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House Hansard - 53

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 5, 2022 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 53 - Apr/5/22
Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus (Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, CPC)
  • Apr/5/22 10:34:31 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have been looking forward to joining the debate on this motion. As a former member of the military, I understand the importance of adequate funding for national defence and the importance of Canada's role on the international stage. The purpose of the debate is to bring all parliamentarians to a clear consensus on our defence posture. The motion specifically calls for an increase in the defence budget to reach the NATO target. However, we also need to find another time to discuss the state of the troops and lack of members. There is a reason for all that, but we will come back to it another day. From the outset, I must say that the Liberals' rhetoric about military spending has never translated into concrete action, and that is very disappointing. Most frightening is this recent partnership between the Liberal Party and the NDP socialists. It is no secret that the NDP has never been in favour of a healthy and well-funded Canadian military. Under a NDP government, the Canadian Armed Forces' budget would basically be eviscerated. As a result of this romance between the Liberals and the NDP, there is uncertainty among our troops across the country and abroad. When Russia invaded Ukraine, all NATO partners were again challenged to meet or maintain the defence spending requirement of 2% of GDP, 20% of which must be allocated to military equipment. This renewed commitment had actually been discussed at the 2014 NATO summit in Wales, in response to Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea and the unrest in the Middle East at that time. NATO leaders agreed to reverse the downward trend in defence spending and decided that the allies already meeting the 2% guideline on defence spending would strive to continue doing so and that the allies spending less than 2% of their GDP on defence would strive to increase that spending in real terms within 10 years. That commitment was made in 2014, and now, eight years later, Canada ranks 25th out of the 30 NATO countries in terms of military spending. NATO's latest annual report shows that Canada spent just 1.36% of its GDP on the army and new defence equipment in 2021. In contrast, the Conservative Party of Canada declared in its policy statement that a Conservative government will work towards spending at least the NATO recommended 2% of our GDP on national defence. Furthermore, in our latest platform, in 2021, we said, “Canada’s Conservatives will renew Canada’s commitment to NATO by increasing spending on national defence to move closer to our 2% aspirations”. The large-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia, accompanied by mounting evidence of war crimes in full view of anyone on social media, clearly gives Canada good reason to considerably increase its defence spending. There is no doubt that Canada's biggest challenge has always been its procurement system, which involves too many departments and not enough political responsibility. This system essentially created a bottleneck that prevents even the current budget increase from being spent effectively. The lack of political leadership keeps projects from moving quickly. Every independent procurement expert who testified before our committees has said as much. According to the most recent public accounts, $1.2 billion of 2021 defence spending was not invested, despite the fact that the Liberal's 2015 election platform explicitly states, “We will not let Canada’s Armed Forces be shortchanged, and we will not lapse military spending from year to year.” However, last month the Parliamentary Budget Officer released a report detailing how the Liberals are constantly pushing spending to coming years. In other words, the Liberals have consistently broken their promise to invest in new equipment. To be honest, when the “Strong, Secure, Engaged” defence policy was published in 2017, I was impressed. During a meeting of the Standing Committee on National Defence, at the time, I remember saying to the chief of the defence staff and the Minister of Defence that 80% of what was in the white paper advocated a Conservative approach. I asked how they were going to fund it. The told me that the decision was not theirs to make. We saw what happened next. At the same time, Canada's defence policy entitled “Strong, Secure, Engaged” demonstrates how the Liberals calculate defence investments so as to meet NATO criteria. It is as though they are comparing this year's 1.34% with the Conservatives' percentage, which the Liberals estimate at just under 1%. We need to compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges. The Liberals added elements to the NATO calculations. There are ongoing discussions about applying the same yardstick. Certain elements have been included, such as payments made to veterans. They were not part of the NATO calculations, nor were peacekeeping and humanitarian operations, defence-related IT support, centrally funded defence personnel expenditures, or support for defence programs. The Liberals took a look and, anywhere they saw the word “defence” or “veteran”, they decided they would take that and put it all together to inflate the percentage so they could say that they are doing more. That is the big difference between what was done by the Conservatives at the time, in other words, real and actual defence work, and the other things that the Liberals picked at here and there. We know that the Liberals are sneakily trying to cover up their failure. However, Canadians are not fools. They see what the Liberals are doing. The only major project that the Liberals have completed in nearly seven years is buying a bunch of rusted-out CF-18s from Australia for $360 million. We congratulate them on that. With regard to Ukraine, Canada can and must do more. We have a lot of surplus military vehicles that could be dispatched around the clock with our C-17s. However, the government has not indicated whether it has even considered such action. We could also call upon third parties to buy air defence equipment, such as Stinger missiles or drones and send them to Ukraine. Once again, the senior officials who appeared before the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates repeatedly suggested that these ideas are not even being considered right now. Furthermore, all military purchases under this Liberal government are or have been delayed. For example, when will Canada sign the notorious F-35 contract? We have been in the consortium for decades. Why do we have to wait seven months to enter into dialogue with Lockheed Martin? We have already been talking to them for quite a while now. In addition, when will construction on the polar icebreakers begin? Why is the Davie shipyard still not officially part of the national shipbuilding strategy? What is this government waiting for? How are we going to protect Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic? The NORAD alert system is totally obsolete. Has the government considered purchasing airborne warning and control system aircraft? What are we doing to speed up the procurement process? What is the status of the submarine replacement program? In addition, this partnership between the Liberals and the NDP is a pretty good indication that this government is unlikely to increase investments in the Canadian Armed Forces in the short term. Indeed, how many times have we heard NDP statements or resolutions calling for Canada to withdraw completely from NATO? When we, the Conservatives, were in power, we finalized the purchase of five C-17 Globemaster transport aircraft, 17 CC-130J Hercules transport aircraft, 15 Chinook helicopters and some Leopard 2 tanks. We modernized the CP-140 Aurora surveillance aircraft and the Halifax class frigates. We approved the construction of the Asterix auxiliary supply ship, which the Liberals tried to cancel at their first cabinet meeting in 2015, despite Admiral Norman's objections. We established the national shipbuilding strategy, which, despite all its problems, is finally starting to produce some ships, such as the Coast Guard's science vessels and the Arctic offshore patrol ships. The Conservative government has always taken the need to provide adequate funding to our Canadian Armed Forces seriously, whereas the Liberals are known for spewing empty rhetoric. I will close by saying this. Let us do better in military procurement, let us be efficient and let us ensure we have the means to do so.
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Context: House Hansard - 53 - Apr/5/22
Ms. Heather McPherson
  • Apr/5/22 12:18:13 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think that Canada has to find its way back to playing an important role on the world stage. Not only has our role within NATO diminished, but our role within the United Nations has diminished, our role in peacekeeping has diminished, our role in diplomacy has diminished and our ability to move things forward has diminished. As a country that used to be a leader in diplomacy and multilateralism and all of these things, including Canadian peacekeeping, which Canadians saw their identity in, we are those things no longer. We spend all of our time investing solely in trade and forget to look at these other areas. Yes, I agree with the member that we do need to live up to our obligations within NATO. February 24 changed the world, and we need to also live up to our obligations to the world and other countries.
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