{"id":51790,"date":"2026-05-19T19:49:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T19:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/51790\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T19:49:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T19:49:09","slug":"tasha-kheiriddin-it-would-be-unwise-for-carney-to-dismiss-u-s-pulling-out-of-defence-board","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/51790\/","title":{"rendered":"Tasha Kheiriddin: It would be unwise for Carney to dismiss U.S. pulling out of defence board"},"content":{"rendered":"

This weekend, the U.S. paused its participation in an organization most Canadians have likely never heard of: the Permanent Joint Board on Defence. It was established in 1940<\/a>, following U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt\u2019s pledge that the U.S. would defend Canada if it were attacked, and Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King\u2019s promise that \u201cenemy forces should not be able to pursue their way, either by land, sea or air to the United States across Canadian territory.\u201d The board met some 42 times during the Second World War and most recently convened every six months \u2014 until now.<\/p>\n

Today, Canada stands accused of violating Mackenzie King\u2019s oath. In a post on X, U.S. Under Secretary of War Elbridge Colby wrote<\/a>,\u00a0\u201cA strong Canada that prioritizes hard power over rhetoric\u00a0benefits\u00a0us all. Unfortunately, Canada has failed to make credible progress on its defense commitments.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words, we\u2019re not maintaining a strong enough military to keep the bad guys out of America\u2019s backyard \u2014 and we\u2019re saying things Washington does not want to hear. Colby pointedly included a link to Prime Minister Mark Carney\u2019s speech<\/a> to the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, in which Carney called on middle powers to \u201clive the truth\u201d instead of pining for the old-world order, by banding together in the face of hostile or indifferent superpowers \u2014 including, by implication, the United States.<\/p>\n

At the time, Carney\u2019s speech rallied Canadians, fed up with U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s constantly changing tariffs and threats about making us a 51st state. It also got the world\u2019s attention, crowning Carney as the leader of the anti-Trumps, notably the European countries who have similarly lost patience with Trump\u2019s bluster about taking over Greenland while he exhibits a comparatively friendly attitude toward Russia.<\/p>\n

Since\u00a0then,\u00a0Carney has stuck plenty of\u00a0other\u00a0sticks in Trump\u2019s eye, including\u00a0his\u00a0recent\u00a0appearance<\/a> at the European Political Community in Yerevan, Armenia \u2014 a first for a non-European leader. Retired Vice-Admiral Mark Norman is therefore not surprised at the latest U.S. response. \u201cThis is politically motivated and fits perfectly into the ongoing tactics of the current administration to undermine Canada in as many ways as possible,\u201d he told National Post.<\/p>\n

Norman adds that it puts our government in a tough spot. \u201cIf they are honest about it, it sounds like yet another painful hit they couldn\u2019t manage.\u201d To minimize the political impact, he says, Ottawa will downplay the significance of the historical arrangement \u2014 but it does so at its peril.<\/p>\n

Like it or not, Canada\u2019s defence is geographically wedded to that of the U.S. And there are far bigger joint commitments than this Board which we must maintain. Chief among those is the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), responsible for the shared monitoring and defence of North American airspace and maritime approaches, detecting and tracking potential aerospace and ballistic threats. While enshrined in a treaty, its existence is not guaranteed, especially given Trump\u2019s affinity for executive orders.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0a\u00a0written\u00a0statement<\/a>\u00a0on Monday, Defence Minister David McGuinty said\u00a0\u201cCanada will work with trusted partners who are ready to work with us, always remaining ready to come to the table for constructive discussions about the best ways to strengthen mutual defence and security.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he did not mention the U.S. specifically, implying that Canada could be looking at partners across the pond \u2014 something we are currently doing when it comes to our fighter jets. Ottawa is currently weighing whether to continue with its purchase of American F-35 fighters or Swedish-made Gripens \u2014 and U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra has already said<\/a>\u00a0that NORAD would have to be altered if we\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0buy\u00a0American.<\/p>\n

Pulling out of the Permanent Joint Board is yet another bully move, likely intended to sway that decision. But it\u2019s also a shot across the bow this government needs to take seriously. We can go out dancing with middle powers \u2014 but we live with the elephant next door.<\/p>\n

Postmedia News<\/p>\n

Tasha Kheiriddin is Postmedia\u2019s national politics columnist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This weekend, the U.S. paused its participation in an organization most Canadians have likely never heard of: the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51791,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[17,1278,22561,111,22653,23264,2878,23265],"class_list":["post-51790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mark-carney","tag-canada","tag-canadian-armed-forces","tag-elbridge-colby","tag-mark-carney","tag-mark-norman","tag-permanent-joint-board-on-defence","tag-u-s","tag-william-lyon-mackenzie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}