By alexander Rubin
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
The beleaguered Canadian military, long suffering from crippling budget cuts under successive Liberal governments, is in desperate straits. Undermanned, underfunded and ignored, the brave men and women of Canada's armed forces are called upon to do progressively more with progressively less. Far from the least of their problems is the apathetic, cynical bureaucracy that seemingly pervades anything that touches the Canadian federal government. This is compounded by a surfeit of senior officers creating a top-heavy structure, one that could critically slow the reaction of the Canadian military in a crisis.
The Canadian military is critically lacking in its capacity for an extended, rapid or sizable projection of force. The most fundamental reason for this is a chronic, and continuously growing, shortage of funds. Since the days of Trudeau, the Canadian military has been an almost unbelievably low budget priority for the Liberal Party. as a direct result, Canada ranks 153rd in defence spending as a percentage of GDP out of 192 countries, 13th of 18 NaTO countries in per capita defence spending, and has the world's 34th largest population, but only the 56th largest regular military and 77th largest reserves.
Most Canadians do not understand just how dire a plight the Canadian military is in. It is not that the Canadian military does not have access to modern equipment; it is that there is far from enough of it. The result is a military culture of 'robbing Peter to pay Paul'. Currently inactive Canadian Forces units are forced to rely on dangerously obsolete equipment while they are cannibalized in order to properly equip a deploying unit. This only solves the problem in the short term; not only does it not solve the long term problem of equipment shortage, but also results in infrastructural faults as many fine units are reduced to skeleton placeholders, which continue to eat up resources but have little operational capability.
This is aggravated by the top heavy structure of the military. Under Trudeau, a poorly considered scheme to increase the troops' pay without government approval resulted in a rank inflation, which in turn resulted in the Canadian Forces being the only armed forces in the world to have more non-commissioned officers than privates and the reputation of having the highest number of generals per capita. at the start of the integration process in 1970, the armed forces had 15 per cent of their strength in the officer ranks; by 1995 it was more than 20 per cent.
Moreover, despite an increasing need for technically capable personnel, the Canadian Forces are experiencing a critical shortage in many military professions and of officers with combat experience. a job is classed as 'critical' if it is under 90 percent of the preferred level and cannot reach the preferred level within two years; 'caution' if it is 91 to 95 percent and the shortfall can be made up within one to two years. Of 105 military occupations, 43 are listed as 'critical' and 23 as 'caution'; these can be fundamentally important occupations; for example, the air Force has a 'critical' shortage of pilots.
Journalist Terry Pedwell's fine article on canada.com seemed to pinpoint a thin ray of hope for the Canadian military in the form of a reorganization of its command structure. The "biggest restructuring in four decades…will see control of domestic military assets turned over to integrated regional centres, known as Canada Command." according to Brig. General Daniel Gosselin, chief of staff of the Canadian Forces Transformation Team, this would allow the Canadian military to respond much more quickly in the event of a "domestic situation from a disaster point of view. But it has to do also with . potential crises related to an airliner or some other kind of (terrorist attack) situation." Indeed, it is critical that our military be properly organized in the event of a natural disast-wait. What was that? apparently, the Liberals see the cleanup of natural disasters as more the jurisdiction of the military and of higher priority than a terrorist attack.
Instead of a thin ray of hope, this project may instead be the Liberal party's kiss of death for the Canadian military. The chronic shortage of funds plaguing the Canadian military was at least beginning to become a widely known problem. The crashes of the Sea King helicopters, the fire aboard the submarine Chicoutimi and the susceptibility of the Iltis jeeps to improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in afghanistan had become international embarrassments. It seemed for a brief shining moment that the Liberals were finally going to address the problems.
Instead, it appears that the Liberals are going to go with their time honoured tradition of milking the situation for political coin by commissioning a few teams to 'study' possible solutions, then dismiss the conclusions as too costly or drastic, implement a placebo solution and dismiss the problems as solved. Canadians have seen as much many times before, and are likely to see it many times again in the future. as an added plus, they might make the Canadian Forces just a little bit more politically correct and less aggressively oriented in the process, regardless of what that does to the capability for national defence.
Pedwell's article hints as much: "the first [committee] will recommend how to change the military's command structure, both for domestic and international operations. another is looking at how to better recruit, train and deploy people." apparently, this is another White Paper on Defence in the works; more committees, more money for committees, more tentatively planned committees that will study, examine and debate the how, when and what of an overhaul. More committees costing more millions of dollars that will give more recommedations that will be trumpeted about by the Liberals when politically convenient, and promptly ignored.
The saddest part of this story is that some of Canada's most valiant defenders of the military saw this coming weeks, even months ago. The eminent Scott Taylor, of Esprit de Corps said in this article that the one thing he learned in his 16 years of reporting is that our Defence Department - despite adamant protests to the contrary - remains fundamentally adrift and directionless, and therefore vulnerable to both political and bureaucratic meddling.
He further predicted the conundrum we find ourselves in today when he stated "For those hoping for relief in 2005 in the form of the soon-to-be-drafted new Defence white paper, I suggest you don't hold your breath in anticipation. What was supposed to be an all-encompassing review - complete with open, public input - has been scaled back to a behind-closed-doors internal department document. Believe it or not, the man drafting this "new" white paper is none other than the same individual who wrote the 1987 and 1994 white papers - Ken Calder, assistant Deputy Minister of policy. Given Calder's track record over the past 18 years at the helm of Defence's policy planning, the new white paper will be a predictable mix of vague platitudes and taskings based more on the current budget and existing inventory than on Canada's actual defence priorities. You don't sweep clean with an old broom."
If the Liberals want to redefine the Canadian military as more of a peacekeeping organization than a peacemaking army, that's fine. But for that to be true, rather than just a platitude to stoke the fires of Canadian self-righteousness, then the military needs to do some serious peacekeeping. and for that to happen as it should, the brave men and women who serve must be well equipped, and their causes well championed in Parliament, rather than ignored and lost in some bureaucratic back alley.
The Liberal military reform plans and promises are actually more detrimental to the Canadian military than nothing at all. They unjustly assuage fears of military malfeasance, pacify the public and silence critics while allowing the atrophy of the military to spread. They have won yet another battle in their fight for political dominance, and taken yet another step to losing the war for Canada's relevance, identity and vitality.
alexander Rubin is a freelance columnist living in Toronto
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