The NATO 75th Anniversary Summit in Washington, July 9, 2024/NATO

By Colin Robertson

September 3, 2024

To preserve our prosperity and our place as a useful nation, Canadian governments must re-invest in defence. Trade with the United States generates over a third of our GDP. Devoting at least 2 percent of GDP to our nation’s defence with the focus on Arctic sovereignty is a no-brainer.

Securing protection under the American umbrella in the early years of World War II was arguably our most significant foreign policy achievement, as it removed the spectre of another U.S. invasion, the threat that had helped bring about Confederation. Instead, we achieved both protection through the U.S. security blanket and preferential access to the U.S. market, including a joint defence arrangement that codified production sharing to benefit Canadian industry.

• Also from Colin Robertson, NATO at 75: The Alliance Endures

This partnership encouraged the evolution of joint projects such as the Alaska Highway and the St. Lawrence Seaway and integrated supply chains institutionalized through the Canada-United States Automotive Products Agreement (Auto Pact), Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and now the Canada-US-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA).

Fixing our situation will require a national security strategy that has the support of our major parties and buy-in from provincial governments, because our long-term financial commitments must transcend changes in governments.

The plan should incorporate the following elements:

• Define the threats and opportunities, set priorities and develop an Arctic Strategy – the blueprint of what, why, when, how and how much. Without the kind of extraordinary financial and political commitment that we only see in wartime, Canada cannot simultaneously achieve NORAD modernization, assist with NATO and be a partner in the Indo-Pacific.
• Increase the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) from 100,000 to 150,000. We need capacity and readiness for deterrence and to deal with civil and humanitarian needs. Doing more with less doesn’t work. One lesson of Ukraine is that the depth and mass of forces matter. Make recruitment and retention a government priority and recognize that diversity in the future CAF must also include geeks as well as warriors to meet the challenges of future warfare. We should also look at some form of civil defence force and explore our allies’ experience with national service.
• A new relationship with industry, including a rethink of how we use government agencies such as the Canadian Commercial Corporation, Export Development Canada and Business Development Bank. Our defence industries must have capacity and resilience if we are to take full advantage of our preferred access to U.S. military procurement opportunities. We need ongoing outreach from civilian, military and political leaders to remind Americans that this arrangement benefits U.S. national security interests.
• Fix procurement. Given the diversity of actors, a start would be creating a central point of bilateral oversight and coordination through the National Security Advisor. Given our deep and beneficial interoperability with U.S. Forces, buying what they buy makes a lot of sense. We can also pay forward on purchases, something we should be doing right now, given the billions of dollars lapsed annually by the Defence Department.
• Focus on technology as the future of warfare in an age of cyber, electronic and information warfare. A global surveillance and communications competition is underway, and Canada needs to find its niche. Data accumulation and then application using A.I. is the new currency. This requires new thinking about how we use data, including its accessibility and classification

Communicate immediate timelines so our allies and the public can see progress in Arctic sovereignty, NORAD renewal, border security, infrastructure security, and the importance of the North American economic zone. For now, our allies see us as comfortably complacent on defence and security, oblivious to the changed geopolitics. They perceive indecision, contradiction and no sense of urgency or recognition that we, too, have a border with Russia.

“While Canada sleeps” as one NATO ambassador put it, our allies prepare for the contingencies of future warfare while dealing with gray-zone conflict. Tired of our promises and preaching, they see our 2 percent announcement during the NATO 75th anniversary summit in Washington for what it is: improvised damage control with no real commitment.

None of this serves our interests, especially as we seek to diversify and increase our trade while securing our preferential U.S. access in a campaign that fails to put front and center the U.S. concern with security and defense. If we continue to drift and coast, then it is no wonder that we are not invited to top-table discussions by our allies.

For Canada’s relations with the US, security and trade have always gone hand in hand. Recent governments have forgotten the first part of this contract.

While the tone might be gentler under a Harris administration than a second Trump administration, the U.S. expects more from Canada regarding defence: more capacity, readiness, and political willingness.

What the United States wants from Canada is a reliable ally, a partner that pulls its weight in collective security, especially in continental defence through North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) modernization.

For Canada’s relations with the US, security and trade have always gone hand in hand. Recent governments have forgotten the first part of this contract.

The late FTA chief negotiator Simon Reisman once told me that Canada’s assumption of the lead role in the United Nations Cyprus peacekeeping mission in 1964 at the request of the Johnson administration helped birth the Auto Pact in 1965. Former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt once told Pierre Trudeau: “No tanks, no trade,” meaning if we cut our NATO deployment, we could kiss goodbye any preferential trade when Trudeau launched his trade diversification initiative involving the European Community and Japan.

Changed geopolitics require a renewed linkage between trade access and defence spending, especially with the CUSMA review looming. This is how relationships work and have always worked. Thinking and acting otherwise is naïve and leaves us vulnerable.

This article is drawn from a forthcoming paper prepared for the Expert Group on Canada-U.S. Relations. Contributing Writer Colin Robertson, a former career diplomat, is a fellow and host of the Global Exchange podcast with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute in Ottawa.