Stephen Van Dine has worn a number of hats in the North, and he’s seeing potential economic storm clouds on the horizon.
Beginning his career in Inuvik as the first branch manager of the health insurance services office, he’s also been a part of what was then known as the Department of Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada regional office in Yellowknife.
After almost three decades in the public service, Van Dine said he was able to witness many facets of the NWT unfold. Now, the economy seems to be in a bit of jeopardy. With a mining industry that looks like its on its way out, an uptick in defence spending and foreign interest in the North, Van Dine shared his thoughts and advice on the future of this territory.
“The North is becoming a lot less isolated these days,” he said. “There’s a lot of foreign direct investment that is interested in finding its way into the Canadian North that may or may not be friendly.”
One of those direct investments Van Dine’s talking about is China. Earlier this year, he wrote a piece for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute (MLI), a public policy think tank based in Ottawa.
In it, he writes about China’s recent efforts in the Canadian Arctic, like acquiring existing stockpiles of the only rare earth minerals currently mined in Canada at the Nechalacho deposit.
“When you’re removing critical minerals out of North America, you’re increasing North America’s dependence on those countries that actually have this critical minerals. So that creates a risk,” he explained. “When there are interests that are actively pursuing and trying to undermine Canada and North American interests, I think the Northwest Territories probably wants to be sensitive to that.”
Reinforcing his point, Van Dine also mentioned Canada’s recent pledge to increase its defence spending by tens of billions of dollars. That spike is supposed to be in defence of Canada’s Arctic and Northern regions.
“That should be a fairly large signal to Northerners that there’s growing global interest in what’s going on here,” he said.
Van Dine likened today with the Cold War when it comes to these concerns.
“I think we’re coming back to a period in time in which we need to be mindful of that history, but also acknowledge how things have changed — and things have changed significantly.”
Changes include Russia’s war against Ukraine and greater shipping traffic in the Arctic regions. Van Dine said Canada is probably only now becoming more aware of its defence requirements for the Arctic. However, he doesn’t have any immediate concerns about tensions boiling over.
“I don’t believe that Canada’s investments or the announcements [in defence spending]… suggests that Canada is going to escalate tensions. That could happen 25 years from now, but that’s certainly not what situation we’re in now.”
In the next few years, the downturn in the Northern economy could have much greater implications and affect people’s material lifestyle, he suggested.
“The mining sector is not looking particularly rosy at this at the moment,” he said, adding there needs to be a consistent set of messages from the GNWT to attract investors and guarantee there will be something else for this territory to invest in.
“If Northern governments could come together and work a little bit more coherently and collaboratively with a common message, then I think that could go a long way in attracting investment,” said Van Dine.
And despite an uncertain and sometimes bleak outlook on the NWT’s future, Van Dine said he still maintains high hopes overall.
“I think Northerners have a have a tremendous future ahead of them,” he said. “In light of Graeme Clinton’s work that he’s done, what the [NWT & Nunavut] chamber of mines is pointing to, I think the new territorial government is quite excited about economic opportunity.”