Full Comment - Canada could be an Arctic superpower, but Ottawa walked away

00:00:00.000 Did you lock the front door?

00:00:04.080 Check.

00:00:04.620 Closed the garage door?

00:00:05.780 Yep.

00:00:06.300 Installed window sensors, smoke sensors, and HD cameras with night vision?

00:00:09.780 No.

00:00:10.620 And you set up credit card transaction alerts, a secure VPN for a private connection,

00:00:14.060 and continuous monitoring for our personal info on the dark web?

00:00:17.080 Uh, I'm looking into it?

00:00:19.600 Stress less about security.

00:00:21.360 Choose security solutions from Telus for peace of mind at home and online.

00:00:25.220 Visit telus.com slash total security to learn more.

00:00:28.800 Conditions apply.

00:00:30.000 Whether you own a bustling hair salon or a hot new bakery,

00:00:34.920 you need business insurance that can keep up with your evolving needs.

00:00:38.780 With flexible coverage options from TD Insurance, you only pay for what you need.

00:00:42.920 TD.

00:00:44.040 Ready for you.

00:00:50.800 Canada.

00:00:51.520 We call ourselves the True North Strong and Free.

00:00:54.140 It's a great slogan, but with most of our population huddled along the American border

00:00:58.800 and most of us never having been north of our respective regional cottage country areas,

00:01:04.860 are we really a northern country?

00:01:07.160 Hello, I'm Brian Lilly, and this is the Full Comment Podcast.

00:01:10.540 Before we get to our next topic and guest, I'm going to ask a favor.

00:01:14.180 Hit the subscribe button on whatever app or device you're listening to us on,

00:01:17.680 and that will ensure you get notified when each and every episode comes out.

00:01:21.540 And please remember, share this with your friends, your families, post it to social media.

00:01:26.280 Help spread the word.

00:01:27.180 Now, when I say the north, what comes to mind?

00:01:32.440 I live in Toronto.

00:01:33.840 It's on the 43rd parallel, well below the 49th that we often use to describe and identify our border with the Americans.

00:01:42.300 Around here, people talk about going up north, and they mean to the Muskokas,

00:01:46.820 Toronto's cottage country that's actually well south of Sudbury.

00:01:50.580 I calculated the furthest north that I've been, and it's a place called Waskasu, Saskatchewan,

00:01:56.760 which sits at 53.92 degrees latitude north.

00:02:02.160 It's north of Prince Albert.

00:02:03.700 It's just a smidge more northern than Edmonton, but still, it's pretty south compared to the Arctic.

00:02:09.780 I'm not trying to belabor this point, but my experience is pretty common for many Canadians.

00:02:13.740 So, are we truly a northern country?

00:02:15.940 Do we pay enough attention to the Arctic?

00:02:17.760 Lots of countries are paying attention to that region of the world, and we better start to do so as well.

00:02:24.300 Heather Exner-Perot is a senior fellow and director of natural resources, energy, and environment at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

00:02:31.700 She's also a global advisor for the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C.,

00:02:35.560 and a research advisor to the Indigenous Resource Network.

00:02:39.720 Thanks for joining us today, Heather.

00:02:40.980 Thanks so much for having me.

00:02:42.860 You're someone that spends a lot of time thinking about, talking about, writing about the north,

00:02:47.300 writing about the Arctic.

00:02:48.980 As a country, do Canadians pay enough attention to the Arctic?

00:02:53.860 Well, there's, I mean, there's different ways to think about it.

00:02:56.040 From a policy perspective, from a security perspective, I would say no.

00:03:00.560 There's lots more we could be doing, should be doing.

00:03:02.660 You know, for the average Canadian, I think there is a sense of northern identity that some other countries wouldn't share.

00:03:09.400 For the, you know, the United States wouldn't have that same identity, even though they have Alaska.

00:03:13.740 Even for Denmark, I think Greenland is much more remote for the average Danish person than it is for Canadians.

00:03:19.960 So there, you know, it is fundamental to our identity.

00:03:23.860 But as you say, most people haven't been there.

00:03:26.320 We don't have great strategy.

00:03:27.820 We don't have great implementation in that area.

00:03:30.640 So there's lots more to be done.

00:03:32.640 Have you been, how far north have you been?

00:03:34.980 I'm guessing a lot further north than Waskasu.

00:03:37.480 I have been to all eight Arctic countries.

00:03:39.980 So the five Nordics, Alaska, I've been to Siberia, I've been to Yakutsk, and then I've been to all three territories, and I've been to Greenland.

00:03:49.380 So, yes, I've done all of the, but I'm not, you know, I'm a social scientist, so I usually go to the capitals.

00:03:57.160 I don't go on the land and study tundra or anything, but I've been to a few of the national parks further north.

00:04:02.420 There was recently a report from the Senate, and most Canadians, when they think of our government, don't think of the Senate.

00:04:10.920 But they do good work, and they've issued a report called Northern Lights, a wake-up call for the future of Canada, by the Special Senate Committee on the Arctic.

00:04:20.940 They do say that we've got to worry about sovereignty in the Arctic, especially with the Northwest Passage opening up,

00:04:29.000 other countries being interested in the resources that are there, having very different views of how those resources should be extracted, if at all.

