Nasittuq Corp. president says Arctic is an easy defence investment
Chris Webb speaks at first national Indigenous defence conference in Ottawa
Nasittuq Corp. president Chris Webb, second from right, speaks to Indigenous leaders, defence professionals and government officials at the first national Indigenous defence conference in Ottawa on Thursday. Shown from left, OneHoop Indigenous Advisory Services CEO Cadmus Delorme, Canadian Council for Indigenous Business president and CEO Tabatha Bull, Webb, and OneHoop Indigenous Advisory Services managing partner Jada Yee. (Photo by Kierstin Williams)
Nasittuq Corp. president Chris Webb says there is much opportunity for the federal government to invest in national defence in Canada’s Arctic.
Webb spoke at the first national Indigenous defence conference at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa Thursday, where Indigenous leaders, defence professionals and government officials discussed Indigenous perspectives on defence, military operations on Indigenous lands, stewardship and treaty rights.
Nasittuq Corp. is an Inuit-owned, Ottawa-based company that provides technical services and facility management in the North. In 2022, it won a seven-year contract worth $592 million to maintain the North Warning System, a joint Canada-U.S. early warning radar system that monitors the North.
Webb, an Inuk from the Nunatsiavut settlement region of Labrador, highlighted the Arctic as an opportunity for investment to help Canada reach its goal of spending two per cent of its gross domestic product on national defence annually within the next eight years.
“They can meet the target if they put some investment into the Arctic, it’s a very easy spot to spend money,” Webb said.
“There’s a lot more on modernization elements coming down the pipeline,” he said, including items like over-the-horizon radar systems which detect targets at long distances, sometimes more than a thousand kilometres further than ordinary radar.
Speaking at the conference, federal Defence Minister Bill Blair said defence of the North is Canada’s greatest responsibility and investments are needed for effective armed forces operations and prosperous northern communities.
Blair said building trust with northern communities is imperative to achieving defence goals. That includes keeping northern leaders engaged on defence policy, rather than telling them what governments are going to do.
“We went to Iqaluit, we gathered leaders from across the North in a room and got into a secure location and we tried to be frank and honest about the defence situation,” said Blair.
“I think we demonstrated the respect that they deserve and I think for the first time it was a trusting conversation between us.”
Nasittuq? What’s that? I think you spelled “ATCO” wrong.
Maybe they could run the new university.
It is a different dialect, so I could be wrong but the root word means to climb to the highest point to see the next phase or pathway towards your destination.
It’s a rhetorical question, I’m not actually asking what Nasittuq means. I’m suggesting that Nasittuq is really just the southern company ATCO in Inuit clothing.
Potato companies or shell companies are a huge topic in the commons committee hearings on indigenous procurement.