'The future of this country is going north," Brian Mulroney said recently in Ottawa with Stephen Harper listening in. "It is time for a new northern vision." He stressed the need for leadership on global warming (was Rona Ambrose listening?), but the heart of his speech was the need to realize Canada's northern ambition. From someone viewed as one of our foremost American integrationists, it was a striking declaration.
Shortly thereafter, another former Tory prime minister, Joe Clark, followed with an article on these pages that said it's time for Ottawa policy-makers to look beyond the United States. The debate in this country, he said, is too narrow.
The New York Times' Thomas Friedman said last week that the years of America as the megapower -- the "belle époque," as he called it -- were drawing to a close. "The post-post-Cold War is a multipolar world," he wrote, "where U.S. power is being checked from every corner." From China, from Russia, from producers of black gold that form "the axis of oil."
In Ottawa, it's hard to get a sense that many see things the way the aforementioned observers do. If the future is north, as Mr. Mulroney says, you'd never know it by listening to the Liberal leadership candidates or -- though it has made some promises on Arctic sovereignty -- the Conservative government. China is paid little heed. And rather than go international, as Mr. Clark recommends, the Harperites were being accused by the opposition parties this week of being more inclined to bed down with a besieged America.
Also See:
Petrocan's Arctic Sovereignty
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