Canadians Are Still Funny

A while back, I blogged about Canadian displeasure with American warships, including submarines, treating their self-proclaimed territorial waters as if they had to grant the same right of innocent passage as every other country on Earth is required to do. What makes it so funny is that Canada has no idea if American subs are passing through... unless we tell them.

Today, in the run-up to the Canadian election, it's becoming an issue again. Based on U.S. Navy press releases that USS Charlotte (SSN 766) passed through the Arctic, the Canadians are assuming that we passed through Canadian territorial waters, and the Prime Minister says he'll "take the necessary measures". (The article says he spoke more strongly in French than in English... that should tell you something.)

Of interest, they're not mentioning USS Salt Lake City's recent Arctic transit, probably because the Navy hasn't publicized it as much.

I might be back to make fun of our Canadian allies some more after dinner.

Update 2000 19 Dec: I thought about it, and decided that this is just standard election-season posturing, and no reason to make any further fun of our neighbors to the north. I did find another resource that talks about U.S. Freedom of Navigation (FON) exercises; no Canadian exercises are listed, but it's pretty much the same concept if we do go through the Northwest Passage. Pretty much all of the technical discussion I covered in the earlier post, and the rest of what I might add would probably just be variations on how Canadians say "aboot" and "eh" all the time.

Bell-ringer 0642 20 Dec: Inspired by Ninme's comment -- the Canadian Anti-U.S. Submarine Defence Force in action:

And on a more serious note, this article looks through the posturing to point out that, this late in the year, it's more likely that Charlotte would have exited the Arctic via the Greenland/Iceland gap (not claimed Canadian waters), vice the Greenland/Ellesmere Island channel.