44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 5, 2022 10:00AM
- Apr/5/22 10:44:06 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his intervention today. I know that when he and I were on the defence committee together a number of years ago, I believe it was in 2016 or 2017, the defence committee had brought forward a report that had a recommendation in it. It was the opinion of the committee at the time to increase defence spending to 2% of GDP, notwithstanding the fact that there can be a lot of complications with respect to that 2%, because not every country calculates it the same way.
Can the member comment on what, if any, work the committee has done since my time with him on that committee in terms of making any further recommendations around this issue?
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- Apr/5/22 11:16:34 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we will certainly support the idea of increasing defence spending to 2% of GDP. My issue is not with these investments.
We have long been calling for predictability from the government, in this sector and in others. It is pretty disgraceful to see the way the government acts and the fact that the army has to buy its own boots.
Will this money be depoliticized? Can the government guarantee that the money will address the real needs?
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- Apr/5/22 11:20:08 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member's speech and I really reflected on the part about how the Conservatives have been all talk and no action. When he said that, I was immediately reminded of Stephen Harper's interaction with Vladimir Putin back in 2014, when Stephen Harper said Putin had better get out of Ukraine, or something to that effect. We all know how that turned out. That was basically pointless and did not serve any purpose, while at the same time the Conservative government was spending less than 1% of GDP, as the member indicated.
I am wondering if he can speak to how important it is that we make sure that our spending level is where it needs to be and also, as he noted earlier, make sure that we are doing the proper diplomatic measures so that we are handling our impact on the global stage from both a monetary perspective and a dialogue perspective.
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- Apr/5/22 11:48:21 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, here we have a Conservative motion. I find it very fascinating for the simple reason that, when I was in the opposition back in 2013, the Conservatives' spending as a percentage of GDP was actually less than 1%. That was in 2013. Now, we have advanced considerably further than that, and we will wait and see what takes place in the budget.
Does the member not agree that there is a bit of irony there, with the Conservative Party saying 2%? Back in 2013, when the Conservatives were in government and I sat in the opposition benches, their spending was actually at less than 1% of the GDP.
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- Apr/5/22 12:01:51 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Russia has a population of about 145 million people and a GDP of $1.7 trillion. Canada's population is 38 million with a GDP of $2 trillion. Russia spends 4% of its GDP on its military, or about $68 billion. In that context, and in the context about the brutal assault of Russia on Ukraine, does the member not agree that a 2% target is a reasonable target, given the state of the world in which we currently live?
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- Apr/5/22 12:03:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member mentioned a reasonable spending plan. I think that it is reasonable to devote 2% of the GDP to the army so that it can fill in the gaps in the procurement system, which is slow, and with respect to recruitment, where it is not meeting any of its targets, and personnel retention, which is a major problem.
Can she explain to me why she opposes the 2% of GDP target?
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- Apr/5/22 12:32:45 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member made reference to President Obama's visit when he put the 2% challenge to all members of Parliament. That was back in 2016. We acquired governance in late 2015. I would like to highlight to the member that in 2013, Canada's percentage of GDP going toward the military was less than 1%. I suspect that is one of the reasons Obama made reference to it.
Upon reflection and using hindsight today, does the member recognize that the former Harper administration did us no service by underfunding our Canadian Forces?
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- Apr/5/22 1:52:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, does the member not see the hypocrisy that could be perceived? President Obama is saying that the Conservative Party, back in 2013, spent less than 1% of the GDP on defence. Now the Conservative Party is advocating for 2%, yet when they were in government, they actually had less than 1%.
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- Apr/5/22 2:31:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, while the other side continues to undersell what Canadians have accomplished, there is genuine good news to share across the land. Our GDP grew for eight consecutive months. We have recovered 3.4 million jobs lost in the pandemic. We have the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio in the G7.
The Canadian economy is resilient. Canadians are resilient. The economy is getting back on track. The other side might not like economic growth, but the government certainly does, and so do Canadians.
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- Apr/5/22 2:38:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, let us talk about the state of the economy and why it is good news for Canadians. We have had eight consecutive months of growth. Our GDP grew by 6.7% in the fourth quarter. Our trade surplus, now $6.6 billion, is at its highest point since 2008. This fall, S&P and Moody's gave us a AAA credit rating.
That is what leadership means. That is what it means to focus on affordability. The other side does not like a growing economy, but we like it a lot.
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- Apr/5/22 2:55:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the government has been ill-prepared and found wanting too many times on the national security front. It has embarrassed Canadians by its response to Ukraine and by the state of the Canadian Forces. The NATO spending goal is 2% of GDP. We are at 1.38% and number 25 overall.
