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[upbeat music] Welcome back to another episode of Vanguard Radio. I'm your host, J. Richard Jones.
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Today, we're gonna delve into a couple of topics that are related to the North, specifically the Arctic. Joining me are a couple of guests that know quite a bit about that.
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When I asked them, "What message would you like to leave with our readership and listenership about what you do?" it was quite interesting because right now the focus is on Arctic security and sovereignty.
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Our guests today come from a company that has a long history of serving the Arctic, and they are more than ready to help Canada achieve its aims.
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And they are known for delivering, and when they deliver with integrity, not just in the Arctic, but all across Canada.
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But delivering with integrity and delivering on time means a lot because of the harsh climates in the Arctic.
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So we're gonna talk, the title of the show is Building North Infrastructure, Innovation and Indigenous Partnerships. I'm pleased to welcome to our show Mr. Jim Landon. He's president of ATCO Frontec, and Mr.
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Jim Stark, director north of Sixty with ATCO Frontec as well. Gentlemen, welcome to the show. It's a pleasure to be here.
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When I was taking a look at the show notes, I thought it was really interesting that your products specialize in defense and civilian application. You really do specialize in remote service delivery.
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Jim Landon, I'd like to ask you first, how do defense and civilian needs intersect in northern infrastructure projects? I think there is a really significant intersection in the North.
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I think one of the things that people very often don't understand about the Arctic in Canada is just how few people are there.
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We're talking a population of around a hundred and forty thousand people spread right across an enormous area, and that includes the major settlements in Inuvik and Yellowknife, Whitehorse and Iqaluit.
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A lot of communities are really very small.
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So when there is a defense presence in a community, whether that be to do with the North warning system, whether that be to do with the forward operating locations for the Air Force, they play a really important part in it, and often the infrastructure that they're using is the same.
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And everybody has the same very basic needs in the Arctic of shelter and power and the ability to bring supplies in and so on. And so there is a lot of intersection between the two.
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And I think when you then introduce, um, the element of commercial, uh, activity in the North, whether it be mining or fishing or anything else, again, you're talking the same people, the same locations, and the same needs.
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Uh, so I think there is a closer relationship between those things in the North than we might be used to seeing elsewhere. Um, Mr.
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Jim, uh, Stark, I wanna give you a chance to weigh in, and from here on in, I'll just use each of your surnames, if that's okay, so that our readers can understand who's speaking.
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[laughs] So I, I think part of any military operation, uh, just existing in the North is a significant part of it. Doing anything in the North, just existing is a significant part of it.
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On a day-to-day basis, especially in the South, we take for granted a lot of the things that are, uh, just happen to be there. For example, clean water, power, access to facilities, transportation. So whether it's, uh,
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taking a car or an airfield or any of that kind of thing, fuel infrastructure, that is all very difficult to find in the North End. So
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i- if you're going to be ha- doing a civilian activity, just living there, all those things are extremely important. They're equally important to any defense e-endeavor that you do in the North as well.
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Yeah, I could only imagine logistics, supply and demand, big issue. Mr. Landon, what are some of the really unique challenges of operating remo- in remote regions, and how does ATCO Frontec overcome them?
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I think some of the challenges, and Jim mentioned some of them there, is you're talking extreme temperatures, the absence of daylight for a lot of the year, but also some really practical things.
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There are only a handful of asphalted runways in the North. So everywhere else, you're talking about landing on a gravel runway, and not every kind of aircraft can do that.
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Of course, with the ice in the sea during the winter, the ships can only get in at certain times of the year. And so you've gotta plan everything a long time in advance.
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You really gotta be thinking, "Okay, what needs to be going where for a project, and when do we need to get it on the ship?" And as they say, time and tide waits for no man, and that's certainly the case with Sea Lift.
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So I think planning and understanding the North and understanding the challenges are really important, and we've got an awful lot of experience in doing just that.
