No matter what Canada does, they will always need to rely on the U.S., and it will always be the U.S. interest to keep a potential enemy out of Canada.  Its just smart of Canada to watch their spending and benefit from the overwhelming budget of the United States.  And they do share their rescources with you, dont they ?

the thing about being dependant on another country for defense etc is that you don't have the ability to forge your own course or respond effectively when your interests diverge.  the arctic ice going away is opening up a hefty can of worms right now for instance with the americans wanting to consider the northwest passage an international seaway and canada saying it's an internal waterway of ours. 

see, the problem with us relying on the U.S. is that the U.S. cannot go on like this forever. They are running an enormous deficit that will in my opinion be what crumbles their empire. If we rely too much on them we too will suffer. Canada has to become more self sufficent and slowly build, eventually we could be a very powerful nation militarily. Economically we already are. You see, the Americans are very good at what they do but so am I and I could not survive in this world if I were in debt farther than I could get myself out. It's hard to properly explain but they can only print so much money before it becomes worthless, and to me that is when things will turn for the worse. So if Canada plans for the rainy day that will no doubt come if the U.S. keeps up with the crazy spending, we will be the nation that many countries may turn too. We have the resources, we only lack in manpower due to our smaller population. We at least are not quite as high on nourselves as our neighbors to the south, example Ann Coulter, check this out link if you cannot get it to work simply type in Ann Coulter Canada and you should be able to find the video I'm talking about. It's mentality like hers that is making the U.S. a target for terrorism.