From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Gerry Bowler

Canada has left the North wide open to foreign powers eager to grow their Arctic foothold

Canada is in danger of losing the Arctic because Ottawa has ignored the North for far too long.

The Canadian North makes up 40 per cent of our land mass and includes more than 19,000 islands in the Arctic Archipelago. Yet only about 120,000 people live across this enormous stretch of wilderness. Canada took control of the region in the late 19th century through territorial transfers from the Hudson’s Bay Company and the British Crown, one of the largest land transfers in history.

For decades afterward, the North received little federal attention. The Second World War briefly changed that, prompting construction of the Alcan Highway to Alaska and bringing new airfields and telephone lines.

The Cold War, along with the threat of Soviet bombers crossing the Pole, led to multiple radar lines. Still, Prime Minister St-Laurent admitted in the 1950s that Canadian governments had treated the North “in an almost continuing state of absence of mind.”

John Diefenbaker’s Progressive Conservative administration tried to reverse that neglect. In 1958, he told a Winnipeg audience: “I see a new Canada—a Canada of the North! … We intend to carry out the legislative program of Arctic research, to develop Arctic routes, to develop those vast hidden resources the last few years have revealed.”

Plans for a research and industrial city in Frobisher Bay, new roads and railway lines and wide-ranging surveys were ambitious but ultimately unaffordable. In the years that followed, both Liberal and Conservative governments again set northern development aside.

Foreign interest, however, continued to grow. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service recently reported Russian and Chinese attempts at influence and subversion in our northern territories.

American governments over the past 20 years have shown serious interest in the region’s resources, which include significant oil, gas and mineral deposits, along with control of the Northwest Passage, a shipping route becoming increasingly accessible as Arctic sea ice recedes.

Canada considers those waters national; the United States, the European Union and at times China argue it is an international strait.

For all practical purposes, Canada has what amounts to no meaningful presence north of the tree line, leaving the field open to countries with far more ambition and far better-equipped forces.

Canada is in no position to defend its claims. We have no icebreakers capable of operating through the Arctic winter. We have no submarines that can work under the ice cap. We have no permanent air base for fighter jets.

And to cover two million square kilometres of Arctic territory, we have only 300 troops stationed there. The chance they could detect, let alone repel, a serious intruder is essentially zero. Without these capabilities, Canada cannot properly monitor activity in the region or enforce its sovereignty claims.

In the last federal budget, Ottawa announced a $1-billion Arctic infrastructure fund for new airports, seaports and all-season roads. Our foreign affairs minister has urged NATO to pay more attention to the Arctic, saying it “must be an organization not only that focuses on the eastern flank, but also that looks north.”

These steps are gestures, not strategy. Canadian governments excel at promises but struggle with procurement, and the idea that European allies might fill the gap, considering their weak response to Russia’s assault on Ukraine, is unlikely.

Our northern territory is under threat. We must use it or lose it.

Gerry Bowler is a Canadian historian and a senior fellow of the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Scott McGregor

Weak oversight and fragmented enforcement are enabling criminal networks to undermine Canada’s economy and security, requiring a national-security-level response to dismantle these systems

A massive drug bust reveals how organized crime has turned Canada into a source of illicit narcotics production

Canada is no longer just a victim of the global drug trade—it’s becoming a source. The country’s growing role in narcotics production exposes deep systemic weaknesses in oversight and enforcement that are allowing organized crime to take root and threaten our economy and security.

Police in Edmonton recently seized more than 60,000 opium poppy plants from a northeast property, one of the largest domestic narcotics cultivation operations in Canadian history. It’s part of a growing pattern of domestic production once thought limited to other regions of the world.

This wasn’t a small experiment; it was proof that organized crime now feels confident operating inside Canada.

Transnational crime groups don’t gamble on crops of this scale unless they know their systems are solid. You don’t plant 60,000 poppies without confidence in your logistics, your financing and your buyers. The ability to cultivate, harvest and quietly move that volume of product points to a level of organization that should deeply concern policymakers. An operation like this needs more than a field; it reflects the convergence of agriculture, organized crime and money laundering within Canada’s borders.

The uncomfortable truth is that Canada has become a source country for illicit narcotics rather than merely a consumer or transit point. Fentanyl precursors (the chemical ingredients used to make the synthetic opioid) arrive from abroad, are synthesized domestically and are exported south into the United States. Now, with opium cultivation joining the picture, that same capability is extending to traditional narcotics production.

Criminal networks exploit weak regulatory oversight, land-use gaps and fragmented enforcement, often allowing them to operate in plain sight. These groups are not only producing narcotics but are also embedding themselves within legitimate economic systems.

This isn’t just crime; it’s the slow undermining of Canada’s legitimate economy. Illicit capital flows can distort real estate markets, agricultural valuations and financial transparency. The result is a slow erosion of lawful commerce, replaced by parallel economies that profit from addiction, money laundering and corruption. Those forces don’t just damage national stability—they drive up housing costs, strain health care and undermine trust in Canada’s institutions.

Canada’s enforcement response remains largely reactive, with prosecutions risk-averse and sentencing inadequate as a deterrent. At the same time, threat networks operate with impunity and move seamlessly across the supply chain.

The Edmonton seizure should therefore be read as more than a local success story. It is evidence that criminal enterprise now operates with strategic depth inside Canada. The same confidence that sustains fentanyl synthesis and cocaine importation is now manifesting in agricultural narcotics production. This evolution elevates Canada from passive victim to active threat within the global illicit economy.

Reversing this dynamic requires a fundamental shift in thinking. Organized crime is a matter of national security. That means going beyond raids and arrests toward strategic disruption: tracking illicit finance, dismantling logistical networks that enable these operations and forging robust intelligence partnerships across jurisdictions and agencies.

It’s not about symptoms; it’s about knocking down the systems that sustain this criminal enterprise operating inside Canada.

If we keep seeing narcotics enforcement as a public safety issue instead of a warning of systemic corruption, Canada’s transformation into a threat nation will be complete. Not because of what we import but because of what we now produce.

Scott A. McGregor is a senior fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and managing partner of Close Hold Intelligence Consulting Ltd.