Again, it's a question of how we talk the talk but don't walk the walk. The vast majority of the Canadian population lives in the south. Even if you include the provincial north along with the territorial north, that constitutes about 5% of the Canadian population.
That situation, I argue, is getting worse if you care about the north in terms of where it should sit on the national agenda and the policy agenda. It comes back to two reasons, one being that southernness of Canada and the intergenerational urban Canadians in large urban centres. The disconnect with northern, rural, and aboriginal issues is growing, not decreasing. As well, new Canadians, who are vital for the success of Canada, also tend to settle in southern urban cities.
So in a variety of things, we do need a very proactive engagement of southern Canada with northern and rural Canada. If we don't get on that ball, then the argument about the kind of investment around search and rescue and educational infrastructure is going to be, I suggest, an even steeper hill to climb.