Prime Minister Stephen Harper's recent jaunt around the Arctic has all the hallmarks of cheap political theatre.

Photos with smiling schoolchildren and a roguish joyride on an ATV make for easy and favourable media coverage.

But it's unfair to simply dismiss the trip, which is now an annual event for the prime minister. Gestures are important in politics, and having our elected leader show his face in the Far North reminds our neighbours that we are paying attention up there. This is worth doing.

What was missing from the trip, though, was an acknowledgement of why it is so important.

It isn't because the Russians flew some routine reconnaissance flights nearby just after Ottawa announced an expensive new fighter jet purchase, and it isn't because a few dozen shivering Danish tourists recently trudged around a disputed patch of rock called Hans Island.

It's important because the Arctic is going to look radically different very soon.

Large-scale international shipping and resource extraction will be arriving there within a few years as the ice retreats.

It's vital that we assert our right to impose our standards, particularly environmental ones, on these activities when that happens.

It is the failure of successive governments to face up to climate change science that is driving this change.

Canada is far from the only culprit, but we haven't been part of the solution either.

It's absolutely right for Harper to have his picture taken in the Arctic, but by rights he should be kissing babies in front of the Alberta oil sands as well.