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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 216

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 19, 2023 11:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 216 - Jun/19/23
Mr. James Bezan (Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, CPC)
  • Jun/19/23 8:50:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to be able to stand today and address a question I originally raised on April 17. It is based on a letter that came from the Conference of Defence Associations Institute, where 60 plus prominent Canadians who are military leaders, former ministers of defence and other parliamentarians from both sides of the aisle, both Conservative and Liberal, as well as a former chief justice, Beverley McLachlin, all wrote a letter addressed to the Prime Minister, which was published as an open letter. It says, “There is no more important responsibility for the federal government than protecting Canadians against all threats—foreign and domestic”. Then it goes on to say, “Now is the time to fully discharge the commitments we have made to our allies and partners in sharing the burden of collective security, commitments which are essential to safeguard our peace, prosperity and way of life [for all Canadians]”. In that quote, they are referring to the commitment we made to NATO, at the Wales Summit in 2014, that we would spend our 2% within 10 years. That was nine years ago. We know the NATO summit in Vilnius is coming up this July. Of course, there is going to be extra pressure on the Government of Canada, under the Prime Minister, to come up with that 2%. We know from the Pentagon leaks that happened just recently that the Prime Minister said there is no way Canada is ever going to reach that 2% commitment. Our other collective security agreement that is important to us is NORAD and NORAD modernization. We know the Americans are concerned about that. The letter from the Conference of Defence Associations Institute further reads, “Years of restraint, cost cutting, downsizing and deferred investments, have meant that Canada's defence capabilities have atrophied.” They have atrophied so badly under the Liberals that, today, we are 10,000 troops short of where we should be to be able to fulfill the commitments we have here domestically, and for what we are able to do in NATO, especially the missions we have undertaken as the leadership in the enhanced forward position in setting up a battalion in Latvia and leading that battalion. We are slow in getting our numbers up to over 750 troops. We know we were not able to participate in the recent military air force exercises that 26 nations of NATO participated in. Canada was a no-show because we do not have the equipment or the personnel to fly the planes we have today; we are short on pilots. We know that we are short on military procurement, although there have been some announcements which have recently come from the government, and we are going ahead with the Canadian surface combatants that were originally ordered by the former Conservative government. We know that the F-35s are finally being bought. The Prime Minister said, in 2015, that he would never buy the F-35s, but finally, we are purchasing them. However, we do not necessarily have the right people doing the procurement; according to the Conference of Defence Associations Institute and other sources, we know we are short 4,200 military procurement experts within the Department of National Defence, as well as at PSPC Canada. We see this happening. We are hearing stories coming from the front in Latvia, where our troops are actually having to go out and buy their own helmets, hearing protection, radio communications equipment and flak jackets because the kits they are getting from the Canadian Armed Forces under the Liberals are inadequate. In a letter that was recently leaked, one commander wrote to Ottawa saying that it is embarrassing, as they have seen the Danes walking around in new Canadian equipment that was purchased from Canadian companies, the very equipment that our troops should be using and wearing. Unfortunately, the government has not been able to carry off those procurements, leaving our troops vulnerable and embarrassed. Of course, we also know that our troops in Poland were not provided with any meal vouchers, and they are out of pocket for thousands of dollars that the government has not been able to reimburse them for. That is shameful.
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Context: House Hansard - 216 - Jun/19/23
Mr. James Bezan
  • Jun/19/23 8:57:28 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, just to go on with the letter from CDAI, they said: Russia's brutal war...in Ukraine...as well as the continuing expansion of the military arsenals of authoritarian regimes...should have prompted a re-assessment of our defence posture. The reality is that well-connected consultants, big bankers and wealthy bondholders get more from the Liberal government than our troops. We know that the deficit that is going to the big bankers is over $40 billion. We know that McKinsey and other Liberal-connected consultants are getting billions of dollars every year, while our troops do without. In this fiscal year that just ended in March 2023, we had $2.5 billion of lapsed military spending that will never be available again. That has dropped our GDP ratio, which was supposed to be at 1.33%, down to 1.29%. The difference between what was supposed to be spent on military expenditures and where we are at relative to the 2% of GDP shows that we are actually $20 billion short. That is unacceptable. People cannot buy house insurance when their home is—
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