The Ben Mulroney Show - Lack Of Urgency Regarding Rebuilding Canada’s Military Is Unacceptable

Episode Date: January 3, 2025

Lack Of Urgency Regarding Rebuilding Canada’s Military Is Unacceptable Guest: Spencer Fernando, Campaign Fellow for the National Citizens Coalition If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! https://globalnews.ca/national/program/the-ben-mulroney-show Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Enjoy

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and you hope to God that the person who wrote it knows far more about that issue than you do so that you can be armed with incredible points moving forward. I walk in lockstep with what is written in this article. The lack of urgency regarding the rebuilding of Canada's military is unacceptable. Let's speak to the man behind the article,

Spencer Fernando, Campaign Fellow for the National Citizens Coalition. Thank you so much for being here, Spencer. Good to be here. Yeah, so you're saying things that I've felt for a very long time. What's the thesis of your article? Well, the idea is that in many ways, we're kind of, you know, sleepwalking towards disaster in Canada. When it comes to the military and our own sovereignty, I mean, you obviously have the threats, which are mostly considered jokes, I think people assume, from the states about Canada's sovereignty. But even that, it's obviously concerning. But the real threat, of course, is Russia and China.

China is currently engaged in the largest military buildup since World War II. And they're doing the kinds of things that are not just about, you know, influence in their near neighbors. They're building a massive Navy. They're coming out with new advanced fighter jets, six generation fighter jets, possibly, and just mass producing military equipment. And Russia, even as they take massive losses in Ukraine, they're still spending a lot of money and putting a lot of resources into building up in the Arctic, where a lot of our Arctic claims of our own sovereign territory overlap with their claims. And so we're, I think we're very much, and in Canada, where we're basically doing nothing. I mean, the prime minister said, well, we'll hit the NATO target by 2032, by which time,

you know, there could already be a large scale world war. And we're just, we're just not taking it seriously enough. Well, yeah. And, and for, for those who don't know the, the, the NATO commitment that we signed onto as a, as a founding member in, was it 1949 was 2%, 2% of our budget would be allocated to military spending. And, and from what I understand, the last time that happened was in the 1980s under a prime minister whose name

I cannot remember. But, but I mean, that's not a heavy heavy lift it's not supposed to be a heavy lift but they say if you want to know what a government's priorities are look at their budget exactly and the the interesting thing is you know the the liberal government has not been shy about spending anywhere really i mean this this government is fine with large budget deficits even when the economy was doing well you know before covid they they started to run budget deficits. So I don't, you can't really buy the idea that they don't think Canada can afford to do it. They're just choosing not to. And that's a very clear choice. And, you know, I can understand someone in 2015 saying, okay, military is not the top priority. The world seems pretty peaceful. Things are fine.

Okay, that's fair enough, even though I still think we should spend more back then. But to look at what's happening around the world, you know, Russia's horrible invasion of Ukraine, China's massive buildup, you know, obviously what's happening in the Middle East, to look at all of that and then say, you know what, I don't think we really need to do much more for the military in Canada. To me, that's just a complete dereliction of responsibility. Yeah. So but the stories that I've read and the conversations that I've had say that, yeah, yes, this, this, this notion that we're going to get up to our 2% commitment in by 2032, uh, that that's too slow, but that doesn't, there are certain things that do take time. Recruitment takes time getting new, um, getting new, uh, tanks and getting new

equipment for the military takes, takes, takes time training new,. Training new recruits takes time. So what is a realistic timeline? Let's say we marshaled our resources, Spencer, and we said, this is a priority. Let's say we found the money that we do not have to bring the bear on this problem. How long before we can live up, not just to our commitment of spending, but to actually project that strength that we need in order to be the sovereign nation that we truly are. Yeah, well, there are a lot of things I think we can do quickly. As I mentioned in the article, raise military pay, put out more recruitment ads, and approve more applications. I mean, there was a story about 70,000 people tried to join last

