First, I would say that I'm not convinced that the difficulties of people in other parts of the world imposes a moral obligation on Canada to do anything.
I remember years ago listening to Lloyd Axworthy, when he was foreign minister, speaking about what became responsibility to protect and so on. He said, quite bluntly, that his foreign policy was formed by his Christian values; in other words, we would go around the world helping our brothers. “I am my brother's keeper”, he said, in several speeches.
Canada has an obligation to assist in missions that have some direct relationship to our own interests, and I'm not ashamed to put it that way. Especially in the last few years, I have become more and more convinced that Canada is not an Atlantic nation, as we used to think of ourselves. We're not a peacekeeping nation, whatever that meant anyway. What we are is a western hemispheric nation, and by concentrating our efforts in the western hemisphere—in the Caribbean, and so on—there are all kinds of connections to our national interests, whether it's trade or immigrants or health and welfare and drug-related issues, and crime and so on.
The scattering of the 60,000 people in the Canadian Forces sounds like a lot of people, but at any good football game in Toronto there will be more people in the stands—if there are ever any good football games in Toronto...speaking as a kid from Winnipeg. You'll get more people in the stands at a football game than are in the Canadian armed forces.
One of the difficulties with these overseas missions to help the downtrodden is that they don't end, and you get stuck there, so it's only 15 people or 20 people or 100 people or 300 people. It's a difficulty.
One Liberal government several years ago had a great idea: the policy for deployments was going to be first in, first out. So Canada would roar in, put out the fires, get everything set up, and then leave. You'd have the third world countries, for instance, come in and do the rest of the work. Well, it's not possible. When you get in, you're in and it's very hard to get out. We've spent many years—20 years in Cypress—trying to get out of a place where there wasn't any problem.
These are the practical considerations to make concerning your readiness and equipment when you have a very limited armed forces—a very small, specialized armed forces.