Canada pledged to strengthen its military presence in the Arctic after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and China’s growing interest in the far north, shattered its sense of security
Canada is working with Nordic countries to create a new Arctic security coalition that would exclude Russia and offer a place to coordinate on defence, intelligence and cyber threats.
Security talks among the northern allies are needed because they don’t meet privately at the political level anymore, partly due to Russia’s presence on the Arctic Council, Canada’s Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly said. The Nordics are now all NATO members after Sweden’s accession earlier this year.
“For a long time Canada, we thought we were protected by our geography. But now we need to reckon that we are a country facing Russia and because of climate change, more countries are interested in the Arctic, including China,” she said in an interview with Bloomberg News. “We need to be addressing this new reality.”
The Canadian government has pledged to strengthen its military presence in the Arctic after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and China’s growing interest in the far north, shattered its sense of security in its vast northern territories. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government is also trying to prove to the U.S. that it’s a reliable partner on defence, especially as Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump places a heavy emphasis on allies paying their share of security costs.
Joly met last weekend with her counterparts from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden in Iqaluit, the capital of Canada’s northern territory of Nunavut. They agreed to explore ways to create a so-called “Arctic security dialogue” or a new forum to discuss defence matters, Joly said.
Those conversations must also focus on foreign investment in the Arctic and adversaries’ so-called “dual-use” research, which targets both civilian and strategic objectives, she added.
The minister is also developing an Arctic foreign policy, in collaboration with Inuit communities living in Canada’s northern territories, that will aim to counter Russian and Chinese influence.
Canada’s military presence in the Arctic pales in comparison with Russia’s, and while its defence policy update this year pledged to boost spending and buy submarines capable of operating under ice, those commitments will take years to fulfill. The country spends about 1.4 per cent of its gross domestic product on defence, much less than the Nordic countries apart from Iceland.
The pledge to deepen security talks with democratic allies in the North is “very positive and very overdue,” said Heather Exner-Pirot, a special adviser at the Business Council of Canada with expertise on Arctic development and security. She noted that senior Chinese and Russian officials have been meeting to discuss Arctic strategy.
The U.S. is extremely concerned about Canada’s inability to defend the northern flank of the continent, Exner-Pirot said, and has been pressing the country to meet NATO’s target of spending 2 per cent or more of GDP on defence. Twenty-three of 32 members meet the threshold.
In July, Trudeau promised to reach the benchmark by 2032, but gave few concrete details.
“It’s preposterous,” Exner-Pirot said. “We are a wealthy country.”
Former U.S. National Security Advisor Susan Rice told an event in Toronto on Wednesday that Trudeau’s 2032 timeline is too slow.
“Canada should frankly be embarrassed about breaking its commitment” and about “being on a slow path” to reaching the 2 per cent goal, Rice said at the Global Risk Institute summit. “Canada needs to pull its weight.”
Joly has been foreign minister since 2021 and has overseen Canada’s response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and unveiled an Indo-Pacific strategy aimed at curbing China’s influence. A major component of that strategy was increasing military assets and intelligence-gathering, but the minister has also unveiled a strategy of “pragmatic diplomacy,” engaging with nations with which Canada has strong disagreements to achieve common goals, where possible.
To that end, in July she became the first Canadian foreign minister in seven years to visit China, having a “tough” three-and-a-half hour conversation with her counterpart, Wang Yi. The meeting came weeks before Canada announced new tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, steel and aluminum.
“Sometimes people think that diplomacy is not something that helps you show strength,” she said. “Well, I really think that when you stop talking to certain countries, it actually shows to a certain extent a form of weakness because it’s more tough to have really difficult conversations.”
— With additional reporting from Brian Platt and Stephanie Hughes
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