As I understand it, the island ownership doesn't necessarily solve this; there would still be a dispute over what happens if a passage wider than 24 nautical miles opens up. Canada isn't an archipelagic state, so would not be able to make an argument for the same sort of broad internal waters that, say, the Philippines have, so any such passage would be outside of Canada's territorial waters.
There would still be exclusive rights to economically exploit, of course, but Canada would not be able to forbid international shipping through such a passage.
24 miles? in 1995 the Canadian Navy opened fire and took a Spanish fishing boat that was farther away than the 200 nautical miles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbot_War
If the Mississippi river suddenly grew up to 25 miles wide, you can bet no foreign boats will be allowed to navigate on it as "international waters". Basically the limits are imposed by the respective naval forces.
Inland lakes and rivers are internal waters; the state they're within has absolute control over them.
Territorial waters end 12 nautical miles from the coast.
The exclusive economic zone ends 200 nautical miles from the coast.
The firing upon and seizure of a Spanish boat in international waters would, if they chose that course, have been legal justification for Spain to declare war.
I know very well the distinctions thanks, I just put forward an extreme example but the main point remains; if someone anchored a boat 201 miles off the coast of California and set up some casino or whatever activity is illegal in the US, the Navy would assault it. See also the incident with Israel attacking civilian/activist boat and killing people, including American.
Some people (like here the other day regarding the post about the guys who bought an island) think international waters are kind of sacred, the truth is that it depends on what the powerful nations want to do. Boats are routinely boarded and inspected in international waters.
So in the case of Canada actions would depend on the nationality of the ship; if it's not a nuclear power and Canada has the logistics you can bet it will be engaged regardless of 12 or 200 miles.
Saying that Canada is not an archipelago because there is a huge landmass in the southern part of the country does not change the fact that the northern part does in fact consist of an archipelago by definition:
I didn't pick up on this subtlety. Really good point. Can I ask about the significance of 24 nautical miles? Assuming that's an international boundary condition between Canadian territorial waters vs. international waters?
Territorial waters extend 12nm from the coast. So if there's a path through that's more than 24nm wide, some part of it must lie outside of Canadian territorial waters, regardless of the status of the islands.
Yes, which was why my original comment distinguished between the right to bar shipping and the right to economically exploit.
Even if Canada prevails on ownership of every single Arctic island, a passage more than 24nm wide would mean supertankers could come through, and Canada would not be able to forbid it.
That's a claim which, from looking at a map, is unlikely to hold up; internal waters are lakes, rivers, and inlets which come further in than the baseline established by the coast.
The only exception I can find is for nations which are made up of an archipelago of islands, and Canada is not one. So again, so long as there's a wide enough route through the islands, it doesn't matter what country owns the islands -- the sea passage between them would be open to international shipping.
Just looking on google maps now, there is a chokepoint across the passage that has several islands - this makes a contiguous territorial water zone (as each island is within 20 google-map-miles), if Canada's claim to ownership of the islands is respected. I assume this is why the argument is on ownership of the islands rather than route of the path.
There would still be exclusive rights to economically exploit, of course, but Canada would not be able to forbid international shipping through such a passage.