Senate Committee: Conservative defence plans "too timid"
The Committee on National Security and Defence is really gung ho.
The Conservative government is heading in the right direction when it comes to defence, but needs to move farther and faster, a Senate committee says.I like the double Dutch. With their CH-47 Chinook transport (that we sold them) and AH-64 attack helos in Afstan.
The senators say the government needs to pump billions more into defence and recruit thousands of more people if it wants to meet what they call its No. 1 responsibility: the protection of Canadians.
Senator Colin Kenny, the Liberal chairman of the defence committee, says the annual defence budget - which is projected to hit $20.3 billion by 2010-11 - should be $25 billion to $35 billion. "Probably closer to $35 billion."
The committee says the military should be beefed up to 90,000 people from the present authorized level of about 64,000. The government has promised to bring the Forces up to 75,000.
The senators also recommend a multi-billion-dollar military shopping list, ranging from trucks and artillery pieces to heavy, long-range transport planes, attack and transport helicopters, new ships and, eventually, new fighter planes.
They say the government's plans are too timid...
The report admits that selling a bigger defence budget is a political challenge, but the senators say it can be done.
"We see a lot of other countries that manage to do it," Kenny said.
He said Canada currently spends $343 per capita on the military compared with $648 for Australians, $658 for the Dutch and $903 for Britons...
posted by Mark, Ottawa at 11:40 a.m.
7 Comments:
In a perfect world, sure. But the great thing about being a Senator is that you never have to go to the Canadian public and justify spending all that money on the military when people spend all day in a waiting room looking to get a broken leg set.
Good for Kenny and his colleagues for pushing the topic of the military to the forefront as they do. But let's not lose sight of the fact that they're not much more than a defence think-tank made up of political lottery-winners.
I don't think the training system is up to speed, and won't be for a while yet, to pump through the numbers that are coming. Not to mention some of the base infrastructure is out of date too, and people forget that it isn't just planes, ships and trucks but bricks and mortar that is required too.
The military really took a crap kicking when the Berlin wall came down. For some reason Canadians thought that they deserved some kind of "peace dividend". What they forgot was that Trudeau gave that to them in 1967 when he started gutting the military. Now we have to pay the piper and try and start making good long range decisions based on sound policy.
We need a government to make decisions on policy for longer then they think the public will pay attention too. I think that the CPC may be up to the task, but it remains to be seen.
Recruit thousands more???!!!
Right now the CF are having trouble keeping up already with the new rush of recruits. They're falling behind in a lot of supplies etc., So yes, more recruits, but it's going to take some time to gear up.
One thing they are doing right now is (considering) taking out the Soldier Qualification Course. They want to tag 2 weeks onto basic in stead of doing SQ. I'm not sure that's the way to stuff more recruits in... it sounds like the WW2 equivalent of hurry-up training.
Junker (from Celestial Junk) is heading for SQ and he was told he might be in some of the last batches to go through it. The rank and file aren't too happy with that... but we'll have to see what it's replaced with; as long as it's not hurry-up training.
Don't forget Dutch F-16s are in Afstan and our CF-18s are... not. Triple dutch?
I hear that the Dutch got AH-64A to get acquainted with them while their Ds were being built - the British went straight to -Ds and are only now becoming operational after several delays.
I've met a lot of smart Dutch guys in my life and apparently some other smart Dutch guys work in their Min of Def.
The Senate committee has been very tough on the Liberal governments for several years. See for example this November 2002 report:
"For an Extra $130 Bucks….
Update On Canada’s Military Financial Crisis
A VIEW FROM THE BOTTOM UP"
http://www.parl.gc.ca/37/2/parlbus/commbus/senate/com-e/defe-e/rep-e/rep02nov02-e.htm
A full list of the reports is at:
http://www.parl.gc.ca/common/Committee_SenRep.asp?Language=E&Parl=38&Ses=1&comm_id=76
Mark
Ottawa
Philltaj,
The Dutch are prioritizing, but an airmoble brigade that can't deploy because it has no strat lift is a funny priority.
You do have a point though, and it goes back to our government and policies. What kind of force do we need? What areas to concentrate our efforts? If we want to be a player in the world then we need to be able to deploy our assets anywhere ourselves. That means strat lift, tactical lift etc.
I await the announcements, but I fear that people will expect rapid change and that is not possible. It takes all kinds of work to bring a new airframe online. All the training, initial cadre training, train the schools, train the techs to fix the airframe and avionics, train the pilots to fly them, train them to fly in combat etc. It all takes time and it takes people who have to come from somewhere. Since we are recruiting to bring numbers up but it is ramping up slowly we have to take existing personnel and transfer them to these new projects and that means current capability will have to suffer for a while, but what do we rob to make it work... lots of decisions still to be made I'm sure.
Hypocrisy on Liberal Senator Kenny, where was he when his government was destoying the military.
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