I appreciate the level of thought being put into this, as I asked this question about the purpose of the Canadian forces in the Russia-Ukraine thread in response to a comment about being a G8 Nation and maintaining a military.
On to NATO:
What are the actual requirements for NATO participation? Here's the answer from a fact sheet prepared by the US State Department in 1997:
"NATO membership is potentially open to all of Europe's emerging democracies that share the alliance's values and are ready to meet the obligations of membership.
There is no checklist for membership.
We have made clear that, at a minimum, candidates for membership must meet the following five requirements:
--New members must uphold democracy, including tolerating diversity.
--New members must be making progress toward a market economy.
--Their military forces must be under firm civilian control.
--They must be good neighbors and respect sovereignty outside their borders.
--They must be working toward compatibility with NATO forces.
Again, while these criteria are essential, they do not constitute a checklist leading automatically to NATO membership.
New members must be invited by a consensus of current members.
Decisions to invite new members must take into account the required ratification process in the member states. In the case of the United States, decisions are made in consultation with Congress.
The key determinant for any invitation to new members is whether their admission to NATO will strengthen the alliance and further the basic objective of NATO enlargement, which is to increase security and stability across Europe."
So, I doubt we would be kicked out of NATO for changing the nature of our military. It doesn't modify any of the integral conditions laid out there. And further, that seems pretty suspect when considering how pitiful some militaries are within NATO already. Canada's land mass alone adds signficant strategic value to NATO, being able to monitor the entire northern air space, having current strategic defacto control of a large sea border with the intended opponent of NATO. If Canada wasn't going to contribute at all to a military, then I could see it be a problem, but that's not what we're actually talking about.
in 2006, NATO members made an agreement to commit 2% of their GDP to defense spending annually. There was also a lesser known commitment made to equipment expenditure within that budget.
https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2...xp-2022-en.pdf
As that linked info shows, the vast majority of NATO members consistently miss those targets. So there doesn't seem to be a large desire within the alliance to punish members for not spending on military.
What if Canada started funnelling 2% of GDP exclusively into development of advanced drone manufacturing for defense purposes? Not only would this immediately catapult it into both NATO guidelines for defense spending, but could give us a technological edge on a force multiplication technology, something we desperately need as a manpower deficient nation. Our contribution to global missions wouldn't have to be manpower, instead we could continuously export this drone technology, while also building up a significant home defense.
IMO we shouldn't need to send canadian soldiers to any foreign theatre any more. We have the technology. Let's start using our technological and economic advantages here. Train a and establish elite reserve forces for domestic security purposes. Maybe for infrequent spec ops insertions with limited scope.