Let Neither Aliens Nor Australians Steal Our Potash

Some guy who believes aliens can help us stop global warming gives the prime minister economic advice. What's that? He used to be Canada's defence minister? No kidding.

The debate about the proposed takeover of Saskatchewan’s Potash Corp. by Australian mining company BHP Billition continues to rage. Potash Corp. started as a Crown corporation and is considered by many an untouchable economic treasure that should remain in Canadian hands. Investment Canada is set to announce tomorrow whether it will block the takeover, but already the argument has strained relations between the prime minister and Saskatchewan’s anti-takeover premier Brad Wall, and should Stephen Harper fail to block the sale, it could cost him seats in Saskatchewan. Today, the National Post’s Don Martin reports that Harper ruined his dinner by trying to discredit a column he wrote about Potash yesterday. Maybe the prime minister can take Martin out to the Keg to make up for it.

The debate over economic nationalism aside, in our view the most interesting thing in the Potash files today is this column in the Toronto Star by former defence minister Paul Hellyer. He argues against the takeover, saying that to “send the BHP Billiton predators packing would be a triumph of common sense,” that the history of foreign takeovers of Canadian companies is “a minefield of broken promises,” and that unbridled globalization is “like a zoo without cages. Only the most powerful of the species would survive.” All defensible points.

Now read Hellyer’s piece again after you read this one by the Post’s Matt Gurney, in which he recalls a speech Hellyer made at U of T in 2005 when he said “"UFOs, are as real as the airplanes that fly over your head,” and warned that George W. Bush’s plans to weaponize space could inadvertently start an intergalactic war with aliens. Hellyer’s calls for a “common sense” on Potash certainly take on a different tone when you hear him say he wants the government to release technology it’s recovered from alien crash sites because he believes it might be able to stop global warming.

So, the question du jour: believing in UFOs doesn’t disqualify you from being Canada’s defence minister or a Toronto Star columnist, apparently. Does it stop you from giving credible advice on economic policy?