Main Street of the hamlet of Sachs Harbour on Banks Island in the Northwest Territories. (Erika Larsen/Redux)
We are not a northern nation, and we need to stop lying to ourselves that we are.
More people live in Moose Jaw than live in the Yukon. Compared to other Arctic regions, Canada has done so little to develop its northern economy that it is now rivalled by the tiny Faroe Islands. There’s still no four-season road to our Arctic shores. The only railroad is falling apart. There’s no longer a port, and it’s easier to fly to Africa than it is to Nunavut.
Canada needs to stop pretending that it cares about the North. Decades of false rhetoric has created expectations among those few who do live up North that someone “has their back.” No one does. They’re on their own and they have been for generations. We tell the world the North is ours, that we are protecting our sovereignty and our vast mineral wealth. But the truth is we aren’t, and those resources are so far from the nearest railhead they may as well be on the moon...http://www.macleans.ca/politics/the-north-and-the-great-canadian-lie/
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