Thank you - that makes a lot of sense....Appreciate it.
Probably U.S. based planes in Alaska were a lot closer to the Yukon than Canadian based planes which I would assume were in Cold Lake Alberta (near the AB-SK border). Also there are the different operational abilities of the planes as explained earlier by another poster.
I don’t buy the idea that the Canadian military is under some sort of Chinese control. I do think Justin Trudeau has in the past been overly sympathetic to China, this is well known. But unless you also think your own military is under the control of China, I don’t think one could be and the other not, without it being known in U.S. military circles even during the Trump administration.
More likely our co-operation with China on military training issues was in part a reverse espionage opportunity, as in, let them come in, we’ll see what they want to spy on, and we’ll spy on how they spy.
In any case the location of most of the military resources of both countries are well known and not easy to hide. Canada has remarkably few military resources to spy on, but the ones we do have tend to be out in the open, in the north where there aren’t many trees. Any nation with satellites no doubt knows all about our military potential.
Also I doubt that there would ever be a direct military confrontation between North America and China over the issue of sovereignty here, something to do with Chinese power in east Asia perhaps, but they would be trying to project inferior power into a space far from their main support, it makes no sense to expect any result other than annihilation of the Chinese air force. Even if Canada sat it out that would be the result but the NORAD treaty requires us to participate even in the unlikely scenario of a Chinese attack on the lower 48 and not Canada.