I have always been fascinated by geopolitics.
In fact, last month I read a book about the Athenian campaign against Syracuse on the island of Sicily during the Peloponnesian War in 431 to 404 BC. It’s one of the greatest geopolitical blunders of all time, eventually costing Athens its entire empire.
When I was a Canadian Foreign Service Officer, we worked daily to assess threats to Canadian interests, and opportunities to collaborate with our allies.
Despite all that, I have to admit I was troubled to read that our governments are planning to spend $370,000 to study the feasibility of setting up an institute for Arctic security in the Yukon.
Since I wrote my recent series on the crisis in the Yukon healthcare system, I’ve been surprised how many health workers have mentioned the columns to me. All have agreed that the system is in crisis. Several said they felt the government doesn’t listen to them, and they hoped some newspaper columns might move a serious response up the political agenda.
Then they read the Yukon News headline: “Potential Arctic security institute in Yukon gets $370K for feasibility study.”
While $370,000 is just a rounding error for the modern deputy minister, there is still a principle at stake here. They could have hired more nurses, or architects to design more operating rooms.
And it’s not just the hospital and doctors’ offices. How are we doing on other core Yukon government responsibilities, such as addictions in downtown Whitehorse or Grade 8 math and English proficiency in the communities? How about more renewable power instead of leasing more diesel generators?
There’s going to be an election in the next 12 months. Here are a few questions to ask your MLA when they come door-knocking.
First, why do we need a 17-month-long feasibility study? For this kind of institute, the answer of such studies is highly likely to be “Of course it is feasible to hire some professors and rent office space, if the government gives us enough funding.”
I suggest the question be “Is it feasible to have a Yukon institute that is 100 percent funded by private foundations (like many such institutes at universities) so it is not a burden on the Yukon government in a time of tough fiscal sledding and screaming demands from core government departments?”
The first test should be that the feasibility study itself has to be funded by private donors. If you can’t get billionaires or big foundations to fund such a study, the institute itself won’t happen.
Or the university and Yukon government should do the study themselves. This is why we hire talented university administrators and senior government officials.
My second question is whether the money could be used more effectively on something else. Keep in mind that the Yukon has to borrow its $70,000 contribution as do the feds for their $300,000. Both governments are running deficits.
My third question is how much time our political leaders and senior officials spent working on this institute idea instead of visiting the Whitehorse General operating rooms and asking the nurses how things were going.
The good news is that the money already spent on the Yukon Arctic Security Advisory Council has confirmed what you probably already knew: “The territory is inherently difficult for adversaries to access. The Yukon is, in sum, safe, secure, and prepared, enjoying at least the same degree of protection and security as Canadians in general.”
Of course, the Yukon is not immune from global conflict. Like the German army used to always pass through Belgium on its way to France, the Yukon sits right underneath the flight path of any North Korean missiles targeted on Chicago. The Council put it this way: “Conventional military threats to Arctic security would most likely pass through the Yukon rather than being directed at the Yukon.”
This raises a fourth question for your MLA: Isn’t defence a federal responsibility? We have become used to all our governments being involved in everything, with press releases including a whole extra page because quotes are needed from federal, Yukon, municipal and multiple First Nations government leaders.
I suggest the Yukon government stay in its lane until it gets the health, addictions, education and renewable energy situations under control.
My fifth question for your MLA candidate is whether, once the feasibility study is done, they will talk to a nurse before voting in favour of steering funding to the Institute rather than the hospital. We don’t know what the budget will be, but just imagine it’s in the $300,000 per year range. That would give money for an executive director, some contracts for academics and expenses on travel, conferences and websites.
These days, you sometimes hear commentators asking why the general populace seems to have lost faith in our leaders. Why, they ask, do people think the elite is out of touch? Why are voters angry and starting to vote for populist parties?
So here’s a bonus question for your MLA: How do you think Yukoners struggling with housing costs, grocery costs and not having a family doctor felt when they read the Yukon News story about the $370,000 institute feasibility study?
As much as I would love to see a Yukon Institute for Arctic Security, and would enjoy going to its conferences, I think the only way I could support spending that much money on it would be if it was located in Whitehorse Hospital and only hired nurses.
Keith Halliday is a Yukon economist and the winner of the 2022 Canadian Community Newspaper Award for Outstanding Columnist. His most recent book Moonshadows, a Yukon-noir thriller, is available in Yukon bookstores.
