"For example, the Prime Minister earlier this year talked about the importance of the Arctic to our future. He's right. A hundred years from now, the strength of Canada is going to be coming from our resources in the Arctic"
About this Quote
Mulroney’s line is a politician’s time machine: it yanks Arctic policy out of the niche file and drops it into the nation’s destiny narrative. The move is deliberate. By agreeing with “the Prime Minister” up front, he borrows consensus and avoids sounding like a lone hawk; then he pivots to the real payload - the Arctic isn’t just scenery or sovereignty theater, it’s the future balance sheet.
The intent is economic nationalism with a long fuse. “A hundred years from now” is doing heavy rhetorical work: it sanctifies extraction as intergenerational prudence, not a short-term boom, and it frames skeptics as people who can’t think beyond the next election cycle. It’s also a subtle rebuke to Canada’s historic habit of treating the North as a frontier myth rather than an integrated strategy. In Mulroney’s hands, the Arctic becomes the place where Canada can stop being a middle power by geography and start being one by leverage.
The subtext is harder-edged: resources mean security, and security means control. At the time he’s speaking, the Arctic is already moving from frozen backwater to geopolitical corridor - melting sea ice, shipping routes, energy and mineral plays, and renewed attention from Russia and the U.S. Calling Arctic resources “the strength of Canada” isn’t just about prosperity; it’s a quiet argument for presence, infrastructure, and jurisdiction before someone else treats the region’s opening as an invitation.
What makes the quote work is its moral simplification: the Arctic is “our future.” It turns a complicated stew of Indigenous rights, environmental risk, and global competition into a clean national imperative - the kind that fits neatly into a campaign sentence and lingers as policy common sense.
The intent is economic nationalism with a long fuse. “A hundred years from now” is doing heavy rhetorical work: it sanctifies extraction as intergenerational prudence, not a short-term boom, and it frames skeptics as people who can’t think beyond the next election cycle. It’s also a subtle rebuke to Canada’s historic habit of treating the North as a frontier myth rather than an integrated strategy. In Mulroney’s hands, the Arctic becomes the place where Canada can stop being a middle power by geography and start being one by leverage.
The subtext is harder-edged: resources mean security, and security means control. At the time he’s speaking, the Arctic is already moving from frozen backwater to geopolitical corridor - melting sea ice, shipping routes, energy and mineral plays, and renewed attention from Russia and the U.S. Calling Arctic resources “the strength of Canada” isn’t just about prosperity; it’s a quiet argument for presence, infrastructure, and jurisdiction before someone else treats the region’s opening as an invitation.
What makes the quote work is its moral simplification: the Arctic is “our future.” It turns a complicated stew of Indigenous rights, environmental risk, and global competition into a clean national imperative - the kind that fits neatly into a campaign sentence and lingers as policy common sense.
Quote Details
| Topic | Vision & Strategy |
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