The Golden Dome is where Canada's F-35 debate and Trump's Greenland threat meet

It's not much of a stretch to say that in terms of Canada-U.S. relations, we are — metaphorically speaking — at the point where we'd prefer to shoot the messenger, rather than listen to the message.

In the view of some experts, the political and economic discourse is so distorted, so angry, so mashed up that important points of strategic and defence policy that would have been mundane — even eye-glazing — less than a decade ago are lighting enormous rhetorical and political fires.

James Fergusson, one of Canada's leading experts on the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) and missile defence, has watched with dismay the seemingly never-ending drama surrounding Canada's F-35 purchase and, lately, U.S. President Donald Trump's obsessive "need" to annex Greenland for Arctic security purposes.

What is poorly understood and often drowned out is how those two policy issues intersect on the road to Trump's Golden Dome missile defence plan.

The latest case in point: the reaction to U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra's comments, last week to CBC News, that, if Canada buys fewer F-35s, the U.S. will have to buy more and fly into Canadian airspace to keep NORAD propped up.

A statement from the U.S. State Department, following the publication of the interview, said his "comments were taken out of context to create headlines rather than to objectively portray his comments about the role that NORAD and the F-35 play in protecting North America."

Taking aside the fact that American fighter jets routinely fly over Canada in defence of the continent, the remarks were received as just another tone deaf attempt to bully Canada into proceeding with the full F-35 order of 88 jets, which the federal government committed to more than three years ago.

Context does matter.

Had Hoekstra's remarks not been made on the tail end of the jaw-dropping fight over Trump's demands to annex Greenland, the deposing of Venezuela's president and even the shootings by federal agents in Minnesota, it's unlikely the point he was trying to make would have exploded in the same manner.

Fergusson said the debate, particularly over the F-35, is no longer being driven by sensible defence policy or even military necessity.

"It's emotional, long-standing, but largely submerged anti-Americanism, irrational thinking, which is driven by images of Trump and beliefs about Trump, rather than a rational policy," said Fergusson, from the Centre for Defence and Security Studies and the University of Manitoba. 

"This is no way to run a national policy program with billions of dollars at stake and the defence of Canada."

Similarly, the outrageous notion that the U.S. could invade, or buy, Greenland from Denmark has overshadowed the very real policy concern that Arctic island is the potential weak spot in North American air defence.

"I think the U.S., through their analysis, has perhaps arrived at the conclusion that to have an efficient, effective missile defence capability for North America, that having assets, missile defence assets, in Greenland would be a good idea," said retired major-general Charles (Duff) Sullivan.