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And we know the partners that we can work with and who we can rely upon.
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Uh, and as Jim said in the outset there about the, our integrity, it's we know what can be achieved, and we won't promise anything that we know can't be achieved.
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But we know an awful lot of ways of achieving what we need to do in the North. Mr. Stark, would you like to weigh in on that? I think that the planning is absolutely critical, as Jim said.
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However, there's also a component of being resourceful and, and an adaptability to unforeseen conditions because they happen all of the time.
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For example, a ship that is the only boat that would deliver the Sea Lift goods to a site ran aground earlier this year.
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Having the adaptability to change schedules, to work around things, to address those changing conditions, and then still be able to deliver on time.
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There's also a recognition that has to happen that, uh, especially with critical path items when you're doing any infrastructure project, that missing a Sea Lift date means you're missing an entire year of production.
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So often when we're doing infrastructure projects in the south is should we push a schedule by a month? Yes, that's a significant impact.
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However, if we push a schedule by a month, we push it by a full year, and that has tremendous implications, not just in terms of financial, but if people are depending on those infrastructure projects in order to live,
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it can affect their daily lives.
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So being able to do the planning up front, but then also being able to react and to take advantage of opportunities as well as adapt to difficulties and still being able to deliver on time, that's absolutely critical.
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Mr. Stark, I wanna expand on that a little bit, if I may. Could you share with us some examples of ongoing defense-related infrastructure initiatives that ATCO Frunco is involved in?
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And then I'll give the last word on this question to Mr. Landon. We do a number of projects across the north right now.
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A, we look after, for example, the Real Property North contract, which is an operations and maintenance contract primarily. However, there is a fair amount of construction and additional work that goes along with that.
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Now, what's involved in that particular contract is looking after the forward operating locations for the Canadian military, and tied in with that is a number of other things as well, such as the JTF and the Joint Task Force North headquarters in Yellowknife, and the Nanisivik Naval Facility as well, and located in Nanisivik.
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That's an interesting contract. We look after locations all across the north, so Inuvik, Yellowknife, Rankin Inlet. And, um, we also look after a number of other facilities and projects.
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For example, Polar Continental Shelf program has a facility in Resolute Bay that we do, uh, facility maintenance on. Of course, in conjunction with that, we also support the military in a number of operations.
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For example, in Crystal City and Operation Nanook, which both happen in the Resolute Bay area. Now, those ones are Frontec only. There are a number of other ones that we look after with our indigenous partnerships.
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For example, Nessatuk looks after the North Warning System and CFF Alert, and that's pretty much as far north as you can go.
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And of course then the project for the Polar Over-the-Horizon Radar Project, which is a research and development project to produce a radar in the northern Northwest Territories.
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That one is also a joint venture with our indigenous partners. Mr. Landon, is there anything that you would like to comment on for this one? Y-Y-- Jim spoke to all the current ones.
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I think I would to also add on, though, what's coming in the future, one of the things that we're expecting in terms of defense infrastructure in particular.
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Jim talked about the forward operating locations that we look after right now.
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But with F-35, once Canada makes its final decision on buying F-35, uh, those will require substantial upgrades to all of those forward operating locations.
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So I think that's gonna be an awful lot of work needed to get those up to standard. There is a lot of infrastructure work that is going to happen across the port, the north, as part of NORAD modernization.
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The Navy buying submarines as well means that there will be a need for a network of ports in the north.
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We already look after Nanisivik for the Royal Canadian Navy now, but there will be a requirement for other ports in the north.
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So it's gonna be very interesting to see some of these projects of what comes off the sort of major projects list, the projects of national importance that the government has talked about.
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Certainly gonna be a lot of activity going on there. Mr. Landon, Mr. Stark had mentioned that you're involved with indigenous partnerships and community engagement.
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Now, I know ATCO, ATCO Frontec is pretty big in serving government and defense, but also a number of other areas as well.
