When you hear Pierre Poirierbre list his top priorities as cutting taxes, building housing, reducing the federal budget and fighting crime, you won’t hear him mention the Canadian Armed Forces specifically.
The Conservative leader has pledged to change the culture of the Canadian Armed Forces from a “woke” culture to a “warrior” culture. He has suggested he is open to increasing the military’s resources. But what exactly will defence policy under Poirievre look like?
The current federal government is facing growing pressure to spend billions more to meet NATO allies’ military spending target of 2% of GDP, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is confronting that pressure as he meets with other NATO leaders in Washington this week.
The Conservative leader faces a different kind of pressure: he must reconcile his pledge to “take back control of our country and our defence” and “work towards Nato spending targets” with his core commitment to cut government spending in order to balance the budget.
“That’s a pretty difficult calculation to achieve in a short period of time,” said Dave Perry, president and CEO of the Canadian Institute of Global Affairs.
The $50 billion gap
Perry said for a Conservative government to meet its NATO goals it would need to increase the defence budget by $10 billion to $15 billion over the next five years beyond what the Liberals have already committed to.
Meanwhile, the Conservatives will also be looking to reduce the budget deficit, estimated at nearly $40 billion in the most recent Liberal budget.
Poirierbre also called for a cultural change within the military: “We’re going to end woke culture and bring back warrior culture.” he told reporters earlier this year.
Peter MacKay, who served as defence minister under Prime Minister Stephen Harper from 2007 to 2013, said it’s a change some service members are desperate for.
Asked how he interpreted Poirievre’s comments, MacKay said: “I think there’s an impression that there’s been a bit of overcorrection over the last few years.”
Poirierbre’s use of “woke people” and “warriors” does not imply a rejection of the military’s high-profile efforts to root out sexual misconduct, he said.
“I think there’s a fine line to be drawn between what could be considered abuse or sexual harassment and an overemphasis on appearances, an overemphasis on uniform changes, a relaxation of what used to be called Queen’s orders and rules in the military,” McKay said, “and I think that’s where members, particularly long-time military personnel, are resentful.”
The Canadian Armed Forces recently reversed a move to relax grooming standards. In 2022, the military will remove most restrictions on hair length, hair colour, nail length and facial tattoos. The changes were introduced alongside new gender-neutral uniforms.
Retired Army Lt. Gen. Michel Maisonneuve spoke at the Conservative policy conference last fall in which he denounced the “woke movement” for trying to destroy Canadian values and accused the Trudeau government of “apologizing for who we are and how we got here.”
CBC News asked Poirievre’s office to explain what he meant by his “woke” and “warrior” comments but did not receive a direct response, only a general statement about the Conservatives’ desire to “defend” the military.
Perry agreed that there needed to be a “rebalancing” within the military to put more emphasis on core capabilities.
But striking a new balance will require money, not words, and investing in core combat capabilities through the purchase of fighter jets, ground vehicles, tanks and warships, he said.
It remains to be seen how much Poiriévre’s government intends to invest in these core capabilities.
Working towards NATO goals
In response to a reporter’s question in February, Foreign Minister Poirierbre argued that Canada was too dependent on the United States for its defense.
“This puts the United States in charge of Canada’s future. I don’t want that. I want our own control over our country and our defence,” he said.
Does that mean his government will spend the billions of extra dollars needed to achieve NATO’s goals?
Poirievre’s office issued a statement saying the party would “reinstate” the military and “work towards meeting Canada’s NATO spending commitments, restoring Canada as a reliable partner to our allies.”
“[Poilievre’s] “The language is not very strong,” Perry said, “and it’s certainly not as strong as the commitment that the Canadian government signed a year ago.” [at the NATO summit in Lithuania]But in the meantime, they have shown no intention of actually achieving it.”
Recent elections in the UK and Europe, and the upcoming US elections, are among the issues expected to dominate the agenda at the 75th NATO Summit. Another is defence spending, including Canada’s failure to meet its 2% spending target.
Canada currently plans to increase its military spending to 1.76% of GDP.
MacKay acknowledged that his administration never raised military spending to the 2% level, but he argued that times have changed: The wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, as well as other sources of global tension, have altered the political landscape.
“It’s fair to say that the public is now much more educated and much more supportive of military investment initiatives. If Poirievre forms a government, the tailwinds for making these investments will be stronger,” he said.
Asked whether Poirierbre should stick to meeting Nato targets, MacKay said he thought the Conservative leader was “leaving room to look at where we are” with government spending.
“I personally, and I’ve spoken to the president about this, I believe the president is very keen to increase military spending even further, to bring it up to the 2 percent level,” he said.
Poirievre offered some hints about how to tackle military spending.
Could foreign aid cuts lead to increased military budgets?
To free up funds for the military, Trump said he would “cut wasteful foreign aid” to “dictators, terrorists and multinational bureaucracies,” and promised to cut bureaucracy and reinvest in military resources, and improve the military procurement process to stop “wasting billions of dollars” on defense contractors.
Poirievre’s office did not directly respond to a question about how much foreign aid cuts he plans to make.
Perry said Canada could meet NATO’s goals by redirecting some of the roughly $16 billion it spends annually on international development aid.
“But this isn’t about cutting some of the money that goes to authoritarian regimes that you don’t like. This isn’t about adjusting the development aid budget. It’s about redirecting almost the entire amount,” he said, adding that the federal development aid budget includes billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine.
![A Canadian pilot flies a C-130J over Europe on a mission to deliver supplies to Ukraine.](https://i.cbc.ca/1.6456882.1720554929!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/original_780/canadian-pilots.jpg)
![A Canadian pilot flies a C-130J over Europe on a mission to deliver supplies to Ukraine.](https://i.cbc.ca/1.6456882.1720554929!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/original_780/canadian-pilots.jpg)
Both Perry and McKay said they didn’t understand what Poirievre meant by “wasting billions of dollars” on defense contractors.
They noted that making procurement decisions more quickly could save the Canadian government significant amounts of money lost to inflation as prices rise over time.
Poirièvre outlined some of his approach to military policy, but left many questions unanswered.
“Apart from the foreign intervention dimension, Mr. Poirierbre has barely discussed the future of the Canadian military, Canada’s foreign policy, our diplomatic services, our intelligence services,” Perry said.
Poirievre did not say what role he envisaged the military would play or what parts of the world he listed as priority areas for military operations, he added.
“I think most of Mr. Poirievre’s international plans have yet to be fleshed out at this point.”