Carney’s military spending spree needs focus

National Affairs By David Olive

Canada is expanding its military capabilities by the greatest amount since the Second World War.
The historic buildup is intended to deliver industrial benefits in addition to better protecting the country.
And it will be fraught. It may encounter more difficulties than the energy, infrastructure and other nation-building projects that the Carney government has under consideration.
Expenditures of this magnitude – a Carney military budget commitment reaching $150 billion by 2035 – can easily go off the rails.
We can’t afford that, given the geopolitical challenges of the moment and in years to come.
Canada’s remilitarization will succeed only if it is focused. It will fail, as military endeavours often do, if it lacks a clear mission, including focused investment.
The prime objective should be protection of our three ocean coasts and the southern border. And gaining proficiency in developing and manufacturing the military goods that we and the export market most need.
The Carney government has so far provided only a vague idea of how its planned military investment will be spent.
There will be fierce competition among Canada’s regions for their share of the $81.1 billion in defence spending over the next five years in Carney’s first budget alone.
And it will be difficult to find the right balance in procurement of big-ticket warships and warplanes and lower-cost drones, artillery, ammunition and advanced cybersecurity capabilities.
Canada has a poor track record in military procurement. RBC Economics noted in a recent report on defence preparedness that $18.5 billion in federal capital allocated to military procurement went unspent during a five-year period.
And Canada’s private sector defence industry is underdeveloped.
Canada has just 600 or so private-sector defence companies, compared with America’s 60,000. Most of the Canadian firms are small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) employing fewer than 250 people.
That explains Canada’s worrisome reliance on the U.S. for military supplies. Currently, all our fighter aircraft, 91 per cent of our helicopters, and more than 75 per cent of other mission aircraft originate with U.S. firms.
Even the “River-class” destroyers that Canada is building in Halifax are equipped with logistical gear supplied by U.S. defence contractor Lockheed Martin.
And there is a temptation, given Canada’s current patriotic fervour and the immense sums now available for defence, to cover the waterfront in our intended planned capabilities.
There is talk of Canada playing a greater role in protecting Europe from Russia’s predations. Of helping quell unrest in places like Haiti and Mali. And, of course, defending our Arctic sovereignty from Russia and perhaps someday the U.S.
Our new defence ambitions require greater focus than that.
In territorial defence, our focus should be almost singularly on our vast homeland.
Our European allies are increasingly able to defend themselves. Europe’s defence spending of $760 billion last year is double what it spent a decade ago, and that outlay will continue to rise.
Canada has the world’s largest amount of ocean coastline. Yet we do not have enough coast guard vessels, military aircraft, destroyers, submarines and satellites to effectively patrol and defend it.
We need a comprehensive military coastal presence to protect the livelihoods of Canadians who derive their income from the sea, as well as deterring interlopers.
Focus is also required in procurement. There is a risk that Canada will rush into buying, often and of necessity from abroad, a greater variety of military goods than we require. For instance, if our mission is to safeguard the homeland, we don’t need to subsidize America’s planned Golden Dome missile shield, intended primarily to defend the U.S.
Where we do have expertise, and the potential for the greatest economic benefit, is in selected sectors where we should strengthen existing capabilities.
Among the most effective new weapons of our times is military drones, a technology first pioneered in Canada in the 1960s before we allowed investment in that sector to languish. Among the global leaders in land drones is tiny Estonia.
Canada can recapture its former leadership with government support of the scores of Canadian companies engaged in drone manufacturing, testing and training.
Canada already has substantial expertise in aerospace, shipbuilding, armoured vehicles, and artillery and munitions manufacturing.
In aerospace, for instance, CAE Inc. dominates the world market for flight simulators. Bombardier Inc. provides surveillance aircraft to the Pentagon. And Toronto’s MDA Space Ltd. is a global leader in low Earth orbit satellites.
We can’t risk an unfocused splurge on military spending.
Canada has the chance to get it right, as we did in quickly building our Second World War “arsenal of democracy.”
Our sovereignty and livelihoods depend on it.