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But I'd like to touch upon how does ATCO Frontec engage with indigenous communities in the northern operations. So I think we are very lucky.
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The founder of ATCO, Ron Southern, was very much ahead of his time in his attitudes to partnerships with First Nations south of sixty and with the Inuit north of sixty.
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And he approached all of these things on an equity basis right from the outset. And that's really unusual when it was happening twenty-five years ago.
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But what it means is that we've got twenty-five-plus-year-old partnerships that have really withstood the test of time and have been fantastic opportunities for those involved with them to really develop very strong commercial economic capabilities.
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So our partners, uh, Jim mentioned Nasutok Corporation, which operates and maintains the North Warning System and Canadian Forces Station Alert.
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That is a partnership where the majority partners are all of the economic development corporations in the north who come together in the Pan-Arctic Inuit Logistics Corporation, or PAIL.
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And those relationships, as I say, are very long-standing, and they exist for us not only as part of the North Warning System contract and so on, but we also have other relationships with the partners, individual partners that make up PAIL.
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And so we're partnered in, in Tuktoyaktuk. We're looking after all the fuel systems in Ahiak.
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We are, as Jim mentioned, on Polar Over-the-Horizon Radar and also on things like a, a mining project over in that, in Goose Bay area. So there are lots of things like this where we're partnered together.
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And the basis of those partnerships, I think, is the mutual interest in making the projects work and in the benefits to the shareholders. And the shareholders for PAIL are the land claims beneficiaries in the north.
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So there's a very close link between the population and these business ventures that we're involved in together. But they're also fantastic training and employment vehicles.
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I have lost count of the number of people I have bumped into who are senior in business or government or something else in the north who say to me, "Oh, wow, I started as an apprentice with Nastuk Corporation ten, fifteen, twenty years ago, and they got me started in life."
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The president of the Nastuk Corporation, himself a Landed beneficiary, uh, took over, uh, about a year ago from the person who hired him on straight out of university years and years ago.
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So I think we are a vehicle for training, education, and developing our employees in the North. Certainly building industry and providing sustainable solutions for Canada's North, which is great. Mr.
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Stark, I'd like to talk a little bit about some of the infrastructure projects and how they contribute to Canada's national security and community, uh, resilience. Do you wanna take a comment on that?
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Infrastructure projects in the North in general, I'd like to take it back for a minute, speak about the infrastructure as a whole that exists in the North.
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There is a large amount of aging infrastructure across the North.
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So, for example, the, the focus on the North that has happened recently has largely been new, and we haven't seen this kind of focus, at least in the twenty-five years that I've been involved in the North.
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So there is a large quantity of infrastructure that was built in the seventies and eighties that is now coming to end of life, and it really needs to be renewed.
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The renewal of this infrastructure will contribute both to national security and to the communities themselves. We're talking about water plants and power plants, wastewater plants as well as solid waste facilities.
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All of those things have been... A-and they've been maintained, by all means, but you can only go so far in that kind of environment, first and second line maintenance. At some point, it needs a renewal. I think that
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the projects that we're seeing and the interest that we're seeing in the North right now is really gonna add to that, and it's required. We're going to be part of the Northern community.
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We're gonna be part or involved in the northern area. We really have to make this investment, and now is the time. Mr. Landon, how do you see it?
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Yeah, I think energy is the area that I'm particularly interested in for the North and how that's going to evolve. Right now, the vast majority of energy generation in the North is, is using diesel,
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and that has, uh, associated problems with the soot that it deposits and what that does in terms of climate change contribution.
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But also, you've got to move all that diesel to the North, either by sea, in some cases even by air, and that's a challenge. And as Jim said, the infrastructure is old.
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The infrastructure that we operate on behalf of the government of Nunavut in Iqaluit was built by the US Army Corps of Engineers in the Second World War for refueling bombers on their way over to Europe to operate from the UK.
