Putin’s puppet in Moscow just handed Stephen Harper a gift which will allow him to change the channel from Ritz,
President Medvedev threatens Russian Arctic annexation
Russia triggered a fresh scramble for the oil wealth of the Arctic yesterday when President Medvedev called on his security chiefs to establish a formal border in the region.
Mr Medvedev laid claim to a vast tranche of the Arctic, telling his National Security Council that it had “strategic importance” for Russia. The US Geological Survey estimates that the region contains 90 billion barrels of oil, as well as gas reserves – all of it increasingly accessible as global warming shrinks the ice cap.
“We must wrap up all the formalities for drawing the external border in the continental shelf. This is our direct responsibility to future generations,” Mr Medvedev told the Kremlin meeting.
Since the last throne speech, Stephen Harper has been pushing arctic sovereignty as an issue and polling shows that the issue is important to Canadians. Over the past four decades, the Liberals have claimed many facets of Canadian nationalism, but the arctic and defense of our northern border has been a hallmark of Prime Minister Harper’s administration.
Flashback to the last election when Paul Martin was seen to have orchestrated a diplomatic incident with the United States over softwood lumber. In contrast, this would be an international event which Harper could react to rather than contrive. Leadership is a key theme for this election and Harper’s defense of Canada’s arctic sovereignty would underline this advantage that Harper has over the other leaders.
To paraphrase a famous person,
“It’s like a really bad Disney movie, you know. The professor, you know. ‘I’m just a professor of sociology from Montreal” and he’s the Prime Minister. And it’s like he’s facing down Vladamir Putin and using the quaint little Green Shift stuff he learned from Al Gore. It’s absurd. It’s totally absurd.”