EXPOSED IN THE NORTH
Canada ‘falling further and further behind’ other nations as Arctic development heats up
HELSINKI A map of the North Pole, with a miniature Finnish flag pinned squarely in the middle, decorates the small coffee table in Tero Vauraste’s Helsinki office, one that actually floats atop the Gulf of Finland. As the current chair of the Arctic Economic Council and chief executive of Finland’s icebreaker powerhouse Arctia Inc., the north is familiar territory to Vauraste — much like the frigid -26 temperatures outside his office in late February.
At the moment, Vauraste is feeling a bit frustrated with the Canadian government.
Arctia wants to supply Canada with several much-needed interim icebreakers. The state-backed company believed it was on track to help provide the fleet, until Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in January went on CBC/RadioCanada and said the government was beginning negotiations with the Chantier Davie Canada Inc. shipyard in Quebec to lease three icebreakers.
“That was, for us, a big surprise and quite unexpected,” Vauraste said, pointing out Arctia has icebreakers ready to send to Canada.
Perhaps he shouldn’t have been surprised that Canada doesn’t seem to be in a rush to replace its aging fleet of icebreakers. Experts say that’s just one example of how Canada is struggling to keep pace with the Arctic research and development being conducted by Nordic countries such as Finland, as well as Russia and China.
A recent report by the Centre for International Governance Innovation said Nordic governments and Russia dedicate substantially more resources in their Arctic regions by supporting them “through strong governance structures, planned investment and development, and close bilateral and multilateral ties.”
In Canada, “no one is worrying about long-term economic development in the Arctic and making the kind of investments we need,” CIGI said.
“We are falling further and further behind the European Arctic, Russian Arctic and the east Asian Arctic in terms of all kinds of measures of development and capacity,” said John Higginbotham, a senior fellow at CIGI and Carleton University professor who authored the report.
Russia has arguably led the way as Arctic development heats up, investing heavily in efforts to commercialize the Arctic Ocean by pouring money into its northern cities, industries, surface and marine transport, and aggressively exploring offshore oil and gas (something Norway is also doing ).
Russia is also expanding its massive icebreaker fleet and it is Arctia’s biggest icebreaker customer, with 60 per cent of all the Finnishmade vessels heading to the country, but the Canadian government still chose to pass on the company ’s proposal.
Arctia, which provides most of the world’s icebreakers, had submitted a proposal to the Canadian government after a request for information was opened more than a year ago.
The company was hoping to lease part of its existing fleet to Canada on an interim basis.
“Our proposal was that we could work together by enhancing our current capacity. We already have a fleet of one to five icebreakers, which was requested, that could work in the Canadian Arctic without any big conversions,” Vauraste said. “The vessels are more or less ready to start working there any day ... so it’s frustrating.”
A spokesperson for Public Services and Procurement Canada said the government is currently in negotiations with Chantier Davie regarding three medium-sized icebreakers.
“Our government is focused on providing the women and men of the Canadian Coast Guard with the equipment they need to do their work in a timely and efficient way, and at the best cost to Canadian taxpayers,” spokesperson JeanFrançois Létourneau said.
Interim icebreakers don’t provide a long-term solution for Canada’s aging fleet, where the average age is approaching four decades, but they would partly address the country’s lagging profile in the Arctic.
Even China, keenly interested in new shipping routes to Europe should polar ice continue to melt, is starting to make some noise. It released a white paper about the Arctic in January that said its policy goals are to “understand, protect, develop and participate in the governance of the Arctic, so as to safeguard the common interests of all countries and the international community in the Arctic, and promote sustainable development of the Arctic.”
Historically, of course, transportation and economic development across the Nordic countries has been strong and continues to be so.
For example, in addition to Finland’s icebreaker business (which includes Aker Arctic, an icebreaker designer that will be working on Canada’s John G Diefenbaker icebreaker, expected to join the fleet in 2021), the country is developing several projects focusing on technological innovation.
The University of Oulu, located in the northern city of Oulu on the edge of the Arctic Circle, has launched a 5G network that is testing various innovative uses of the new telecommunications technology.
