Military braces for more spending cuts
Some fear new 'decade of darkness'
Lee Berthiaume
Ottawa Citizen
20 March 2013
The Conservative government's oft-stated support for Canada's military is coming under the microscope as senior officers and defence analysts brace for more cuts in Thursday's federal budget.
And some are even warning that unless dramatic steps are taken, the military is in danger of entering another dreaded "decade of darkness."
An analysis by retired Lt.-Col Brian MacDonald of the Conference of Defence Associations has found military spending as a percentage of gross domestic product trending toward its lowest level since 1997.
The "decade of darkness" was the name given by former chief of defence staff Rick Hillier to describe the deep spending cuts imposed on the military by the government of former prime minister Jean Chrétien in the 1990s.
MacDonald stated that the declining ratio of defence spending to GDP - from a high of 1.4 per cent in 2009-10 to an estimated 1.08 per cent by 2015 - is "more consistent to a return to "the Decade of Darkness' than to the 'Brave New World' promised" by the federal Conservatives.
Such a comparison is potentially volatile for the federal government, which has painted itself as a champion of the Canadian Forces while blasting the Chrétien government for the cuts imposed under its rule.
Douglas Bland, chair of defence management studies at Queen's University, said the Conservatives have discovered what the Chrétien Liberals already knew: there's always cash to be found in the defence budget.
"It's like a change jar," Bland said, noting that provinces don't get angry when money is taken from the military and few Canadians notice, "so there is very little blowback."
But CDA analyst David Perry wasn't prepared to say the Canadian Forces is entering another "decade of darkness."
Perry released his own study this week that found national defence funding has been reduced by $2.12 billion, or about 10.6 per cent, in the last two federal budgets - a number that may be even higher if new cuts are introduced in Thursday's budget.
But that compares to a more than 20 per cent cut imposed by the Chrétien government, Perry said, "so we're about halfway to where we were in the '90s"
The fact the federal government has pledged to maintain the Canadian Forces' strength at 68,000 regular force members and 27,000 reservists, and that it's still planning to buy new equipment, are noteworthy.
"Every other time the budget has been cut, the front-line personnel have been reduced and the capital budget has been frozen or reduced," Perry said.
"This will make it easier to come back in three or four years if the books recover and bump things back up."
But the fact the military is severely restricted in what it can and cannot slash is causing other short-term problems, Perry said, including hitting training and maintenance disproportionately hard.
This is consistent with concerns recently raised by the head of the Canadian Army, Lt.-Gen. Peter Devlin, whose own force is facing a 22 per cent spending cut.
"While we have had our budget reduced by 22 per cent, there are a bunch of fixed costs," Devlin told a Senate committee Dec. 3.
"It means that the training budgets for the formations are probably about 45 per cent lower than it was."
Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Tom Lawson acknowledged during an appearance before a Senate committee Monday that managing the spending reduction would be the focus of senior officers for the foreseeable future.
And he agreed there will be challenges.
"Anywhere we look for these savings, we will do so carefully," Lawson said. "But there will be some loss of capability."
Yet the country's top soldier said he remained optimistic - in part because the military had recovered from the "decade of darkness."
"The Canadian Armed Forces of 2013 is well ahead of where we were back in the mid-1990s," Lawson said.
"I can see clearly how far we have come to where we are today."
) in asking headquarters where headquarters' fat can be cut.
'cause when they look down, they can't see the floor.
