Do Canadians really want to build up their military to meet US demands? Our tradition is to keep peace.?

Answer 1

Got this e-mail today. This is a good read - funny how it took someone in England to put it into words...

Sunday Telegraph Article
From today's UK wires: Salute to a brave and modest nation
Kevin Myers, The Sunday Telegraph

LONDON - Until the deaths last week of four Canadian soldiers accidentally killed by a U.S. warplane in Afghanistan, probably almost no one outside their home country had been aware that Canadian troops were deployed in the region. And as always, Canada will now bury its dead, just as the rest of the world as always will forget its sacrifice, just as it always forgets nearly everything Canada ever does.

It seems that Canada's historic mission is to come to the selfless aid both of its friends and of complete strangers, and then, once the crisis is over, to be well and truly ignored. Canada is the perpetual wallflower that stands on the edge of the hall, waiting for someone to come and ask her for a dance. A fire breaks out, she risks life and limb to rescue her fellow dance-goers, and suffers serious injuries. But when the hall is repaired and the dancing resumes, there is Canada, the wallflower still, while those she once helped glamorously cavort across the floor, blithely neglecting her yet again.

That is the price Canada pays for sharing the North American continent with the United States, and for being a selfless friend of Britain in two global conflicts. For much of the 20th century, Canada was torn in two different directions: It seemed to be a part of the old world, yet had an address in the new one, and that divided identity ensured that it never fully got the gratitude it deserved.

Yet its purely voluntary contribution to the cause of freedom in two world wars was perhaps the greatest of any democracy. Almost 10% of Canada's entire population of seven million people served in the armed forces during the First World War, and nearly 60,000 died. The great Allied victories of 1918 were spearheaded by Canadian troops, perhaps the most capable soldiers in the entire British order of battle.

Canada was repaid for its enormous sacrifice by downright neglect, its unique contribution to victory being absorbed into the popular Memory as somehow or other the work of the "British."

The Second World War provided a re-run. The Canadian navy began the war with a half dozen vessels, and ended up policing nearly half of the Atlantic against U-boat attack. More than 120 Canadian warships participated in the Normandy landings, during which 15,000 Canadian soldiers went ashore on D-Day alone. Canada finished the war with the third-largest navy and the fourth-largest air force in the world.

The world thanked Canada with the same sublime indifference as it had the previous time. Canadian participation in the war was acknowledged in film only if it was necessary to give an American actor a part in a campaign in which the United States had clearly not participated - a touching scrupulousness which, of ourse, Hollywood has since abandoned, as it has any notion of a separate Canadian identity.

So it is a general rule that actors and filmmakers arriving in Hollywood keep their nationality - unless, that is, they are Canadian. Thus Mary Pickford, Walter Huston, Donald Sutherland, Michael J. Fox, William Shatner, Norman Jewison, David Cronenberg, Alex Trebek, Art Linkletter and Dan Aykroyd have in the popular perception become American, and Christopher Plummer, British. It is as if, in the very act of becoming famous, a Canadian ceases to be Canadian, unless she is Margaret Atwood, who is as unshakably Canadian as a moose, or Celine Dion, for whom Canada has proved quite unable to find any takers.

Moreover, Canada is every bit as querulously alert to the achievements of its sons and daughters as the rest of the world is completely unaware of them. The Canadians proudly say of themselves - and are unheard by anyone else - that 1% of the world's population has provided 10% of the world's peacekeeping forces. Canadian soldiers in the past half century have been the greatest peacekeepers on Earth - in 39 missions on UN mandates, and six on non-UN peacekeeping duties, from Vietnam to East Timor, from Sinai to Bosnia.

Yet the only foreign engagement that has entered the popular on-Canadian imagination was the sorry affair in Somalia, in which out-of-control paratroopers murdered two Somali infiltrators. Their regiment was then disbanded in disgrace - a uniquely Canadian act of self-abasement for which, naturally, the Canadians received no international credit.

So who today in the United States knows about the stoic and selfless friendship its northern neighbour has given it in Afghanistan? Rather like Cyrano de Bergerac, Canada repeatedly does honourable things for honourable motives, but instead of being thanked for it, it remains something of a figure of fun.

