Prime Minister Mark Carney greets the troops during his visit to Adazi Military base in Adazi, Latvia in August.Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press
John Turley-Ewart is a contributing columnist for The Globe and Mail, a regulatory compliance consultant and a Canadian banking historian.
Last Tuesday’s budget put Canada on track to borrow and spend billions, particularly on defence, which was allotted a more-than $80-billion boost over five years. The peace dividend paid since the Cold War’s end has been suspended in Canada.
Canada’s latest defence re-armament plan, Our North Strong and Free, increases military capital spending using new and existing funds by an additional $108-billion versus our last one, Strong, Secure, Engaged. The estimated outlay of $323-billion over the next 20 years is just the amount allocated to buy new tools-of-war. That means “updating our Royal Canadian Navy, Royal Canadian Air Force, Canadian Army and Special Operations Forces fleets.”
But worry not. As the Parliamentary Budget Office noted last week, past plans to spend on the military share a common outcome – “actual expenditures have consistently fallen short of projected amounts.” Canada’s defence spending is all plan and no fight. The process is the purpose. The equipment, if ever delivered, is the by-product.
Ottawa plans to spend big on defence. But is there a long-term vision for Canada’s military?
This may explain why Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government won’t break out the math to show how this spending moves the country closer to its 3.5-per-cent of GDP NATO target.
Military procurement sagas are infamous in Canada. The plan to replace the RCAF’s 40-year-old CF-18 Hornet fighter jets is at 20 years and counting. New destroyers and frigates for the RCN, 15 years and counting. New submarines, 10 years-plus so far. Light utility vehicles, essentially variants of the Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck and Mercedes-Benz G-Wagon, eight years in the works.
In 2021, the Canadian Armed Forces put out a request for proposal to replace Browning pistol side-arms first acquired in 1951. But the replacement requires extensive training, not to shoot, but to holster. It must be pointed away from all body parts when it is holstered because it could go off. In short, our soldiers need to dodge enemy fire and their holstered side-arm simultaneously.
These embarrassments are exacerbated by the inability to provide basic, quality housing for our military members. Is it any wonder why our armed forces consistently fall short on recruitment targets? Apparently, yes.
According to Canada’s Auditor-General, 46 per cent of applicants who sign up to join the Canadian Armed Forces change their minds and walk away. Our military doesn’t know why.
All the budget-day guff about a “dangerous and divided world” is a political wink, wink, nudge, nudge to what Ottawa has plainly signalled its objective is. Once again, Canada is going to use military spending as a hyped-up industrial jobs plan as opposed to a dedicated, forward-looking effort to build a formidable military force that can both defend Canada and project force abroad with stealth and precision using the best digital technologies.
Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne announced last Tuesday that the Ottawa cash spigot is open and that “Every company in the country should basically have a defence strategy.”
Last July, Industry Minister Mélanie Joly signalled this was in the works, saying, “History has shown us that when you’re able to have defence and the private sector really work together, you’re able to spear up innovation, make sure that your country is peaceful, and ultimately create jobs.” The history the minister is reading isn’t Canada’s.
What our history reveals is that trying to buy guns to make butter is a proven failure. It serves neither the military nor the public interest. “The strategy features a rejuvenated form of the industrial and regional benefits policy that runs through most major projects and has been responsible for massive delays due to the requirement to use large teams of local suppliers,” wrote Elinor Sloan, one of the leading scholars on the subject, in 2014.
The key words here are “regional benefits policy.” Dr. Sloan’s conclusion, based on mountains of evidence, isn’t the product of recent procurement debacles, but a very long history of them. And the strategy for success also comes from those lessons.
Dr. Sloan and other experts make clear “Canada must be able to acquire capabilities at a speed that allows the Canadian Armed Forces to not fall too far behind what is being developed and sold on the open market.”
In the past, militaries would lead technological advancements. Today, it follows them, such as that developed by Anduril, the military technology company run by a 30-something virtual reality guru who just cut a US$1.7-billion deal to supply unmanned, drone submarines to Australia.
Tuesday is Remembrance Day. Lest we forget.