00:04:40.840 How do these changes that are happening in the north play into our Arctic sovereignty strategy, if we even have one?

00:04:49.560 Yeah, so, you know, in Canada, we often think of the Arctic through this sovereignty lens.

00:04:54.540 And it's probably not the most policy-pertinent lens, but it's kind of been infused in our national consciousness.

00:05:02.080 So there is the issue of the Northwest Passage, is it internal waters or an international strait?

00:05:07.320 And notably, we disagree with the Americans on this, but we've pretty much agreed to disagree.

00:05:12.800 And even since 1988, we had an agreement that we implemented with them.

00:05:17.340 And so it's a well-managed dispute, you know, essentially that the reason the Americans don't want to recognize the Northwest Passage as Canadian internal waters

00:05:27.260 is because they're afraid that would set a precedent for other international straits, like the Strait of Malacca or Strait of Hormuz.

00:05:33.780 So it's not so much about the Northwest Passage, it's about freedom of navigation in general.

00:05:38.100 And so, you know, so in general, they say, okay, you know, we won't challenge you there.

00:05:44.260 You don't push it too far either, just so we don't compromise other areas.

00:05:48.840 So that's the one thing.

00:05:50.080 Then there's also this extended continental shelf.

00:05:52.700 So under the law of the sea, which was passed in 1982, countries can claim, you know, their 200-mile exclusive economic zone.

00:06:00.740 Everyone has that.

00:06:01.620 But if your geology extends quite a bit further, you can go up to 350 miles or more.

00:06:05.420 In essence, this means that the entire Arctic seabed is open to division between Canada, Denmark, with Greenland and Russia.

00:06:14.940 And so we are negotiating how far does our extended seabed go, how far does the Russians go. 0.74

00:06:20.080 We aren't agreeing, obviously, but it's not a place that we think we're going to go to war over.

00:06:24.920 The other, the last one.

00:06:26.000 Well, hopefully not go to war, hope not.

00:06:28.140 I just want to say, Brian, because the last territorial dispute we had was on Hans Island.

00:06:33.380 And we actually figured out a negotiation.

00:06:35.820 We negotiated that and solved that particular sovereignty issue with Denmark just a few months ago.

00:06:41.580 So we have made progress on that one.

00:06:43.440 I remember back to 2010, ancient history now, it seems.

00:06:50.300 China's then president, Hu Jintao, was coming to Canada for a state visit, first one in 35 years.

00:06:57.400 Or no, sorry, that was the earlier one.

00:06:59.600 But he was showing up in 2010.

00:07:01.700 And around that time, there were interviews given by senior government officials to Chinese English language media, obviously directed at sending a message to Canada.

00:07:13.680 And they were making noises that, well, China has 20% of the world's population, therefore, they should have 20% of whatever is in the Arctic.

00:07:23.900 And they have a very different view of how the Arctic should be treated.

00:07:28.580 Is there more to our view of why sovereignty matters and why we want to ensure that we have some control over areas in the north?

00:07:40.800 Is there more to it than just the United States and the Northwest Passage when you've got Russia looking to make the Arctic waters a year-round international shipping zone?

00:07:50.520 When you've got countries like China or Russia wanting to go in and do resource extraction in ways that we wouldn't approve of?

00:07:58.580 Right. So with regards to the Chinese, that was a provocative statement they made.

00:08:03.380 And the context was very different around 2008, 2010.

00:08:07.160 That was at the height of the last commodities super cycle, commodities boom.

00:08:11.560 And everyone was looking for resources everywhere.

00:08:13.940 And a lot of commodities had their record price levels at that time.

00:08:17.360 Remember, oil hit $147 a barrel.

00:08:20.580 And at that time, Arctic resources looked like they might be economic, that you could actually make money by developing them.

00:08:26.460 And then the commodities down phase hit and we had a bust.

00:08:30.940 And so Arctic development really hasn't occurred at any kind of pace in the last 10 years because commodity prices have been so low.

00:08:39.400 The Chinese at that time made that provocative statement, said they're a near Arctic state and wanted to view the Arctic as the common heritage of mankind.

00:08:46.980 So it's kind of this international zone.

00:08:50.180 And I mean, obviously, the interest for them is that, you know, then they have equal access to it from everyone.

00:08:55.580 That's not a Canadian interest or American interest or Russian interest is the interesting one or Nordic interest.

00:09:01.000 But the international law is pretty settled around that, like I say, with the law of the sea, exclusive economic zones and the extended continental shelf.

00:09:09.600 The one, you know, the one wild card is fishing in international waters.

00:09:15.660 A lot of these things beyond 200 miles, it is, you know, the extended continental shelf is only the seabed.

00:09:21.640 So if you want to do undersea mining, not the fishing, but actually about three years ago, there was an Arctic fishery agreement, a moratorium on fishing in the Arctic, in the central Arctic Ocean.

00:09:33.920 There's no fisheries now anyways, because it's so cold.

00:09:37.460 It's not a great place for wildlife.

00:09:39.900 So it was an easy agreement to come to because no one was fishing there anyways.

