Just so that there are no misunderstandings

We might get a bit busy but I'm sure we can spare one or two war crimes their way.

I hope for Canada's sake, and for the sake of NATO and the EU, that Canada puts on some big boy pants and boosts its military. I have seen a lot of talk such as yours, but the reality is that Canada's military is a joke. Canada is so far behind in it's military spending obligation for NATO that they don't even have a timeline for catching up. Canada's airforce is 1/3rd the size of France's and France is the 10th largest Airforce in the world. The Canadian Army only has 22,000 active troops while the entire Canadian Armed Forces is only around 68,000 strong.

Canada has had troops on the ground for a lot of global military events, but they've almost never fielded a significant number. In the Gulf War they had ~4,500 troops, the Coalition had >950,000 troops and 700,000 of them were from the US. In the War in Afghanistan Canada had ~40,000 troops over 13 years (Operation Enduring Freedom) and at any one point had no more than 2,500 troops deployed. Meanwhile the US had 1.9 million deployed in the same period and at it's peak had over 100,000 troops deployed at once.

Oh but we gotta talk about WW1 and WW2 because people always take it there. In WW1 Canada deployed 620,000 troops while the US deployed 4.7 million. In WW2 the Allied Powers had a combined total over over 80 million troops, the US had around 16.5 million while Canada had 1.1 million.

As an American who likes Canada and doesn't agree with the current US political direction, I absolutely hope Canada puts it's money where it's mouth is. When Russia invaded Crimea in 2014 NATO members were supposed to increase their spending to prepare to stand up to Russia and as of 2021 only 5 of the 31 states had met that goal. As of 2024 only 8 states still had not met the goal, but Canada had the special distinction of being the only member state with no timeline on when they would meet that goal.

In a Politico article from last year

“The Canadian public doesn’t really see the need,” said Philippe Lagassé, Barton chair at Canada’s Carleton University. “If forced to choose between defense spending, social programs or reducing taxes, defense would always come last. So there’s no political gain to meeting the pledge.”

With the US threatening to leave NATO the EU has stepped up with a rearmament plan as recently as this week, let's hope Canada does the same.

Hey, they might actually manage the cold! This is brilliant!