Photograph: L.E. Baskow / Reuters/Reuters
By Scott Taylor
With the landslide election of President Donald Trump to a second term in office, it is clearly evident that the Trudeau Liberals, despite their protestations to the contrary, never bothered to draft a plan to deal with the eventuality of a Trump 2.0 presidency.
This is particularly true when it comes to Canada's lack of spending on national defence.
Admittedly Trump can be erratically inconsistent in some of his policies.
However, when it comes to America's NATO allies spending of defence dollars, on this Trump has been crystal clear. During his first term in office, Trump labelled as 'shirkers' any NATO country not spending the alliance's budget goal of two per cent Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on their military.
During his lengthy campaign for re-election, Trump claimed that he would direct the US to ignore article 5 of the NATO Charter (which ensures collective defence of all NATO members), should the attacked party not be compliant with the two per cent of GDP spending guideline. This puts Canada squarely in Trump's gunsights as we currently spend only 1.3 per cent of our GDP on national defence.
While many of the hawkish pundits in Canadian defence circles are self-flagellating in anticipation of facing the wrath of Trump, we need to look at the situation from a detached perspective. Last April Minister of National Defence Bill Blair unveiled the Liberal government's long awaited Defence Policy Update (DPU). Titled 'Our North, Strong and Free' the new policy outlines a significant spending increase and promises to acquire some very specific new capabilities and equipment for the Canadian Armed Forces.
While this current DPU projects a massive increase from Canada's current annual defence budget of $30 billion to a staggering $50 billion by the end of this decade, thanks to Canada's robust economy, that will only put us at the 1.76 per cent GDP mark. In other words, closer but still no cigar from Trump.
In terms of equipment acquisitions, the DPU shopping list includes; early warning aircraft, tactical helicopters and new long range missiles for the Army.
The government plans to buy specialized maritime sensors to improve ocean surveillance as well as build a new satellite ground station in the Arctic. The DPU blueprint includes plans to establish additional support facilities in the Arctic for military operations. Also referenced, is a new fleet of up to 12 diesel-electric submarines for the Royal Canadian Navy.
There will also be a major investment in domestic ammunition production to replace those stocks of artillery shells which Canada donated to Ukraine. Having learned their lesson from that war, Canada also plans to significantly increase the Army's strategic reserve of ammunition. All of these equipment items will add or modernize actual combat capabilities for the CAF.
However, none of these expenditures addresses the existential threat crippling the CAF at present and that is the personnel shortfall due to the ongoing recruitment and retention problem. Given that the NATO two per cent GDP target is an arbitrary expenditure of money rather than a definition of actual combat capability, the struggling CAF leadership could turn this to their advantage.
To encourage new recruits to join and recently released CAF members to rejoin the ranks why not offer lucrative signing bonuses? I'm sure that a $250K bonus to lure a trained fighter pilot back into the RCAF is more cost efficient than the millions of dollars necessary to train such a pilot from scratch. Likewise, a currently serving member looking to retire early would be tempted by a similar bonus to retain their expertise for an additional three years.
Another short term win-win would be a massive investment in affordable housing for service personnel on an urgent-emergency basis. While the current DPU does mention building such housing, the fact is that at present there are zero dollars in the current fiscal year budget to even begin to alleviate the problem of military housing. This is the situation, despite the fact that there have been numerous reports and studies of soldiers being homeless, couch surfing or living in squalid conditions.
I'm sure that there are all sorts of real estate developers who would jump at the opportunity to partner with the Canadian military to build such housing and improved barracks. It just is not a priority it seems for DND's senior leadership.
Before investing in modern weapon systems the CAF needs to invest in its greatest asset and that is the men and women who serve. Pay them well and give them decent affordable housing and you might see a boost in morale.
Another upside to such a program is that these defence dollars would be going to Canadian service members in the form of bonuses and to Canadian construction companies in communities all across Canada.
All of it is attributable to our defence budget and pushing us closer to that two per cent of GDP that Trump is demanding that we spend.
