New defence plan has few details
Most of money pledged won’t come for years
Canada’s back! Well, it may be one day if some grand spending promises outlined in the Trudeau government’s defence policy review — which would increase defence spending by a whopping 70 per cent — are kept. But the timeline announced by the government Wednesday to get there runs to 2026 and beyond.
Canada’s Defence Policy is like other papers published since the end of the Second World War outlining military policy for the next 20 years. It is long on spending promises — $62 billion of them. But most of the money is heavily back-loaded. It will be subject to the budgetary constraints and whims of the winners of the next few federal elections and will not be of much help to Canada or NATO in the near future.
The document — announced to great fanfare before a Greek chorus of several hundred soldiers in Ottawa’s Cartier Square Drill Hall — was as interesting for what it didn’t say as for what it did.
There was scant mention of peacekeeping, although this was supposed to be Justin Trudeau’s signature military policy and the best way — or so he and his aides once thought — for Canada to secure a two-year appointment as a member of the United Nations Security Council.
Other than stating for the umpteenth time that at some point Canadian blue helmets will embark for Africa to honour a campaign promise Trudeau made nearly two years ago, there was barely a whiff in the 112-page document or numerous side papers about where those peacekeepers might end up, in what configuration and to what end.
Among other significant gaps in what the government claims is a landmark document, perhaps the biggest is there is nothing about whether Canada will finally join the U.S. program for North American ballistic missile defence, which has been a top NORAD priority for some time because of the lethal long-range capabilities North Korea, Russia and China have been acquiring.
After consulting for months with Canadians, all the paper has to say about BMD is Canada is committed to modernizing its overall contribution to NORAD.
Neither is there clarity on the jet fighter procurement muddle. The paper announced Canada needs 88 new fighter jets, rather than 65, as the Tories had it. If this is the number of new jets the RCAF gets, it will be good for Canada, NORAD and NATO. But there is no explanation about what represents a multibillion-dollar shift in policy or about when those aircraft might join the fleet.
There is also nothing about how these new jets will fit in with the Liberals’ ill-considered plan to spend as much as $7 billion on an interim purchase of 18 Boeing Super Hornet jets that almost nobody in the military community in Canada or elsewhere understands the justification for.
Other than the smart, multi-coloured brochure announcing the new defence policy, the most impressive thing about Wednesday’s announcement was the numbers thrown around were bigger than anyone expected.
Special Forces is a prime example. This secretive lethal part of the military is to get an additional 605 badlyneeded troops for critical missions. And there is a guarantee of sorts that Canada will build 15 surface warships, after speculation the number was going to shrink to as low as six because of ballooning costs.
There is also an acceptance of the realities of modern warfare with talk of more resources for drones, cyber warfare and intelligence, as well as predictable words about the need for greater diversity and gender equality.
Canada’s Defence Policy was not written only for Canadians, of course. It is designed to answer serious questions Washington and NATO have about Ottawa’s commitment to collective security.
In this regard there is some fancy — some might say fanciful — bookkeeping so it can be claimed Canada will eventually spend 1.4 per cent of GDP on defence, though this is still far short of the pledge it and every NATO country made to spend two per cent of GDP on defence. Part of the way the government plans to reach 1.4 per cent is to throw into the calculation some of the money spent on the Coast Guard, the RCMP and pensions for soldiers and, if it was understood correctly, for DND civilians.
How much of this new arithmetic will be accepted by NATO, the U.S. and other allies is anyone’s guess. Still, the feel-good factor was high Wednesday. If history is any guide, a lot of the promises made in the defence policy review will never be kept. Canadians should have the answer to that in about 2026.