A planned port in Nanisivik announced in 2007 has been downgraded to a refuelling station that will operate just one month a year.Steven Chase/The Globe and Mail

All too often, Canada has been happy to assert Arctic sovereignty on the cheap. But the bill for our historical stinginess has come due, and Ottawa should pay it as smartly and as quickly as possible.

Even before Canada existed, much of the North was effectively governed by the Hudson’s Bay Company. When the fur trade shrank, trading companies, not Ottawa, were expected to provide relief for the Inuit, even after Confederation.

Decades later, in the 1950s, Ottawa leaned on the United States to build community infrastructure and the military systems that would become the North American Aerospace Defense Command. (Even today, the federal Arctic policy released in December contains more references to a “North American Arctic” than a strictly Canadian one.)

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At around the same time, Ottawa relocated 92 Inuit to the harsh High Arctic as “human flagpoles,” whose presence would project Canadian sovereignty. Ottawa rightly apologized in 2010, in part because of a slew of broken promises.

Huge delays and cost overruns are inherent when building infrastructure or ships – understandable, given the northern climate’s uniquely........

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