Gary Mar and Mark Norman
Published in The Globe and Mail
April 9, 2025
Gary Mar is the president and CEO of the Canada West Foundation. Vice-Admiral (Ret’d) Mark Norman is a former vice-chief of the defence staff.
Canada is an Arctic nation. It’s about time it started acting like it.
Unlike the Scandinavian countries and Russia, Canada has reluctantly viewed itself in this manner, instead considering the North as a sort of national park where development is frowned upon. The economic value of the region has been played down, and the need to defend that value was discounted under a rosy view of a peaceful world anchored to the benevolent hegemony of the United States.
That all changed with the second inauguration of Donald Trump in January, and his rhetoric that Canada should become the 51st U.S. state.
Canada is now in a difficult position. One of the primary limitations of Arctic defence is also one of the primary limitations of Arctic development – a lack of infrastructure.
Arctic defence is at least as much of a logistics problem as it is an armaments problem. Increasing Canada’s defence commitment to hit the 2-per-cent-of-GDP mark required by NATO could translate to economic development at the same time. An enhanced Arctic defence could become a profitable imperative, as well as a strategic and geopolitical one.
Defence spending in the Arctic means an investment in roads, airfields, ports, logistics facilities and communications. By making these kinds of investments, Canada will not only do a better job of meeting its international alliance commitments to NATO and NORAD, but will also increase the likelihood of much-needed economic development in a region that comprises almost 50 per cent of Canada’s landmass and a good portion of its future natural wealth.
The Canadian Arctic has an estimated 7.5 billion barrels of recoverable oil, and it’s natural-gas reserves are estimated to be worth at least $1.125-trillion. Copper, cobalt, lithium and rare-earth minerals – important to this country’s critical-minerals strategy – can be found across Canada’s North. Yet these resources remain largely undefended.
If the development of facilities and infrastructure in the Arctic prioritizes Canadian equipment, material and labour, there’s an immediate and positive return to Canadians. Long-term development, with the full participation of the North’s Indigenous peoples and other residents, will provide both immediate and generational benefits to the region and the country.
With the potential for increased maritime access to northern latitudes resulting from a warming Arctic, Canada’s Northwest Passage and, most particularly, Russia’s Northern Sea Route, Canadian Arctic waters will continue to attract global-commercial and strategic-military attention. While much has been made recently of Canada’s need to bolster Arctic defence – a laudable development – this needs to be a long-term commitment and not a short-term policy distraction to be abandoned when other pressing issues come to the forefront, or when a new government is elected. A commitment to Arctic defence is also a commitment to development and increased prosperity in what remains among the most economically disadvantaged regions of the country.
It is also important for Canada to develop policies that address rapid climate change in the Arctic along with a parallel need to pursue beneficial economic and resource-development policies for Canada’s Northern peoples. The accelerating presences and capabilities of both Russian and Chinese personnel in the Arctic should occasion a serious re-evaluation and reinvigoration of Arctic defence postures among Western circumpolar allies. Russia’s expanding Arctic military capabilities cannot be ignored and have become a matter of growing significance to Canada and its northern NATO allies – lending added significance to Canada’s Northern territory as a strategic location.
Permanent military presence in the Canadian Arctic is a small fraction of Canada’s total military force. The Canadian Forces’ Northern Area Headquarters (located in Yellowknife and Whitehorse) maintains operating locations for up to six fighter aircraft each in Yellowknife, Iqaluit, Rankin Inlet in Nunavut, and Inuvik, NWT. It has a small naval refuelling facility at Nanisivik in Nunavut, a listening post at Alert on Nunavut’s Ellesmere Island, a chain of radar stations (the North Warning System) that are rapidly becoming (if they are not already) obsolete, a small, 55-member (regular troops and reservists) transport squadron at Yellowknife, a militia company, and the headquarters and units of the Canadian Rangers reserves. There aren’t nearly enough resources allocated to the North. This needs to change.
It is time for Canada to step up and pull its weight by securing its Northern flanks and showing its collective resolve and commitment in the face of an increasingly dangerous world. Defending Canada while benefiting from our national economic interest in the North is good policy, good politics and good business.