We got a defence spending debate: Me, Kenney, Murray & the Prime Minister
David Akin - May 26th, 2015
Earlier this month, I wrote a column for our papers in which I argued that Canada has done a lousy job of living up to the commitment we made t4o our NATO allies to spend at least 2 per cent of our GDP on defence. I put together the chart above drawing on data published by the Department of Finance. Some excerpts from that column:
But do you know when Canada last spent 2% of its GDP on defence? You might be surprised: It was the government of Pierre Trudeau in 1971-72. We’ve never been above 2% since and the trend line now, under the Conservatives,
is going in the wrong direction.
Defence spending in Harper’s first budget in the spring of 2006 totalled 1.1% of GDP. For the fiscal year that ended in March 2014, defence spending was 1% of GDP. Heck, even in the worst years of the Jean Chretien era, when
Chretien was struggling with mountains of red ink, defence spending was 0.9% of GDP.
But unfortunately for those who are rightly concerned that we are starving the Canadian Forces of the personnel and materiel they need to protect our vast country, it’s not clear if the Liberals are ready to step up and increase
spending on the Canadian Forces.
…
Canada now ranks 22nd among NATO’s 28 countries when it comes to military spending. Our peers are Latvia, Belgium and Spain.
Our southern neighbour, the U.S., will spend 3.8% of its GDP on defence. Our northern neighbour, Russia, will spend 4.2%.
This election season, let’s make this an issue. We need a plan to boost defence spending. Which party will take our defence needs seriously?
Defence Minister Jason Kenney responded with his own column, arguing that Canada’s military is well-equipped:
I welcome the recent call from Sun Media’s parliamentary bureau chief, David Akin, for Canada’s defence spending record to become an election issue this fall. As defence minister, I would gladly put the Conservative record up against
the sad legacy left by the Liberals.
Our government has made significant investments since 2006, increasing National Defence spending from $14.5 billion in 2005-06 to $20.1 billion in 2014-15 on a cash basis.
That represents a 38% increase – a far cry from when the Liberals were in power.
The Kenney column prompted one in response from the Liberal Party defence critic Joyce Murray. She wrote “The real Conservative defence record.”
Since 2012, they axed nearly $5 billion from the defence budget, and let $10 billion of approved funding go unspent since 2007. This includes nearly $7 billion in DND’s capital budget – funds allocated for new equipment like search-and-rescue aircraft, trucks and ships.
These cuts have driven defence spending below 1% of GDP, the lowest share of GDP since the 1930s, and well below our expected spending commitment as a NATO member. The funding escalator announced in the budget, which Mr. Kenney trumpets,
in fact does not kick in until 2017. And under the government’s funding plan, the budget will continue to fall to 0.89% of GDP by 2027.
Finally, last week I had a chance to ask Prime MInister Stephen Harper about spending on defence.
Here is that exchange:
AKIN: When you talk about the success of your government in controlling debt, you often refer to our debt-to-GDP levels. When you talk about our success versus our G7 partners, you often measure us relative to GDP. I emphasize
that [relative measurement] in talking about defence spending which, as you know, is well under, and has been well under, the 2% GDP target that NATO countries are asked to spend. Your government, if you’re re-elected this fall,
could be under 1%. That’s worse than the Liberal government you replaced. Can you give us a sense when you might start talking about restoring defence spending to 2% of GDP.
HARPER: Well, in fact, in the recent budget, as you know, the government announced some significant increases in defence spending. Since we came to office defence spending has risen almost 30% on national defence. Canada is a
major contributor to virtually all of NATO’s activities. We’ve enhanced defence in our Arctic and our northern regions. We’ve basically rebuilt the capacity of the Canadian army, made significant investments and upgrades to the air force.
We’ve also had the largest naval shipbuilding program in Canadian. history. We’ve budgeted in the years ahead the investments to make sure we have the capacity necessary. We don’t measure these things strictly in terms of dollars.
We measure them in terms of capabilities. In the postwar period, the Canadian military has never been as active and as capable as today, And we thank them for their work in places like Iraq, Syria and Ukraine.