The Defence Budget [superthread]

[Happy Guy]

Absolutely correct in looking at another methodology or perspective in looking at the budget, but it doesn't change the fact that DND is struggling to live within its means and something has to give, now and in the immediate future.

As another point of reference, whether it is right or wrong, the Australians will be spending $31.9B AUS or roughly $31.5 B CDN for 2015-16.  Ref: http://www.defence.gov.au/Budget/15-16/.  Of course the Aussies cannot rely on the Americans to readily help them whereas we (Canadians) must depend on the Americans to protect our sovereignty.

 

[CombatMacguyver]

CAN (15.8B USD) = 15.9B USD (ALB + BUL + CRO + CZR + DEN + EST + HUN + LAT + LUX + POR + ROM + SLR + SLV)

True but if you remove Romania from that list the population is roughly the same as Canada.  And nobody ever expected half those countries to pull their weight, it was just a way to fence in the (former) USSR

 

[jmt18325]

True but if you remove Romania from that list the population is roughly the same as Canada.  And nobody ever expected half those countries to pull their weight, it was just a way to fence in the (former) USSR

Yeah, but if we add a US state with about the same population as Romania, our defence budget goes way up.

 

[The Bread Guy]

The latest ...

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan has ruled out cutting the size of the Canadian military, despite the country's bleak economic and fiscal picture.

The Liberals will concentrate on meeting existing approved levels of 68,000 full-time and 27,000 part-time soldiers, with an eye towards eventually expanding Canada's military ranks, Sajjan said Thursday.

"We are not looking at reducing our personnel," he said. "In fact, the conversations I'm having right now (are) about where do we need to increase the personnel."

A recent federal report from last year's budget shows military reserves are running at roughly 20,000 paid members — about 19 per cent short of full strength.

The numbers are only slightly better for the regular forces, with roughly 66,000 full-time members in uniform.

Sajjan says recruiting has slowed over the last few years and he wants to see measures stepped up so the country always has an agile, optimal force.

National Defence is the largest single discretionary item in the federal budget. Previous governments, Liberal and Conservative alike, have often used military cuts as a way to balance the books ...

 

[Kirkhill]

It would like to be pleasantly surprised by the Liberals on this file.

Minister Singh's comments, the lack of action on the F35, and an article in the Globe and Mail "To be a world player, Trudeau must spend on defence: As it addresses its budgetary challenges, the government also needs to get a grip on military procurement
Feb 18, 2016 - Colin Robertson"

Given Canadian realities it is only the Liberal Party that can increase Defence spending, just as it is only the Liberal Party that can increase security and surveillance.  They have the electorate convinced that Blue is scary.  But if Red does what Blue proposed then that is just fine.  C-54 as case in point.

St-Laurent jacked defence at the onset of the Cold War.  Peace-Keeping Mike Pearson signed up to arm the Canadian Army and RCAF with nukes, which Pierre Trudeau maintained.

Perhaps once the adults have decided then PM Trudeau will be dispatched to sell the message.

 

[CougarKing]

Does this mean Trudeau is actually listening to Canadian military veterans who are members of parliament, besides the Defence Minister/retired Colonel Sajjan, such as Capt. Marc Garneau (RCN-retired) and Genneral Leslie (Army-retired)?

Canadian Press

Liberals rule out cutting the size of the military, despite soaring deficit

Murray Brewster, The Canadian Press
The Canadian Press
February 18, 2016

OTTAWA - Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan has ruled out cutting the size of the Canadian military, despite the country's bleak economic and fiscal picture.

The Liberals will concentrate on meeting existing approved levels of 68,000 full-time and 27,000 part-time soldiers, with an eye towards eventually expanding Canada's military ranks, Sajjan said Thursday.

"We are not looking at reducing our personnel," the minister said. "In fact, the conversations I'm having right now (are) about where do we need to increase the personnel."

