Now this is all I ever asked. To have Canada act like a grown up country. Before and after the dry BNA Act Canada has tended to take for granted that the Arctic belonged to this country. We simply assumed it was ours. Once upon a time we naively believed that Sending Sam Steele to keep law and order and a Canadian presence was enough. To any realist, this was never a solid solution to a problem that the government should have recognized was not going to go away.As it stands, the United States, Russia, Norway and Denmark all have various land claims in potentially resource-rich areas in the Arctic. While it was no surprise that the Liberals slept at the switch, PM Stephen Harper is at least going to attempt to assert Canada's right to the North.
It truly is absurd how we've allowed the military to whither like we have. Canadians will probably be up in arms if countries - Denmark in particular - takes a more aggressive stand in the North - don't these people know we filmed "North of 60" there? Of course, these are the same people who felt spending on the military was not important. After all, we are a peacekeeping country (who don't peacekeep all that much) as such who would want to attack us?
If not, we're gonna have to rewrite our national anthem. "The true North, strong and free" will have to be changed to "the true North strong and occupied by foreign countries." Oh well, a cynic will counter that Canada already sold itself down the river long ago and that contemporary nationalism lacks any real bite - if it ever did.
Still, Harper deserves some credit for trying. He's making Canada look less oblivious and more resolute.
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