From the Star:
Arctic security is under renewed focus as Russia and China eye the region, but leaders in the North say Canada won’t be able to exert sovereignty if their communities aren’t built up properly.
www.thestar.com
AoD
I concur with the thesis above.
Without delays for endless planning we need to do more to address a host of 'basics'. None of the three territories has access to a PET Scanner, not even one. Patients in need of mere diagnostics must be flown to Edmonton or other points south.
Much of the area, including its 'urban centres' lacks High Speed Internet (there is work on this file, but it could move more quickly); there is a real need for more local agriculture, likely indoors or underground further north to reduce the extreme costs of produce.
While we get some 'basics' in place we need to ask some bigger planning questions, with a long time horizons, 50 years even 100 years.
How big do we want the current urban settlements to get? (White Horse, Yellow Knife, and Iqaluit)
If we decide we want the largest of these to crest 100,000, we'll need to plan the requisite infrastructure, not only within the community, but likely its connections by road and perhaps rail to the south.
Rail to Iqalquit is a non-starter, but extending the CN Line from Hay River to Yellowknife should be feasible, I imagine, as would a connection on to White Horse.
Very large project, with no prospective private sector payoff for decades. The sort of decision to be taken now and planned out carefully and the phased into place if it makes sense.
A deep-water, year-round port makes sense, as does a more robust military presence.
We also need to address the longer term amenities package that will induce people to settle up there. University? Improved ability to mitigate winter (heated bus shelters as example) etc etc.
Meanwhile we don't want to despoil the vast nature up there, and also ought to allocate another couple very large national parks while the real estate is still mostly crown land and cheap/free.