00:09:43.240 But China, Korea, the European Union, Iceland, Canada, United States all agreed that we would not fish there until we understood the fisheries better.

00:09:52.220 So in that respect, China was playing ball on the one area that, you know, they might have be able to independently go in the Arctic is on fishing.

00:10:01.720 So if a sovereignty lens isn't the right way of looking at it, what is the right way of looking at the north?

00:10:09.420 It's a sparse population and one that is not overly prosperous, one where living there is incredibly expensive.

00:10:19.840 I mean, we've all seen the photos of what it costs to buy what we would consider basic foodstuffs in the North Mart.

00:10:29.700 But all of that needs to be shipped up.

00:10:31.680 But do we need to look at it from a perspective of making sure that there's a decent quality of life for the people that live there, of empowering them, of going to an economic model that works for people in the north?

00:10:49.280 Yeah, absolutely.

00:10:50.040 So I think there's that community lens like you're alluding to, and I can talk about that.

00:10:54.360 There's also a security lens separate from sovereignty.

00:10:56.740 So sovereignty is, you know, do we have control? Is it ours? Is it undisputed? It is.

00:11:01.060 And yet it's still a very vulnerable area for hypersonic missiles and things like that coming from Russia and China.

00:11:07.600 So that's why we need NORAD modernization. 0.98

00:11:10.080 That's why we need to have, you know, domain awareness.

00:11:12.980 You know, when a Chinese weather balloon comes over, we need to know that it's coming months in advance and be able to take it down. 0.99

00:11:18.140 So there is that security issue I can talk more about.

00:11:20.620 On the community side, though, and it's an important conversation is, you know, it is very, it is the most sparsely populated.

00:11:28.100 We have the least population density.

00:11:30.860 The Canadian Arctic is mostly the coldest, the most sea ice infested, will be the last to melt.

00:11:37.800 And all these things make it more remote, more difficult to develop in the Nordic area and even most of Russia.

00:11:44.100 Some of Russia is obviously just as difficult as Canada, but not all of it.

00:11:47.780 Alaska still has warmer currents, is more easy to access.

00:11:51.240 So the Canadian Arctic is very different in that way.

00:11:54.560 The Port of, you know, Port of Anchorage has year-round access.

00:11:58.040 Port of Newt and Greenland has year-round access.

00:12:00.980 But in Canada and our Arctic, they'd be, you know, ice infested, you might get a three-month season.

00:12:05.800 So it is more remote.

00:12:07.320 That makes it more expensive.

00:12:09.100 There's only 110,000 people in our three territories.

00:12:12.200 So there's lots we could do, but it'll always be expensive, always be difficult.

00:12:17.780 The secret sauce, economically, from my perspective, obviously, is resource development.

00:12:22.560 And actually, right now, 99% of the territory's exports is mining.

00:12:27.240 But there's more that could be done.

00:12:28.800 Obviously, now we're looking to have, you know, friendly sources of critical minerals.

00:12:32.780 There's not a lot of infrastructure there.

00:12:34.420 So it makes it cost prohibitive for miners to invest there, to develop there.

00:12:38.960 There's not always social license.

00:12:40.860 So there's lots we could be working on to enhance the resource development, make it more competitive,

00:12:45.880 and then get those orange source revenues and those jobs and that training to northerners.

00:12:50.080 There was a real emphasis in some ways.

00:12:56.280 Critics would dispute it, but in some ways from the Harper government.

00:13:00.040 And there's been less of an emphasis from the Trudeau government, at least in terms of gestures,

00:13:06.620 like Stephen Harper would take an annual trip to the north.

00:13:09.380 When the United Nations was trying to determine boundaries, they took a very different tone,

00:13:15.520 aggressively trying to say, well, here's why we believe this territory belongs to Canada.

00:13:22.320 Trudeau's view was, leave it to the experts.

00:13:25.560 Aside from tone, though, has much changed in how the federal government,

00:13:29.500 which is ultimately responsible for the Arctic,

00:13:32.040 the territorial governments do have some responsibility,

00:13:34.980 but I would argue the federal government seems to be a bigger player.

00:13:40.680 Has there been much difference in terms of policy between the two governments

00:13:45.340 now that we're eight years into the Trudeau administration,

00:13:48.000 or is it just a matter of tone and emphasis?

00:13:52.260 So it's more than tone and emphasis.

00:13:55.400 I would say that there's been a real lack of ambition from the liberals on the Arctic.

00:14:00.380 Like, from both a domestic and a foreign policy perspective,

00:14:05.540 you know, if I were to give them good marks from something,

00:14:08.520 you know, the Inuit-Kran relationship seems to be stronger.

00:14:11.760 There has been money put in.

00:14:14.160 But from a security and from a foreign policy perspective, almost nothing.

00:14:19.760 So they did develop their own strategy.

00:14:21.980 The liberals was the Arctic-Northern Policy Framework.

00:14:24.260 I think it was 2019 that it was finally approved.

00:14:28.340 And it was a long consultation process.

00:14:30.620 It was what you might expect from the liberals, you know,

00:14:32.700 where they had, you know, all the territories, all the indigenous groups,

00:14:36.060 a couple of provinces, even Manitoba was consulted.

