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.

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.

In May, the eight Arctic allies committed to more presence, surveillance and joint training in the North.

Security underpins trade, but infrastructure underpins security. The unmanned radars, drones and undersea sensors used at present help identify threats, but the Canadian Armed Forces are poorly placed to manage a major northern crisis. Canada has no year-round ice-free Arctic port, and the deepwater facility at Nanisivik never became fully operational before the military began shutting it down in May.

Against that record, the March 12 announcement of $40 billion in northern investment is a real opportunity: infrastructure in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories, expanded forward operating locations at Yellowknife, Inuvik and Iqaluit, and upgraded Arctic airports. But promise must now become action.

Much of our prosperity depends on extracting and delivering resources, some of them in the North. Distance and climate make that difficult; the private sector can help. Indigenous partners must share in the returns, and dual-use projects stretch public investment by serving communities, commerce and national defence.

The idea is not new. In 1968, Lt.-Gen. Richard Rohmer proposed an east-west mid-Canada corridor from Labrador City, N.L., through Flin Flon, Man., to Fort Nelson, B.C., with highways, railways and communities to draw Canadians northward. Ontario is exploring the Ring of Fire; Quebec has its Plan Nord.

Newer concepts run south to north: from southern Manitoba to an expanded port at Churchill, or through improved facilities at Port Nelson. Either shortens the route to Europe against the haul to Atlantic or Pacific ports.

Grays Bay, on Nunavut's Coronation Gulf, shows how these objectives can converge: a 230-kilometre all-season road toward the Northwest Territories border, a deepwater port on the Northwest Passage and an airstrip. It could become Canada's first overland link to a deepwater Arctic port, with royalties to Indigenous partners.

It is also a reminder that development alone does not guarantee sovereignty. The road and port would help unlock the Izok Lake and High Lake zinc-copper deposits, which is owned by MMG Limited, a company controlled through a majority interest by China Minmetals, a Chinese state-owned enterprise.

Canada needs northern investment, but it must understand who ultimately controls strategically important resources.

Full sovereignty requires legal independence, political self-determination and territorial integrity, and the means to see, deter and respond across one's territory. The North holds wealth that can raise every Canadian's standard of living through responsible, market-driven development; corridors, east-west and north-south, will carry it to market.

Winter is our country. It is time we governed like it.

Michel Maisonneuve, a retired lieutenant-general of the Canadian Armed Forces, is a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, which is hosting the "Reclaiming the North" conference on Arctic development in Winnipeg on Sept. 14 and 15. He is the author of In Defence of Canada.