Senator Marty Deacon

Last month, the 27^th United Nations Climate Change Conference shone a harsh light on the changes being wrought by climate change. And no region is being so dramatically altered, so quickly, as the Arctic. This, of course, is a problem for Canada. As the summer sea ice retreats and our Arctic shores become more navigable, we will have to reassess how we assert our sovereignty along our longest coastline.

Modern ice breakers and offshore patrol ships receive most of the headlines about Canadian Arctic defence. However, the importance of adapting to local circumstances, working with and ensuring the security of our northern communities cannot be overstated. At present, it is unlikely that threats to northern sovereignty will involve invading expeditionary forces or hostile missile volleys. Instead, the threat will likely come from small incursions—be it from naval vessels or fishing trawlers—into our territorial waters that will test our ability to respond to these infractions. The recent fact-finding mission to the Arctic by the Senate Standing Committee on National Security, Defence and Veterans Affairs served to reinforce for me that our best bet for being able to respond quickly and nimbly to such events is to ensure that our Arctic communities have the means and support to thrive and adapt in a changing environment.

Canada’s 2019 Arctic and Northern Policy Framework recognized the importance of Arctic communities. The framework consists of eight themes that view the Arctic through regionally distinct lenses. This regional approach is promising in renewing Arctic policy and how Canada asserts its Arctic sovereignty as the 21^st century unfolds. Such an approach should be taken from a security perspective, as well.

The Canadian Rangers offer insight into how a community-based model of Arctic security can be effective. The Rangers are reservists serving in the northern communities where they grew up, live, and work. They possess historical and cultural knowledge specific to their community and an appreciation of the local effects of climate change. As Roberta Joseph, chief of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation in the Yukon, recently told our committee, participants in the Ranger program go out on their historical lands and learn the skills they will need to work and live in Canada’s North. In return, our Armed Forces can rely on capably trained reservists who are able to quickly respond to emergencies in the North; one need look no further than the Rangers response to the COVID-19 pandemic to see this in practice. To improve the Ranger program, the government must focus on improving a recruitment process that remains slow and cumbersome. We must also see investment in local multi-use infrastructure that can serve these Ranger patrols. This will have a pragmatic impact of allowing Rangers to store equipment, train Junior Rangers, and provide physical space for complementary federal organizations and supports.

Further to this, northern defence infrastructure overall can and should be more integrated within our Arctic communities. As Whitney Lackenbauer, Canada Research Chair in the Study of the Canadian North and a professor at Trent University, recently described at committee, “we find ourselves with a singular opportunity right now to find natural alignments between necessary investments in defense and hard security capabilities and what are very well-known, well-documented, and well-articulated civilian needs in the North.” The investments recently announced by the government for a renewed NORAD provides just such an opportunity for collaboration with Arctic communities, with a particular emphasis on Indigenous communities who have been left out of these projects in the past.

Our government has rightly come to realize investment is needed to improve our defence capabilities in the Arctic. Security in the North counts for nothing though if these communities are not given every opportunity to live, work, and thrive. The 2019 Arctic and Northern Policy Framework recognized this. And with investments like the 20-year, $40-billion announced to modernize NORAD, we have an opportunity to put this policy into practice.