By Scott Taylor
When the Trudeau Liberals were first elected in 2015, one of their announced priorities was to review Canada's existing Defence Policy.
The result of that collective brainstorming was released in 2017 under the catchy title Strong, Secure, Engaged, or SSE for short.
This SSE blueprint was originally touted to be the Liberals' "20-year plan to provide the Canadian Armed Forces with the capabilities, equipment and culture needed to anticipate and respond to threats and protect Canadians.”
However, just five years into the SSE era the global security environment took an alarming turn when the Russian military invaded Ukraine. In response to this perilous development, Deputy Prime Minister, and Finance Minister, Chrystia Freeland announced in her Budget 2022 that a major review would be undertaken, complete with public consultation, to amend the existing SSE to better fit the deteriorating global security situation.
Despite the ongoing war in Ukraine and heightening tensions between China and Taiwan in the western Pacific, it was not until March 2023 that the Department of National Defence and Canadian Armed Forces would actually launch public consultations on what is now termed the Defence Policy Update.
The window for these outside public submissions was a relatively brief six weeks, with the deadline closing on 30 April, 2023. Nearly a year later, the war in Ukraine still rages, the Middle East has exploded, Houthi pirates are running amok in the Red Sea and China continues to rattle sabres with Taiwan. Yet still the CAF awaits their new marching orders in the form of the long awaited Defence Policy Update.
In the interim, the leadership team at National Defence Headquarters must continue to tread water, while struggling to meet the objectives of the now admittedly very out of date SSE.
In this regard the CAF leaders have failed miserably. Due to a nearly two-decade shortfall in recruiting coupled with a failure to retain experienced service members, the Canadian military now faces a severe lack of personnel.
The situation in the Royal Canadian Navy is so dire that an annual two ship deployment to West Africa was cancelled for 2024 due to a lack of qualified sailors.
A shortage of fighter pilots has also resulted in Canada cancelling several international training exercises in 2023. For its part, the Army is challenged to conduct training as a result of Canada having donated a huge chunk of their weaponry and ammunition to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
That said, it is hard to simply blame the current crop of leaders if they in turn are awaiting a clear set of directions from the elected officials who govern our military.
In fact the tardiness of the Liberals releasing the Defence Policy Update may be a blessing in disguise. For instance the war in Ukraine has demonstrated that the drone is the new 'Queen of the Modern Battlefield' and that Low Level Air Defence is the necessary protection for troops involved in 'near peer' conventional warfare. Canada is sadly lacking in drones and totally bereft of a low level air defence system. Given that we have a battle group forward deployed in Latvia that might be the first priority item on the DPU's purchase list.
Unfortunately even when the much anticipated DPU is finally released it will undoubtedly fall short of what the CAF needs and that is a complete makeover. Recommendations to fix the culture through new dress and deportment regulations and a few new pieces of kit will not put Humpty Dumpty back together again. That egg is broke and what Canada needs is a whole new egg, not a bunch of horses and men mucking about in the old yolk.
