DND curbs activities as cost-cutting measure

OTTAWA • Senior defence officials have ordered a curb on non-essential activities across the department, The Canadian Press has learned, as they look to free up millions of dollars for military operations and other more critical tasks.

The result has been a severe cut to activities not directly related to missions or military readiness, including travel and non-mission training, as the department limps to the end of the federal fiscal year on March 31. The cost-cutting is in addition to the military having already parked large numbers of trucks and support vehicles, docked naval vessels and cut back on flying times for aircraft because of financial pressures.

While the department won’t say how much money officials are looking to save, spokesman Dan Le Bouthillier said it is “likely” to be less than one per cent of the overall defence budget.

With a combined operating and capital budget of $19.2 billion in this fiscal year, that would amount to around $190 million.

“We need to remain within the spending authorized by Parliament,” Le Bouthillier said in an email. “To do this, we asked that our organizations identify discretionary spending on activities that don’t impact military operations or the department’s core business.”

Canada’s overall defence budget is broken into three main categories, which in 2016-17 were: $14.3 billion for operating expenditures; $3.5 billion for capital expenses such as new equipment and infrastructure; and $1.3 billion in funding to NATO and other international organizations or programs.

Several insiders told The Canadian Press that the belt-tightening is the result of years of deep cuts followed by minimal increases, even as the military has been called upon to do increasingly more.

Canada has more military personnel deployed abroad now than at any point since Afghanistan, and it will surpass Afghanistan if the Liberals pull the trigger on a new peacekeeping mission in Africa.

Yet the $14-billion operating budget remains about $2 billion less now than it did when the combat mission in Afghanistan ended in 2011.

The past year saw the Defence Department’s operating budget increase by about $140 million, even though it was expected to spend $200 million more on international missions. The military is scheduled to get an extra $550 million in its operating budget this coming fiscal year thanks to an automatic increase the former Conservative government approved and the governing Liberals have said they will continue.

But defence analyst David Perry of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute said it won’t be enough to cover the department’s existing shortfalls and emerging costs associated with peacekeeping and cyber-defence.

THE MILITARY HAS ALREADY PARKED LARGE NUMBERS OF VEHICLES, DOCKED VESSELS AND CUT BACK ON FLYING TIMES