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Canadian government puts Arctic on top of agenda

Illustration: Canada.bc.ca

Together with several of his top cabinet ministers, Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper will later this month go to the far northern town of Tuktoyaktuk, where he is expected to proclaim his country’s Arctic claims. The Arctic is now increasingly becoming a hot issue is Canadian politics.

Location

Harper will fly to the small coastal town of Tuktoyaktuk on the Arctic Ocean and will even chair a meeting of top cabinet ministers in Inuvik in the Mackenzie River Delta region of the Northwest Territories. With increased international focus on the Arctic and the Northwest Passage through Canada opening up as ice melts, Ottawa has made it a priority to assert the country’s claims over its northern waterways, Reuters reports. The prime minister and his conservative minority government has lifted the Arctic on the country’ s political agenda. Among the government’s pledges are the acquisition of new Arctic patrol ships, the expansion of aerial surveillance and the bolstering of the numbers and capabilities of the Canadian Rangers northern military unit. Arctic sovereignty issues might now also be used for what they are worth in the upcoming Canadian election campaign.