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This is fantastic tribute to their engineering skill, but is that really what we should be using at this length of time after the war? So I think there is a need to look at how we will provide energy in the future.
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I think there's a lot of exciting work going on in Canada to do with small modular reactors and micro reactors. I think there's still quite a way to go with that, but I think that's an area of particular interest.
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I mentioned also ports, and I think, you know, the Navy is gonna need ports, but there is also a requirement down south we're talking about are we going to try to export LNG, for example, through Churchill in Manitoba?
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Are we gonna build a new port perhaps in Graves Bay and then link that by road to Yellowknife? There are some big projects that are being talked about here which are dual or triple use, if you like.
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Dual use in that defense might use them, also the local community might use them, but also mining companies might use them to export their materials.
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So I think there's a lot going on, some really big projects, and I think it's gonna be a really interesting time as the government decides what it's going to support and how it's going to be funded.
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My last question for you both, and we'll start with Mr. Stark, and I'll give Mr. Landon the final word. Mr.
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Stark, what future trends or opportunities do you see in northern infrastructure development, especially in the defense space? What does the future look like? We're looking at a very much increased presence in the North.
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Any increase in presence requires an increase in support.
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You have to remember that a lot of these communities are very small, so using them as support hubs or jumping-off points, they're simply not equipped at this moment to support a large influx of troops or people coming through or use of their facilities.
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So any endeavor that's going to increase presence, let's say for the sake of argument, we're talking about Resolute Bay, which is roughly a hundred and eighty-five people.
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If you're looking at a deployment of twelve hundred military members to that area, that's a significant increase.
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And really, the infrastructure that is in that area is simply not equipped to handle an influx of that size for any length of time.
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Puts an extra strain on the organizations that are used to supporting the requirements of these communities as well, so in terms of construction, labor, all of those things.
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Now, we all know that the void is going to be filled, right? Any void tends to be filled, but it will be filled by people by coming from the South.
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Now, the challenge there, of course, is that a lot of these organizations don't have the experience in the North and aren't used to the nuances that are absolutely essential in successful project delivery in the North.
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So it's going to be interesting over the next ten years to see how the whole gaps in our infrastructure are gonna be addressed, and I think it's gonna be a very challenging time for us. Mr.
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Landen, over to you, sir Yeah, I think it is a very interesting tooling, but the geopolitical level and this focus on the Arctic has not come from nowhere. This is almost, it's taking us to a new version of a Cold War.
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And so I think the thinking required is changing in the defense space.
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And we've got these forward operating locations for the F-35, but as I mentioned, there are so few asphalt runways that if you lose one of those locations to enemy action, then, you know, where are you gonna go?
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What's your alternative? So I think that's an area that's g- gonna be thought about. I think the logistics for all of the infrastructure build is gonna be challenging.
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In all of this, there's a requirement for strong and capable data links.
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And above all, people will always tell you it's all about visibility and layered capabilities to be able to see what's going on and what's coming into the Arctic.
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And in all of that discussion, although we are spending money on over-the-horizon radars and other capabilities, these are augmentation of existing systems. They're not replacement.
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And the North Warning System radars themselves are now very old, and they need to be upgraded and replaced with new radars. And that doesn't appear anywhere in the government's programs at the moment.
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So I think that is a gap, uh, and it needs to be addressed, and I think it is something that sooner or later the... and NORAD are gonna have to address.
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So I think it's gonna be a continued period of investment in our systems in the Arctic for the next 10 years or so. You've been listening to Vanguard Radio, and I'm your host, J. Richard Jones.
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Today, we've been talking about building the North infrastructure, innovation, and indigenous partnerships.
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We've talked about some of the unique challenges that are there with that, and we've talked about so many more things. It's been most interesting. I want to thank our special guests, Mr.
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Jim Landen, President of Cofrontech, and Mr. Jim Stark, Director of North of 60 at Cofrontech. Gentlemen, thank you for coming on the show. Thank you. It's been a pleasure.