00:14:39.240 I think there was 25 stakeholders that were consulted.

00:14:41.960 And the document is very much just a consensus of, you know,

00:14:46.060 these are the things that we find important.

00:14:47.980 And there was no real leadership.

00:14:49.540 It was more like, you know, the federal government guided the process,

00:14:52.320 but didn't want to lead anything, didn't want to presume to lead, you know,

00:14:55.860 Northerners on the North.

00:14:57.020 But that leaves a real vacuum is that for someone outside of Canada to look at

00:15:01.980 our Arctic-Northern Policy Framework, it's very dilute.

00:15:05.180 It's not very ambitious.

00:15:06.280 It's not very concrete.

00:15:07.480 It's not very practical.

00:15:08.720 There's not a lot of guidance.

00:15:10.240 It's a plan to plan.

00:15:11.540 It's a framework.

00:15:12.300 It's not a strategy.

00:15:13.880 And that starts to show, you know.

00:15:16.480 And so when we're dealing with something like, you know,

00:15:20.560 the need for critical minerals exploration,

00:15:23.040 like Russia invading Ukraine and changing kind of the balance of geopolitics,

00:15:27.900 there is no guidance and there's no strategy really on what Canada is going to do

00:15:32.300 through the Arctic to address these things.

00:15:35.680 And so, you know, the big story and the op-ed why I'm here this week is,

00:15:38.900 my op-ed in the National Post is,

00:15:41.460 while Trudeau was invited to meet with the Nordic leaders in Iceland,

00:15:44.860 special guest, it's quite an, you know, it's quite an honor.

00:15:48.000 It means something that it was a Canadian prime minister was invited.

00:15:51.420 At the same time, we closed the Canadian International Arctic Centre in Oslo,

00:15:55.260 which was set up in 2009, kind of the last time the Arctic was big in geopolitics.

00:16:01.400 And, you know, our one senior Arctic official is also responsible for Europe and Eurasia.

00:16:07.220 Just imagine that.

00:16:08.140 In Canada, we lump under a single diplomat, Arctic, Eurasia, and Europe affairs.

00:16:13.960 Of course, that's a pretty big area.

00:16:18.420 Even just Eurasia or all of Europe, that's a pretty big area.

00:16:23.100 Now, I did want to ask you about the closing of that centre.

00:16:28.260 What was it and why was it in Norway?

00:16:31.040 Why did we not have our own centre on the Arctic in Canada?

00:16:35.640 The, you know, the thinking behind it is to have some presence in the region.

00:16:40.760 Again, are we an Arctic leader?

00:16:42.860 Are we a G7 nation?

00:16:44.380 Do we want to provide some thought leadership and some concrete practical security leadership

00:16:49.360 in this area?

00:16:50.840 And if you do, then you should have some presence on the ground.

00:16:53.280 And you should get to know the stakeholders and the partners and the issues and be seen and be present.

00:16:58.120 So that was the thinking at the time.

00:17:01.000 I don't know that the centre itself was, it certainly wasn't as effective as it could have been.

00:17:06.720 And so maybe, you know, if I'm being generous, maybe that's part of the reason of why it would close.

00:17:10.600 But the solution in my mind wouldn't be to close it, it would be to make it more effective.

00:17:14.180 That, you know, right now in 2023, our presence in that region on the northern flank of NATO with our Nordic partners,

00:17:24.240 as the Arctic Council is flailing a little bit because Russia is a member of it.

00:17:30.140 This is a very important time for us to be there with our Nordic partners,

00:17:34.360 to understand them, to reassure them to be a support.

00:17:37.220 And we seem to be doing the opposite.

00:17:38.880 And again, it's this lack of ambition, a lack of seeing ourselves as an Arctic leader,

00:17:44.380 and it's certainly a lack of being an Arctic leader.

00:17:46.640 And it's, you know, of all the places where Canada should lead, should be stepping up.

00:17:50.660 You would think the Arctic would be it.

00:17:53.040 And we're doing exactly the opposite.

00:17:56.760 In your op-ed in the National Post, you did mention Melanie Jolie, Canada's foreign minister,

00:18:02.280 going on, I believe it was CTV's question period.

00:18:05.000 And in saying, you know, we want to increase our influence in the world.

00:18:11.700 That's been, that's something they've been saying for eight years now.

00:18:16.260 And, and I would argue that by trying to be involved in everything, but not committed to anything fully.

00:18:24.820 Well, perhaps I'm being unfair or fully committed in Ukraine.

00:18:28.780 But they want, they, they decided that Canada should be part of everything, but we're not focused.

00:18:35.880 And I would say that that has watered down our influence in the Arctic being part of that.

00:18:42.800 So I, so I absolutely agree.

00:18:44.740 And I think that's consensus.

00:18:45.760 And the fact that Jolie is saying we want to increase our influence shows at least that they're acknowledging that we haven't been influential,

00:18:52.640 that we are, that we are laggards and we're having, you know, all of our allies saying in back channels and in leaks that we aren't stepping up in NATO

00:19:00.040 and how surprising it is, you know, with all of our, you know, that we aren't stepping up on the energy side, on the resource side,

00:19:06.780 on the Arctic side, on the NATO side.

