The Canadian Forces' coming collapse

Hot on the heels of this National Post story, suggesting that the Canadian Armed Forces are so strapped that they may have to shut down five air bases and mothball more ships (the Liberals deny it, and it's not like they'd lie to us, right?), the Ottawa Citizen reports that we no longer have enough planes to defend Canadian territory while taking part in overseas missions.

We are now spending less on defence than we did in 1991, and we have only half as many troops as we did in 1958. The people who oversaw this are the same people who rant and rave about protecting Canadian sovereignty from the rapturous Amerikkkan empire - but as Bruce Rolston notes, if we ever have to shoot down a plane over our territory, we may have no choice but to let someone else do it for us.

No prizes for guessing which country that would be.

Update: as a reader points out, that should be "rapacious American empire", not "rapturous". Then again, the evil Yankee neocons would feel rapturous about taking over Canada, right?

Posted by damian at February 25, 2004 07:52 PM