By Mike Nickerson
Clean your room! That was my parents’ opening salvo in a long test of wills, understandable given that my room resembled a cross between a scrap yard and a fuzzy petri dish. But thankfully there was always an easy answer to that problem that didn’t involve sorting or disinfectant. I’d promise to clean it. This bought time until the next confrontation, when I’d point out the fiscal limitations of cleaning my room. When that didn’t work, it was time to note the impact all that cleaning would have on my health, or the environment, or how it might keep me from helping old ladies cross the street. And it all worked famously until my parents kicked me out and sold the house.
Well NATO just told Canada to clean its room for about the umpteenth time last month at their summit in Washington D.C., and guess what? We promised we would. Or more specifically, Justin Trudeau did, promising to increase military spending to two percent of GDP by 2032 despite repeated (and surprisingly reasonable) arguments that it is an arbitrary and flawed metric. But two percent it is; now leave us alone.
Of course the brilliance of this is that neither Trudeau nor his government will be around to make good on that promise. A nifty trick that, something I wish I thought of during those tense family negotiations of yesteryear. No, it will most likely land on Pierre Poilievre’s shoulders to sort out, though if his recent pithy musings about Canada’s military are anything to go by (“I will replace the woke culture with a warrior culture”) NATO better not be banking on us picking up our metaphorical dirty underwear anytime soon, especially given Poilievre’s zeal to cut spending and taxes the second he takes office.
Unfortunately this has not stopped many a pundit and general from dreaming of all the new kit we’ll be buying to reach that two percent figure, with visions of sugar-plums dancing joyously in their heads. Well, not so much sugar-plums as submarines, which are considerably more expensive. And it’s also glossed over a far more fundamental problem, namely a severe lack of personnel to make all this hallucinating a reality.
Now it’s well known that Canada’s military is short some 16,000 members, with shortages in just about every area save for senior brass. What perhaps is less talked about is a severe shortage of staff to handle the procurement of all that lovely new kit, to say nothing of a depleted and underfunded diplomatic corps to keep us from having to use it in the first place.
It’s an open question whether the funds for all those shiny new toys NATO wants us to buy will ever materialize, for really, what’s a promise worth these days? But there are unspent billions currently on the books that could be spent right now getting Canada ready to use those toys should Santa Pierre actually come through with the goods, and that’s spending on people, be it hiring, housing, training, guaranteed medical and financial support for veterans, cost-of-living subsidies, or simply better food in the mess hall.
And if NATO is so eager for Canada to step up, then they should be more than happy for new recruits to embed in their militaries for training, procurement officers to liaise and learn from their NATO counterparts, and a refreshed diplomatic core to work and learn alongside their allies in the art of avoiding conflict in the first place. It’s the sort of fundamentals that need to be in place long before you start acquiring multi-billion dollar weapon systems. And it will allow Canada to truly start contributing now as opposed to 2032, by which time, at the rate we’re going, the world will likely just be a cinder.
So by all means play for time offering promises and platitudes, a tried and true method for messy children and feckless governments alike. But in the meantime actually start doing what is possible now, and that’s invest more in Canadian forces members than sparkly new toys that go boom. For those socks won’t pick up themselves.
