Closing Canadian Airspace to China

[schnitzel2k3]

https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/canada- ... -down/amp/

'Canada is being bullied by China. Here’s how it can shut it down.
Amir Attaran: There is one legal move that would prompt immediate action—shutting down Canadian airspace to Chinese cargo services.'

I wonder what ramifications would be felt by us, not just from China, but the U.S as well.

[fish4life]

You would have to be willing to enforce it as well...

[altiplano]

You would have to be willing to enforce it as well...

Against civilian airliners? That's pretty easy. Really it should be led by the US though and backed by our Western Allies.

I think the Chinese situation is ridiculous. We should have been shutting down a lot of things already, but airspace isn't one of them... yet.

[photofly]

You would have to be willing to enforce it as well...

Don’t be silly. Reputable civilian operators don’t fly through closed airspace.

[Eric Janson]

I don't believe you can just selectively close Canadian Airspace.

There are ICAO agreements covering this kind of thing.

Probably why Emirates wasn't banned after the UAE threw out the Canadian Military.

[photofly]

I don’t know it’s that hard. The US unilaterally refuses overflight (not just landing rights) permission to any aircraft carrying people on its no-fly list. Much of the Middle East refuses overflight permission to Israeli registered or manufactured aircraft. Countries made individual decisions about the 737 max being permitted to enter their airspace. And Pakistan and India routinely do tit-for-tat airspace closures to each other, I belive.

[altiplano]

Of course you can selectively close your airspace.

Look at Qatar and the Saudis.

ICAO agreements are just a wish list... if there even are any.

[Cessna 180]

I don't believe you can just selectively close Canadian Airspace.

There are ICAO agreements covering this kind of thing.

Probably why Emirates wasn't banned after the UAE threw out the Canadian Military.

You sure can. Canada isn't a member of the International Air Services Transit Agreement which grants overflight rights to other member countries (and consequently, neither is China). Canada left the agreement in 1988, mainly so they can charge whatever they like for overflights, since Canada is strategically placed overhead flights from Europe and Asia to the USA.

[oldncold]

Omg, how naive , this will be a good rant against the socialist philosophies of talk big but spend zip on the defence of our country ,to back up the professors ideas .

Canada is #2 in land mass and #147 in ability to defend said land mass .

A proud Canadian I’m appalled at / and my gramps likely turning summersaults in his grave (ww1 vet gassed in 2nd battle of Ypres ) at the lack of understanding of geo politics .

I wrote Military studies that have shown that 100 5 gen fighter jets 2airborne divisions and 75 pieces of heavy armour strategically positioned to block off the pettawawa and the highways to Ottawa
Our society of free bees-and hand outs comes to a screeching end in less than 24 hours by the time we mobilized it is all over.

The pockets of resistance will be a gorilla warfare in Alberta over oil , because Alberta has the most significant private held small arms in the population . Quebec will quickly utilize the situation to finally become a new state but will fail due to the necessity of the capture of the st laurance seaway and Vancouver will be come the Hong Kong of the 21 century as under the Japanese rule of 1941-1945.

We currently have only 50 operational 40 year old gen 3 fighter jets 12 frigates no nuclear sub capacity and can barely field a brigade and it is not the fault of the men n women who serve it is us and the politicians we elect we naively live in this bubble that nobody will harm kind non threatening Canada. Wake the f u p when you live in 2 largest landmass with the biggest pile of natural resource wealth ,some country will take it by force, if you do not want to commit the financial resources to acquire the hardware to defend it . To believe otherwise is foolhardy


never fool yourself into believing that the price that our so called allies will demand to extricate us from such a pickle will be cheap . It will. leave Canada unrecognizable..

The prof ideas are valid but our national will to implement and back up our hollow words with military hardware are a joke often mocked by comedians on the club circuit.

[SAR_YQQ]

... often mocked by comedians on the club circuit.

Much like this Military “study” that you wrote.

[oldncold]

Sar yqq obviously must have been under the weather or barstool at pmqs to post such a ridiculous response to such a serious subject matter . I wonder if it were his family stuck in a Chinese prison would he be so callous.

[AirFrame]

The only country likely to take over Canada shares a largely undefended border with us. Any other power trying to move in, that followed with Canada declaring an inability to defend itself, would almost immediately trigger a response from the US. Whether that resulted in defense and then withdrawl back to the US, or defense followed by annexation, isn't necessarily clear.

[SAR_YQQ]

The Pacific Ocean is a nice buffer to keep invading forces at bay. I’m super interested to learn how an invading force get 70+ MBTs to The Ottawa River valley while also supposedly invading mainland BC and turning it into another Hong Kong? Airplanes are impractical as they are extremely fragile, ships are slow and predictable, no roads across those oceans. We’ve got this whole Defense of Canada thing in hand, back to enjoying Timmies and watching our kids play hockey.

[Squaretail]

The pockets of resistance will be a gorilla warfare in Alberta over oil , because Alberta has the most significant private held small arms in the population . Quebec will quickly utilize the situation to finally become a new state but will fail due to the necessity of the capture of the st laurance seaway and Vancouver will be come the Hong Kong of the 21 century as under the Japanese rule of 1941-1945.

The fact that you call it "gorilla warfare" doesn't lend credibility to your studies. Additionally your Red Dawn fantasy of where the most gun owners are sparking some home grown resistance is also laughable.

