It's about the only things the Conservatives have come up with on which they have some solid points. The notion that we live in world of secure alliances, that the Western alliance will protect our soveriegnty, or worse that America will protect it, without demanding something in return is fallacious. We live in a dangerous world, and one of the great prizes in the world is the largely uninhabited Canadian Arctic, with what the world views, as a less than compelling title to it, and an unwillingness to protect it with a strong military.
Canada should have a military force of 100,000 soldiers, as it did into the 80's. It should be spending 2% of its GDP on Defense (as is the Nato norm, the U.S. spends 4%), enough to sustain a defense industry (which can be a substantial industrial, technological and developmental engine for the economy), rather than just being purveyors of foreign armaments. It should have a constant shipbuilding and retrofitting program, including nuclear submarines, essential for patrolling the Arctic waters and ice ways.. rather than waiting for a Conservative government to throw in some money every couple of decades for a buying program.
Peacekeeping is not function of a nation's military. It is just an appendage to its foreign policy. Militaries exist to PROTECT SOVEREIGNTY. This tunnel visioned concept of the World's Peacekeeper that the Liberals have espoused is largely ineffective, and completely unfocusses the military from its real mission. It's just another sign of the moral bankruptcy of the Liberals.. who have given up on Canada as anything but a tiny province of the International Free Trade Oligarchy.. and its enforcers in the WTO, IMF and World Bank
vey good post coldstream, this pretty much covers my point of view too. :wink: