A Comparison of Stephen Harper’s and Justin Trudeau’s Arctic Narratives: Toward a New Geography of the Canadian North

• Published in: International Journal of Canadian Studies
• Main Author: Cros, Laurence
• Other Authors: Laboratoire de Recherche sur les Cultures Anglophones (LARCA UMR 8225), Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2024
• Subjects: Canada; Arctic; Stephen Harper; Justin Trudeau; narratives; identity; [SHS]Humanities and Social Sciences; [SHS.SCIPO]Humanities and Social Sciences/Political science; Harper
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-04669790; https://doi.org/10.3138/ijcs-2023-0012

International audience This article intends to compare the political narratives on the Canadian Artic produced by the governments of Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper (2006–2015) and Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (2015–2023), with a specific focus on the identity dimension of these two sets of political narratives. Harper’s Arctic narrative, served by a unique personal commitment of the PM, promoted a radical shift from the historic Canada centred on the Laurentian region to a new Arctic Canada and in so doing, created a new political geography of Canada. In Justin Trudeau’s Arctic narrative, priority was given to reconciliation through the development of state-to-state relations with Indigenous communities. Embodied by the person of Governor General Mary Simon and concretized by the cooperative approach of Trudeau’s Arctic and Northern Framework, this new agentivity of Northern Indigenous peoples has ushered in a new decolonial geography of the Arctic. Unexpectedly, these successive official narratives of Arctic Canada have proven complementary in striving to move the center of gravity of the country north, thus creating new perspectives on Canadian identity and political geography.