A harsher world demands a more resilient Canada.
Canadians are waking up to a much harsher world than we imagined.
Russia and China are eying the Arctic, and perhaps the United States as well.
Our security guarantee from the United States is now unreliable, potentially leaving us open to attack.
Our economy faces seemingly endless investment-wrecking uncertainty amid ongoing tariff threats from our southern neighbour.
Our allies seem unwilling to speak out in defence of our sovereignty:
This isn’t the world we expected to find ourselves in, and it’s not the world we wanted. But it’s the world we’ve got, and navigating it effectively requires accepting four difficult truths.
Here they are:
1 – Nobody is coming to save us
Many Canadians are hoping somebody else will come to our rescue. Some hope it will be the United Kingdom, others hope it will be the European Union. Some hope the Democrats in the United States or moderate Republicans will help.
While it remains important to reach out to all of those nations, alliances, and political factions and deepen as many friendships as we can, we cannot assume they will ‘save Canada.’
The United Kingdom is focused on the United Kingdom. The European Union is focused on the European Union. The Democrats are out of power and trying to recover. Moderate Republicans are scared of angering Trump.
They have their own problems right now, and Canada’s sovereignty is not at the top of their list.
If Canada shows resilience and courage, we may inspire others and we may ultimately encourage friendly nations to stand with us. But we can’t bet everything on that happening.
If we are to save our position as a sovereign country, we will need to save ourselves.
2 – Raw military power matters
Our country has been at peace for so long that many Canadians are deeply uncomfortable thinking about raw military power.
Many of us like to believe that ‘convening power’ and treaties will protect us, and that we can thus avoid the need for a powerful standing military.
Unfortunately, all it takes is one leader or political faction to abrogate a treaty for it to become worthless.
After all, Ukraine had security guarantees from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Russia, guarantees Ukraine received in return for giving up nearly 2,000 nuclear warheads, including 176 ICBMs, and 44 strategic bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons.
Those guarantees ended up being worthless.
To add to the injustice, some of the bombers Ukraine gave to Russia have been used by Russia to attack Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February of 2022.
Ukraine gave up raw military power in return for security guarantees. Then, that raw military power was used against them. And now, some of the countries that failed to honour their security guarantees seek to extort further concessions from Ukraine.
The broad lesson?
Don’t give up raw military strength if you have it.
For Canada, the lesson is that you are vulnerable unless you have raw military strength. Even the treaties we thought we could rely on were built on a foundation of military power – just not ours.
Again, many Canadians struggle with this. It just seems too ‘harsh’ to imagine that we need to spend many billions of dollars designing and building weapons meant to kill other human beings and then put those weapons into the hands of well-trained citizens to dissuade others from wanting to kill us.
Unfortunately, that’s the reality we face, and we must adapt to it.
This is a dangerous world, and military power is a must to ensure our sovereignty.
3 – Our resource wealth will be used, either by us or by others
It would be foolish for Canada to put all our eggs in the resource extraction & export basket. After all, the long-term prosperity of a nation depends in large part on investing in education, infrastructure, and research & development.
However, it would be just as foolish to artificially constrain our natural resource sector through overregulation and ideological anti-development policies.
As we’re learning, this is more than just an economic issue, it’s also a national security issue.
Other nations – including some we consider allies – are casting a greedy eye on our natural resources.
If we don’t use those resources, others will.
And they may take them by force, if we don’t make the mental shifts discussed earlier.
Accepting that nobody is coming to save us and accepting that we need raw military power also means recognizing the importance of using our natural resources.
The more we can maximize our resource wealth – whether through internal trade fueling Canadian manufacturing and bringing down energy costs or through profiting through exports – the more money we have to invest in the military research and military production that can lead to long-term deterrence and security for our country.
When it comes to our natural resources, our attitude must be ‘use it or lose it.’
4 – Preserving Canada’s sovereignty will require ideological flexibility
One of the biggest mental roadblocks we face right now as Canadians is the fact that many of us are still looking for easy and ideologically satisfying fixes to our vulnerability.
Some on the left think massive government intervention is all that we need.
Some on the right think tax cuts will fix it all.
But the reality is that people across the political spectrum are going to have to accept some ideological flexibility if Canada is to get through this difficult moment.
Those on the left will have to make concessions when it comes to climate policy and pipelines. Canada needs to build pipelines, and we need to build pipelines now. We can’t afford to push billions of dollars worth of energy sector projects to the US, but that’s what will happen if we continue down the ‘net-zero’ path.
Those on the pacifist left will have to concede on militarization, as Canada needs to become a much more militarized country if we are to ensure our ongoing sovereignty.
However, those on the right will have to make concessions as well.
Building pipelines now and building up our military will require bypassing the procurement process and using emergency legislation to override impediments to pipeline construction.
That means significant government intervention and the use of centralized authority.
It also means a lot of spending, so those on the right who value balanced budgets and decentralization aren’t going to get what they want in the short-term.
Those on the left will have to compromise on patriotism. Canada can no longer afford to demonize our history, nor can we afford to cover up our monuments. We need to be proud of the country we have built. At the same time, some on the right will have to accept that Canadian patriotism includes venerating some ‘progressive’ aspects of our history like universal healthcare and progressive stances on human rights.
Neither ‘side’ of the political debate is going to get everything they want.
Accepting these difficult truths will not be easy. Many people are understandably feeling a sense of grief as we watch the world we thought we knew slip away. But discomfort and grief must be transformed into adaptation and resolve.
As former Prime Minister Stephen Harper said, Canada must be prepared to accept “any level of damage to preserve the independence of the country.” With those strong words in mind, adopting a tougher and more realistic mindset is a small price to pay to help ensure Canada survives.
Spencer Fernando
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