Dear Barbara Yaffe,
Vancouver Sun.
I read your piece called “Harper must not dilute sovereignty message” with some curiosity, and then searched for and found a 39 page (not 13) paper called Statement on Canada’s Arctic Foreign Policy which must be fairly recent as it mentioned the Gulf of Mexico and most of the other things you mentioned in your article too.
Actually it mentioned sovereignty 27 times in 39 pages which includes 3 opening cover pages.
This I found this VERY interesting as Harper has announced his intent to trade Canada’s sovereignty off for some trade deals in order to become part of the global economy.
He actually said it was vital for our survival to do so.
Interesting oxymoron even for him.
Re America being “premier partner in the arctic and our goal is a more strategic engagement of Arctic issues”, might I suggest a look at the softwood lumber agreements, FTA, NAFTA, and the recent deal which gave our Canadian companies 5 days to bid on USA stimulus contracts and gave US companies 2 years to rape our provinces, municipalities and even our school boards. Done of course during the proroguing of parliament so there was no oversight.
By the way it may not have mentioned in the piece you read that there will be no drilling in the Beaufort Sea until 2104, then I assume BP will get the green light on their leases.
Sovereignty? I think that is right up there with democracy, freedom of speech and the right to protest, a thing of the past with this Reform / Alliance coalition government masquerading under the Conservative name.
Regards
Jeremy Arney