Paul Martin's Bombastic Daydream

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2004/12/04/airport-security041204.html

More than 1,000 uniforms and parts of [airport security] uniforms were lost or stolen, and nearly 100 security badges went missing over a nine-month period, CBC News reported after uncovering documents from the federal agency responsible for making air travel safe.

[later in the story this comment]

International security expert Peter St. John, who has written a book on hijackings, told CBC Newsworld Saturday that news of the missing uniforms is not surprising.
"I suppose this information had to come out sooner or later, because all the standards are really being missed by this new agency," he said.

Contrast the above information with Prime Minister Paul Martin's December 2nd ringing statement, reacting to pressure from President George Bush to sign on to the Strategic Defence Initiative, that Canada is sovereign and his government is fully able to defend this country, thank you very much.

Well, even if I were unaware of the exhausted, undermanned, ill equipped, undertrained, completely delapidated condition of the Canadian Forces, I have to say that my confidence in the truth of the Prime Minister's statement is rather undermined by the fact that the federal Liberal government seems to be unable to defend even our airports in a minimally competent manner.

This is not a reasonable basis on which to assert the ability to defend the whole upper half of North America. Is there a connection here with the Liberal plan to decriminalize wacky tobaccy?