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WHITEHORSE, YT – Canada’s Minister of Defense Bill Blair and Yukon’s Premier Ranj Pillai have just signed a letter of intent to establish a Naval Reserve unit in the Yukon.
The letter confirms that in the Summer of 2025, representatives of the Royal Canadian Navy will visit the City of Whitehorse to further explore the feasibility of, and options to develop, a Naval Reserve unit here.
A spokesperson with the Department of National Defense confirmed the move is part of an ongoing process to restructure Naval Reserve units to focus more on attracting, recruiting, and training personnel. They also said that while it’s too early to determine exactly what a Yukon Naval reserve unit will look like, they did confirm there is potential for one in the the City of Whitehorse.
Naval Reserve units do operate in land-locked jurisdictions like Saskatchewan and Alberta, and trained Naval Reservists are eligible to be deployed on operations of the Canadian Armed Forces anywhere in the world alongside their regular force counterparts.
The commitment is the latest move within a broader effort to increase Canada’s military presence in the North, and follows a funding announcement at the end of November to explore the possibilities of establishing a Canadian Institute for Arctic Security in the Yukon as well.
