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Promise could gut military
Ships, jets may be scrapped to fulfill Liberal troop pledge

Chris Wattie; with files from Mike Blanchfield
National Post, with files from CanWest News Service


Saturday, August 21, 2004


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The Canadian military may be forced to mothball all of its remaining destroyers and ground up to a quarter of its front-line fighter jets in order to fulfill a Liberal election promise to create a new, 5,000-strong "peacekeeping brigade."

Bill Graham, the Defence Minister, is to present options on the proposed new brigade to Cabinet by the end of the month, but Defence sources have told the National Post the military has been told to prepare drastic measures to pay for the idea.

In an article posted yesterday on the Web site of Jane's Defence Weekly, the London-based defence publishing and analysis group said senior Canadian officers have been working in secret on finding a way to pay for the promised influx of new troops.

Under the proposal, the navy is to take all of its Iroquois-class destroyers, the flagship vessels from which commodores or admirals can command a task force of warships, out of service, while the air force is to ground as many as 20 of its CF-18s, a quarter of its entire fighter force. The CF-18 Hornet is in the midst of a $2.3-billion, six-year modernization program.

During the federal election campaign, the Liberals promised to add a new brigade of 5,000 troops to the overstretched and chronically underfunded Canadian military specifically for peacekeeping and "peace support" missions.

The military was caught completely off guard by the pledge, which senior officers believe Paul Martin, the Prime Minister, made hastily in the heat of fighting an early Conservative surge in the campaign.

One senior military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Armed Forces are worried they "are going to be perceived as being in bed with this cockamamie idea."

They also fear the plan could lead to the effective demise of the navy and air force.

Gordon O'Connor, the Conservative defence critic, said the Liberal government wants to make the Forces foot the bill for an election promise he said was made in haste without considering the cost.

"It's outrageous," he said. "They're talking about scavenging the navy and the air force to keep their promises. It's just smoke and mirrors ... they make the promises, but don't want to pay for them."

Analysts have estimated the cost of adding a new brigade at more than $2-billion and have cautioned it would take the military more than a decade to build up its strength from the current 53,000 troops.

Jane's Defence Weekly, the London-based defence publishing and analysis group, estimated the cost at $1.5-billion for equipment, $750-million for infrastructure and approximately $400-million a year to maintain the additional soldiers. Defence officials say the Forces are already running a $1-billion annual deficit to pay for current operations.

Mr. O'Connor, a former brigadier-general in the army, said the army needs the extra troops but the air force and navy also need more resources. By stripping the budget of the other two services, he said the Liberals are "dumbing down the armed forces: They're reducing their ability to defend Canada and Canadian interests."

Much of the cost of the new brigade will have to come out of the existing National Defence budget. Military planners were told even before the election not to expect any increase in the $1.3-billion defence budget for at least two years, and officers say they are being asked to rush the plan through on the assumption there would be little or no new money to pay for it.

The government wants to have the peacekeeping plan ready for Mr. Martin to unveil when he visits the United Nations later this year, said one officer who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Options being considered include slotting the additional troops into the many regiments and brigades that are understrength, or creating a new brigade or some kind of specialized formation devoted to peacekeeping, Jane's reported.

While the air force and navy may be allocated some of the new troops, Lieutenant-General Steve Lucas, a special advisor to the Chief of the Defence Staff, told Jane's that "virtually all of the options have a heavy army flavour to them."

Mr. Martin has also backed down from conducting a broad review of defence policy, as he promised last December.

Mr. Graham announced last month that there would be no formal defence policy review, just an "in-house" examination with no public consultation.

But Martin Shadwick, a defence analyst at York University, said the government should conduct full public consultations. "To do it quietly in the night while you're just trying to scrounge money for the 5,000 peacekeepers, I'm not totally sure that's a candid approach to take with the public," said Mr. Shadwick.

"You could make a case intellectually for this 40 years ago, but not today," he said. "Even the word 'peacekeeping' is suspect. It's much more dangerous, much more demanding, much more likely to need the sort of skills that soldiers have."

(Ottawa Citizen)