Views of Arctic nations on Arctic issues
What's Canada's top foreign policy priority? The Globe and Mail reports on a new poll:
'A majority of Canadians see Arctic sovereignty as the countryâ??s top foreign-policy priority and believe military resources should be shifted to the North from global conflicts, according to a new opinion poll.The survey also found that Canadians are generally far less receptive to negotiation and compromises on Arctic disputes than Americans.
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What's somewhat amusing is how the poll results have been interpreted:
'â??That traditional notion of what is a Canadian is kind of challenged by this. We sound more like what people would say Americans would sound like dealing with international issues. Thatâ??s quite an eye-opener,â? said Neil Desai, director of programs and communications at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto.
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Oh the existential angst of sounding American! The survey (available here, pdf) also polled residents of other Arctic nations on their views. Among Arctic nations, almost everyone indicated that the country they felt most comfortable dealing with on Arctic issues was Scandanavia. The one exception: U.S. residents said they felt most comfortable dealing with Canada. The U.S. was also the only Arctic country surveyed where a majority of respondents thought that the Arctic should not be a nuclear weapons-free zone.
(AP Photo)