Ranj Pillai is the Premier of Yukon. Ken Coates is the director of Indigenous affairs at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

Canada’s Arctic policy has long been founded on delayed and partial responses to American challenges. It started with the Klondike Gold Rush in 1897-98, when the arrival of tens of thousands of American stampeders threatened Canada’s tenuous hold on the Far Northwest. It hit again in 1942, when the United States launched the construction of the Alaska Highway and other Northwest defence projects in a region almost devoid of effective Canadian governance.

The pattern continued after the Second World War, as Canada joined in developing radar defence systems during the Cold War and responded, again half-heartedly, after the American oil tanker SS Manhattan navigated the Northwest Passage in 1969 to test using the seaway to take Alaskan oil eastward. Canada has maintained this approach, scrambling to overcome decades of neglecting national defence in the Arctic in a desperate attempt to head off Donald Trump’s aggressive demands.

The Liberal government, or more accurately, Liberal leadership candidates Chrystia Freeland and Mark Carney, have had conversion experiences on Arctic defence,........

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