Canadian Military Hardware

Canadian Military Hardware

The topic of whether we should build and expand our Canadian military hardware has been debated recently within our classroom. This is important because it concentrates on economic, sovereign, and foreign questions about this issue. There has been many different varieties put forward about this issue. This essay will consider some of the arguments and questions to not build up Canadian military hardware and discuss some of the problems with the views. It will then put reasons forward that we should build up our military hardware and armed forces.

It has been argued that if Canada was to build up her military hardware it would just waste the taxpayers their money when it could go to a different use (www.ploughshares.ca). The Canadians taxpayers money, so this argument goes, would have to support factories being built and to maintain them to keep them up to date, other areas like research and development would also have to be created for our forces to have superior technology. However, it is a known fact that if Canada has to create munitions, service, research and development plants, it would create more jobs for citizens living in Canada. This would be based on the profits that were gained by Canada during both World War 1 and 2 (Canada: A Nation Unfolding). Secondly, Canada would gain a great deal in doing so, not only would it make our national unemployment rate go down, which is currently at 7.6% (www.statscan.ca), it would not only make our Canadian dollar rise but bring more wealth into Canada.

During the September eleventh attacks on the World Trade Centers, United States President George Bush Jr. was thanking for all the support that their allies gave them, but their was one flaw, President Bush never acknowledged to thank Canada (http://cbc.ca). As a result, so this argument goes, the Canadian citizens grew frustrated and angry with our neighbor and took it as an insult, therefor almost splitting these two countries in half. However, as Ernie Regehr (www.ploughshares.ca) states that the United States is constantly tired of Canada piggy backing off of them for military support. An example would be the creation of North American Aerospace Defence Agreement (NORAD). The United States is repeatedly telling us to relieve some of the weight on their shoulders in defending the North American Borders by building up our armed forces and supporting the NORAD cause. In addition, if President Bush saw Canada contribute more to our treaties, and saw the strength of our military forces, he would be proud to stand by the Canadian people for our support.

One of the problems that Canada has encountered is being drawn into the United States' wars and their enemies become ours (Canada: A Nation Unfolding). In particular during the Persian Gulf War the United States had defended Saudi Arabia due to Iraq attacking their oil fields. So ultimately the U.S. had come to Canada to ask for a small amount of military support. If we rejected the offer and said no, tension would arise between us, and would put our alliances, treaties, trade, and capital income at a high risk of being dominated by the United