Tact, wrote Abraham Lincoln, is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.
Justin Trudeau was in Latvia on Monday, ahead of this week’s important NATO summit in neighbouring Lithuania, patting himself and his government on the back for the contribution toward resisting Russia’s threat to “freedom, international law and a shared set of democratic values that generations of soldiers have fought to defend.”
Latvian prime minister Krijanis Karins stood alongside him, full of praise for his “friend and ally.”
In his remarks, Karins thanked Canada for its contribution of an 800-member battle group to help defend his country — a force that Trudeau announced will double within three years to reach brigade level.
The Latvian prime minister also said his country’s investments in defence will reach three per cent of its GDP next year, three years ahead of schedule.
But in stellar diplomatic fashion, he kept to himself his thoughts on Canada’s comparatively meagre defence contribution, which accounts for just 1.3 per cent of its economic output.
In April, the Washington Post reported that Trudeau told our NATO allies that Canada will not meet the target of two per cent of GDP that was agreed to in Wales in 2014.
Pentagon leak makes plain that Canada's military deficiencies are a serious problem for our allies
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Yet last Friday, Reuters reported that all 31 NATO allies have agreed to “an enduring commitment to invest at least two per cent of GDP in their militaries in the future.”
That will mean a massive increase in defence spending in the coming years — if Trudeau has any intention of living up to the pledge.
According to the Parliamentary Budget Office, Canada spent $36.3 billion in 2022/23 on defence, including funding for the Canadian Coast Guard and veterans’ pensions. But to reach two per cent would require the government to spend a further $18.2 billion a year.
The CBC’s Murray Brewster reported on Monday that Canadian officials have been lobbying NATO allies for months to expand the definition of what can be included in the defence spending benchmark, so the government can make progress toward its goal without spending any more money. Canada apparently wants space, cyber and artificial intelligence research to be included in the calculation.
But why stop there? To add another few billion, why not throw in dental-care and child-care spending? Napoleon is said to have commented that an army marches on its stomach, but soldiers also need a working set of choppers and a serene home life to operate at peak performance levels.
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This is a government that knows there are very few votes in spending more on defence, so while Trudeau heads overseas and talks about how the western world is invested in collective security more than ever before, at home he ensures that Canada continues to be a relative free-rider.
The numbers don’t lie. In 2023, only 11 of the 31 NATO members will hit two per cent: the U.S., the U.K., Poland, Greece, Estonia, Lithuania, Finland, Romania, Hungary, Latvia and Slovakia.
At the other end of the scale, only Spain, Belgium, Slovenia and Luxembourg spend less on defence as a percentage of their economy than Canada does.
The impact of this underfunding is apparent on the ground, at sea and in the air. Trudeau said a year ago that this country will increase the size and capability of its battle-group in Latvia, but it will take three years before it completes the full implementation of 2,200 permanently deployed troops.
Last month, NATO held its largest ever air exercise — Air Defender — that involved 25 nations, including Japan and Sweden, which are not NATO members.
Canada didn’t take part, despite being invited, because too many of its planes and pilots were grounded or involved in “modernization” activities.
In a shocking and embarrassing development, DND said the RCAF was unable to participate because 'many of our aircraft and personnel are currently committed to modernization activities'
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Trudeau’s argument for many years was that capability was more important than crude accounting metrics, and that Canada always answered the call. That assertion no longer holds true.
Demands for the federal government to take national security and defence more seriously are becoming stale.
In April, 60 of the country’s former top security officials — including five former defence ministers and nine ex-chiefs of the defence staff — wrote an open letter urging the Liberal government to live up to the commitments made to allies to share the burden of collective security, “commitments which are enacted to safeguard our peace, prosperity and way of life.”
Among the requests was that the government improve the ability of the Department of National Defence “to spend its budget in an expeditious and timely manner” — a major problem in recent years.
Trudeau’s response was the verbal equivalent of his pinched, passive-aggressive, dismissive smile. “To govern is to choose,” he said, before hinting that the people who signed the letter were lobbyists working in “these industries,” who were motivated by unworthy goals.
But the prime minister cannot prevaricate and dodge indefinitely. If he signs up to the two-per-cent target this week, he will have to make meaningful progress in short order, or lose whatever credibility he still has in Washington, London, Berlin and Paris.
Trudeau’s argument that capability is more important than crude accounting metrics, and that Canada always answers the call, no longer holds true
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