Michael Higgins: Former top military commanders say threats to Canada highest since Cold War

Listening to three former top commanders in the Canadian military at a parliamentary national defence committee hearing can be a scary business.

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Stuart Beare, a retired lieutenant general who was in charge of all deployed Canadian Forces, spoke of real threats to Canada and the world being at the highest since the Cold War and pointed the finger at Vladimir Putin, his aiders and abettors and China, in front of the committee discussing military modernization on Monday.

“The need to deter major adversarial military powers is back,” he told the committee, which is looking at how to modernize the military. “And if deterrence fails, so too is the need to be able to prevail in what doctrine calls major combat operations or what we would typically simply call war.”

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Michel Maisonneuve, another retired lieutenant general who was assistant deputy chief of the defence staff of Canada, said the nation’s armed forces needed more investment to meet the “challenges and the potential violence our adversaries will throw at us.”

Mike Rouleau, a lieutenant general who retired as vice chief of the defence staff, put it directly, “There is no surrogate for land troops holding ground on your worst day.”

There are a lot of questions about modernizing the military: does it have enough people; are they the right recruits; does it have the right weapons and the necessary technology; how can it overcome the rigid bureaucracy (both in the military and the political sphere) and is the federal government fully behind those in uniform?

Amidst all this talk of war and how to cure the ails of the military, Maisonneuve floated the idea of a national service program encouraging young men and women to see the value of “the honour of service.”

“It’s not national military service, it’s national service,” Maisonneuve said later in an interview with the National Post.

“It would give them a chance to learn some civics, what Canada is all about and instead of continuing to apologize, we could actually give them things to be proud of in the country. And they would eventually be proud of their service,” he said.

For young Canadians, those in their late teens and 20’s, there is a crisis of faith in Canada as a nation.

By the end of the Trudeau era, pride in this country had plummeted. A survey by the Environics Institute revealed that in 2024 only 53 per cent of people considered themselves “very proud” to be Canadian, down from 73 per cent in 2016.

But among young people (18-29) in 2024, a lowly 31 per cent felt very proud.

We are a long way from 1985, when 80 per cent of people were proudly Canadian.

The behaviour of U.S. President Donald Trump, with his talk of making Canada the 51st state, clearly riled people who flocked to the flag. Last year’s Environics survey found 62 per cent of people described themselves as “very proud” and for young people that figure was 41 per cent.

“The only person that’s actually made us be a little more patriotic is Trump,” said Maisonneuve. “And why the heck did it have to take him to make us patriotic?

“I think Canada is still unprepared for the future. I think our young people are looking for some sort of discipline and some sort of way to really become in love with their country. I think our identity has been, if you wish, lost. I think it’s hard for Canadians to say, ‘What’s a Canadian?’”

Maisonneuve is part of an organization formed a few months ago called Engage Canada that is encouraging the prime minister to create a “modern, voluntary, competitive and paid national service initiative that helps young Canadians gain skills, purpose and experience while serving communities and strengthening Canada’s readiness.”

Engage Canada’s vision is proposing a “modern national service program” targeting 18–25-year-olds that begins with basic military training as a foundation focused on “readiness, discipline, teamwork, leadership, safety, emergency preparedness, civic responsibility, and service.”

After basic training, participants will be encouraged to seek and choose other areas where their abilities align with Canadian needs, be that in the military, the North, emergency preparedness, community and social service needs, the environment or other national projects.

“A modern national youth service program would strengthen readiness, resilience, skills development, and civic participation across the country,” says Engage Canada’s website.

The group is asking the federal government for $18.75 million to fund a two-year pilot project, according to Engage Canada’s chair, Michael Burns.

In a letter to Mark Carney, the non-partisan group says, “As Canadians, we honour the country we inherited. The question now is whether we are doing enough to prepare young Canadians for the country they will inherit.”

What they will certainly inherit is a much more dangerous world.

To the committee, Beare said that should deterrence fail, Canada would have to face the fallout. “Our military and our nation must be able to prevail in a fight at home, in our Arctic and abroad against major power military adversaries,” he said.

In a more dangerous and divided world, to quote the prime minister, teaching young Canadians resilience, leadership, service, sacrifice and pride in one’s country is surely the best way to prepare them for the future.

National Post

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