Canadian Defence Priorities

A critical look at the whole range of Canadian current and projected defence activities.

This edited volume provides a comprehensive overview of contemporary debates and issues in Canadian defence policy studies. The contributors examine topics including the development of Canadian defence policy and strategic culture, North American defence cooperation, gender and diversity in the Canadian military, and defence procurement and the defence industrial base. Emphasizing the process of defence policy-making, rather than just the outcomes of that process, the book focuses on how political and organizational interests impact planning, as well as the standard operating procedures that shape Canadian defence policy and practices.

This edited volume, the second volume in this collection, provides a comprehensive overview of contemporary debates and issues in Canadian defence policy studies. The contributors examine topics including sexual misconduct and the crisis of defence culture, personnel retention in the CAF, the impacts of climate change, NORAD modernization, policy trade-offs in the wake of the war in Ukraine, defence spending, procurement, as well as the defence policy making process.

Much of the recent public debate about Canada's foreign policy has focused on issues of resources and management of Canada-U.S. relations. Groups such as Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute and the Public Policy Forum have issued reports calling for an increase in defence spending, a comprehensive review of foreign policy, and a concentration on Canada-U.S. relations. Prime Minister Paul Martin has moved swiftly to restructure the foreign policy machinery of government. Canada-U.S. Relations and the appointment of a parliamentary secretary to the prime minister for Canada-U.S. relations. Mr Martin gave foreign policy a prominent place in his acceptance speech to the Liberal leadership convention. Like other countries, he said, we must come to grips with the fact that the United States has emerged as the world's lone superpower. We need a proud partnership based on mutual respect with our closest friend and nearest neighbour. Two nations with many shared values but each acting independently. In one of his first acts as prime minister, Mr Martin initiated a joint, systematic defence and foreign policy review.

Volumes in the Canada's National Defence series present an annotated collection of government statements on defence policy and internal studies and reports prepared by senior military officers, defence officials, and consultants to governments and ministers from about 1945 to 1997. They trace the history of the ideas that give Canada's defence policy and defence organizations their unique character. If there is an enduring Canadian strategy for national defence, it is expressed in these papers. Volume 2: Defence Organization is a collection of eight documents on the organization of the national defence establishment. Covering the period from 1936 to 1990, the papers include Colonel Pope's Memorandum; The McGill Reports, The Glassco Report, Hellyer's Reorganization, The Management Review Group, The Fyffe Review, The Vance Review, and The Little/Hunter Study.

To what extent are Canada and Mexico "natural allies" in continental and world affairs? How will this relationship unfold in terms of security issues in the aftermath of the Cold War? These questions were the focus of a workshop held in Mexico City in 1994 from which this book took its themes: historical context, American influence, and potential cooperative security options. A process of redefining "security" concerns in a changing hemisphere is clearly underway, and Natural Allies? examines economic factors, drug trafficking, questions of autonomy and strategic alliance, and defence priorities as intersecting interests in the Canada-Mexico dialogue. This is volume two in CHANGING AMERICAS, a series published in collaboration with the Canadian Foundation for the Americas (FOCAL).