Letter | Redefining Arctic security begins with our health
True security comes from healthy resilient communities, not from military hardware, writer says
Dozens of people in Igloolik pack Ataguttaaluk Elementary School for a community event, the screening of the movie ‘Wrong Husband’ in this file photo from Jan. 12. Resilient communities are heart of Arctic security more than military hardware is, letter writer Gwen H. Akearok says. (Photo courtesy of Zacharias Kunuk)
Gwen Healey Akearok (submitted photo)
When most people think of Arctic security, they imagine military patrols, surveillance systems and geopolitical tensions.
But as discussed at the recent Arctic Security and Sovereignty Summit in Iqaluit, this narrow framing misses the most fundamental truth: health is Arctic security.
For nearly two decades, Qaujigiartiit Health Research Centre has worked to strengthen the well-being of Nunavummiut. What we’ve learned is that security for our communities does not begin at national borders — it begins at home: in safe housing, strong families, clean water, food sovereignty, and care systems grounded in Inuit values.
The real threats to security in the North are chronic underinvestment in health infrastructure, colonial service systems, and structural/systemic inequities. These issues are urgent and persistent. How do families feed their children? How do we care for elders now and into the future? Where are the homes, clinics, and culturally safe supports needed for thriving communities?
Our understanding of security includes human security — including housing, health care, food, cultural continuity, and protection from violence and discrimination. It also means recognizing relational security: the strength of kinship, intergenerational caregiving, and cultural knowledge transmission.
At Qaujigiartiit, we work alongside youth, elders, and communities to elevate Inuit-led approaches to health and research. These are not just programs — they are living examples of self-determination and sovereignty. They challenge the notion that northern communities are passive recipients of southern expertise.
Security that ignores the well-being of Nunavummiut only protects someone else’s interests. Our Canadian Rangers cannot serve effectively without health infrastructure. Our youth cannot become tomorrow’s leaders if they are navigating food insecurity and housing crises. Our economies cannot grow if basic community needs go unmet.
Furthermore, much of the work that ensures community wellbeing is carried out by women — caring for youth, facilitating healing, delivering front-line programs and providing health care. Yet these voices are often invisible in traditional security discussions.
There’s a critical question from security studies that applies here: “Whose security are we talking about?”
If the answer doesn’t include communities, women, children, and elders, then we need to rethink our approach.
In the Arctic, true security is built not with military hardware — but with healthy resilient communities — safe homes, strong families, and systems rooted in our values and ways of life.
Dr. Gwen K. Healey Akearok, PhD, was born and raised in Iqaluit, where she continues to live, work and raise her family. She is the co-founder of the Qaujigiartiit Health Research Centre and has served as its executive and scientific director for the past 19 years.
For decades proponents of the human security paradigm have fought for space at the center of national security discourse, knowing (I would argue) the attention and resources the domain can elicit from the state. With the Carney government committing billions in new funding toward defense it’s not surprising an organization reliant on federal dollars would hope to ‘redefine’ security in this way.
To be fair the ‘human security’ concept is not new and is useful insofar as it draws attention to concerns around human development—it’s veiled mission.
In the national security domain, however, critics argue the concept is vague and too expansive, lacking the needed boundaries that might make it useful. This critique is seen in the sweeping security imperatives laid out here, meandering from housing to intergenerational caregiving and kinship bonds, or musing around ill-defined structures and systems meant to elicit an emotional response with no scaffold around meaning.
To argue “true security comes from healthy resilient communities, not… military hardware” is reductive and opportunistic, it packages a false dichotomy as profound insight. It offers a semantic and ontological error in which things belonging to a particular category are presented as if they belong to another.
No one would argue the list of ‘security’ concerns listed here are unimportant or unnecessary. Certainly, for many these are the most pressing issues. Still, attempts to fold them into the rubric of national security are simply too broad to be meaningful.
Instead of taking an aggressive jab at her point of view, why not find ways to deliver your knowledge and understanding in a respectful tone. She obviously cares about community wellness and doesn’t want a world focused on conflict and military. I rather support someone with her values who takes the opportunity to promote herself than someone who sounds smart by taking the opportunity to bash someone else.
Why are you confusing criticism of the letter as a personal attack? To say I am bashing the author is a strange interpretation.
Yes, what we need is more studies.
Inuit have been extensively studied across various disciplines. We need more papers written is what I always say.
And more studies happens to be good for businesses specializing in research. Wait, whose security are we talking about again?
A lot of these things come from within. If you want Nunavut to be a place where it gets “over-invested” in instead of “underinvested” you have to make it look like an ideal place TO invest in.
Considering so many Nunavut communities rely on medevac flights, having more military infrastructure might make this easier. Don’t be surprised if Canada doesn’t up their sovereignty game foreign powers will step in.
Gwen Healey Akearok, let’s pretend that today is November 1, 2025. The GN election is over and the Legislative Assembly has elected Nunavut’s new Premier. Let’s also pretend that that Premier has just appointed you as Nunavut’s new Minister of Health. That could happen, even if you are not an MLA.
What is the specific set of programs that you want the Legislative Assembly to approve? With what budget? Step by step, how do you lead us from where we are to where we should be?
If most of the MLA candidates agree with your program, those who do get elected could make it happen. But the first step is, they need to know what specifically you propose.
I love this comment.
I would hope, and expect a PhD would have something of real substance to say, especially within their field. All I see here is an unoriginal homily sprinkled with predictable bromides and of no practicable use.
THAT is clearly a letter to promotevthe author’s own job security. Her words are the same ones she uses in every funding request and proposal
I agree.
But territorial premiers have been saying this for years.