Canada Likely to Face Missile Defense Issue Head-On
Government Fears Political Consequences of Joining U.S.
Plan
By Doug Struck
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, November 14, 2004; Page A29
TORONTO
-- The reelection of President Bush is pushing the Canadian
government toward a decision it had hoped to avoid: whether
to join a
new U.S. system designed to shoot down any missile headed for North America.
Off Canada's northwest shoulder,
the United States already is lowering
five-story interceptor missiles into silos in Alaska to start the
experimental
and controversial missile defense system that Bush has
championed. His administration has made clear it would like Canada
to be part of the project.
But a new opinion poll released this month showed 52 percent of people surveyed were opposed
to the plan, and antipathy here to Bush was intensified by the contentious U.S. election. Opposition from Canada's splintered
political parties has also given Prime Minister Paul Martin's government, already operating with a minority in the parliament,
serious pause about promoting missile defense.
"I think this is one issue they would have liked to have skipped,"
Gordon
O'Connor, a Conservative Party member of parliament, said of
Martin's Liberal Party.
Sidestepping the issue will
become harder given Bush's expected official visit to Ottawa before his second inauguration in January. Political observers
said Bush is unlikely to press Martin for a decision, to avoid being seen as strong-arming Canada. But the missile defense
issue has returned to the center of political debate, with supporters arguing that Canada needs to cooperate with Washington
to help mend ties strained by the disagreement over the war in Iraq.
"There's an influential community that wants Canada
to reassert itself
as the United States' best friend, a position we lost to the United
Kingdom," said Michael Byers,
a security expert at the University of
British Columbia in Vancouver. "There's a desire to make up, in effect,
for the
refusal to go along with the Iraq war."
Proponents of the missile defense plan point to Canada's long
partnership
with the United States in NORAD -- the North American
Aerospace Defense Command. They say Canada must continue to be included
in planning by the United States for defense of the continent. And they note that, so far, the Bush administration is asking
only for political support, not land or money for the system.
"Do we want the Americans to go ahead with something
to defend North America that we're not going to participate in?" Defense Minister Bill Graham, who once opposed the system,
argued in a televised interview in September.
Opponents echo the complaints of critics in the United States, arguing
that
the missile defense system is unproven, technologically difficult,
hugely expensive and based on an outdated assumption
that an attack will come in the form of an airborne missile. In addition, critics here say the system undermines Canada's
preference for multinational teamwork and agreements over weapons and defense machinery.
"There are places we should
be cooperating with the United States, but this is way down on the list," said John Polanyi, a chemist and Nobel laureate
at the University of Toronto who has joined a phalanx of academics and political figures opposed to the system. He asserted
that the missile defense plan inevitably would lead to putting weapons in space, long anathema to Canada.
"I would
think that with Canada squawking all the time against
weaponization of space, that would make us an unlikely partner for
this,"
Polanyi said. "To be a good ally, you don't pick the weakest
ideas of your ally to support, you pick the strong ones. This
isn't one."
Martin's government is trying to avoid a clash over the issue that could weaken its already wobbly hold
on power. It opposed a demand by the New Democratic Party for a series of public hearings on the subject.
"The majority
of Canadians have made it quite clear they do not support Bush's values," said Alexa McDonough, a New Democratic Party parliament
member from Halifax, Nova Scotia. "If we really think this is how we are going to build a safer world, we'd have to accept
that having nuclear bits flying around above our head is good."
The main opposition group, the Conservative Party,
has generally
supported joining the project. But in a maneuver employed to make life
difficult for Martin, the Conservatives
have declared themselves neutral and demanded a parliamentary vote on the issue. The ruling Liberal Party reluctantly agreed,
but announced that the result would be "nonbinding," and has yet to schedule the vote.
"If the government doesn't
bring it to a vote, the opposition will force
it," said Graham, the Conservatives' point man on the issue. "The
opposition
parties will decide whether it is binding. The government has to be careful. They are a minority."
Some analysts argue
the political jockeying is largely irrelevant
because the United States could go ahead with the program with or
without
Canada's participation. Last summer, Canada quietly agreed that the joint U.S.-Canada NORAD operations center in Colorado
Springs could share incoming missile information with NORTHCOM, the U.S. command that will control the 40 interceptor rockets
planned for Alaska and California and at sea.
