In April Canada held Operation Nunalivut 2009, the first of three "sovereignty operations" scheduled in the Arctic this year.
MacKay said of the exercises, “Operation Nunalivut is but one example of how the Government of Canada actively and routinely exercises its sovereignty in the North. The Canadian Forces play an important role in achieving our goals in the North, which is why the Government of Canada is making sure they have the tools they need to carry out a full range of tasks in the Arctic, including surveillance, sovereignty, and search-and-rescue operations.”
Vice-Admiral Dean McFadden, Commander of Canada Command, added:
"In keeping with the Canada First Defence Strategy, we are placing greater emphasis on our northern operations, including in the High Arctic. This operation underscores the value of the Canadian Rangers, our eyes and ears in the North, which at the direction of the Government are growing to 5,000 in strength."
Brigadier-General David Millar, the Commander of Joint Task Force North, contributed this:
"This operation is a golden opportunity to expand our capabilities to operate in Canada’s Arctic. In addition to air and ground patrols, this operation calls on a range of supporting military capabilities–communications, intelligence, mapping, and satellite imaging.” [43]
The Commander of Greenland Command, Danish Rear-Admiral Henrik Kudsk, attended the exercises to "discuss military collaboration in the North." [44]
To further demonstrate NATO unity in the face of a common enemy, Russia, "A Canadian research aircraft is expected to fly over 90 North this month as part of a joint Canada-Denmark mission to strengthen the countries' claims over the potentially oil-rich Lomonosov Ridge." [45]
In the same month, April, this time in a show of bipartisan unity, a Liberal Party gathering in Vancouver discussed "a tough Arctic policy that calls on the government to 'actively and aggressively' enforce Canada's sovereignty in the North, including expanding its military role." [46]
A major Canadian daily revealed information on the Canadian Department of National Defence's Polar Breeze program, referring to it as a $138 million "military project so cloaked in secrecy the Department of National Defence at first categorically denied it even existed.
"Today - apart from backtracking on their denial - the military is refusing to answer any questions on the project that experts believe has a role to play in protecting Canada's Arctic sovereignty and security." [47]
The newspaper also said that the project "involves the Canadian Forces' secretive directorate of space development, computer networks and geospatial intelligence - data gathered by satellite" and that it "could have farther ranging functions including sharing sensitive military intelligence across the various branches of the Canadian Forces and with key allies." [48]
In early May the Canadian Senate issued a report demanding that "Canada should arm its coast guard icebreakers and turn the North's Rangers into better-trained units that could fight if necessary." [49]
Slightly later in a news report called "After Russian talk of conflict, Tories say military is prepared," Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said the "government's defence strategy will help the military 'take action in exercising Canadian sovereignty in the North,' and highlighted plans for a fleet of Arctic patrol ships, a deepwater docking facility at Baffin Island, an Arctic military training centre and the expansion of the Canadian Rangers...." [50]
The repeated, incessant references to Russia and to no other nation while Canada boosts military cooperation with fellow NATO Arctic claimants leave no room for doubt regarding which nation Canadian military expansion in its north is aimed against. Recent deployments and new and upgraded installations cannot be used to fight a conventional conflict with any modern military adversary. But they are indicative of an intensifying campaign to portray Russia as a threat - as the threat - to Canada.
Piotr Dutkiewicz, director of Carleton University's Institute of European and Russian Studies, is quoted in a Canadian online publication recently as worrying that "There is a very strange rhetoric that is coming in recent months as to portray Russia as a potential enemy...." [51]
The rhetoric is backed up by action and it isn't strange but perfectly understandable.
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