A little over 18 years ago, in the dust and sweltering heat of Kandahar Airfield, Colonel Ian Hope’s weary expression spoke louder than any of his words.
In the spring of 2006, Canadian troops in Afghanistan had just finished a grueling few weeks when a roadside bomb killed at least six Canadian soldiers. It was the start of a bloody, relentless wave of casualties that would ultimately tear at the heart of the nation and seize the political agenda in ways the then-Conservative government never anticipated.
Hope, then an astute and knowledgeable battle group commander, quietly pleaded with a journalist on his way back to Ottawa to bring a helicopter because “our soldiers are dying on the roads here because there’s a shortage of helicopters.”
The army got these helicopters after two years and nearly 100 dead soldiers, but only after tedious political and institutional wrangling that saw an independent commission force the federal government to either properly equip the army or withdraw from Kandahar.
It’s the sort of vivid experience the country’s former top military commander graciously recounted in his farewell speech this week.
“Our military history is a history of being unprepared at the start of wars. 1914, 1939, 1950 and 2001 are all notable examples. Let’s make sure that never happens again,” said soon-to-be-retired Gen. Wayne Eyre. “We need urgent action.”
In his final words as chief of the defence staff, Canadian Defence Chief Gen. Wayne Eyre said “evil runs rampant on this earth” and urged Canada to continue supporting Ukraine’s defence.
It remains to be seen whether his plea will be heard or whether it will again be ignored.
It’s almost a cliché that important policy debates in Ottawa take place in an air of abstraction, with little sense of urgency, let alone reality.
But there is a cost to being underprepared for war: a human cost that is rarely acknowledged in Canada, especially in the debate over whether Canada can or should meet the 2 percent of gross domestic product defense spending standard that NATO imposes on its allies.
At NATO’s recent Washington summit, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau committed to meeting the spending target by 2032. He also argued that the 2% figure is a “crude mathematical calculation” that certain people (he didn’t say who) are quick to fall back on, and that it doesn’t truly measure a nation’s commitment to defence.
fair enough.
Last winter, the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., published an insightful study concluding that the 2 percent threshold “does not adequately capture the range of ways in which allies are devoting resources to capabilities and programs that enhance overall transatlantic security.”
The report argued that NATO’s benchmarks only capture how much each country spends on its military forces and defense programs, and that the whole-of-government effort needed to contain a resurgent Russia is not factored into the calculations.
Defence Minister Bill Blair tried not to get too conflicted with his boss, quietly pointing out after Eyre’s successor, General Jenny Carignan, was sworn in that the 2% figure was the one everyone in NATO agreed to and was the only benchmark they had at the moment.
“Two percent is a perfectly reasonable benchmark,” Blair said.
![Defence Minister Bill Blair speaks on legislation to amend the National Defence Act and other legislation during a media briefing in the House of Commons Foyer on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Thursday, March 21, 2024.](https://i.cbc.ca/1.7151611.1711057422!/cpImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/original_780/military-sexual-misconduct-20240321.jpg)
![Defence Minister Bill Blair speaks on legislation to amend the National Defence Act and other legislation during a media briefing in the House of Commons Foyer on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Thursday, March 21, 2024.](https://i.cbc.ca/1.7151611.1711057422!/cpImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/original_780/military-sexual-misconduct-20240321.jpg)
It is for the record (and it bears repeating) that to achieve NATO’s goals, Canada would need to spend $60 billion to $64 billion a year on defense, given the size of its economy, and Blair acknowledged that the Department of National Defence is not currently equipped to absorb that amount.
Without a procurement officer, “there was no way to actually spend that money,” he said.
“The Canadian military could not have acquired the capabilities they identified so quickly.”
Conservative leader Pierre Poilièvre has refused to commit to NATO goals because he believes the federal government’s finances are a “dumpster fire,” but he has promised to crack down on what he calls “corruption, back-office bureaucracy and procurement failures” and get the military the equipment it needs.
![Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Defence Minister Peter MacKay visit Canadian soldiers at a forward base near Sperwan Ghar, Afghanistan, May 30, 2011. (Sean Kilpatrick/CP)](https://i.cbc.ca/1.1763003.1721427220!/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/original_780/afghanistan-visit.jpg)
![Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Defence Minister Peter MacKay visit Canadian soldiers at a forward base near Sperwan Ghar, Afghanistan, May 30, 2011. (Sean Kilpatrick/CP)](https://i.cbc.ca/1.1763003.1721427220!/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/original_780/afghanistan-visit.jpg)
It’s a Conservative position that dates back to at least the party’s 2006 election platform, with many defense experts noting that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government was often frustrated by its inability to push through complex military procurements (and pay for increased veterans’ benefits) with fewer personnel.
In his parting remarks, Eyre tried to shift the conversation away from political and mathematical calculations to a discussion of what the military needs to do its job and keep its soldiers safe as a war rages outside our borders.
“Long history clearly shows that when we are not at war, we are in an interwar period,” he warned.
Eyre said using peacetime processes and thinking in a “pre-war, and potentially wartime, environment” would not work.
“The question has to change from ‘Why should we invest in defense if we can’t spend it?’ to ‘What can we do to rapidly translate dollars into capabilities in the national interest?'” he said.
![A Canadian CH-47 Chinook helicopter lands to pick up Canadian soldiers for a sortie from Forward Base Zangabad in Panjwai district, Kandahar province, southern Afghanistan, June 18, 2011. Canada is set to end its combat mission in Afghanistan by the end of July after nearly a decade of fighting in the country. REUTERS/Baz Ratner (Afghanistan - Tags: Conflict Military) - RTR2NT4L](https://i.cbc.ca/1.2773099.1721427330!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/original_780/afghanistan-canada-exit.jpg)
![A Canadian CH-47 Chinook helicopter lands to pick up Canadian soldiers for a sortie from Forward Base Zangabad in Panjwai district, Kandahar province, southern Afghanistan, June 18, 2011. Canada is set to end its combat mission in Afghanistan by the end of July after nearly a decade of fighting in the country. REUTERS/Baz Ratner (Afghanistan - Tags: Conflict Military) - RTR2NT4L](https://i.cbc.ca/1.2773099.1721427330!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/original_780/afghanistan-canada-exit.jpg)
No doubt somewhere in his mind was a memory of Kandahar in 2006, when the Canadian military was piggybacking on Dutch Chinooks that Canada had sold as part of the so-called “peace dividend” equipment sale at the end of the Cold War, when there were not enough helicopters and the military had to rely on lightly armored G-Wagons and LAV-3s.
Canadian and other NATO troops are currently stationed in Latvia, staring down Russian troops across the border.
Canadian forces deployed to Eastern Europe with no dedicated air or missile defense systems, no way to counter drone attacks, and outdated anti-tank weapons and artillery shells that would only last a few days in actual combat.
The Department of National Defense (DND) is working to meet the need for such equipment, but some critical systems are still on order and will take several months to deliver.
If the guerrilla war in Afghanistan left 158 people dead and traumatized the country, it is not difficult to imagine the shock and grief that a Ukrainian-style conventional war would cause to a population accustomed to talking about war in abstract terms.
Carignan, a combat veteran in Afghanistan, made it clear when he took over this week that he knew time was short.
She suggested the country had five years to prepare for whatever dictatorship, whether Russian or Chinese, might throw at us.