Trudeau fiddles while Canada-U.S. relations burn
Canadians stood on their own feet and paid their own way during World War Two
The story of Emperor Nero playing the lute while Rome burned has become a symbolic narrative for indecisive, out of touch leadership.
It came back to me this week when the news broke that Vladimir Putin had launched a hypersonic ballistic missile against Ukraine, the same day that Justin Trudeau committed to a two-month GST break on toys, groceries and alcohol.
Putin said the regional conflict in Ukraine “has assumed elements of a global nature” - confirming what we have all known since he launched his invasion of Ukraine, that the authoritarian axis of Russia, Iran, North Korea and China represents a single global threat.
The war in Ukraine is at its most dangerous stage, yet the priority for the Liberal government is offering superficial palliatives like cheaper Christmas trees.
Canada’s role as an undependable ally has been noticed by the Republicans in Washington, with all the attendant negative consequences that are likely to flow from that.
The most recent comments about Ottawa’s paltry defence spending have come from the head of the U.S. delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Montreal, Republican congressman Mike Turner, who called Canada “a bystander….freeloading on the back of the American taxpayer”.
“If everyone had the policies of Trudeau, there would be no NATO,” he told Politico.
But the reason I bring it up is not to rehash the inadequacies of a defence plan that envisages that Canada may, somehow, get to the NATO spending target of 2 percent of GDP eight years hence.
Rather, it is to point out that this country was not always a free-rider and that when Harry Truman became president in 1945, he was briefed by the State Department that “Canada has developed during the war years into a nation of importance”.
Indeed it was. As historian Tim Cook makes clear in his new book: The Good Allies, Canada became a stalwart U.S. partner during that conflict, securing the vulnerable frontiers of North America, which allowed military action to unfold overseas.
Cook quotes a U.S. army planner who said a fundamental objective of American defence policy was to fashion an outer frontier that would avoid the need to fight war on American soil.
Canada had the same strategic goal and the two countries worked together to fortify and shield the homelands.
“(U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt) was mindful that it was in the interests of the United States to have a strong friend on the northern border,” Cook writes.
Canada performed that role …and more. On the East Coast, the Canadian navy and airforce tackled the German U-boat threat, leading convoys across the Atlantic. On the West Coast, Canada strengthened its coastline defences and accommodated the Americans in building the Alaska Highway.
By 1943, the continent was secure from attack, allowing the Canadians and Americans to take their cooperation overseas to fight in Sicily and mainland Italy.
Canada was “reliable in a period of unremitting strain”, Cook writes. By 1945, it was the world’s fourth leading industrial power and the second greatest creditor nation on earth, behind only the U.S.
Its food saved millions, its aluminum was essential for allied aircraft production, its hydro-electricity helped power American industry and its uranium was used in the development of atomic weapons.
Yet, as Cook notes, on both sides of the border, the Second World War alliance has faded from memory.
“If history is not presented, taught and told it will eventually wither away,” he says.
Canadians need to be reminded that their country was a world power; that it did stand on its own feet and it did pay its own way.
Canada was a good ally in the defence of democracy, and it can be again.
But that requires its citizens to demand more from their leaders than the bread and circuses that are meant to distract them from an existential threat to their way of life.
The congressman is correct. JT is likely a closet PET (his dad) who would have cheerfully pulled Canada out of NATO completely instead of being persuaded by his Cabinet to simply cut our direct expenditures to NATO by ⅔.
Most of us who have done any service in the Canadian Armed Forces, at least before it became consumed by DEI nonsense etc., know that Canada punched far above its weight in both world wars. Beyond or overall contributions as a nation, particularly in WW2, our troops in both wars were considered fearless and formidable. Post WW2 Canada had one of the strongest naval fleets in the world and were indeed an important factor on the world stage. Unfortunately, successive governments, both Liberal and Conservative were largely responsible for changing that. I would still lay a considerable amount of blame for the downward spiral of the CAF at the feet of the senior Trudeau who's contempt for the CAF was only matched by his neglect. It should also be noted that save for Diefenbaker, Canada was ruled by Liberals for a period of 30 years, until Mulroney became PM in 1984. Having said that I give the Conservatives little more credit for their attention to defence, as I don't believe Canada has ever lived up to making the 2 percent contribution to NATO.