COVID-19 : mobilization of Armed Forces in seven Arctic jurisdictions

• Main Authors: Landriault, Mathieu, Savard, Jean-François, Vullierme, Magali
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: French
• Published: Observatoire des administrations publiques autochtones (OAPA), ENAP 2021
• Subjects: COVID-19; Canada; Forces armées; Gestion de crise; Arctique; Arctic; Greenland; Norway; Arctique*; greenlandic; inuit; Alaska
• Online Access: https://espace.enap.ca/id/eprint/398/; https://espace.enap.ca/id/eprint/398/1/Savard_OAPA_Rapport_CovidA_20221007.pdf

On December 31, 2019, an outbreak of a new virus, SARS-CoV-2, was declared in Wuhan City, China1. The virus is the cause of the disease known as COVID-19. As an unknown virus with a strong vector of contagion, COVID-19 has prompted most Western governments to declare a state of health emergency. The purpose of this report is to compare strategies implemented by selected Arctic states to limit the spread of COVID-19. It identifies, examines, and compares the responses and strategies deployed in remote communities in Alaska, Greenland, and Norway with the approaches implemented in the Canadian North. In particular, this report focuses on the role of the national armed forces as responders of last resort, including in the management of pandemics. This report is innovative in that it provides a sub-national analysis that compares regions sharing many similarities. In addition to a literature search, this analysis is based on data from information requests and email exchanges with stakeholders in the Canadian Forces and Greenland2. In order to measure the response of the Armed Forces of Arctic countries to a new epidemic, this analysis focuses primarily on the first wave, with some mention of subsequent waves. How did the armed forces of Canada, Alaska, Denmark, and Norway respond to the COVID-19 pandemic in their Arctic subregions between March and August 2020? As these subregions share many similarities, it is interesting to determine if their responses were consistent across Arctic jurisdictions, or if specific local circumstances tied to national contexts determined the nature of the response. To answer these questions, our analysis begins by summarizing the Canadian situation in the four regions of Inuit Nunangat (Canadian Context). Next, we present Operation LASER, which was initiated by the Canadian Armed Forces at the request of the provincial and federal governments to support public services (Part I). We then present the Alaskan, Greenlandic and Norwegian cases (Part II) before concluding with a comparative ...