You just need to look at our immigration trend to understand why defence is going down the drain. Many of them are just citizens of convenience milking our social benefits for themselves and their extended families. Then there is the sizeable native born socialist portion of the population that is content to let the US do all the heavy lifting while at the same time bitching about Canadian sovereignty issues.
Perhaps some serious moves by Putin in the Arctic could change attitudes but I doubt it. Even so it would take a couple of decades to improve. I guess the interesting comparison would be what Australian defence capabilities would look like if it were attached to a superpower? I'm guessing a lot more capable than Canada!
I'm going to go off a bit here, because I find Canada a bit frustrating.
Australia is probably a bit stricter than Canada when it comes to immigration. But I think Canada, politically left and right are in a bit of a reality bubble when it comes to world affairs even more than the US. Australia too has its left wingers, its socialists, even its greens. But all of them (bar the Greens) are in less of a make believe bubble than even the most hawkish Canadian politician I've seen.
While direct existential threats can motivate spending. That is still a very short sighted view. The physical defence of Canada is unlikely to be required.Even in this case, Canada has a case of the (strategic view of) Europe, I doubt Russia invading Greenland would even get Canada to beige alert.
Its more about expeditionary action inline with a national policy to secure your countries regional global interests and global values.That same situation affects Canada just as much as it does Australia. As a larger and slightly richer nation, Canada should bear more of that global burden than Australia.
- Vancouver is closer to Beijing than Canberra or Sydney.
- Toronto is closer to Yemen than Canberra.
- Arguably the crisis in Syria is going to affect Canada more than it is going to affect Australia.
While Australia is ascending to be a globally engaged, globally capable, trans-regional power, Canada is descending into irrelevance as an non-independent power even at the regional level. As a region I would put South America as much as Canada's leadership role as the US's. While its easy to argue that the US is closer, the US is located in the Pacific Islands as well (America Samoa) yet through most of the Pacific Islands Australia and NZ have acted to keep the US from interfering by leading operations and interventions.
While 2% is a meaningless economic target, Canada spending 2% of its GDP on knitwear is not going to make the world a safer place, the target would allow real capability and is easily achievable, without compromising social programs and services in a major way. Australia generally outranks Canada in terms of life expectancy, healthcare, education, Human Development indexes, etc.
Imagine if Canada could surge an Amphibious ready group of over 5,000 and be able to deploy globally and sustain them without US assistance. Imagine if Canada operated 18 Aegis type ships (5 AWD's and a plan for 13 frigates) and had 9 x 4000t submarines in the water today but was underway for a program to build 18 x 5000t. That is what an attempt of spending 2% might look like.
Do you think Japan would seek closer ties with Canada as a reliable ally and as a counter balance to China?
Could not Canada lead a multinational mission globally with that sort of capability, independent of US policy?
Would Canada then be able to shift global events simply by showing diplomatic support?
Could not Canada then play a role in dealing with Russia directly?
Canada should have a force ~45% greater than Australia's, either in capability or in number. Australia doesn't even spend 2% currently, its something we hope to get to in the future.
But even greater possibilities would exist for Canada and Australia and others to lead and write their own global peace. The US would be part of that plan (as would the UK, and many others), but in a different way. A partnership of concerned and capable equals. Not of equal size, but of equal capability range. They would each have greater input on each others operations.
I think its more about Canada's location to europe than Canada's location to the US. As Canada is acting much more like europe than acting like the US.
But instead we have a world where Australia is building an Icebreaker twice as large as Canada's largest.
Its not just about the military. Its about global awareness.
Australia is 2700km away from the US at its closest point and the US president still thinks Australia has strong armed them into bad deals. I imagine if we were any closer the US would be restrained completely under Australian oppression.
Australia is not more at risk than Canada is. China isn't going to invade. Nobody in Australia is facing an existential threat. We could quite possible close up shop and live happy in our large corner of the planet. Arguably that is what Australia did from the early 1980's to the mid 1990's (bar annoying countries with our subs). GDP spending dropped.
Then we realise we didn't like not having a say on anything that was happening, particularly on our doorstep (which goes from the coast of India, through SEA, across to Hawaii and to the south Pole). We also didn't agree with some of the US's views on inaction.
That is what Canada needs. A shake up of its world view and serious disagreement with the US about action or intervention, somewhere.