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[upbeat music] Welcome back to another episode of Vanguard Radio. I'm your host, J. Richard Jones.
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Today, we're gonna delve into a couple of topics that are related to the North, specifically the Arctic. Joining me are a couple of guests that know quite a bit about that.
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When I asked them, "What message would you like to leave with our readership and listenership about what you do?" it was quite interesting because right now the focus is on Arctic security and sovereignty.
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Our guests today come from a company that has a long history of serving the Arctic, and they are more than ready to help Canada achieve its aims.
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And they are known for delivering, and when they deliver with integrity, not just in the Arctic, but all across Canada.
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But delivering with integrity and delivering on time means a lot because of the harsh climates in the Arctic.
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So we're gonna talk, the title of the show is Building North Infrastructure, Innovation and Indigenous Partnerships. I'm pleased to welcome to our show Mr. Jim Landon. He's president of ATCO Frontec, and Mr.
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Jim Stark, director north of Sixty with ATCO Frontec as well. Gentlemen, welcome to the show. It's a pleasure to be here.
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When I was taking a look at the show notes, I thought it was really interesting that your products specialize in defense and civilian application. You really do specialize in remote service delivery.
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Jim Landon, I'd like to ask you first, how do defense and civilian needs intersect in northern infrastructure projects? I think there is a really significant intersection in the North.
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I think one of the things that people very often don't understand about the Arctic in Canada is just how few people are there.
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We're talking a population of around a hundred and forty thousand people spread right across an enormous area, and that includes the major settlements in Inuvik and Yellowknife, Whitehorse and Iqaluit.
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A lot of communities are really very small.
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So when there is a defense presence in a community, whether that be to do with the North warning system, whether that be to do with the forward operating locations for the Air Force, they play a really important part in it, and often the infrastructure that they're using is the same.
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And everybody has the same very basic needs in the Arctic of shelter and power and the ability to bring supplies in and so on. And so there is a lot of intersection between the two.
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And I think when you then introduce, um, the element of commercial, uh, activity in the North, whether it be mining or fishing or anything else, again, you're talking the same people, the same locations, and the same needs.
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Uh, so I think there is a closer relationship between those things in the North than we might be used to seeing elsewhere. Um, Mr.
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Jim, uh, Stark, I wanna give you a chance to weigh in, and from here on in, I'll just use each of your surnames, if that's okay, so that our readers can understand who's speaking.
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[laughs] So I, I think part of any military operation, uh, just existing in the North is a significant part of it. Doing anything in the North, just existing is a significant part of it.
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On a day-to-day basis, especially in the South, we take for granted a lot of the things that are, uh, just happen to be there. For example, clean water, power, access to facilities, transportation. So whether it's, uh,
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taking a car or an airfield or any of that kind of thing, fuel infrastructure, that is all very difficult to find in the North End. So
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i- if you're going to be ha- doing a civilian activity, just living there, all those things are extremely important. They're equally important to any defense e-endeavor that you do in the North as well.
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Yeah, I could only imagine logistics, supply and demand, big issue. Mr. Landon, what are some of the really unique challenges of operating remo- in remote regions, and how does ATCO Frontec overcome them?
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I think some of the challenges, and Jim mentioned some of them there, is you're talking extreme temperatures, the absence of daylight for a lot of the year, but also some really practical things.
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There are only a handful of asphalted runways in the North. So everywhere else, you're talking about landing on a gravel runway, and not every kind of aircraft can do that.
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Of course, with the ice in the sea during the winter, the ships can only get in at certain times of the year. And so you've gotta plan everything a long time in advance.
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You really gotta be thinking, "Okay, what needs to be going where for a project, and when do we need to get it on the ship?" And as they say, time and tide waits for no man, and that's certainly the case with Sea Lift.
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So I think planning and understanding the North and understanding the challenges are really important, and we've got an awful lot of experience in doing just that.
