OTTAWA | The Trudeau government and the federal public service have not taken the measure of the dangers that await us, while it is urgent to strengthen our defenses, denounce the auditor general and even a Liberal MP.
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“The threat environment has changed drastically, but it doesn’t seem to have percolated through to government as a whole, whether it’s the public service or the politicians. But we don’t have the luxury of waiting,” Liberal John McKay said this week.
Chairman of the House of Commons Standing Committee on National Defence, Mr. McKay made the statement after hearing Auditor General Karen Hogan testify before him about Canadian Armed Forces procurement issues that threaten our national security.
In the last few days, we learned that our soldiers deployed in Latvia on the Russian border are buying modern equipment themselves, since they are at the end of their patience waiting for Defense to supply them properly. This phenomenon has been known since the Balkan war in the 90s. It also affected our troops in Afghanistan a decade later.
“I wonder if there is a sense of urgency in Canada to equip our military and our troops properly,” asked Ms.me Hogan, emphasizing several times that it was urgent to reach a consensus at home on our defense.
Screenshot, CPAC
“Without a non-partisan consensus on this issue, the acquisition process will not be able to accelerate to adapt to the evolution of threats,” added Professor Philippe Lagacé of Carleton University.
The arctic colander
Besides the war in Europe, Mme Hogan particularly emphasized the security of the Arctic, where we neighbor Russia and where China has clear interests.
“The ice is melting, the water is more and more navigable in the Arctic, but we currently have gaps in satellites, in ships. What is it going to take to expedite purchases […] Where is the sense of urgency?” she launched.
In November, in an incendiary report on the Arctic, the auditor general indicated that our satellites, our planes and our ships dedicated to the surveillance of the Far North are all at the end of their life and that their renewal has so often been put off indefinitely that “some equipment will likely be taken out of service before it can be replaced”.
A soldier surveys the Northwest Passage in the Arctic, during Operation NANOOK-NUNAKPUT 22, in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, August 21, 2022.
Bdr Julia Currie, Canadian Armed Forces
We will therefore soon be out in the open in a region of the world that is attracting more and more interest, as NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg testified during a visit to Nunavut last summer. The Auditor General pointed out that she had warned the government several times in recent years, but that her warnings had not changed anything.
The newspaper traveled to the Far North himself to document our arctic sieve as part of the documentary The Arctic War released in February.
Towards a serious crisis
Mr. Lagassé warned that the lack of human and material resources of our forces brings us directly “into the wall”.
“The Armed Forces always manage to manage, despite the few resources and the little support they receive. But eventually they will crack, there will be a crisis, they will fail. Maybe it is only then that we will finally see a real change, ”he testified before the parliamentarians.
Mr. McKay concluded that “we are reaching the stage where we are no longer able to do what we have been doing until now. Something has to change.”