This article originally appeared in the Globe and Mail.
By Marcus Kolga, January 29, 2026
In his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Prime Minister Mark Carney warned that Canadians’ long-standing assumptions about security and stability no longer hold. The world, he said, is more dangerous, volatile, and unpredictable than at any point in recent memory.
His warning came just hours after U.S. President Donald Trump posted an image depicting much of North America, including Canada and Greenland, draped in American flags – a provocation some dismissed as trolling. It should not be.
Combined with Russian provocations, Arctic claims, and Mr. Trump’s increasingly explicit rhetoric targeting America’s allies, the message is clear: Canada’s strategic environment has shifted. Canada’s own military planners are now quietly reassessing scenarios that would have been unthinkable until recently, including modelling by the Canadian Armed Forces for unconventional warfare in the event of a hypothetical U.S. military invasion on Canadian soil.
These are necessary preparations. The ability to defend the nation contributes to deterrence and sovereignty. In the current global climate, the military should be modelling all hypothetical attacks from powers such as Russia, China, or any other adversaries.
This underscores a sobering reality: the global security environment has shifted faster in the past decade than in the quarter-century preceding it. Yet Canada’s military is more strained and less ready than it should be.
Recruitment shortfalls, aging equipment, and years of political neglect have left gaps that cannot be filled overnight. That’s why the defence of Canada in a serious crisis would not rest solely on uniformed forces. It would require – as the CAF invasion response plans have confirmed – citizens who are prepared, trained, and organized. Today, they are not.
That must change, urgently.
Our allies have already accepted the reality of potential conflict. Sweden and Estonia, in particular, offer clear models for how democratic societies prepare their citizens for modern conflict without panic or militarization.
Sweden has recognized that contemporary warfare begins long before the first shot is fired. Through its Psychological Defence Agency, Sweden treats information resilience, civic trust, and public preparedness as pillars of national defence. Citizens are educated on how foreign actors manipulate fear and division. Public handbooks – like the pamphlet In Case of Crisis or War, distributed to every Swedish household – educate Swedes on preparing for crises from cyberattacks to full-scale war.
Estonia has internalized these lessons even more deeply, shaped by decades of exposure to Russian threats and grey-zone warfare. Central to its preparedness is the Estonian Defence League, a nationwide volunteer force that operates alongside the military. Estonia also equips citizens with practical tools, such as the “Ole valmis!” (“Be Prepared!”) mobile app, which provides clear emergency guidance from evacuation and psychological first aid. Preparedness is embedded in daily life.
Canada, by contrast, has done little to equip citizens for sustained crisis.
This is why the CAF’s recently developed defence mobilization plan deserves serious attention rather than reflexive criticism. Some commentators have falsely portrayed it as a scheme to conscript civil servants and rush them into combat. That is simply not what the document proposes.
The plan is a framework, not yet an activated program. The much-quoted figures – 100,000 primary reservists and up to 300,000 in supplemental capacity – are modelling assumptions to test logistics, legal authorities, and training pathways for a future volunteer corps. In Estonia, roughly 2.5 per cent of the population belongs to its national Defence League.
For Canada to reach a comparable level, a civil defence corps would require around one million volunteers.
There is nothing radical about this. It mirrors what many NATO allies have done for decades. Finland, Norway, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Denmark all maintain structured, disciplined volunteer or home-guard forces that supplement regular militaries and support civil defence. These are not militias. They are democratically accountable, professionally trained formations designed to strengthen national resilience.
Canada now faces a choice it has long avoided. We must accept that modern conflict tests societies before it tests armies. When Mr. Trump openly flirts with confrontation and annexation of allied territory, and Canada’s own military quietly models unconventional warfare scenarios at home, we must not hesitate to prepare Canadians for crisis.
In a crisis, defence will depend on citizens who are informed, trained and organized. We have not prepared them, and at present, Canada is not ready.
Sweden and Estonia have demonstrated that democratic preparedness does not require panic – only honesty and foresight. Canada needs a civil defence corps to strengthen resilience, support the CAF, and prepare for the crises that we already face.
The real danger is waiting until preparation is no longer a choice.
Marcus Kolga is a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.
