Canada makes territorial claim for North Pole

Canada signalled intentions to claim the North Pole and surrounding Arctic waters while announcing the filing of a UN application seeking to vastly expand its Atlantic sea boundary.

After a decade of surveying the country’s eastern and far north seabeds and gathering supporting evidence, a claim was submitted to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.

Foreign affairs minister John Baird said the filing mainly concerns the outer limits of Canada’s continental shelf in the Atlantic Ocean. But it also includes “preliminary information concerning the outer limits of (Canada’s) continental shelf in the Arctic Ocean,” he said.

Asserting sovereignty over an expansive Arctic archipelago and surrounding waters has been a key plank of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Tories in the past three elections since 2006.

But Russia and Denmark are expected to file overlapping claims, which could lead to confrontation between the Arctic neighbours.

Interest in the polar region has flared up as rising temperatures open up shipping routes and make hitherto inaccessible mineral resources easier to exploit.