More muscle in our military
The world has changed profoundly since Justin Trudeau became Canada’s prime minister just over a year and a half ago. Last week, Trudeau’s Liberal government profoundly changed how Canada will defend its interests in this world. On Tuesday, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland boldly declared that Canada will blaze its own trail through the international landscape because this country can no longer depend on the United States to lead. On Wednesday, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan committed the government to $62 billion in new military spending over the next 20 years to guide and protect Canada on that pathway.
There will be 15 new warships and 88 new fighter jets - more planes than originally planned - for our armed forces. There will be 5,000 more regular and reserve personnel, plus a defence budget that will rise from the current $18.9 billion a year to $32.7 billion a year by 2027 - a substantial 73-per-cent increase.
This is a dramatic and timely shift for the government and one Canadians can welcome.
It’s also a notable pivot for Trudeau who, in the early days of government, preferred foreign aid over boots on the ground as a problem-solver.
Trudeau’s flower power is morphing into Freeland’s and Sajjan’s hard power. Quite rightly, too. For decades, successive federal governments have starved our servicemen and servicewomen of the weapons and tools they needed to do their jobs even as the politicians seemed increasingly inclined to commit the Armed Forces to military interventions in places like Afghanistan, Libya and Iraq. It’s doubtful Trudeau would have deviated from this trend. But then came Donald Trump.
The erratic, unpredictable President Trump with his “America First” doctrine has become an unreliable partner for Canada and the other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a defence alliance of Western countries.
Suddenly, the global order that has reigned for the last seven decades is crumbling. Pax Americana is in retreat. Yet there are significant and real threats to this global order coming from terrorists and failed states, from Russian President Vladimir Putin - who annexed Crimea from neighbouring Ukraine - and from a rising China eager to show off its growing military prowess.
While we don’t know how long Trump’s reckless isolationist tendencies will last, it’s smart for Canada to strengthen its commitments to its alliances and international law, to countering terrorists and defending human rights.
Other governments around the world are doing the same - reinvesting and realigning in uncertain times.
To be sure, even with the increases promised this week, Canada’s defence spending will account for only 1.4 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product, still far short of the goal of two per cent among NATO allies.
It’s also worth noting that almost all of the new military spending will arrive only after the next election.
Indeed, it will be years before Canada’s Armed Forces can truly deliver all that the Liberals, and their tougher talk, promised this week. But the country, for a change, is marching in the right direction.