The Importance of Canada in NATO: Canada’s Military and Political Contributions
Tyler Ovens
October 27, 2014
HIE 207A

When World War II came to a close in May of 1945, western European countries including Canada and the United States came into conflict with the USSR. Just as the war broken nations were trying to reorganize and rebuild their countries, suspicions of Soviet Union expansion were arising. One year after the end of the war, the man power of the Soviet army stayed almost the same while other countries such as the United States reduced its manpower by almost 90 percent and Canada reduced its forces to almost nothing. The threat was becoming imminent so the Treaty of Brussels, a defence alliance, was signed between France, …show more content…
At the end of World War II, Canada was economically thriving comparatively to Western European countries that were trying to rebuild themselves after the war. David Haglund makes this clear, “As one of the very few countries to have emerged from the Second World War strengthened economically, and as one of the world’s ranking military powers, Canada was seen to have an obligation to the defence of Western Europe that surpassed even the obligations of the Europeans.” Canada may have not been contributing to NATO’s collective defence through providing military personnel or security, but more effectively contributing through mutual aid. In 1950 Canada started contributing much of its military equipment from all of the production in World War II to countries in the alliance. All of the weapons, vehicles, and defence equipment totaled up to almost 200 million dollars and was given to these countries completely free of charge. Also in 1950 Canada started training aircrews for NATO, totaling training costs up to 412million dollars in the next seven years following that. In total, between 1950 and 1958 Canada contributed mutual aid to NATO upwards of about 1.5 billion dollars. Just because Canada is separated from NATO’s European countries by an ocean does not mean at all that Canada cannot contribute or be just …show more content…
Canada is not benefitting from being a part of NATO because they have never received any physical benefits or serious contributions from other members. NATO is focusing on the deterrence of western forces, when it should first be focusing on the stability and economic state of its allies instead. Canada is doing a great job of supporting this idea through Article 2, but other countries have done otherwise. In a way, Canada has not seriously benefitted from being a member of NATO because of this. Joseph Godson argues that NATO’s “real issue is to restart the engines of economic growth before everyone succumbs to a disastrous cycle of protectionism.” In other words, NATO is too interested in its own defence from any potential threats instead of worrying about its ally’s stability and economic growth. Canada is clearly seeing this through all of their contributions and mutual aid, but its allies are not. If the focus was on economic collaboration, all of the countries in NATO could work together towards achieving stability, and in return could then do a better job of defending themselves primarily because of their own economic state instead of relying on other countries mutual aid, specifically Canada in this case. Godson says; “The opportunities are still there: to do great things together in the interest of democracy and peace. Surely we can find the