The golden maybe for Golden Dome

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It seems like movement in opposite directions. Mark Carney campaigned telling Canadians that the old relationship with the U.S. is over. Now he’s thinking about getting inside Donald Trump’s Golden Dome.

But don’t be fooled. Knee-jerk impulses to keep Americans at a distance have in the past caused Canada to trick itself into forfeiting some of its sovereignty.

That’s what happened 20 years ago, when Canada decided to stay out of U.S. ballistic missile defence.

Let’s remember: Canada’s current defence against a ballistic missile amounts to hoping the Americans will shoot it down. That’s not independence.

So Mr. Carney was quite right to assert Canada’s sovereignty by saying “maybe” to Mr. Trump’s Golden Dome.

Carney defends Golden Dome talks with U.S., says missile threats are serious

The Golden Dome will supposedly be the next-generation of U.S. defence systems against missile attacks. But what exactly it will be, if it’s ever even built, is still unclear.

Mr. Trump makes it sound like the Golden Dome would provide blanket protection against all attacks, a higher-technology version of Israel’s Iron Dome missile defence system but covering the vastly larger U.S. territory.

He said it would cost US$175-billion, but the U.S. Congressional Budget Office has estimated it could range from US$161-billion to US$542-billion, depending on the details. And you can bet Mr. Trump hasn’t bothered with the details. The President claims the system will be completed in three years, but that’s patently ridiculous.

So at this point, there’s no way Mr. Carney could or should commit to it. But rejecting it out of hand would be a mistake.

Mr. Carney’s non-committal answer – we co-operate if necessary but not necessarily co-operate – evoked Mackenzie King‘s wartime waffling on conscription. But the only right answer was “maybe.”

A generation ago, in 2004, another U.S. president, George W. Bush, talked to Canada about joining the U.S. ballistic missile defence program.

Mr. Bush wasn’t popular in Canada. The U.S. invasion of Iraq was still recent, and the U.S. was exerting global power. There were concerns ballistic missile defence would reignite an arms race. Paul Martin’s Liberal government took part in talks but eventually passed on the program in 2005 because of the politics.

It was a decision to keep Canada apart from the U.S. But it didn’t assert Canadian sovereignty.

Until then, the joint Canada-U.S. North American Aerospace Defence Command, or NORAD, had American and Canadian military working together to detect and intercept potential attacks.

But when Canada opted out of ballistic missile defence, it opted out of part of the North American defence. NORAD would still detect a ballistic missile headed for say, Toronto, but the job of intercepting it became the task of the U.S. military alone.

“As far as interception is concerned, Canadians would basically be asked to leave the room,” said former defence minister David Pratt, now a defence-industry consultant.

That’s dependence, not independence.

The U.S. did build ballistic missile defence systems. They have also been adopted widely by Canada’s NATO allies. But Canada still opts out in North America.

It’s a different world. North Korea has intercontinental ballistic missiles. Canadians have seen Russia strike Ukraine. Several countries are developing hypersonic missiles that travel at greater speeds.

The good news is that Canada is beefing up radar systems, including over-the-horizon radar and planned polar over-the-radar systems, to detect threats. But when it comes to intercepting a missile, it opts out.

Now Mr. Carney is again facing tricky politics around the question. He has said the 50-year process of deepening integration with the U.S. is over. The Golden Dome would mean more integration, not less. How can Canada join a new joint defence initiative while the U.S. President muses about making it the 51st state?

But it’s also true that if there is going to be any U.S.-Canada security co-operation at all, the most obvious place for it is in North American air defence. Even in an era of decoupling, both countries have an interest in that.

It might not be easy for Mr. Carney to make the case. Already, he has downshifted his rhetoric from elbows-up fighting words to Mackenzie King compromise. At least he has time before he has to move past “maybe.”

But on the substance, it’s the kind of grown-up security decision that Canada will face more often if it really is asserting its independence.