The Truth North Stronger and Freer

It's about bloody time!

After decades of neglect, the federal government is finally taking steps to assert Canada's sovereignty in the Arctic. The move, believe it or not, is yet the latest ramifaction of the effects of global warming -- as the polar ice melts, the mineral-rich seabeds of the Arctic become more accessible and the North-West Passage moves closer to becoming a reality.

Successive Canadian governments have taken the cheap way out of staking Canada's claim. After Perrin Beatty's nuclear submarine program was scrapped in the Mulroney years, nothing much was done to increase our presence in the North. That is about to change.

This week, Prime Minister Harper announced that Canada would be taking three steps to beef up our claim to northern lands and waters:

• a new deep sea ocean militar port will be built at Nanisavik;
• a new Arctic warfare training centre will be constructed at Resolute Bay;
• the Arctic Rangers will be increased from 4,100 to 5,000 men.

This, of course, is in addition to the previously announced plans to build six to eight "naval icebreakers", the so-called "Arctic/Offshore Patrol Vessels".

These moves will make Canada's position as custodian of the North-West Passage a little more secure, but there is more that could be done:

• rechamber the Arctic Rangers' Lee Enfield .303 rifles to take the NATO 7.62 mm round and replace the heavy wooden stock with a lighter, fiberglass moulded stock;
• lengthen existing Arctic runways and maintain one Aurora patrol aircraft and a flight of CF-18s at all times;
• station a small para-rescue detatchment in the North (and, as an added bonus, thereby provide faster response times in the event of an aircraft crash);
• station a small unit of paratroop-trained infantrymen in the North at all times.

Canadian Prime Ministers have been talking about the importance of the North since at least Diefenbaker's times, but apart from the Canadian Rangers and the RCMP, little has been done to assert our sovereignty. It is time that the Canadian government, and by extension the Canadian people, take concrete steps to make sovereignty a reality, because if we don't, the Russians and Danes and Americans will.

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