From the Foreign Desk: Sir John A MacDonald

Canada and NATO  

A question I have long pondered is – why is Canada even in NATO? Militarily, we have little to offer, and Canada is, looking at a map, largely indefensible. So, why is Canada in NATO? What does it have to offer? This has become more important as Trudeau has recently announced that he will cut $1 Billion from the Canadian Defence budget.

Our military has, since the 1960s been quite small and under successive Liberal (and let’s be honest, Conservative ones too) we have failed to maintain a high or even decent level or readiness. Our army consists of nine infantry battalions – three light infantry and six mechanized. In terms of armour we maintain less than a hundred tanks and our three armoured regiments are largely geared towards reconnaissance rather than tanks. With one armoured regiment of the three focused on tanks. Our navy consists of twelve frigates and four submarines (when we can get them to dive) and our air force maintains eighty fighters to cover about ten million square miles of territory.

But this, I think, is the advantage. Land area. Canada has a small population and vast swaths of territory. That can be used for training. The British (for now) maintain the British Army Training Unit Suffield – though it is shrinking – outside Medicine Hat Alberta. Canadian Forces Base Suffield (CFB Suffield) is larger than all the other British Army training areas in the United Kingdom….put together. CFB Wainwright (also in Alberta) is one of the larger training areas in North America and the US routinely sends troops from as far away as Georgia to train there. Ditto CFB Petawawa in Ontario – another large training base and CFB Gagetown outside Fredericton, New Brunswick. Add CFB Borden outside Barrie Ontario, CFB Valcartier outside Quebec City and CFB Shilo in Manitoba, and there are large, available training areas for NATO armies.

It doesn’t stop there. CFB Goose Bay in Labrador was used throughout the Cold War as a low-level flight training centre for NATO Air Forces. Including the RAF, USAF, Italian Air Force, German Air Force and Dutch Air Force. CFB Cold Lake Alberta has the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range, which covers an area larger than Belgium and Cold Lake hosts the “Maple Flag” exercise.

On the naval side, thousands of miles of coastland in a fairly secure environment allows for training of naval crew. Halifax (Canada’s East Coat Naval Base) often hosts naval vessels from the US, Britain, Franch and Germany. On the West Coast Esquimalt does the same for Pacific naval forces.

With all of this, why is Canada not recognized as a training location? Mostly because training isn’t very “exciting” or “sexy” that gets lots of headlines and recognition. Also, since the end of the Cold War most wars have been fought in the Middle East, within a desert environment. Something that Canada has a hard time creating in their training environments. But with the war in Ukraine that may – emphasis on may – be changing.

Historically speaking, during the Second World War Canada hosted the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP) which trained hundreds of thousands of allied aircrew. Should another major conflict erupt, Canada would, I think, do well to emulate the past. Serve as the training area for allied forces. It isn’t exciting, but it is vital.