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Member of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians

Alex Ruff

  • Member of Parliament
  • Member of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians
  • Conservative
  • Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound
  • Ontario
  • Voting Attendance: 68%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $91,173.06

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 53 - Apr/5/22
Mr. Alex Ruff (Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, CPC)
  • Apr/5/22 3:54:06 p.m.
  • Watch
Madam Speaker, as always, it is an honour to rise here in the House, not only on behalf of my constituents of Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound but on an issue of such fundamental importance to all Canadians, that of supporting our Canadian Armed Forces and the need to meet our NATO commitment of 2% of our GDP. I plan on taking a slightly different tack in my speech than likely many of the previous speeches that we have heard so far today in order to provide a more fulsome perspective from someone with over 25 years in the Canadian Armed Forces. First, I want to thank every single sailor, soldier, aviator and special forces operator that has served, is still serving and will serve our great country. Why do we need to invest this 2%? As has been clearly laid out in a number of the speeches, the world has changed. I would argue it has actually been very volatile for a number of years now, at least in my military career and in my lifetime, and it will continue to be that volatile and an ever-changing situation. Right now we are facing the absolutely existential threat of Russia to Ukraine and to our NATO allies, but China and terrorism are things that continue to be on the forefront of the frontier that we need to be able to address. My colleague who spoke just prior to me clearly laid out the situation in Ukraine and how Russia was posing an immediate threat not only to Ukraine but to our NATO allies. I would like to provide some additional context to just how important supporting our Canadian Armed Forces is, and how we need to be adaptable and how we need to be resourced to do that. When I first joined, one of my first operations was a domestic operation here in Canada during the ice storm in 1998. It was not something we prepared and trained for in a traditional sense, but due to the phenomenal training that our Canadian Armed Forces and our Canadian Army delivers, it was something our soldiers were well prepared for. My overseas missions were all under the NATO umbrella, with the exception of my final mission in Iraq, but I will get to that because there was a NATO connection there as well. Regarding the complete complexity of what we need to do within the Canadian Armed Forces, we are over there keeping the peace, but we are also monitoring elections and working non-stop with international NGOs and supporting other nations on the ground, including, in some cases, when riots and other situations occur, being that support network to get them out of harm's way. During my second tour in Bosnia, 9/11 happened, and I believe that fundamentally changed the globe as I am sure we could all acknowledge. It changed the dynamic and the ideas of what we were going to be able to do. It then ultimately led to the coalition of the willing to engage in Afghanistan, which then morphed into a NATO mission. I was there in combat in 2007, but ultimately it was our training mission in 2012 that was of much more importance. Unfortunately, we failed. We did not fail completely, but I do believe we failed in delivering on that, as we see now with the Taliban having taken over the reins. However, when we look at Ukraine and the training mission that has been ongoing there over the last number of years, I would argue Canada has played a critical role in supporting Ukraine in that opposition to Russia. When I was Iraq, again, although it was a U.S.-led coalition, I was part of the team that actually stood up the NATO training mission and went in and briefed the Canadian general and his team that was leading that NATO training mission into Iraq. My whole point is that NATO fills this critical role in dealing with threats from around the globe. It is our obligation. We signed up for this at the Wales Summit, and as the Liberal member for Winnipeg North clearly stated in his speech, the strength of NATO and our collective ability to stand up and defend our respective sovereignty and, frankly, even to be able to afford a properly resourced military or defence is by doing it together. Canada made this commitment in 2014, and we need to abide by that international commitment in order to contribute to our part of international peace and security. What does this 2% mean? It essentially means, as some of the other members have said here in the House, that it is pretty much doubling our current expenditures. It is important for everybody to understand just how complicated that is going to be and the impact it will have on the force structure of our Canadian Armed Forces from both capabilities and capacity perspectives. As much as Strong, Secure, Engaged, or SSE, the current defence policy, has some strengths, it alone is insufficient to provide the necessary policy top cover. I don’t profess to have all the answers, but I know that if CAF is properly supported, and this needed investment is made into our military, Canada and CAF will then be much more capable of responding, both domestically and internationally, to anything Canada and NATO requires us to do. As such, I am pushing and will push that, and I will explain a bit more on this later, we need to do a non-partisan, or at least bipartisan, foreign policy review we can agree on, which will then drive a future update to our defence review. How will we do this? First, in order to spend this money and properly resource our Canadian Armed Forces and meet this commitment, the military's biggest challenge half the time is not having that predictable, stable funding. If we do not have this programmed and understand it, it is hard to expend the money. There has been a lot of commentary about where defence spending has lapsed. Part of the challenge with that is that when it lapses we will not be getting that same bang for our buck going forward. Right now the normal inflation is approximately 5.7%, but in some sectors of the defence industry, defence inflation is at 20% in one year. Therefore, if we were planning to buy 10 ships one year, but delayed that by one year, we would then only get eight. I am not professing this is simple. When we are trying to balance a budget and make it so that we are not creating future challenges for the next generation, this needs to be done by working together. So many MPs have already stated the need for fixing our procurement system. This needs to be streamlined. We need one dog to kick, in my opinion, and I am not professing any violence to dogs, as I do like dogs, but my point is that there needs to be one person in charge of our procurement system in order to fix it. As well, we need to invest in our people because they are the most critical resource within our Canadian Armed Forces. I already mentioned the importance of why we need that bipartisan or non-partisan foreign policy and defence review. It is important because it is the key to preventing political interference and delays within our procurement process. I do not want to get into the capabilities or specific platforms because nothing drives me nuts more than hear politicians speaking about plane X or tank Y. We should be talking about capabilities in general, telling our Canadian Armed Forces and military experts what they need to deliver in Canada's interest on the international stage and then letting them come back to us with the best options available and specifically where we can properly spend this increase in our defence budgets. We have already talked about NORAD modernization. I am confident, based on what I have heard so far today, that the Liberal government will include needed funding for NORAD modernization in the budget on Thursday. However, we have to focus on filling in those key gaps within NORAD versus just nibbling around the edges. One comment was made that we have to relook at ballistic missile defence. We have to put more money into our Arctic. We can look at surveillance, UAV capacities and better engineering capabilities. We can put more money into our people, our sailors, soldiers, aircrew and special forces. Special forces is another area we could spend more money. Cyber and strategic lift are also great ideas we can spend money on. In summary, I think I have addressed the why of the motion, which are the threats and our obligation to get to 2%. The how is that it needs to be done through providing predictable funding, fixing the procurement system, investing in our people, investing in key capabilities, and ultimately having a non-partisan or bipartisan foreign policy and defence review. The world needs a Canada that maintains its position as a trusted global security partner and a reliable member of NATO. Without increasing our military spending, the government puts this at risk. Meeting our NATO commitment of spending 2% of GDP today and into the future is essential. Although in military planning hope is not an option, I hope all members of the House will support this motion.
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