44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 5, 2022 10:00AM
- 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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- Apr/5/22 10:47:44 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his question. Those were different times. Let us not forget Afghanistan and spending on the operation in Afghanistan. The equipment I mentioned in my speech was purchased by the Conservatives to quickly meet an urgent need to support the troops.
Ask anyone who was in the Canadian Armed Forces when the Conservative government was in power if they were ashamed to serve their company, and no one would say they were. The military knew very well that the Conservative government was there to support them to the fullest extent, and that it could react quickly and send in the operational equipment that was needed on the ground. That is more important than any speech.
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- Apr/5/22 12:06:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague, the member for London—Fanshawe for her excellent contribution to this debate. She has been a staunch supporter of our women and men in military for many years. I have learned a great deal from her on this topic.
I would also like to thank the member of Parliament for South Surrey—White Rock for moving this motion, giving us the opportunity to discuss how to support our military and highlight the deplorable state of Canada's military. I am the daughter of a veteran, and the opportunity to stand in this place today and speak about this is vitally important to me.
As my colleague from London—Fanshawe mentioned, New Democrats have always pushed for the government to make sure that our troops have the equipment, training and support they need to do the very difficult and dangerous work we ask them to undertake. New Democrats have always strongly believed that the federal government must play a larger role in supporting the Canadian Armed Forces. We know that we need a military that can work safely, can get the support that they need when they need it and can count on their policies from our government. What we have seen instead is years of cuts from both Conservative and Liberal federal governments.
I have to say that I am somewhat amazed at the audacity, I guess, of the Conservatives standing in the House and talking about support for the military, when we saw very clearly the decimation of spending on the military and the abandonment of our peacekeeping efforts under Stephen Harper's Conservative government. I will speak to that a little bit later on, but I do think it is important to note that we are in a place where our military has not been supported by multiple governments.
Part of the reason that New Democrats believe so strongly in the support of our men and women in the military is because we are the party of working people. We are a party that has always believed that workers have a right and they are entitled to all the tools they need to do their work safely and effectively.
With regard to the Canadian Armed Forces, that becomes more important, as their job is to protect us, to look after Canadians, to hold Canada's place in the world, to protect Canadians during climate emergencies and to protect Canadians during the COVID pandemic. What we saw the armed forces do in Quebec during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, what we asked them to do, was incredible. If we do not give them the tools to do those jobs, it is a stain on our reputation, on the federal government and on parliamentarians.
One of my colleagues from the NDP caucus has brought forward the argument that she represents many men and women in the military, in the armed forces, who do not have the tools to do some of the things in Canada that we require them to do, so they do not have the tools to do the search and rescue that we ask them to do. She raised the issue in the House earlier today of helicopters and equipment that we are asking the men and women in uniform to repair by creating their own parts because these supplies are so old and so dated that they can no longer get parts. The military is being asked to patch together things so they can do the incredibly difficult work we are asking them to do, which is unsustainable. It is impossible to sustain.
Canada, right now, is looking at the world, the world that changed on February 24. I think we all should be looking at Arctic sovereignty. It is very clear that global climate change is making more of Canada's Arctic accessible and that global powers have their eyes on the Arctic as a place to exploit natural resources.
We have seen what Russian aggression has meant to stability in eastern Europe and the sovereignty of Ukraine. We must be prepared to protect Canada's Arctic from Russia and from other powers that may threaten our sovereignty and our environment. We have to have a plan in place to protect the north, and our armed forces must be that plan. They must be supported to undertake that work.
What do New Democrats want? New Democrats want a military where armed forces members can work safely, can get the support they need when they need it and can count on their government to produce policies that will work for them. We want our military to be able to work within NATO. New Democrats have regularly called for the government to take a leadership role within NATO in beginning the work necessary for achieving a world free of nuclear weapons.
I have called many times for the government to sign onto the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. We have not done that. At the very least, and I have asked this of the government, ministers, parliamentary secretaries and chairs at the foreign affairs committee, we could send an observation mission to Vienna this June for the first member meeting of the TPNW. I have pushed as hard as I can on this.
New Democrats want more commitment to peacekeeping. We have pledged 860 members to go into the field as peacekeepers. Canada used to play a vital role in peacekeeping in the world. We have 58 members in the field currently. Before the election in 2015, Trudeau criticized Stephen Harper's government for the decline in the number of—
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- Apr/5/22 1:08:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I very much appreciate the opportunity to speak in today's debate and I want to thank my colleague for South Surrey—White Rock for having put forward this very important motion. It is a very timely motion that I will support.
I have been calling for quite a long time for defence spending to be increased. I believe that it is something we owe to the men and women of our Armed Forces, to make sure that those brave men and women who fight for Canada, who devote and sacrifice their time and their family lives so that our country is well defended here and abroad, have all of the equipment, services, support and training they need to flourish.
I do not believe that Canada's military should be anything less than a great military organization. We have the 10th-biggest GDP in the world. We should have a fighting force that is equipped and ready to fit that representation of a country that has the 10th-biggest GDP in the world. For me, this is a very important motion to recognize that while it is true that we have increased the spending on the military, we still need to do more to meet our NATO target of 2%. In 2013, our spending was about 1%, compared with about 1.37% today.