Will the defence minister commit here and now to increasing defence spending in this budget by buying F-35s and moving forward with NORAD modernization?
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- Apr/5/22 3:21:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, meeting the 2% of GDP target called for in this motion would mean increasing our military spending from about $24 billion a year now to over $54 billion. That is an extra $30 billion per year.
While I think all Canadians want to make sure that our military is well equipped and properly funded, I want to get my hon. colleague's take on this quote from President Eisenhower. He said:
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
Would the member agree that this is the best use of $30 billion, or would she like to see that money instead put into dental care for seniors and children and into expanded health care and housing for Canadians who cannot find it in this country?
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- Apr/5/22 3:24:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan for his enthusiasm about listening to me for the next 10 minutes. I want to thank the member for Davenport for sharing that time with me today and for the opportunity to provide some input into this opposition day motion.
I am very pleased to see that the Conservative Party is eager to spend 2% of our gross domestic product on our military. It certainly is not in keeping with what it was doing during the last Conservative government, but perhaps its members have turned a new leaf and have decided this is in fact the way we should be moving forward.
First I would like to address where the 2% of GDP comes from and perhaps some of the challenges that are associated with it. In 2014, at the Wales summit, NATO leaders came together and made a decision collectively. It was a formal pledge to spend 2% of their nations' GDP on military expenditures specifically. This was done in order to ensure there would be fairness throughout countries in their participation and what they were putting toward NATO and the protection it offers NATO countries. It was therefore decided this would be a fair and equitable way of moving forward.
One of the problems with that 2% figure is that different countries, at least in the beginning, were calculating their 2% differently. For example, some countries were including pensions being paid to veterans, whereas others were not. Also, in the way the program is set up, or the way it is supposed to be measured, is that any armed service a country has would be included. One of the problems Canada would face in that scenario is that our Coast Guard is considered a civilian service, whereas in the U.S., the coast guard is considered an armed service. As a result, the U.S. would include in its 2% calculation its coast guard, whereas Canada would not necessarily do that.
After my time on the Standing Committee on National Defence and after we had an opportunity to study this 2% issue and the NATO contributions of Canada specifically, I was pleased to see in 2018 that at least NATO did update some of the ways it recommended to countries to calculate that 2%. Particularly, it did indicate that pensions, for example, would be included. It is important to establish a baseline and to be consistent across different countries.
Canada was of course one of the founding partners of NATO, as we have heard in the House throughout the day. Canada has been in every NATO mission as a partner with our allied countries, because we see the value in making sure that NATO has the proper resources to keep its member countries safe.
As I indicated earlier, I am very pleased to see the Conservatives supporting this. However, the problem is that—
Mr. James Bezan: Well, you're supporting us now.
Mr. Mark Gerretsen: Madam Speaker, the member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman just heckled me and said that we are supporting them. I am happy to tell the member that I support his motion today, so if the member is looking for me to say that, I thought he could read between the lines in what I said so far. He heckled me a few moments ago and said that we are supporting them.
That member was part of the former government. I believe he was the parliamentary secretary to defence in the former Harper government, when we saw a decrease year after year in the percentage of GDP spent on the military.
I know I cannot use a prop in the House, but I am looking at my notes right now and I have an actual graph of the percentage of GDP—
Mr. Garnett Genuis: Table it.
Mr. Mark Gerretsen: Madam Speaker, the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan wants me to table it. Now he is saying he does not. I was willing to do that.
This graph is very interesting to look at, because if we go back over the last 10 years, we see a continual decrease in the percentage of GDP until it bottoms out in 2013 at less than 1%. That was the climax, so to speak, of Stephen Harper's contribution to ensuring he was properly living up to the commitment we made in the Wales summit.
After bottoming out at less than 1% of GDP, what did the graph do? It did the exact opposite. Since this Liberal government came into power in 2015, every year the amount has gone up, and the trend line is pushing up and toward that 2%.
I am a big supporter of making sure we hit that 2% mark. The member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman earlier on heckled and was surprised that I would support that. I have no idea why he was surprised by that. He and I sat on the defence committee together for four years, and we unanimously approved a report from the defence committee calling on the government to spend 2%. I think it should have been very clear to the member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman exactly where I stood on it. I hope I was memorable enough for him to remember me being on the committee with him when we both spoke in favour of that. We travelled together to Ukraine and Latvia to study the work that NATO was doing abroad, in terms of Operations Reassurance and Unifier.
