May 2007
By Colin Kenny
George Bush Sr. once muttered ruefully about “the vision thing.” He was annoyed because his critics complained that he didn’t have a grand sense of what was coming over the horizon, and what America should do to prepare for it.
Why they singled out poor George is beyond me. It’s difficult to find any politician with vision these days. The problem with vision is that it’s so darned long-term – no quick payoff. Governments have become like many large companies that have quit investing in their future because the CEO’s survival depends on keeping the stock price rising. Today’s investors are looking for quick rewards.
So, of course, are most politicians. They’re called votes. The politicians know they’re unlikely to be around a decade or two down the road, so they put the public’s money into programs and projects that will please voters at the next election. Let the future be damned – lay on the bread and circuses.
That is undoubtedly why the current federal government was so clearly uninterested in environmental issues until a few months ago. Then the public surprised its leaders by demanding something unusual: vision. After years of apathy, people finally wakened to the fact that we humans are ruining the planet.
Having passed an environmental private member’s bill through Parliament a few years ago, I’m delighted with this belated environmental awakening.
In recent years I have attempting to sound another wakeup call, with only a modicum of success. I and my colleagues who sit on the Senate Committee on National Security and Defence have been trying to get Canadians to recognize that it is extremely difficult for a country without a capable military capacity to insure itself against physical disaster while playing a constructive role in the world
That isn’t a very catchy message for many Canadians. They have seen their neighbours to the south getting involved in some extremely questionable military adventures, so there is a sense that de-emphasizing the military must be a better way to go. It is, if you get lucky and don’t need to defend yourself. It is, if you’re selfish and don’t care to recognize that creating a more just and stable world can’t be accomplished with kind thoughts alone.
The current federal government is taking a sly approach to military spending. It has announced just enough equipment purchases over the past year to create the illusion that it is determined to resuscitate Canada’s military capacity, without committing nearly enough money to make that promise come true.
In one breathtaking week last summer, the government designated money for trucks, helicopters, transport planes and replenishment ships. A few weeks ago, it purchased tanks for Afghanistan.
These all constitute reasonable purchases, and – for those not paying attention – they help create an image of a no-nonsense government that believes that military strength is essential to sovereignty. Not like those creepy Liberals, who let Canada’s defenses run down in their drive to shrivel the national debt.
Well, at least those Liberal governments were honest – they simply didn’t attach that big a priority to the military. This government, on the other hand, is hypocritical. It pretends to be strengthening our defences, but what it is really doing is buying just enough equipment to fill the most alarming holes and to get Canada through its commitment in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, that Defence Capabilities Plan that this government insisted the Department of Defence come up with to outline Canada’s military needs for the next quarter century seems to have gone into hiding. It was supposed to be forthcoming last Spring, then last Fall, but . . . my goodness! . . . if it exists, it’s being hidden away somewhere.
Why? Because if an honest plan were brought forward, it would demonstrate clearly that the government is going to have to spend many billions more on defence than its plans call for now. Otherwise the Armed Forces are going to deteriorate once again. There will be huge holes in the Navy, the Air Force, and in the Army as well.
The government doesn’t want Canadians to know that those holes will be there if it doesn’t cough up a lot more money. And it doesn’t want to agree to cough up the money – at least not unless it has a majority government, which may not be in the cards for many years to come, if ever. Agreeing to spend the money would be the visionary thing to do, but the government already bought that constituency’s votes last summer, so best not overdo it and alienate the pacifists.
It’s quite an act – the Prime Minister angrily denounces anyone he deems to be undermining the efforts of our troops in Afghanistan, while he quietly picks the pockets of Canada’s future military to pay for the Afghanistan mission. Yes, he should be pumping money into that mission – he has committed to it. But he should not use his mounting expenses there to leave tomorrow’s Canadians without the armed forces they will need.
Canada will not be able to play a responsible role in defending them or advancing their interests around the world without a reasonably muscular military. That’s not me, a senator, playing soldier. That’s surviving in a world in which some countries and some movements won’t listen to reason.
Even today, Canadians are already missing something big militarily. It’s called vision.
Senator Kenny is Chair of the Senate Committee on National Security and Defence. He can be reached via email at kennyco@sen.parl.gc.ca