Basic HTML Version
PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, FEBRUARY 1, 1985
PAGE 13
Canadians did not do so themselves. "Unless we defend our own
sovereignty," says George Bell, director of the Canadian Insti
tute for Strategic Studies, "we could become a protectorate of
the United States." •••
Canada •••spends just under 2% of gross national product on de
fense, the lowest amount of any NATO member save tiny Iceland and
Luxembourg. There are only 83,000 men and women (in and out of
uniform) in Canada's armed forces--this to defend territory larg
er than the u.s. But even this figure does not tell the full
story. The land component of Canada's unified armed forces can
field only about 8,000 combat troops and a paltry 114 tanks.
Though highly trained and of excellent quality, in numbers the
army is little more than
a
gendarmerie. Canada's air force has
some of the world's best pilots but only 150 combat aircraft,
� of which� obsolescent . or ready for� scrap yard • . �e
spite the air force's purchasing of new F-18 fighters, attrition
will leave it by 1987 with no more than 138 warplanes with which
to defend Canadian airspace, patrol the Arctic and support NATO.
Canada has one of the world's longest coastlines and is a major
exporter. Yet the state of its navy was described recently at a
parliamentary committee hearing as "pathetic." The navy's 23 de
stroyers and frigates have an average age of 23 years: Half are
nearing the end of their service lives; only four have any modern
armament. The older ships suffer from chrori'Icboiler troubles
and their electronic gear is so ancient that their required
vacuum tubes must be purchased from, of all places, the u.s.S.R.
Last January, during a naval review for the defense minister in
Halifax, more than half the ships on display broke down.
One
Canadian admiral puts it simply: "Going to sea in wartime would
be suicidal." Nor does Canada have� single mine sweeper to keep
its vital ports open during hostilities.
The infrastructure of military power is also lacking. Trained
manpower reserves are almost nonexistent; there is no industrial
mobilization capacity at all. Should war erupt tomorrow, Canada
could not even supply its troops with enough rifles, not to men
tion all the high-tech equipment of modern war. Canada's once
extensive arms industry has been allowed to wither away by a gov
ernment that considered it wicked and immoral.
Confirming this alarming state, a recent study by the nonparti
san, blue-ribbon Business Council on National Issues reports that
Canada lacks not only the ability to meet its NATO commitments,
but even the means of defending itself•••• Some Canadians are be
coming unhappily aware that their nation has been stripped of its
defenses. Many, however, still believe the notion promoted by
the past government, that the armed forces' prime role� for
United Nations peacekeeping missions.
There is a particularly
distressing irony here. Pierre Trudeau, by striving to lessen
U.S. influence over Canada, may well have made his nation even
more dependent on its powerful and sometimes overbearing neigh
bor ••••