The Defence Budget [superthread]

[The Bread Guy]

These proposed extra funds from the latest Supp Estimates (B) list:

... Department of National Defence: $487.3 million

Funding for capital investments in support of Strong, Secure, Engaged

This funding will support a range of capital projects under the Strong, Secure, Engaged defence policy, including military equipment, physical infrastructure and information management and technology systems.

(...)

Department of National Defence: $148.2 million

Funding for the Heyder and Beattie class actions final settlement agreement

The Heyder and Beattie class actions sought damages related to gender-based discrimination, sexual assault and sexual harassment. This funding will be used to fulfill immediate obligations and payments under the final agreement, including payments to claimants, reimbursement of plaintiff legal fees, awareness building activities, administration and case management.

Department of National Defence: $128.5 million

Funding for North Atlantic Treaty Organization assurance and deterrence measures in Central and Eastern Europe (Operation REASSURANCE) and for UN Peace Support Operation Africa (Operation PRESENCE)

This funding will support overseas missions, including the continued deployment of a land task force in Latvia, an air task force for patrol and training, naval vessels to work with NATO partners, transport aircraft and supporting personnel for UN operations in Uganda.

(...)

More granular detail on what's being earmarked for what, and from where, here or in attached.

Next steps?  "... Like the main estimates, the supplementary estimates are divided into votes, are referred to standing committees for review, and provide information to support the consideration of an appropriation bill. The appropriation bill associated with supplementary estimates is presented at the end of the supply period during which the supplementary estimates were presented ..."  I stand to be corrected, but my understanding is that the appropriation bill for these and other add-ons to the budget is expected to come up for a vote in the summer.

More on the budget process here.

 

[Good2Golf]

Supp B, yes. Supp C is voted in late-Fall (date varies a bit).  Supp C is usually the most entertaining, as that’s when things get closer to the ‘uh oh, we’re short by XXX million, we need more!’ time of year.

 

[MarkOttawa]

Start of post based on piece by Eugene Lang, former Liberal chief of staff to MND:

COVID-19 may well be the End of the Canadian Armed Forces as we have Known them…and of our Effective Sovereignty

Further to this post,

Will COVID-19 Kill the Canadian Military? Its Budget, that is

excerpts from a piece by Eugene Lang, a Liberal who knows his defence stuff and Canadian politics, at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute (CGAI). “SSE” is “Strong, Secure, Engaged“, the Justin Trudeau government’s 2017 paper pledging fairly large but never really very credible defence spending increases well down the line; it was in no sense a serious defence policy analysis demonstrating which defence capabilities were needed to achieve which military effects in pursuit of specific Canada’s national interests (we have not had one of those for yonks)...
https://mark3ds.wordpress.com/2020/05/14/covid-19-may-well-be-the-end-of-the-canadian-armed-forces-as-we-have-known-them-and-of-our-effective-sovereignty/

Mark
Ottawa

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

Start of post based on piece by Eugene Lang, former Liberal chief of staff to MND:

excerpts from a piece by Eugene Lang, a Liberal who knows his defence stuff and Canadian politics, at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute (CGAI). “SSE” is “Strong, Secure, Engaged“, the Justin Trudeau government’s 2017 paper pledging fairly large but never really very credible defence spending increases well down the line; it was in no sense a serious defence policy analysis demonstrating which defence capabilities were needed to achieve which military effects in pursuit of specific Canada’s national interests (we have not had one of those for yonks)...
https://mark3ds.wordpress.com/2020/05/14/covid-19-may-well-be-the-end-of-the-canadian-armed-forces-as-we-have-known-them-and-of-our-effective-sovereignty/

Mark
Ottawa

Great piece Mark.  It's pretty well certain that the CAF is going to be in a world of hurt once this is all said and done.

I'm predicting the Navy scraps it's submarines and we don't end up with anywhere close to those 15 frigates.

I can see the Air Force buying a token fighter force of JAS Gripen for NORAD duties and other programs get turfed.  Armed RPAs never materialize and CP140s don't get replaced.

The Army will park the Tanks and other kit like AD, etc will never appear either.

Anyway you slice it, the CAF as a fighting force is going to go the way of the Irish Defence Force or the NZDF.  It's what the present Government wants and it's ultimately what Canadians want. 

This could be a very good opportunity to make some personnel cuts to the Force, that won't happen though.  The Government will raid the O&M and Procurement Budgets and use the CAF as a form of CADPAT Welfare.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

And we will, effectively, have become a colony of the United States. A Puerto Rico or Guam of the North, with no say over our own sovereignty.

