By Scott Taylor
It is hard to imagine that less than two decades ago, the Canadian military was named 'newsmaker of the year' by Macleans magazine.
This recognition was admittedly due to the steady stream casualties our battle group was suffering in the war in Afghanistan, echoed by the drumbeat of war mongering pundits arguing that this sacrifice would someday all be justified.
Canada fully withdrew from that conflict in 2014, and three years ago the Taliban were victorious in driving the US-led coalition out of Afghanistan. Which means there is absolutely no way for the armchair generals to spin the sacrifice of our soldiers -158 killed, 2,000 wounded or physically injured and thousands more suffering the unseen wounds of PTSD - into anything but a tragic waste.
Since that juncture, the Canadian military largely slipped from the news feed. Canada did briefly support a UN mission in Mali, and the CAF deployed CF-18 fighter jets and special forces trainers to battle Daesh (aka ISIS or ISIL) in Iraq.
Since 2015 hundreds of Canadian military personnel have been actively training Ukrainian soldiers. Originally this was done in Ukraine. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, this training has been conducted in the United Kingdom and in Poland.
Canada also forward-deployed a battle group into Latvia in 2017 as part of NATO's Operation REASSURANCE to deter further Russian aggression.
However as these missions -other than one friendly fire fatality in Iraq - have been mercifully bloodless, they do not garner headlines. Unfortunately the old adage 'if it bleeds, it leads' remains a truism in the media world.
As such when the CAF does find itself in the spotlight these days it is for its ongoing existential shortcomings in personnel, inadequate and outdated equipment or failures in leadership at the most senior levels.
It does not take a Sherlock Holmes level detective to connect the dots and to realize that these three factors combine to create an almost perfect storm, or as Defence Minister Bill Blair recently described it as a 'death spiral' for the CAF.
The statistics show that Canadian citizens are still willing to join the CAF. Last year some 70,000 citizens submitted applications, yet just over 4,000 were actually processed due to a bureaucratic backlog of security clearance checks. Of course, even if the clerks could cut through this Gordian's knot and you proceeded to bring in the more than 16,500 personnel to make up the current shortfall in the CAF regular force and reserves, there is not enough trainers available to put this many recruits through basic training.
Should you somehow clear that hurdle, the question becomes what do we equip them with to make them combat capable? In the early days following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Canada scraped up all available equipment, armoured vehicles, weaponry and most crucially ammunition, and shipped it to Ukraine.
The problem is that to date no effort has been to replace this inventory in Canada's depleted arsenals. Former Chief of defence Staff General Wayne Eyre briefed Parliament on the staggering fact that at present Canada has only about two days worth of artillery shells if we were to expend it at the rate of fire we see in the Ukraine war.
To date we have provided 10 Leopard 2 Main Battle Tanks to Ukraine which leaves pitifully few such tanks operational in Canada. Without realistic training for our own combat forces, how is Canada to continue providing trainers for the Armed Forces of Ukraine? Without the personnel shortfall being addressed post haste, how can Canada continue to furnish a battle group in Latvia, let alone expand that unit to a full brigade in the near future?
The solution will only come from senior leadership convincing the Liberal government of just how dire the circumstances are currently.
The recruits are out there and the trainer shortage can be addressed through lucrative bonuses offered to recently released veterans.
As for the equipment vacuum, they need to do what Canada did during the Afghanistan conflict. They need to admit that the procurement system is broken and forget about looking at all major purchase as a regional job creation program. When we needed howitzers for Afghanistan we took used M-777's from the US Marine Corps and bought them new guns as replacements. When we needed Leopard 2 tanks we borrowed them from the German military stocks. We needed heavy lift helicopters so we bought six very used Chinook choppers from the USA that were already in theatre.
Those who point to Canada's performance in Afghanistan as some sort of proof that Canada's military procurement system works just fine, are dead wrong. The only reason our battle groups had the gear and munitions they needed was because out of necessity, we begged and borrowed from our allies.
As embarrassing as it may seem for a G-7 nation to find itself this desperate, it is time to start the begging again.
