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While war rages in the Middle East and Europe, Canada’s military is less capable than ever

Published

9 months ago

17 minute read

From the MacDonald Laurier Institute

By Richard Shimooka

There are no good solutions to this problem, only less bad alternatives.

Over a decade ago, I had the opportunity to interview Jim Judd, the former deputy minister of national defence. After all these years, one quote still sticks out to me:

People assume because DND has 60,000 personnel and a budget of 12 billion dollars it should be able to do something, but there are quite severe practical limitations to its capability. In my view, it was not all that well understood outside of military circles.

Judd’s comment seems even more relevant today than it was eleven years ago. The ongoing Russian war in Ukraine, Chinese aggression in the West Pacific, and now the brutal incursion by Hamas into Israel from Gaza have stripped away any facade that the international system will be more peaceful or stable than in the 20th century. For most major liberal democracies, these events have shaken the complacency that has prevailed since the end of the Cold War: that is except for Canada. The recent announcement that the defence department will need to shoulder a $1 billion dollar budget cut over the next three years clearly illustrates the lack of awareness of this government on the international moment.

Yet, like Judd’s comment, there is little understanding amongst the public of how the military functions, and the consequences of these cuts are critical. While many may be dimly aware that the armed forces are facing a challenging situation, the actual details and the future outcome are only known to a precious few. This article will try to address that.

What will become apparent is that political decisions have simultaneously over-deployed the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) while neglecting to invest in its capabilities. This has upset the fragile sustainment system, leaving its actual operational capability in tatters. The military has become a token force abroad and is even unlikely to be able to provide for Canada’s own defence in the near future. What follows is not a worse-case scenario, but the most likely outcome given the present situation and future trends.

The first step is to understand the aims of the CAF and how it is structured to achieve them. With the exception of the CF-18’s tactical fighter fleet’s continental defence mission, much of the CAF’s active duty military is organized to undertake expeditionary operations abroad. This should not be surprising. Other than the airborne threat of Russian aircraft, there are very limited direct naval and land threats to Canada. Most operations are abroad. Yet units are not able to deploy indefinitely—personnel need rotation home for rest, while equipment needs time for maintenance and overhaul. Furthermore, they require time to undertake personal development training as well as building up their forces prior to deployment.

In order to sustain units in the field the CAF employs something known as the “managed readiness system.” Essentially the system rotates units between deployment, recuperation, and training. This usually means a 1/3 ratio: for every one unit deployed into the field, two are in the other phases of a cycle. This isn’t a universal ratio: the Army’s field units can operate between a 1/2 to 1/4 ratio, the Navy’s frigates cycle is closer to 1/3.5 in practice, and submarines are 1/4 (this is largely due to the greater maintenance requirements these vessels require in order to operate safely). This was a major consideration for acquiring the four Victoria class submarines from the United Kingdom in the 1990s as it would ensure in practice that one would always be available for operation.

Tactical fighters operate differently, but a 1/4 ratio roughly captures the size of the fleet required to keep a sizeable force available for operations. Furthermore, as equipment ages, they also require more time and effort to maintain and overhaul.

In practical terms, the CAF’s objectives since the end of the Cold War have been to sustain four frigates for deployment, 18 CF-18 fighter jets for peacetime operations (12 on alert in Canada and six abroad for NATO), and a half brigade’s worth of soldiers (2000-2500) with ancillary capabilities. Among Western states, this is a fairly small contribution. For example, the United Kingdom, with only 30 percent greater GDP than Canada, potentially can sustain three brigades, totalling over 10,000 soldiers in the field that are able to fight in very high-intensity environments.

As we’re about to see, Canada falls far short of even its modest objectives, with the gap widening for the foreseeable future.

In the eight years since the Trudeau Government assumed office, two broad trends have been discernible. The first is an expanded international vision for the CAF, with large deployments in Europe and the Middle East, as well as a more active naval and air presence in the Pacific. This, as well as increased maintenance requirements for an aging equipment base, are the major cost drivers for the CAF. At the same time, while Canada’s defence policy, Strong, Secure, Engaged, promised a fully funded and structured recapitalization of the military, it has not been delivered—even within two years of the document’s promulgation, National Defence had already failed to spend $8 billion dollars budgeted to it. Thus, overuse tied with undercapitalization has resulted in the entire range of operational capabilities deteriorating over the past decade. Some modestly so, others much more drastically.

