Defence minister Sajjan likely to have a hard time selling Liberal military policy in wake of gaffe.

OTTAWA • Canada’s defence minister may have a harder time selling the Liberals’ new policy to his own military after claims he was an “architect” of a major Afghanistan operation.

There is no doubt Harjit Sajjan has lost respect as a soldier, say sources close to and inside the Canadian Forces, and that this will colour the remainder of his tenure. But whether he retains credibility as a politician will depend on whether he delivers on promises to fix major funding and capability gaps. And there is significant skepticism about whether he can.

The minister acknowledged this Wednesday, telling reporters he’ll be judged by “actions, not words.”

A substantially-delayed “defence policy review,” originally promised for last December, is being put out before Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visits Brussels for a major NATO meeting May 25. Alongside its release, Sajjan is expected to reveal a dollar figure for Canada’s “significant investment” in the military.

That’s after detailing a list of complaints about past funding shortfalls in an address to military and defence stakeholders in Ottawa Wednesday. Several in the room called the address “frank,” but many noted every politician likes to detail predecessors’ failings before announcing policy.

In its first two federal budgets, the Liberal government decided to “defer” about $12 billion in military capital spending, itself contributing to the types of shortfalls Sajjan described.

Sajjan offered few hints as to the substance of the review other than that it will be “rigorously costed” and audited, and that it will ostensibly fill a funding “hole.” He described it as “a plan to allocate realistic funding to ... ‘bread and butter’ projects.”

It is unclear whether the review will clarify pending peacekeeping deployments, or how heavily it will focus on North American defence, thought to be a priority of the Trump administration in Washington. It is unlikely, however, the review will recommend the more than doubling of the defence budget that would be required to meet NATO spending targets of two per cent GDP, a target Sajjan called “aspirational.”

Opposition parties and some in military circles are miffed after Sajjan misrepresented himself during a recent speech to Indian military officials. Sajjan said he was an “architect” of Operation Medusa, a major offensive against the Taliban in Afghanistan, but accounts from others who served at the time say his role was much smaller than that, focused on intelligence-gathering. He made a similar claim in a 2015 podcast. He has since apologized.

A veteran and military communications consultant in Atlantic Canada, Tim Dunne, said Wednesday the rank-and-file are “not terribly happy” about the comments.

Now the minister has “two burdens he’s got to shoulder,” Dunne said.