Sajjan’s tragic politics

This week, as National Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan continued to face strong criticism of his now-acknowledged embellishment of his role in Canada’s 2006 Afghan War offensive, Operation Medusa, the public had another opportunity to see Sajjan in action. It was unfortunate that what could have been Sajjan-the-politician’s finest hour instead became a footnote to the self-inflicted scandal.

The event was a talk given by the minister on Wednesday, on the Liberal government’s plan for the military. The remarks were exactly what Canadians had originally been promised from their new “badass” defence minister. Indeed, it was remarkably refreshing to hear a Canadian defence minister (of any party) so clearly state what those who closely watch military issues in Canada have long grasped — the military is a disaster. And it’s unforgivable that the minister sidelined this critical message via his own inexplicable, and indefensible, grandstanding.

But first, to his remarks: Sajjan confirmed that chronic underfunding, stretching back generations, has left all three branches of the military stretched beyond their breaking point. The Navy has rusted out. It has no destroyers, critical to modern operations, and no supply ships, leaving our only remaining heavy ships — our newly retrofitted frigates — either dependent on allies for basic supplies or limited to coastal waters, the world’s most heavily armed fisheries patrol. The Air Force’s major equipment either needs outright replacement (our elderly search-and-rescue fleet; our diminishing squadrons of nearly 40-year-old CF-18 jets) or mid-life upgrades (our utility helicopters). The Army’s units are understrength and the shuttering of recruiting offices hasn’t helped. While much of its equipment still has some life in it — Afghan War-era crash-procurements helped — it’s only a matter of time before it, too, will require costly replacements and upgrades. And even a well equipped force can’t do its job properly without constant training, and Canada’s units are getting less and less of that.

Fielding a suitably sized, properly equipped and acceptably trained military is hellishly expensive. Militaries burn money. But grownup countries maintain their forces, anyway, because that’s the cost-of-admission into the ranks of nations actually capable of asserting, in a meaningful way, effective power on the global stage. Canada, of course, is not an imperial superpower, would never want to be and couldn’t ever be if it tried. But it is a country with an enormous land mass that requires securing, vast air approaches that need patrolling, and three oceans across which it trades with the whole world. Meeting our own domestic needs is going to be expensive, and that doesn’t even touch on honouring our treaty obligations and values abroad.

Sajjan clearly gets this. As he warned on Wednesday, our “status quo spending on defence will not even maintain a status quo of capabilities.” In plainer language, we are starving our already small and poorly equipped force to death. This cannot be allowed to continue, and Sajjan says it won’t. The Liberals, he says, are preparing a “significant investment” in defence. “When Canadians hear the defence investment that we are going to be putting in,” he said, “it’s going to be significant. It’s going to be significant because of the hole that we need to come out of.” Sajjan also, pleasingly, didn’t spare past Liberal governments from criticism. He noted this was a failure owned by successive governments, meaning both Conservative and Liberal. And as we’ve written here many times before, in this he’s certainly right.

Sajjan’s words aren’t themselves an investment. We’ll wait to see what the Liberals actually bring to the table, and we confess we have our doubts as to their sincerity. Canada’s postSecond World War history on defence policy speaks, in tragic terms, for itself. But Sajjan, at least, talked about the issue as it truly is. It was what a soldier-turned-defence-minister should sound like.

And that’s a shame, because no one heard him. Oh, sure, the usual suspects (including this editorial board) paid attention. But those same suspects have been sounding this alarm for years. The effectiveness, or lack thereof, of such warnings is all too evident. The only thing people wanted to talk about after his remarks was his own future. Will he resign? Be fired, or shuffled out?

That’s what makes Sajjan’s unforced error — his boasts of playing a key role in military operations that he was part of, but only in a support function — so tragic. Placing him at Defence had the hallmark of a home run for the Liberals. He is a serious man, capable of serious contributions to Canada’s place in the world. Now, his ego has frittered away his credibility, and has likely destroyed his ability to effectively lead the military and represent Canada on the world stage. If he cannot command the confidence and respect of the troops he oversees, it is hard to see how he can continue to manage a ministry for which he is otherwise so well suited. It’s tragic, and all too typical of what politics can do to people. Sajjan the soldier would have known that. Pity Sajjan the politician so soon forgot.