Note to VAC officials: there are limits to playing 'cover your ass' games

They need to understand that veterans are citizens with the same rights to privacy as everyone else and, because of their overseas service in times of war, even more entitlement to their nation's care and consideration.

Does anyone want American pilots flying over Canada to check out Russian bombers? Nope

If the Canadian Air Force does not mount sovereignty patrols in our airspace, who will? The answer is all too clear: the United States Air Force.

For once, Mexico beginning to matter in Canada

Just as it is right for Canadians to seek to help Haiti, so too should Canada work to make Mexico into a stronger, democratic North American partner. That will help both Mexicans and Canadians.

Canada's reputation may not survive endless partisan mudslinging

So partisan have we become, so eager to dump on the government of the day, that issues are twisted, distorted, and exploited, used to trash Canadian efforts abroad. Enough.

Don't break military

Until the government gives the Department of National Defence the funds to increase the Canadian Forces' numbers substantially, the strain on the country's soldiers, sailors and air personnel can only increase.

Parliament must decide on war and peace

Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2006 and 2008 held votes in Parliament on the Afghanistan mission. It's the right way to proceed.

Prepare for great Canadian anti-American coalition against Obama

Canadian anti-Americanism has never been a tap to be turned on and off. It's not dead today. It's only sleeping. It is moved by the age-old historic forces and remains endemic in Canada.

Future for Canadian Forces not wholly promising

Money is going to be tight, the numbers of personnel will continue to be insufficient to do the required tasks, and much of the military's equipment will continue its long, slow slide into obsolescence.

U.S. will soon be directing battle against Taliban, counter-narcotics fight in Kandahar

The prospective coalition, the Obama administration, and the Canadian Forces...

The continuing Harper government will almost certainly be more constrained in its defence expenditures, coalition or not.

President Obama, Canadians and anti-Americanism

Barack Obama is on his Canadian honeymoon today, but tomorrow he is certain to become merely another target for those who reject America's world view.

A serious country deals with big issues in its elections

But in the 2008 election, Canada's politicians unfortunately did not even try to do so. Elections, as Kim Campbell famously said, are no place to talk about issues. So it seems.

Canada needs a bipartisan defence policy, one supported by government and opposition

Nothing militarily credible will ever satisfy ideologically-committed NDPers or Bloquistes, but it ought to be possible to work out a defence modus vivendi between the Grits and Tories.

For good or ill, the Canadian future is American

Just as for the U.S. security trumps trade, geography trumps everything else. No matter what Canadians think today about the United States, Canada is not about to become an island. For good or ill, the Canadian future is American.

Did Harper yet again snooker Dion on Afghanistan?

Canadian policy on the war is now 'necessarily not Kandahar, but anywhere else in Afghanistan if necessary': Granatstein