The Defence Budget [superthread]

[Journeyman]

A scathing article against the Tories.....

  And yet if the Tories were deploying a Brigade-Group into Eastern Europe, the headlines would be demanding Harper's resignation as a rabid, mad-dog, war-monger.  :

 

[dimsum]

  And yet if the Tories were deploying a Brigade-Group into Eastern Europe, the headlines would be demanding Harper's resignation as a rabid, mad-dog, war-monger.  :

Yep.  Pretty much "damned if you do, damned if you don't."  Hell, I was surprised the CBC was lambasting him for not spending money on the military - someone should save that article and paste it when, in the future, they start the inevitable "return to peacekeeping only" shtick.

 

[McG]

It looks like Canada may have succeeded in watering down NATO's call for members to invest more in defence.

Meanwhile, DND is being asked to cover more costs with its shrinking budget.

NATO allies unwilling to boost defence spending may soon see compromise
Prime Minister Stephen Harper arrives in London for NATO summit
CBC News
02 Sep 2014

A face-saving compromise may be on the way for reluctant allies, including Canada, who are unwilling to boost defence spending to meet the NATO standard.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Stephen Harper says the final statement at the Wales Summit later this week will describe the long-standing expectation that members nations spend at least two per cent of their gross domestic product on defence as an "aspirational target."

That seems enough to satisfy the Harper government, which has balked at pressure from both the United States and Britain to substantially boost the military's budget slashed in the drive towards next year's balanced budget and anticipated election.

Jason MacDonald, the prime minister's director of communications, said late Tuesday that the government is willing to spend more "on measures that meet actual operational needs, in response to global issues."

He says Canada is not prepared to meet "an arbitrary target."

Wiggle room in meeting target, U.S. says

The language not only puts out an embarrassing political fire, given the prime minister's harsh condemnation of Russia, but it may also be enough to placate the Americans.

...

Harper has been one of the vocal western leaders in condemning Russia's annexation of Crimea and ongoing invasion of eastern Ukraine, which has claimed over 2,000 lives.

The statement that the government intends to fund "operational needs" is significant because it means the federal treasury could be called upon to pony up for individual deployments and commitments, rather than telling the defence department to find the money within its annual budget.

With the exception of the combat mission in Kandahar, the Conservatives have resisted doing special appropriations for deployments, the way most other countries do.

Documents obtained by The Canadian Press under access to information show that missions, such as the Afghan training deployment and the Libya bombing campaign, were funded out of the National Defence budget.

That was breaking a promise in the government's own Canada First Defence Strategy, which pledged overseas missions would be paid for through a special budgetary appropriation.

The defence department is currently being asked to swallow the cost of the Harper government's three-year commitment to fund newly trained and independent Afghan forces — something agreed to at a previous NATO summit.

There was no indication Tuesday whether the government would find the money elsewhere to cover that bill.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/nato-allies-unwilling-to-boost-defence-spending-may-soon-see-compromise-1.2753155

 

[McG]

As  E.R. Campbell  has noted before, the defence budget is where it is at because Canadians are content for it to be there.  Michael den Tandt provides the prescription for getting the budget from where it is to the state it needs to be at to deliver on government promises.

Despite tough talk, Canadian Forces are badly under-funded
MICHAEL DEN TANDT, POSTMEDIA NEWS
Ottawa Citizen
01 Sep 2014

Is Russian president Vladimir Putin a bad, bad man? We think probably he is.

Do the butchers of the Islamic State, now running amok in Iraq and Syria, pose a clear and present danger to Western civilization? It seems so.

Therefore it’s good, we can agree, that this country’s prime minister and foreign minister, Stephen Harper and John Baird, can get their Winston Churchill on now and then. Harper and Baird’s denunciations of Putin’s reckless invasion of Ukraine, a sovereign country that had not fired so much as a rubber band towards Russia, have been refreshingly blunt.

Oh – except for our military, which, according to reporting by the Canadian Press’s Murray Brewster, is about to have another $2.7-billion lopped off its annual budget. Awkward. Postmedia’s Matthew Fisher reports that Ottawa is under pressure from North Atlantic Treaty Organization members to spend more, not less, as Harper heads to Wales for a NATO summit. Might someone at this confab publicly suggest that, when it comes to smiting evil, Canada is mostly bluster?

This is in no way intended as a slight against the Canadian Forces, whose members have displayed such skill, courage and simple good humour, in so many foreign engagements. No one who travels with the CF, or watches them work, can fail to appreciate their worth. The same very high standards, I observed recently, are exemplified by the Canadian Coast Guard. Thank goodness for them.