It is the Canadian way, for which Canadians should be proud, yet such honour comes at a high cost. Recently four more grieving Canadian families knew that cost all too tragically well.

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Please pass this to any of your friends or relatives who served in the Canadian Forces, it is a wonderful tribute to those who choose to serve their country and the world in our quiet Canadian way.

Answer 2

First off, there is a false impression that has been going around that the Canadian Forces (CF) were meant to only do peace keeping - it is true that they have involved in many peace keeping ops around the world and they did quite a good job at it, but unfortunatly the World has changed and so has the demand in term of global security - hence the more denfesif ops.
Secondly, I don't think you can say we're trying to «meet US demands», but we're more like Upgrading the Armed forces. If you're Canadian, you'll remember the Liberal's Defense cuts back in the 90's...The guys and gals in the CF deeply needed new equipment, uniforms, vehicules and technology to be more efficient during operations. The recent engagements that the CF have undertaken prove that this upgrade was necessary.

Unfortunatly, with Emperor Harper now in charge in the House of Commons we have the impression that Stephen is trying to impress his best-bud George W. back in washington DC....well the truth is that he is, but I wouldn't say we're trying to meet any US demands. We're just doing something we should have started doing a long time ago.

Answer 3

I will here borrow the words of General Rick Hillier, the Canadian Chief of Defence Staff. "We are the Canadian Forces, not the Public Service. It's our job to go out and kill people."

Yes, it is a brutal message, one that will seem very anti-Canadian to your average peacenik and wannabe armchair general. But it is the truth. The Canadian Forces are trained to fight wars, not to be heavily armed cops. We train to operate under the most gruelling conditions against the most determined foes. But due to our international commitments, we need more bodies, more gear, more money.

Yes, the US like their allies to have lots of nifty shiny kit and lots of troops, because there is a fair amount of our military technology we get from State-side. It's just good economics, if you ask me. And it also means that it frees up US soldiers from other tasks so they can be otherwise employed.

As for having more gear and numbers, I am a Canadian soldier myself. My unit is the most heavily deployed in the Forces and we're starting to feel the strain. We are a small outfit, currently a little shy of 100 men and women, with only 40-some who deploy. And we currently send out over a dozen every 6 months. Our gear is starting to show that it wants to come home for maintenance, our people, while becoming experts on Afghanistan culture and Taliban tactics and so forth, are getting tired of being gone all the time. Let's face it, just for my unit alone, we could use easily three times our numbers, if only to be able to keep up with garrison tasks while training the next crews that are going over.

So do I want our military to build up? Yes, I do. Do I think it's being built up for the sake of the Americans? I don't think so. What I am seeing is chances for guys to spend more than 2 years at home before going for 6 months of training and then seven months away.

Answer 4

Much of the Military budget is designed and operated for pork barrel spending by the government officials who do the bidding of large corporations. It is all about money, not peace, traditions or winning wars. Why do you think Congress and the Presidency is usually filled by those who like to slap Corporation Executives on the back and tell good' IL' boy' jokes.
I say, usually, because sometimes the public gets scared and throws the bums out. Let us hope the public does not go to sleep again.

Answer 5

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Answer 6

I agree with some of the people above about its Nato involvement. Canada is a very wealthy and large country and its military has not kept pace. I think its important that Canada should keep a advanced military that is presentable among the industralized nations of the world.

Answer 7

um..do you honestly think Canadians care what the Americans think. We didn't elect Bush twice now did we.. ;) Moosehead beer. Only in Canada eh? ;) Edit: Oh boy, shoulda known. I have MANY American friends who I respect very much. I do not 'hate' nor 'dislike' my American cousins..and I enjoy it when a friend tries to get my goat. ;)

Answer 8

On the contrary, the Needs are Canada's, not ours. Between Nato And UN operations, Canada could stand a expansion of her defense forces.

Answer 9

Not for the USA needs for their own international commitments.

Answer 10

I don't think so,they already said their getting out of Afghanistan in2008.