Canada Will "Support" Missile Defence Whether They Want To Or Not

The Globe and Mail: Canada rejects larger role in missile defence

The formal announcement Thursday that Canada will refuse any further participation in the controversial U.S. missile-defence shield was met with an immediate warning that Canada had given up its sovereignty. Although Prime Minister Paul Martin said Canada would “insist” on maintaining control of its airspace, U.S. Ambassador Paul Cellucci warned that Washington would not be constrained. “We will deploy. We will defend North America,” he said.

So effectively Canada will be "participating" in missile defence or even a nuclear war, whether it wants to or not. America is a big bully. I guess it has been since at least Teddy Roosevelt's time.


Complete Article
Canada Rejects a Larger Role in Missile Defence
By OLIVER MOORE
Thursday, February 24, 2005 Updated at 10:01 PM EST
Globe and Mail Update
The formal announcement Thursday that Canada will refuse any further participation in the controversial U.S. missile-defence shield was met with an immediate warning that Canada had given up its sovereignty.
Although Prime Minister Paul Martin said Canada would “insist” on maintaining control of its airspace, U.S. Ambassador Paul Cellucci warned that Washington would not be constrained.
“We will deploy. We will defend North America,” he said.
“We simply cannot understand why Canada would in effect give up its sovereignty – its seat at the table – to decide what to do about a missile that might be coming towards Canada.”
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Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew made the Canadian position public Thursday after months of equivocating by the Liberal government and days of denials that a decision had been made. He insisted that the decision – which has reportedly left the Bush administration nonplussed – will not “in any way” hurt ties with the United States.
The announcement came only days after Frank McKenna, the next ambassador to the United States, set off a political storm by saying that Canada is already participating in the missile shield. He said that an amendment to NORAD, the continental joint air-defence pact, meant that Canada's de facto participation had begun.
Mr. McKenna made his comments earlier in the week, about the time, Mr. Martin has now acknowledged, that the United States received the formal refusal from Canada.
“The official Canadian position was conveyed by Foreign Minister Pettigrew to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at our meetings in Brussels,” he told reporters.
“Since then, I have discussed it with Ambassador Cellucci, Mr. Graham has discussed it with [Deputy Defence Secretary Paul] Wolfowitz in the United States and I would expect to be discussing it again, with [U.S.] President [George W.] Bush, hopefully today or in the very near future.”
Mr. Martin's timeline contradicts comments from government MPs this week in the House of Commons, where opposition politicians were repeatedly told that they would be informed “when a decision is made.”
On both Tuesday and Wednesday, Defence Minister Bill Graham insisted that nothing had changed on the missile-defence file and that a decision was forthcoming.
New Democrat Leader Jack Layton jumped on the discrepancy during Question Period in the House of Commons, accusing the Liberal of perpetrating “a fraud.”
“It's not ... good enough in this House to say that no decision has been made when Condoleezza Rice has already been told which Canada is going to do,” he charged.
Mr. Martin responded by rejecting Mr. Layton's use of the 1980s-era term “Star Wars” to refer to missile defence, which critics liken to the vastly expensive military project that never came to fruition during the Regan era.
“It has never been a question of Star Wars,” he said. “The honourable member has a little bit of difficulty with this. That has never been the issue, Mr. Speaker. The issue is -- was Canada going to participate in ballistic missile defence? Now, Mr. Speaker, the answer is ‘no'.”
The NDP is staunchly opposed to missile defence and the minority Liberals could have lost if missile defence had come to a vote in the House of Commons. A number of senior government sources have recently told reporters in The Globe and Mail's Ottawa bureau that the federal government felt that the deep unpopularity of missile defence among Canadians made further participation a non-starter.
Missile defence is lauded by supporters as the ultimate defensive weapon, a shield that could prevent destruction from rockets launched from enemies around the world. Critics say the system will be prohibitively expensive and point out that it has failed almost every test conducted.
In his comments before Question Period, after holding a cabinet meeting, Mr. Martin said, that the Liberal's military priorities are “the ones that we set out yesterday” in the budget -- primarily borders, Arctic sovereignty, coastal defence, intelligence-gathering and increasing the size of the army.
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