Can Canada keep up with a global icebreaker boom?
Russia, China and the United States are racing to build big ships meant to slice through ice in an Arctic region rich in natural resources and new shipping lanes. Canada s backyard is at stake.
December 17, 2020 CCGS Louis S. St-Laurent in seen in the Gulf of the St. Lawrence escorting a cargo ship through a path of ice in February 2020 (Courtesy of Canadian
Coast Guard)
Joe Clark wasn’t the first Canadian politician to promise the world’s most powerful icebreaker, and he won’t be the last. Clark, as foreign minister in 1985, staked his expensive pledge to build a ship that could slice through ice as thick as 2.5 m on the premise that the federal government was “not about to conclude that Canada cannot afford the Arctic.” That ship never got built. Today, as the climate warms, foreign icebreakers are exploring the Arctic for natural resources and asserting themselves in a region Canadians have long claimed is Canada.