# Mr.Prime Minister, can you spare a minute?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mr-prime-minister-can-you-spare-a-minute/94400>\
**Category:** The BBQ Pit\
**Created:** [November 20, 2001, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mr-prime-minister-can-you-spare-a-minute/94400 "2001-11-20T14:59:22Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Venoma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/c4cdca/32.png) [@Venoma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Venoma)\
**Post date:** [November 23, 2001, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mr-prime-minister-can-you-spare-a-minute/94400/41 "2001-11-23T20:09:55Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by RickJay \*  
> \*\*
> 
> > [@](#):
> >
> > \*Originally posted by Venoma \*  
> > **Then… there’s the area to cover 😉 It’s a damn good thing we’re pretty neutral in the international forum.**
> 
> Except we **aren’t a neutral country.** Canada is a member of NATO; we’re supposed to be one of the Allies, to use that term.

\*\*  
Damn. The smiley is there because I realize we are not neutral, but it seems like we do our very absolute best not to rock the boat and be ‘neutral’ without being truly politically neutral like Switzerland. OMHO.

> [@](#):
>
> \*\*  
> And frankly, this leads into the reason that Canada looks ridiculous on the world stage right now. We don’t have any sort of a cohesive plan for contributing to a military endeavour because we don’t have any sort of a cohesive defense plan at all. \*\*

One of the reasons, at least. Perhaps you’re right, maybe that is the single largest reason.

I, personally, would like to see enough military resources to be able to defend our country in cases of war occuring. Sure, (conventional) war here in N.A. seems pretty far-fetched as an idea RIGHT NOW, but an ounce of preventative… even with the way things are at the moment, we seem to be scrambling to catch up. I, at least, can accept the idea of being economically dependant on our export markets; that’s hard to get around. We should at least be able to be, even marginally, independant in this respect.

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