Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced Tuesday the most significant military investment in Canada's history: CAD $35 billion — approximately USD $25.7 billion — directed toward Arctic infrastructure, sovereignty, and defense capability over the next seven years. The announcement, made in Yellowknife before an audience of Indigenous community leaders and military officials, frames the spending as a direct response to what Carney called "the new Arctic reality" — a combination of accelerating Russian military activity north of the Arctic Circle and the Trump administration's increasingly explicit posture toward Greenland.
The spending plan includes upgrades to existing Arctic military facilities at Canadian Forces Station Alert, the world's northernmost permanently inhabited settlement, and construction of two new Forward Operating Locations capable of hosting CF-18 Hornet replacements in the Canadian Far North. It also includes six new Arctic and Offshore Patrol Ships — a doubling of the current fleet — and four new polar icebreakers for the Canadian Coast Guard, which currently operates only two vessels capable of year-round Arctic navigation. The infrastructure component covers deep-water port construction at three Arctic communities — Rankin Inlet, Resolute Bay, and Cambridge Bay — to support both military logistics and civilian supply chains.
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