The Brian Mulroney Institute of Government Presents
Risk, Resilience, and Reconciliation: Building a Safe and Secure North
February 3, 2026
7:00 pm–9:00 pm
Mulroney Hall 2030
As the rhetoric and stakes around who “controls” the Arctic continue to heat up, please join the Brian Mulroney Institute of Government for a panel discussion examining how shifting and ever more provocative geopolitical dynamics and increased activity are transforming the region from the Northwest Passage to Greenland. The panel will explore the evolving challenges and opportunities shaping Canada’s North through the lenses of risk and reconciliation, highlighting approaches that include sovereignty and security strategies and outcomes and underscoring the importance of supporting resilient Northern and Indigenous communities.
The panelists are Sandy Silver, former premier of Yukon and the Mulroney Institute’s inaugural Dahdaleh Practitioner-in-Residence; Dr. Peter Kikkert, Mulroney Research Fellow and Associate Professor (Public Policy and Governance); and the director of the Canadian Maritime Security Network, Dr. Adam Lajeunesse, Mulroney Chair in Arctic and Marine Security and Program Coordinator (Public Policy and Governance). The event will be moderated by Dr. Asa McKercher, the Mulroney Institute’s Steven K. Hudson Chair in Canada-US Relations.
All are welcome.
Dr. Peter Kikkert
Dr. Kikkert is an Associate Professor in the Public Policy and Governance program and a research fellow with the Brian Mulroney Institute of Government. Dr. Kikkert has written extensively on historic and contemporary safety, security, and sovereignty issues in the polar regions. His current research program focuses on how to strengthen search and rescue, disaster and emergency management capabilities, and community disaster resilience in rural, remote, and Northern communities. He is the academic lead for the Kitikmeot SAR Project, the Nunavut SAR Project, and the Nunavik Roundtable on SAR, and is a member of the Maximum Expected Time to Rescue research team.
Dr. Kikkert has presented his research to Senate and House of Commons committees and often works closely with local, territorial, and federal government organizations, including the Canadian Coast Guard Arctic Region, the Canadian Armed Forces, Nunavut Emergency Management, and Kativik Civil Security. He has had the privilege to live and teach in the North, sail the Northwest Passage, participate in training patrols with the Canadian Rangers, and travel on the land, ice, and waters of Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, the Yukon, and Alaska with community responders and Elders. He has also had the opportunity to learn from veteran first responders in Nova Scotia as a searcher with the Strait Area Ground Search and Rescue Association.
Dr. Kikkert serves as a network coordinator with the North America and Arctic Defence and Security Network and as the editor for the interdisciplinary academic journal, The Northern Mariner.
Dr. Adam Lajeunesse
Adam Lajeunesse, PhD, is an Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Public Policy and Governance Program at St. Francis Xavier University (StFX). Dr. Lajeunesse also holds a Research Chair in Arctic and Marine Security at the Brian Mulroney Institute of Government (StFX) and is a Fulbright Scholar (2024–25), where he is engaged in a program of work examining Russian and Chinese information warfare in the Arctic, work begun in 2024 as a Visiting Killam Scholar at the University of Calgary.
Dr. Lajeunesse’s research focuses principally on Northern sovereignty and security. He is the author of Lock, Stock, and Icebergs (2016), an award-winning political history of the Northwest Passage, as well as co-author of the 2017 monograph China’s Arctic Ambitions, and co-editor of Canadian Arctic Operations, 1941-2015: Lessons Learned, Lost, and Relearned (2017). He has published seven edited volumes and over 80 academic and think-tank articles and is a frequent contributor to national media conversations.
Heavily engaged in public policy research and discussions, Dr. Lajeunesse serves as the Director of the Canadian Maritime Security Network (CMSN), a Department of National Defence–funded research network examining maritime defence, safety, and security. Through the CMSN, and as an independent scholar, Dr. Lajeunesse is a frequent participant in government consultations and works regularly with the Canadian Departments of National Defence and Global Affairs, the Canadian Armed Forces, and House and Senate Committees. He has also worked closely with allied partners on research projects designed to identify foreign malign influence and develop resiliency in the Arctic regions.
About Sandy Silver
Sandy Silver is a Canadian politician who led the Yukon Liberal Party from one seat in the Legislature to a majority government. In his time in office, Sandy worked with Yukon First Nations governments to advance reconciliation and the territory’s index of well-being with the highest GDP growth and lowest unemployment in the country.
Some of the highlights of former Premier Silver’s administration include the establishment of the First Nation School Board, National Indigenous Peoples Day as a statutory holiday, and the First Nations Procurement Policy, all while leading the country in response to the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, signing the Peel Watershed Regional Land Use Plan, and legislating equality and health policies in partnership with Yukon’s 2SLGBTQIA community. As premier, Sandy also expanded mental wellness centres in rural communities, opened the first university north of 60, reduced the small business tax to 0%, and cancelled the twice annual seasonal time change.
Dr. Asa McKercher
Dr. Asa McKercher (PhD, Cambridge) is Steven K. Hudson Research Chair in Canada-US Relations and Associate Professor in Public Policy and Governance at St. Francis Xavier University. A specialist in Canada-US relations, Canadian foreign policy, US foreign policy, and politics and culture in North America, he has previously taught at Queen’s University, McMaster University, and the Royal Military College of Canada. Currently, he is editor-in-chief of International Journal, Canada's journal of global policy analysis, and is a Senior Fellow at the Bill Graham Centre for Contemporary International History, and a Fellow at the Queen’s Centre for International and Defence Policy.