We might then just as well join the US formally. A least then we get Congress/Senate representation and get to vote....

 

[Good2Golf]

And we will, effectively, have become a colony of the United States. A Puerto Rico or Guam of the North, with no say over our own sovereignty.

We might then just as well join the US formally. A least then we get Congress/Senate representation and get to vote....

The myopic unintended consequences of the LPC’s long-term plan (PMs in-between, but functionally a handover from PM father to PM son) leveraging of the current situation to further ‘constabularize’ the CAF to its desired end state — something that serves the global narrative of the ongoing leadership of Canada to continue LBP’s progressive worldly peaceful, inclusive nice guy service to world peace and mutual respect. 

:2c:

Regards
G2G

 

[MarkOttawa]

The myopic unintended consequences of the LPC’s long-term plan (PMs in-between, but functionally a handover from PM father to PM son) leveraging of the current situation to further ‘constabularize’ the CAF to its desired end state — something that serves the global narrative of the ongoing leadership of Canada to continue LBP’s progressive worldly peaceful, inclusive nice guy service to world peace and mutual respect. 

:2c:

Regards
G2G

Actually Mike Pearson himself was no "soft-power", peacekeeping-first fellow--note this post (and remember he was the external affairs minister helping to create NATO in 1949),

Not Remembering Canada’s Real Post-WW II Military History
https://mark3ds.wordpress.com/2015/11/11/mark-collins-not-remembering-canadas-real-post-ww-ii-military-history/

and this one (some links no longer work):

“Fantasy”, or, There is no “Pearson-Trudeau-Axworthy school of foreign policy thought”
https://mark3ds.wordpress.com/2014/03/21/mark-collins-fantasy-or-there-is-no-pearson-trudeau-axworthy-school-of-foreign-policy-thought/

Mark
Ottawa

 

[Brad Sallows]

The post-pandemic world is going to have a say ("events").  Canada must trade, and therefore benefits from international political and economic stability.

 

[Good2Golf]

By no means would I call Pearson a hawkish power, nor even near the right arc of Liberal orientation.  I suspect, though remain to be corrected by explicit reference, that the US nuclear weapons authorized by Canada starting during LBP’s tenure as PM had more to do with a ‘mutual understanding’ between he and LBJ after he was chastised by Johnson for his 1965 comments recommending the US pause bombing in Northern Vietnam.  If he had been such a proponent of nuclear power in the mid-60s, post-Suez, I think he would have been supportive of Canada’s acceptance of its role in security-related nuclear power back in the mid-1940s, prior to his appointment as Minister of External Affairs in 1948, when the sixth permanent seat as the UNSC was offered to Canada, which deferred on the basis of its desire for only peaceful use of nuclear power.  France then got the last permanent seat, as Canada went in to sell weaponizable nuclear power to India and Pakistan....”Go peaceful use of nuke power!” :

:2c:

 

[MilEME09]

By no means would I call Pearson a hawkish power, nor even near the right arc of Liberal orientation.  I suspect, though remain to be corrected by explicit reference, that the US nuclear weapons authorized by Canada starting during LBP’s tenure as PM had more to do with a ‘mutual understanding’ between he and LBJ after he was chastised by Johnson for his 1965 comments recommending the US pause bombing in Northern Vietnam.  If he had been such a proponent of nuclear power in the mid-60s, post-Suez, I think he would have been supportive of Canada’s acceptance of its role in security-related nuclear power back in the mid-1940s, prior to his appointment as Minister of External Affairs in 1948, when the sixth permanent seat as the UNSC was offered to Canada, which deferred on the basis of its desire for only peaceful use of nuclear power.  France then got the last permanent seat, as Canada went in to sell weaponizable nuclear power to India and Pakistan....”Go peaceful use of nuke power!” :

:2c:

It is amazing looking back on history how Naive we as a nation are some times

 

[Good2Golf]

Naive, virtuously manipulative....to-may-toe, to-mah-toe. 

 

[Old Sweat]

It seems to me that the 1963 election, which returned the Liberals, was fought, in part, on the issue of whether to accept the warheads for the nuclear weapons for the Canadian Army and the RCAF. At that time the Liberals were much more hawkish, or at least defence minded, than were the PCs.

 

[Good2Golf]

Old Sweat, you mean the Liberals we’re actively campaigning to bring nukes onto Canadian soil?

If so, I’d wager that ole Lester/Mike regretted bringing young Pierre under his wing...oh how things changed.

 

[Old Sweat]

Old Sweat, you mean the Liberals we’re actively campaigning to bring nukes onto Canadian soil?

