Steve's paper unstapled again

This time by Col. (ret'd) Alain Pellerin--an earlier unstapling is here:

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Defence budget falls short

Nov 01, 2007 04:30 AM

Canada: Big military spender
Column, Oct. 29

The approach taken in the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives report to assess military spending in Canada over time is very misleading. This study merely uses yearly spending figures, adjusted for inflation, to compare military expenditure over the years. We assume that the CCPA used the Consumer Price Index, but this is not useful, as the CPI does not include the "basket" of defence spending.

A more useful measure would be measuring military spending as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP).

In 1952-53, which is the base year cited in the report, the Canadian defence budget was 7.8 per cent of GDP. In 2006, the Canadian defence budget was 1.2 per cent of GDP. If it were the same percentage of GDP in 2006 as in 1952-53, the defence budget would now be around $120 billion. In fact, the Canadian defence budget for 2007-08 is about $17.9 billion.

When looking at NATO countries' defence spending, the dollar amounts are reported in U.S. dollars. In the course of last year, for instance, there was a 17 per cent increase in the value of the Canadian dollar against the U.S. dollar. Thus, while defence spending has increased over the last year by 17 per cent when measured in U.S. dollars, there has been a 0 per cent increase in Canadian terms.

Notwithstanding defence budget increases of some 37 per cent over this decade, as reported by the CCPA paper, Canada still has a long way to go to have a well-manned, well-equipped military – this following a "decade of darkness" where the defence budget was cut by some 30 per cent from the years 1994-95 to 1999.

Alain Pellerin, Executive Director,

Conference of Defence Associations, Ottawa