OTTAWA – With Canada’s governing Liberal Party clinging to power by a shaky minority in Parliament, Washington’s controversial North American missile defense program may create a crisis that will force the country into a snap election.
Even within the Liberal Party, many MPs are opposed to the missile defense system and the George W. Bush administration’s reported use of strong-arm tactics to get Canada to sign on to the scheme.
In a Dec. 27 appearance on Canadian television, Prime Minister Paul Martin insisted that "we are against the militarization of space. We’re against the weaponization of space, and we will not participate in it today nor will we tomorrow."
Much of the pressure is coming from U.S. ambassador to Canada Paul Cellucci, who said earlier this month that he expects Canada to sign onto the missile defense system by the end of March.
Canada’s leftist New Democratic Party, which supports the government in most parliamentary votes, opposes missile defense, as does the nationalist Bloc Quebecois, the second-largest opposition party in parliament.
The pro-U.S. Canadian Alliance party, the largest opposition bloc, supports the program and would likely provide the government with enough support to survive a vote on the issue. However, it could cause the New Democrats to withdraw support for other government measures, including the federal budget.
In the Canadian system, a lost budget vote automatically causes the government to fall. The budget will be presented within the next two months.
"We’re pushing the government very hard for a parliamentary vote. The government had already gone halfway down the road last summer when it agreed to amend the NORAD agreement," New Democrat leader Jack Layton said in an interview Wednesday.
The amendments to the North American Air Defense agreement, accepted in mid-2004 by both countries, place the joint Canada-U.S. air defense command in charge of monitoring the missile system.
"The Canadian public is very opposed to missile defense and the weaponization of space. We hear it every time we go door to door or talk with Canadians on the street," Layton said.
"If we accept this, we’ll in effect be giving a Canadian imprimatur to George Bush’s arms race. It would add legitimacy to Star Wars, but it would erode Canada’s reputation in the world as an independent country, an honest broker, and a peacekeeper. Paul Martin says it won’t cost anything, but I don’t think Americans will sit there forever and let us ‘get’ this for free. Even if we end up paying just 1 percent of the cost, that’s 10 billion of the $1 trillion cost."
Prime Minister Martin and his officials had been assured by the White House that missile defense would not be on the agenda when Bush made his first visit to Ottawa as president last November.
But, according to a Washington Post article published earlier this week, Bush pressured Martin at the Nov. 30, 2004 meeting, going so far as to suggest that the future of the Canada-U.S. defense relationship may be at stake.
Close Canada-U.S. military cooperation goes back to 1940, when the two countries reached a defense agreement at Ogdensburg, N.Y. In effect, the U.S. promised to protect Canada from attack by Nazi Germany or any other power.
An unnamed official quoted in the Washington Post said Bush "leaned across the table and said: ‘I’m not taking this position, but some future president is going to say: Why are we paying to defend Canada?’"
Canadian officials, according to this account, told Bush the Martin government might have trouble selling missile defense to this country’s parliament and people.
Bush supposedly "waved his hands and remarked ‘I don’t understand this. Are you saying that if you got up and said this is necessary for the defense of Canada,’ it won’t be accepted?"
Amy Butcher, a spokesman for Martin, said the government would not comment on the substance of the report.
"Our position is clear on BMD [Ballistic Missile Defense]," she said. "The government will make a final decision based on Canadian interests and Parliament will have an opportunity to express its views on the issue."
Canadian opponents of the project say this country’s government should avoid missile defense because it violates the Antiballistic Missile Treaty, to which Canada is a signatory. As well, they say, the technology still isn’t proven to work.
Several tests of the system have failed, including one last month that the Pentagon blamed on a minor glitch in computer software. The Pentagon, however, says they may never publicly declare when the shield is fully ready.
