Strengthening maritime arctic sovereignty--the fine print

Further to this post, in fact the government hasn't actually done anything yet to strengthen our claim:

...the Prime Minister announced his Government’s intention [emphasis added] to introduce new legislation extending the enforcement zone of the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act (AWPPA) in the next sitting of Parliament.

In addition the Prime Minister announced that his Government was also bringing in new regulations extending the range at which Arctic bound ships must report to Canadian authorities through the NORDREG reporting system...

The proposed amendments [emphasis added] announced by Prime Minister Harper include:

# Extension of regulatory zone defined as “arctic waters” under the AWPPA from its current limit of 100 nautical miles to 200 nautical miles. This will extend the range at which Canada can enforce the anti-pollution provisions in the act.

# Similarly extending the NORDREG reporting zone to a 200 nautical mile limit.

# Moving from the “encouraged” reporting provisions under the current NORDREG system to a mandatory reporting system for all incoming shipping traffic.

Legislation on the AWPPA will obviously take some time--and if there is an election? Will even new NORDREG regulations be issued promptly?

H/t to Arctic Economics.

Update: Here's a map of the ice-pack from the link above: