The Carney government’s plan to bulk up the Canadian Armed Forces, by Christmas no less, is ambitious yet important. Like so many Canadians, that Canada could once again become a muscular military force to be reckoned with is an idea that I so want to be true. This feels like the last best chance to restore some of Canada’s lost lustre and credibility in matters of defence and security.
The real test, though, won’t be merely about increasing defence funding in the short term. The government’s plan will only succeed over the long term if it builds up the country’s defence industrial base in the name of strengthening our economic and military sovereignty.
A proud military history
We’ve accomplished much in our storied military history; in fact, we had a military before we had a country, and had it not been for that military, it’s unlikely that Canada would exist.
Within the living memory of Canadians, we were a major contributor in the Second World War, Korea, Bosnia, Somalia, Afghanistan, and numerous other dangerous and demanding theatres. Canadians today, as the saying goes, stand on the shoulders of greatness.
It’s hard to reconcile this rich past against the status quo. For instance, our important but all-too-modest contributions in Latvia and the limited other theatres in which we are a contributor are below the expectations of a G7 country or the noble legacy that we inherited. Due to decades of neglect and over-reliance on others (most especially the United States), we’ve gone from leaders to laggards to a liability.
Our men and women in uniform continue to serve and sacrifice with remarkable dignity; our Canadian Armed Forces persevere and have stepped up to meet the challenges of the pandemic and other national emergencies, going where they were ordered to serve Canadians. This new generation continues to distinguish itself as did the previous ones. Our soldiers haven’t failed us; rather, it’s we who have failed them. It’s to Canada’s great discredit that we don’t adequately support those and their families who serve or have served.
The need for change
The most obvious issue is that we’re not funding our military sufficiently. Figures released by Pentagon officials suggested that Canada would never reach the minimum 2 percent NATO defence spending target. Though hardly news, this embarrassing fact reverberated through the halls of the NATO headquarters, in the capitals of the other 31 member nations, and equally in the decision-making rooms of our adversaries.
By failing to spend adequately, we’re failing to inspire recruitment and retention, to equip and train our troops for the challenges they may face, to provide basic living conditions, to address infrastructure deficits, to provide adequate salaries and pensions, and much more.
Even if we were to spend at the level that we ought to, though, it’s unclear that we have the right systems for ensuring that money is spent effectively. Canada’s procurement system remains a major impediment to us becoming a serious nation again. So too does our industrial sector; we have a long way to go to develop the domestic capacity to arm our soldiers as outlined in more detail below.
And even if we funded our military properly, procured for our warfighters the weapons, systems, and platforms necessary to meet the challenges arrayed against Canada, and expanded our industrial base to sustain a world-class military, we would still be seriously deficient in one other key respect. The last government’s “sunny ways” regrettably failed to extend to our military. Its persecution of several wrongly accused senior officers and a fixation on downplaying the true role of the Canadian military in favour of identity politics contributed to a decade of darkness. Morale is low, fatigue is high, and the relationship between the Canadian Armed Forces and the rest of the country is attenuated.
The key point here is this: When contrasted against their proud legacy, the Canadian Armed Forces are a deeply atrophied institution. And as a result, Canada is weaker, more vulnerable, and more exposed economically, socially, and from a national security perspective.
Canadian soldiers watch as a Canadian helicopter provides air security during a demonstration on the United Nations base in Gao, Mali Saturday December 22, 2018. Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press.
Restoring Canada’s military
Pointing out what is failing is easy. So…how do we fix it?
Into this quagmire has stepped Prime Minister Carney. I share with many Canadians a sense of cautious optimism upon hearing of the prime minister’s ambitious announcements to invest billions into defence.
The immediate move to reach 2 percent prior to year-end surpasses Liberal election commitments and is a huge improvement over the government’s record over the last 10 years. Even so, Carney has since gone much further. By pledging, alongside many of our NATO allies, to reach 5 percent annually by 2035, the prime minister is now committing to a staggering amount investment—what amounts to more than three times the current DND budget.
If the government is to build on these bold commitments and tackle some of the deeper challenges facing our Armed Forces, the best place to start would be with direct support for the lifeblood of our defence: our men and women in uniform. Last week’s announcement of pay raises and higher benefits is a key step for force retention and recruitment.
Salaries, pensions, housing and health care may be costly, but they’re vital if you aspire to have a large, professional, and capable fighting force. Investing directly in the people who make our defence possible is a necessary yet insufficient condition to restore Canada’s military.
Our needs are vast, including fighters, search and rescue aircraft, surface vessels and submarines, armour and drones, and much more. These and other critical platforms are in various states of build or are on order. Understanding how to prioritize and deliver quickly on a wide range of priorities must be guided by the Forces themselves. But if we’re to succeed, the government must improve how it acquires modern military equipment. The solution is relatively straightforward, albeit challenging to execute.
The most direct and responsible way to do so is to build it here at home. That sounds simple, but it’s not. Much like the broader industrial capacity that has atrophied at home and accelerated elsewhere due to globalization, we have lost much of our manufacturing capability.
To increase domestic production and build up our own industrial base requires us to recognize that not all equipment or technology manufacturing capacity can be built up quickly. We need to start with a guns and butter approach that’s focused on growing our existing industry and furthering our existing comparative advantages.
Fortunately, as anyone walking the halls of CANSEC in Ottawa or MASS ’25 in St. John’s would tell you, more Canadian capacity exists than one may think. Many defence producers are exporters with a limited domestic market in Canada; an increase in our defence spending promises to turn that around, provided we ensure that Canadian arms are purchased for the Canadian Armed Forces wherever practicable.
This point cannot be underscored enough. Shipbuilding is a good example. Canada has by far the world’s largest coastline across three oceans, as well as major inland waterways and specialized needs in the Arctic. We have a clear national interest, therefore, to cultivate and maintain a domestic shipbuilding capacity to meet the country’s defence and security needs.
Shipbuilding underpins a broader defence industrial base: the design expertise, skilled trades, and maintenance facilities needed to sustain naval readiness cannot be turned on and off like a tap. Without ongoing public contracts, these capabilities atrophy, leaving the country dependent on foreign suppliers whose priorities may not align with Canada’s security needs.
The market for such defence and security vessels is thin, highly specialized, and dominated by a handful of foreign suppliers—some in strategic competitors like China. In this context, the government isn’t just another customer; it is the primary customer, and its procurement choices determine whether a domestic industry exists at all. Supporting shipbuilding is, therefore, less about general economic intervention and more about maintaining a critical sovereign capability.
Even so, redeveloping our industrial capacity will not happen quickly, no matter the intent of the prime minister and yet we must still move quickly if we’re to hit our spending targets and arm the Armed Forces adequately. This means that we need to take a hard look at off-the-shelf options that are available, can be acquired and trained on quickly, are safe, and serve the needs of our Armed Forces while we simultaneously strengthen our industrial base.
HMCS Harry deWolf heads from the Irving-owned Halifax Shipyard on its way to being delivered to the Royal Canadian Navy dockyard in Halifax on Wednesday, July 31, 2020. Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press.
We must also move away from protracted over-analysis and the often-repetitive study cycle. While we should try to make the best use of every dollar and acquire the best equipment possible, we need to actually start making decisions around needs and capabilities while accepting some reasonable risk. We no longer have the luxury of allowing an extremely delayed perfect to continue being the enemy of the good.
Shifting away from a culture of public service malaise that stifles efficiency in procurement is also necessary. Even in times of war, DND has often lacked the coordination and decisiveness necessary to support the Forces. There’s a cross-threaded mandate among the numerous departments that prevents a coordinated path to success. The Jenkins Report outlines the problems and solutions; it should be revisited.
Fixing this problem will also require depoliticization of defence procurement and decision-making. Political posturing and perpetual election campaigns are anathema to thoughtful defence policy and procurement. There remains a tendency to cancel the previous government’s promises, and start again, even when those decisions are technically right and even when the government of the day knows as much. Depolarizing and depoliticizing procurement would win half the battle of fixing what is wrong. Given the prime minister’s proclivity for borrowing good ideas from his opposition, there’s perhaps an opportunity to break the cycle of polarization for good.
Beyond finding significant efficiencies within government, sustaining and growing funding for our military will also require a strong and growing economy to undergird our investments. Yet, with trade and tariff turmoil and a persistently sluggish economy, we teeter still on the edge of a recession. Oxford Economics projects that Canada’s defence spending commitments will raise the country’s real gross domestic product by a tenth of a percentage point this year and next.
Ottawa’s ramped-up defence spending plans will give the economy a lift, but not enough to save it from a recession. The prime minister must find ways to dramatically increase growth and productivity; moves that are in Canada’s clear economic and national interests, such as breaking down interprovincial trade barriers and unleashing our resource sector, should therefore be seen in the context of being equivalent to a defence imperative.
Perhaps the most challenging problem confronting us now is how to manage our relationship with a mercurial, disruptive U.S. administration. We must be crystal clear: Canada does not have a defence strategy absent cooperation with the United States. From air defence through NORAD, arctic security, or the maintenance of the rules-based international order upon which we depend, we cannot go it alone, and we need America to be a partner in Canada’s defence priorities. Investing in our own defence rather than relying so heavily on the U.S. security umbrella is likely healthy for the long-term stability of our relationship with the United States, no matter who the president may be, and it gives us the opportunity to recast our defence cooperation in a more realistic and grounded fashion.
Canada has yet to realize its potential in a variety of theatres. Now is a time to simultaneously dig deep and reach higher than ever before with resolve and determination. The headwinds that Canada faces economically, on the global stage, and with regard to our defence are fundamentally intertwined. Our approach to addressing these challenges must be similarly holistic.
Canadians elected Prime Minister Carney, believing that he was the man for this moment. But the bill is coming due, and it can’t be paid from an overdrawn account. The prime minister has a long way to go to convert his ambition into reality. Here’s hoping he has what it takes to see Canada “hulk up” on defence.
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