New defence spending will still leave Canada $6B to $7B short of NATO target, Blair says

Even if Canada reaches its defence spending targets by the end of the decade, it would still be "$6 billion to $7 billion" short of NATO's two per cent of GDP bench‐ mark for member nations, says Defence Minister Bill Blair.

The federal government's new national defence strategy, released Monday, pledged an increase in mili‐ tary spending of $8.1 billion over the next five years which would move the nee‐ dle on the country's invest‐ ment in defence from 1.33 per cent of the gross do‐ mestic product to 1.76 per cent.

Appearing before the Sen‐ ate committee on national security and defence late Monday, Blair described the new policy as a plan to put "in place the conditions to achieve the two per cent" an alliance target originally agreed to by the former Con‐ servative government in 2014 and reaffirmed by the Liberals last year.

Both Blair and Prime Min‐ ister Justin Trudeau have hin‐ ted there are more defence investments to come. The minister told senators those plans could "easily move us into that two per cent threshold."

NATO allies have been de‐ manding that member coun‐ tries come up with concrete plans to reach the goal.

Blair told senators he asked his department how far the additional funds would leave the defence budget from reaching NATO's target and was told to expect an annual gap of $6 billion to $7 billion. Much, he said, will depend upon the perfor‐ mance of the Canadian economy into the early 2030s.

The investment numbers are not the only major hurdle the new policy has to get past.

The Trudeau government has promised a renewed focus on addressing the shortfall in military person‐ nel, which Blair has esti‐ mated at 16,500 members, both regular and reserve force.

The new strategy doesn't foresee the military returning to its authorized strength of 71,500 full-time members, 30,000 reservists and 5,200 Rangers until 2032.

But to meet the growing demands of overseas opera‐ tions and domestic emer‐ gency response, the coun‐ try's top military commander has suggested the Armed Forces should add at least 14,000 members to its fullstrength complement.

"We decided that we will deal with the 16,500 deficit first," Blair told senators.

"When we close that gap frankly, I think we can demonstrate that to onboard additional people - then I'm quite confident I can go back to the government and say, 'We've solved this problem now. We're on track. We can have the people we need.' And we'll ask for more mon‐ ey to onboard additional people."

Eyre 'cautiously opti‐ mistic' on recruitment

Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Wayne Eyre said the latest numbers suggest that the military's regular force may have turned the corner and is expected to have grown by 214 members as of the end of February.

"Likewise, the reserve force has grown by several hundred as well," Eyre told the Senate hearing. "We are entering this fiscal year with more recruits in the process‐ ing pipeline than we have for the last three. February had the greatest number of monthly applicants in the last five years."

Eyre said he's "cautiously optimistic."

The defence policy pro‐ poses a series of measures to fix the glacial pace of re‐ cruiting, including the intro‐ duction of a probationary pe‐ riod which would allow the military to enrol new mem‐ bers faster.

The federal government opened the door several months ago to allowing per‐ manent residents to apply to join the Armed Forces. More than 21,000 applied but less than 100 had been accepted by early this year.

One of the major con‐ cerns for the Department of National Defence is that many foreign-born applicants must pass enhanced security screening.

"This is not a military problem. This is a Govern‐ ment of Canada problem," Eyre said.

Eyre told the committee a new information-sharing agreement between the im‐ migration and defence de‐ partments should accelerate the process of obtaining se‐ curity clearances. The de‐ fence department also signed a contract last week for new security software be‐ cause the old program was "falling apart," he said.

In a recent speech, Blair openly stated that the re‐ cruiting crisis was putting the military into a "death spiral."

Defence expert Dave Per‐ ry, president of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, said warnings about recruitment have been echoing loudly since the pandemic and the issue was considered a major priority in the last defence policy seven years ago.

He said he sees no sign of a sense of urgency, given that the policy doesn't predict a resolution to the recruitment crisis until 2032.

"They're not anticipating they will be back to their au‐ thorized strength, the num‐ bers they're supposed to be at today, for another eight years," said Perry, whose or‐ ganization has hosted con‐ ferences that are occasionally sponsored by defence con‐ tractors.

"I think it's a patently, ridiculously slow time frame."

He said the defence de‐ partment needs to "funda‐ mentally start doing things differently to get back" to where it needs to be.