He would know that I very much support this, and that is why I plan to vote in favour of this motion. However, for the member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman to try to project himself from the position of being a strong advocate for spending 2% of GDP on our military, he certainly did not do that when he was the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Defence during his time in government, albeit quite a while ago. If there is any indication from what is happening within the Conservative Party right now, it will probably be quite a while until that happens again.
Nonetheless, I think this motion and what it is calling for are the right things to do. I think that it is important that we spend. I even remember going a step further, when I was on the committee, and suggesting that Canada should actually be part of the ballistic missile defence program in North America within NORAD. The member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman and I both visited the NORAD facility in Cheyenne Mountain, and we both saw the awkward situation in which Americans and Canadians worked incredibly well together in 95% of the room, but then there was 5% of the room where the Canadians basically were not allowed to go, and that was the part of the room that specifically looked over ballistic missile defence.
I am on the record as having said that, in my opinion, this is something we should be doing. I can understand that prime ministers of the past have not been interested in that and have shied away from doing that, and I respect that. It is not my position, but nonetheless I can appreciate the fact that positions have been taken over the years.
I see that my time is running out, but I want to say that I plan to support this motion and I will vote in favour of it, because I think it is the right thing to do. More importantly, if we just look at the trajectory since this government came into power, we will see that we are on our way to getting us to a point where we are spending 2% of our GDP on national defence.
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- Apr/5/22 3:51:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, first and foremost, the world changed in 2014. As for the investments in the Canadian Armed Forces, without continuing to rely upon the peace dividend after the end of the Cold War, it was time to start making those major investments. That is why Prime Minister Harper signed on to the Wales Summit pledge that we would hit that 2% of GDP. It took the full-scale invasion of Ukraine to get there now.
We have to fix the procurement system. That is the only way we can ensure we get equipment delivered faster, and we can get the kit that is required. We need to use the Defence Production Act as much as possible and ensure that there is not a misappropriation of dollars in things like defence procurement. A lot of the things that we are talking about, including NORAD modernization, are going to require us to buy off the shelf. A lot of companies around the world make it and that is the way we are going to get the best kit for our troops.
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- Apr/5/22 4:38:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is quite clear that this 2% figure of GDP for military spending has no real basis in sound military thinking. Of course, it was coined by Donald Trump. I understand recent testimony before the defence committee has made it clear, from a number of academics and experts, that the 2% has no grounding in any real figure.
What is important, of course, is effective spending. I am curious about my hon. colleague's thoughts on the 2% as an arbitrary figure. Does he think it is effective?
My second part is this. We know that, in 2015, the Liberals said that they would not purchase the F-35 fighter jet. Last week, the Liberals announced that they were pursuing a fighter jet that does not have Arctic capability and is unlikely to create jobs here in Canada. Two things the member touched on in his speech were the importance of Arctic sovereignty and creating jobs in Canada.
Can he rationalize that for me?
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- Apr/5/22 4:51:49 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.
NATO is asking its members to allocate 2% of their GDP to military spending. That is the subject of today's motion.
However, another international organization, the UN, has also proposed that wealthy countries such as Canada allocate the equivalent of 0.7% of their GDP to the international development of impoverished countries. Under the Liberals, this percentage is 0.27%, but it was 0.32% under the Stephen Harper government. This percentage is now lower with the Liberals in power, even though they boast that they are champions of international aid. That is just laughable.
The Conservatives say that we must agree to the request of an organization to which we belong. In this case, it is the NATO request concerning military spending.
Do they support the UN request for international aid? In my opinion, they go hand in hand.
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- Apr/5/22 5:05:53 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, although I agree with the substance of the motion, I am somewhat uncomfortable with the motion itself. It talks about increasing spending.
We have been here for weeks, and I have heard my Conservative friends criticize the government for spending too much. If we were to increase military spending from 1.37% to 2% of GDP, that would represent $16 billion in additional annual spending at a time when we need to help seniors, increase health transfers and invest in housing. Where will this money come from? Money does not grow on trees.
My question is simple: Must we choose between social housing and tanks?
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- Apr/5/22 6:35:34 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, when Canadians hear the government say things like they should not worry because the net debt-to-GDP ratio is great in response to the concerns they have, such as having to choose between heating their home because the price of natural gas has gone up so high or feeding their family because the price of groceries have gone up so quickly and so much, it is really tough for them to feed their family on that word salad. Those global comparators do not do anything to address the individual concerns and the harsh realities those Canadian families are facing.
When the government says that it took on debt so Canadians did not need to, who is responsible for paying that money back? That money does not belong to members in this place or the government. It is collected from Canadians and borrowed in the name of future generations of Canadians who are going to have to service the debt and some day that bill will come due. That is the government's job.
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