There's plenty of policy work to do to preserve Santa's Arctic home for future generations
Michael Byers, Ottawa Citizen, December 22, 2009
My children are worried. They're learning about climate change and asking, "What will happen to Santa Claus when the North Pole becomes ice-free?"
"Don't worry," I tell them. "Santa is magic. How else could he keep his workshop stationary on the constantly moving Arctic sea-ice? How else could he make the elves and reindeer vanish when the Russians planted a flag on the North Pole sea-floor two years ago?"
Continue reading "How to save Santa" »
Recognizing each other's sovereignty claims brings mutual benefits
MOSCOW -- Michael Byers, Globe and Mail, December 21, 2009
Amap produced by Natural Resources Canada has pride of place in Arctic ambassador Anton Vasiliev's office, in the Stalinist-era skyscraper housing the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Centred on the geographic North Pole, the map shows how Russia and Canada dominate the Arctic region. Between them, the two largest countries on Earth account for three-quarters of the Arctic Ocean's coastline.
Continue reading "Russia and Canada: Partners in the North?" »
Michael Byers, Macleans.ca, November 20, 2009
Canadians should hang their heads in shame. Richard Colvin’s testimony about torture in Afghanistan is a searing indictment of government officials who either knew—or should have known—that Canada was transferring detainees to torture.
Between 2006 and 2007, Colvin, the second-highest-ranking Canadian diplomat in Kabul, sent 17 reports about torture to Ottawa. The reports, which were circulated widely within the departments of Foreign Affairs and National Defence, confirmed public warnings from international officials and journalists.
Continue reading "Elements of a war crime seem to be present" »
Electoral ceasefire would put nation's centre-left majority in political control
Michael Byers, Toronto Star, November 2, 2009
Negative ads have prejudiced voters against Michael Ignatieff, and brought Stephen Harper within reach of a majority government. The Conservatives now lead the Liberals by about 10 percentage points.
The situation seems unlikely to improve. The Prime Minister's divisive partisan tactics have diminished the public's respect for politicians in general. In just four years, he has changed the tone of media coverage and public discourse, shifting the mood of the nation toward cynicism and selfishness.
Liberal infighting has not helped, while the NDP has missed two opportunities – on climate change and macroeconomic policy – to capture the national imagination with bold ideas.
There is only one surefire way to prevent a Harper majority. The Liberals and NDP should agree to not run candidates against each other in the next campaign.
Continue reading "Liberals and New Democrats together could unseat Harper" »
The proposed name change to Canadian Northwest Passage won't strengthen our claim in international law, and it may well hurt it.
Michael Byers, Globe and Mail, October 27, 2009
Like motherhood and apple pie, Arctic sovereignty is difficult to oppose.
So when Conservative MP Daryl Kramp introduced a motion on Oct. 5 to rename the Northwest Passage the “Canadian Northwest Passage,” the Liberals, NDP and Bloc Québécois quickly jumped on board.
It's time to reconsider that move – before the motion is put to a final vote. Renaming the Northwest Passage would weaken our legal claim, offend the Inuit and contradict centuries of Canadian history.
Continue reading "The Northwest Passage is already Canadian" »
That status would make it subject to Canadian law
Barbara Yaffe, Vancouver Sun, October 10, 2009
Imagine a group of terrorists gaining access to North America by way of an increasingly ice-free and largely unpoliced Canadian Arctic.
Imagine them infiltrating the Northwest Passage with ship-launched cruise missiles or weapons of mass destruction.
These are the sort of scenarios that pose a real threat to Canadian interests, not the territorial claims of other nations, according to a newly published book, Who Owns the Arctic? Understanding Sovereignty Disputes in the North.
Continue reading "Treat Northwest Passage as an internal waterway to boost national security" »
Randy Boswell, Ottawa Citizen, October 8, 2009
A Conservative MP’s bid to officially rename the Northwest Passage the “Canadian Northwest Passage” — which garnered praise from all three opposition parties earlier this week — could backfire in the legal arena, says a leading expert on Arctic geopolitics and international law.
Continue reading "Rechristening Northwest Passage shows Canada’s insecurity, expert fears" »
U.S. undertakes massive Olympic security operation centred in Washington State command post
Robert Matas, Globe and Mail, September 26, 2009
The non-descript warehouse is located at the tip of a dead-end road in an industrial park near the Bellingham, Wash., airport, 30 kilometres south of the Canada-U.S. border. A one-storey structure without signage, it offers no clue from the street what goes on behind its cream-coloured walls.
Continue reading "Dear bad guys: 'This is not a soft target. Don't come here'" »
ANDREW MAYEDA, Ottawa Citizen, September 24, 2009
OTTAWA — Trade Minister Stockwell Day will sign a treaty with Kazakhstan on Thursday that will clear Canada to export nuclear technology to the ex-Soviet republic, part of a push by the government to drum up business for Canada's nuclear industry in Central Asia and India.
