National Post - October 12 2006
By Colin Kenny
Goose Bay Air Base in Labrador has a proud military history that stretches back to its pivotal role as a bridge to the European theatre during the Second World War. Sadly, the base has become strategically irrelevant.
Even more sadly, this irrelevance to Canada’s military needs hasn’t stopped the country’s two largest political parties from funneling money into the base in attempts to win one federal seat – the riding of Labrador.
If this were one lone military boondoggle, it would be one too many. But it isn’t. The Department of Defence owns one building for every five soldiers in uniform. Many of our military facilities are redundant, but keep sapping funds from the Canadian Forces because politicians aren’t willing to risk votes by doing the right thing.
At Goose Bay, the Liberals got it started. They won a crucial Labrador by-election that kept their government afloat in 2005 after promising to pave the Goose Bay runway at a cost of $38 million.
This despite the fact that Goose Bay’s usefulness had run out. NATO had long used the base as a low-altitude training facility for its jets, but stopped when low-altitude bombing went out of fashion. Too many low-flying jets got shot down during the first Gulf War.
Never mind that Goose Bay had become redundant. The runway promise helped keep the Martin government afloat.
The Conservatives then upped the ante. They failed to win the seat in the 2006 election, but not before Prime Minister Steven Harper had promised to locate approximately 650 Rapid Response troops and their families in Goose Bay – requiring the building of new infrastructure, of course, to house and train this new force.
For a start, this was clearly a ridiculous location for a specialized force, which should be located on a major base with appropriate support facilities.
Last week the Senate Committee on National Security and Defence came down with a new report – Managing Turmoil. It spoke of things that elected politicians dread to talk about. It pointed out that Canada can ill afford to spend defence dollars stupidly, for political purposes, when there isn’t enough money in the defence budget to allow the Canadian Forces to do their job.
The Goose Bay Air base is just one example of spending that the military would like to eradicate but that politicians keep flowing to buy votes. There are hundreds of outdated military facilities across this country – including reserve armories with their own proud histories – that should be closed or amalgamated in the interests of creating a more efficient military.
The Committee used Goose Bay as an example simply because it sticks out like a sore thumb. I have great respect for the people of Happy Valley, the community of approximately 8,000 people that surround the Goose Bay Air Base and have largely depended on the base for their livelihoods.
But the Goose Bay Air Base has an annual budget of $55 million a year. Beyond that, it has a support unit within the Department of National Defence in Ottawa staffed by 15 or 16 people. It has its own full-time weather station! Even Cold Lake, Alberta, a main base for Canada’s fighter force, doesn’t have a full-time weather station.
Then there is the impending $38 million runway. Plus the cost of building the facilities required for the 650 Special Forces personnel and their families, who should be going someplace else. People in the military will tell you they should be going someplace else, but that they can’t go elsewhere because of politics.
So what to do at Goose Bay and other redundant military facilities? The people of Happy Valley deserve more than a kiss-off now that their base can no longer play a useful military role.
Our Committee believes that the Government should develop a transition plan to assist places like Happy Valley adjust their economies. Done right, this plan could serve as a blueprint for other towns that need to retool as a result of a large public or private employer relocating or ceasing operations.
Communities could be subsidized during their transitions, starting at a level the military installation had been providing in recent years, and diminishing as the transitions take hold.
Not every community will be capable of making a successful transition. But there are numerous examples of places like Summerside PEI ,Cornwallis NS and Chatham NB creating successful new economies for themselves. They no longer have to fret that the next Minister of Defence will finally show enough gumption to take an axe to them, because they have shed their dependence on the military.
Right now, our politicians are helping places like Happy Valley live a lie. In the process they are draining an underfunded military of resources it needs to defend us.
Canada currently has a military so starved of resources that it struggles just to keep one significant mission going overseas. If the Canadian Forces are going to help us meet the turmoil that is likely to come at Canada over the coming decades, the Forces will need a lot more funding.
They will also need to spend every nickel wisely. Which means refusing to sustain facilities that have outlived their usefulness.
If the mission of the Canadian Forces was not so central to the well being of our country, the politics of military boondoggles might be vaguely amusing. Given the threats Canadians are going to face in the coming decades, our Committee doesn’t find them funny at all.
Senator Colin Kenny is Chair of the Senate Standing Committee on National Security and Defence. He can be reached via email at: kennyco@sen.parl.gc.ca