Ottawa is putting $85.5 million into rebuilding the runway at Rankin Inlet, Nunavut. The airport is the main air hub for the Kivalliq region, and the federal government now also plans to use it as a forward base for the Canadian Armed Forces.
Rebecca Chartrand, the minister of Northern and Arctic Affairs, announced the money on Sept. 28 in Rankin Inlet on behalf of Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon, according to a federal news release. The same event marked the grand opening of the community’s new air terminal. The money comes from the Arctic Infrastructure Fund and will pay to rehabilitate about 141,000 square metres of airfield pavement, including Runway 13-31, taxiways A and C and the apron. The release says the work should add 15 to 20 years to the airfield’s service life.
“For people in Rankin Inlet and across the Kivalliq, the airport is more than infrastructure,” Chartrand said in the release. MacKinnon called the project “an investment in Canada’s North, our Arctic sovereignty.”
The release calls the airport “dual-use,” serving both civilians and the military, and that part of the story is easy to miss. NORAD originally built the runway, and it can handle CF-188 Hornet fighter jets and large transport aircraft. In March, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Arctic defence plan named Rankin Inlet and Cambridge Bay as the two new Northern Operational Support Nodes. The plan describes these as secondary facilities that “function as forward operating bases” and can “accept and stage CAF operational and tactical aircraft.”
That makes the runway money less of a standalone transportation grant. It is one piece of a larger military buildout. Nunatsiaq News reported in March that the defence network had grown from three planned hubs to seven sites (hubs in Iqaluit, Inuvik, Yellowknife, Whitehorse and Resolute Bay, plus the two nodes), but that the budget stayed at about $2.7 billion, with no new money added for the four additional sites.
The release says the Department of National Defence is also investing in the runway, but it does not say how much. For a project that shares a runway between fighter jets, medevac flights and the planes that bring in groceries, that is a basic question the announcement leaves unanswered.
The scale is significant. Rankin Inlet had 2,975 residents in the 2021 census, and the whole Kivalliq region had 11,045, according to Statistics Canada. The community’s airport handles medevac flights, supply runs and connections for the smaller Kivalliq communities around it. It is not an optional piece of infrastructure.
The new terminal cost about $85 million, according to Nunatsiaq News. The federal government covered about $63.5 million through the National Trade Corridors Fund and the Government of Nunavut paid about $21.5 million. A second phase with more gates and an elders’ seating area is expected by April 2028.
The Arctic Infrastructure Fund was created in Budget 2025 with $1 billion over four years, according to Transport Canada. By our own calculation, this one grant uses up roughly 8.5 per cent of the fund. Transport Canada’s question period notes list only two projects named so far: Rankin Inlet and the Inuvik airport runway. The rest is open to other Arctic projects, including smaller community-led ones through a separate open call.
For Inuit residents, the main question is who benefits. When the defence network was announced, Commodore Matthew Coates told Nunatsiaq News there was “lots of opportunity here for everybody.” Readers commenting on that story were less sure. They questioned whether local people would get the training needed to fill construction and maintenance jobs. The federal release says Ottawa will meet its constitutional duty to consult Indigenous peoples. It does not name a Kivalliq Inuit organization as a partner or give any local hiring targets.
Ottawa has not said when construction will start, how the work will be scheduled around civilian flights during the short northern building season, or what share of the contracts will go to Inuit-owned firms. Those answers will show whether this is infrastructure built for Rankin Inlet or just built in it.
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Via Government of Canada (Transport Canada) news release. Additional sourcing: Canadian Defence Review, Nunatsiaq News, Prime Minister’s Office (March 12 backgrounder), Statistics Canada 2021 census.
