To Govern the Northwest

Abstract

<p>The problem confronted by this paper is to determine whether territorial sovereignty may be properly exercise by the Dominion of Canada over those regions lying to the north of its ten constituent provinces, and, if so, to what geographical extent. International law has traditionaly advanced a variety of criteria from which such sovereignty is alleged to flow. The basic hypothesis of this endeavour is an estimation of the degree to which Canada satisfies these criteria together with an argument which hopes to describe the illusory character of such criteria. The conclusion which the thesis hopes to justify is that even of Canada might be found to conform to all the strictures of the said criteria sufficiently to confer covereignty upon Canada over the material regions, yet the notion of sovereignty is itself an ambiguity worthy of critical reappraisal if the northern ambitions of Canadian nationals are to be ensured.</p>