00:19:10.000 You know, they have a war on their border.

00:19:11.540 We, and, and we're still sitting here so complacent about everything.

00:19:15.540 So at least Jolie is recognizing, you know, that this is, this is what's being said.

00:19:19.780 Our allies are looking for more and we should start doing something.

00:19:23.140 You know, it's eight years too late, but at least it's happening now.

00:19:26.220 You know, it's, you know, it's been, it's, it's been 18 months since the war in Ukraine started.

00:19:30.840 And now we're trying to, you know, figure this out a little late, but.

00:19:34.100 So, so yes, we absolutely need to do more.

00:19:36.520 And, and it's not a mystery.

00:19:38.440 What do our allies want from us?

00:19:40.020 And it's the agenda of Biden when he came to Ottawa in March.

00:19:43.240 What were the things the Americans wanted to talk about?

00:19:45.300 Again, NATO, our 2%, NORAD modernization, energy and resources, getting critical minerals and energy out to our allies.

00:19:53.020 So it's not a mystery what they're looking for us.

00:19:55.960 And now, you know, can we start to do something about it?

00:19:58.380 And the Arctic holds a key to a few of those things.

00:20:00.920 It holds a key to continental defense through Nordic modernization.

00:20:04.080 It holds a bit of a key through NATO because it's the northern flank with Russia.

00:20:08.500 Yeah, I mean, Sweden and Finland joined NATO, where a lot of the activity is happening, where some of the new, you know, vulnerabilities are being exposed.

00:20:16.800 And then it's critical minerals.

00:20:17.960 It's one of the last great geographical regions where there's untapped critical minerals that we could start tapping.

00:20:24.660 And we need it not only to get off Chinese and Russian dependence, but to have this energy transition.

00:20:28.840 So here is an area that purpose-built for Canada to lead in.

00:20:33.600 But again, it's like we're just discovering that this region exists now in 2023.

00:20:39.060 Well, I've been listening to politicians talk about the rain of fire for longer than I'd like to admit.

00:20:45.540 It's been at least 20 years, if not more.

00:20:48.380 And the Ontario government, mostly I've heard about it from various incarnations of the Ontario government going back to when Ernie Eaves was premier, Dalton McGinty, Kathleen Wynne.

00:21:00.100 And now we've got the Ford government, and they appear to be making some headway.

00:21:06.720 They've got the two closest indigenous groups leading an environmental assessment to look at, can they go in there?

00:21:15.260 Can they build the road?

00:21:16.420 Can they begin to extract the minerals that are there, the critical minerals?

00:21:20.940 And while everyone says this is incredibly important, you've also got the federal government questioning it from an environmental standpoint.

00:21:32.900 And so there seem to be mixed signals about what we can and should do.

00:21:38.500 I doubt that is something that is very helpful in extracting these critical minerals that you're talking about.

00:21:46.180 So I think Canadians should know that we actually extract fewer critical minerals in 2023 than we did in 2019, and in many cases, less than we did in 2005.

00:21:55.800 So we are very much going the wrong way if you think critical minerals are important to our economy, to the energy transition, to our security.

00:22:03.460 We are going the wrong way.

00:22:04.700 And so again, like you say, since 2015, until the Ukraine war, there was very much a sense, and Bill C-69, the Impact Assessment Agency, kind of institutionalized this, that we want to move away from resource extraction.

00:22:20.060 The Prime Minister said, you know, at WEF once in Switzerland, we want to be known for our resourcefulness, not for our resources, and that, you know, our young people should go and do university and white-collar jobs, and that the future is not going to resource extraction.

00:22:35.820 And now here we are, you know, climbing back from that, saying, wow, actually, we do need these critical minerals.

00:22:40.740 Our allies are asking for it.

00:22:42.020 We need more energy.

00:22:43.340 We're going to face, we're facing energy crises.

00:22:45.440 We'll face some more.

00:22:46.620 And what can be done?

00:22:47.500 And so at least on critical minerals, we've heard a change of tone.

00:22:51.720 We have a critical mineral strategy.

00:22:54.140 You know, provincial governments like in Ontario are trying to push this forward faster.

00:22:58.680 We're building battery plants that rely on these supplies.

00:23:02.360 So rhetorically, there has been a change of tone.

00:23:04.820 But in practice, all of the difficulties on the regulatory side, on the permitting side, on the financing side, on the international and competitive side, none of that has changed.

00:23:14.900 And so now they've committed in Budget 2023 that they're working on it.

00:23:19.240 They have a task force.

00:23:20.260 They expect to have some reforms by the end of the year.

00:23:22.820 But there isn't really confidence in industry, I would say, from all of my many conversations, that they know how to unwind what they've just spent eight years implementing.

00:23:30.740 So it'll be a tough road for sure.

00:23:34.380 All right.

00:23:35.400 We're going to take a quick break right now.

00:23:37.340 But when we come back, I want to ask you about the differing views.

