Kelly McParland: Scorning Trump's Golden Dome would be a mistake
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It was entirely sensible, then, for the prime minister to carefully avoid greeting Trump's Golden Dome with the sort of derision Liberals have been quick to dish out to previous renditions of spaced-based defence proposals. Projects mooted under presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush were rejected at least partly from Liberal fears of being associated with Republican leaders unpopular with progressives.
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Dislike of U.S. presidents is fair enough, and this one in particular, but shouldn't be used to reject proposals that might actually be in Canada's interest. There is nothing absurd about a system that detects approaching threats so that they can be met before arrival, any more now than when Britain erected the first ground-based radar system against approaching German aircraft at the outbreak of World War Two.
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The Trump version, predictably, goes far beyond anything tried elsewhere and is accompanied by the usual outpouring of flamboyant verbosity. Israel's Iron Dome protects just a fraction of the territory the U.S. is considering, while the notion of turning space into just another arena for warfare is a new and frightening step for a planet that already dances too often with means of self-destruction. That defence firm Lockheed Martin calls Trump's dream 'a Manhattan Project-scale mission' is hardly reassuring given the horrors that atomic weaponry unleashed.
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Deploring the reality of threats from Russia, China, North Korea or others does nothing to remove them, however. Canada can either let our defence capability continue to wither, hoping potential dangers never materialize or that the U.S. will save us, or we play what part we can in making clear to potential adversaries the futility of any act of aggression.
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The far north is Canada's most vulnerable region. Joint warning systems already exist under Norad, the North American Aerospace Defence Command. Ottawa has pledged $38.6 billion to upgrading and modernizing Canada's part in the network. In March, Carney announced a joint project with Australia for the development of Over-the-Horizon Radar technology, to 'provide advanced early warning and long-range surveillance, enabling faster CAF detection and tracking of a wide range of threats in our Northern air and maritime approaches.'
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Unfortunately, we've let our defences erode for so long that playing catch-up is that much tougher a task. Ottawa is pledging a serious effort to reach NATO's defence spending benchmark of 2.0 per cent of gross domestic product just as the alliance is preparing to raise it to 5.0 per cent. Whether the dome needs to be a part of the build-up remains to be seen, but Carney will have to convince America's volatile president that Canada is giving the question honest consideration. That would include ensuring his caucus and cabinet are aware of the need to treat it that way, in public and otherwise.
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