INUVIK, N.W.T. - As Prime Minister Stephen Harper prepares to head North again with more spending announcements in his pocket, the federal New Democrats are saying he should stay home unless the Tories are ready to spend money on the needs of people who actually live in the North.
"The focus on military measures is distracting the government from the crucial initiatives that are needed elsewhere," said Michael Byers, an academic and Arctic expert who was recently nominated as an NDP candidate from Vancouver.
In recent years the federal Tories have racked up billions of dollars in promised military investment in the North. Those promises include a deepwater port on the north coast of Baffin Island, a winter warfare school in Nunavut and a series of Arctic patrol vessels for the navy.
Observers anticipate that Arctic sovereignty will be a major plank in the Conservative election platform if there is a fall election.
But Byers, along with leader Jack Layton and Western Arctic MP Dennis Bevington, said Monday that the needs of northerners have been ignored.
None of Nunavut's 25 coastal communities has docking facilities. The location of the planned deepwater port will have very little civilian benefit. Airstrips are decaying and affordable housing is scarce. The Nunavut government is taking Ottawa to court over its failure to implement the Nunavut Land Claim, an accusation that was backed up by a conciliator's report by retired justice Tom Berger.
As well, cancelled national programs such as the $17-million adult literacy programs have a disproportionate effect in the North.
Byers accused Harper and Defence Minister David Emerson of trying to win electoral support by suggesting a crisis in Arctic sovereignty where none exists.
"It is true that governments in different countries, when in elections, tend to push the Arctic sovereignty button," he said. I'm worried that Mr. Emerson and Mr. Harper are doing the same thing right now - ramping up the rhetoric, trying to get people concerned."
At the same time, Byers said Canada has dropped the diplomatic ball on the Arctic.
The Tories have failed to appoint an ambassador to the Arctic Council, a body that brings together all eight Arctic nations. Nor did Canada send its minister of foreign affairs to a recent Arctic summit in Greenland - a meeting that should have been in Canada in the first place, Byers said.
"In Canada, Arctic diplomacy seems to be largely absent."
Harper arrives Tuesday for a three-day visit that will take him from the heart of the Arctic's ever-hopeful energy industry to Tuktoyaktuk on the tip of the Mackenzie Delta to the historic gold rush town of Dawson in the Yukon.
A senior government official said when the visit was announced that it demonstrates the significance Harper places on the North, especially the growing "geopolitical importance" of the melting Northwest Passage. There have been indications from officials that announcements will include one on infrastructure and another that would put "boots on the ground."
N.W.T. Premier Floyd Roland has said he hopes Harper is coming with a promise to build a highway down the Mackenzie Valley corridor.
Others will be looking for an announcement on the proposed $16-billion natural gas pipeline that would carry abundant supplies from the Mackenzie Delta to southern markets and open the entire basin to exploration and development. A possible role for Ottawa in refinancing the project's ballooning budget has been a subject of speculation for months.
Others are hoping for money for a network of Arctic research centres to beef up the one that already exists in Inuvik.