00:23:41.920 You've written about the Americans taking a renewed interest in the Arctic, the reasons that Canada should take a greater interest due to how things are going with Russia.

00:23:52.620 But I want to get into a bit about the different viewpoints and how those countries are looking to either play in the Arctic, extract in the Arctic, exploit compared to what we're doing.

00:24:08.560 Contrast that with what Justin Trudeau said at the WEF that you mentioned back in a moment.

00:24:14.300 Heather, when I was looking at different articles preparing for the interview, I found one in India.

00:24:19.900 I was just trying to find out how many clear sailing days do we have going through the Arctic Ocean.

00:24:26.620 And, you know, when you see articles in Canada about being able to sail the Northwest Passage, it's often accompanied with, oh, this is bad.

00:24:34.940 This is going in the wrong direction.

00:24:36.480 I found one out of India celebrating the ability of Russian mariner traffic to spend more time to have a longer shipping season.

00:24:47.000 And how great this was, there really are different views out there on whether what's happening in the Arctic is a good thing.

00:24:56.240 Where are we compared to the Americans compared to the Russians on things like that using the Arctic as a shipping route?

00:25:03.860 So let's, so the Russians are in a class of their own when it comes to the Arctic. 0.94

00:25:10.060 They have half the territory, two-thirds of the people, three-quarters of the GDP in the Arctic.

00:25:16.000 And the Arctic is so much more important to Russian politics, to the Russian economy than it is everywhere else.

00:25:22.000 And the statistic I like to use is, depending on the price of oil, the Arctic represents probably 15 to 20% of Russian GDP.

00:25:29.520 The Canadian territory is far less than 1% of our GDP.

00:25:34.820 Alaska, far less than 1% of American GDP.

00:25:38.060 Greenland is far less than 1% of Danish GDP.

00:25:41.320 So we are really looking at apples and oranges.

00:25:44.800 That said, you know, we have a lot of the territory.

00:25:47.380 Why are the Russians so far advanced? 1.00

00:25:49.140 One is, you know, they put the state policies and, you know, force people there into Siberia for a long time. 0.60

00:25:55.480 But also because the Northern Sea route is a better route than the Northwest Passage.

00:26:00.320 It is open for longer.

00:26:01.980 And they have the warm, a warm current that goes all the way to the Barents Ocean, all the way to where most of their natural gas is.

00:26:08.640 So we have seen an incredible LNG boom in Arctic gas in the last probably seven, seven years.

00:26:15.460 And one reason is because it is almost ice free all through the year from where they're, you know, from Yamal, from where they're, you know, big reserves of natural gas are in the Arctic Ocean, all the way to Europe.

00:26:28.400 So almost all their natural gas, their LNG has been going to Europe.

00:26:32.680 Now they have to pivot, obviously.

00:26:35.160 The Europeans are still importing record amounts of Russian LNG, but trying not to.

00:26:39.220 And so the Russians are looking in the medium, longer term that they need to go to Asian markets, to India, to China and others.

00:26:46.820 But that is the ice choked way.

00:26:48.280 That is the far more difficult way.

00:26:50.500 So the Russians have invested in these heavy icebreakers.

00:26:53.160 They have, you know, far more nuclear icebreakers than, you know, anyone else almost combined to give themselves the opportunity to export their goods from the Arctic to Asian markets.

00:27:03.760 So they are working on that.

00:27:05.320 In Canada, almost nothing is happening.

00:27:07.780 And one reason is that the Northwest Passage is a far, you know, a far worse sea route.

00:27:13.400 And it always will be.

00:27:14.700 So like I said before, it is the last sea ice area.

00:27:18.580 It is choked, ice choked for longer.

00:27:21.360 It will be the last one to melt if we ever see ice melt for the summer season.

00:27:25.620 It always refreezes because it tilts at 23 degrees and the winter is six months of darkness.

00:27:31.840 So it will always refreeze.

00:27:33.600 It's also narrow and it's also shallow in many parts.

00:27:37.280 So it's a very...

00:27:38.700 And going through a lot of islands and straits that the Russians just aren't dealing with.

00:27:43.600 Exactly.

00:27:44.000 They have the...

00:27:44.680 If you look at, you know, the top of Russia, it's pretty much a straight shot.

00:27:48.200 So even the ice break, you know, and it's not easy.

00:27:50.520 It's never easy to ship in the Arctic under no circumstances.

00:27:54.820 But it is so much easier on the Russian side.

00:27:57.680 And that's why the Northern Sea Route is so much more developed.

00:28:00.540 On the Amer...

00:28:00.940 But we did have plans for our own ice breakers.

00:28:04.660 And I don't think that that's ever come to fruition.

00:28:08.920 No.

00:28:09.380 Well, we do have ice breakers.

00:28:11.140 And now, you know, so the one thing the Harper government did is, you know, launch the Arctic

00:28:15.660 offshore patrol ships.

00:28:17.800 So I think we have three in service now.

00:28:19.920 Three more are coming.

00:28:20.760 And the Coast Guard's probably going to operate too.

00:28:22.680 So we have increased capability there.

00:28:25.420 We have increased some monitoring capability, satellite capability.

00:28:28.140 So it's not as if nothing's happening.