(...SNIPPED)

 

[McG]

Privates are cheaper than majors.  Maybe the government will look at adjusting the rank distribution to keep the same force size while spending less on pay?  There are a few places, in both PRes and Reg F, where we could benefit from moving a few PYs to lower ranks.

 

[PuckChaser]

Privates are cheaper than majors.  Maybe the government will look at adjusting the rank distribution to keep the same force size while spending less on pay?  There are a few places, in both PRes and Reg F, where we could benefit from moving a few PYs to lower ranks.

Could get almost 2 Cpl/Ptes for every Major we get rid of. 3 for every Col/GOFO. Great way to grow PYs in the CAF.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

Not grow PYs.

The defence budget is a zero sum game. If you get rid of a GOFO and hire a Cpl in at the bottom, that is a saving of probably 100k. Do that a few hundred or thousand times down to the rank of major, and pretty soon you have some serious cash for O&M. Or procurement. Or infrastructure.

 

[Good2Golf]

To have enough of current budget levels assigned to re-capitalization, 68,000 (of whatever rank) is still too big.  Milpay is the largest share of the Defence budget by a wide margin.  If RegF levels remain at (well, aimed for is more like it), then I would be very surprised to see any substantive improvement to the equipment and maint&repair side of the house.

:2c:

G2G

 

[McG]

The Liberal government released details of Conservative budget cuts starting in 2012: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/budget-spending-cuts-strategic-review-1.3455590
Source document:  http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/2716170/Strategic-and-Operating-Review.pdf  (Defence is on page 12)

The article claims $1.19 billion was cut from defence in 2012 and grew to a $2.1 billion per year cut, but (unless I am missing something in the detailed charts) it was $326,771 cut in 2012 and grew to $1.119 billion per year by 2014.

But if anyone was hoping this to be a good news story, the Liberals have already stated they will not undo/reverse the cuts.

No plans to undo Conservative cuts to military spending, says Sajjan
New numbers show $1.19 billion in defence spending was cut in the Conservative Party's 2012 federal budget
CBC News
By Andy Blatchford, Murray Brewster, The Canadian Press
19 Feb 2016

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan says "what's done is done" when it comes to the former Conservative government's deep cuts to defence spending in 2012.

Sajjan was reacting to a fresh batch of numbers detailing spending cuts from four years ago, released Friday by the Liberal government in response to a long-standing and disputed request by the parliamentary budget office.

However, the numbers made public Friday did not contain key information long sought by the federal budget watchdog: how, exactly, the cuts affected services for Canadians.

The data did show $1.19 billion in defence spending was cut in 2012, the first wave in a series of reductions that eventually saw over $2.1 billion per year carved out of the military's funding envelope.

Sajjan, a reserve force lieutenant-colonel, said he witnessed the effects of the cuts.

"The previous cuts, which I'm aware of and felt myself, did have an impact, but what's done is done," Sajjan said Friday.

"I'm the minister of defence now and our government is looking at making sure that the planned increases are there. The military, what it needs to move forward is stable, predictable funding, and that's what I'm working towards and make sure it's going to happen."

The defence numbers weren't entirely new: defence analysts Dave Perry and George Petrolekas crunched the numbers a few years ago using open-sourced budget data and came up with roughly the same figures.

What the newly released figures did reveal was where those cuts were directed, including a $40 million per year reduction in the number of reservists — or part-time soldiers — and $305 million annually to restrain growth in the military.

Since the cuts, the bottom has effectively fallen out of the reserves with a 19 per cent drop in the size of the force — something defence experts attribute to a lack of money for training or other activities.

In their last budget, the Conservative government promised to begin ramping up defence spending starting in 2017, a commitment the Liberals have said they plan to keep.

Since coming to power, the Liberals have also vowed to be more transparent and to work more closely with the parliamentary budget office. Friday's release was intended in that spirit, Treasury Board President Scott Brison wrote to Jean-Denis Frechette, the parliamentary budget officer.

"We are guided by the principle that government data belongs to all Canadians," Brison wrote in the letter, posted on the Treasury Board's website.

