Peter Menzies: Canada’s Descent Into Military Penury and Ungrateful Freeloading Is a Disgrace

Commentary

Flying low over the desert at night, their helicopters’ lights out, U.S. Navy Seals zipped in and out of Khartoum on April 23 to safely extricate its diplomats from a country on the edge of destruction.

The United Kingdom pulled off a similar operation, while countries such as France, Germany, Spain, and Italy have also worked to evacuate their people safely from the capital of Sudan, where government troops are under attack from paramilitary insurgents.

Hitching a ride with the Seals were six Canadian diplomats. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced via Twitter only that “our diplomats are safe—they have been extracted” and that the country’s military is “planning for various contingencies with partners.”

He did not say thank you/merci America. Which, I’m guessing, most Americans would find really irritating. Were I an American I’d be sick and frickin’ tired of having to cover the costs of a country more than ready to righteously lecture the world on  diversity, inclusion, intersectional equity, climate emergencies, systemic racism, and patriarchal oppression, but too intellectually and financially lazy to properly defend itself and its people.

I’d find it alarming that a country with whom the USA shares its longest border has admitted that when it comes to carrying its military weight as a NATO partner, America can just forget about it. Not gonna happen. We ain’t gonna do it. Just not interested.

According to leaked documents obtained by the Washington Post, Trudeau has “told NATO officials privately that Canada will never meet the military alliance’s defence-spending target,” which is 2 percent of GDP—something Canada last agreed to in 2014 and which will be discussed again in July. NATO estimates Canada’s current contribution rate at 1.29 percent. While the report couldn’t confirm this was the case, the leaked document contained dates that indicate Trudeau’s remarks were recent and could have been made in conversation with U.S. President Joe Biden during his visit to Ottawa in March.

For context, only seven out of NATO’s 30 members have met or exceeded the 2 percent target (the U.S. spends 3.57 percent), but when it comes to military loafing, only Spain (about the size of the Yukon), Luxembourg, Slovenia, and Belgium (which would all fit comfortably inside half of Nova Scotia) are more half-hearted in their efforts than the Great White North.

We haven’t fulfilled our NATO promise to bolster our deployment in Latvia, and in Poland, where Canadians are training Ukrainian soldiers, Trudeau’s government has failed to properly reimburse its own soldiers, who are forced to buy their own meals. Even Turkey is worried about us.

We supply tanks to Ukraine almost one at a time because nearly all of ours have been insufficiently maintained and aren’t operational.

We said no to Biden’s request to send troops to restore order in Haiti.

We had to depend on the U.S. Air Force to shoot down a mysterious weather balloon over the Yukon because our “scramble” was delayed for an hour due to icy conditions (something you’d think Canadians would be prepared for).

Our submarine fleet is diesel and essentially non-functional due to maintenance issues, and we really have no idea what’s going on under the Arctic ice.

Our political and media cultures are so oblivious to our military shortcomings that years ago when President Obama told the House of Commons—in clear reference to our military idleness—that the “world needs more Canada,” we took it as a dreamy compliment when what he was really trying to do was get us off our lazy backsides.

We are preoccupied with sexual misconduct complaints throughout our military, which is described in government reports as a hotbed of institutional racism and a haven for extremists. Trudeau has indicated its leadership’s priorities need to involve a focus on building a culture of inclusion.

We are still pondering whether to ban Roman Catholic priests from serving as military chaplains because their very presence might make female and LGBTQ2 soldiers feel unsafe.

Puzzled as to what could possibly be the cause, the Canadian Armed Forces recently launched a “public consultation” to discover why it is 10,000 soldiers shy of its basic complement and is having difficulty with recruitment.

Little wonder then that any time danger threatens, we have no choice but to resort to diplomatic hitch-hiking in the hope our allies will say yes when we have to ask, “Hey buddy, can you give a pal a lift?”

For its first 100 years, Canada was a nation with a proud military reputation, punching well above its weight. In the mid-20th century it had the world’s sixth-largest navy—which kind of makes sense when you have the longest coastline in the world.

Canada’s descent into military penury and ungrateful freeloading began under Pierre Trudeau’s government in the 1960s. Since then, it’s had its moments of impact in the (first) Gulf War, Bosnia, and Afghanistan, but it’s looking very much as if Trudeau 2.0 is quite prepared to finish the job his father started.

Americans—and everyone else—have every right to laugh us off the world stage.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.