00:28:30.640 And also appreciating how difficult it is to operate in the Arctic.

00:28:33.900 The Canadian forces are very good at it.

00:28:36.300 And we have the Canadian Rangers, which is, you know, primarily Indigenous kind of paramilitia

00:28:41.480 that obviously have incredible intelligence and an understanding and experience with the

00:28:46.700 land that train our Canadian forces.

00:28:48.600 We have some, you know, kind of mutual learning between them.

00:28:51.320 So we have advantages in that respect.

00:28:53.640 So when people say, for example, oh, China is going to come to the Arctic.

00:28:57.660 No, they have almost no competence operating in such an environment.

00:29:01.900 And when you're up there in the Arctic, it's about survival, you know, let alone, there's

00:29:08.240 no occupying, there's no taking over territory.

00:29:11.120 It's trying to survive in that territory long enough to achieve whatever your mission is.

00:29:14.740 So that's why we don't think there'll be a hot conflict in the Arctic is because as a

00:29:20.340 military theater, it is so, so difficult.

00:29:23.940 It's more, it's, you know, the hypersonic missiles passing over it is the real concern.

00:29:27.980 Why the re-engagement by the Americans?

00:29:33.900 Is it political?

00:29:35.040 Is it economic?

00:29:36.000 Is it just a change in administration?

00:29:40.180 That's a great question.

00:29:41.640 So, so, you know, for a long time, the Arctic was, was not, even though it was important to

00:29:45.980 Canada in the 90s, at the same time that the territory of Nunavut was being developed as

00:29:50.840 the, we had many land claim agreements with Inuit.

00:29:53.360 So it was important in Ottawa, and we are conceiving of ourselves as this Northern nation in

00:29:58.440 the 90s.

00:29:59.200 And we are the ones that pushed the creation of the Arctic Council.

00:30:02.320 And the Americans were very, you know, agnostic about it.

00:30:05.480 They really needed to be pushed.

00:30:07.160 They only agreed because we said, we won't discuss the military.

00:30:10.640 It won't be a treaty-based organization.

00:30:13.800 You know, it's just a forum for talking.

00:30:16.200 And so that's how the Americans were convinced.

00:30:18.040 But then, you know, again, it's the commodity cycle that hit, you know, in 2008, 2009, the

00:30:23.840 Russian flag planting at the North Pole in 2007, that re-peaked their interest.

00:30:29.400 And now it is, you know, again, they're an American superpower.

00:30:33.740 You know, the continental defense is more important.

00:30:36.180 The critical minerals are more important.

00:30:37.660 The oil is more important.

00:30:39.100 Russia is making a lot of moves in the Arctic to develop it.

00:30:42.620 And so that's brought them in.

00:30:44.240 And so they have a new strategy as of last October.

00:30:46.780 They're creating a new Arctic ambassador role.

00:30:49.720 Mike Sprague is going through the nomination process.

00:30:51.920 They've opened up a consulate in Tromso.

00:30:53.940 They're making so many moves while Canada has been standing still for about 10 years.

00:31:00.280 In terms of energy usage in the North, there is a push on several provincial governments

00:31:09.300 that started with New Brunswick, Ontario, and Saskatchewan.

00:31:12.240 And I think Alberta's joined in now on trying to facilitate the use of small modular reactors,

00:31:20.220 small nuke plants that could be placed somewhere like northern communities.

00:31:25.460 How important is that sort of policy when you consider how much is run by dirty diesel generators

00:31:33.400 in the North?

00:31:34.320 Yeah, I think there's about 170 communities in Canada that are diesel dependent.

00:31:38.260 And in Nuna, for example, they are all 100% diesel dependent.

00:31:44.280 Yukon has some hydro and Northwest Territories has some hydro, but they're also very diesel dependent.

00:31:49.620 And when you look at mining up there, they're almost all diesel dependent too.

00:31:54.540 So, you know, some of the diamond mines, I know, will take 85 million liters of diesel a year to run.

00:32:00.380 So just think of that.

00:32:03.200 So we, and they're starting to age.

00:32:05.300 A lot of them are put in the 50s and 60s, and they're starting to age and they need to be replaced.

00:32:08.760 So we don't want to replace them with diesel.

00:32:11.880 So for me, you know, we talk about the SMRs and we talk about, you know, kind of the on-grid stuff

00:32:16.960 happening in Ontario and Saskatchewan, New Brunswick.

00:32:18.820 The far more exciting application for Canada are these micro-reactors that are combined heat and power

00:32:25.620 and can do the job that diesel does, not only for communities, for clean energy,

00:32:29.920 then you're not dealing with black carbon and the pollution that comes from that and the noise

00:32:33.380 and the other, you know, and the climate change impacts, obviously.

00:32:37.660 But also, you know, a secure, they only need refueling every seven or eight or nine years.

00:32:43.460 They're very safe.

00:32:44.960 You can bury them and you can mine. 0.99

00:32:48.100 So all of a sudden, here's an opportunity where we are going to be able to have energy

00:32:53.140 for the mining, energy for the communities, and also energy for the military.

00:32:56.820 So it's like a trifecta.