Frechette said he was pleased with Brison's gesture of openness in the letter and his offer to meet with him.

But he added that while neatly packaged, most of the figures weren't new to the budget office. The office had already accumulated most of the information via other means.

...

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/conservative-cuts-defence-spending-1.3456095

 

[Journeyman]

"The previous cuts, which I'm aware of and felt myself, did have an impact, but what's done is done ," Sajjan said Friday.

Anyone still believe that having any  former Canadian military members in the Liberal Party will make the slightest difference?

 

[Kirkhill]

It'll be interesting to see if the Liberals are as forthcoming when it is their programmes being reviewed.

 

[Edward Campbell]

I think that Prime Minister (elect) Trudeau (and Prime Minister Harper) find themselves in much the same sort of situation that confronted Prime Ministers St Laurent, Diefenbaker and Pearson in the 1950s and '60s: First, the direct (military) threats to Canada are hard to explain because they are hard for Canadians to see; Second, the cost of defending Canada keeps rising and rising, far faster and higher then the general rate of inflation. Our limited resources seem to but less and less, even when the performance envelope of a new weapon system is factored in to the equation. In short: Canadians don't want to spend on defence and we keep paying more for less.

In 1963 Paul Hellyer offered Mike Pearson an option: a leaner, more efficient military structure to help offset the inexorable cost increases that were making defence too expensive.

In the 1960s we also had the Glassco Commission (1960-63) which in my opinion led Minister Hellyer down an organizational rate hole from which we still have not (fully) recovered.

I believe there are parallels today, without a Glassco Commission to muddy the waters.

I keep saying this: absent an clear, comprehensible, to the "ordinary Canadian," and existential threat to Canada ~ and Da'esh/ISIL/ISIS does not rise to that standard, not even Putin/Russia does, yet ~ then Canadians will not support any increases in defence spending.

As I always say about the Canadian public's "support for the troops," it is:

Now, there are threats, real ones. If you don't subscribe then go to your local library and get this month;'s edition of Foreign Affairs and read Robert Kaplan's essay, "Eurasia's Coming Anarchy: The Risks of Chinese and Russian Weakness," there's plenty about which we should worry, but, by my guesstimate, 85% of Canadians are unaware of what's happening in the world (and a good 65% are, I suspect, unable to read well enough to understand what Kaplan writes, even if they were curious) and the Canadian cabinet ministers at the table are, for now, just coming to grips with what Andrew Coyne calls a severe case of cognitive dissonance: so many of their promises need to be broken, but they cannot quite figure out why, so they just shrug and pretend that their world, filled with sunny ways, unicorns and flowers, is real. They are going to try to spend the next four years in campaign mode, mostly campaigning against Stephen Harper, the meanest man ever. They do not want the world to intrude. They do not want to spend on defence.

They will, of course, but only when it is (almost) too late.

 

[Cloud Cover]

I would like to think that if this country suffers a serious defence or security setback ( a slaughter of CAF in Iraq  or large scale terrorist attack within our borders, especially Toronto) there will be no forgiveness by the electorate.   
       

 

[Journeyman]

I would like to think that if this country suffers a serious defence or security setback ( a slaughter of CAF in Iraq  or  large scale terrorist attack within our borders, especially Toronto ) there will be no forgiveness by the electorate.     

I'm not sure I'd get too worked up about that. 

 

[dapaterson]

I'm not sure I'd get too worked up about that. 

What if they take out the Steamwhistle brewery?

 

[Journeyman]

What if they take out the Steamwhistle brewery?

Budweiser of the North?  No loss.

 

[Cloud Cover]

That's cruel. Everybody knows the centres of progressive civilizations are: University of Ottawa, Concordia and all of Toronto. What's the point of hitting, say, Sudbury or Red Deere. No sense pissing off the wrong people.

 

[Kirkhill]

We went wrong with the Toronto 18.  They were targeting the CBC.