Time for Canada to rethink its Arctic strategy: Senator Marty Deacon – SenCA+ Magazine
December 17, 2024
Recently, I travelled to Montréal where Canada hosted the 70th Annual Session of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. Here, parliamentary representatives from across NATO sat, discussed and debated the pressing needs for the alliance in the coming years. Front and centre were discussions on the Arctic.
Climate change is not only altering the physical landscape in the region, but also shifting the diplomatic power dynamics that Canada has benefited from for decades as well. Melting glaciers caused by a warming Arctic are having an increasingly disruptive effect on European weather and waterflows. Prospective access to natural resources needed to fuel the coming century has garnered an increased presence from traditional Arctic powers like Russia — but also from new players like China, which has labelled itself a “near Arctic” power. This has upset a balance Canada has relied on for decades and will require a reframing of our approach to the Arctic that will necessitate meaningful defence spending in the decades to come.
Canada has until recently relied a great deal on soft power to establish our Arctic sovereignty. The Arctic Council was a centrepiece of this and represented a forum where Arctic nations could co-ordinate and discuss our differences. With the Russian invasion of Ukraine, however, the future of the Arctic Council has been called into question. This symbolism is hard to overstate.
