Now is not the time for isolationism. Avoiding the necessity of spending on our military, and failing to see how our enemies are interconnected and thus must be countered on all fronts will only leave us more at risk, more vulnerable, and ironically force us to spend even more in a desperate attempt to catch up to reality.
Canada’s national defense policy can best be summed up as ‘hope all the bad things go away.’
While politicians like Justin Trudeau, Melanie Joly, and Jagmeet Singh are the best ‘exemplars’ of our dangerously naive defense posture, the sad reality is that many Canadians also feel the same.
According to a recent poll, most Canadians still believe Canada should support Ukraine. However, that support appears to be waning among Conservative voters.
This matches a similar trend in the United States, where a combination of concerns regarding overall government spending, and relentless Russian propaganda narratives seeking to exploit ‘culture war’ issues has managed to split the right-wing between Ukraine supporters and those who think Russia should have free reign to conquer territory in Europe.
Even worse, there isn’t even a split at all among much of the left when it comes to Israel’s fight for survival against genocidal Hamas terrorists. Much of the left openly supports Hamas, and – at best – are unwilling to denounce Hamas, instead focusing their ire on Israel – a democratic state that is the only country in the Middle East that defends Western values like individual freedom, LGBT rights, women’s rights, and religious tolerance.
And of course, we can’t forget about China. China is rapidly expanding their military, and through apps like TikTok and through outright interference in Canadian elections, has managed to slow Western efforts to confront the rising danger of the CCP. Here in Canada, the CCP has a pliant Canadian PM in Justin Trudeau.
There’s also Iran. The Iranian-controlled Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has been a key funder of vile Hamas terrorists, and is a key source of funding and support for terrorism around the world. Yet, despite freedom-loving Iranian Canadians repeatedly explaining how much of a threat the IRGC poses, the Trudeau government still shamefully refuses to list them as a terrorist organization.
Of course, all of these threats are connected.
China is a key source of technology and wealth for Russia and Iran, as well as North Korea.
Russia provides direct support to Iran.
Iran provides direct support to Hamas.
Hamas officials recently visited Russia and thanked Russia for their support – something which has generated significant outrage in Israel.
North Korea – a regime that only remains in power because of China’s assistance – just sent 1 million artillery shells to Russia which Russia is now using to kill Ukrainians.
And so, we cannot pick and choose who we confront here. If we want to stand up for freedom, we must confront all of these threats.
However, you’ll notice that this has become incredibly difficult due to our internal divisions. And this is no coincidence.
At every key moment when the West needs to act, there is always one faction that stands in the way, and this is exactly how our enemies intend it.
For example, Canada should be standing unequivocally behind Israel. But propaganda pushed by Hamas, Iran, Russia, and China – often through TikTok – has poisoned the minds of many Canadians, and – since Justin Trudeau is such a pathetic coward – has led the Canadian government to ‘both sides’ the issue, while the NDP stands fully behind a ceasefire that would punish Israel and benefit Hamas.
On China, the Liberal government has long been completely unwilling to confront the influence of the CCP, and had to be dragged kicking and screaming into a public inquiry – after having a long time to destroy any relevant documents.
On Russia, the aforementioned culture war propaganda and exploitation of concerns around government spending has held up U.S. aid to Ukraine, and risks generating a further political divide in Canada.
On Iran, the Liberals – likely due to lobbying and propaganda from the Iranian regime – are still unwilling to list the IRGC as a terrorist organization, thus enabling IRGC proxies to continue to make money in Canada – money that is often sent to Hamas.
The tragic irony is that while our political factions fight amongst ourselves, our enemies are working together to reshape the global order in a way that would make all of our lives far worse.
On top of all of this, financially-strapped Canadians understandably just want the world to be peaceful, and want some economic relief, which is surely fueling some of the isolationist sentiment both on the left and the right.
What must be done?
Unfortunately, this is not a time for isolationism.
We cannot avoid the world’s problems forever. If Russia, Iran, China, and their proxies prevail, we will all be put at significant risk, our economies will collapse, and any concerns we have now about inflation and the cost-of-living will pale in comparison to the absolute disaster to follow. Further, if Russia wins in Ukraine, if Iran dominates the Middle East, and if China takes Taiwan and is able to impose their will militarily around the world, we will be drawn into a massive global war as the authoritarian states will keep pushing for more.
Given that our military has been underfunded for decades and is now in a state of collapse, this means that a refusal to massively rebuild our forces immediately will leave us in a desperate state if there is a global conflict.
And so, we must take immediate action.
And we must be clear about what this entails.
We need to freeze non-defence spending to make room for at least $25 billion more per year in military spending – which would just barely bring us to the 2.0% NATO target.
We need to unleash our energy sector – by repealing tons of misguided Liberal ‘environmental policies’ and sell more oil and LNG to our democratic allies, helping them reduce dependence on Russia and Iran and making our own nation richer – enabling us to afford the necessary defence build up.
We need to continue providing military equipment and financial support to Ukraine. The fact that Ukraine is now in a stalemate with Russia isn’t an argument for reducing support, it’s an argument for continuing to support Ukraine. The idea that people in the West – who aren’t even on the ground fighting in Ukraine – are ‘tired’ of the war represents the kind of weakness that is being exploited by hostile regimes like Russia and China.
We need to further cut our ties to China, and we must curtail China’s influence in our country. A key step in that direction would be to ban TikTok.
We need to list the IRGC as a terrorist organization, and make it a criminal offence to carry a Hamas flag or chant a Hamas slogan on the streets of our cities. There must be zero tolerance for Anti-Semitism. We didn’t beat the Nazis at great cost in the 1940’s only to import and coddle vile anti-Semitic attitudes in the modern era.
And most importantly of all, we need to recognize that the world has changed. We are in a New Cold War, whether we like it or not. Our own personal preference as to the state of the world simply doesn’t matter. What matters is that we face a clear choice: Accept the reality of the world and prepare for it, or bury our heads in the sand only to forced to accept the reality of the world in a much more vulnerable and desperate position.
Whether Canadians are ready to accept this or not will determine what choice we make.
Spencer Fernando
