By Senator Colin Kenny
The federal government is in the midst of billboarding a series of blockbuster military purchases. Its announcements have some long-frustrated military observers applauding wildly.
They also have more dubious Canadians complaining that billions of dollars will be wasted on the military that could be better spent elsewhere.
Note to the first, enthusiastic group: It is too soon to applaud, at least to applaud wildly.
Note to the second, dubious group: This isn’t money wasted. The Canadian government has been spending peanuts on the physical protection of its citizens for decades, and providing that protection is, after all, the No. 1 job of any government.
Canadians currently spend $343 per capita on defence. Pick just about any other comparable country and compare. Just three examples: you will find the Dutch at $648, the Australians at $658 and the British at $903.
The Dutch aren’t exactly known as warmongers, but they do recognize that their armed forces have a role to play in promoting global stability as well as protecting their own citizens from man-made and natural disasters. Those are basic roles for any mature country. They are practical roles. They are also moral roles.
So why am I not cheering more loudly in the wake of the government’s announcement that it will spend $4.7 billion to purchase and maintain 16 new military helicopters, $1.2 billion on 2,300 new mid-sized logistics trucks, $2.1 billion on new logistics supply ships and more than $8.3 billion to purchase and maintain two new fleets of transport aircraft?
Because, for the most part, these are blatant needs that simply had to be filled if Canada was to continue to play any kind of serious role in protecting Canadians at home and abroad. The lack of capacity of the Canadian Forces to even help out in domestic emergencies has been dwindling to the danger point.
You don’t see today’s trucking firms running Model-Ts on modern highways. Most of these purchases were so badly needed that they were no longer matters of choice (although I do credit this government for one-upping the last government in opting for buying rather than leasing strategic airlift, so that Canada can get to national and international emergencies on time for a change).
My greatest fear is that this government will use these purchases to tell the electorate that it has done the “right thing” in terms of reinvigorating the Canadian Forces – that by spending billions of dollars in one flurry after decades of neglect it will pretend that Canadians can now put a check mark beside the category “Canada’s military needs” and say “job well done.”
The Senate Committee on National Security and Defence has been examining Canada’s defence capacity for several years now. We are not war-like people. We simply believe that somebody has to do the accounting to advise Canadians whether they and their interests are being adequately defended by any given government of the day, or whether they are not.
I commend this government for committing itself to a down payment on new equipment. But even here there are surprising omissions. Why no commitments to the replacement of Canada’s outmoded destroyer fleet and its dwindling fixed-wing search-and-rescue fleet? Why no mention of uninhabited aerial vehicles so important to coastal surveillance? Why no replacement plan for smaller trucks, that are on average 12 years old and in just about the same dilapidated shape as the larger trucks?
Beyond equipment, why no mention of personnel and infrastructure? There is no point to adding new windows and porches to a house if the structure is unsound.
Between 2000-2004 the Department of National Defence spent $939 million less on maintaining and replacing infrastructure than Treasury Board guidelines call for, and that gap will climb above $1 billion this year. DND has huge infrastructure resources – 1 building for every 5.5 people it employs. But many of these facilities are in disrepair and inadequate to the needs of training and maintaining a modern military force. Spending money on repairing an institution’s foundation isn’t as flashy as spending it on new equipment, but it is just as important.
Canada’s military is certainly in need of new equipment, but it is in even greater need of qualified personnel to utilize that equipment. Our Committee believes that both the last and the current government have underestimated the number of personnel that will be needed to fulfill the missions the overstretched Canadian Forces are going to be called upon to perform. We need 90,000 people in uniform – not 75,000 – or the pattern of burnout and attrition is going to continue.
In terms of recruiting, the government is aiming too low and going too slow. They are moving slowly because they don’t have the capacity to process and train the additional personnel they need. They should have that capacity, and that is going to require ingenuity and cost money.
So hold some of your applause, and don’t check off the box beside “Canada’s military needs.” There is far too much to be done, and nobody should be pretending that there isn’t.
Senator Colin Kenny can be reached via email at kennyco@sen.parl.gc.ca