Navy

Let’s start with the Navy. For much of the 2000s, the twelve Halifax Class frigates were run hard to meet various commitments after 9/11. Now reaching thirty years of age, these vessels have undergone excessive levels of service and are showing their age. The foremost example is the HMCS Toronto, which has been undergoing refit since 2022. It has severe hull corrosion which has left her in a dilapidated state and may require hundreds of millions of dollars in repairs. The vastly increased maintenance requirements are visible across the class. In 2002 each Halifax class frigates’ docking work period (DWP) required around 200,000 man-hours to complete. Current DWPs now average 1.2 million hours, and will likely reach 1.5 million by the end of the decade. This translates into a significant cost increase and affects ship availability. With these constraints, the original objective of four vessels operational at any one time is completely unachievable: Canada at present effectively has only two frigates (with a third potentially available in some instances), which will become increasingly difficult to sustain in the coming years.

Canada’s submarines are in a similar shape. The grounding of the HMCS Corner Brook in 2011, and its subsequent dockyard accident in 2020, has effectively left the fleet with only three submarines in the managed readiness system, often leaving none available for operations. With fewer deployment opportunities, crew regeneration has suffered, damaging the remaining personnel morale and impacting the skill base that is critical for operating such a highly complex capability.

Army

The Army is not in much better shape, although its challenges are somewhat different from the other services. The expansion of the Latvia mission to approximately 2,000 soldiers will effectively utilize the vast majority of the units available at any given time through managed readiness. However the demands, like during the Afghanistan era, will stretch the system and have a number of negative consequences. The first is whether the mission can be sustained for more than two years—there simply are not enough soldiers available in the coming years given the ongoing personnel shortages.

Another almost certain consequence will be the curtailment of unit training across the Army, as there will be fewer personnel available. This places troops at greater risk even for a peacetime operation like in Latvia. Russia has continually targeted Canadian soldiers with active measures campaigns to discredit their presence in the country, something that requires training and vigilance to avoid. This also ignores that the CAF will not deploy to Latvia with many basic capabilities, such as ambulances and air defence systems that can defend against UAVs or mobile artillery, all of which are basic capabilities for operating in a war today.

These issues are compounded by the increasing number of domestic operations surrounding disaster relief the Army has been tasked with, such as helping to deal with the wildfires that raged this past summer. While these are generally handled by the reserves, the growing scale of these events, as well as the tendency to use the military as the force of first resort in these cases, is further straining its already weakened force generation system.

Air Force

Perhaps the most precipitous decline is with the RCAF’s tactical fighter fleet of CF-18s. Canada is currently in the process of shrinking its fleet to 37 aircraft while preparing for the transition to the F-35. The fleet size is sufficient only to sustain domestic NORAD operations, a reality underlined by the announcement last December that the RCAF would withdraw from NATO commitments for the foreseeable future. Even more problematic is the lack of pilots and support personnel, which may even lead to the Air Force being unable to fulfill the NORAD alert mission requirements in full. As the F-35 transition gets underway in the coming years, there are fears that there will be insufficient personnel to staff both aircraft types, which will likely result in fewer available CF-18s to meet the alert role.

The state of the tactical fighter fleet can be directly attributed to the Liberal government’s decision to scrap the acquisition of the F-35 in 2015. While some suggested the competition “built trust” and confidence for the decision, the process essentially wrecked the ability of the Air Force to provide even the most basic level of security for the country. Even more ironic was that the government tried to implement an end-run around a competition through the interim buy of 18 F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, justified by the need to meet both the NORAD and NATO missions simultaneously. Now, seven years later, Canada has effectively ended one mission and faces the possibility that it will not even be able to meet its most basic mission of defending the country’s airspace.

Solutions

So, what can be done? Unfortunately, there are no good outcomes for the government, only less bad alternatives. Avoiding the worst-case scenario will require multiple lines of effort. Overall it requires the forces to reduce its overseas commitments while trying to revitalize its standing forces by accelerating modernization and recruitment.

The first step is to approach the United States and close allies and frankly acknowledge the situation the government has placed itself in. To some degree, they are already aware: recent moves like the exclusion of AUKUS and the U.K.’s offer to assist in arctic security implicitly recognize Canada’s weakness. However, to reconstitute the military effectively will require the CAF to withdraw from some of its long-standing commitments. For example, it is questionable whether the Latvia expansion is responsible given the state of the Army. There is a high probability that the mission’s demands are unsustainable in the long run, to the point where CAF will have to withdraw significant portions of its commitment to the Baltics or risk a collapse of its managed readiness system. Maintaining the operation’s present size and/or undertaking shorter periodic deployments of units are much more achievable alternatives given the current constraints.

