Harper cements a laudable legacy in the North, with just a handful of glaring omissions

National Post ^ | August 26, 2014 | Michael Den Tandt

[Squawk 8888]

BAFFIN ISLAND — As Prime Minister Stephen Harper heads back to the office, concluding his ninth Arctic summer tour, his strategists and senior staff will be congratulating themselves on a job well done.

To be fair, they have some reasons to feel that way.

As such junkets go, this one went off more or less without a hitch. There were no pratfalls; no trips, slips, incidents or shoves. Apart from a single sign that nearly toppled onto the prime minister on the first morning, the visuals beamed back to newsrooms in Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver have been positive for the Conservatives and for Mr. Harper personally.

These include the PM wading into a crowd of happy Inuit children in Arctic Bay; picturesquely bestriding the bow of a Canadian navy patrol boat, as it steamed through the Northwest Passage, the first such voyage by a sitting Canadian leader; and addressing Canadian soldiers here Tuesday, on the pristine banks of Frobisher Bay, as they carried out operation Nanook, their major northern summer exercise.

Thursday’s speech, unlike the more political ones earlier in this tour, was straight-up chest-pounding patriotism, no chaser. The PM waxed historical about the lost explorer Sir John Franklin, then hammered away at Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, and the peril posed to civilized peoples by the Islamic State. This will be meat and drink to the Conservative base. It won’t go over so badly with swing voters, either.

And there are other pluses, from the Tory standpoint. The PM’s Franklin gambit has worked out rather well; In putting the resources of the government and his own political capital behind the search for the lost ships, Erebus and Terror, Mr. Harper has galvanized a coalition of interests and brought them in behind his government, as I wrote last time.

[Squawk 8888]

To all- please ping me to Canadian topics.

Canada Ping!

[dowcaet]

Harper is a true leader and probably one of the biggest supporters of Israel. No wonder lefties up north and down here can’t stand the guy.

[Squawk 8888]

Yep. Back when BHO was promising to “fundamentally transform” America, Harper was already starting to “fundamentally transform” Canada back to the great nation it was and will be again. Harper may help Canada fulfill Sir Wilfrid Laurier’s vision, albeit 100 years later.

[dowcaet]

Yep. He’s transforming Canada into a major economic power and how long will it be before you see the exodus of American companies going up north?

[Squawk 8888]

It's been happening for a while, and Burger King just opened the floodgates. They're moving their HQ to a suburb of Toronto because corporate taxes are lower here.

[fieldmarshaldj]

The damage the Nazi-turned-Communist Trudeau did runs deep. Good to see Harper working hard to repair it.

[Praxeologue]

The author knocks Harper for lack of success in addressing aboriginal land title, recently lent credence by the Supreme Court of Canada and for not mentioning climate change, aka AGW. These are both Liberal Party issues, part of the reason that Justin Trudeau is ten points ahead in the polls.

I think we all agree that climate change and AGW is spurious and that the best way to handle it with the Suzuki-watching LIVs, for Conservatives, is with platitudes. Aboriginal land titles, however, may turn out to be a serious problem, aided and abetted by the anti-growth Liberals and NDP.

What is your take on the seriousness of aboriginal land titles?

[Balding_Eagle]

Imagine we are descended upon by a fleet of alien ships, the ‘from up there’ kind of aliens.

How much credence were our land titles mean if they decided to settle here?

[Squawk 8888]

Harper’s been trying his damnedest to address aboriginal issues, and not just land titles. The real problem is that there are too many First Nations “Leaders” who have a vested interest in the status quo. With birthrates among First Nations the highest in the country, failure to deal with it will mean lost opportunities for everyone and another two or three generations of poverty, corruption and violence on the reserves.

[golux]

"...the visuals beamed back to newsrooms in Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary..."

What numbskull wrote this? Harper only gets CBCROGERSBELL coverage when he steps in bubble gum PRIME MINISTER GAFFE WOMEN MINORITIES MUSLIM COMMUNITIES DAMAGED STICKY MESS EVERYWHERE. HARPER: "No Comment."