But the simple truth is that Canada’s military is badly under-resourced, given the range of emerging global threats, and the United States’ continuing withdrawal from its long-standing role as global policeman. Setting aside a sharp increase in defence spending between 2002 and 2010, the pattern has been for Ottawa to use the CF as a kind of piggy bank. When money is tight, it can safely be lopped out of the defence budget, because a) soldiers, sailors and airmen and women can’t complain too bitterly and b) the defence of North America is essentially an American responsibility. Right?

The Jean Chretien-Paul Martin Liberals famously balanced the federal budget on the backs of the CF during its so-called “decade of darkness,” in the 1990s. Those cuts were so severe that on some bases, according to soldiers I have spoken to, every second light bulb was unscrewed to save power. The Airborne Regiment was disbanded in the wake of the Somalia affair. Major procurements were cancelled, delayed or botched. In 2005, ringing in the dawn of a new era, Harper promised to undo all that. And until roughly 2010, with Canada at war in Afghanistan, his government delivered.

But it appears the Tories are doing again what the Liberals did 20 years ago, even though the geopolitical context is demonstrably more perilous today than it was then. Canada spends roughly one per cent of GDP on its military – putting us 22nd second among 27 NATO countries, ahead of Hungary, Latvia, Spain, Lithuania and Luxembourg. The Slovak Republic, Belgium, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Italy and the Netherlands all spend a greater share of GDP on their militaries than does Canada. Even though, as the prime minister is fond of reminding us, this country leads the Group of Seven industrialized nations in terms of fiscal performance. It doesn’t square.

Last week on Baffin Island, I watched Harper deliver his toughest-sounding denunciation yet of both Putin and the Islamic State. Speaking to a small audience of soldiers, sailors and airmen and women, including Inuit Rangers tasked with providing Canada’s first line of defence in the north, Harper declared that “in Europe, we see the imperial ambitions of Vladimir Putin, who seems determined that, for Russia’s neighbours, there shall be no peace.” And this: “… because Russia is also Canada’s Arctic neighbour, we must not be complacent here at home. In our time, the Royal Canadian Air Force has again been called to respond to increased Russian activity in the Arctic.”

Bracing stuff. But how to justify the gap between the talk and the walk? The 5,000 Rangers, it is now promised, will receive their long-awaited new bolt-action rifle next year. Beyond that, there is precious little good news to report. As I have written previously, new ships are half a dozen years from delivery, at best. The fighter-jet replacement program has been on ice since late 2012, when the government’s sole-source F-35 purchase went supernova. There is still no competition under way to replace the CF-18s.

This state of affairs is not, to be fair, entirely the Harper government’s fault. The Tories’ defence spending is dictated by what they perceive to be Canadians’ wishes. There is no tradition in Canada of popular support for the kind of outlay – close to $40-billion annually, compared with the current $19-billion – that would bring us into line with the NATO standard of two per cent of GDP. But at what point does the government assume its responsibility to lead and shape popular support, rather than simply put a finger to the wind and move with the current?

If the threats are as grave as Harper and Baird say, leadership is called for. They can’t have it both ways forever.

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Despite+tough+talk+Canadian+Forces+badly+under+funded/10168311/story.html

 

[Eye In The Sky]

5000 bolt actions rifles...that'll learn 'em to mess with Canada!  ;D

 

[McG]

I am a little surprised that the media has continued to press the under-funded military topic as persistently as it has in the last few days.  Here, John Ivison builds on an earlier article to press the message further.  An important element here is the message that part of the solution to the funding problem is for military, bureaucratic, & political leadership to focus priorities on what is necessary.  Preserving extraneous HQ layers is not necessary.

DND brass tenaciously do nothing in face of report's warning over Canadian military
By John Ivison, National Post
04 Sep 2014

Six months ago, a retired Canadian Forces officer, George Petrolekas, and a retired Canadian diplomat, Ferry de Kerckhove, published an annual report analyzing the international security environment.

The Strategic Outlook for the Conference of Defence Associations Institute was blunt in its assessment, pointing out a retrenchment by Western powers, the death of leadership and an absence of strategy.

“Ignoring defence requirements based on what the outside world looks like and not doing anything about it, is tantamount to a delinquency of one’s government duty,” the report concluded.

“Fiscal pressures are leading to cuts to defence, based more on the balance sheet than on what a nation wishes to do in the world. For Canada, cuts to capability, delay or elimination of procurements, or reduction in readiness are imposed without the benefit of a foreign policy and defence review to articulate our national interests. This is deeply troubling. … Absent an articulated vision of its role in the world, and the provision of the right means to achieve it, Canada risks doing little and mattering even less in world affairs.”

