44th Parl. 1st Sess.

April 5, 2022 10:00AM

Hon. Michael Chong (Wellington—Halton Hills, CPC)

Apr/5/22 3:19:51 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I listened to my hon. colleague's speech with great interest. If I heard her correctly, I think she said that the government is committed to meeting the NATO commitment of spending at least 20% of defence expenditures on equipment, and that would not include NATO modernization or the acquisition of F-35 jets. Could the member tell the House where she thinks the additional equipment spending should be allocated and what types of equipment the Canadian Armed Forces are in need of, in addition to the F-35 jets and the modernization of NATO that she already outlined?

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Context: House Hansard - 53 - Apr/5/22

Mr. Mark Gerretsen (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Senate), Lib.)

Apr/5/22 3:24:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan for his enthusiasm about listening to me for the next 10 minutes. I want to thank the member for Davenport for sharing that time with me today and for the opportunity to provide some input into this opposition day motion. I am very pleased to see that the Conservative Party is eager to spend 2% of our gross domestic product on our military. It certainly is not in keeping with what it was doing during the last Conservative government, but perhaps its members have turned a new leaf and have decided this is in fact the way we should be moving forward. First I would like to address where the 2% of GDP comes from and perhaps some of the challenges that are associated with it. In 2014, at the Wales summit, NATO leaders came together and made a decision collectively. It was a formal pledge to spend 2% of their nations' GDP on military expenditures specifically. This was done in order to ensure there would be fairness throughout countries in their participation and what they were putting toward NATO and the protection it offers NATO countries. It was therefore decided this would be a fair and equitable way of moving forward. One of the problems with that 2% figure is that different countries, at least in the beginning, were calculating their 2% differently. For example, some countries were including pensions being paid to veterans, whereas others were not. Also, in the way the program is set up, or the way it is supposed to be measured, is that any armed service a country has would be included. One of the problems Canada would face in that scenario is that our Coast Guard is considered a civilian service, whereas in the U.S., the coast guard is considered an armed service. As a result, the U.S. would include in its 2% calculation its coast guard, whereas Canada would not necessarily do that. After my time on the Standing Committee on National Defence and after we had an opportunity to study this 2% issue and the NATO contributions of Canada specifically, I was pleased to see in 2018 that at least NATO did update some of the ways it recommended to countries to calculate that 2%. Particularly, it did indicate that pensions, for example, would be included. It is important to establish a baseline and to be consistent across different countries. Canada was of course one of the founding partners of NATO, as we have heard in the House throughout the day. Canada has been in every NATO mission as a partner with our allied countries, because we see the value in making sure that NATO has the proper resources to keep its member countries safe. As I indicated earlier, I am very pleased to see the Conservatives supporting this. However, the problem is that— Mr. James Bezan: Well, you're supporting us now. Mr. Mark Gerretsen: Madam Speaker, the member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman just heckled me and said that we are supporting them. I am happy to tell the member that I support his motion today, so if the member is looking for me to say that, I thought he could read between the lines in what I said so far. He heckled me a few moments ago and said that we are supporting them. That member was part of the former government. I believe he was the parliamentary secretary to defence in the former Harper government, when we saw a decrease year after year in the percentage of GDP spent on the military. I know I cannot use a prop in the House, but I am looking at my notes right now and I have an actual graph of the percentage of GDP— Mr. Garnett Genuis: Table it. Mr. Mark Gerretsen: Madam Speaker, the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan wants me to table it. Now he is saying he does not. I was willing to do that. This graph is very interesting to look at, because if we go back over the last 10 years, we see a continual decrease in the percentage of GDP until it bottoms out in 2013 at less than 1%. That was the climax, so to speak, of Stephen Harper's contribution to ensuring he was properly living up to the commitment we made in the Wales summit. After bottoming out at less than 1% of GDP, what did the graph do? It did the exact opposite. Since this Liberal government came into power in 2015, every year the amount has gone up, and the trend line is pushing up and toward that 2%. I am a big supporter of making sure we hit that 2% mark. The member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman earlier on heckled and was surprised that I would support that. I have no idea why he was surprised by that. He and I sat on the defence committee together for four years, and we unanimously approved a report from the defence committee calling on the government to spend 2%. I think it should have been very clear to the member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman exactly where I stood on it. I hope I was memorable enough for him to remember me being on the committee with him when we both spoke in favour of that. We travelled together to Ukraine and Latvia to study the work that NATO was doing abroad, in terms of Operations Reassurance and Unifier. He would know that I very much support this, and that is why I plan to vote in favour of this motion. However, for the member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman to try to project himself from the position of being a strong advocate for spending 2% of GDP on our military, he certainly did not do that when he was the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Defence during his time in government, albeit quite a while ago. If there is any indication from what is happening within the Conservative Party right now, it will probably be quite a while until that happens again. Nonetheless, I think this motion and what it is calling for are the right things to do. I think that it is important that we spend. I even remember going a step further, when I was on the committee, and suggesting that Canada should actually be part of the ballistic missile defence program in North America within NORAD. The member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman and I both visited the NORAD facility in Cheyenne Mountain, and we both saw the awkward situation in which Americans and Canadians worked incredibly well together in 95% of the room, but then there was 5% of the room where the Canadians basically were not allowed to go, and that was the part of the room that specifically looked over ballistic missile defence. I am on the record as having said that, in my opinion, this is something we should be doing. I can understand that prime ministers of the past have not been interested in that and have shied away from doing that, and I respect that. It is not my position, but nonetheless I can appreciate the fact that positions have been taken over the years. I see that my time is running out, but I want to say that I plan to support this motion and I will vote in favour of it, because I think it is the right thing to do. More importantly, if we just look at the trajectory since this government came into power, we will see that we are on our way to getting us to a point where we are spending 2% of our GDP on national defence.

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House Hansard - 53