YELLOWKNIFE - Federal Liberal Stephane Dion says a move as simple as stationing a handful of search and rescue planes could help stake out sovereignty over Canada's North.
Dion promised a Liberal government would station two planes in Yellowknife and two in Iqaluit, in order to foster both development and a sense that Canada is caring for people who live in the North.
"This is something important to do for the people here, to have economic opportunity but also to, again, establish our sovereignty, to show that when it's time to rescue life in the north, Canadians are well-equipped.''
At the Yellowknife airport before departing for Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, Dion also said he would make another move to show a Liberal government would take care of the north.
"We'll re-establish the ambassador for the Arctic, something the Conservatives have shamefully cut,'' he said.
Dion, meantime, plans to highlight the experiences from his three-day Arctic swing when meeting with international leaders about climate change in Bali, Indonesia.
He says key issues he'll raise will be the massive infrastructure woes that will be caused by melting permafrost and the potential for species to become extinct as temperatures rise.
"All these buildings, these roads have been created with the certainty the permafrost would stay frozen, and now, because of climate change, it's changing, and it will create a huge infrastructure cost in the North,'' he said.
But a spokesman for Defence Minister Peter MacKay counters that Dion's Liberal party was in power for a decade and all but ignored the North.
"While he makes promises, the Harper government has already acted by unveiling its plans for a $100 million Arctic port, a new military training centre at Resolute Bay and the commissioning of ice-protected patrol boats to safeguard Canadian sovereingty over the North,'' said communications director Dan Dugas.
In an earlier stop in Whitehorse, Dion pledged to create a centre to study how the North can adapt to climate change, and added similar facilities may make sense in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories.
