Defence spending pledge is timely and significant

Opinion

There was a time when Canada was a genuine military power.

Toward the end of the Second World War, Canada’s Armed Forces numbered more than one million men and women, and this nation’s navy and air force were among the largest in the world. As columnist Louis Delvoie stated in an op-ed for The Kingston Whig Standard back in 2015, “Canada’s war effort had been massive for a country of only 11 million people.”

Here we are, 80 years later, a nation of 44 million — and yet the Canadian Armed Forces are but a shadow of their former strength by comparison.

Last March, the CBC reported that only 58 per cent of the Canadian Armed Forces would be able to respond to a crisis if called upon by NATO allies, as nearly half of the military’s equipment is considered “unavailable and unserviceable.”

This was according to an internal Department of National Defence presentation dated Dec. 31, 2023 that had been obtained by the CBC.

That same presentation said that the Royal Canadian Air Force is in the worst shape of all the CAF forces, with 55 per cent of “fighters, maritime aviation, search and rescue, tactical aviation, trainers and transport” considered unserviceable.

Unfortunately, the navy isn’t far behind, with 54 per cent of its vessels — “frigates, submarines, Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships and defence vessels” — unfit to deploy. According to the article, the army was in better shape at the time the presentation was written, with only 46 per cent of its equipment considered unserviceable.

Worst of all is the fact that our defence forces are having great difficulty in recruiting fresh blood into our army, navy and air force, with the military short 15,780 members in both regular and reserve elements.

While it was no secret that Canada’s military has been showing deterioration in both aging equipment and in the flagging numbers of men and women in uniform, this document is a signpost of just how much our federal government has failed our military, and in our international commitments.

According to the Department of National Defence website, Canada was forecasted to spend 1.36 per cent of GDP on defence in 2021-22, and currently spends about 1.45 per cent of GDP on defence. Under Justin Trudeau, the Liberals had committed to spending two per cent of GDP on defence by 2032, calling it a “credible, responsible and achievable target date.”

On Monday, however, Prime Minister Mark Carney said it was time to reinvest in our military and meet our obligation under NATO’s military spending guidelines, with Canada on track to achieve a spending target of two per cent of gross domestic product early next year — five years earlier than it had previously planned.

“Our military infrastructure and equipment have aged, hindering our military preparedness,” Carney said. “Only one of our four submarines is seaworthy. Less than half of our maritime fleet and land vehicles are operational. More broadly, we are too reliant on the United States.”

This change in defence spending is both timely and significant. Canada has been facing growing international pressure to meet the two per cent of GDP defence spending threshold, particularly from U.S. President Donald Trump, who began criticizing Canada in his first term in office.

However, Carney said it was not to appease “NATO accountants” — nor presumably wayward U.S. presidents — that he was pushing up the spending timeline. His goal, he said, is to “protect Canadians” and that an increasingly unreliable United States government has become a liability as it moves to charge for market access and reduce its contribution to the world’s collective security.

It’s hard to argue against this reasoning. There is growing concern that Trump will attempt to remove the United States from NATO altogether — or worse still, ignore and disregard it, meaning that we can no longer count the U.S. as a trusted ally.

Considering the worsening relationship between Canada and the United States, overwhelmingly thanks to Trump himself, there is a need to shore up our own defences and rely far less on being in the good graces of our southern neighbour.

Of course, at a time when a large number of Canadians have shown growing patriotism in the face of Trump’s economic attack on our country, Carney’s anti-U.S. rhetoric certainly does him no harm politically.

But there are economic concerns to consider — particularly as the Carney administration has delayed any attempt at passing a budget until the fall.

According to The Canadian Press, Carney said his government will design a new defence policy and industrial strategy to lift up the defence sector, while making use of Canadian steel and aluminum — both of which are currently under threat from U.S. tariffs.

Carney also committed to reform military procurement and promised new spending on submarines, aircraft, surface ships and armed land vehicles, along with new radar, sensors and drones.

This would equate to billions of dollars in new investments.

While it’s possible that an economic slowdown in Canada could make that two per cent a little easier to achieve, thanks to Trump’s ongoing tariff war, Carney has not been very forthcoming with explanations on how his government will pay for this increase in defence spending.

Canada’s fiscal books are already awash in red ink. As a result, Carney will have to make both political and social trade-offs in trying to reach that two per cent target — never mind the five per cent NATO is considering as a new GDP defence spending threshold down the road.

And some of those trade-offs will not be popular.

But in a world that is becoming increasingly unstable, building a stronger Canadian military that can defend our nation against outside threats warrants serious consideration.

It’s long past time that Canada stood up for itself again.