Canada to Abandon Military Defense of Newfoundland and Labrador

A recent senate committee report has characterized the air base at Goose Bay Labrador as a “Boondoggle” and claims it has no military value for Canada. The report suggests that the Canadian government should walk away from the base instead of proceeding with its plan to deploy a 650 person rapid response team at the site and it uses a multitude of colorful language when speaking of just how useless the place is to the nation. In addition to its attack on the base itself, the report also says government should not continue with its plans to its purchase icebreakers for the Canadian navy to be used in arctic and Northern patrols.

Is it just me or does this sound like a very short sighted recommendation by a bunch of central Canadian bureaucrats with their heads firmly lodged someplace the sun hasn’t ever shined? Perhaps I’m wrong, perhaps instead this report is the result of some heavy behind the scenes lobbing by MPs, special interest groups or even military bases in other parts of the Country that would prefer the money went their way. Either way it’s a sad day for Canada.

At a public forum in St. John’s this week the senate committee members who attended were asked what this would mean for Canada’s ability to defend its Eastern most border, which stretches all the way from the southern tip of Newfoundland, along the coast of Labrador and up into the Arctic. The response was that Canada could not afford to protect this area. Nothing more, nothing less but simply that the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, which essentially makes up the entire eastern flank of the nation, was on its own.

This is nothing new of course since there has essentially been no military presence in the province for years and aside from the obligatory fly in during election campaigns the entire area has all but been abandoned by Ottawa.

The brain trust in Ottawa has apparently decided that since the fall of the Soviet Union, the only areas of concern are nations on the Pacific side of our continent and therefore there is no need to defend our Atlantic borders. They’ve determined that there is no need to protect against invasion or attack from the east and no need to protect our Arctic regions.

Never mind that as the North West Passage continues to thaw it becomes easier for vessels to take advantage of Canadian waters. It doesn’t matter because without a presence there we won’t even notice.

Never mind that foreign vessels are raping our fishing grounds on the East coast every day because if we don’t have a presence off our shores we won’t notice that either.

Never mind that rogue nations such as North Korea now have nuclear capabilities, which if combined with their known intercontinental missiles, would allow them to attack the U.S. via an Arctic flight route. It doesn’t matter because by the time anyone notices the missiles coming it will be too late to worry about anything except what position you would prefer to have your corpse found in.

There are two North American gateways to the arctic. One is through the Pacific via Alaska and the other is through the Atlantic via Labrador. I wonder how the American government feels about protecting its gateway? I also wonder about the mentality of any government that would even consider a report like the one this senate committee has produced, not to mention the senators who actually produced it.

Where on earth will you find another nation that couldn’t care less about protecting two of its three most vulnerable borders from potential attack? While the Western coast of Canada has a viable military presence, the Eastern most coastline and the Arctic region does not. Can someone tell me, where but Canada would a member of the senate actually tell the citizens of one of its Country’s provinces that the nation can’t afford to protect them militarily, that they don’t plan on trying and that the province is on its own?