Of primary importance, though, is that the personnel and procurement systems require reforms. Pouring more money and resources into the present systems is like pouring water into a bucket with holes. The holes must be plugged before anything else can proceed. Both systems must address the new realities in their respective areas, which will require substantial changes to how the government operates. Once this is accomplished, raising funding levels that meet the NATO two percent of GDP threshold will be critical—there are far too many deferred maintenance and procurements programs that need to be addressed immediately if the CAF wants to remain viable.

Finally, budget certainty is essential. Cutting a billion in funding and delaying implementation of Strong, Secure, Engaged further undercuts the military’s state. Unpredictable budget environments are a prime cause of delays and larger cost overruns, both on procurement projects and for operations—issues that the CAF and Canada cannot afford anymore.

The current situation was utterly predictable even seven years ago. Now that the country is in this quagmire, it will require a herculean effort to get out of it.

Richard Shimooka is a Hub contributing writer and a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute who writes on defence policy.

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Trudeau pledges another $500 million to Ukraine as Canadian military suffers

Published on July 20, 2024

By

From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

Despite the nation’s own armed forces grappling with an alarming recruitment crisis, Justin Trudeau and his government have poured over $13.3 billion into Ukraine.

More Canadians tax dollars are being sent overseas as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has promised an additional $500 million in military aid to Ukraine. 

During a July 10 meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Trudeau announced that he would send another $500 million to Ukraine as it continues its war against Russia, despite an ongoing decline in Canada’s military recruitment.  

“We’re happy to offer we’re announcing today $500 million more military aid this year for Ukraine, to help through this very difficult situation,” Trudeau said. 

In addition to the $500 million, Canada will also provide much of Ukraine’s fighter jet pilot training as Ukraine receives its first F-16s. 

Trudeau’s statement comes after Canada has been under fire for failing to meet NATO’s mandate that all members commit at least two percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) to the military alliance. 

According to his 2024 budget, Trudeau plans to spend $8.1 billion over five years, starting in 2024-25, and $73.0 billion over 20 years on the Department of National Defence.   

Interestingly, $8.1 billion divided equally over five years is $1,620,000 each year for the Canadian military. Therefore, Trudeau’s pledge of $500 million means he is spending just under a third on Ukraine compared to what he plans to spend on Canadians.  

Indeed, Trudeau seems reluctant to spend money on the Canadian military, as evidenced when Canadian troops in Latvia were forced to purchase their own helmets and food when the Trudeau government failed to provide proper supplies.  

Weeks later, Trudeau lectured the same troops on “climate change” and disinformation.       

However, at the same time, Trudeau readily sends Canadian tax dollars overseas to Ukraine. Since the Russia-Ukraine war began in 2022, Canada has given Ukraine over $13.3 billion, including $4 billion in direct military assistance.    

In May, Trudeau’s office announced $3.02 billion in funding for Ukraine, including millions of taxpayer dollars to promote “gender-inclusive demining.”  

Trudeau’s ongoing funding for Ukraine comes as many Canadians are struggling to pay for basics such as food, shelter, and heating. According to a recent government report, fast-rising food costs in Canada have led to many people feeling a sense of “hopelessness and desperation” with nowhere to turn for help.  

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armed forces

Federal government “not serious about defence,” warn Canadian military leaders

Published on July 10, 2024

By

From the Macdonald Laurier Institute

J.L. Granatstein for Inside Policy

“The current prime minister of Canada is not serious about defence. Full stop. A large number of his Cabinet members are not serious about defence. Full stop.”

The Communist regime in China ramps up its aggression against Taiwan, while actively interfering in the political processes of Western democracies – including Canada. In Europe, Russia wages a brutal full-scale war against Ukraine, while sabre-rattling about nuclear strikes on our NATO allies. Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Arctic ambitions threaten our sovereignty in the North.

With danger all around, one would think Canada’s federal government, led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, would be sounding the klaxon – rallying the country and steeling its citizens for looming conflicts with authoritarian regimes while bolstering our military for 21st-century warfare.

Alas, that seems to be far from the case, according to a pair of senior Canadian military leaders who warned recently about the federal government’s lack of commitment to and support of the military.

