Myth versus reality in Stephen Harper’s northern strategy

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The North - Myth versus reality in Stephen Harper’s northern strategy

[ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/nat ... e16397458/ ]

STEVEN CHASE Published Friday, Jan. 17 2014, 8:09 PM EST Last updated Monday, Jan. 12 2015, 2:55 PM EST

This is part of The North [ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/the-north/ ], a Globe investigation into the unprecedented change to the climate, culture and politics of Canada’s last frontier. Join the conversation with #GlobeNorth.

Since the zinc mine closed in 2002, the High Arctic company town of Nanisivik has been gradually wiped off the map.

The indoor pool and skating rink are gone from the once-thriving community at the northern tip of Baffin Island, some 3,100 kilometres north of Ottawa. So are the former residents and their houses – all of them. The church was dragged across the sea ice to the neighbouring hamlet of Arctic Bay (pop. 820).

Yet it was here, in August, 2007, that Stephen Harper made one of his regular stands for Canada’s sovereignty in the North. The Prime Minister travelled to Nanisivik’s wharf – the only deep-water port in the Canadian Arctic – to announce with great fanfare that he would build the first permanent Arctic naval facility here.

Only a few weeks earlier, Mr. Harper’s then-18-month-old government had unveiled plans to build as many as eight military vessels specifically designed for the North, “Arctic/Offshore Patrol Ships” (AOPS), a purchase the Conservatives called the “the most effective way to assert Canada’s authority, independence and sovereignty” in northern waters.

So far, the reality has proved much more modest.

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