Canada's Campaign of Denial

With Canada’s federal election scheduled for Monday, April 28, the campaign has entered its final, decisive phase. But amid the usual flurry of slogans about affordability, housing, and climate, one issue remains conspicuously absent: national defense. In last week’s English and French leaders’ debates, newly installed Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney made his case for a renewed mandate, while Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre pushed hard on the economic file. Yet when it came to defense—the bedrock of sovereignty, and a test of any serious government’s credibility—the discussion was thin gruel. In an age of mounting great power rivalry, strategic instability, and Arctic militarization, the evasions we witnessed weren’t just disappointing. They were perilous.

Poilievre, by contrast, came into the debates with momentum. He rightly criticized the Liberals’ decade-long drift and pointed to the disrepair of the military as yet another symptom of a broken Ottawa. His instinct is sound: Canada’s defense posture is hollow, and allies are beginning to lose patience. But for all the heat, there was too little light. Poilievre refused to commit to hitting the 2 percent NATO target within any defined timeframe. He sidestepped questions about whether his government would pursue long-delayed procurements like ballistic missile defense, or whether it would invest seriously in Arctic infrastructure. There was no roadmap, no timeline, no hard choices—just the promise that a Conservative government would “stand with our troops” and restore Canadian leadership abroad.

That’s not enough. Leadership in this space demands more than slogans and symbolism. It requires a coherent strategy grounded in realism, fiscal seriousness, and geopolitical awareness. If Poilievre wants to be taken seriously as a national security leader, he needs to do more than criticize Liberal failure. He must articulate a vision rooted in the hard truths of geography, capability, and alliance credibility. So far, he has left that task unfinished.

Then there is Jagmeet Singh, whose performance in the debates offered little beyond moral posturing. The NDP continues to treat defense as an afterthought—something to be trimmed, questioned, or reimagined as a vehicle for progressive values. Singh avoided the issue almost entirely during the debates, retreating into vague talking points about veterans and procurement transparency. The NDP platform, such as it is, rests on a fantasy that Canada can project virtue while neglecting deterrence. At a time when Arctic sovereignty is increasingly contested, European allies are under strain, and China is reshaping regional balances in the Pacific, this kind of posture is not just unserious. It is irresponsible.

As for the Bloc Québécois, Yves-François Blanchet didn’t even pretend to engage with defense policy. His focus, as always, remained on parochial Quebec nationalism. That may serve the Bloc’s narrow political interests, but it contributes nothing to the national conversation. In fact, it actively undermines it. Defense cannot be a provincial matter. It is a federal imperative—and one that requires clarity, not cultural grievance dressed up as policy.

What was perhaps most striking about the debates was what went unasked. No one challenged Carney or Poilievre on how they would resolve the CAF’s personnel shortfalls. There was no mention of the looming crisis in Arctic surveillance, or the growing need for underwater domain awareness. There was no probing of Canada’s absence from key alliances like AUKUS Pillar II, where partners are forging the future of defense technology. And there was certainly no question about what either party would do if a second Trump presidency demanded immediate 2 percent compliance—or threatened to decouple from NORAD altogether. The moderators didn’t push. The leaders didn’t volunteer. And Canadians were left none the wiser about what the next government actually intends to do.

This silence is not incidental. It is symptomatic of a deeper pathology—an entrenched belief among Canadian elites that defense is someone else’s problem. That as long as we show up to summits, issue statements, and offer token contributions to alliance operations, our allies will keep indulging us. That illusion is collapsing. The United States is becoming more demanding, not less. NATO is under strain. The Arctic is a theater of active competition. And Canada, despite our geography and wealth, continues to punch below its weight—if it punches at all.

The choice facing Canadians on April 28 is not a subtle one. A vote for the Liberals is a vote for continuity with a new face, and for a defense policy built on the same airy promises and bureaucratic inertia that defined the Trudeau era. A vote for the Conservatives is a leap of faith—an acknowledgment that change is needed, but with no guarantee that Poilievre has the will or the plan to make it real. A vote for the NDP is a vote for retreat. And a vote for the Bloc is, as ever, a vote for irrelevance.

None of these parties has yet articulated a serious, credible strategy to rebuild Canada’s defense posture. Yet the world will not wait for us to get our act together. Our interests will be contested. Our allies will demand more. And our sovereignty—particularly in the Arctic—will be tested whether we are ready or not.

This election could have been a turning point. It still might be. But if defense remains on the margins of political discourse, Canadians may soon discover that the real cost of neglect is not measured in dollars, but in the erosion of our ability to protect and preserve what we claim to value.

Andrew Latham, Ph.D., a tenured professor at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He is also a Senior Washington Fellow with the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy in Ottawa and a non-resident fellow with Defense Priorities, a think tank in Washington, DC.