By: Amanda Connolly, iPolitics
Anyone hoping that Budget 2017 would provide insight into how the government plans to exercise soft or hard power abroad is going to be disappointed – as are any who hoped for a ballpark estimate of the costs of ambitious new programs like enhanced pre-clearance or the national security committee of parliamentarians.
This year’s budget offers little – and in many cases, nothing – in the way of plans to support the Canadian Forces or domestic security agencies. It also offers no insight into how, or if, the government plans to address pressure from the Trump administration to meet the two-per-cent of GDP target set by NATO allies for defence spending.
Budget 2017 includes no new money for the Department of National Defence, although the department is scheduled to get a bit of pocket money in the form of $134 million that kicks in this year under the escalator increase put in place by the former Conservative government in Budget 2015.
Until the long-awaited Defence Policy Review is completed, officials said Wednesday, the government will not be releasing any information about planned costing measures for the military.
The terms for the panel of experts advising Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan on the Defence Policy Review were extended last month to run until April 28. Although the listing on the Privy Council Office website stated the terms were extended so the panel could help finalize the report, a spokesperson for the minister said shouldn’t be taken as a timeline for the report’s release.
“We know how important it is to play our role internationally … we also know how important defence is to our economy,” said Finance Minister Bill Morneau in a press conference Wednesday, noting the pending release of the Defence Policy Review. “That will show our level of ambition.”
Budget 2017 does clarify the ongoing cost of renewing Canada’s military training mission in Ukraine, which decreases from $32 million per year in 2015 and 2016 to $29 million over the next two years.
Officials say that decrease reflects the start-up costs of the mission and not a reduction in the work Canadian soldiers are doing on the ground in Ukraine, given that the mission mandate is unchanged.
The government also adjusted the total amount of money allocated for large-scale capital projects – funding that was punted forward by about 30 years in Budget 2016.
While that budget set a total of $84.3 billion for deferred spending on military procurements the department isn’t ready to complete, Budget 2017 puts that figure closer to $83 billion.
The only new spending more-or-less related to defence is $13 million over five years to implement the Arms Trade Treaty, which Canada is set to join this year.
On the security front, the budget news is equally thin.
Despite suggestions that the government could have the planned new national security committee of parliamentarians in place by the end of the year, the budget allocates no new money for the committee’s secretariat, or for the reported $500,000 needed for renovations to upgrade existing meeting facilities to house the committee.
The same goes for plans to enhance pre-clearance efforts on both sides of the border under C-23.
The Canadian Air Transport Security Authority, Transport Canada and the RCMP will get an operational top-up of $125 million; CATSA and Transport Canada will get roughly $600,000 each from that envelope to support existing security screening measures for airport staff.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service will share $1.25 million with Public Safety Canada to keep screening foreign investors for potential threats to Canadian national security – but there is no new money for CSIS’s operating budget or oversight, or for its sister signals intelligence agency, the Communications Security Establishment.
However, the government is recognizing the unfailing creativity of those who would like to blow up public spaces by giving $8.7 million over five years to Natural Resources Canada to expand the list of regulated chemicals to include those that could be used to create homemade explosives.
That list has not yet been finalized, officials said.
Public Safety Canada will get $1.37 million this year for its Regional Resilience Assessment Program and the Virtual Risk Analysis Cell, which together work to conduct site assessments of critical infrastructure facilities and share that information with those who operate critical infrastructure.
Community organizations looking for help in setting up security equipment like cameras for their facilities will be able to access $5 million that will be rolled out over five years through Public Safety Canada’s Security Infrastructure Program.
The only area seeing substantial new money this year appears to be the asylum system, which will get $62.9 million over five years and $11.5 million each year after that to provide better legal aid to asylum seekers.
Budget 2017 also includes $29 million over five years, with $5.8 million each year after, to allow officials with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to intervene in asylum hearings to verify the information being provided in the applicant’s claim.
Yazidi refugee resettlement efforts will also get $27.7 million over three years, although there is no indication of how the government may adjust the soon-to-be-reevaluated mission against ISIS in Iraq.
The $167 million over three years that was announced in Budget 2016 for that mission continues and does not appear to have been changed.
Showing posts with label Liberal Budget. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Liberal Budget. Show all posts
Thursday, March 23, 2017
Tuesday, March 29, 2016
Kilford: Military forgotten in big-spending Liberal budget
Opinion Piece Written by: Chris Kilford
Defence will never be party’s priority,
For the new Liberal government and despite plenty of evidence to the contrary, it appears that maintaining military hard power is, like … so yesterday.
Pity, then, the poor staff in National Defence Headquarters as they set about transforming our “multi-purpose, combat-capable” Canadian Armed Forces into something, well, less so.
With this latest federal budget, and with a larger than forecasted deficit, we now know the money for defence just isn’t there.
Instead, the capital spending needed to keep our existing military forces even barely afloat has been postponed until at least the next election in 2020.
Of course, the previous government also deferred big-ticket procurement spending. And to be fair, this government needs time to consider what our defence priorities will be and how best to meet them.
But then again, with deficit spending set for at least the next five years, it’s unlikely defence will ever be a spending priority.
