A recent CBC article is entitled “Everyone agrees Canada should spend more on defence. How do we pay for it?”.

A more important question is “What will we get for that increased spending?”

As a NATO member, Canada agreed in 2014 to allocate two per cent of our GDP to defence spending. A new report prepared by NATO puts our current allocation at only 1.37 per cent.

Defence minister Bill Blair says we’re on track to meet the two per cent target by 2032, based on actions outlined in an April 2024 defence policy update, Our North, Strong and Free. But under pressure from incoming U.S. President Donald Trump and his Republican allies, several provincial premiers and the Business Council of Canada are calling for faster action.

Spending our tax dollars on over-priced, war-fighting hardware made by the U.S. military-industrial complex would appear to provide few benefits to Canadians. Visionary thinking about what constitutes defence spending could yield positive results.

Canada’s military is already heavily engaged in disaster response. This included fighting wildfires in Alberta, Nova Scotia, Quebec, British Columbia, and Northwest Territories in 2023; and evacuating communities threatened by those fires.

In addition to responding to disasters, Canada’s armed forces could also play an important role in preventing them. As Benjamin Franklin observed, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

The defence policy update, Our North, Strong and Free, says that........

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