[OldNewYork]

What troop is this?

[Dartman]

Harper has been trying his best (more than others) with the "Native" problem. I once read that if the Canadian government gave every "First Nation Status" person one million dollars, and then said all subsidies and tax exemptions are gone, we would save a lot of money in a very timely matter. As far as the Glow Bull warming thing, enough said.

Then again, when did the National Post start having such *sshats write for them?

[Candor7]

What is your take on the seriousness of aboriginal land titles? >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The way that Canada’s Constitutional Law works pertaininh to the distribution of powers from the old British North America Act, section 92, the law pertaining to real estate is relegated to the provinces, and so any federal court decision on aboriginal property rights does not have to be acted upon or even recognized by any provincial government.

Meanwhile, the The federal law regulates Native status and administration as a federal matter.

Until the various provincial governments recognize aborigional property rights, it is pretty difficult for native interests to gain expansion, outside of the lands already specifically granted or reserved to them by previous acts of the Crown and by various treaties.

[Squawk 8888]

Not sure what troop, but they’re Arctic Rangers, reservists (primarily Inuit) who patrol the far north. You can probably find more info at the official Prime Minister’s website, http://pm.gc.ca/

[Squawk 8888]

Compounding the problem is that most of the Band Councils are quite happy with the fact that all property on the reserve is communal, because it allows them to control people by denying them decent housing. Whenever the topic of individual property titles comes up, all hell breaks loose.

[Praxeologue]

The aboriginal political issue that affects the economic interests of all Canadians is resource development and specifically pipelines. This is the lifeblood of the Canadian economy. In the past, projects have been killed, notably the MacKenzie Valley Pipeline, by aboriginal intransigence. As of June 26th, we now have the Supreme Court of Canada's Tsilhqot’in decision. If a project has a compelling and substantial public purpose and the aboriginal title holder has been adequately consulted, then it's a go. None of these tests are defined in the decision, statute or precedent. That means every major development must go to the SCC. Great, in my view, the Court volunteered to arbitrate. The Federal Government can take the Pontius Pilate approach, as they effectively did with their earlier lukewarm "approval" of Enbridge's Northern Gateway project. They can 'punt' the decision to the Court. That lifts most of the political heat from the Federal Government. The Provinces can be parties to the action and cheer lead or pander at their option, but not obstruct. In the end, the aboriginals will rationally negotiate an attractive financial package for themselves with the proponent and won't be manning the barricades and shooting Mounties.

This all looks positive to me. Am I being naive?

[Squawk 8888]

It’s one possible outcome. The other positive has been in BC, where some Nations, such as the Nisga’a, negotiated treaties (there are still a few Nations without treaty) that effectively nullified the Indian Act and allowed Fee Simple property titles, then bargained hard with resource companies for mineral, fishing and logging rights. The deals typically include investment in education & infrastructure, hiring preferences for local members, and cash royalty payments for members. Most of the other bands have condemned them for abandoning their native “heritage” but they don’t care because everyone’s better off.

BTW I think that living conditions on most reserves are utterly despicable and should not be tolerated by the people of a First World nation such as ours. The problem is that anyone who tries to make meaningful progress is branded a racist or a traitor. Shawn Atleo, former National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, learned that the hard way.

[Squawk 8888]

To your point on the Supreme Court- it was hardly the first time the politicians punted an issue to then. Abortion was the most notorious example; the Supreme Court ruled that the Conspiring to Procure a Miscarriage section of the Criminal Code was unconstitutional on fairly narrow grounds, and that it was Parliament’s responsibility to rewrite it in a way that would comply with the Constitution Acts 1967 & 1982 and English Common Law. In the media the ruling quickly morphed into “A woman’s Charter Right to abortion”, and every politician who raised the issue had effectively destroyed his own career. That is why to this day Canada is the only country in the world that has NO laws of any kind about abortion.

[OldNewYork]

Thanks for that. I’ve never seen military wearing red sweatshirts and carrying rifles like those.