Very quickly, what I'm advocating is that you maintain a baseline capability for domestic and continental missions. Then, when it comes to selecting what you do internationally alongside your partners, you can be far more selective in the capabilities that you maintain. Yes, you need a navy. The question becomes do you need a navy that has the ability to guard the coasts and is able to engage in conventional naval warfare against the Chinese in the future, or can you say safely that we don't need that capability, we'll maintain the coasts? You need an air force to maintain North American airspace, but do you also need an air force that's able to engage in a first-run bombing campaign against Iran? You can make that decision as well. Similarly with the army, you may say that we want an army that can provide aid to the civil power in Canada, but should that army also have the capability to engage in mechanized warfare against an opponent? You can also make that choice.
You may decide that one of those is absolutely important for Canada in the future and that you're willing to pay for it, or you may decide that all of them are important. Under the current budget envelope, we are by default making the decision that we can't do it all. Therefore, you can say that you want to do all of these different missions and you want to maintain these capabilities, but as it stands, we're not actually paying the money required to do that.
My reaction to that, then, is to say should we not be asking what we actually want the Canadian Forces to do in the future, internationally?