As the Arctic is warming at up to three times the rate of the global average, it’s important to have a national perspective on the effects this has on our communities, environment and economy, and how we can best adapt.  Indeed, it is in Canada’s Arctic that climate and environmental transformation is having an enormous, and many would say, ominous impact. In particular, the rapid reduction in Arctic sea ice has dramatically changed traditional Indigenous hunting practices while thawing permafrost is undermining infrastructure and causing road foundations to give way.  Shorter winters also mean that ice roads are becoming less and less an option for the people relying upon them for their day to day lives.  As ice coverage reduces, sea levels are also rising causing coastlines to recede and community relocation being necessary. And while reducing sea ice will open up new economic possibilities, the unpredictable movement of the ice that remains will be a hazard to navigation.

While almost all past Canadian governments have put forward northern strategies, none have managed to deliver so far. In her 2016 Interim Report on the Shared Arctic Leadership Model, Minister’s Special Representative Mary Simon, for example, noted, “the simple fact is that Arctic strategies throughout my lifetime have rarely matched or addressed the magnitude of the basic gaps between what exists in the Arctic and what other Canadians take for granted.”  In September 2019, the Canadian government released its Arctic and Northern Policy Framework but unbeknownst to all, the Covid-19 pandemic was just around the corner.  Nevertheless, the effects of climate change have not dissipated.

Join us as our distinguished panel explores the issue of climate change in the Arctic, its interconnections with northerners’ health, the economy, housing, security, education, food, and culture, and what Canada can do now to become more resilient in the face of rising temperatures, tides and turbulence.

Our panel:

• Lisa Koperqualuk, Vice President of international affairs with the Inuit Circumpolar Council
• Cdr Corey Gleason, former Captain of the HMCS Harry DeWolf
• Maeva Gauthier, MSc and PhD candidate at the University of Victoria
• Dr. Chris Kilford, moderator, the Canadian International Council

Our sponsor:

This event would have not been possible without the terrific support of our sponsor, Davie, Canada’s premier builder of polar and ice-capable ships since the 1950s. And today Davie is home to the National Icebreaker Centre (NIC) and in 2018, after an interim conversion by Davie, the CCGS Captain Molly Kool became the first new icebreaking asset delivered to the Canadian Coast Guard in more than 25 years.