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Canada’s maintain on the Arctic is, within the phrases of former defence chief Wayne Eyre, ‘tenuous’ — and it’s more likely to grow to be extra so with Trump in workplace
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Printed Feb 10, 2025 • Final up to date 4 hours in the past • 5 minute learn
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A gaggle of Canadian Rangers prepare close to Corridor Seaside, Nunavut in 2017. Picture by Sgt Jean-François Lauzé/DND
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Pierre Poilievre’s announcement in Iqaluit that below a Conservative authorities Canada will construct a everlasting navy base within the Arctic, and order two extra heavy icebreakers, had very deliberate echoes with the defence coverage of his predecessor as Conservative chief, Stephen Harper.
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Almost 20 years in the past, Harper grafted onto a problem that was thought-about a curiosity by his opponents: militarizing the Canadian Arctic.
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Canada had a selection when it got here to defending its sovereignty within the North: “either we use it or lose it,” he stated on one in every of his annual journeys to the area in 2007.
His authorities meant to “use it” and indicated a “real, growing, long-term presence” within the Arctic by saying plans to refurbish a deep-water port on a former mining website at Nanisivik in Nunavut along with ordering as much as eight “ice-capable” Arctic patrol ships.
Whereas 5 of the patrol ships have been delivered to the Royal Canadian Navy by Irving Shipyards in Halifax, not a lot stays of Harper’s legacy challenge. Nanisivik, which was meant to open in 2015, is a decade not on time, and the passion for “using” the North waned, as different priorities emerged.
However Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine shook the Trudeau authorities’s sense of complacency.
“What was a relatively benign threat suddenly became an existential threat,” stated Vice-Admiral Mark Norman, a retired Royal Canadian Navy officer and ex-Vice-Chief of the Defence Workers.
As Poilievre put it, our security and commerce with america requires that Canada management its North.
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Given the noises being made by President Donald Trump, who stated on Sunday that Canada can not rely on the U.S. for navy safety, Poilievre’s timing was impeccable.
The truth is that Ottawa has already awoken from a decade of slumber with regards to the Arctic. The defence-policy replace launched final 12 months — Our North, Sturdy and Free — redirected Canada’s focus from expeditionary ventures abroad to defending the homeland.
Now we discover ourselves legitimately referred to as out for our lack of dedication and motion
Vice-Admiral Mark Norman
Norman stated that represented a serious cultural shift for the navy, which had for many years concentrated nearly solely on massive expeditionary capabilities as a part of NATO.
The Trudeau authorities had already reached settlement with the Biden administration to contribute $29 billion over 20 years to modernize the North American Aerospace Defence Command, paying for 2 of six Arctic radar installations and constructing infrastructure corresponding to hangars and runways to permit the brand new F-35 fighter jet fleet to function within the North.
Defence Minister Invoice Blair has dedicated to as much as 12 submarines to exchange the 4 growing old Victoria-class subs and has mused about the necessity to develop underwater surveillance capabilities within the Arctic (with out attaching any funding to both challenge).
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Finally July’s NATO summit, Canada, the U.S. and Finland agreed to collaborate on the manufacturing of polar icebreakers. Canada already has orders in place for 2 icebreakers for the Coast Guard. Poilievre’s dedication could be along with these. He has promised to make the prevailing facility in Iqaluit right into a everlasting navy base, permitting the brand new Poseidon -8 surveillance plane to function from there. The Conservative chief additional stated he would double the variety of Canadian Rangers who’re energetic within the North.
The commitments could be paid for by making “drastic” cuts in overseas support — a promise he ought to rethink in gentle of the Trump administration’s funding freeze for USAID. Even sustaining support budgets would buy Canada a substantial amount of goodwill all over the world in these ungenerous instances.
The issue with lots of Canada’s pledges of recent tools within the North is that the Russians and Chinese language could have taken benefit of their absence by the point they’re delivered.
Russia has established Arctic deep-water ports, full with navy icebreakers and airfields with SU-34 bombers. It has additionally submitted documentation with the UN Fee on the Limits of the Continental Shelf that primarily claims your complete Arctic Ocean.
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China has three icebreakers already working within the Arctic, in co-operation with the Russians, and the 2 nations have signed a joint communiqué to develop transport routes and polar ship know-how.
Canada’s maintain on the Arctic is, within the phrases of former defence chief Wayne Eyre, “tenuous” — and it’s more likely to grow to be extra so with Trump in workplace.
In his first time period in workplace, Trump proposed shopping for Greenland and dismissed as illegitimate Canada’s declare that the Northwest Passage is an inside waterway.
A Coast Guard icebreaker patrols within the Canadian Arctic in 2010. Picture by Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press/File
The language Trump is utilizing has provoked a visceral response in Canada.
“Why are we protecting another country?” he requested on Fox Information on Sunday.
However, as Norman factors out, the president is asking for this nation to do what it ought to have performed a very long time in the past.
“When you take your foot off the gas, you run out of momentum. Now we find ourselves legitimately called out for our lack of commitment and action.”
He stated the strikes Poilievre introduced are steps in the correct course.
Iqaluit is a pre-existing hub, even when it’s a good distance from the far North and has a shallow port. “It’s the best of a not-great set of options,” Norman stated.
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“(But) we have to act strategically, like a serious country.”
The implications of not doing so would go away Canada uncovered.
Norman stated he’s involved that Trump may take a wrecking ball to NORAD, in the identical method he has disrupted so many different current preparations.
That would go away this nation scrambling to create its personal capabilities.
We’re a good distance from the times when Ronald Reagan visited Ottawa in 1987 and Brian Mulroney raised the problem of American encroachment within the Northwest Passage.
An accord was finally reached below which the U.S. agreed to ask permission and Canada agreed to say sure.
Such co-operation appears nearly quaint in as we speak’s antagonistic setting.
However there are good explanation why the U.S. and Canada are pure allies in continental defence.
“The reality is, we’re the buffer between them and the Russians, and we’ve used that to our advantage,” Norman stated. “This is not about American generosity, it’s about a legitimate sense of military practicality.”
If Canada’s claims within the area are backed with onerous energy, Trump ought to be as placated as he’s ever going to be.
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