Robert Baines on NATO: “Hold Fast”

On April 5, 2025, Robert Baines, the President and CEO of the NATO Association of Canada, gave an address to the Latvian community at the Toronto Latvian Centre and Zoom. Thank-you to our fellow Lithuanian, Estonian and Ukrainian community members who joined us.

Mr. Baines was introduced by LNAK president Fritz Kristberg and LNAK Executive committee member and Royal Canadian Navy colleague Ādams Grāvītis.

Mr. Baines’ talk began with an explanation of the common naval expression “Hold Fast”, apt for the times we are living in. After a miraculous 80 years of peace in Europe and the Americas, we are facing a new era of war and uncertainty.

The best way to ensure peace and stability is to have in place a strong defence. It is naive to be “anti-war” without putting in place strong defense mechanisms, which serve to deter war.

NATO and the United Nations, established after World War II, have been effective in achieving their goals of peace, predictability and consensus-based cooperation between nations.

According to Mr. Baines, the 2014 Russian invasion of Crimea was a turning point, one that should have, but did not provoke a strong response. This only served to embolden Russian to invade Ukraine in 2022. U.S. President Trump with his “shoot from the hip” style has now injected an alarming level of instability into the world order. In his world view, nations are to be “winners” or “losers” rather than partners.

The main take-away from the talk was that we must each be active in advocating for the importance of strong defence in Canada, and in urging the Canadian government to meet our commitment to NATO to spend 2% of our budget on defence. We need to be lobbying our politicians, as well as talking to our friends, neighbours, family and co-workers. Canada’s defense expenditures do not just serve to help other countries. They are a boost to our own economy, and they protect Canada’s freedom, which must not be taken for granted.