The choices before us
2. Defending Canada and its Interests
Canada has famously been described as “a fireproof house, far from inflammable materials.” That may have been true once. It is not today. In the era of drones, ballistic missiles, home-grown terror, cyber attacks and asymmetrical warfare, we must remain vigilant. Or, indeed, become vigilant. Canadians do not, as a rule, spend a lot of time thinking about national security or the armed forces, believing ourselves to have no natural predators. This lack of public interest is reflected in the defence policies traditionally advocated by the three major parties. None of their records, either in government or opposition, are good. Notable differences in tone and rhetoric aside, the Conservatives, Liberals and New Democrats all treat defence more as a federal jobs creation program — a shipyard here, an aircraft repair contract there — than what it truly is: the government’s solemn, fundamental duty to protect its territory and people.
This election, sadly, has not altered the trend. National defence has been mostly treated as economic stimulus and a way of asserting a party’s values. When it comes to defending Canada and its interests abroad, there are few real signs of serious thinking to be found in any party.
The Conservatives, of course, have made strong, vocal support of the Armed Forces a key part of their brand. But it has rarely gone beyond jaw-jaw and smiles for the cameras. A series of equipment purchases since the Tories took office did help to address specific equipment shortfalls in the Canadian military: new tanks, helicopters, artillery and transport planes all plugged urgent gaps in our capabilities, especially during the Afghan war. But these infusions of cash and gear have done little to address the overall state of the Armed Forces: The military is too small to do all it’s asked to, lacks the funding to sustain even the capabilities it has, and has massive need for updated equipment, a failure to provide which will soon leave the forces unable to operate effectively. The Army is cutting back on training to save money. The Navy has lost its supply ships and most of its destroyers to old age without replacements being procured or even begun. The Air Force’s combat fleet isn’t far behind. One military procurement after another has gone off the rails and been cancelled or postponed, while the troops are told to make do.
This is a crushing disappointment. Canadians don’t expect much support for the military from the Liberals or NDP. But they had been led to expect it from the Conservatives: there are few issues where the gap between Tory campaign promises and their accomplishments in office have been so wide.
But for all their failures when it comes to the military, the Tories still retain one key advantage over the opposition parties: they see the world as it truly is. On Libya and Ukraine, the Tories correctly identified legitimate threats to Canadian and allied security interests, and acted. They are right, too, on Syria and the Islamic State, and in their robust support of Israel in its efforts to defend itself from terrorist and other threats. If Conservative foreign policy has not been backed up with the kinds of investments — not only in military hardware, but in intelligence, diplomacy and foreign aid — needed to make our presence felt in the councils of the world, well, at least the policy is right.
Would that we could say the same of the opposition parties. Both the Liberals and the NDP insist that the bombing mission against the Islamic State is “the wrong mission for Canada” — but have never offered a convincing explanation for why Canada should do less than it currently is, or why we must choose between military and humanitarian aid, rather than, as we are now, supplying both. Both parties profess support for Israel’s “right to defend itself,” yet whenever it avails itself of this right offer pious lectures about “proportional responses” and one-sided UN resolutions. Both parties promise to return Canada to its supposed “traditional role” of peacekeeping, a role we have rarely fulfilled in the past and that has largely disappeared in the present. Their embrace of these and other discredited myths fatally undermines their credibility on military and security matters.
Or it would, if either party had much to say on these. Both promise to do better by Canada’s veterans, which is laudable though not saying a great deal: the Tory record here has been woeful. Beyond that, there are few noteworthy commitments on the military from either party. Both pledge to keep spending stable — but existing and planned levels of funding are not enough to sustain current capabilities. Which of these capabilities would they allow to degrade, if they declined to spend more? What units would they disband or bases close? We don’t know.
All we can say is that the NDP want to focus more resources on domestic search-and-rescue capabilities — a worthy if painfully limited vision — while the Liberals have pledged an “open and transparent” process to find a replacement for our current fleet of CF-18 jets, while ruling out the F-35 from consideration in advance. (The Conservatives, notwithstanding the manifold problems with the original purchase, seem still wedded to the F-35. Only NDP leader Thomas Mulcair is promising a genuinely open competition, of the kind that should have been held in the first place). The Liberals pledge they’d invest the “savings” derived from not buying the F-35s into the desperately starving Navy, but it’s hard to take that seriously: even if they didn’t buy F-35s, they’d still need to buy some kind of new jet, as they themselves acknowledge, at roughly the same price: there would thus be little “savings” to invest. Given the habits of Liberal governments past, you will forgive us for thinking “investing” in the Navy sounds a lot like sprinkling money on flippable ridings. The NDP, too, promise to focus on the Navy ... and “focus on industrial and regional benefits to support our shipyards.”
One issue on which all three parties have issued reasonably detailed proposals is terrorism: foreign or homegrown, the other main national security challenge of our time. The focus of much of these is C-51, the Conservatives’ controversial antiterrorism bill. We believe the threat is real, and were and are prepared to be persuaded that our police and security agencies need updated legislative tools to address it. But we agree with the opposition parties that the law was written in haste, and is too often vague and overbroad.
The NDP have pledged simply to repeal it, which is clear enough, but leaves us wondering what, if anything, they would replace it with. The Tories defend the bill as necessary and unimprovable. The Liberals have probably the best position — keep the bill, but amend it — however much difficulty it may have created for them politically. How exactly they’d amend it, however, they have yet to say except in general terms.
In summary, all three party proposals suffer from serious flaws while also offering at least one or two worthy ideas. On balance, our nod on this file goes to the Conservatives: we believe they have a more realistic view of the state of the world and of our place in it, and we applaud their willingness to take principled stands in support of our allies, rather than seeking the middle ground on every issue. We only wish they were more ready to back up their soft-power principles with hard-power action.
The Liberals and NDP say that the RCAF should not be bombing the Islamic State. But they never say why