“Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister David Emerson says the government views the recent actions of Russia in Georgia and in the Far North “with great concern,” and this is helping drive the Conservatives’ Arctic strategy. “It’s not in direct response to that, but we’ve seen much increased activity in terms of Russian overflights of Canadian airspace. The Americans are seeing the same thing around Alaska,” he told CTV’s Question Period on Sunday. “So that’s one element, but it’s not the only element. It’s something that is now starting to give us some cause for serious concern.”
Georgia had complained about Russian overflights of its territory in the period leading before its conflict over the breakaway region of South Ossetia boiled over. Experts say the resource-rich Arctic is becoming an increasingly contentious area as climate change makes the region more navigable by causing sea ice to melt. In August 2007, a Russian icebreaker reached the North Pole. A Russian submarine went down to the seabed and planted a Russian flag there. Emerson described that as a “what many thought was a somewhat silly flag-planting incident in Canada’s Arctic.” But taken with the larger picture of Russian actions against Georgia and its squeezing of Ukraine’s energy supplies two years ago, Emerson said both Canada and its NATO allies and former Soviet satellites are apprehensive.
