Pierre Poilievre has been unsparing about what he sees as the Liberals’ failures on defence. He claims that the forces are short 16,000 troops, and that procurement of ships, planes and other equipment has been slow and clumsy. He says he wants to transform Canada’s military from “woke” to “warrior.”

Some of those critiques have merit—to address them, he plans to pump more money into the military. He’ll uphold the Liberals’ existing pledge to increase military spending to two per cent of GDP, as per Canada’s NATO commitments, and he’ll defund some foreign aid in order to invest in defence.

We know where much of that money will go: north. Poilievre’s top military priority is to establish a stronger presence in the Arctic, which is also Canada’s........

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