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And we know the partners that we can work with and who we can rely upon.
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Uh, and as Jim said in the outset there about the, our integrity, it's we know what can be achieved, and we won't promise anything that we know can't be achieved.
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But we know an awful lot of ways of achieving what we need to do in the North. Mr. Stark, would you like to weigh in on that? I think that the planning is absolutely critical, as Jim said.
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However, there's also a component of being resourceful and, and an adaptability to unforeseen conditions because they happen all of the time.
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For example, a ship that is the only boat that would deliver the Sea Lift goods to a site ran aground earlier this year.
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Having the adaptability to change schedules, to work around things, to address those changing conditions, and then still be able to deliver on time.
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There's also a recognition that has to happen that, uh, especially with critical path items when you're doing any infrastructure project, that missing a Sea Lift date means you're missing an entire year of production.
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So often when we're doing infrastructure projects in the south is should we push a schedule by a month? Yes, that's a significant impact.
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However, if we push a schedule by a month, we push it by a full year, and that has tremendous implications, not just in terms of financial, but if people are depending on those infrastructure projects in order to live,
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it can affect their daily lives.
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So being able to do the planning up front, but then also being able to react and to take advantage of opportunities as well as adapt to difficulties and still being able to deliver on time, that's absolutely critical.
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Mr. Stark, I wanna expand on that a little bit, if I may. Could you share with us some examples of ongoing defense-related infrastructure initiatives that ATCO Frunco is involved in?
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And then I'll give the last word on this question to Mr. Landon. We do a number of projects across the north right now.
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A, we look after, for example, the Real Property North contract, which is an operations and maintenance contract primarily. However, there is a fair amount of construction and additional work that goes along with that.
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Now, what's involved in that particular contract is looking after the forward operating locations for the Canadian military, and tied in with that is a number of other things as well, such as the JTF and the Joint Task Force North headquarters in Yellowknife, and the Nanisivik Naval Facility as well, and located in Nanisivik.
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That's an interesting contract. We look after locations all across the north, so Inuvik, Yellowknife, Rankin Inlet. And, um, we also look after a number of other facilities and projects.
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For example, Polar Continental Shelf program has a facility in Resolute Bay that we do, uh, facility maintenance on. Of course, in conjunction with that, we also support the military in a number of operations.
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For example, in Crystal City and Operation Nanook, which both happen in the Resolute Bay area. Now, those ones are Frontec only. There are a number of other ones that we look after with our indigenous partnerships.
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For example, Nessatuk looks after the North Warning System and CFF Alert, and that's pretty much as far north as you can go.
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And of course then the project for the Polar Over-the-Horizon Radar Project, which is a research and development project to produce a radar in the northern Northwest Territories.
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That one is also a joint venture with our indigenous partners. Mr. Landon, is there anything that you would like to comment on for this one? Y-Y-- Jim spoke to all the current ones.
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I think I would to also add on, though, what's coming in the future, one of the things that we're expecting in terms of defense infrastructure in particular.
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Jim talked about the forward operating locations that we look after right now.
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But with F-35, once Canada makes its final decision on buying F-35, uh, those will require substantial upgrades to all of those forward operating locations.
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So I think that's gonna be an awful lot of work needed to get those up to standard. There is a lot of infrastructure work that is going to happen across the port, the north, as part of NORAD modernization.
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The Navy buying submarines as well means that there will be a need for a network of ports in the north.
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We already look after Nanisivik for the Royal Canadian Navy now, but there will be a requirement for other ports in the north.
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So it's gonna be very interesting to see some of these projects of what comes off the sort of major projects list, the projects of national importance that the government has talked about.
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Certainly gonna be a lot of activity going on there. Mr. Landon, Mr. Stark had mentioned that you're involved with indigenous partnerships and community engagement.
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Now, I know ATCO, ATCO Frontec is pretty big in serving government and defense, but also a number of other areas as well.
