A lack of military spending has contributed to Canada’s economic vulnerabilities. We have it within our power to change this, but it won’t be cheap.
With Canadians absorbing the news of Stellantis shifting Jeep Compass production from Brampton to Illinois, the reaction from most of our leaders is centred around demanding the company live up to its commitments to Canadian workers.
Ultimately, this is little more than begging from a position of weakness. Stellantis has far more to lose by angering the U.S. government than by angering Canadian federal and provincial leaders (I wrote here about why it’s naive to depend on U.S. companies to protect Canadian jobs).
We are in a new world now, a world of ruthless protectionism and crony capitalism/state socialism in the United States. While it’s obviously unfair and counterproductive (more trustworthy trading relationships and free trade would be better), that doesn’t change the reality.
As a result, we need to find new ways to protect Canadian jobs and industrial capacity while simultaneously making Canada a stronger and less vulnerable nation. And as I’ve often noted, the best way to do this is a large military buildup.
The rise of autonomous warfare creates new opportunities for military mass production. Rather than a few highly advanced and highly expensive weapon systems, we need to mass-produce a large number of systems. We need to be mass-producing ground-based autonomous vehicles, air defence systems, small arms, artillery shells, infantry fighting vehicles, light armoured vehicles, drones, drone interceptors, and more. These systems can all be produced in Canada, as – in many cases – they are not that complicated compared to systems like the F-35 or modern main battle tanks that still have their production concentrated in a few areas.
Given the relative low per-unit cost and low complexity of these systems, building a large Canadian defence industrial base is eminently achievable and can be done quickly. But it will still be expensive, because we are starting almost from scratch. This means an initial investment of tens of billions of dollars to inject capital into Canadian drone manufacturers, stand up new factories, and train/retrain workers (many autoworkers at risk of losing their jobs have skills that can translate into military production far easier than training someone without such experience).
But that initial investment only needs to be made once. Once it is done, later investments will be more about readjusting production and making smaller changes, meaning a smaller cost. And the benefits in terms of job creation, economic growth, resilience (Canadian-owned defence companies getting government contracts to produce Canadian weapons will keep jobs in Canada), and research and development will make Canada stronger in the long term.
The question now is whether we have the foresight to make this investment in economic strength, sovereignty, and resilience, or whether we once again kick the can down the road and leave our country undefended and vulnerable to the whims of other nations.
Spencer Fernando
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