Letter to the editor: Ottawa recolonizes the North<\/p>\n
Published 3:45 pm Friday, May 15, 2026<\/p>\n
From: Lois Little,<\/p>\n
Yellowknife<\/p>\n
Dear editor,<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve been here before! After decades of fighting for land, governance and human rights and laws ensuring a meaningful role in decision-making, Northern people finally wrestled significant control over our lives away from Ottawa.<\/p>\n
But now these hard-won gains are at risk as Ottawa decides to bypass or change federal laws to push forward military, infrastructure and resource extraction projects.<\/p>\n
The federal One Canadian Economy Act (Bill C-5) and the 2026 federal budget bill (Bill C-15) are two legislative examples where federal laws are sacrificed in order to fast-track certain projects. The proposed federal \u2018economic zones\u2019 legislation could further abandon laws that keep water, human health and the environment safe. If passed, the legislation could limit or undermine the Fisheries Act, environmental assessment and species at risk legislation.<\/p>\n
These legislative changes were hatched in Ottawa without meaningful input from Canadians and Indigenous nations. From a Northern perspective, this is what recolonization looks like.<\/p>\n
The Department of National Defence\u2019s (DND\u2019s) NORAD modernization project is one example of an Ottawa-directed, fast-tracked project. The project is designed to ramp up military capacity throughout Canada\u2019s Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. It involves staffing, military equipment installation and building forward operating bases in Yellowknife, Inuvik and Iqaluit, operational support hubs in Whitehorse and Resolute, operational support nodes in Cambridge Bay and Rankin Inlet, and upgrades to the operating base in Goose Bay, Nfld.<\/p>\n
The project may also involve costly, potentially dangerous and unproven energy systems. This sweeping pan-Northern, $32-billion militarization project hatched in Ottawa is proceeding without pan-Northern or territorial discussion or impact assessment, including cumulative effects assessment. This is an affront to Northerners who have legal, moral and cultural responsibility for decision-making in Northern homelands and\/or the responsibility for reconciliation and repairing the harm from decades of settler colonial policies.<\/p>\n
Some public and Indigenous governments are cheerleading Ottawa\u2019s decisions to bypass or alter laws in the name of economic gain, long promised and much needed infrastructure, or support for Canada\u2019s security and sovereignty. These possible benefits are appealing, and certainly Northerners are always willing to help others and the nation as a whole. But we still want meaningful consideration of the consequences of proposed projects and a full voice in decisions.<\/p>\n
I appreciate that Northern media continues to inform and encourage discussion about Ottawa\u2019s decisions for the North. Our media has reported concerns about how an increased pan-Northern military presence will alter cultures and communities, and how foreign ownership of mines and infrastructure will impact economic and Arctic security goals.<\/p>\n
Media has shared residents\u2019 concerns about inadequate investment in community-based social and physical infrastructure and the impacts of an increased military presence on human services, housing and other community infrastructure as well as unacceptable increases in greenhouse gas emissions. Our media has also questioned the eagerness to develop Northern critical minerals to supply the U.S. Department of War, especially given the horrific uranium mining legacy left for the people of Deline to carry and atone for, not to mention the American and Canadian war machine\u2019s continued complicity in the genocide of Palestinians.<\/p>\n
The media has rightly asked if the militarization of the North is what Ottawa intends for us? But do Northerners want to live in militarized territories? Do we want to be recolonized by Ottawa? Do we want Ottawa making decisions and sacrificing laws to fast-track projects in the North?<\/p>\n
With Ottawa recolonizing the North, can Northerners meaningfully continue to work on decolonizing? Can Northern people keep safe, manage fragile ecosystems, strengthen communities and cultures and achieve some measure of self-determination as envisioned in land claims, self-government, devolution and co-management legislation? These are questions that we all need to ask, and decision-makers need to answer.<\/p>\n
I am one Northerner who wants us to shape our own future and not have a militarized, exploitative regime imposed on us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Letter to the editor: Ottawa recolonizes the North Published 3:45 pm Friday, May 15, 2026 From: Lois Little,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":672879,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194295],"tags":[49,48,20739],"class_list":["post-672878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ottawa","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-ottawa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=672878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/672879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}