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But I'd like to touch upon how does ATCO Frontec engage with indigenous communities in the northern operations. So I think we are very lucky.
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The founder of ATCO, Ron Southern, was very much ahead of his time in his attitudes to partnerships with First Nations south of sixty and with the Inuit north of sixty.
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And he approached all of these things on an equity basis right from the outset. And that's really unusual when it was happening twenty-five years ago.
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But what it means is that we've got twenty-five-plus-year-old partnerships that have really withstood the test of time and have been fantastic opportunities for those involved with them to really develop very strong commercial economic capabilities.
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So our partners, uh, Jim mentioned Nasutok Corporation, which operates and maintains the North Warning System and Canadian Forces Station Alert.
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That is a partnership where the majority partners are all of the economic development corporations in the north who come together in the Pan-Arctic Inuit Logistics Corporation, or PAIL.
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And those relationships, as I say, are very long-standing, and they exist for us not only as part of the North Warning System contract and so on, but we also have other relationships with the partners, individual partners that make up PAIL.
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And so we're partnered in, in Tuktoyaktuk. We're looking after all the fuel systems in Ahiak.
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We are, as Jim mentioned, on Polar Over-the-Horizon Radar and also on things like a, a mining project over in that, in Goose Bay area. So there are lots of things like this where we're partnered together.
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And the basis of those partnerships, I think, is the mutual interest in making the projects work and in the benefits to the shareholders. And the shareholders for PAIL are the land claims beneficiaries in the north.
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So there's a very close link between the population and these business ventures that we're involved in together. But they're also fantastic training and employment vehicles.
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I have lost count of the number of people I have bumped into who are senior in business or government or something else in the north who say to me, "Oh, wow, I started as an apprentice with Nastuk Corporation ten, fifteen, twenty years ago, and they got me started in life."
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The president of the Nastuk Corporation, himself a Landed beneficiary, uh, took over, uh, about a year ago from the person who hired him on straight out of university years and years ago.
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So I think we are a vehicle for training, education, and developing our employees in the North. Certainly building industry and providing sustainable solutions for Canada's North, which is great. Mr.
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Stark, I'd like to talk a little bit about some of the infrastructure projects and how they contribute to Canada's national security and community, uh, resilience. Do you wanna take a comment on that?
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Infrastructure projects in the North in general, I'd like to take it back for a minute, speak about the infrastructure as a whole that exists in the North.
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There is a large amount of aging infrastructure across the North.
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So, for example, the, the focus on the North that has happened recently has largely been new, and we haven't seen this kind of focus, at least in the twenty-five years that I've been involved in the North.
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So there is a large quantity of infrastructure that was built in the seventies and eighties that is now coming to end of life, and it really needs to be renewed.
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The renewal of this infrastructure will contribute both to national security and to the communities themselves. We're talking about water plants and power plants, wastewater plants as well as solid waste facilities.
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All of those things have been... A-and they've been maintained, by all means, but you can only go so far in that kind of environment, first and second line maintenance. At some point, it needs a renewal. I think that
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the projects that we're seeing and the interest that we're seeing in the North right now is really gonna add to that, and it's required. We're going to be part of the Northern community.
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We're gonna be part or involved in the northern area. We really have to make this investment, and now is the time. Mr. Landon, how do you see it?
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Yeah, I think energy is the area that I'm particularly interested in for the North and how that's going to evolve. Right now, the vast majority of energy generation in the North is, is using diesel,
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and that has, uh, associated problems with the soot that it deposits and what that does in terms of climate change contribution.
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But also, you've got to move all that diesel to the North, either by sea, in some cases even by air, and that's a challenge. And as Jim said, the infrastructure is old.
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The infrastructure that we operate on behalf of the government of Nunavut in Iqaluit was built by the US Army Corps of Engineers in the Second World War for refueling bombers on their way over to Europe to operate from the UK.
