Canada’s armed forces are planning for threats from America
No one in a position of responsibility really believes the United States would ever invade.
Canada has never had an equivalent of Uncle Sam, sternly exhorting its citizens to sign up to fight for their country. That is changing. Jennie Carignan, Canada’s top soldier, is looking for Canadians—whether they are 16 or 65—who will come to their country’s aid in the event of a military attack or calamitous natural disaster. “We’re going to need heavy-equipment operators,” says General Carignan. “We’re going to need drone operators. We’re going to potentially need cyber operators as well.” Call her Aunt Jennie.
There is no direct line between her plan for a 400,000-strong civilian-defence force and Donald Trump plucking Venezuela’s dictator, Nicolás Maduro, from his safe house in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, on January 3rd. But nor is the timing entirely coincidental. In the past year Mr Trump has repeatedly asserted that it would be in Canada’s interest to become America’s 51st state. No one in a position of responsibility really believes the United States would ever invade. Even Mr Trump himself, when asked whether he would use military force to annex Canada, has said “no”, or that it is “very unlikely”.
But all agree that the relationship with the United States has changed irrevocably. Mr Trump’s rhetorical and economic assaults saw to that. Canada had no choice but to try to become a country that can handle threats autonomously, with or without its tempestuous neighbour. Mostly it worries about incursions by Russia and China, cyber-attacks and assaults on infrastructure. But America’s raid on Caracas, and subsequent talk of acquiring Greenland, if necessary by force, means military action is no longer unthinkable between two countries that have been peaceful since 1812, before Canadian independence.
The Department of National Defence (DND) began discussing the creation of a civil-defence capability right around the time Mr Trump suggested he would use “economic force” to convince Canadians to join the United States. “In this context, it is responsible for the government to assess the full range of scenarios and options, including a voluntary civilian-defence force that could support the Canadian Armed Forces,” says Marco Mendicino, former chief of staff to Mark Carney, Canada’s prime minister, and previously the minister in change of public safety.
The DND has gamed out some of those scenarios. Plans are now regularly updated to deal with a surge of migrants who might want to enter Canada from the United States. Mr Trump’s predilection for sending troops into states run by Democrats while using his department of justice to prosecute his political opponents has compelled Canada to prepare for the event of civil strife next door.
Combat planners have also sketched scenarios in which an adversary such as Russia or China might attack Canada’s infrastructure or shut down sources of energy or water in order to pin down North American military responders, while one of such foes attacks the Baltic states or Taiwan. Canada is constantly fending off cyber-attacks, says General Carignan. “We always prepare for the worst-case scenarios,” she says reassuringly.
But officials are not eager to discuss all of them. Quite reasonably, they do not want to give potential adversaries hints about Canada’s preparations or vulnerabilities. But they are also preoccupied with trying not to provoke Mr Trump. Few are willing to be interviewed on the record, but it is a fact that those worst-case scenarios, however unlikely, now include incursions by America.
General Carignan says the plan to muster a civil-defence force should please the United States. It meets Mr Trump’s demand that America’s allies should look after more of their own defence and rely less on the United States in the event of an attack or natural disaster. In November she dispatched a team to Finland to study that country’s extensive civil defence developed during decades of being menaced by Russia next door.
Tuck yourself up
Under their Comprehensive Security Concept, Finns are expected to store enough food, water and medical supplies for 72 hours. Lists are kept of civilians trained in medical first-aid, rescue and firefighting, who would lead others to designated bomb shelters dotted across the country. Big enough to hold 85% of Finns, these are not drab, post-apocalyptic bunkers. They include underground playgrounds and, of course, saunas.
The Canadians were impressed. “They have bunkers everywhere and they make them normal places to be. Some of them have swimming pools in them,” says one official. But it was also noted that Canada is 30 times larger than Finland, with vast tracts of sparsely populated territory where it would be nearly impossible to defend sovereignty without America’s help.
Mr Carney wants to change that. He is promising to spend C$82bn ($59bn) over the next five years so that Canada is on a path to devoting 5% of its GDP to defence by 2035. Much of that money will be spent in Canada’s north. Russian submarines and Chinese “research” ships are making increasing forays into Canada’s Arctic waters. “There is a threat coming from the north and we can’t just be a liability,” says General Carignan.
Canada’s Armed Forces have 67,000 full-time personnel and 27,000 reserves. All of them joined voluntarily. In addition to defending the second-largest country on earth, they are stretched to the limit with far-flung operations. In Latvia they bolster the defence of the Baltic states, while a naval mission works to keep the Taiwan Strait open to international shipping.
Those armed forces are spread thin over Canada’s almost 10m square kilometres. Climate change may have dropped down the list of the country’s priorities, but the damage caused by increasingly dangerous weather has not gone away. Troops are regularly called on to help people affected by floods and forest fires. When covid-19 swept through miserably understaffed old-people’s homes in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec in 2020, the army was dispatched to care for them. The new civilian-defence force could help with these kinds of emergencies, freeing the army to concentrate on actually defending the homeland.
It may also rouse Canadians from the reverie they have enjoyed since defence spending first drifted below 2% of GDP more than three decades ago. That this meant Canada depended on the United States for much of its territorial defence did not seem to bother anyone. Philippe Lagassé, who studies defence at Carleton University in Ottawa, notes that Canada has never faced threats like those it does today. He says it is “hard for the Canadian mind to wrap itself around” the new reality.
Uncle Sam’s jab
Canadians seem to be waking up. That is almost certainly due to Mr Trump’s hemispheric ambitions, now demonstrated with force. General Carignan says she is regularly besieged after public appearances by Canadians ready to serve. Before Christmas a senior citizen implored her to deploy him, despite his age. “He said, ‘Listen, I can’t carry a rifle and go to war, but I’m out there scanning the internet. I can help. Let me know how I can help you’.”
