I was just thanking you for letting me speak to you, and then I decided I should turn the microphone on.
My comments are going to build very much on what the minister just had to say. This is not a new topic for Canada. In fact, one of the things I'm going to say at the end, just to give away my story, is that I'm almost certain we're going to be back having the same conversation 30 years from now.
We've been talking about what Canada should do about sovereignty in the north, about respecting indigenous peoples and about mobilizing the country to address the very severe problems in the Canadian north for a very long time. We haven't really done very well as a nation. I think we need to be clear about that.
I should also say really quickly that I'm delighted that my colleagues from Saskatchewan are here. I'm from the Yukon. I'm a huge fan of the territorial north. If you look at it in terms of personal incomes, GDP, and health and well-being, the poorest parts of Canada are almost all in the provincial north. There are huge problems in northern Manitoba, northern Saskatchewan, across northern Ontario, etc. It's really important we take an inclusive view of the north, build on some of the phenomenal things that have happened in Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut, and bring that learning down further south into the other areas.
Like I say, we've been at this for a very long time. For a very long time, Canada's approach to Arctic sovereignty was actually just to do what I call the showing the flag routine, which is basically letting the world know that we had our North West Mounted Police officers up there. We actually backed away from our responsibilities during the Second World War. We basically let the Americans do what they wanted to do, in terms of building the Alaska Highway and the Canol pipeline. Afterwards, we moved very slowly to assume responsibilities as a country.
We're left with a situation in which we do not have a very strong military presence in the north. Our infrastructure in northern Canada is not up to national standards, nor is it up to circumpolar standards. We're not doing as well. I just got back from Greenland. We're not doing as well as Greenland, which is an area that has far more formidable challenges than many parts of the Canadian north.
The issue for me is what we do about this. The issues are getting greater. The minister mentioned climate change. Russia's belligerence in Ukraine has raised the question of challenges to our sovereignty and our comparative inability to really respond to that particularly well.
Let me give you a series of my five greatest hits in terms of things I think we can do better and where we should put our emphasis.
Number one is that defending Arctic sovereignty and improving the lives of indigenous people is very expensive. I know this is the last thing members of the House want to hear, but get ready to spend way more money than you're spending now. That's what's happened in Greenland, in the Faeroe Islands and in northern Norway. Canada is trying to get by on the cheap in terms of the developments and investments in the north. It's going to need a lot of money over a longer period of time.
The second point is that Canada's new north will be created not with indigenous people, but, in the spirit of what the minister said, actually very much by the first nations, by the Métis and by the Inuit population. It is their self-government and their autonomy that are driving the best improvements in the north. That will continue well into the future.
Third, I am a fan of...I wouldn't say modernizing our armed forces. The Department of National Defence just announced a major addition. We do need to northernize our armed forces. We do not have armed forces that are really well prepared to work in the north at all.
Fourth, we do not have enough of a commitment to environmental well-being and sustainability. We have let our scientists down. We're doing the bare minimum in terms of monitoring environmental change. We're only getting started on remediation. Remediation is going to be the theme of environmental responsibility in the years to come.
Fifth is that we always talk in Canada about innovation and how we can become an innovative nation responding to the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century. We do not have a northern innovation strategy. The Yukon is actually doing quite well in terms of localized innovation and entrepreneurship, but as a country we are not investing heavily in everything from 3D-printed homes to localized food production and alternative energy systems. We should be a world leader in the development of science and technology to address the realities of northern life. It pains me to say that we're not there.
We have a lot to do. We need more money. We need to recognize indigenous authority and expand our military presence. We need world-leading environmental monitoring and remediation and a comprehensive innovation strategy.
I'm going to end the way I started. We have a really difficult task in front of us. My work as a historian tells me we're going to be back here 30 years from now, having exactly the same conversation and wondering why we didn't do enough in the year 2022.
Thank you very much.