Harper Gives the Great White North a Cold Shoulder

Remember when Steve Harper couldn't stop talking up Canada's north and what he was going to do to defend our sovereignty and interests up there?   Well, he was bullshitting.

That should have been apparent when Harper tried to take credit for pre-existing plans to replace three aging ice breakers.   And then, of course, came the laughable suggestion that a few dozen single-engine, short range fighters would somehow be capable of defending our northern airspace.   Now PostMedia has found that our Born Again Blowhard has thrown in the towel on the Arctic again.

The Tories have talked a good game about Canada being an Arctic country. Prime Minister Stephen Harper never misses a chance to tag along with the military during Operation Nanook, an annual military exercise in the Far North. We get touchy when anyone calls into question our sovereignty over northern waters. We worry about Russian bombers and American submarines going where they aren’t wanted. As part of projecting Canada’s power, the Tories promised a major naval base in the Arctic way back in the long-ago era of 2007.

And then we didn’t hear much about it. Until now, that is. The government has announced their plans for the major northern naval base. Wait, did we say major base? Sorry, we meant a few trailers and a guy with a satellite phone. And not all the time, of course. Just in the summer. Do you have any idea how cold is gets up there in the winter?

You know who isn't throwing in the towel on the Arctic?   Just about everybody except Canada.   That includes the Americans and even the Chinese.   The Russians, who are aggressively claiming most of the Arctic ocean seabed and its vast mineral wealth, are also heavily militarizing their northern regions.   Harper has extensively identified the problem for Canada but he plainly can't be bothered to actually do anything about it.