History – and recent events – have shown that it’s not enough to have a piece of paper guaranteeing security or territorial integrity. Real military power is a must.
Imagine for a moment that it’s a few years from now and you are the Prime Minister.
It’s a time of instability and chaos around the world.
China is invading Taiwan, Europe is on the brink of all-out war, and the global economy is at risk of collapse.
America and the European Union are paralyzed by political indecision and internal division.
You’re sitting in your office, the country’s weight on your shoulders.
All of a sudden, your top advisors walk in with looks of barely concealed terror on their faces, to tell you that Russia is attempting to seize key parts of the Northwest Passage. They’ve moved many subs and icebreakers into Canada’s Arctic waters, and have deployed 10,000 troops to the region. Already, they are setting up shelters and building up initial bases to turn their seizure of the territory into a fait accompli.
You ask, “what can we do about it?”
At that critical moment, your options as Prime Minister will be constrained by what your predecessors did.
Given current trends, this means that the moment you ask your advisors what Canada can do, the answer you get back could be “nothing.”
“Nothing.”
Perhaps we could ask for help, but – as noted above – we’re looking at a scenario where the free world’s powers are already overstretched, paralyzed, and divided.
Help may not be coming.
And remember, some within the nationalist faction in the U.S. want the U.S. to abandon its democratic allies, muse about ‘annexing Canada,’ and want to get closer to China and Russia. We can’t automatically assume that the U.S. would have our back, nor is it fair for Canada to outsource our defence to the U.S., U.K., and other top allies as we have done for years.
So, you’re sitting there in the Prime Minister’s Office, with little choice but to watch helplessly as fascist Russia seizes Canadian territory and attempts to seize the vast potential wealth of the Arctic region and the Northwest Passage.
Of course, this kind of scenario should be running through the head of every Prime Minister. Were he a responsible leader, Justin Trudeau would have asked about the threat of a scenario like this on his first day in office, and would have commenced a large-scale military buildup immediately. Instead, little was done for nearly a decade.
And here we are, with Canada’s Arctic still almost undefended even as threats swirl around us.
Here’s how the National Post explained it:
“It’s true that the war in Ukraine has severely depleted the Russian military and exposed it as a far less fearsome fighting force than many expected. But it is also the case that Russia’s northern naval fleet and its squadron of strategic bombers remain intact. According to the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, western militaries are about a decade behind Russia’s in the Arctic.
Less than 350 kilometres from Kemijarvi, the terminus of Sweden’s new electric rail line, which is set to open sometime this year, lies a collection of Russian bases on the Kola Peninsula, at the northern tip of western Russia. It is home to a fleet of around 80 fighter jets, 27 subs, over 40 warships and large stockpiles of nuclear weapons.
Over the past two decades, Russia has been building northern deep-water ports and refurbishing more than a dozen Soviet-era Arctic bases. It has also equipped its northern territories with new airfields capable of accommodating nuclear bombers, along with air-defence and anti-ship weaponry, and upgraded surveillance systems.
Russia has the world’s largest fleet of icebreakers, soon expected to number 50 vessels, including two of the world’s largest and most powerful icebreakers, which went into service a couple years ago, and another that is currently under construction. The Russian navy is also expected to have a fleet of 50 submarines by the end of the decade.
According to a 2023 report from the Washington-based Center for Strategic & International Studies, the Russian Arctic is home to three large army bases, “around 13 airfields, 10 radar stations, 20 border outposts and 10 emergency rescue stations.”
This stands is a sharp contrast to Canada, which has never bothered to develop or defend its northern territories, despite the fact that, geographically, they comprise nearly half the country. We don’t have any rail lines extending anywhere close to the Arctic Circle, our northernmost railway going only as far as Great Slave Lake. Our aged submarine fleet consists of four vessels that spend more time at port than at sea, and can’t operate for extended periods under the ice.
We don’t have any operational northern deep-water ports, having spent more than a decade trying to build a single port, the Nanisivik Naval Facility, which is nine years behind schedule and $30 million over budget, despite being significantly scaled back from its original design. Even when it’s completed, which is expected some time this year, the port will not be able to land large aircraft or operate during the winter.”
Time to wake up
For decades, Canadians have been asleep when it comes to national defence. We have forgotten that to truly call territory our own, we must be able to defend it.
Now, it’s time for us to wake up.
A military buildup in the Arctic can’t be a ‘long-term’ project, it needs to happen now. We need to spend billions – yes, billions – immediately on building bases and ports and infrastructure, along with equipping our armed forces with the most advanced equipment possible, buying more fighter jets, investing in long-range missiles, ramping up icebreaker construction, and looking at acquiring our own strategic bombing capability.
We need to act NOW, so that if a future Canadian Prime is faced with the scenario of a Russian invasion of the Canadian Arctic and asks their advisors “what can we do about it,” their advisors can confidently – and truthfully – answer, “we are already in the process of pushing Russia out of Canadian territory.”
Spencer Fernando
