
 
What do you think all this international good will we're buying right now is for? Raising the country's profile, trying to do more on the international stage. Establishing stronger ties with the prominent countries of tomorrow (India and China).

We need other countries to recognise that the waters are ours and not international, the more countries we can get on our side the less the holdouts will put up a fight.
 
Ocean shipping market is pretty shitty now and will be for the foreseeable future. Shit ton of capacity floating around, now you need multiple port of calls to collect cargo. Everyone built giant ships, scrapped smaller vessels that were pretty low risk to operate. Now lines are scrambling to buy smaller vessels again
 
What do you think all this international good will we're buying right now is for?

Oh, so that's why we sent $800 millions to Syria. So that other world leaders suddenly forget their self-interest and choose not to dispute Canada's claims to the artic. Because: " I read on Reddit that Canada is so much better than the U.S" has to be a great foreign policy strategy.

Cunning plan, really. And here I was thinking upgrading Canada's coast guard operational capabilities would send a stronger message
 
Oh, so that's why we sent $800 millions to Syria. So that other world leaders suddenly forget their self-interest and choose not to dispute Canada's claims to the artic. Because: " I read on Reddit that Canada is so much better than the U.S" has to be a great foreign policy strategy.

Cunning plan, really. And here I was thinking upgrading Canada's coast guard operational capabilities would send a stronger message

Canada is sending medical and developmental aid worth $800 million to Syria over several years and it's coming out of predetermined foreign aid budget. Don't try to characterize it as if we sent Assad a cheque. I won't get into the semantics of worth vs cost. You don't think we're cutting deals in exchange for support on this? I'm almost certain we'll get fucked in some way on the chinese trade deal for some kind of recognition on this issue.

You can keep hoping for coast guard upgrades, procurement is such a shambles it'll be an other decade before they get any of those new boats. Even then we'll only have one icebreaker that's rated to operate up their.

Chicken and egg problem. Spend all the money to build up capability hoping it cements our claim, but if it's recognized as international waters we're still stuck with providing SAR and servicing it so why the fuck front the money?
 
Cunning plan, really. And here I was thinking upgrading Canada's coast guard operational capabilities would send a stronger message

The Canadian Coast Guard has no weight in this issue as it's a civilian organization. They have no weapons or arrest power. They have to carry RCMP officers onboard if they want to "enforce" anything.

The Royal Canadian Navy has Arctic Operation ships coming up in 2018 to patrol during the area summer months. There's also a refuelling station being built on Baffin's Island for the AOPS and MCDV (the coastal vessels).

The shipping benefits Canada as well in a way. Stable, safe shipping is good for everyone. Many countries think that it's a transit passage and Canada's stance has been that's internal waters (we can control who comes and goes).
 
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I don't think this government is very likely to invest heavily in the navy. " Armed forces are bad, their purpose is to kill people or some shit" Civilian search and rescue organisation? Warm and fuzzy feelings all around!

Just make it a Coast Guard/RCMP vessel. After all, the first ship to circumnavigate the North American continent and second to complete a voyage across the north west passage was an RCMP Ship, the St. Roch.

I'm just saying it would look bad if whenever there was an emergency on a commercial ship traveling through the northwest passage, the nearest ship that can offer assistance happens to be a foreign warship...
 
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