Continue reading "Canada pushes nuclear technology in Asia" »
Doer's experience with Devils Lake makes him the ideal person to deal with cross-border issues
Toronto Star, September 8, 2009
MICHAEL BYERS
Of the many challenges Gary Doer faces as Canada's ambassador to the United States, none will engage his interest more than protecting our transboundary rivers and lakes.
The 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty prohibits diversions that have not been approved by the governments of both Canada and the United States, as well as pollution "on either side to the injury of health or property on the other."
Today, North Dakota is violating those provisions and placing the entire treaty at risk.
Continue reading "Canada's man in Washington brings expertise to water file" »
Branding Canada: Projecting Canada's Soft Power Through Public Diplomacy, by Evan H. Potter, McGill-Queen's University Press, 464 pages, $32.95
Reviewed by Michael Byers, Globe and Mail, August 19, 2009
John Humphreys hardly ever stumbles over his words. But emotion intervened in May, 2009, when the BBC Radio host conveyed the “bizarre” news that the Queen's representative in Canada, Michaëlle Jean, had eaten the “raw” heart of a seal.
Although many Canadians approved of the Governor-General's actions, the gesture cost us dearly in Europe. It reinforced the stereotype of a backward, resource-dependent country, and quite possibly affected future business deals and vacation plans.
Continue reading "Who do they think we are?" »
Cold War posturing often mainly intended for domestic politics
Bruce Campion-Smith, Toronto Star, August 15, 2009
OTTAWA–Bomber flights through Arctic airspace, paratroop drops planned over the North Pole, submarine missions and diplomatic spats, all driven by heavy doses of nationalistic chest-thumping.
Don't forget the potential of vast untapped resource riches to raise the stakes even higher.
At first blush, it smacks of a Cold War revival as northern nations face off over the barren Arctic landscape. But in the tangled world of Arctic diplomacy, where nationalist ideas converge and sometimes clash at the top of the world, not all is as it seems.
When Defence Minister Peter MacKay rebukes Russia for Arctic bomber flights and Artur Chilingarov, Russia's hardline Arctic envoy, makes clear Moscow's northern ambitions, their chest-thumping is often aimed at a home audience.
"Russian politicians, just like politicians in Denmark and Canada are sometimes focused on domestic politics when they engage in international relations concerning the Arctic," said Michael Byers, Canadian Research Chair in International Law and Politics at the University of British Columbia.
"I kind of look at Chilingarov and Peter MacKay playing a similar role in two different governments, playing to a sense of nationalism in their own country," he said.
Continue reading "Diplomatic thaw at hand over Arctic" »
Name change has to be part of a larger project to deliver modern progressive policies
Michael Byers, Toronto Star, August 11, 2009
NDP members are travelling to Halifax for their national convention this week. They might just return home as "Democrats," having dropped the "New" in their 48-year-old name – and with it the acronym.
Continue reading "Dropping 48-year-old 'New' would help revitalize NDP" »
Canada's new Northern Strategy is mostly made up of old ideas that have gone nowhere
Michael Byers, Ottawa Citizen, August 5, 2009
Glenn Gould called it The Idea of North. Conceptions of sovereignty are often wrapped up in national identities, and nowhere is this more true than with Canada's Arctic. For many Canadians, when the United States claims an unfettered right to use the Northwest Passage, it is like a wealthy neighbour claiming the right to tramp through our living room.
Continue reading "Re-packaging Arctic sovereignty" »
General insists mission is peaceful, but experts say it ups polar stakes
Randy Boswell, Ottawa Citizen, July 30, 2009
OTTAWA — In a planned mission that echoes Russia's controversial 2007 flag-planting on the seabed at the North Pole, a team of Russian paratroopers is reportedly preparing for a symbolic landing there next spring to mark the 60th anniversary of a Cold War achievement by two Soviet scientists.
Continue reading "Russia plans polar parachute drop" »
CBC
News, July 28, 2009
The federal government's new strategy for
Canada's North may be a case of political posturing, at least one Arctic
sovereignty expert has suggested.
The Northern Strategy, released on Sunday,
promises to assert Canada's sovereignty over its resource-rich Arctic lands and
waters, while addressing the need for jobs, housing and a clean environment in
the region.
But Michael Byers, who holds the Canada
Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at the University of
British Columbia, said the strategy offered little in the way of new
initiatives and announcements.
Continue reading "Arctic expert questions Canada's northern strategy" »
A lot more Canadians are likely to die from Afghan heroin than to perish on Afghan soil
Michael Byers, Special to the Vancouver Sun, July 11, 2009
SEEDS OF TERROR: How Heroin Is Bankrolling the Taliban and al Qaeda
By Gretchen Peters
St. Martin's Press/ H.B. Fenn, 300 pages ($32.95)
- - -
Last
November, I met a beautiful and cheerful young woman who was literally
bursting with song. She was high on heroin, arms bruised from needle
punctures, and so terribly thin that her pyjamas flapped as she danced
through the vomit- and urine-stained halls of one of Vancouver's
cheapest hotels.
By now, the young woman is probably dead -- one
of the latest Canadian victims not just of the war on drugs, but also
of the war in Afghanistan.
Continue reading "The poppy problem keeps growing" »
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