Indeed, we appear to be re-visiting the past and heading back to a time very much like that in which then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau found himself almost 50 years ago. Shortly after the 1968 election, he launched a formal defence review, rejecting the military’s first draft “on the grounds that it amounted to nothing more than a reaffirmation of current policy” that was simply unaffordable but, more so, unnecessary.
What he wanted was “fresh thinking” but in truth his mind had already been made up. For him, defence spending was wasteful, especially when there were far more pressing domestic needs.
His real aim was to slash military expenditures as much as one could get away with, including withdrawal from NATO altogether. In the end, Canada’s NATO contribution was cut in half, important capabilities were shed and personnel numbers tumbled.
Pierre Trudeau was also very concerned that having Canadians train military forces in the developing world would lead to all sorts of foreign entanglements.
For example, the Canadian-trained and mentored Ghanaian military overthrew the government in 1966. So, in 1971, he put an end to foreign military training schemes.
Nor did he, unlike his son, think much of sending Canadian blue helmets overseas. Peacekeeping, according to his 1971 Defence White Paper, had “too often been frustrating and disillusioning.”
Presciently, the document noted that many conflicts “have their roots in subversion and insurgency, and therefore will not lend themselves easily to resolution through the use of internationally constituted peacekeeping bodies.” Not much has changed. Today’s peacekeeping missions, which more often involve UN troops in combat, continue to be thankless, miserable and never-ending.
What to do, then? Even when we do have an idea of what sort of military we need, finding the right balance between people, equipment, infrastructure and readiness is never easy. Military planners are also faced with numerous constraints.
Suggesting changes to the reserves or reducing the civilian workforce has always been a political hot potato, along with any talk of “divesting” bases.
Depriving Canadians of a chance to see the Snowbirds is also off the table, so no savings there. Nor can you opt for cheaper Chinese equipment.
Turkey tried that, and for some reason it just didn’t go over well in Washington.
Nevertheless, a government which appears to be in favour of a more robust and active foreign policy ought to be supported by a well-equipped, combat-capable armed forces. But this budget tells a different story. Canada is likely to end up with a much smaller, less responsive military than we have today, largely focused on the home front and the occasional, symbolic assignment abroad.
Major capabilities will wither or disappear. More importantly, so will our future policy options.
Defence will never be party’s priority,
For the new Liberal government and despite plenty of evidence to the contrary, it appears that maintaining military hard power is, like … so yesterday.
Pity, then, the poor staff in National Defence Headquarters as they set about transforming our “multi-purpose, combat-capable” Canadian Armed Forces into something, well, less so.
With this latest federal budget, and with a larger than forecasted deficit, we now know the money for defence just isn’t there.
Instead, the capital spending needed to keep our existing military forces even barely afloat has been postponed until at least the next election in 2020.
Of course, the previous government also deferred big-ticket procurement spending. And to be fair, this government needs time to consider what our defence priorities will be and how best to meet them.
But then again, with deficit spending set for at least the next five years, it’s unlikely defence will ever be a spending priority.
Indeed, we appear to be re-visiting the past and heading back to a time very much like that in which then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau found himself almost 50 years ago. Shortly after the 1968 election, he launched a formal defence review, rejecting the military’s first draft “on the grounds that it amounted to nothing more than a reaffirmation of current policy” that was simply unaffordable but, more so, unnecessary.
What he wanted was “fresh thinking” but in truth his mind had already been made up. For him, defence spending was wasteful, especially when there were far more pressing domestic needs.
His real aim was to slash military expenditures as much as one could get away with, including withdrawal from NATO altogether. In the end, Canada’s NATO contribution was cut in half, important capabilities were shed and personnel numbers tumbled.
Pierre Trudeau was also very concerned that having Canadians train military forces in the developing world would lead to all sorts of foreign entanglements.
For example, the Canadian-trained and mentored Ghanaian military overthrew the government in 1966. So, in 1971, he put an end to foreign military training schemes.
Nor did he, unlike his son, think much of sending Canadian blue helmets overseas. Peacekeeping, according to his 1971 Defence White Paper, had “too often been frustrating and disillusioning.”
Presciently, the document noted that many conflicts “have their roots in subversion and insurgency, and therefore will not lend themselves easily to resolution through the use of internationally constituted peacekeeping bodies.” Not much has changed. Today’s peacekeeping missions, which more often involve UN troops in combat, continue to be thankless, miserable and never-ending.
What to do, then? Even when we do have an idea of what sort of military we need, finding the right balance between people, equipment, infrastructure and readiness is never easy. Military planners are also faced with numerous constraints.
Suggesting changes to the reserves or reducing the civilian workforce has always been a political hot potato, along with any talk of “divesting” bases.
Depriving Canadians of a chance to see the Snowbirds is also off the table, so no savings there. Nor can you opt for cheaper Chinese equipment.
Turkey tried that, and for some reason it just didn’t go over well in Washington.
Nevertheless, a government which appears to be in favour of a more robust and active foreign policy ought to be supported by a well-equipped, combat-capable armed forces. But this budget tells a different story. Canada is likely to end up with a much smaller, less responsive military than we have today, largely focused on the home front and the occasional, symbolic assignment abroad.
Major capabilities will wither or disappear. More importantly, so will our future policy options.
--
Chris Kilford is a fellow at the Queen’s Centre for International and Defence Policy. He is also the former Canadian Defence Attaché to Turkey.
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