A Privy Council Office (PCO) briefing note on Arctic security suggests that this issue is “more important than ever.” The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) maintains a year-round presence in the Arctic and currently has some 300 full-time personnel assigned to the vast northern region, says the note dated April 23.
“Geopolitical competition, rapid technological changes, and the changing Arctic landscape make defending this strategically important region, its people, and our interests there more important than ever,” the note stated, as first reported by Blacklock’s Reporter.
The note said 300 full-time CAF members are deployed in the North, alongside over 1,700 Canadian Rangers, who are part-time and assist in northern operations and activities. Additional CAF members are regularly dispatched to the region, “flowing in and out” for yearly exercises, including for Operation Nanook, which is Canada’s signature defence and security operation in the North.
Disclosure of the briefing note came after the Department of National Defence revealed in February that Chinese surveillance buoys were discovered in Arctic waters last fall. The spy buoys were identified and later intercepted by the CAF in a mission dubbed Operation Limpid.
Chief of the Defence Staff General Wayne Eyre had previously warned MPs of China’s threat to Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic region, an expert told a House of Commons committee on Oct. 25, 2022. Robert Huebert, associate professor at the University of Calgary, said at the time that Chinese authorities “are doing the capabilities studies right now.”
Defence in the Arctic region was also described as crucial in a June 28 report titled “Arctic Security Under Threat: Urgent needs in a changing geopolitical and environmental landscape,” from the Senate Standing Committee on National Security, Defence and Veterans Affairs (SECD).
The report cited Ron Wallace, Fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, who has warned of continued collaboration between China and Russia, pointing to their liquefied natural gas projects in the Russian Arctic.
Mr. Wallace, who testified before the SECD on May 2, 2022, also said that he saw no indications that the Russian-Ukraine war “will diminish [China’s] interests in those Russian export capacities from the Arctic.”
The SECD report released this June further cited Mr. Eyre’s April 24, 2023, testimony before the SECD, where he characterized Russia as “more reliant on China, almost becoming a vassal of China,” and said that this offers China opportunities “to become more involved” in the Arctic.
SECD chair Senator Tony Dean has also warned about Russia’s ambition in the Arctic region, reported Blacklock’s Reporter.
“In the past 10 years, Russia has reopened or rebuilt a number of Cold War-era military bases in the Arctic,” he said. “More than 10 are operational. Nuclear-powered submarines are stationed there.”
“We have to keep an eye on this.”
