By Scott Taylor
I am not sure exactly who is providing Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre with his military advice, but whoever it is, needs a better understanding of the current state of the Canadian Armed Forces.
For instance, last month when US President Donald Trump threatened to a 25 per cent tariff on all imports from Canada and Mexico, he claimed it was about border security.
In exchange for a 30-day reprieve on the tariffs, Mexico promised to deploy 10,000 troops to their shared border with the US. When Trump granted Mexico that reprieve, Poilievre suggested that Canada should do the same. Anyone familiar with the map of North America will realize that the length of the US-Mexico border (3,145 Km) is far shorter than the Canada - US border (8,891 Km).
More importantly, the understrength CAF could not deploy 10,000 troops anywhere on a sustained deployment. The Canadian Army is hard pressed to maintain the 900 strong, forward deployed battle group in Latvia, let alone send 10,000 soldiers to the US border.
Last week, Poilievre went one step further when he promised that if elected, he would vastly enhance Canada's military presence in the high Arctic. “The Canadian Arctic is under threat,” Poilievre said in a video statement. “Hostile powers want our resources, our shipping routes and to be within striking distance of our continent. Our safety, territory and trade with the United States requires we take back control of Canada’s North.”
To achieve this aim, the Conservative plan is to double the size of the Canadian Arctic Rangers to 4,000 personnel, to build two armed heavy icebreakers for the Royal Canadian Navy and to build a permanent military base at Iqaluit.
For those not familiar with the term Arctic Rangers, this is a mostly indigenous, very lightly armed para-military force. Their survival skills are legendary, but their combat capability is virtually zero. They do not have automatic weapons, body armour or helmets. Their rudimentary uniform item of clothing is a red hoodie.
Putting another 2,000 of them on the DND payroll will indeed boost Canada's defence spending, but it will hardly serve as a deterrent to those "hostile powers' that Poilievre wishes to thwart.
The idea of two armed heavy icebreakers was first promised by the Harper Conservatives during the 2006 election campaign. However after Harper won that election, the RCN brain trust convinced the Conservatives that such a plan would be too costly and impractical to implement.
The compromise solution was the construction of a fleet of lightly armed, light ice breakers known as the Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships (AOPS). There are currently six AOPS completed and delivered to the RCN with two more still under construction for the Canadian Coast Guard.
Thus I'm not sure why this time around, the RCN will be able to afford and employ two armed heavy icebreakers in the Arctic. But I digress.
Poilievre's greatest folly is the notion of constructing a permanent military base in the high Arctic. At present Iqaluit has both an airport capable of handling the RCAF’s transport planes and a seaport able to seasonally, handle the RCN's ships. In other words, Canada has the ability to rapidly deploy military personnel, with actual combat capability to Iqaluit. What possibly could be gained through having troops stationed there permanently?
There is also a current retention problem for the CAF and I daresay this would only be further exacerbated if personnel faced the prospect of being based in Iqaluit for a year or more long posting. I cannot imagine spouses and children being keen on accompanying the service member posted to this new permanent base.
I do believe that Canada has failed miserably when it comes to developing our Arctic. However the focus should be on the construction of infrastructure that makes the Arctic more readily accessible. Not simply for deploying troops as a deterrent to hostile powers, but in order to extract rare minerals vital to defence equipment.
The Yukon for instance has vast deposits of tungsten, a rare metal whose density makes it ideal for both armour protection and armoured piercing projectiles. We could start enhancing production at the town which is literally named 'Tungsten' in the Yukon.
Rather than simply pouring money into an unsustainable permanent military base in Iqaluit, let's invest in the infrastructure to mine the tungsten and list it as 'defence spending.' We will get; a return on our investment, supply our NATO allies with copious amounts of this rare metal and cut China, the current largest global supplier of Tungsten, out of the loop.
