Stephen Harper has been one of the toughest-talking leaders throughout the Ukraine crisis, yet newly released figures show National Defence is expected to face an even deeper budget hole in the coming year than previously anticipated.
The ongoing reductions come as the prime minister is expected to resist pressure from allies at this week’s NATO summit to spend substantially more on the military.
Annual spending on the military, when compared with 2011, is slated to shrink by a total of $2.7-billion in 2015, according to a briefing note prepared for the deputy defence minister.
That would be almost $300-million more than earlier internal estimates, and roughly $600-million higher than the figure defence officials acknowledged last fall when they rolled out the department’s renewal plan.
Dave Perry, an analyst with the Conference of Defence Associations, said, in order to meet the NATO goal, Ottawa would have to double the military’s budget to about $38-billion per year.
Spending more doesn’t necessarily mean a more effective military and Canada has demonstrated it gets a lot of efficiency out of the dollars it does commit, he said.
Financial estimates, that were part of the briefing package given to Rob Nicholson when he was sworn-in as defence minister in July 2013, show the Conservatives, despite past promises and rhetoric, weren’t planning to spend much more than the roughly $18.9-billion already set aside.
In a rare display of conflicting messages, Nicholson’s parliamentary secretary, James Bezan, publicly suggested last spring that the country should be spending 1.7 per cent of GDP on its military.
When the Conservatives introduced their defence strategy in 2008, they underlined how the 20-year plan would provide “stable and predictable” funding to the military by delivering a guaranteed two per cent annual increase.
But Perry said it hasn’t worked out that way and, while the escalator is still there, it’s been more than offset by cuts elsewhere.
“It’s a bizarre situation where you’ve got $2.7 billion in cuts, taking away with the left hand; but with right hand your getting this escalation amount,” Perry said.
The Canada First Defence Strategy also promised that overseas missions would be paid for — as other nations do — through a special budgetary appropriation and not taken out of the departmental budget.
more
Harper government talks tough against Russian ‘invasion,’ but cuts $2.7-billion from defence budget | National Post
