To elaborate on this point, the amount of time, money and labour that goes into building modern military technology has has increased exponentially since the 1940's. Simply to transition to a state of affairs where our industry would be capable of sustaining a "total war" effort would likely require more capital and/or labour then Canada actually has. The effort to try would take a great deal of time and effort in itself - naval procurement being a sterling example of what would happen in such a scenario. Further, access to military technology would be another damper. We have excellent LAVs, ships and small arms, but no capacity to build say, fighter aircraft. In a future scenario wherein our new F-35s were found wanting, the ability for us to swiftly transition to new platforms could very well be many months or even years in the making - even with full access to foreign technology and platforms. We would be hard pressed to equip a force indigenously or even invest in the means - privately or publicly. Foreign capital as investment and purchases of foreign weapons would likely be a necessity in the outset.
Another issue is demographics. The Canadian population is not as young, relatively, as the population in 1939, and is better employed than we were in the Great depression. Canadian recruiting would likely face a great deal of rivalry from competition in primary and secondary industry as world demand for our food, minerals, metals and whatever leftover industrial capacity we have (or appears) could very well stymy our ability to rapidly expand. Our main advantage over 1939 is the availabilty of women to serve in both military and home-sectors. The presence of women under arms and in industry would put the social history of the Second World War to shame. They would be a necessity in a total war scenario.
One should remember that by the time the Canadian military was ready for large-scale independent operations (a qualification which thus largely excludes the efforts of RCN and RCAF elements under British command for the early phases of the war) the Second World War was over half over. A future war scenario it would take far, far longer to prepare an equivalent force - and cost astronomically more. The cost to train, equip and sustain and individual soldier is massive on it's own, and a massive increase over the Second World War. A private of 1939 made as much in a year as I did in about two days in Afghanistan, and I'm certain it cost far more to feed me and to keep my vehicle running...
Which of course brings us to the price of gas. Given the shift in the paradigm towards full-mechanization, a modern army utilizes vehicles in a way soldiers in the Second World War could only imagine. Given the relative paucity of young men (and women) willing and able to fight on the front lines, not to mention the ability of news media to cover events, it would be a fair scandal to have the infantry ride into battle on tanks as our forefathers did. Vehicles and all those things that run them could be seen as a political necessity, and those things are at a near historic cost and unlikely to drop - not mention the obvious spike that would occur during a "total war"
Of course, all of this is under the assumption that we're not fighting in Canada...
