two weeks ago our prime minister, paul martin, publicly spoke out against canada's participation in america's desire of a missile defence system guarding our north american skies. supporters applauded his decision saying he is merely affirming canada's sovereignty. critics opposed his decisions effectively stating canada is giving up its sovereignty by letting the states do as they please with what goes on up in the clouds. certainly a messy political situation has come about in all this.

but in reality, our participation in such a program is inevitable. it's been such since in the early days of the NORAD days. that joint program was created in a similar position to the one we have today. in those days, the big bad soviets were the enemy during the cold war. our continent airspace needed protection just in case the commies tried something funny. now that those guys who driven themselves to collapse, terrorists have emerged as the new threat to our way of life. it, too, requires a new form of protection.

in 1958, john diefenbaker had a minority government when the norad idea came into effect. however, everything about it was hush-hush until he won his majority the following year and formally signed on to the plan with eisenhower. he went down to washington to shake hands with the president and put his confidence behind the program.

today, paul martin is struggling to keep his minority afloat and left-of-centre NDP holding the balance of power, martin is playing itself. not only his missile defence publicly unpopular, had he said yes two weeks, we might have been gearing up for an election in the next few weeks. chretien scored some major political points by saying no to iraq and martin's learned a thing or two from it. certainy, martin's desire to restore american-canadain relations needs to be put second to protecting his political ass domestically.

speaking of norad, the renewal date for the alliance is set to expire may of 2006. few know about this, but it's significantly important how all of this is going to play out within the next year or so. unlike this missile defence scheme, norad is pretty popular among canadians and as the date nears, support of its renewal should be strong. that is, if it makes into the press. parallel to this is martin's rising popularity and near the "40% rule" needed for him to restore the Liberals' majority. as all the controversy surrounding the advertising scandal is fading (the reason for the Liberal minority) and martin's recent "no to weaponization of space", the potential for an election this fall is nearing. and let's face it, the liberals will quite likely restore their majority. the conservatives' thrust isn't gaining ground as their support peaked at something like 32% (well short of challenging majority status).

so all the PR about mr. martin standing up to the missile defence program is buying time until he can truly state what canada's role in this is. there's too much at stake by not complying. just think of the implications; trading wise, politically wise and of course, defence wise. we're united-at-the-hip and that's the reality. martin was able to reject it from the time being due to strong unpopularity of it here in canada and that he's always got european support on his back, where anything remotely american is tagged with "imperialist" stamp of rejection. this gives him a little bit of a cushion until winning his majority.

last week, the US ambassador said he was baffled as to why martin rejected the idea despite complying all along. because martin has been complying all along! one way or another, the current american scheme is going to be integrated within norad when its renewed next year.

which why i think martin's rejection of it is much to do about nothing. one or another, we've signed onto the plan by default.