Michel Maisonneuve: Canada must defend the North to keep it

“Mon pays, ce n’est pas un pays, c’est l’hiver,” Gilles Vigneault sings — my country is winter. Canada is shaped by cold, distance and northern regions inhabited by resilient people. Whether we embrace it or not, we are a polar nation.

Sovereignty over nearly 10 million square kilometres must be demonstrated: we must prove we can protect the vast North, develop its resources and create opportunities for its people. We must stop thinking small.

The North holds immense underdeveloped resources coveted by other nations, yet Canada has limited means to monitor the region, deter adversaries or respond to incursions.

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A northern strategy needs four priorities: deterrence, defence of the territory, resource development and corridors for transportation and communications. The first two require forces able to deploy nationwide and operate seamlessly with allied polar nations, plus permanent — or at least persistent — northern basing, with First Nations as full partners.

Consider the Northwest Passage. When the U.S. oil tanker Manhattan transited in 1969, Canada called it internal waters; Washington disputed the claim and went through, and Ottawa protested. The dispute remains: Canada considers the passage internal waters, while the United States considers it an international strait. How will we react when adversaries transit these “internal” waters? Sovereignty means having an answer beyond protest.

Whatever one thinks of climate change, northern temperatures have risen and keep rising. The cause is not the issue here; reversal is not on offer; adaptation is. Climate change, as University of Calgary Arctic security expert Robert Huebert puts it, has “converted the Arctic from a barrier into a corridor.”

That corridor leads to resources other states want secured. Russia leads Arctic development, with dozens of vessels able to operate in and under ice; China calls itself a “near-Arctic” state and, as of 2022, holds equity in more than two dozen Canadian mining companies.

The Arctic is also a route to challenge the United States through a lightly defended Canada.

“Lightly defended” is no exaggeration. Based in Yellowknife, the Canadian Armed Forces’ Joint Task Force North covers the Yukon, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut and the Arctic Ocean — nearly 40 per cent of the country’s land mass — with about 300 personnel. The Canadian Rangers, a lightly armed part-time reserve of nearly 5,000, are the eyes and ears of much of the North, where every operation, resupplying a community or maintaining a radar, is a sovereignty operation.

The nearest fighter bases able to answer a NORAD emergency, Bagotville, Que., and Cold Lake, Alta., are many flying hours away. In contrast, the United States keeps several military bases in Alaska and more than 20,000 active-duty personnel. Canada cannot exercise northern sovereignty principally from southern bases.