Canada is moving to harden its Arctic posture with a $35.0 billion defense package that signals a deliberate reduction in reliance on the US and a faster path to NATO’s 2% spending benchmark.
Prime Minister Mark Carney said in Yellowknife that Canada would “no longer depend on any one nation” and would take “full responsibility for defending our Arctic sovereignty.”
Canada’s Arctic spans 4.4 million square kilometers, or 1.7 million square miles, across land and sea, an area described as larger than India and accounting for about 25% of the global Arctic. Yet the region remains extremely thinly supported.
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The largest line item is $32.0 billion for northern military infrastructure. One version of the plan says the money will expand military airfields and build four operational support hubs. Another says it will build three military bases in the northern territories, including one in Yellowknife, while improving an existing base in Labrador.
The second version also describes two operational support nodes, intended to sustain a more constant presence of aircraft and troops rather than episodic deployments for exercises and training.
Additional aviation spending totals $294.0 million to upgrade two Arctic airports so they can handle larger civilian and military aircraft.
Carney’s announcement follows sustained strain in US-Canada ties driven by President Donald Trump’s tariffs, annexation rhetoric toward Canada and repeated statements about Greenland and Arctic security. He had already argued in January that the US and other major powers were eroding the rules-based order that had long favored Canada.
The prime minister said Canada’s Arctic is warming nearly three times faster than the global average, increasing the strategic and commercial value of a region that major powers are “actively looking to exploit.” The Arctic holds rare minerals and other resource potential, but commercial development has been constrained by sparse infrastructure, extreme cold and high operating costs.
The package also sits inside a larger defense recapitalization arc. In 2022, Ottawa announced a $38.6 billion modernization plan for national defenses and NORAD, the joint US-Canada aerospace command. Separate from Thursday’s announcement, Canada has also committed $6.5 billion to an Australian radar system for Arctic airspace monitoring. Another cited envelope is $87.0 billion for modernizing Canada’s NORAD-related operations.
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