LILLEY: Carney's multi-layered defence announcement is good news

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The announcement that the Carney Liberal government in Ottawa would increase defence spending was multi-layered. There was a domestic message about taking national security seriously, a message to Canadian industry that investment is coming and a message to Donald Trump that Canada is getting serious once again.

While Carney said this message was for Canadians, Trump and the need for a trade deal was clearly a motivating factor.

“Canada will achieve NATO’s 2% target this year, half a decade ahead of schedule,” the prime minister said during a speech at the University of Toronto.

Canada has long promised to spend 2% of GDP on defence as part of being a member of NATO but hasn’t hit that mark since 1990. That was under the Mulroney government at the end of the Cold War and after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the USSR, interest in defence spending faded away like Soviet communism.

We got lazy, we became complacent, we relied too heavily on the Americans, and we believed no one would want to harm us, that is if they could reach us.

“The long-held view that Canada’s geographic location will protect us is becoming increasingly archaic. Threats which felt far away and remote are now immediate and acute. And as our climate changes and the polar ice recedes Canada’s arctic is becoming more accessible and more vulnerable,” Carney said.

So, to that end, Carney announced that defence spending in Canada will rise from just shy of $40 billion in the current 2025-26 fiscal year to $62 billion. Some of that will happen by moving existing government spending to the defence budget, so there isn’t really an increase.

For example, the Canadian Coast Guard is currently part of Fisheries and Oceans to the Department of National Defence along with its current $4.5-billion budget. The Coast Guard will then also have additional duties “to better secure our sovereignty and expand maritime surveillance.”

There will also be a push to boost Canada’s defence industrial capacity with contracts in areas like light armoured vehicles, ammunitions and more going to Canadian companies. On this front, Carney described the spending as increasing defence spending while also supporting good paying jobs in Canadian industries.

“We will ensure that every dollar is invested wisely, including by prioritizing made-in-Canada manufacturing and supply chains,” Carney said.

There are real questions about whether DND can spend this much money and do it wisely.

The Canadian Armed Forces are currently short almost 15,000 active-duty members. Recruitment has been a problem for the past several years, but so has retention as members leave in droves.

A pay boost that will be part of this increase in defence spending should help with recruitment. Having up-to-date equipment instead of antiquated or broken equipment should help. In his remarks Monday, Carney noted that only one of our four submarines is seaworthy.

How can a country like Canada operate a navy with just one working sub?

To really increase recruitment the military doesn’t necessarily need to spend more money, but they do need a culture change. They need to drop the woke mentality that has seen the Royal Canadian Navy push to drop Heart of Oak as their march song.

The 2% pledge comes now; expect Carney to announce future increases either just before or at the NATO meetings taking place June 24-25 in The Hague. It’s all part of trying to secure a new deal with the United States under President Donald Trump.

While Trump’s claim that the U.S. was subsidizing Canada were mostly false, on defence it was true. By making this announcement, the Carney government is helping set the table for an announcement of a new deal with the Americans before the G7 meetings start in Alberta this coming Sunday.

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