Atlantic Council

Undoubtedly, $9 billion in purchasing costs and an estimated $7 billion more in long-term maintenance contracts is a great deal of money that could be used to reduce the deficit or to increase our social safety net. But the tragedy of our times is that defence will continue to consume a significant percentage of society's wealth. The good news is that Canada's share is minimal. The Canadian defence bill is a very modest 1.1 per cent of the GDP. Remarkably, Canada ranks 126th in the world (out of 176) in defence spending, just below countries such as Latvia, Lithuania, Ethiopia, Venezuela, Belgium and Bolivia.

Not so remarkably, the reason we can get away with spending so little is that a major part of our defence is carried by the United States. We may argue over spending $9 billion on 65 planes, but the Americans will buy more than 2,000 F-35 fighter jets. Unlike Canada, the U.S. defence budget represents 4.06 per cent of the country's GDP. Indeed, we are fortunate that our neighbour is willing to bear a disproportionate share for protecting North America.

Andre Gerolymatos is chairman of Hellenic Studies at Simon Fraser University.  (photo: Reuters)