Canada's best defense is the fact that its a big space, and its winter here half the year. Even a small scale operation on Canadian territory from any power that wishes to challenge our sovereignty claims is going to be costly and difficult, and to what end? Realistically if you want to invade Canada to any meaningful effect you have to do it from the south, and even that's going to be costly for them, and to what end? The Americans already benefit from Canada as it is, in spite of any ramblings of whomever is in the White House. Its a big space managed expensively by the people who already live there that they can shoot down aircraft over. Why would they want to manage the place? I mean apparently we're "snow Mexicans" now. Americans can't even be bothered to manage Peurto Rico, to which if they wanted to the US Navy could have rebuilt in a day - and didn't.

Now the Russians could come and take Baffin Island or some such other remote place, counting on that we can't afford to defend it, but their economy couldn't sustain that effort for long. Maybe the Chinese could do that sort of operation too, but what the hell for?

[altiplano]

China already has two world class ice breakers, and they're about to launch a nuclear ice breaker.

What do you think that's for?

Russia, China, even the US assert that we don't own our Arctic. And what do we have up there to say we do? Some Rangers with 40 year old bolt action rifles? An occasional summer exercise for a couple weeks?

Fact is there are untold resource riches in the Arctic: oil, mining, fisheries, fresh water, let alone the navigable benefits that will be exploited, and 90% of the world has never heard of Greta Thunberg or a climate emergency or just doesn't care and they will come for control of that region.

Meanwhile we are neutered by our hubris; By our complacency brought on by the comfort that those before us delivered in blood and toil.

Yet we worry about electric cars and pronouns, lived experience and privlege...

What a joke we are. We have lost the ball.

[Squaretail]

Russia, China, even the US assert that we don't own our Arctic. And what do we have up there to say we do? Some Rangers with 40 year old bolt action rifles? An occasional summer exercise for a couple weeks?

But lets be realistic, to defend a territory as large as Canada to the square inch the way many envision would require us to keep every adult of service age under arms. An unrealistic expectation. Thankfully the the rest of the world has also moved on from the total war concepts that brought the world disaster, and don't operate under the assumption that they are going to call up every able body for military effort. Now that said, Canada should take its sovereignty issues and defense more seriously, but silly figures of maintaining multiple divisions of Canadians under arms simply isn't realistic given how few people live here. A lot of people tend to forget that there's more people in California than there is in Canada. Personally I agree that Canada needs to spend more on its military, but it also needs to be better spent with more focus on what we need to do. One should note that the 2% GDP commitment to NATO is just arbitrary and makes no sense for anyone. It realistically doesn't even make sense for the Americans to be spending that much.

Either way, our efforts in many cases are better spent finding mutual ways to solve these problems rather than armed conflict, even though we should be prepared for the latter, lets not be silly that anything we do in that regard is going to be of a delaying action in the hopes the rest of the world may be on our side. If the rest of the world isn't, well there's not enough Canadians to stand against them alone.

Yet we worry about electric cars and pronouns, lived experience and privlege...

What a joke we are. We have lost the ball.

One of the biggest irritants I have with fellow Canadians, is the attitude that we haven't done anything since the Second World War. That is even irritating if one is of a historical bent since it forgets that our soldiers have served with distinction in Korea... and a host of other conflicts or trouble spots since recorded history kept moving on since 1945. You may not agree with how they were deployed or why, and probably with whatever political party was in power who put them there, but at the very least at least try to remember them when you envision how you think the next war is going to be fought. Some of them are the most overworked people I know, and we need to do a better job taking care of the ones that we still have that were sent afield before we start worrying about what battles are going to happen in the future.

[altiplano]

I never said we didn't do anything since WW2.

When I say we lost the ball, I mean Canadian society.

One good idea you have there is service. Every Canadian after school, military or aid or other. Talk about bringing us together as one nation, Quebecers on course with Albertans, Newfies with West Coasters... Canadians serving to strengthen our country. Include post secondary or trade school... do it like the Swiss it Norwegians.

[Old fella]

https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/canada- ... -down/amp/

'Canada is being bullied by China. Here’s how it can shut it down.
Amir Attaran: There is one legal move that would prompt immediate action—shutting down Canadian airspace to Chinese cargo services.'

I wonder what ramifications would be felt by us, not just from China, but the U.S as well.

It is extremely unlikely the Government of Canada will resort to what was suggested/implied in this Maclean’s op-ed piece by the Academic author in dealing with the current situation in China.

[schnitzel2k3]

https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/canada- ... -down/amp/

'Canada is being bullied by China. Here’s how it can shut it down.
Amir Attaran: There is one legal move that would prompt immediate action—shutting down Canadian airspace to Chinese cargo services.'

I wonder what ramifications would be felt by us, not just from China, but the U.S as well.

It is extremely unlikely the Government of Canada will resort to what was suggested/implied in this Maclean’s op-ed piece by the Academic author in dealing with the current situation in China.

Agreed, but it's fun to imagine the fallout and the discussion has certainly been entertaining.

As for a reasonable solution to the global China crisis, I think we (the western world) are scared to admit we handed over economic control to a dictatorship a long time ago, in exchange for better deals on Black Friday.

I don't know what our options are going forward. Interested to see what you guys think.

[Eric Janson]

I think people vastly overestimate the threat from China.

Their Economic figures are made up - which they openly admit.

They have funded their growth by taking on massive debt - which will destroy their Economy. It has already started - just look at the Hainan Group which is just the tip of the iceberg imho.