OTTAWA — Long overlooked by Ottawa, Canada’s remote and resource-rich Arctic is suddenly at the center of a new national project — one whose potential was recognized early on by outside players, including the United States.
“There was a lot of interest from other places,” R.J. Simpson, the premier of Canada’s Northwest Territories, told POLITICO recently. “Even the U.S. Department of Defense has made investments into a couple mining projects in the Northwest Territories, yet we did not. We couldn’t seem to get any interest from Canada to get anything done up north.”
But Simpson says that is finally changing — driven by a mix of economic ambition and military necessity. With Prime Minister Mark Carney’s new nation-building agenda and U.S. pressure to secure North America’s northern frontier, Canada is turning its attention to the Arctic’s critical minerals, infrastructure and defense potential — a shift that could redefine the North’s role in both national sovereignty and continental security.
The premier’s assessment comes as Carney and President Donald Trump continue talks toward a new economic and security agreement that will see Canada leverage the critical mineral wealth of its North and bolster its military footprint in a vast, sparsely populated region increasingly eyed by Russia and China.
