You cut off Canada from the US and the US as a hegemon would suffer a huge, if not fatal, wound. That's how important it is. Big countries need to have their own Canada as a supplier of raw minerals or/and energy
US has Canada, China will have Russia. Of course that's only for the economic fields, security matters are another story
There is no need to directly compare Russia and Canada, both of them serve their role in a satisfactory way. Me mentioning them together is because they are kinda similar on their role
Canada does not have much infrastructure to redirect its exports for competitive prices . The kind of population Canada attracting to its country it will be unable to develop into independent scientific base. disposable income of Canadians will become lower due to high cost of living, and the brightest will prefer to work in US or US firms the dominance of US will further increase. There is deep integration of US-Canada in travels. Canada simply lucky that it has talented neighbor like US. if there was any other big country to south of Canada it will have very different living standard.
Russia has export infrastructure in 4 directions. it just need to increase the capacities for flexibility of taking market rates. Russia is high disposable income and much larger younger demographics that can do indepth full cycle R&D and not even sell a thing. thats why Russia imports have much less value than Canada. Russia do business in Africa it has to create Wagner. you cannot trust competence of only locals when you are in conflict. The direction of ever increasing flights is towards greater Mideast and it is hot place climate wise so need to be reasonable good health to transition weather extremes.
can China transition to high disposable income country when it faces sanction and conflict with united West and all the countries influenced by them? and still develop military that have global foot print. Range, reliability with operational tempo of products, quality of training, high wages all come into play when you are in conflict zone or out of area operation extended period of time.
