Last week in the first column of this Defence 2.0 series I identified a number of challenges facing defence in Canada. This column and the ones that follow in this series will propose reforms and solutions to them. In particular, the following one will examine how to address the lack of public and governmental knowledge about defence as well as aspects surrounding accountability. That road goes through Parliament. 

Educating adult Canadians on issues, defence or not, is highly challenging. One can recall how Stephen Harper made reviving Canadian heritage a significant government priority, including spending $28 million dollars on events surrounding the War of 1812 bicentennial.  A dozen years on, it is difficult to discern any notable effects of their efforts on this topic. Similarly, efforts to prop up the news industry in Canada have not resulted in the stemming of jobs in journalism—quite the opposite, with a number of broadcast outlets cutting staff, or in the case of CHML in Hamilton, shuttering completely. It’s difficult to imagine how the government could do better about educating the population on defence issues given the history there.

The military itself can play a more substantial role in building awareness of its role, but there are limits. Its limited resources have resulted in efforts to focus on core military functions and limit public engagement to ration precious financial resources. The second is that key aspects of defence policy involve political questions that the military leadership are genuinely uncomfortable straying into.

Really, much of the responsibility for informing Canadians about defence issues rests with the political leadership. Yet throughout Canada’s modern political history, successive governments have not taken it seriously. Furthermore, policymaking within the political leadership is wholly at the mercy of the political vicissitudes of the day. Many parties enter into office with good intentions for the military, yet their plans almost inevitably get derailed by domestic concerns. National defence is one of the largest discretionary line items in the Canadian budget and the temptation to raid it for other priorities is quite high.

Instead, we need to look elsewhere. Part of the issue is that centralization of power has effectively meant there are no independent bodies that can discuss defence issues authoritatively. The United States has Congress, and Australia, the United Kingdom, and France have parliamentary committees that often play significant roles in policymaking, oversight, and public engagement on defence issues.

Building up Parliament’s role in Defence 

At first glance, Parliament may seem like an odd place to start reforms. Presently its role in defence policy making is very limited. There are relatively few laws passed on defence, and debates related to it are rare and only scratch the surface of substantive issues. The House of Commons has the Standing Committee for National Defence, made up of a dozen parliamentarians, but its influence is similarly low. While the committee is quite active and produces relatively high-quality reports on various defence issues, it struggles to have its work gain traction in the public sphere, partly because it has little actual authority.

Addressing some of the committee’s weaknesses and shortcomings could return significant benefits in building the public’s knowledge and support of the Canadian Armed Forces, as well as better oversight and policy itself for defence.

Expanding the defence committee’s role can take lessons from how the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) has operated over the past decade, as well as foreign examples. In the former case, NSICOP has become an important voice in identifying foreign interference and the lack of effort spent on dealing with it. The story is similar in foreign governments. The U.S. Congress is extremely active in defence matters, providing a strong often bipartisan voice on security issues facing the nation.

Thus the suggestion would be to reform the national defence committee into a stronger, depoliticized body and charge it with new responsibilities. These reforms could be patterned somewhat around NSICOP, perhaps requiring members to hold some level of security clearances and providing a much more substantial committee staff to support their work.

Efforts to depoliticize the body would be critical for its function and on the surface may present a near insurmountable challenge given the present political environment. This could quickly undermine its operation and leave the country worse off. But there are reasons to be hopeful. Looking abroad, defence committees tend to operate in a collegial manner; there is a distinct effort towards bi- or multi-partisanship in those bodies in Australia, the U.S. and the U.K. Members of Congress and parliamentarians on these bodies tend to take their position seriously because of the national security implications of their work.

One significant change to the national defence committee to foster depoliticization would be to invest it with new responsibilities. A potentially viable avenue would be to assist with the writing of a defence policy statement. This would likely change the committee’s organizational dynamics; instead of members viewing themselves as their party’s representative, giving the body a separate and specific purpose could foster a new organizational identity.

The problem is that any governing party will be loath to hand over any responsibility, particularly if there are budgetary implications. Currently, defence policy papers are critical documents that integrate considerations about the international threat environment, political and strategic considerations, technological trends, domestic priorities, and force structure into a single cohesive document. The current government has committed to producing a defence review every four years and this proposal could complement that promise.

Disassociating various parts of white papers and then assigning them to either the committee or subcommittees could be a workable compromise. Subjects such as the overall international environment, threats, as well as high-level aspects of Canadian defence policy could become the purview of the committee. The government of the day could then work with this document to operationalize, budget, and implement it. With the responsibility to determine strategy, procurements, and resourcing, the functional control would remain with the government.

The risks of this proposal are likely to be low. defence policy statements tend to be fairly consistent in their assessment of Canada’s priorities. If anything, a multi-party committee may produce a more robust product that blends in a wider variety of perspectives and imbue it with greater legitimacy than if it was promulgated by the government.

The increased responsibility would likely result in an improvement in the committee’s oversight abilities. It would improve perceptions of its relevance among governmental officials, especially one that is more concerned about defence issues outside of partisan consideration. That may provide more incentive for greater candour in their remarks.

It would also bring Canada in line with other allies’ practices with policy statements, which tend to be mandated by law to be delivered every few years. That allows them to be more useful in the administration of defence in those countries.

What would be critical for this new approach to work would be the creation of a significant permanent staff to support the committee’s efforts. Given its greater responsibilities for drafting parts of defence policy and providing oversight, a significant expansion of the staff would be required to meet the committee’s new responsibilities.

In total, this would cultivate greater expertise in defence, which could focus on the area’s issues without having to support the political interests of the government of the day. Members of Parliament would be much better prepared and informed on defence issues, which should have a significant spill-over effect. More committee work would draw more attention to defence issues and give it a much better airing than what currently exists. Similarly, it would also provide a larger forum for outside experts to testify and bring their thoughts into the public domain. This would provide a conduit for new ideas into the defence space, something that has proven difficult to do in Canada.

The hope would be that over time the committee could become an important source of information that fosters greater attention in the public. Furthermore, one of the benefits of expanding the committee’s remit is that it would be fairly stable in terms of its resourcing and focus. Providing greater power and responsibility to a parliamentary committee insulates the body from budgetary pressures that affect the department, which has crippled earlier efforts to interact with the public on more complex topics.

Managing expectations surrounding building up Parliament’s role is important. It will not immediately resolve long-standing issues on its own. But it may result in a raft of small changes that over time would improve Canada’s defence efforts. Greater expertise and knowledge about defence issues would spring forth, and failures, such as with procurement projects or military operations, could be much better scrutinized.