Canadian Federal Election 2008

 

Looting the Arctic: What the North American Elections 2008 are really about.

By Gary Morton, in Toronto, September 2008

      Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has called a federal election for October 14^th. News people have compared this election to a Seinfeld comedy episode that is really a joke about nothing. Perhaps it will have small eyes on Afghanistan now that Canadian soldiers are dying like flies. If it is about nothing it will be because we have been blessed by worthless media election coverage.

      This time nearly everyone seems to be off the mark and demonstrating poor judgment. The current elections are about pillaging the Arctic, militarizing it and giving it over as plunder to multinational corporations. It is obvious, but no one of importance has noticed.

     Let’s look at Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s new Arctic policies. He has been present in the Arctic, notably at the winter games, but also to get media attention on Canada’s new stern claims on this warming part of the world. He knows the Russians are there staking a claim with a fleet of submarines. Harper has been quick to tackle them. The Russian flag planted at the bottom of the ocean has now been nearly swept away by Harper’s sudden extension of Canada’s territorial waters.

      The Arctic booty is an incredible basket of resources, with oil being the most obvious. Estimates have 25 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil in the Arctic. A new gold rush is sending lusting governments across the melting ice. This time it is a military rush by greedy world powers, rather than one of unshaven pioneers.  

     Prime Minister Harper talks tough, like Canada has suddenly become a major military power. A new deep water port is on the way and a new military training centre will be created for the Arctic.  

     Harper is asserting a claim over Hans Island at the entrance to the Northwest Passage. Though Canada’s authority over the Passage is disputed internationally, he plans to control the movement of ships there as though it were our own Panama Canal. All ships sailing into the Canadian Arctic will report to the Canadian Coast Guard agency NORDREG and registration that had been voluntary will now be mandatory. This puts us in conflict with the rest of world, which sees the Northwest Passage as international waters.

      Discord with the rest of the world will continue with our national sensor system listening for submarines in Arctic waters in order to stop them from venturing in without permission. Our dispute with the Russians can only grow as they are mapping the Lomonosov ridge, a 1,240-mile underwater mountain range that crosses the polar region. Moscow has claimed this vast area, though that claim is also disputed. This shows that we really need to be in genuine talks with the Russian government over the Arctic … talks that have real results and impact. Instead Harper has us playing a military game that can only lead to serious trouble. Northern Canadians see the Russians as brothers and sisters and not the enemies our government is trying to create.

      Walking tall and stupid, Stephen Harper is putting forth an aggressive Canada. Recently Operation Nanook had 500 Canadian troops in Arctic training for everything from boarding cruise ships, to dealing with spills and fires on Russian cargo and oil ships. As if the Russians are going to let us board their ships. Yet in a similar line with the Russians on international efforts, he has Canada mapping the seabed to support our claims at the United Nations.

      Stephen Harper plans to have six naval vessels in control of the Arctic. The first new icebreaker is to be named the Diefenbaker after an anti technology former prime minister. His plans don’t contain a GREEN vision of the Arctic that protects it people, animals and eco systems. We have a situation where Canada under Harper, and the US under McCain/Pallin, will rape the Arctic. They will turn it into a military fortress and conflict zone where huge corporations extract and profit from the resource wealth. They will rip the stomach out of the entire far north as they kill off one of the last hopes of humankind.

      It is not clear what the Russians plan to do. Not much ever appears in the news here. What is needed is an international Green Plan that will save the Arctic. Canada the US and Russia need to put aside the bitterness and work for the benefit of humanity. The three great nations must work together like brothers and sisters to save the Arctic. Unfortunately trouble is in the making and possibilities of dangerous confrontations are brewing in foolish government policy.

      This leads us to a brief note on the US election. We have been told to believe that Sarah Pallin, the governor of Alaska was picked as the candidate for US Vice President because she is a woman. Nothing could be farther from the truth. On the Internet you can view photos of her wearing fur, sitting on a skinned bear, as a beauty queen, speaking out for the right to hunt wolves from planes, talking against polar bear rights and so on.

      Sarah Pallin is a strange two-faced sort of person who is on both sides of issues. Picking her as a woman should mean she’s a champion of women’s rights. Yet in reality she’s regressive. She has been seen as a champion fighting government corruption in Alaska, and she is also under investigation for corruption. She is both the friend and enemy of the oil giants. Telling them she’s their friend and then putting road blocks in their way.

       This leads us to McCain and the Republicans. They see the Russians and Canadians making fast moves to take the Arctic. They have long been pushing for drilling in nature reserves and more. Sarah Pallin was becoming a roadblock. And there was a solution; one way to speed up the American military and corporate raid on the Arctic. That solution was to bring Sarah on board as McCain’s VP candidate. In using her McCain will have a person with the no-how and connections to get it done his way in the Arctic. He can then deal with other issues. 

    This time in 2008 it’s like the old Hollywood movie, the “Wizard of OZ.” Behind the smoke, the mirrors, the witches and the curtain, we do not find an old and kind grey-haired wizard. We find the wicked and greedy politicians and corporations … and they have the polar bears already stuffed and over their fire places as they scheme on how to steal the wealth of the Arctic. 

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