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“That was, for us, a big surprise and quite unexpected,” Vauraste said, pointing out Arctia has icebreakers ready to send to Canada.

Photo by Alicja Siekierska/National Post

Perhaps he shouldn’t have been surprised that Canada doesn’t seem to be in a rush to replace its aging fleet of icebreakers. Experts say that’s just one example of how Canada is struggling to keep pace with the Arctic research and development being conducted by Nordic countries such as Finland, as well as Russia and China.

A recent report by the Centre for International Governance Innovation said Nordic governments and Russia dedicate substantially more resources in their Arctic regions by supporting them “through strong governance structures, planned investment and development, and close bilateral and multilateral ties.”

In Canada, “no one is worrying about long-term economic development in the Arctic and making the kind of investments we need,” CIGI said.

“We are falling further and further behind the European Arctic, Russian Arctic and the east Asian Arctic in terms of all kinds of measures of development and capacity,” said John Higginbotham, a senior fellow at CIGI and Carleton University professor who authored the report.

Russia has arguably led the way as Arctic development heats up, investing heavily in efforts to commercialize the Arctic Ocean by pouring money into its northern cities, industries, surface and marine transport, and aggressively exploring offshore oil and gas (something Norway is also doing).