A pair of Russian bombers intercepted by Canadian fighters 120 nautical miles from Canadian airspace Tuesday heated up debate over the $16-billion purchase of Lockheed-Martin F-35 stealth jets.

While the incident provided Prime Minister Stephen Harper a chance to plug the 65 new war planes, Yukon MP Larry Bagnell went on the attack, criticizing the purchase and accusing Harper of damaging relations with Russia.

A statement from the PMO issued Tuesday provided details of the aerial encounter between two CF-18 Hornets, scrambled from Cold Lake, Alta. to meet two Russian TU-95 Bears, that, "At their closest point ... were 30 nautical miles from Canadian soil.”

The Hornets shadowed the Russian bombers until they turned around, according to the statement.

It also lauded the CF-18s, adding, "That proud tradition will continue after (their retirement) as the new, highly capable and technologically advanced F-35 comes into service.”

"And when you are a pilot staring down Russian long range bombers, that's an important fact to remember.”

According to NORAD – a joint U.S./Canadian military organization responsible for defending aerospace and maritime regions of both countries – Russian planes routinely probe Canadian airspace.

Such activity has ramped up since 2007 and last year there were 16 similar incidents; however, the TU-95s' proximity to Inuvik on Tuesday, where Harper's annual Arctic tour stopped in for a visit on Wednesday, was difficult to ignore.

But at a press conference Wednesday in Ottawa, where Bagnell, the Liberals' northern affairs critic, was expected to criticize the government's Arctic sovereignty policy during the PM's northern jaunt, the Yukon MP waded into what he believes was a trumped-up international incident.

"The Russian flights have been going on for a long time and then, all of a sudden, on a day when they needed a diversion, the prime minister and the Minister of Defence (Peter MacKay) created a caustic international relations uproar by chastising the Russians,” Bagnell told journalists assembled on Parliament Hill.

He also dismissed one reporter's suggestion that the flight-plan of the TU-95s was more than mere coincidence.

"When the military plan these flights, no matter what country they are in, it takes a lot of preparation and bureaucracy and administration, and they have a schedule set out to do these routine flights that Russia has been doing for years,” said Bagnell.

"Given that the prime minister didn't tell you (the media) even until recently exactly where he was going and when, hopefully the Russians didn't know.”

The race among Arctic nations to lay claim to offshore territory is currently on.

Canada is embroiled in disputes with Denmark (Hans Island) and the United States (Beaufort Sea) over land and offshore boundaries.

The U.S. also disputes Canada's claim to the fabled Northwest Passage – a web of waterways inside Canada's Arctic archipelago that could provide an alternate shipping route between Europe and Asia.

Adding to the drama in August 2007, the Russians planted a flag on the floor of the Arctic Ocean at the North Pole in attempts to bolster its claim to the region as Moscow insists the Arctic seabed and Siberia are connected by a continental shelf.

When Harper took office in 2006, he made Arctic sovereignty a key plank in his government's policy and has visited the Arctic each year since then.

But the prime minister's promises for a deep water port of Nanisivik, the site of a former zinc mine on Baffin Island in Nunavut, as well as three armed icebreakers to patrol Cana-dian Arctic waters, have yet to materialize.

Bagnell, on the other hand, wants the Conservative government to focus its sovereignty efforts less on military initiatives and more on improving the quality of life for northern residents – particularly addressing the high cost of living in such remote regions.

Harper's northern tour will end in Whitehorse, where his plane was to land this afternoon.

The prime minister is scheduled to attend a reception organized by the Yukon Conservative Association at 5:00 this afternoon at the High Country Inn.

Tomorrow, he is expected to make an announcement, but further details were unavailable at press time this afternoon.