Media reports on budget day all include the leaks that military spending is expected to be boosted by a total of $12 or $13 billion over the next five years.
Bravo, Paul Martin.
Anyone vaguely familiar with the Canadian Forces knows of need to replace worn-out equipment and develop new capabilities. The complaint of "rust-out" is a common one in Canada, but in the current situation, Canadian soldiers, sailors and aircrew can't be shortchanged.
Just put this into a larger context.
Since taking office in 1993, the Liberal government has cashed in the post-Cold War peace dividend, cutting military spending even though at times the overall operational commitments - troops deployed - increased compared to Cold War days. Pressure has been mounting from NATO generally, not just the United States, for Canada to match its pious words of internationalism with the sinews of a robust military that can take on peace-keeping, and peace-making operations. None of this goes against our foreign policy traditions; rather, since the Second World War, Canada has been an active interventionist in one form or another.
In the relatively lean times, the Canadian Forces has gone through a rebirth of sorts. I experienced some of that as a reservist through the 1990s. The Canadian Forces isn't perfect, but in everything from leadership to pay and benefits the Canadian military today is in many ways a stronger force than it was when there were more people in uniform and they had more equipment.
Expect to see more from the Chief of Defence Staff, General Rick Hillier. He is typical of the leaders the Canadian Forces turns out these days. He is practical and aggressive and his practicality likely contributed to the decision to absorb the new cash in stages rather than flood a bunch of money into the military all at once. Hillier is also less likely to be bound by bureaucratic issues and focus more on relating Canada's military forces to national policy objectives. For example, he is unlikely to support new fighter aircraft just because it's the air force's turn to buy something and they like fighters, if the national need is for transport planes.
The context I mentioned above also includes missile defence. Canada is already participating in some ways already though passive things like detection of missiles just as we have done since NORAD was formed in 1958. Ambassador Frank McKenna was right, incidentally. What the Prime Minister will likely announce later this week is that we won't be buying into active missile defence.
But in that overall context Canada could not opt out of missile defence, continue to neglect its own defence forces and continue to expect some influence in the world, particularly NATO. We have been able to do that sort of things at times in the past, but these days, if Canadians actually want to be the "Stern Daughter of the Voice of God" in international affairs, they need to buy a seat at the table. Otherwise, we would be reduced to shrieking through the closed door while someone else makes decisions directly affecting our interests.
The increase in defence spending is a sign Canada is starting to act like a major international player again.