Dear MEL Topic Readers,
Why Canada is seeing its biggest military recruitment surge in 30 years
Despite its massive geographic size, Canada has a relatively small
population of just around 41 million. While having the longest border and
coastline in the world, Canada has only about 68,000 active and 32,000 reserve military
personnel. Even though the Canada-US border is the world’s longest land border,
neither country protects its border against the other because they are NATO
allies. And Canada has been relying on the US military power against its other neighbor,
Russia. However, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and Trump’s reference to
Canada as the 51st state were wake-up calls for Canada’s national security. Last
year, applications to the Canadian Armed Forces nearly doubled to 40,000 from
the previous year. Also, Canada increased its military spending to 2% of its
GDP last year, even though it is far short of NATO’s 5% target. Canada needs to
raise pay for its military personnel, expand its troop size, and modernize
weapons, equipment, and facilities to live up to the new reality.
Read the article and learn why Canada is building up larger military
forces.
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