What's more, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government has done much to propagate the notion that Canadian sovereignty in the North is indeed under siege: by famously warning of the North that we can either "use it or lose it", and by loudly denouncing Russian missions to the North Pole (the 2007 submarine flag-planting, the 2009 flight that occurred just prior to President Obama's first official visit to Canada, and an [allegedly] planned paratrooper drop), and characterizing them as provocative "stunts" specifically designed to chip away at our sovereignty.
This, no doubt, is at least partly self-serving: Harper's Conservatives campaigned in 2006 on promises to do more to bolster Canadian sovereignty in the North. Among other things, they promised to construct armed ice-breakers and military bases; to deploy a submarine detection system; and, perhaps ominously, to use unmanned aircraft (or "drones") to help keep tabs on this vast, frozen, and sparsely-populated region. These promises (to effectively militarize the North) proved popular with Canadians, and I think it is reasonable to say that the perceived threats to our arctic sovereignty played an important part in the Conservative's narrow electoral victories.
But despite it's continuing impact on Canadian politics, you may be surprised to learn that that the so-called "Scramble for the Arctic" is actually far less 'scramble-y' than you supposed. In fact, while it is true that Canada does have unresolved territorial disputes in the Arctic, there are only two disputes of much consequence in terms of Canadian interests: namely, that regarding the Northwest Passage; and that regarding the Beaufort Sea, off the coast of the Alaska/Yukon border. Furthermore, of these only one is an actual dispute over territory; and our primary antagonist is not the cunning Russians (whose attitude toward Arctic compromises was recently and promisingly demonstrated), but our friendly neighbors to the South.
