Canada — Minister Of National Defence Wraps Up Visit To The Arctic For Operation Nanook

RESOLUTE BAY, NU — The Hon­ourable Peter MacK­ay, Min­is­ter of Nation­al Defence, has wrapped up his par­tic­i­pa­tion in Oper­a­tion NANOOK 10, the cen­tre­piece of three major sov­er­eign­ty oper­a­tions con­duct­ed every year by the Cana­di­an Forces (CF) in Canada’s North.

Min­is­ter MacK­ay trav­elled to Res­olute Bay, Pond Inlet and Nani­sivik to see first hand the CF’s expand­ed capa­bil­i­ties and oper­a­tions to strength­en secu­ri­ty and demon­strate Canada’s sov­er­eign­ty in the region. 

“Exer­cis­ing Canada’s Arc­tic sov­er­eign­ty is a key ele­ment of the Cana­da First Defence Strat­e­gy, and oper­a­tions such as NANOOK enable the Cana­di­an Forces and our whole-of-gov­ern­ment part­ners to bet­ter deal with chal­lenges in the North,” said Min­is­ter MacK­ay. “Oper­a­tion NANOOK 10 enhances the Cana­di­an Forces’ inter­op­er­abil­i­ty with oth­er gov­ern­ment depart­ments and agen­cies and builds our col­lec­tive capac­i­ty to respond, in a time­ly and effec­tive man­ner, to safe­ty and secu­ri­ty threats or emergencies.” 

The mil­i­tary por­tion of Oper­a­tion NANOOK 10 is an inte­grat­ed sov­er­eign­ty and pres­ence patrolling exer­cise that includes over 900 par­tic­i­pants from the Cana­di­an Navy, Army, Air and Spe­cial Forces, and 600 per­son­nel from Den­mark and the Unit­ed States. The Unit­ed States Coast Guard, the U.S. Sec­ond Fleet and the Roy­al Dan­ish Navy brought a com­ple­ment of naval and air assets north to the exer­cise with the CF in order to strength­en pre­pared­ness, increase inter­op­er­abil­i­ty and exer­cise a col­lec­tive response to emerg­ing chal­lenges in the Arctic. 

Four­teen gov­ern­men­tal depart­ments and agen­cies from the fed­er­al, ter­ri­to­r­i­al and munic­i­pal lev­els will col­lab­o­rate on whole-of-gov­ern­ment por­tion of the exer­cise, led by the Cana­di­an Coast Guard and involv­ing the CF, Envi­ron­ment Cana­da (EC), the Roy­al Cana­di­an Mount­ed Police (RCMP), Indi­an and North­ern Affairs Cana­da (INAC), Nat­ur­al Resources Cana­da (NR Can), Pub­lic Safe­ty Cana­da and Parks Cana­da, as well as the Gov­ern­ment of Nunavut and the com­mu­ni­ty of Res­olute Bay. 

The oper­a­tion this year is being con­duct­ed in Canada’s East­ern and High Arc­tic area from August 6 to 26. Oper­a­tion NANOOK 10 marks a prece­dent, as it will be the fur­ther­most north­ern oper­a­tion of the NANOOK series, tak­ing place in the Lan­cast­er Sound area in what is con­sid­ered the High Arctic. 

Source:
Depart­ment of Nation­al Defence, Canada 

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