MILNEWS.ca News Highlights – August 24, 2012
- Way Up North (1) How the PM’s wrapping up the last day of his latest Arctic road trip “An eco-tourism boat carrying suspected illegal immigrants who pose a danger to Canadians is the focus today of the military’s summer operation in Hudson Bay. The scenario closely mimics the Conservative government’s concerns in recent years about the issue of human smuggling since boats filled with Tamil migrants began arriving in B.C. Political undertones aside, the 12th Operation Nanook exercise will include 650 members of the Canadian Forces, include some of Canada’s elite special forces. The cost of the exercise, as well as one being carried out simultaneous in the Western Arctic is estimated to be $16.5 million. They’ll be overseen by Prime Minister Stephen Harper who’s observing the exercise on the final day of his Northern tour ….”
- Way Up North (2a) Loads o’ announcements on this trip, too “Prime Minister Stephen Harper …. announced support for the construction and operation of the Canadian High Arctic Research Station (CHARS), and support for its Science and Technology Program. In addition, the Prime Minister announced the winning bidder for the design of the station. The announcement was made during the Prime Minister’s seventh annual Northern Tour, taking place from August 20-24, 2012 …. Located in Cambridge Bay, CHARS will be a year-round multi-disciplinary facility focusing on innovative research into environmental and resource development issues. CHARS will promote partnerships and collaboration among the Aboriginal, academic, public and private sectors, both domestically and internationally ….”- more on this here.
- Way Up North (2b) “Prime Minister Stephen Harper …. announced a new project to continue the search for the ill-fated 1845-46 Franklin Expedition vessels: the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror. The Prime Minister announced the 2012 Franklin Expedition after visiting with crew aboard the research vessel Martin Bergmann, the newest member of the multi-partner project …. Led by Parks Canada, the 2012 Franklin Expedition will, with the help of a number of public and private sector partners, including Universities, continue to search for the two historic vessels in two primary areas of interest: the Victoria Strait/Alexandra Strait region, where one of the vessels is thought to have foundered, and the southern region near O’Reilly Island, west of the Adelaide peninsula and where Inuit oral tradition situates one of the wrecks ….”- more on this here, here, here and here.
- Way Up North (2c) “Prime Minister Stephen Harper …. announced that the Honourable Leona Aglukkaq, Minister of Health and Minister of the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency, will serve as Canada’s Chair of the Arctic Council, the primary forum for collaboration among the eight Arctic states (Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, the Russian Federation, Sweden and the United States) on sustainable development in the Arctic Region. Minister Aglukkaq will continue with her existing responsibilities in addition to this new assignment. In this new capacity, Minister Aglukkaq will be responsible for developing and delivering the Arctic Council programme that will be undertaken during Canada’s chairmanship of the organization from 2013 to 2015. As part of her role as Chair of the Arctic Council, Minister Aglukkaq will be working with territorial governments, Canadian indigenous permanent participants and other Arctic states to develop the Arctic Council programme. Minister Aglukkaq will begin leading this work immediately ….”
- Way Up North (3) “Stephen Harper’s trips to the Arctic no longer raise warnings that the Russians are coming. The sabre-rattling rhetoric the Conservatives initially applied to Canada’s Far North has largely been jettisoned for a more commercial focus on exploiting natural resources. But the world is still interested in the Arctic. The Chinese are coming. And others, too. Mr. Harper’s Arctic trip this week started just days after the Chinese icebreaker Xuelong arrived in Iceland, the first Arctic crossing by a Chinese vessel. China has asked for official observer status in the Arctic Council – the eight-nation international body that Canada will chair starting next year – and so have Japan, South Korea and Singapore ….”
- Way Up North (4) Speaking of China in the Arctic, a short and easy-to-grasp paper here on why China’s interested in the Arctic – an excerpt: “…. Arctic resources are indeed part of China’s deliberations. Polar research and scientific co-operation are considered as a potential step into Arctic affairs. But China’s global economic ‘line-up’ clearly indicates that the country’s immediate economic future is not necessarily located in the Arctic. Hence, China’s Arctic intentions are better understood as a long-term – and not yet even publicly outlined – regional geostrategy, determined to strengthen China’s status as an emerging global power. Chinese Arctic geostrategy is highlighted in the current willingness to enter into strategic partnerships with relevant actors, which are driven by the assertion of China’s interests both in diplomatic and co-operative terms and underlies Beijing’s political intentions ….”
- Way Up North (5) No sign of the obtained note being obtained, so no word on what else is in there “The administrative wing of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office worried about the optics of hundreds of Canadian troops taking part in a major NATO-sponsored Arctic war game in northern Norway earlier this year. Conservatives have made rebuilding the military, more international involvement and a more muscular presence in the North key policy touchstones. But senior federal officials told the army last fall they weren’t sure the country should participate Exercise Cold Response. The Privy Council Office “indicated concern regarding participation to a war fighting (exercise) above the Arctic Circle as it could be misconstrued to contradict (Government of Canada) policy for the Arctic,” said the Sept. 13, 2011, briefing note for the commander of the army. The document was obtained by The Canadian Press under the access-to-information law. It took the intervention of the assistant deputy minister of policy at National Defence to smooth the way for the army’s participation, reassuring senior government officials that were “no policy obstacles.” ….”