Amongst its other findings, it suggested that Putin’s Russia was bent on rediscovering its past glories by trying to become the heart of  Eurasia.

The report holds up pretty well six months later. Needless to say, it was summarily dismissed as too pessimistic by the Department of National Defence.

...

But Messrs. Petrolekas and de Kerckhove were closer to the mark about the unfolding international landscape than the military establishment seems to have been.

And they nailed a problem that DND, in all its pomp and circumstance and complacency, has preferred to ignore — namely, Canada’s military is in disarray, too stretched to effectively procure equipment or properly keep its forces in a state of mission readiness.

Stephen Harper was in London on Wednesday saying Canada is willing to act against ISIS. He has been among the most vocal critics of Russia’s adventurism in Ukraine. And he was in declaratory mode in the Arctic again last month, proclaiming Canada’s sovereignty in the region.

Yet annual spending on the military will be $2.7-billion lower next year than it was in 2011.

Now there are demands from Canada’s NATO allies that we double our military spending, to 2% of GDP.

That is not going to happen — not as long as this government is intent on balancing the budget and funding tax cuts ahead of next year’s election.

The Strategic Outlook authors suggest the military could improve its capacity, and still stay within budget, by closing such bases as CFB Borden and Goose Bay, and by reducing the 12,000 employed at headquarters in Ottawa.

But there are political costs to base closures, and neither the military nor the government seems disposed to doing anything that might make the situation more tenable.

As the Strategic Outlook makes clear, attempts to “transform” the Canadian Forces to fit new fiscal and geopolitical realities have been going on for a decade. At least no one can say the Forces lack backbone — it takes tenacity to do nothing for that length of time.

 

[Furniture]

I agree mostly with the article as written, but the one thing that puzzles me is the base closure part. How will the CAF save anything by closing the support training base? Training of clerks, cooks, aviation mechanics, fire fighters, vehicle techs, etc... has to happen somewhere. Is there a real cost saving in moving that raining to another base?  Or is this a case a person with no real knowledge of how the CAF works just trying to justify their pet ideas about the CAF?

 

[MilEME09]

I agree mostly with the article as written, but the one thing that puzzles me is the base closure part. How will the CAF save anything by closing the support training base? Training of clerks, cooks, aviation mechanics, fire fighters, vehicle techs, etc... has to happen somewhere. Is there a real cost saving in moving that raining to another base?  Or is this a case a person with no real knowledge of how the CAF works just trying to justify their pet ideas about the CAF?

While i would say it wouldn't save money, perhaps decentralizing it will, as many in the RCEME world will tell you we all end up back at the mothership we love to hate called Borden. Makes sense for central canada perhaps, but how much money could be saved if techs and support trades were trained closer to home? for example Wainwright for the west and Gagetown for the east? less travel cost for the CF and such I would think?

 

[Furniture]

While i would say it wouldn't save money, perhaps decentralizing it will, as many in the RCEME world will tell you we all end up back at the mothership we love to hate called Borden. Makes sense for central canada perhaps, but how much money could be saved if techs and support trades were trained closer to home? for example Wainwright for the west and Gagetown for the east? less travel cost for the CF and such I would think?

What about oil changes and power pack changes is specific to a brigade or division? Why does 1 CMBG require a differently trained tech than 2 CMBG? Why does MARLANT require a steward or cook with different skills than MARPAC?

Making schools for each area results in different standards for each area. That doesn't work under our model of one CAF serving all of Canada. In my time in I've never seen two schools teaching the same course do it in the same way with the same standard.

 

[MilEME09]

What about oil changes and power pack changes is specific to a brigade or division? Why does 1 CMBG require a differently trained tech than 2 CMBG? Why does MARLANT require a steward or cook with different skills than MARPAC?

Making schools for each area results in different standards for each area. That doesn't work under our model of one CAF serving all of Canada. In my time in I've never seen two schools teaching the same course do it in the same way with the same standard.

While I understand your point, you can't tell me it makes sense for me to fly all the way to Borden from Alberta to read the inspection standards of a C7 and then do it, why can't that be done in Wainwright Edmonton, or Shilo?

 

[Happy Guy]

Closure of BORDEN will not mean the end of centralized training.  For you, it just means that the RCEME might move to GAGETOWN because it is an Army trade.  So RCEME trades training will be conducted there.

 

[George Wallace]

Closure of BORDEN will not mean the end of centralized training.  For you, it just means that the RCEME might move to GAGETOWN because it is an Army trade.  So RCEME trades training will be conducted there.

