Prime Minister Stephen Harper wears the Canadian Ranger sweater after he was bestowed honorary Canadian Ranger status in Gjoa Haven, Nunavut on Wednesday, August 21, 2013. Photo: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick Each August, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and a gaggle of staffers and senior cabinet ministers, accompanied by a gaggle of reporters, make the trek north for a round of tightly scripted photo opportunities. These Arctic sojourns are, if not quite working holidays, opportunities for the PM to do politics in an environment he clearly enjoys, far from the stilted confines of the Ottawa bubble.
This year’s trip, which begins Wednesday, will last a week, as in the past. It will feature a series of announcements and speeches in locations scattered strategically across the far north, as in the past. It will be calibrated to provide the evening newscasts and websites with stirring visuals of the PM “letting his hair down,” and declaring the Conservative Party’s fealty to, and love of, the true north strong and free — as in the past.
But this particular trip is also different from previous ones in important respects. Politically, it has the potential to be more fruitful, and perilous, for Harper than his previous eight such tours have been. For one thing, the geopolitical context in the Arctic has changed dramatically, even in the past twelve months. For another, it may be this prime minister’s last good opportunity, before the 2015 election, to brand himself as a leader with a positive, uplifting vision of the country.
A great deal has been written, year after year stretching into a Biblical eon, about the contrast between the Harper government’s original robust vision of northern sovereignty, skilfully articulated in its 2005-06 campaign, and the reality as it has materialized over the past near-decade. The three polar icebreakers that have become one icebreaker, the quasi-mystical John G. Diefenbaker, still at least half a decade from completion; the problem-fraught, long-delayed deep water port at Nanisivik in Nunavut; the long-promised Canadian High Arctic Research Station at Cambridge Bay, which is moving ahead but not yet built.
Even the Inuit Rangers, who roam the tundra as Canada’s first line of defence in the far north, are still relying on sturdy but ancient Lee Enfield .303 rifles as their primary piece of kit. A pending purchase of new, “ruggedized” bolt-action rifles is not expected to yield delivery until 2017.
Here’s what happened in the meantime: Vladimir Putin’s Russia became aggressively militaristic and began invading other countries. Harper and Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, have been front and centre in denouncing Putin’s invasion of Crimea and encroachments in Ukraine. Canada is sending military equipment to Ukraine to help in that country’s defence as it battles Russian-backed rebels.
But in the high Arctic — where, strategically, Canada and Russia have colliding interests, based on claims to the undersea Lomonosov Ridge, between Ellesmere Island and Siberia, and what are believed to be vast oil and gas resources — Putin has seized the initiative. In the fall of last year, Russia announced plans to resume a permanent Arctic military presence, abandoned in the early 1990s as the Soviet Union fell apart. Russia is busily rebuilding old Soviet-era bases across its Arctic territory, including in the Novosibirsk Archipelago, or New Siberian Islands, northeast of Siberia. It already has nuclear subs and a fleet of nuclear-powered icebreakers, and is in the process of building the world’s largest such vessel, a 173-metre behemoth that will have the capacity to navigate in the Arctic year-round. The ship is due for completion in 2017. Meantime, according to reports, Russian bombers and fighter jets have recently accelerated the pace of flights near Canadian and Alaskan air space.
Set against all that, Canada has, well, the Franklin Expedition. This summer’s admittedly impressive mission of exploration may find the remains of explorer John Franklin’s lost ships, the Erebus and Terror. If that happens it will be a feather in Harper’s cap, since he has personally backed the effort. But even if successful, the search for Franklin alone does not comprise an Arctic sovereignty strategy. What was it someone said once, about “soft power” versus the other kind?
And that gets us to the other piece, which is purely political. It may be, as the government has said, that there will be no vote until the fall of 2015, as scheduled. But it may also be that PM decides to pull the trigger early for tactical reasons, as he has done before. A spring election is not out of the question. Therefore, this northern round may be Harper’s last, before election season. Certainly it will be the last that occurs under more-or-less routine conditions, as opposed to the hothouse atmosphere of an imminent campaign. Harper and the Tories are well behind the Liberals in the polls; attack ads have thus far failed to dent Liberal leader Justin Trudeau’s appeal. If anything, the attacks have boomeranged.
So the $64,000 question, as the PM heads north again, is simply this: Will he adjust his message and delivery? Last year, on day one of the Arctic tour, Harper struck a stridently partisan, combative tone. We’ll see what happens this time.
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