To remind us of that, I appreciate that. I also appreciate it being done at this time. Canadians, for the first time in my political career, are actually beginning to recognize the importance of spending on our Armed Forces with this conflict in Ukraine, and the Russians' horrible aggression under the very, very bad Vladimir Putin. He is definitely a war criminal. What he and his henchmen and his military have done in Ukraine by starting a war in Europe, the first major war since the Second World War, is something that Canadians have looked at by seeing the images on TV. It is different from the Second World War, when people received news from newspaper reports days later. They saw things on film, but they did not see things instantaneously on television. Canadians are rightly horrified by what is happening. They are saying that Canada really needs to be part of defending Ukraine.
I have been proud of what we and our NATO allies have done. Our NATO allies and Canada have really stepped up to the plate, whether by sending humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, sending military assistance to Ukraine, or providing training over the years for over 33,000 troops in Ukraine who have helped Ukrainians on the ground to counter Russian aggression. With respect to the assistance we are going to be providing to those Ukrainians who want to come to Canada, whether temporarily or permanently, I think Canada has really stepped up. The fact that we are sending the HMCS Halifax, a second frigate, to Europe to join NATO military forces is really important.
What we are doing in Latvia is also really important. The Aurora maritime patrol that has been transferred to NATO command is important. The fact that we are commencing our next rotation of NATO-enhanced air policing in Romania is important. The extension of our commitment is important, and 3,400 Canadian Armed Forces are on high readiness in case they need to go to Europe. That is important. I want to again thank those men and women of our armed forces for all of the incredible work they do.
I also want to thank our veterans. I met veterans for the first time when I was elected to be a councillor. I was very young, just 23 years old. We had a legion full of Second World War veterans. When they came back, they built communities in my riding such as the city of Côte Saint‑Luc, where I served as mayor; the town of Hampstead; and the town of Mount Royal, the part of Montreal that I represent. They were very brave veterans who left Canada, Montreal and Quebec when they were 18 years old to go fight in the Second World War. They came back, they did not complain, they volunteered, they created our communities. Every year, crowds of people came out to parades. Nowadays, there are very few people from the Second World War left in the parades. They cannot do it anymore. We have to remember what they went through.
I also want to take this opportunity to talk about how important it is to provide substantively equal services to veterans in both official languages. What I mean is that processing time for complaints and documents submitted in French should be the same as for those submitted in English.
That is one thing I will continue fighting for.
I appreciate the way the House has treated this topic in a non-partisan way, because there are a lot of things we can argue about. I heard the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent say that before. There are a lot of things we can argue about, but defending our country is not one of them. The support for our armed forces is not one of them. The support for our veterans is not one of them. I have been so heartened to see this House's unanimous support for Ukraine, and the fact that there were no dissenting voices in imposing sanctions on Russia or on all of the actions we have taken to support Ukrainians in this terrible battle that Russia and Vladimir Putin have started.
This motion also importantly reflects the new geopolitical realities in the world. Although it has been a threat for a long time, we are now at a time where Russia is finally seen to be the true threat that it is, whether it is in cybersecurity or our Arctic. We are a neighbour of Russia. We need to be prepared for that Russian threat. Russia is pushing China, as well, in this regard. China is watching carefully, in terms of Taiwan, what Russia is doing in Ukraine to see if it can get away with something. We need to be prepared, as NATO allies and as Canadians, to stand true.
The final thing on that point is that, when it comes time to look at our geopolitical realities, we also have to look at whether we can always depend on the United States and NORAD to defend us. I want to particularly thank President Biden, because the United States is the world's strongest democracy. It has the strongest armed forces in the world. We rely, as do our NATO allies, on U.S. leadership when it comes to taking on a worldwide nuclear power such as Russia. The United States' Secretary Blinken and President Biden have consulted with us and with NATO allies. They have done all kinds of things to show the leadership that was missing in the previous Trump administration.
What I saw during the Trump administration was that we could not necessarily rely on the United States, under a president like Donald Trump, to step up and defend Canada in every single way. Canada needs to be prepared more than we have been to defend ourselves. We hope we will always have our best friend and ally, the United States, in our corner, but we need to make sure that we not only step up to the plate to share the responsibility to defend our continent with the United States, but that we are prepared even if they are not there for us.
This motion says we should increase the percentage of defence spending to meet those NATO targets. Although we are on track to improve, I want to say that it is so important to get to that 2% and make sure that we are properly equipped and properly trained, and it is important that all the men and women who have given so much to Canada, whether in the past or today, get exactly what they deserve: the best support possible from all parties in the Canadian Parliament.
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- Apr/5/22 2:53:44 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I think the notes are a few months old, but I have another question.
If military spending is to continue, the leader of the NDP must agree to it, but he has already vowed to oppose increased defence spending related to Canada's NATO commitment, while the Liberals have said they will increase spending. The new confidence and supply agreement with the NDP, the third opposition party, guarantees support for the Liberal minority government in exchange for new investments in other areas. With this deal, the tail is wagging the dog.
Will the Prime Minister insist that the leader of the NDP ask his troops to vote for an increase in military spending, yes or no?
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