A new poll released today suggests that Canadians are most protective of the arctic

As compafed to the other boardering countries

http://m.ctv.ca/tech/20110125/arctic-poll-soverignty-110125.html#menu

CraigBurton 07:00, 25 January 2011 (PST)

It is important relative to other northern countries however it might be a good question to see how it ranks compared to other defense issues in Canada (technology, afghanistan, peace keeping in foreign countries (ex. Sudan), expenses etc...)

True, I agree with Stephen. While the Artic and it's soreignty might be an interesting inquery. It is too narrow of a scope to set our entire research/survey upon. It truly only bring into the interests of Russia, Norway, the USA (Alaska?) and a few others?

We could ask about the new fighter jets purchased by Harper's government and the need for those to show our strength as a nation with an army willing to protect itself. Obviously Russia is well-known for their military, and Canada, well not so much.

I also feel it would be interesting to note the correlation between those who feel strongly about protecting the arctic and their opinions on the fighter jets/military spending in general.

With regard to the Fighter Jet issue, its not an issue because we are buying fighter jets (the f35s were meant to replace the old f18s), its an issue because Harper decided to buy those specific jets without tendering out the contract to any other companies that could have built our jets. Perhaps we should ask how important sovereignty is to canadians versus issues such as health, education or social assistance.

This issue of expenditure is difficult to analyse over several different types of purchases (fighter jets, helicopters, trucks) and change depending on the nature of the conflict we are dealing with overseas (i.e. green camouflage for jungle operations/beige for desert) - I think military expenditure as part of GDP addresses a lot of the issues presented there. You guys can comment directly on the threat on that question - as per Ian, it addressed sovereignty with relation to all the other countries on the list. What better what to assert your sovereignty than spending more than other nations on your military?