COVID-19 has made the North’s quest for equality a steeper climb
Even before COVID-19, Canada’s northern territories faced significant social, economic, and environmental challenges that create persistent gaps and inequalities between northerners and their fellow Canadians. Most troubling, are those challenges that keep our residents from truly thriving as people, like a critical lack of affordable housing, access to health care and education, and limited opportunities […]
Arctic research in Canada is adapting under COVID-19 restrictions
Travel restrictions and new research protocols have halted southern-based and international scientists from heading to Canada’s Arctic this summer to conduct their annual field seasons, but it has not halted all research and monitoring activities. COVID-19 restrictions will create notable holes in fundamental multi-year datasets, impact national and international project deliverables, delay research priorities, impose […]
Canada’s wide-ranging northern response to COVID-19
Canada’s Arctic and northern regions cover almost 40 per cent of Canada’s overall land mass. The health and safety of those who live and work in the North and isolated communities are our top priority. From Day 1, my colleagues and I have been in regular contact with territorial and provincial governments and First Nation, […]
COVID-19 exposes risks of social and economic inequity
The threat of COVID-19 and its potentially devastating impacts on Inuit Nunangat communities has put the daily vulnerabilities of Inuit families into focus for governments in a new way. Although sadly, it has taken a global pandemic to generate new attention and focus on long-overlooked challenges such as tuberculosis, crowded housing, violence, and limited access […]
Does a global pandemic signal the need for adjusted approaches to Arctic research?
I must admit, it’s not the sort of thing I ever really considered. I’ve been an environmental scientist working in Arctic Canada for 20 years. Much of my lab’s research takes place in Nunavut, at some of the most remote, picturesque, and harsh locations imaginable. We work collaboratively with federal departments and northern communities to […]
Canada and the EU in the Arctic: a region for enhanced co-operation
Over the past decade, the level of international attention paid to the Arctic has grown exponentially. Where interest in these regions was previously very much the business of the eight Arctic states, the threats brought by climate change, coupled with geopolitical shifts and the potential exploitation of significant resources on land, at sea, and under […]
Pandemic underlines need for better northern housing: Vandal
Northern Affairs Minister Dan Vandal has been busy during the pandemic. Phone calls start around 8 a.m. and stop whenever they stop. Mr. Vandal (Saint Boniface-Saint Vital, Man.) is the first person to hold the standalone title of Minister of Northern Affairs. Previously, the responsibilities for northern economic development and relations with Indigenous and territorial […]
Government must do more to help northerners and their businesses bounce back
As the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 continue to decline across the country, it feels as though we are at a point in the crisis where all of us are trying to catch our collective breath, take stock of where we are, examine what is working and what isn’t, and ready ourselves for whatever […]
The North
Look to the new NAFTA for the roadmap to the future of the Canada-U.S. bond
Canadian leadership needs to move beyond COVID-19 border controls and turn to implementing the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Free Trade Agreement. In what is already a divisive U.S. election, we must also avoid anything that could be construed as interference. The Nov. 3 elections will decide not just the presidency, but also, crucially, one-third of the Senate plus […]