If so, I’d wager that ole Lester/Mike regretted bringing young Pierre under his wing...oh how things changed.

Yes, although it was sold along the lines of honouring commitments. The army had first decided to go nuclear in the St Laurent days in the 1950s with the Lacrosse missile system. The Lacrosse was ultimately canceled and we went for the Honest John. (We trained for the nuclear battlefield long enough for me to get my CD under the nuclear umbrella.)

 

[Ostrozac]

Old Sweat, you mean the Liberals we’re actively campaigning to bring nukes onto Canadian soil?

If so, I’d wager that ole Lester/Mike regretted bringing young Pierre under his wing...oh how things changed.

The pro-nuclear weapons position of the Liberal Party and Mike Pearson should be viewed in the political context of the time -- the Conservative Party was deeply split on the issue and in open revolt -- then-Prime Minister John Diefenbaker being anti-Nuke, much of his cabinet, including then-Defence Minister Doug Harkness, being pro-Nuke. The Liberal Party put forward the position that the Conservative Prime Minister was wrong, so wrong that half his own cabinet had resigned and forced an election on the issue. The Liberals then won that election.

Was this principled or political? Or both? Note that much of this saga -- continental air defence/nuclear vs conventional/missiles vs fighters -- is wrapped up in the Avro Arrow mythology, so this remains controversial and opinions vary. Also it appears that Diefenbaker and Harkness deeply loathed each other, which may have also been a factor.

On the plus side, the eventual deployment of nuclear surface to air missiles must have been a good posting for some lucky Canadian airmen. One of the Bomarc squadrons was in Mount Tremblant!

 

[MarkOttawa]

It's worth recalling that from the 1930s until late 60s when Trudeau I came in the Liberals were the pro-American party and the PCs were pro-Empire and UK. Dief at first even promised to divert considerable trade to Britain:

...the Diefenbaker government pushed for broader trade agreements with Britain in its early years, with the aim of diverting as much as 15% of Canada's spending on American goods to the UK. While Diefenbaker had hoped to encourage Britain to maintain strong trade ties with Commonwealth nations, the proposed trade agreements were ultimately not economically feasible for Canada and the negotiations were discarded...
https://diefenbaker.usask.ca/virtual-exhibits/crown-in-canada.php

And during Suez Crisis of 1956 Liberals (Pearson as external affairs minister) aligned us with US vs. UK--the peacekeeping idea was a joint one with the Americans who got us to push it in General Assembly to make it more palatable to many countries; the "concept" was just a way of getting the Israelis to stop fighting and the UK and France to agree to get out. It was no great ideological conception (and see the combat "peackeeping" force in the Congo in early 60s. For Suez Dief and the PCs were firmly for the UK:

...
In the Suez crisis, Diefenbaker and his Conservatives opposed the American position against Britain and France, and strongly rejected then-prime minister Louis St. Laurent's likening the role of the two European allies in Suez to that of the Soviet Union in its recent crushing of the Hungarian uprising...
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/lets-be-honest-about-honest-john/article723618/

By the way I worked on the Pearson memoirs as a research assistant and do know the story.

Mark
Ottawa

 

[Good2Golf]

Mark, thanks for the insight.  Certainly quite the change in allegiances over the decades.

Regards
G2G

 

[Cloud Cover]

It seems to me that the 1963 election, which returned the Liberals, was fought, in part, on the issue of whether to accept the warheads for the nuclear weapons for the Canadian Army and the RCAF. At that time the Liberals were much more hawkish, or at least defence minded, than were the PCs.

The 1963 election was also within the 6 month time frame post Cuban Missile Crisis, which put that Nuclear missile issue right on our doorstep. Having a plan for the Canadian army in Europe with nuclear weapons pointed at the Soviets was perhaps good defence policy optics as well. This country was not always snowflakes and sunbeams.

 

[MilEME09]

The 1963 election was also within the 6 month time frame post Cuban Missile Crisis, which put that Nuclear missile issue right on our doorstep. Having a plan for the Canadian army in Europe with nuclear weapons pointed at the Soviets was perhaps good defence policy optics as well. This country was not always snowflakes and sunbeams.

Unfortunately it will take a major world event like that to happen again for Canadians to put defense as a priority. Like a Chinese nuclear sub surfacing off Vancouver island or something

 

[blacktriangle]

Unfortunately it will take a major world event like that to happen again for Canadians to put defense as a priority. Like a Chinese nuclear sub surfacing off Vancouver island or something

I don't think the residents would notice. Most of them still haven't noticed the large Naval base already there...