By Scott Taylor
On the morning of Tuesday, March 21, Minister of National Defence Anita Anand held a press conference to announce a $1.4 billion contract to expand the training facilities for the Joint Task Force 2 (JTF-2).
For those unfamiliar with the term JTF-2, this is an elite special forces unit that has long been dubbed “Canada’s Secret Commandos.” Their role is that of counterterrorism and special operation combat missions, similar to that of the UK’s Special Air Service (SAS) or the USA’s Delta Force.
Keen eyed followers of the Canadian Armed Forces will know that the JTF-2 have conducted special ops missions in the former Yugoslavia, Haiti, Afghanistan, Iraq and Ukraine. Highly regarded by their international counterparts, the JTF-2 are considered to be among the best in the world.
However, due to the secrecy necessary for them to be effective in their role, the JTF-2’s many successful exploits remain largely unknown to the average Canadian.
Thus, it was a bit surprising that Anand would announce this expansion construction contract for the JTF-2’s Dwyer Hill facilities with such fanfare.
In fact, it was such a different approach that some cynical reporters had the audacity to ask Anand about the timing of the announcement coming just two days before the historic visit of US President Joe Biden to Ottawa. Was this $1.4 billion contract simply intended to pacify the Americans with an apparent boost in Canada’s defence spending, they asked.
While Anand did her best to avoid directly answering this question, thanks to some solid reporting by Ottawa Citizen correspondent, Dave Pugliese, we now know that was indeed Anand’s intention.
It turns out that the public consultations and environmental studies for the expansion of the JTF-2 installation had begun in the spring of 2021. The Liberals approved the $1.4 billion project in June 2022 and the first contract was signed Nov. 22, 2022.
While officially the construction is set to begin on May 1, the government has already spent over $800 thousand on the JTF-2 facility expansion.
Senior military officials privately acknowledged to Pugliese that the announcement of this significant infrastructure investment was delayed deliberately to coincide with the Biden visit.
As a proud Canadian, I would like to think that our defence budget is spent for the purpose of providing security, rather than simply appeasing our American neighbours.
Under the administration of former president Donald Trump, Canada and other NATO members that were not spending at least 2 per cent of their GDP on defence were labelled “shirkers.”
The arbitrary 2 per cent marker fails to take into account the enormous discrepancy in NATO members’ GDPs. In terms of actual dollars spent on defence, Canada ranks sixth among the 30 NATO nations.
Canada presently spends around 1.3 per cent of GDP on defence, and to meet the US stated objective of 2 per cent would require an additional $18 billion a year over the next five years.
That is one helluva lot of healthcare and education money that would be redirected into defence spending.
It is also worth pointing out that the same Colonel Blimps that lobby the government to spend the 2 per cent of GDP on defence, use the fear of China’s militarization as basis for their argument.
Funny thing about that is the fact that China is somehow “militarizing” by spending just 1.3 per cent of their GDP on defence. Yes folks, Canada is a defence “shirker” and China is a war footing while we both spend the same 1.3 per cent of our GDPs on defence.
However, if this is all about achieving an arbitrary percentage to appease the US and NATO, why not expand the infrastructure investment across all Canadian Forces Bases?
If construction costs count as defence spending — why not embark on a massive project to build quality housing for our service members?
In the post-WWII era, every base had a community of tiny homes known as Personnel Married Quarters (PMQ’s) while the single service members lived in communal barracks.
Times have changed, but across many bases, those same tiny PMQs are the only housing personnel can afford.
The CAF presently has a recruiting and retention problem that has left our regular and reserve forces short of some 16, 500 personnel. Our allies want us to spend more for the sake of spending more, so why not improve the quality of life for all members and stimulate the Canadian construction industry at the same time?