And in 2016, the Finnish government launched the Aurora project, an “Arctic intelligent transport test ecosystem” that allows companies to test autonomous vehicle technology in the harshest conditions on one of the most northern roads in the country.
Meanwhile, some of Canada’s North is lacking even basic infrastructure. Higginbotham said the most significant area that requires improvement is transportation.
“We have very primitive airports up there, very poor east-west links, limited icebreaker capacity, limited deepwater ports ... there’s just really nothing happening up there now,” he said.
“My perspective is one that’s looking 20 years ahead, and that’s when the Arctic Ocean is going to be much more accessible and much more open. Because of their heavy investment in infrastructure, icebreakers, rail-serving ports and so on, right now it looks like Russia is very far ahead of us.”
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Indigenous and Northern Affairs said the government is working with the territories, provinces and Indigenous groups to identify a long-term vision to 2030 for the Canadian Arctic, through the creation of a new Arctic Policy Framework.
“Canada is an Arctic nation and it recognizes that the Arctic region requires shared leadership,” department spokesperson Stephanie Palma said in an email.
“Investment in resilient Arctic infrastructure, such as roads, fibre-optic cables, airstrips and low-impact shipping corridors, will be foundational pieces generating sustainable economic opportunities locally, nationally and internationally.”
The government hosted public consultations for feedback on the policy framework from the fall of 2017 through to February, and will at some point release several reports based on the sessions.
Michael Byers, a Canada Research Chair whose work has focused on Arctic sovereignty, said that just about everything in the North “needs to be improved upon.”
He points to the deepwater Arctic port in Churchill, Man., as a “glaring example” of how Canada is falling behind other Arctic nations.
“We have a deepwater port at the end of a rail line that connects to the North American rail network, straight down into the American Midwest, and that port and rail line is not functioning because of a lack of interest and action on the part of the Canadian government,” Byers said.
“We’re not talking about new infrastructure — this is existing infrastructure. And it has been allowed by the Canadian government to be abandoned and neglected and degraded by the American rail company (Omnitrax) that owns the port and rail line. We’re going backwards in some places, rather than forwards.”
Haari Saarnisaari, a professor at the University of Oulu’s Centre for Wireless Communication in northern Finland, knows the challenges of bringing new infrastructure to remote Arctic areas.
Saarnisaari said Finland has been working to bring better cellular coverage to Arctic areas, with the recent focus on bringing 4G technology to some rural corners of the North. Once 4G penetration is improved, he expects 5G to be next step.
Speaking at Oulu University last month, Saarnisaari pointed at a map of the Canadian Arctic, its 55 sparse communities scattered over an enormous swath of land, and then shrugged his shoulders at the limited capacity they get because of their reliance on satellites for telecom coverage. “It’s better than nothing,” he said.
Obviously, Canada’s large, sparsely populated northern territories are a significant challenge when it comes to developing infrastructure, but both Higginbotham and Byers said there is also a lack of political will.
The basic infrastructure requirements in the Canadian Arctic are drowned out by larger — and very pressing — issues facing the government, Higginbotham said, but the Arctic should not be forgotten, particularly given how rapidly it is changing.
“Canada is really two countries: a very sophisticated, mature area along the north border of the United States, and then a huge underdeveloped area which Canadians are fretting about whether we are taking full advantage of, in terms of sovereignty and stewardship,” he said.
To help fix the latter, Higginbotham said the government should commit to a fund for large-scale infrastructure in close co-ordination with Indigenous and territorial governments. “We need a longterm commitment.”
The list of priorities for Canada is long, Byers said, and among the top ones should be improving the social well-being in the North, particularly when it comes to addressing high suicide rates. Investments in infrastructure, including the icebreakers, should follow.
“Canada has the longest coastline of any country in the world,” Byers said. “In terms of being able to deploy a Canadian presence, whether it’s for search and rescue, to support commercial activity, to support scientific research, the country with the longest coastline needs to be able to send and operate Canadian vessels.”
Canada is an Arctic nation and it recognizes that the Arctic region requires shared leadership. Investment in resilient Arctic infrastructure ... will be foundational pieces generating sustainable economic opportunities locally, nationally and internationally.