Or perhaps back to Barriefield (Kingston) where the School was originally.

 

[Old Sweat]

Moot to the discussion is a study for reforming the Public Service by Hugh Segal. Honest, it is important. Mr Segal proposes reducing the number of senior executives and the layers of authority in the bureaucracy. He also questions the policy of shifting managers and executives between departments as this reduces the level of competency. It seems to me that reducing GOFOs and the number of headquarters and layers of staff would do a lot to increase the efficiency of the CAF.

Here is a link to the report on the study in the Ottawa Citizen:

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/fixing-the-public-service-groom-stronger-specialized-managers-says-hugh-segal

 

[Bird_Gunner45]

I am a little surprised that the media has continued to press the under-funded military topic as persistently as it has in the last few days.  Here, John Ivison builds on an earlier article to press the message further.  An important element here is the message that part of the solution to the funding problem is for military, bureaucratic, & political leadership to focus priorities on what is necessary.  Preserving extraneous HQ layers is not necessary.

Closing Borden would be interesting as it would also require moving the Canadian Forces Ammo depot to somewhere else, which would be expensive.  I dont know why Borden always comes up for closure... it's a great location near Canada's largest city. If we wanted to actually gain more exposure and potentially more recruits it would seem to make sense to augment Borden with more reg force units and close more austere bases that are harder to draw/keep pers in (Cold Lake, etc)
I'm sure that if people in Toronto/Southern Ontario could join the regular force and stay closer to home than that would be a great selling feature. Basing CF-18's or army equipment there could also permit more military parades (therefore presence). If we want to close bases, close Shilo, Cold Lake or Goose Bay.

 

[Eye In The Sky]

I can't agree with the Cold Lake closure however, I would offer closing Pat Bay and Shearwater and moving those Sqns (443 and 423) to Comox and Greenwood.  Of course, this will never happen now that new facilities have been built in both PB and SW. 

No reason all of the 'maritime air' folks couldn't be co-located on 1 Wing per coast.  I'd even take it a step further and move 1 CFFTS out of Winnipeg and put it in either Comox or Greenwood too.  Lots of potential in all of those ideas (that will never happen IMO).

I don't see closure of Borden as having much value either.  You'd be running X amount of mini-TEs across the country, with X amount of cadres, require X amount more trg aids, etc. 

 

[George Wallace]

I can't agree with the Cold Lake closure however, I would offer closing Pat Bay and Shearwater and moving those Sqns (443 and 423) to Comox and Greenwood.  Of course, this will never happen now that new facilities have been built in both PB and SW. 

Young pup.  Surest sign of a Base Closure happening is just that -- construction of new facilities and major upgrades to infrastructure. 

 

[SeaKingTacco]

I can't agree with the Cold Lake closure however, I would offer closing Pat Bay and Shearwater and moving those Sqns (443 and 423) to Comox and Greenwood.  Of course, this will never happen now that new facilities have been built in both PB and SW. 

No reason all of the 'maritime air' folks couldn't be co-located on 1 Wing per coast.  I'd even take it a step further and move 1 CFFTS out of Winnipeg and put it in either Comox or Greenwood too.  Lots of potential in all of those ideas (that will never happen IMO).

I don't see closure of Borden as having much value either.  You'd be running X amount of mini-TEs across the country, with X amount of cadres, require X amount more trg aids, etc.

Or the MH Sqns could be returned to the RCN (where the belong) and the RCN could decide where they should be based.  Just sayin'....

 

[GAP]

Young pup.  Surest sign of a Base Closure happening is just that -- construction of new facilities and major upgrades to infrastructure.

I don't know how many millions they spent renovating and insulating all the buildings at Kapyong Barracks in Winnipeg AFTER they moved everybody to Shilo and had it shut down.....there were little $$ signs floating above each building just remind everyone it was their tax dollars at work (humor, in case you weren't sure)......

 

[Eye In The Sky]

Young pup.  Surest sign of a Base Closure happening is just that -- construction of new facilities and major upgrades to infrastructure.

Hmmm.  'tis true; thinking of the $11million Combined Mess that was built in Summerside right before it was shut down.  Looks like the MH community better get ready for a move.

 

[Eye In The Sky]

Or the MH Sqns could be returned to the RCN (where the belong) and the RCN could decide where they should be based.  Just sayin'....

That would make more sense, which is precisely why it will never happen.  Makes you wonder though, if someone was to start a rumour that MAG was going to be re-born...you know, to go along with the DEU rank color changes and what-not...