The Conservatives on Monday said a military base in Iqaluit would be the centrepiece of the party’s plan to “take back control of Canada’s North” if it forms the next government.
The base and other items in the plan would be paid for by deep cuts to foreign aid, the Conservatives said.
In a news release, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said the party would also double the 1st Patrol Group of the Canadian Rangers from 2,000 to 4,000 people.
The party said it would get two under-construction icebreakers in the water by 2029 and acquire two more on top of that.
The overarching “Canada First Plan” would involve “at least one permanent Arctic military base” being built by 2027: CFB Iqaluit, which the Conservatives called “Canada’s first permanent Arctic military base since the Cold War.”
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The party said doubling the number of Rangers “will ensure they can continue to report suspicious and unusual activities while providing local knowledge and expertise.”
Poilievre would “dramatically cut foreign aid, much of which goes to dictators, terrorists and global bureaucracies,” to cover the Canada First Plan’s costs.
Monday’s news release suggested the Conservatives would keep in place the bulk of the existing defence policy update, announced by the Liberal government last year, which pledges hundreds of millions of dollars in upgrades that might help northern communities at the same time as building Canada’s Arctic military presence.
Communities are now vying to become what are known as northern operational support hubs, a designation that is likely to come with local investment and improved infrastructure.
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Other than noting upgrades are already planned for the Inuvik and Yellowknife forward operating locations, the Conservatives’ news release did not mention the Northwest Territories.
On Monday afternoon, Nunavut Premier PJ Akeeagok said he was “heartened to see political attention on the Arctic” but warned Poilievre that decisions about the North “cannot occur without significant input from northerners.”
Akeeagok said he had only learned of the Conservatives’ Iqaluit plan that morning.
“I look forward to Mr Poilievre’s explicit recognition that should he become prime minister, his plans for the Arctic will be made in partnership with northerners to reflect our rights, needs, and perspectives,” the premier wrote in a statement setting out other Nunavut infrastructure priorities on which the next federal government could focus.
