Open letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper:
On the event of the discovery of one of the ships from the Franklin expedition, one pending shipwreck has found another. Be careful what you wish for, prime minister.
The undoing of Franklin was his arrogance to the environment. His expedition, its failure and loss 167 years ago, has always been a classic example of the Old World man’s utter dependence on technology that could not overcome nor conquer the Arctic.
Mr. Harper, you need to heed the warning and the ghosts that haunt that wreck when it comes to your aspirations for the Arctic. Your focus on military might and non-renewable resource extraction is a perilous path and a doomed journey like Franklin’s.
Instead of dying of lead poisoning, hypothermia and starvation, your agenda will be destroyed by climate change (September snowstorm in your constituency), military overspending, and the bitter anger our children will have with the legacy you are creating. A Robber Baron’s legacy.
We in the North want to remind you and your associates, that if you want to use the discovery of Franklin’s ship as proof of Canadian sovereignty over the Northwest Passage, you need to start listening to the people of the North, the Inuit, Dene, Inuvialuit and First Nations. Franklin certainly didn’t.
The people of the orth tried to help Franklin, but he died, holding onto old ideas, racism and elitism. You, Mr. Harper, your shipwreck will be the next election, the Senate scandal and associated corruption, tar sands expansion, your disdain for murdered and missing First Nation women and the mounting costs of building our economy on a non-renewable, polluting and toxic energy supply.
Look carefully at that wreck, Mr. Harper, and see your future if you don’t start investing in renewable energy, get serious about electoral reform, and restore public faith in our regulatory processes.
This week, in Whitehorse, we had parliamentarians from across the circumpolar North, and they were stunned at Canada and the Yukon government’s blindness to the dangers of fracking, the muzzling of scientists, and the almost delusional desire to exploit oil and gas development in the Canadian North when catastrophic climate change events are happening daily.
It is well understood by northern people that Franklin’s folly was that he didn’t heed the Inuit. Your arrogance has been built on a false majority and election fraud, and you will learn as Franklin did, that when it comes to the Arctic, violence, greed and disrespect only give you a cold and lonely grave.
Sally Wright
Kluane Lake