Reliance on the dominant maritime power reduced the apparent need for a separate Canadian defence effort. In this interpretation, the same habit had allowed the nineteenth-century United States to benefit from British naval strength. Dominion governments could point to Britain's battleships and question the cost of their own forces. Yet British command of the sea still had to be converted into the safe movement of goods during war. Canadian exports needed access to Britain, the United States, and other imperial markets, so escort provision served the Canadian economy as well as the Allied war effort.
Notable Point · 3:19-5:24
British sea power and Canada's trade-defence problem
British naval supremacy made local defence spending easier to postpone, but Canada's export trade still required escorts in wartime.