Quite Hoarkin' Our Island, Eh?
The most recent edition of The Economist reports that those cowboy Canadians are up to their unilateral ways again:
AS DEMONSTRATIONS of military prowess go, last month's visits by Canadian troops and then by the defence minister, Bill Graham, to an uninhabited Arctic rock claimed also by Denmark fell firmly into the Ruritanian category. But the planting of a Canadian flag and the erection of an Inuit stone marker on Hans Island, as the rock near Greenland is called, was deceptive. Behind it lies a new toughness in Canadian defence policy.
In all seriousness, a toughening up of the Canadian military would be much welcomed by us neighbors to the south. The good news is that the True North appears to be intent on getting stronger:
The minister's Arctic foray was followed a week later by a more significant deployment: the first units of a 1,500-strong Canadian task force arrived in Kandahar, one of the least secure parts of Afghanistan, where they will take over leadership of a provincial reconstruction team from the Americans. More such ventures may follow. Paul Martin's Liberal minority government plans to increase annual defence spending over the next five years from its current meagre level of C$13.5 billion ($11.2 billion, or 1% of GDP) to C$19 billion and add another 5,000 troops to the 62,500-strong forces.
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