Over the course of four media reports that were published between May 12 and June 30, 2024, we heard the opinions of Lieutenant General (Ret’d) Andrew Leslie, and General Wayne Eyre, the Chief of Defence Staff who is retiring later this summer. Leslie, a former Liberal MP, was featured in the National Post on May 12 and again on June 30. As for Eyre, he appeared in an Ottawa Citizen article on June 20, and then in an end-of-term interview with the National Post on June 30 – just two days after the federal government announced the beginning of construction planning for the Royal Canadian Navy’s proposed fleet of fifteen destroyers.

Of these four articles, Leslie’s were by far the most important. The former Chief of Land Staff had retired from the Canadian Armed Forces to run for the federal Liberals in 2015. Elected to Parliament, he served four years – but then decided not to run for re-election. If Leslie was disillusioned, and he was, he kept silent in public until his National Post interviews. His remarks were extraordinarily blunt, but they seemingly failed to attract the public notice they deserved. Here in point form are some of his comments from his first interview:

  • “The current prime minister of Canada is not serious about defence. Full stop. A large number of his Cabinet members are not serious about defence. Full stop.”
  • “Our NATO allies are despairing. Our American friends are frustrated.”
  • “[T]he Liberal government has no intention of meeting [the NATO standard of] two per cent (by 2030) and no intention of meeting 1.76 per cent [of GDP] (as promised in the April 2024 budget) because they rest confident in the smug knowledge that the Americans will always defend us.”
  • “Since 2015, the Trudeau government has not spent, re-profiled, re-allocated, deferred, or lapsed $20 billion that was promised for defence. The impact of that is that ship fleets have not been replaced, aircraft are extraordinarily old, as are helicopters; the army is in a state of despair.”

These remarks from a former senior officer are, to my mind, devastating – much more so than those from Opposition politicians or academic experts. So too were the remarks Leslie offered on June 30:

  • “According to the numbers I have 72% of the army’s vehicles and trailers are offline…. I think the big issue is, right now, the men and women in uniform don’t see any demonstrable proof that the federal government is actually seized of the issue of trying to get them the capabilities they need to better defend Canadians.”
  • “The Liberal government sees defence spending as discretionary… They believe there’s a whole host of societal funding requirements, ranging from increases in healthcare, to day care, to children getting breakfast at school – and a bewildering array of boutique allocations of funds to cater to voter-sensitive initiatives. And defence comes after all of that.”

One area of special concern, Leslie maintained, was artillery shells, one of the many military items Ukraine needs in huge quantities. Canada, he stated, was falling down in producing them: “Canada has a tiny stockpile of 155-mm ammo…. One to two years prior to Russia’s latest invasion of Ukraine in 2022, a bunch of idiots decided to cancel the standing offer [with the two Canadian manufacturers of 155-mm artillery shells] because there was no business case for Canada to continue investing in the production of ammunition.”

Leslie ended the second interview by talking of those leaders he admired: “I had the privilege and honour to be in close proximity to three consecutive prime ministers who made the system work such that we bought tanks, artillery ammunition, small arms ammunition, helicopters, guns, armour-protective vehicles, new weapons systems, the list goes on. And those were Prime Minister [Jean] Chrétien, Prime Minister [Paul] Martin, and Prime Minister [Stephen] Harper.”

The general had been a member of the Trudeau government and had worked in drafting the Liberals’ defence platform in the 2015 election. But nothing had been done to implement it in a timely fashion. In Leslie’s list of prime ministers who took defence and national security seriously, Trudeau was notably absent.

The Ottawa Citizen article, by veteran defence reporter David Pugliese, was not a direct interview with General Eyre, but rather, a report on comments Eyre made behind closed doors in a speech to senior officers. Pugliese did not have a copy of Eyre’s speech but learned of it from an audience member.

According to Pugliese, Eyre, who only had a few weeks left as Chief of the Defence Staff, sounded almost optimistic about the Liberals’ 2024 budget that pledged $8 billion in new defence spending by 2030 and $73 billion more over twenty years.

Eyre reportedly told the officers, “Yeah, this policy was not as fast as we wanted it to be. And it did not give us everything we needed. But I will tell you it’s more than I expected, much more than I expected…. The prime minister told me that defence spending is only going in one direction and that is up.”

The general also reportedly spoke of creating a small team to work out an implementation plan for the new defence policy initiatives, and that he wanted some “quick hits… I see ammunition production as one of those quick hits that we absolutely have to get on with.”