00:32:58.500 These micro-reactors, because when you're talking about the enormous amounts of data,

00:33:02.600 of monitoring, you know, of, you know, watching that NORAD, the NORAD facilities need,

00:33:09.400 micro-reactors can provide that.

00:33:10.940 In fact, the first micro-reactor going in Alaska is at an air base, U.S. Air Force base,

00:33:18.300 because it makes so much sense.

00:33:19.920 So I am so excited about the prospects of micro-reactors to provide cheap, cheaper,

00:33:25.780 reliable, clean, affordable energy for so many different purposes that we don't have right now.

00:33:30.220 I was speaking recently with someone who's working on energy security for northern communities,

00:33:37.900 and they are speaking to people in places like Sweden.

00:33:42.200 They were, until the invasion, speaking to people in Russia and dealing with the Americans in Alaska.

00:33:48.380 And they said that we are just so far behind when it comes to providing cleaner energy,

00:33:53.560 and that they were just in the Yukon.

00:33:55.920 And you mentioned the noise, and that may sound trivial,

00:33:58.720 but when you've got a constant din of a generator behind you,

00:34:03.420 that does have an impact on you,

00:34:06.240 plus the particulate matter and everything else that goes with it.

00:34:11.820 So that's an interesting angle.

00:34:15.280 Well, to circle back as we close then,

00:34:19.620 we've got policies and we've got talking,

00:34:24.040 and the phrase that you used about the government's plan,

00:34:27.740 a plan to plan,

00:34:28.560 that sounds like the most government thing I've ever heard,

00:34:31.660 and unfortunately far too common in many areas.

00:34:34.620 But you've said that we could be a superpower in this one area.

00:34:41.020 Canada is not going to be a superpower in the world,

00:34:44.920 at best middle power,

00:34:46.440 and only on some points.

00:34:49.120 Not even on all points can we be a strong middle power.

00:34:53.040 But make the case for why we need to be an Arctic superpower.

00:34:58.140 Well, because it's one area where we can lead.

00:35:01.220 And so it's important to us,

00:35:03.920 we have a huge amount of territory.

00:35:06.560 We do have Canadians there.

00:35:08.420 We do have experience,

00:35:10.140 and the struggles and challenges of remoteness

00:35:12.740 that many, you know, few other people have.

00:35:16.740 But it's more to the point of

00:35:19.180 what is Canada's role in the world

00:35:20.800 and what can we contribute?

00:35:22.440 And the Americans are taking up a pretty big burden

00:35:25.240 on a lot of angles here.

00:35:26.900 And we'd like to share that burden

00:35:29.200 with some of their closest allies.

00:35:31.100 And here is Canada tailor-made really

00:35:33.240 to provide the thought leadership,

00:35:35.160 the innovation,

00:35:37.060 the strategy on the Arctic.

00:35:38.360 And why do I know we can do it?

00:35:40.680 Because we were that person.

00:35:42.100 We were that country in the 1990s

00:35:44.980 that provided, you know,

00:35:46.480 new arrangements with Indigenous peoples

00:35:48.360 on the governance side.

00:35:50.360 We are the best at remote mining.

00:35:53.640 That we do know, you know,

00:35:55.560 how to operate in an environment so well.

00:35:57.200 That we did lead thought leadership

00:35:58.680 on foreign affairs in that region.

00:36:00.640 So we've done it before.

00:36:02.520 And for whatever reason,

00:36:03.800 we let it fall by the wayside.

00:36:06.020 And there was a huge vacuum.

00:36:07.680 And now the Americans are having to fill the vacuum.

00:36:10.560 But they have other things

00:36:12.560 that they could be thinking about.

00:36:14.220 So for me, it's just,

00:36:15.140 we're a G7 nation.

00:36:16.740 Where can we best contribute?

00:36:18.360 And for me, the obvious answer is the Arctic.

00:36:20.060 We shall see if the government is listening to you

00:36:23.980 and listening to this Senate report

00:36:26.260 and others who are making some very good arguments.

00:36:29.700 Heather, thanks for the time today.

00:36:30.780 Thanks for having me, Brian.

00:36:32.560 Full Comment is a post-media podcast.

00:36:35.320 My name is Brian Lilly, your host.

00:36:37.120 This episode was produced by Andre Pru

00:36:38.960 with theme music by Bryce Hall.

00:36:41.060 Kevin Libin is the executive producer.

00:36:43.200 Remember what I told you at the start.

00:36:44.740 You can subscribe to Full Comment,

00:36:46.240 so hit subscribe.

00:36:47.060 Whether you're listening on Apple Podcasts,

00:36:49.560 Google, Spotify, Amazon Music,

00:36:51.300 hit the subscribe button,

00:36:52.840 listen through the app

00:36:53.720 or your Alexa-enabled devices,

00:36:55.580 and help us out by giving us a rating,

00:36:57.600 leaving a review,

00:36:58.640 and tell your friends all about us.

00:37:00.460 Thanks for listening.

00:37:01.280 Until next time, I'm Brian Lilly.

Full Comment - July 24, 2023

Canada could be an Arctic superpower, but Ottawa walked away

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript