Playing Politics with Security: Canada's Parties Fail on Defence

Despite global tensions, no party seems willing to tackle Canada’s defence shortfall.

A few days ago, the prospect of a snap Canadian federal election became very real as the NDP pulled its lukewarm support for the current Liberal minority government. Riding high in the polls, the Conservative Party is salivating at the prospect of meeting the Trudeau Liberals in a contest widely regarded as the Conservatives’ to lose.

No Canadian party has a good record on defence issues. The last government to take defence seriously was the Liberal government of Louis St. Laurent in the 1950s, at the height of the Cold War. Canada had quickly disarmed after the Second World War and was required to rebuild a new force from scratch, all while committing a full Army brigade to combat operations in Korea, along with substantial naval forces.

This took significant effort, but Canada was soon designing and building its own jet fighters, deploying a brigade to Europe, and dramatically increasing the size and capability of the Royal Canadian Navy. This was followed by additional production of all types of aircraft, and Canada soon had a full fighter wing equipped with the latest aircraft in Europe. It was a capable force, backed by an extensive defence industry, all built within the space of about five years.

It was all for naught. Successive governments of both stripes ravaged what was built in the name of economy, despite little or no change in the strategic environment. The Liberal governments in the 1960s and early 70s devastated the domestic defence industry and deliberately savaged the capability of all three services. Defence was heavily civilianized, and the bureaucracy became increasingly bloated. Military spending was very unpopular in that era, and it was easy to decry the Armed Forces as agents of “militarism,” a view often seen in Canada today.

Cuts continued through the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, and our presence in Europe disintegrated into near irrelevance, all while, in the 90s and 2000s, deploying thousands of troops to the Balkans. Particularly egregious were the Force Release Program reductions in the mid-90s, which gutted support trades in an ill-advised effort to save money.

Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan, and our subsequent combat operations there, changed this situation somewhat but not dramatically. The Armed Forces obtained some badly needed capabilities, but these were procured for Afghanistan, and the baseline saw very little change. Indeed, after our mission ceased, the Conservative Harper government directed the biggest cut to defence spending in post-Korean War history, and our percentage of GDP spent on defence fell well below 1%.

They say the past is a good predictor of the future. If so, proponents of an effective defence have little reason for optimism as we approach a new election.

The Liberals published, in May, a defence “update.” It was well-presented, articulating the strategic environment accurately and announcing some hard measures to improve Canada’s defence capabilities in light of resurgent threats from Russia and China. It is a document I could have written myself. Moreover, the Liberals, like the Conservatives before them, have made some defence purchases. The procurement of a new transport and air-to-air refuelling fleet and new maritime patrol aircraft are laudable. There are plans to procure a wide variety of equipment behind this: submarines, long-range rockets, air defence, airborne early warning aircraft, and a variety of other items. It all sounds great—until you read the fine print.

Canada has troops in Latvia, leading a multinational brigade designed to deter Russian aggression. This is laudable, but many of the near-term purchases are destined specifically for that force, rather than the Forces in general. This will provide limited capabilities in Latvia while the baseline remains unchanged. It is Afghanistan redux on a smaller scale.

Beyond this, the Liberal plan has very few details and even fewer dollars attached to it. Some of the initiatives being loudly touted by the Trudeau government extend over 20 to 30 years and are zero-funded for at least the next five years. This is practically useless, given the current strategic situation and the urgency of the need for action. Worse, it allows the Liberals to claim they’re taking action while doing nothing of the sort, giving them plenty of time to reverse course as the “anti-militarism” element of the party asserts its traditional control.

One would think the Conservative Party, always one to “support the troops,” would have a stronger policy in place—a robust spending plan designed to significantly improve capabilities in the face of multiple threats. They have nothing of the sort. The current Conservative platform says next to nothing about defence, aside from culture war references to “eliminating wokism and restoring the warrior spirit,” or some such nonsense. The CPC has, in fact, been telegraphing defence cuts, which defies imagination given today’s environment.

This is deeply worrying and suggests neither major party approaches defence with any seriousness or urgency. And the situation is indeed urgent. The entire CAF is far below its authorized establishment; most major equipment is rusting out and being kept alive through ill-advised “upgrade” programs. The Army still has no short-range anti-tank system, Canada possesses no ground-based air defence capability, we are keeping our old CF-18 fighter fleet in the air on a wing and a prayer, full completion of the new frigate fleet is literally decades off, our tiny fleet of main battle tanks is being upgraded but dates back to the 80s and 90s, and our ability to project force approaches zero. There are no war reserves of any equipment. Soldiers, sailors, and aviators can wait months for training—after waiting months to enter the Forces in the first place.

Looming over all this is a complacent or even hostile attitude among politicians of all stripes. Defence is widely regarded as a waste of resources by many in office. On the left, disregarding Canadian history, defence spending is “militaristic,” an attitude found in the Liberal Party since the late 1960s. Elements of the NDP are even hostile to Canada’s membership in NATO, a shocking example of the horseshoe theory of politics in action. On the right, the Forces are seen as a ready source of cash, the first to be cut when the budget needs balancing.

Defence literacy is abysmal across the political spectrum, and few politicians are interested. When this attitude is paired with a similar lack of interest in international affairs, the results are obvious: defence can be brushed off as a waste and as something that doesn’t earn votes. No one cares.

Except the chickens are about to come home to roost. China is pursuing an extremely aggressive policy in the South China Sea and against Taiwan. They are even pushing into the Arctic, often in conjunction with the Russians. Russia itself is the other obvious threat, as it rolled into Ukraine with an incredibly violent invasion and supports chaos and disinformation across the West. In response to this and to the disastrous Trump presidency, NATO is waking up and rapidly rebuilding its capabilities, while the United States remains an unreliable ally as long as the spectre of another far-right and isolationist Trump administration looms.

In the midst of all this, Canada continues to claim that numbers don’t matter and that we always punch above our weight. To an extent, this is true, but the premise is hollow and built largely on smoke and mirrors. There is no depth.

No Canadian political party takes defence seriously, and none has a plan to meet what could be an existential threat. The Liberal plan, such as it is, is predicated on the “punch above our weight” narrative. With no funding, its platitudes are based on nothing, designed to convince an ill-informed electorate. The Conservatives have no plan at all. None. They want to fight a culture war and seem to view defence spending as a source of ready cash.

Our allies may not tolerate this situation much longer. Most are dramatically increasing spending with a sense of urgency and will see Canada as a freeloader more and more often, with potential consequences across the spectrum. The United States, even under a sympathetic government, will likely view Canadian smug intransigence with a jaundiced eye.

Alas, it seems that little can be done. The die is cast, and we may face an election sooner rather than later. None of the parties will commit to the urgency needed to meet this challenge. We can only hope their gamble on facing no consequences for their complacency pays off.