year and 5,000 were accepted. Obviously, you're not going to accept everybody. There's reasons that people wouldn't be accepted. But in many cases, the government doesn't seem to have the resources to process applications quickly. So that's one thing you could do, get more people in by processing applications quickly. We have companies here that produce 155-millimeter artillery rounds, direct, you know know, two or $3 billion to ramp up production there. That's something we need something Ukraine needs, something that would be useful in any future conflict. Start buying more drones. There's a lot of companies, many in the States,

many in Europe that are producing effective military drones, start mass purchasing those and then also direct money towards the Canadian defense industry. So the one way I look at it is there should be a two-pronged approach. Yeah, sorry, I just want to stop you for one sec, because I think you bring up a point that is very interesting and very important, that a lot of people, a lot of detractors, a lot of people who do not prioritize Canada's military strength or ability will jump on the notion that this is a cost. It's a pure cost. It's a drain.

It's something we have to pay for. But there are elements of it that can spur economic development, like investing in our military spending at home, for example. Exactly. Yeah, that's a good point. That's something a lot of people overlook. It's not just that we're spending money. We're also developing important skills and jobs in Canada. And so, yeah, for the artillery production, that's one thing we can do. Drone production,

there are many great Canadian companies that are producing civilian drones. It doesn't take much for the government to go to them and say, okay, here's why. We want you to adapt some of these civilian drones for military use. Our close ties to Ukraine helps with that. Ukraine is mass producing military drones. We can learn from them and start doing the same here and you know also just you know we think if we do face say 25 percent terrorists from the u.s we're going to need to very quickly find ways to create jobs in canada with canadian money into canadian industries and a large-scale military buildup is one of the best ways to do that what what did you make of Kevin O'Leary's, I think, musing? I don't know that it has a whole lot of merit,

but there was something that stuck with me when he talked about creating an economic union with the United States and creating at least a level of trust between Canada and the United States so that we could effectively erase any need for border security between our two countries, and we could really focus on this notion of continental security,

especially as it relates to our northern border? Well, certainly in terms of security, I think we need to do more. This is where it's kind of nuanced, right? I think many of the ways we've seen people in the U.S. discussing Canadian sovereignty has felt very disrespectful to Canadians, and rightfully so. And I think it's important to push back when we're disrespected. But there is a realistic case to be made that Canada has been underfunding our military. I mean, it's not fair to expect, not just the U.S.

In the United Kingdom, some of our Nordic allies are also looking at the North and saying, what are you guys doing? I mean, we're having to pick up the slack for you guys. And so I think, you know, you can't just look at other countries and say they may need to be good allies to Canada. We also need to be good allies to them. And so I think it is absolutely a good point that we need to ramp up our military spending and our ability to project power in the North. I mean, you don't really control territory if you can't put troops on it, if you can't stop other people from putting troops on it. So a lot of north sure it looks like canada on a map but in terms of actual control it's quite limited yeah and you know i remember in 2015 when when our prime minister got up and said canada is back now i'm not quite sure what he meant by that i don't think anybody really

pushed him pushed back and said what do you mean by that but if if to those who uh immediately besmirched the the need for a strong strong military, if you believe that your country has strong values and values that others should know about and learn from, then part of that is having a strong military so that you can project those internationally. And I'm not talking about invading other countries or participating in wars of aggression. I'm talking about when there is real value to helping a civilian population in myriad cases. And we do not have that ability right now. Yeah, the scenario I kind of like to mention to people is imagine that we wake up in the morning, we look on the news,

and Russia's put 3,000 troops in part of the Arctic territory that Canada considers ours uh they've set up you know a temporary base they're starting to build larger bases they've moved you know uh temporary airfield they move some ships and submarines in and then the us for whatever reason who knows what's going on there they say well that's that's for you to deal with canada best of luck and then you know the prime minister gets confronted by his advisors who say, we technically have no ability to remove the Russians from our territory at this point. And so if you're the prime minister, and that's a very possible scenario,

Canada basically has no assets in the north. So how does the prime minister get up every morning, go into the office, sit down, and somehow for a whole decade, not address that kind of problem? That should be the first thing you look at as prime minister. Spencer, I want to thank you very much. It's an important issue that we need to beat this drum incessantly until the day that this gets done. So thank you for contributing to that. I appreciate the opportunity to talk about it. Thank you.