North at risk from ‘old battles,’ federal spending priorities, Axworthy says

Canada risks falling into a pattern of fighting “old battles” in the North — while ramping up defence spending — as it cuts funding to handle wildfires and internal migration, former federal minister Lloyd Axworthy warns.

Axworthy, who was the country’s foreign affairs minister from 1996 to 2000, spoke Thursday at the Northern Transportation Conference at the University of Manitoba.

Thousands of northern Canadians fled their communities last year due to wildfires. The Canadian Red Cross registered more than 32,700 evacuated Manitobans during 2025’s wildfire season.

Outbreaks are expected to become “almost an annual rite of passage,” Axworthy said.

Meantime, Ottawa has cut workers at Natural Resources Canada, which tracks wildfires and monitors northern landscapes.

“Displacement is becoming structural, not exceptional. We have no plan for when temporary becomes frequent and permanent,” Axworthy said. “We are also seeing that there is a major infrastructure gap.”

The Assembly of First Nations estimates there’s a $349-billion gap in northern infrastructure. Roughly 70 per cent of Canada’s land mass doesn’t have road access, conference attendees heard Thursday.

Canada counts approximately 250 remote communities. Those connected by ice road face shorter periods of land links as the climate warms.

And as Ottawa increasingly eyes Arctic security and its defence sector, isolated northern areas risk being left out of investments, Axworthy said.

“We have to lock the geography of northern infrastructure in a comprehensive way — not as defence here, security there, evacuation there,” he said.

“The cost of building and rebuilding and replacing infrastructure — it’s going to require some serious thought. Engagement driven mostly, I think, by people in the North. They’re the ones that are being impacted.”

Ottawa lacks a plan for such engagement, Axworthy said. He mused about a commission with provincial and federal governments, Indigenous groups and stakeholders, such as transportation firms.

He urged conference attendees — including transport company reps and post-secondary officials — to take a broader look at northern infrastructure planning and funding. The public and private sectors must work together, Axworthy said.

“Otherwise, I think we’re simply going to be fighting old battles, repairing old infrastructure and not being able to properly develop… for the future and not the past.”

Manitoba incurred more than $370 million in wildfire-related costs last year.

Across Canada, there are almost no active mines where there aren’t roads, noted University of Manitoba Transport Institute director Barry Prentice.

Provincial and federal governments have touted Canada’s and Manitoba’s potential for resource extraction.

“If we want to get into the critical minerals, we have to solve the transportation problem,” Prentice said, adding where roads stop, “poverty begins.”

Overcrowding in housing, a lack of nutritious food and poor health plague many northerners. Transporting supplies to build houses, a short building time period and a lack of materials storage space contribute to sky-high costs of home creation, Prentice said.

On average, a build might cost $750 per square foot in a northern community compared to $170 per square foot in the south, Prentice continued.

He pointed to several future northern transport options, including cargo airships and wooden roads.

“These are engineered roads. These are not just simply slapping down wood panels and hoping,” Prentice said. “You get thick enough timber and you engineer the road properly, it seems to work very, very well.”

U of M staff plan to research how wood roads could mitigate the effects of melting permafrost.

Dan Blizzard, founder of D. Blizzard Integrated Services, was scheduled to speak Thursday. His Quebec-based company builds mats — which look and act like roads — over peatland in the United States.

The company has concepts for permafrost. It’s trying to adapt its work to northern Canada, to make roads “economically viable” in Manitoba and other jurisdictions, Blizzard said.

He’s hoping dollars from Canada’s first defence industrial strategy will trickle to his business. Prime Minister Mark Carney unveiled the strategy Tuesday; it promises $180 billion in defence procurement and the creation of 125,000 jobs.

“We need to better protect… our country, our borders,” Blizzard said.

Manitoba firms in construction, aerospace and manufacturing sectors could benefit from the increased defence spending, said Chuck Davidson, president of the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce.

“I think Manitoba small businesses are ready to contribute, but the real impact of the strategy will be whether governments follow through and make it genuinely easy… for (them) to invest,” said Tyler Slobogian, a Canadian Federation of Independent Business policy analyst.

Firms with Manitoba footprints — Magellan Aerospace, StandardAero, Pal Aerospace — already work with federal defence programs, according to industry association Manitoba Aerospace.

Winnipeg-based clothing manufacturer Peerless Garments has roughly $22 million worth in product — including chemical warfare suits — slated for Canada’s Defence Department. It’s had contracts with the feds for decades.

“They hire more people (in the military), they’re going to ask for more units, more garments,” said Albert el Tassi, president of Peerless Garments. “And we’ll be prepared for that, no problem.”

It’s time to solve issues in the North as Canada bolsters its defence sector and the climate changes, Prentice emphasized Thursday.

“What we’ve been doing has not worked,” he said. “There’s no reason to think it’s going to work better in the future.”

gabrielle.piche@winnipegfreepress.com