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This is fantastic tribute to their engineering skill, but is that really what we should be using at this length of time after the war? So I think there is a need to look at how we will provide energy in the future.
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I think there's a lot of exciting work going on in Canada to do with small modular reactors and micro reactors. I think there's still quite a way to go with that, but I think that's an area of particular interest.
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I mentioned also ports, and I think, you know, the Navy is gonna need ports, but there is also a requirement down south we're talking about are we going to try to export LNG, for example, through Churchill in Manitoba?
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Are we gonna build a new port perhaps in Graves Bay and then link that by road to Yellowknife? There are some big projects that are being talked about here which are dual or triple use, if you like.
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Dual use in that defense might use them, also the local community might use them, but also mining companies might use them to export their materials.
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So I think there's a lot going on, some really big projects, and I think it's gonna be a really interesting time as the government decides what it's going to support and how it's going to be funded.
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My last question for you both, and we'll start with Mr. Stark, and I'll give Mr. Landon the final word. Mr.
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Stark, what future trends or opportunities do you see in northern infrastructure development, especially in the defense space? What does the future look like? We're looking at a very much increased presence in the North.
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Any increase in presence requires an increase in support.
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You have to remember that a lot of these communities are very small, so using them as support hubs or jumping-off points, they're simply not equipped at this moment to support a large influx of troops or people coming through or use of their facilities.
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So any endeavor that's going to increase presence, let's say for the sake of argument, we're talking about Resolute Bay, which is roughly a hundred and eighty-five people.
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If you're looking at a deployment of twelve hundred military members to that area, that's a significant increase.
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And really, the infrastructure that is in that area is simply not equipped to handle an influx of that size for any length of time.
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Puts an extra strain on the organizations that are used to supporting the requirements of these communities as well, so in terms of construction, labor, all of those things.
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Now, we all know that the void is going to be filled, right? Any void tends to be filled, but it will be filled by people by coming from the South.
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Now, the challenge there, of course, is that a lot of these organizations don't have the experience in the North and aren't used to the nuances that are absolutely essential in successful project delivery in the North.
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So it's going to be interesting over the next ten years to see how the whole gaps in our infrastructure are gonna be addressed, and I think it's gonna be a very challenging time for us. Mr.
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Landen, over to you, sir Yeah, I think it is a very interesting tooling, but the geopolitical level and this focus on the Arctic has not come from nowhere. This is almost, it's taking us to a new version of a Cold War.
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And so I think the thinking required is changing in the defense space.
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And we've got these forward operating locations for the F-35, but as I mentioned, there are so few asphalt runways that if you lose one of those locations to enemy action, then, you know, where are you gonna go?
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What's your alternative? So I think that's an area that's g- gonna be thought about. I think the logistics for all of the infrastructure build is gonna be challenging.
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In all of this, there's a requirement for strong and capable data links.
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And above all, people will always tell you it's all about visibility and layered capabilities to be able to see what's going on and what's coming into the Arctic.
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And in all of that discussion, although we are spending money on over-the-horizon radars and other capabilities, these are augmentation of existing systems. They're not replacement.
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And the North Warning System radars themselves are now very old, and they need to be upgraded and replaced with new radars. And that doesn't appear anywhere in the government's programs at the moment.
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So I think that is a gap, uh, and it needs to be addressed, and I think it is something that sooner or later the... and NORAD are gonna have to address.
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So I think it's gonna be a continued period of investment in our systems in the Arctic for the next 10 years or so. You've been listening to Vanguard Radio, and I'm your host, J. Richard Jones.
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Today, we've been talking about building the North infrastructure, innovation, and indigenous partnerships.
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We've talked about some of the unique challenges that are there with that, and we've talked about so many more things. It's been most interesting. I want to thank our special guests, Mr.
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Jim Landen, President of Cofrontech, and Mr. Jim Stark, Director of North of 60 at Cofrontech. Gentlemen, thank you for coming on the show. Thank you. It's been a pleasure.
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