Making up defence policy on the fly

Liberal leader Dion is about as clued in as his national defence critic. A letter sent to the Toronto Star and (so far) unpublished:

So Stephane Dion says that "stationing a handful of search-and-rescue planes could help stake out sovereignty over Canada's North."

M. Dion has a strange appreciation of the issues. No-one is questioning Canadian sovereignty over land in the north (the Danes and Hans Island aside). What is in doubt, in terms of international law, is Canadian sovereignty over the waterways comprising the Northwest Passage (as well as part of the Beaufort Sea).

The four aircraft that M. Dion suggests would do nothing to add substance to our maritime claims in dispute. Only government vessels asserting Canadian law--most sensibly from the Canadian Coast Guard which badly needs new icebreakers--can do that. M. Dion is either singularly ill-informed or else he is playing politics with serious issues regarding the equipment of the Canadian Forces and the Coast Guard.

He would not do that, would he?

I might also have mentioned (space, you know) something of which M. Dion seems unaware. The Air Force has four Twin Otters stationed at Yellowknife that assist in SAR missions as required. Plenty of aerial presence already, not that it's needed for sovereignty assertion anyway.

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