"From a technical perspective, Canada is already in," said Byers, the
security
expert. "It has made the decision to cooperate to the degree
necessary to let it go forward." copyright The Washington
Post Company
SIGN OUR U.N. PETITION:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/832338563Alfred Lambremont Webre, JD, MEd
ICIS-Institute for Cooperation in Space
Email:
alw@peaceinspace.com<
http://us.f536.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=alw@peaceinspace.com>
CAMPAIGN:
http://www.peaceinspace.org <
http://www.peaceinspace.org/>
SIGN U.N. PETITION:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/832338563******************************************************
Martin downplays Ottawa's support for ``Star Wars''
missile defence system.
CanWest News Service
Mon 15 Nov 2004
Byline: Peter O'Neil
Source: CanWest News Service;
Vancouver Sun
PENTICTON, B.C. - Prime Minister Paul Martin says the U.S. government's proposed missile defence shield,
which divided Liberal party activists here this weekend as it has Martin's caucus, isn't a top national security issue.
Martin,
while refusing to say when he will finally decide on Canada's formal participation in the U.S. program, said Ottawa
has already made the most
significant step in the politically charged issue. Canada agreed in July to
let the Americans
use the early missile warning system at the Canada-U.S.
continental defence command centre, Norad, in Cheyenne Mountain,
Colorado.
``That was the crucial decision for Canada,'' Martin told Canwest News
Service while in B.C. for a convention
of West Coast federal Liberals.
``My focus now is on the defence of North America, and that's our coasts,
it's
our Arctic sovereignty, and that's where we're going to put the
concentration.''
Martin appeared to play down the
significance of Canada's participation in
the missile defence, which would use ground-based rockets to intercept
incoming
ballistic missiles from a ``rogue'' country like North Korea, or
protect against accidental attacks from China or Russia.
But
he refused to say when he will agree to a memorandum of understanding
that will deal with issues like costs, location
of the interceptors, and
assurances the program won't lead to the weaponization of space, which
Martin opposes.
``There's
an enormous amount of research involved in it, and what is of the
greatest interest to me right now, is to obviously monitor
the situation and
to follow it, and we will continue discussing with the Americans.
``But the priority is what
can we do now in the fight against global
terrorism, in the protection of our borders, in the protection of our
coasts,
in making sure we have the intelligence information that we require
to defend Canada.''
Polls have indicated that
Canadians are split on the issue, with opposition
strongest in Quebec and B.C.
In Parliament, the New Democratic
Party, the Bloc Quebecois, and a number of
Liberal MPs oppose missile defence, which has been dubbed ``Star Wars'' by
critics even though there are no immediate plans to use space-based weapons.
Even Stephen Harper's Conservative
party, Parliament's strongest proponent
of closer ties with the recently re-elected administration of President
George
W. Bush, has adopted a neutral stand on the issue in light of the
political risks.
Martin came under additional
pressure on the weekend when B.C. party members
voted to make opposition to missile defence one of its ``priority''
resolutions
to be debated at a national Liberal party convention in the
spring.
``We don't need to support Star Wars just to
befriend the United States,''
said Ian McLean, a Liberal delegate at the convention from Burnaby, a suburb
east of
Vancouver, in support of the resolution from the party's youth wing.
But some Liberals who opposed the resolution said
party members aren't
qualified to discuss the resolution, and accused critics of portraying
missile defence as the weaponization
of space.
One Liberal also said Canada needs to sign the proposed memorandum of
understanding on missile defence
in order to improve Canada's strained
relationship with the administration of President George W. Bush.
``I think
it all comes down to being a good neighbour to the United
States,'' said Lyssa Marci of Campbell River on Vancouver Island.
Martin
said he disagrees with Canada's envoy to New York, former broadcaster
Pamela Wallin, who said she is worried about the
``dangerous'' and
``unfair'' level of anti-Americanism in Canada.
``Democracy is made up of divisions of opinion.
There were divisions of
opinion in the United States in that election, and yet the country pulls
together afterwards.
``We're
very close to the Americans. We differ with the Americans on issues,
and that is only natural. But fundamentally we do
more than just share a
continent, and we recognize how important it is that we work together.''
Martin said he
expects Canadians, including Liberal and opposition MPs, will
be ``civil'' when Bush makes his first official visit to
Canada sometime
before his January inauguration.
While Bush plans to urge some European countries to lend more
support to the
Iraq war effort, Martin said he has no plans to send Canadians _ civilian or
military _ into that country.
Canada
is already lending significant support to Bush's so-called war on
terrorism by placing and keeping troops in Afghanistan,
providing $300
million in assistance for reconstruction in Iraq, and by training Iraqi
police in Jordan.
Vancouver
Sun