In his interview with the National Post on June 20, Eyre was at times both pessimistic and positive in his assessment of the Canadian military: “[The world has entered a] pre-wartime security environment… If you’re in uniform, you learn to be pessimistic about the security situation because you’re trained for the worst case… Given the indicators and the trends that we see, I am pessimistic about the security situation…. Is this a 1938 moment? Is this a 1912 moment? The world has seen this before, with ebbs and flows, and we’re back in a multi-polar dangerous moment where the structures that have kept us generally at peace are fraying.”

If Eyre is right, Canada should be preparing for a war that is certain to affect Canada and its allies. But the Canadian procurement system for munitions and equipment is broken – a fact that Eyre freely acknowledges: “We are applying peacetime processes and peacetime mentalities to what could be considered a wartime or immediate pre-wartime security environment. So, what did we do in 1939? What did we do in 1914? We certainly didn’t take 10 or 15 or 20 years to get capabilities in place, because the war would be over by that point…. We have to deliver, and we have to deliver fast.”

The Chief of Defence Staff then spoke optimistically about Canada’s role in Latvia, where the Canadian Armed Forces leads the NATO brigade stationed there, and where the commitment is supposed to be increased in the next few years.

“We are very well respected in that part of the world,” Eyre said. “Do they want more of us? Yeah, absolutely, but for me it drives home that we produce a pretty good product…. [Canada] has and can do so much on the world stage. Compared to the majority of countries out there, we have got so much going for us.”

On June 28, 2024, Minister of National Defence Bill Blair and Angus Topshee, the Chief of the Naval Staff, announced the government’s plans to replace Canada’s Halifax-class frigates. Fifteen new destroyers would be constructed at the government’s estimate of $56 billion to $60 billion, Blair said. The Parliamentary Budget Officer earlier had estimated the construction cost at $84 billion with a “life-cycle” cost to operate and maintain the vessels at $306 billion. In reality, Blair’s announcement was not for the beginning of construction of the ships but only for a “test module.”

Some background is needed here. The Harper Conservative government in 2010 approved the National Shipbuilding Program, but it was not until 2018 that the Trudeau government, in power for three years, selected the as yet (and still) unproven British Type 26 ship as its choice. The vessels were to be constructed in Halifax at the Irving shipyards that first had to build the Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships, only completed this year (late and over-budget). Now in 2024, work at last can begin on the new destroyers.

The plan is that the first of the ships will be completed and ready for sea trials in 2033, 9 years from now and 23 years after the Harper government announced the shipbuilding program; presumably the first destroyer will not be deemed fully ready for service until at least 2034. (HMCS Halifax, the first of the frigates, went to sea in 1992, and by the time the first replacement is ready, Halifax will be 42 years old.)

But the planned completion of construction of all fifteen vessels will be glacial. Defence Minister Blair told Global TV  on June 28 that the first nine ships would not be completed until 2040 and the remaining six not until 2050. In other words, it will take a quarter century for Irving to build fifteen ships – if it is able to maintain even that production schedule. The one certainty is that the ships will cost more to build – the rate of inflation for military construction is at least 6 percent higher than national inflation. The costs will be so high for these ships that it is all but certain that fewer than fifteen will ever be launched. Will any of the destroyers still be combat effective by 2050? That seems highly unlikely.

Remember what Eyre told the National Post: “We are applying peacetime processes and peacetime mentalities to what could be considered a wartime or immediate pre-wartime security environment…. We have to deliver, and we have to deliver fast.” And don’t forget Leslie’s damning comment: “The current prime minister of Canada is not serious about defence. Full stop. A large number of his cabinet members are not serious about defence. Full stop.”

At the July NATO summit in Washington, American leaders increased the heat on Trudeau to reach the 2-percent-of-GDP benchmark for military spending. “Welcomed @CanadianPM Trudeau to the U.S. Capitol today,” U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell wrote on X on July 9. “Shared values and close economic ties have always been the strength of the U.S.-Canada relationship. But it’s time for our northern ally to invest seriously in the hard power required to help preserve prosperity and security across NATO.”

The Trudeau government will be long gone by the time the first of the new destroyers puts to sea, and it will be completely forgotten by the time the last one sets sail. We must hope that no war intervenes in the next quarter-century because Canada certainly will not be ready – and not only with its navy. “Not serious about defence”– let’s hope we will not pay a high price for the neglect of this country’s most vital national interest.

J.L. Granatstein taught Canadian history, was Director and CEO of the Canadian War Museum, and writes on military and political history. A member of MLI’s Research Advisory Board, Granatstein’s most recent book is Canada’s Army: Waging War and Keeping the Peace. (3rd edition).

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