OTTAWA — Canada’s military will take a bigger role in the North over the next two decades as climate change and increasingly aggressive foes threaten Arctic sovereignty, says a new defence policy document released Monday.
The government is planning to buy new vehicles adapted to the frozen conditions in the North, build an Arctic satellite ground station and set up new northern operations hubs. “That is certainly what we will be looking at, as to what type of submarines are most appropriate for Canada’s responsibility in protecting the longest coastline in the world, and certainly the longest Arctic coastline in the world,” he said.
In all, Ottawa says the “Our North, Strong and Free” policy will boost military spending to 1.76 per cent of GDP by 2030. But the cost of buying those new submarines is not yet calculated, Trudeau said, which means the spending total is sure to go up. “Over the past number of years, more people have left than have joined the Canadian Armed Forces, and we’ve done a pretty deep dive into why that’s happening,” Blair said.
In a statement, the opposition Conservatives called the plan desperate and criticized the plan to spend the bulk of the money in later years. “Industry and experts also called for faster and more flexible defence procurement, secure supply chains, and investments to modernize defence infrastructure,” the document said.
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