Thank you, and thank you for this invitation.

My comments today come from my own experiences of living and working as an academic and a researcher in the Arctic on Arctic issues for more than two decades. My Ph.D. is in international relations. I lived and worked in Iceland, north Norway, Lapland, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, the U.K. and the U.S. before living in Canada and becoming the CEO of Arctic360.

Among its activities, Arctic360 focuses on Arctic research to help translate primary research into knowledge for the general public. It's part of two international research projects related to that. For today's discussion, I'll focus on science policy and strategy related to innovation coming out of the Arctic.

Climate change is real. It's impacting the whole of the Arctic region. In Canada, it affects indigenous peoples' and all northerners' security and well-being, and Canada's national security and prosperity.

Canada's climate change research is focused on understanding both climate change and its impacts—not least its impacts on northern communities—and adaptation. However, our approach to adaptation has, in my mind, been limited because, I feel, we undervalue academia's potential and because we lack an Arctic strategy.

I'll explain. Our Arctic neighbours are using the challenges posed by climate change to innovate, prosper, secure and strengthen their own Arctic communities and national security.

Sweden's Arctic strategy, for instance, focuses on the opportunity its Arctic climate creates, enabling innovation to scale for global export. It explains that at Sweden's world-leading Arctic innovation clusters, “Knowledge is transformed into new products and services” through collaboration between business, academia and the public sector, and by small enterprises in subsupplier chains. It goes on to say that “Arctic conditions like a cold climate and sparsely populated areas make it possible to provide test and demonstration environments” for aviation, automotive and space industries.

Norway's own Arctic strategy states, “Further developing North Norway as a strong, dynamic and highly competent region is the best way to safeguard Norwegian interests in the Arctic.” The government will support “innovation, entrepreneurship and start-ups in the north, and specifically northern ocean-based industries, the maritime sector, petroleum, green power-intensive manufacturing, mineral extraction, agriculture, tourism and space infrastructure”. Norway's Arctic cluster team's mission, for instance, is to build expertise, develop innovation and contribute to the commercialization and scaling of solutions for new green value chains, digital transformation and infrastructure for innovative development.

Finland, home to the Arctic VTT Technical Research Centre turned a section of the Norwegian-Finnish E8 interstate Arctic highway into a testing track for EVs precisely because the road is snowy, icy, dark and windy, with extreme weather. The road includes built-in sensors to measure vibration, weight, pressure, acceleration, surface slipperiness, etc.

Longyearbyen, Svalbard, had its own housing pilot project, consisting of three building blocks' worth of new apartments. We can use housing in the north. The project installed sensors into the ground to measure the impacts of steel construction on the changing state of permafrost, and that knowledge will be used to build more climate-resilient infrastructure going forward.

Meanwhile, in Canada, Iqaluit’s 94-room hotel and conference centre, built in 2019, used modular hotel rooms fabricated in and imported from China. The whole of Nunavut does not have its own university.

Initiatives such as the northern transportation adaptation initiative, which was mentioned in previous sessions, are important. This project included co-operation with industry. The focus was on adaptation, but not innovation. For instance, the project employs thermal siphon foundation systems to address permafrost melt. However, the technology itself is patented in and imported from the United States.

This gets to the bigger strategic shortcomings when it comes to Canada's Arctic research. ISED, for example, is missing in the north. Despite there being an office in Newfoundland and Labrador, Saskatchewan is responsible for the whole of the Northwest Territories, Montreal is responsible for all of Nunavut and B.C. is responsible for the Yukon. Though 75% of Canada's coastline is its Arctic, there's not an Arctic-based—literally based—supercluster project there.

These shortcomings, though, are part of a much bigger conversation about the overall value, potential and role of the north in Canada's consciousness. We often see challenges, crises and impossibility. Our neighbours see opportunity for research and innovation. They know that strong northern regions are the key to being strong Arctic nations, and they make the necessary strategic investments.

When have the many conversations Canada has about R and D, innovation, start-ups, and venture capital and pension fund investments focused on innovating out of the north? This requires a national vision, leadership and strategic thinking, all really realized through an Arctic strategy. It needs to connect the dots between science—including indigenous knowledge—innovation, defence, capital investments, and building northern capacity and infrastructure to address the needs of northerners, build new knowledge and foster an innovation ecosystem in the north that will enable a sustainable, secure and prosperous north and advance Canada's Arctic leadership.