- More search and rescue stories from the RCAF Info-machine “Two CC-138 Twin Otter aircraft from 440 “Vampire” Transport Squadron in Yellowknife, N.W.T. assisted in the successful search for four hunters missing in the Arctic on August 17, 2012. When the call came in to the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Trenton, Ont. that four hunters were a week over-due returning to Tuktoyaktuk, a remote community on the Arctic Ocean, several assets were dispatched, including a CC-130 Hercules from 435 Transport and Rescue Squadron, based in Winnipeg, and the two CC-138 Twin Otters. The Twin Otters combed the coastline while the Hercules searched over water. It was the crew of the Hercules, which is dedicated to Arctic Search and Rescue, that found the missing hunters. They were approximately 300 nautical miles northwest of Tuktoyaktuk and had been adrift in their boat for 4 days. The Canadian Coast Guard Ship Eckaloo arrived to pick up the hunters, who were tired, but otherwise in good health, and brought them back to Tuktoyaktuk ….”
- Syria A ten-point action plan for the region from a former Canadian Attorney General
- “Ottawa residents might have stopped and stared …. as about 90 U.S. military vehicles travelled through the city. The convoy, from the Pennsylvania National Guard, was coming from CFB Petawawa where they were involved in a joint exercise with the Canadian military that lasted 16 days. The vehicles delayed traffic along Highway 17 and then Highway 417. They left Ottawa via Highway 416 then to Highway 401 on their way home to Pennsylvania. About 900 Canadian soldiers and 400 national guardsmen took part in the training ….”
- “A Russian military delegation has left Moscow for North America to take part in the Watchful Eagle-2012 anti-terror exercise in the US and Canada on the 27th through 29th of this month. The exercise seeks to achieve interaction between the Russian Armed Forces and the North American Aerospace Defence Command, NORAD if terrorists seize airliners ….”
- Khadr Boy Sun Media columnist on the latest polling showing Canadians who responded not all that keen on having Khadr back here: “…. if the NDP and Liberals are to be consistent with their past positions on Khadr, they’ll have to demand his early release when he is finally returned to Canada, knowing even their own voters overwhelmingly oppose that position. Which is why Harper isn’t sweating the Khadr file.”
- More on the Canadian stringer who was asked to write reports for the Chinese government when working for the Xinhua news agency “On Wednesday the National Post website ran a story – previewing a piece in today’s Ottawa Magazine – about well-credentialled Ottawa free-lancer Mark Bourrie, who quit his position as a correspondent for Chinese news agency Xinhua when he realized that some of the requeste being made to him went rather beyond the bounds of normal political journalism (e.g., his handlers were asking detailed questions about the Dalai Lama when the Chinese media never discusses the Dalai Lama) …. Xinhua of course is refusing comment – as are official Ottawa and the Press Gallery (which accredits Xinhua as parliamentary media) – but this comes as no great surprise to China-watchers, or indeed to members of the Royal Canadian Military Institute in Toronto. On March 24, 2010 CSIS Commissioner Richard Fadden told a packed dining room at the venerable University Avenue quarters of the RCMI that: ‘We’re in fact a bit worried in a couple of provinces that we have an indication that there’s some political figures who have developed quite an attachment to foreign countries.’ He didn’t mention names, or even organizations, but the interesting fact is that although the story subsequently caused considerable whoop-de-do (Fadden had brought his own CBC cameraman to the dinner) the Commissioner was never either controverted or reprimanded by the government of the day, which, come to think, is the government of this day. Since Xinhua bureau chief Dacheng Zhang has just been on an Arctic tour with the PM, the Bourrie Revelation is guaranteed to make nobody happy. Somehow – given the sudden across-the-spectrum Canadian hunger to get close to all things Chinese, the word doublethink does tiptoe into the thought processes…”
- Some new folks added to the Canada Border Services Agency’s “What Are YOU Still Doing Here in Canada?” List - here’s the latest list.
- RCMP in Manitoba getting an eye in the sky “Manitoba RCMP have joined the growing list of police forces using tiny, remote-controlled helicopters as eyes in the sky. The one-metre-long devices come equipped with high-definition cameras that can stream video and photographs to officers on the ground. They give the Mounties a bird’s-eye view of traffic accident and crime scenes. “When you’re standing on the ground, taking ground-level photographs, you’re basically getting a two-dimensional perspective of the world around you,” RCMP Cpl. Byron Charbonneau, a traffic collision reconstructionist, said Thursday. “When you get a top-down view, it adds a third perspective to your investigation.” The devices can also be used when it may be dangerous to send an officer into an area, such as a toxic spill. The helicopter camera can determine how big the spill is and how it is moving before personnel are sent in ….”
