Rinchinlhumbe said: in communist times, the state spent huge sums of money to erect cities in the middle of nowhere but where are resources are.

Within the capiltalist system, Canada could not realize such amibitious projects. Click to expand...

It was more of a case that Canada has historically ignored the north. Even with 90% of our population concentrated along a thin band in the south along the US border, we never reached a point where land became crowded, or resources depleted. Our south had always been an embarrassment of riches and our climate made any venture further north unappealing or pointless in the minds of the population.In the USA, their huge population fed an insatiable appetite for continued geographic expansion and resource deposits. This coupled with military interests led to Alaska's population being 6 times that of all of Canada's northern territories put together.Canada's north is currently going through the most rapid and extreme temperature increase of any region on the planet due to climate change. Our northwest passage opened up to shipping for the first time ever. These changes have suddenly made the economic exploitation of our northern wealth feasible. Canada's northern population is only 100,000 today, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it go 10 fold over the coming decades.